The whole assembly seemed upon the verge of gaping, till coffee was carried round. This magic beverage diffused a temporary animation; and, for a moment or two, conversation moved on with a degree of pleasing extravagance; but the flash was soon dissipated, and nothing remained save cards and stupidity. In the intervals of shuffling and dealing, some talked over the affairs of the grand council with less reserve than I expected; and two or three of them asked some feeble questions about the late tumults in London: as much, however, through indolence and forgetfulness, I should conjecture, as from any political motive, for I don’t believe all those wise stories, which some travellers have propagated, of Venetian subtlety and profound silence. They might have reigned during the dark periods of the republic, but at this moment the veil is rent in fifty places; and without any wonderful penetration, the debates of the senate are discoverable. There doubtless was a time when, society being greatly divided, and little communication subsisting among the nobles, secrets were invariably kept; but since the establishment of casinos, which the ladies rule, where chit-chat and tittle-tattle are for ever going forwards, who can preserve a rigorous taciturnity upon any subject in the universe? It was one o’clock before all the company were assembled, and I left them at three, still dreaming over their coffee and card-tables. Trieze is their favourite game: _uno_, _due_, _tre_, _quatro_, _cinque_, _fante_, _cavallo_ are eternally repeated; the apartments echoed no other sound. No lively people could endure such monotony; yet I have been told the Venetians are remarkably spirited, and so eager in the pursuit of amusement as hardly to allow themselves any sleep. Some, for instance, after declaiming in the Senate, walking an hour in the square, and fidgeting about from one casino to another till morning dawns, will get into a gondola, row across the Lagunes, take the post to Mestre or Fusina, and jumble over craggy pavements to Treviso, breakfast in haste, and rattle back again as if the devil were charioteer: by eleven the party is restored to Venice, resumes robe and periwig, and goes to council. This may be very true, and yet I will never cite the Venetians as examples of vivacity. Their nerves, unstrung by disease and the consequences of early debaucheries, impede all lively flow of spirits in its course, and permit at best but a few moments of a false and feverish activity. The approaches of rest, forced back by an immoderate use of coffee, render them, too, weak and listless, and the facility of being wafted from place to place in a gondola, adds not a little to their indolence. In short, I can scarcely regard their Eastern neighbours in a more lazy light; and am apt to imagine that instead of slumbering less than other people, they pass their lives in one perpetual doze.