On emerging from St. Antonio the bachelors were astonished to find the sky overcast, and to notice the suspicious gusts of wind which generally precede a storm. The latter, however, did not approach Padua, but contented itself by grumbling about in the distant Alps. We were only too glad to be spared its visitation, especially as we were anxious to have a moonlight night by which to form our first impression of Venice. Scarcely any Englishman ever visits Italy without bothering his friends about his first impression of Venice. But in all probability these first impressions are not formed from the place itself, but from photographs purchased in Oxford-street. It has always been a question whether the enjoyment which one experiences in seeing a place of great interest about which one knows nothing from pictorial representations, or that experienced upon arriving at one of which every street—nay, almost every stone—has been made familiar by representations, is the greater. Some people have asserted that it is almost impossible not to feel a kind of disappointment upon seeing any place about which one has read very much and has seen very frequently represented. If this be the case, Venice ought to be a disappointment, because no city has been more described, painted, engraved, and photographed. Yet, does it disappoint? Our grandfathers were perhaps in one way fortunate in the fact that Venice must have appeared to them more strange, more wonderful, and more poetical than it can ever appear to us. It is true they must often in fancy have stood upon the Bridge of Sighs—“A palace and a prison on each hand.” They must in fancy have wandered over the Rialto, and have dreamed of marble palaces, their steps washed by the Adriatic. But with them it must have been a mere dream, without form or shape. With us, however, Venice is a thorough reality before we see it. The Campanile of St. Mark, the Doge’s Palace, the white domes of the Salute are almost as well known to those who have never been to Venice as to those who have lived in the place. Consequently, the great element of surprise must to a great extent be wanting to all those who now visit this city.