Day rose, and the multitude rushed out to see what was become of the city. Every thing was as it had been, but the column of the lion: its famous emblem of the Venetian republic was gone, wings and all. They exclaimed that the world had come to an end. But the wheel of fortune is round, let politicians say what they will. In twelve months from that day the old podesta was again sitting in the government-house--yet a podesta no more, but a French prefect; the Signora Maria, his lovely daughter, was sitting beside him, with an infant, the image of her own beauty, and beside her the stranger, no longer the man of magic in the scarlet cloak and green and vermilion striped cap with a topaz clasp, but a French general of division, in blue and silver, her husband, as handsome as ever, and, if not altogether a professed _Diavolo_, quite as successful in finding money whenever he wanted it. His first _entree_ into Vicenza had been a little theatrical, for such is the genius of his country. The blowing-up of his little steam-boat, which had nearly furnished his drama with a tragic catastrophe, added to its effect; and his discovery of the sequins was managed by three of his countrymen. As an inquirer into the nakedness of the land, he might have been shot as a spy. As half-charlatan and half-madman, he was sure of national sympathy. During the three days of his stay the old podesta had found himself accessible to reason, the podesta's daughter to the tender passion, and the treasures of the state to the locomotive skill of the French detachment, that waited in the mountains the result of their officer's diplomacy. The lion of St. Mark, having nothing else to do, probably disdained to remain, and in the same night took wing from the column, to which he has never returned. As we love to "march in good order," we begin with the plates, the most striking of which is the Frontispiece, _Marcus Curtius_, by Le Keux, from a design by Martin, which we are at a loss to describe. It requires a microscopic eye to fully appreciate all its beauties--yet the thousands of figures and the architectural background, are so clear and intelligible as to make our optic nerve sympathize with the labour of the artist. The next is a _View on the Ganges_, by Finden, after Daniell; _Constancy_, by Portbury, after Stephanoff, in which the female figure is loveliness personified; _Eddystone during a Storm_; the _Proposal_, a beautiful family group; the _Cottage Kitchen_, by Romney, after Witherington; and the _Blind Piper_, from a painting by Clennell, who, from too great anxiety in the pursuit of his profession, was some years since deprived of reason, which he has never recovered.