Your ministers, soaring, May shun all the boring Of country and city baboon-- Or, like ministers' spouses, Look down on both Houses-- From the car of the air-balloon. The sweet six months' widow Her weeds will abide, O, No longer, nor cry "'Tis too soon!" But range the skies over, In search of a lover, In the car of the air balloon. If you wish for a singe-a In Afric or India, Or long for an Esquimaux' tune, Or wish to go snacks With the king of the blacks,-- Why,--call for your air-balloon. If, on Teneriffe's Peak, You'd wish for a steak, Or dip in Vesuvius your spoon, Or slip all the dog-days, The rain-days, and fog-days,-- Go, call for your air-balloon. Your doctors of physic May banish the phthisic. Your cook give you ice-creams in June-- If a dun's in the wind, You may leave him behind, And be off in your air-balloon. On the top of the Andes, Who's tortur'd with dandies? On Potosi, who meets a buffoon? But, for fear I'd get prosy, I'll stop at Potosi,-- So, huzza for the air-balloon! _Monthly Magazine_. * * * * * ALVISE SANUTO. _A Venetian Story_[7] [7] The nobility of Venice were subject to the most rigorous _surveillance_, and dearly paid, occasionally, for the small degree of power conceded by the ducal house. The jealousy of the government with regard to these men was carried to excess. I may mention three regulations among the many that related to them, as illustrative of the galling yoke that pressed on them, amid all their pride and splendour. The first forbade them to leave the dominions of the state without the special permission of the council of ten; and this was granted with difficulty. The second prohibited them from possessing foods and chattels out of the state. This was with a view of preventing the danger that might arise from attempts to betray the republic under an idea of finding an asylum elsewhere. The third and most severe decree forbade communication with foreign ambassadors, under pain of death! The terror inspired by this was such, that not only the ministers of the court, but their secretaries and domestics, fled from the ambassadors as if they were infected with the plague. This decree had numerous results, and among others, one that was attended with truly tragical circumstances.