As the patriotic Briton aspires to a monument in Westminster Abbey, as the Florentine covets a memorial in Santa Croce, so the Venetian artist coveted for his works a place in the Palace of the Doges. That was his Temple of Fame. His dream, however, soared beyond the gratification of personal ambition: he desired that through him the glory and beauty of Venice might be enhanced and immortalized. This devotion to the ideal of a city, this true patriotism, has unfortunately almost disappeared from the earth. The very conception of it is now unintelligible to most persons. The city where you live--New York, Boston, London--you value in proportion as it affords advantages for your business, objects for your comfort and amusement; but you quit it without compunction if taxes be lower and trade brisker elsewhere. You are interested in its affairs just in so far as they affect your own. When you build a dwelling or a factory, you do not inquire whether it will improve or injure your neighbor’s property, much less whether it will be an ornament to the city; you need not even abate a nuisance until compelled to do so by the law. But to the noble-minded Venetian, his city was not merely a convenience: it was a personality. Venezia was a spiritual patroness, a goddess who presided over the destiny of the State; he and every one of his fellow-citizens shared the honor and blessing of her protection. She had crowned with prosperity the energy and piety, the rectitude and justice, of his ancestors through many centuries. Every act of his had more than a personal, more even than a human, bearing. _How would it affect her?_--that was his test. He could do nothing unto himself alone; for good or for ill, what he did reacted upon the community, upon the ideal Venezia. The outward city--the churches, palaces, and dwellings--was but the garment and visible expression of that ideal city. Venezia had blessed him, and he was grateful; she was beautiful, and he loved her. His gratitude impelled him to deeds worthy of her protection; his love blossomed in gifts that should increase her beauty. This reverence and devotion have, as I remarked, vanished from among men; yet in this ideal beams the conception of the true commonwealth. Observe that those three cities which held such an ideal before them have bequeathed to us the most precious works of beauty. Athens, Florence, Venice,--these are the Graces among the cities. At Karnak, at Constantinople, at Rome, at Paris, you will behold stupendous ruins or imposing monuments commemorating the pride and power of individual Pharaohs, Sultans, Cæsars, Popes, and Napoleons, but you will not find the spirit which was worshiped by the beautifying of the Acropolis, and of republican Florence, and of Venice. In which modern city will the most diligent search discover it?