IN the year 1796, on one of the finest evenings of an Italian autumn, when the whole population of the handsome city of Vicenza were pouring into the streets to enjoy the fresh air, that comes so deliciously along the currents of its three rivers; when the Campo Marzo was crowded with the opulent citizens and Venitian nobles; and the whole ascent from the gates to the Madonna, who sits enthroned on the sum mit of Monte Berrico, was a line of the gayest pilgrims that ever wandered up the vine-covered side of an Alpine hill; the ears of all were caught by the sound of successive explosions from a boat running down the bright waters of the Bachighone. Vicenza was at peace under the wing of the lion of St. Mark, but the French were lying round the ramparts of Mantua. They had not yet moved on Venice; yet her troops were known to be without arms, experience, or a general, and the sound of a cracker would have startled her whole dominions.
The boat itself was of a singular make ; and the rapidity with which this little chaloupe, glittering with gilding and hung with streamers, made its way along the sparkling stream, struck the observers as some thing extraordinary. It flew by every thing on the river, yet no one was visible on board. It had no sail up, no steersman, no rower; yet it plunged and rush ed along with the swiftness of a bird. The Vicentine populace are behind none of their brethren in superstition, and, at the sight of the flying chaloupe, the groupes came running from the Campo Marzo. The Monte Berrico was speedily left without a pilgrim, and the banks of the Bachiglione were, for the first time since the creation, honoured with the presence of the Venitian authorities, and even of the sublime podesta* himself.
But it was fortunate for them that the flying phenomenon had reached the open space formed by the conflux of the three rivers, before the crowd became excessive; for, just as it had darted out of the narrow channel, lined on both sides with the whole thirty thousand, old, middle-aged, and young, men, maids, and matrons of the city, a thick smoke was seen rising from its deck, its frame quivered, and, with al tremendous explosion, the chaloupe rose into the air in ten thousand fragments of fire.
The multitude were seized with consternation; and the whole fell on their knees, from the sublime podesta himself to the humblest saffron-gatherer. Never was there such a mixture of devotion. The douanier dropped down beside the smuggler; the cavaliere servente beside the husband; the Vicentine patriot beside the Venitian sbirro; the father-confessor beside the blooming penitent, whom he had condemned but that morning to a week's confinement on dry bread and the breviary; the bandit beside the soldier; and even the husband beside his own wife. Never was there such a concert of exclamations, sighs, callings on the saints, and rattling of beads. The whole concourse lay for some minutes with their very faces rubbing to the ground, until they were all roused at once by a loud burst of laughter. Thirty thousand pair of eyes were liſted up at the instant, and all fixed in astonishment on a human figure, seen calmly sitting on the water, in the very track of the explosion, and still half hidden in the heavy mass of smoke that curled in a huge globe over the remnants. The laugh had proceeded from him, and the nearer he approached the multitude, the louder he laughed. At length, stopping in front of the spot where the sublime podesta, a little ashamed of his prostration, was getting the dust shaken out of his gold-embroidered robe of office, and bathing his burning visage in orange-flower water, the stranger began a sort of complimentary song to the famous city of Vicenza. In Italy every man is a poet, which accounts for the Italian poetry being at this hour the very worst in the world; and panegyric is the only way to popularity, which accounts for the infinite mass of folly, laziness, beggary, and self-admiration, that makes Italy pre-eminent in masquerades, monks, madonnas, and marquises.
The stranger found a willing audience; for his first stanza was in honour of the "most magnificent city of Vicenza;" its "twenty palaces by the matchless Palladio;" much more "its sixty churches;" and much more than all, "its band of Dominicans, unrivalled throughout the earth for the fervour of their piety and the rapacity of their appetites." The last touch made the grand prior of the cathedral wince a little, but it was welcomed with a roar from the multitude. The song proceeded; but if the prior had frowned at the first stanza, the podesta was doubly angry at the second, which sneered at Venitian pomposity in incomparable style. But the prior and podesta were equally outvoted, for the roar of the multitude was twice as loud as before. other touches on the cavalieri serventi, the ladies, the nuns, and the husbands, till every class had its share: but the satire was so witty, that, keen as it was, the shouts of the people silenced all disapprobation. He finished by a brilliant stanza, in which he said, that "having been sent by Neptune from the depths of the ocean to visit the earth, he had chosen for his landing-place its most renowned spot, the birth-place of the gayest men and the handsomest women—the exquisite Vicenza." With these words he ascended from the shore, and was received with thunders of applause.
