CHAPTER XV.
O pescator! dell' onda Fi da lin; O pescator! dell' onda, Fi da lin; Vien pescar in qua; Colla bella tua barca, Colla bella se ne va, Fi da lin, lin, la-- VENETIAN BOAT SONG.
The moon was at the height.

Its rays fell in a flood on the swelling domes and massive roofs of Venice, while the margin of the town was brilliantly defined by the glittering bay.

The natural and gorgeous setting was more than worthy of that picture of human magnificence; for at that moment, rich as was the Queen of the Adriatic in her works of art, the grandeur of her public monuments, the number and splendor of her palaces, and most else that the ingenuity and ambition of man could attempt, she was but secondary in the glories of the hour.
Above was the firmament, gemmed with worlds, and sublime in immensity.
Beneath lay the broad expanse of the Adriatic, endless to the eye, tranquil as the vault it reflected, and luminous with its borrowed light.

Here and there a low island, reclaimed from the sea by the patient toil of a thousand years, dotted the Lagunes, burdened with the group of some conventual dwellings, or picturesque with the modest roofs of a hamlet of the fisherman.

Neither oar, nor song, nor laugh, nor flap of sail, nor jest of mariner, disturbed the stillness.