peared. The newly formed thoroughfare is sixty feet wide throughout. Below, in the tunnel, is a new ventilating shaft, which, if successful, will probably obviate the use of those blow-holes so obnox

station, keeping all the way beneath the centre of the road. Just before the station to be known as Fish Street Hill is reached, we pass under the statue of King William IV., weighing no less than one hundred and fifty tons. Upon examina-ious to the public eye. A circular opention it was discovered that the pedestal ing is placed at the side of the brickwork rested, not on an earth foundation, but on supporting the roof. At the entrance is a succession of tiers of glazed brickwork fixed a revolving fan moved by a gas enarranged with great nicety to distribute gine, which exhausts all the foul air from the enormous weight. The arches of the tunnel. Should the experiment now brick which support the statue have been tried for the first time prove successful, a carefully underpinned, six feet of arch number of similar ventilators will be being turned either side, so as to outspan erected throughout the railway. Passing the pedestal. Passing Fish Street Hill Mark Lane station, the commencement of station, which does not call for any special a new length of street leading to the Mint, notice, the works are in a considerably the working portion of the Metropolitan more advanced state. The permanent Railway is reached, bounded by the way is already laid; indeed, from this Tower temporary station, which will probpoint the line is practically complete. For ably be closed as soon as the Mark Lane some distance the tunnel underlies East- station, close by, is opened. The only cheap, then curving slightly northward it open ventilator on the whole line is that makes for Trinity Square. This portion in Trinity Square. The entire length of is interesting both from within and with railway constructed is twelve hundred and out. In the street above great alterations thirty-seven yards. The works are in an have been effected. Tower Street has advanced state of progress, and will in been considerably widened and improved, all probability be opened by the end of many of the old buildings having disap-July.

DINNER ON A JAPANESE STEAMBOAT. Dinner was on the table, and we would at least sit down, making talk of ghastly cheerfulness and eying each other suspiciously. We ate our soup and eagerly discussed its relative merits with those of various other soups we had eaten under circumstances we were at curious pains to remember and recite. Two courses followed-one of mutton, the other of

veal. I forgot which was the veal; but it did not matter. It might have been called turtle fin with equal accuracy of reference to its flavor. At this stage the lady of the party retired. Another course arrived of some undistinguishable meat. I am not sure that it was not the veal back again, having passed out at one door and in at the other, after the manner of an army of supers at country theatres. The young gentleman from Glasgow, who accompanied us on the voyage, though unusually silent, did fairly well. He had paid for his dinner, and with national aptitude he felt that the commercial transaction would not be completed unless he ate it. Something else came on, perhaps cheese, peradventure an orange. The cook was determined to rise to the occasion and show the friends of the foreign minister what could be done on board this ship. To this end he had manufactured three small

tarts, of very pale complexion, which, by way
of luring on the appetite, had been placed on
the table with the soup. These tarts were
always slipping off the table, being rescued
from under by somebody and replaced on the
dish. I have a fancy that they were not quite
so pale as when I first saw them. But with
the cabin bobbing about in this style, the ceil-
ing coming down to the floor, the floor going
up to the ceiling, and occasionally the port or
starboard side taking the place of the ceiling,
even a tart made of tinned greengages might
be excused if it gradually lost some of its
fresher tints. I had meant to sit out the young
gentleman from Glasgow ; but when I saw him
take up one of these tarts with evident intent
of eating it, I left. It was not easy to get
fixed on the plate-shelf, but it was done at last,
and I even got to sleep. From time to time-
it seemed at least every hour - I was awakened
by the thud of the sea as it thundered down on
deck and with a rushing noise swept back-
wards and forwards till it finally cleared off.
Alas! for the hapless Japanese family with
their frail tenement of boxes, and their poor
shelter of tarpaulin. It was piteous to think
how the night must have sped with them and
with the other poor wretches battened down in
the hold.
English Illustrated Magazine.

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From Blackwood's Magazine.
VENICE.

Rawdon Brown, who came to Venice for
two or three days and stayed forty years
and more, declared that he never in all
that time acquired the calm of custom in
respect to the city of his heart. She was
always new to him, as if he saw her for
the first time. The mingled surprise and
rapture, which is the privileged mood of
youth, kept this old man always young,
and startled him as with a new sensation
every time he came suddenly round the
corner of his little canal and big faded
palace face to face with Venice.
"Out
of Venice I may be happy; here I am
blessed," says an Italian adorer whose
words are more effusive than the English-
man's. Such a feeling cannot exist with.
out calling forth a great deal of nonsense,
for rapture in all languages is apt to sound
silly even to those who share it; but the
sentiment is very real, even though its
expression may often be foolish.

the best pictures ever painted; and he may find Venetian churches ugly, as many THERE is perhaps no town in the world of them are to eyes accustomed to Gothic of which so much has been written and grace and loveliness; but yet, if he is like said as Venice. Other cities of the world the wedding guest in the "Ancient Mari. have inspired the historian and the artist ner," the man to whom it is appointed, even in their ashes, and possess the un- Venice will be to him something that no failing interest and admiration of man- other place is - a presence, an influence, kind; and some still sway the minds of the most living of abstractions. That men with a curious domination which gentle old doyen of her lovers, the late seems something more than the mere effect of a collection of many minds, and feels like an actual personal influence. Rome and Florence in the one case, London and Paris in the other, are great and living potencies whose power no one can contest. But Venice has something of an additional and almost more subtle charm. Her great historical importance, her power as a school of art, are not less than those of her illustrious rivals in the past; but beyond these there is a personal charm, so to speak an enchantment which is more individual than either. It is not because she is the city of the doges, not for the sake of Bellini and Titian, not even for the devotion of that prophet whose name of Ruskino is a household word with every sacristan in the capital of San Marco; great are these attractions to the reasonable and well regulated mind, as well as to the cultured and æsthetic traveller. But there is still a class The Grand Canal flows past the winwhose enthusiasm is not reasonable, to dows; gondolas, sometimes with unseen whom Venice is like a beloved woman, loungers under the black felze, the dark dear not because she is good or great, not figures of the rowers relieved against the because of her pedigree or her qualities, green water, sometimes uncovered, with but for herself, which is the most subtle open-air groups, and all the pretty colors charm of passion. There is something in of spring toilets reflected in the rippled the gleam of her sea-streets, in the clear surface -shoot past and disappear. Now whiteness, perfected by tints of roses, in and then a clumsier barca laden with which every palace stands up between wood, or a black hull heavy with water, a sea and sky, with a quiver of sweet reflec- floating tank, goes slowly by. From time tion and an intense purity of atmosphere to time comes pulsing along (but neither beyond the power of words to express, smoking nor screeching, for the devil is which charm the very soul of the behold- not so black as he is painted) the vapoer. Pictures, churches, architecture are retto, the steam-launch, most terrible of but secondary to this charm. The Tinto all innovations, which the Venetians love. rets, the Titians, the splendid Veroneses Each moment another and another shinmay leave the heart of the pilgrim cold;ing crest of steel, breasting the water like the charm of Giovanni Bellini (a greater a swan, glides into the minute space wonder) may not move him; he may do framed by the window. No sound except little more than gape at the Carpaccios, the soft plash of the oars, the voices at even though he is assured that they are the traghetto, softened by the air and

Putting aside, however, all the litanies both of praise and lamentation that have been addressed to Venice, and taking for granted that wonderful combination of natural beauty, and the noblest effects of art, which have turned so many heads, it is very curious to note the difference be tween the influence and character of this wonderful city and that of the other great Italian towns which have fulfilled, like her, a great career, and, like her, are still living and potent, though so far removed from the circumstances and conditions of life in which their greatness was acquired; Florence, for instance, which is her fittest parallel, as great in art, and, if not so remarkable in history, at least always an important actor in the affairs of the world until fate gave her over to grand dukes and decay. Rome, the mis. tress of the world, has many additional qualifications which bear comparison, and none of the other cities of Italy have had the enduring greatness of these two princely communities, which stand foremost in the history of civilization and the arts. Both republics, with a show of democracy covering that rule of the strongest which is by some theorists considered the best of all governments, but which is subject, above all others, to perpetual change and catastrophe both founding

sunshine, is in the whole shining world | the traveller better than the evils of toabout. Opposite, on the little paved day. square at the corner of a small canal, there are a stream of passing figures going and coming over the bridges, and under the two trees which unfold their big, crumpled leaves, day by day turning from brown to green; all is sunshine, quiet, tranquil movement-life abundant and bright. The conventional sentiment of sadness with which right-minded persons, who think as they are taught to think, regard Venice, is, of all things in the world, the most alien to the brightness of everything around the dazzling of the lights upon the water, the endless succession of moving objects, the sense of enjoyment on all sides. When every ripple is like the facet of a diamond dispensing light, when not a moment passes without some novelty in the stream of passers-by, when the wind blows light yet fresh from the lagoon, and the brilliant sails of the trading boats show like a pageant in the distance, and all the lively, homely craft that ply about the adjoining coast cluster their masts together round the Dogana, between us and San Giorgio blazing red and white in the sun, it would be curious to know wherein the sadness lies. To be sure, it is a pity that half the palaces of the old nobles should be turned into warehouses of antiquities, and that the Loredans and Vendramins should have given place to the Jews. It would be a pleasure to take down the inscriptions of the Venice glass companies and the old furniture shops, and to make a bonfire of the hideous board marked with the more hideous name of GUGGENHEIM. But these are mere details which affect a fastidious temper and eye, but which the healthy spectator dismisses without much difficulty. Perhaps at no period was Venice perfect as the dilettante delights to think she may once have been. It may be reasonably doubted whether a universal blaze of fresco would have been more beautiful to look upon than the weather-beaten fronts which afford so many soft tones of color due to the pencil of time alone; and whether the stir of new-making, the scaffoldings, and all the attendant evils of works in progress, would have pleased

their wealth, their power, their magnifi cence upon the work of their own hands, greedy of wealth and glory, of conquest and acquisition, and little scrupulous how these advantages were attained - both great in natural energy, in the skill which Italian hands first of all modern nations have acquired, and the genius to which every quality is subject, the force of invention, combination, creation out of nothing, which is the highest endowment of man. In all these points, the two great Italian cities are alike; the people are alike also in their intense enthusiasm for their dwelling-place, and their determination to make, each of their own town, the noblest, greatest, and most beautiful in the world.

These are resemblances so great that it is extremely confusing to the student to