From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

The note is on the opening lines of the fourth Canto:

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand,"
– in explanation of which the poet says:

"The communication between the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The State dungeons, called 'pozzi,' or wells, were sunk into the thick walls of the palace; and the prisoner, when taken out to die, was conducted across the gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other compartment or cell upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled up; but the passage is still open, and is still known as the Bridge of Sighs. The pozzi are under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve, but on the first arrival of the French, the Venetians blocked or broke up the deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however, descend by a trap-door, and crawl down through holes, half-choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there; scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet, raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductor tells you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the Republicans descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen years."

5

Perhaps roulette and rouge et noir are two separate games. I dare say my imperfect description would excite the smile of a professional, for I confess my total ignorance in such matters. I only describe what I saw.

6

"E'en at the base of Pompey's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell."

7

This pretence of being a prisoner is so plainly a device to excite public sympathy, that it is exaggerated in the most absurd manner. A lady, just returned from the Rhine, tells me that in Germany the Catholics circulate pictures of the Pope behind the bars of a prison, and even sell straws of his bed, to show that he is compelled to sleep on a pallet of straw, like a convict! The same thing is done in Ireland.

8

I give his age as put down in the books, where the date of his birth is given as May 13, 1792; although our English priest tells me that the Pope himself says that he is eighty-five, adding playfully that "his enemies have deprived him of his dominions, and his friends of two years of his life." My informant says that, notwithstanding his great age, he is in perfect health, with not a sign of weakness or decay about him, physically or intellectually. He is a tough old oak, that may stand all the storms that rage about him for years to come.

9

This is not a jest. The King said with perfect truth that the chief revenue of Greece was derived from the plum-puddings of England and America, the fact being that the currants of Corinth (which indeed gives the name to that delicious fruit) form the chief article of export from the Kingdom of Greece – the amount in one year exported to England alone, being of the value of £1,200,000. The next article of export is olive oil.

10

Italy, it will be remembered, joined the Allies against Russia in the latter part of the Crimean war.