small bets of two or three pounds on some of the principal races; but to those who make a practice of attending the principal meetings, such as Newmarket, Epsom, Kempton, Leicester, Manchester, Liverpool, and others. Ascot, Sandown, and Goodwood are essentially ladies' gatherings, where most of the ladies go more for social than racing purposes; but those that attend the other meetings are increasing numerically, and in their attention to "business," and when they take to racing regularly are as a rule fond of gambling at cards, though the latter is by no means a new or modern amusement among the votaries of fashion.

Slang and argot, both racing and general, are now commonly used by women, who pick the language up from the men, and who consider it the right thing to adopt, and now we hear expressions emanating from them which formerly, to say the least of it, would have been considered vulgar, and, though there may not be any particular harm in these utterances, yet this slangy tendency in conversation detracts from the high-bred tone that should pervade our best society in London; and, even if amusing at the time, it does not in any way constitute wit or cleverness, and can be generally heard to greater perfection in the topical songs at the music-halls or read in many of the sporting papers of the present day-in fact, much of it is borrowed from these sources. The influx of Americans and Americanisms into this country has, no doubt, a good deal to do with this; but the main reason of it is that the men make use of slang; therefore, to be in keeping with the fashion of the day, by imitating them and trying to resemble them as much as possible, it is necessary that their forms of language should be adopted as far as possible. Again, in London now, how many ladies delight in attending what were wont to be the exclusive resorts of men-namely, the music-halls and the London restaurants! When we say exclusive resorts," we mean exclusive as regards society; of course they were and always will be the haunts of the demimonde, and we fear that that is one of the reasons why they are now becoming so popular among many ladies in society, who hardly pretend that they are as amusing as a good theatre or the opera; but a strange fascination seems to oblige them

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to see and watch that class, and they are infinitely amused if they recognize some of their acquaintances in the company of these frail ones. They seem utterly oblivious of the fact that it is extremely derogatory to their dignity and their position as modest women of good birth and in good society to have to pass or meet their male friends and acquaintances, who are in the same social grade, unrecognized, on account of the company they are in; and that because of their own action, since they are in places where they are not expected to be, and which have been tacitly acknowledged to be reserved for that class of the female population that are without the pale. Two reasons there are which induce women to put themselves in these equivocal positions--one is curiosity, which is their hereditary legacy handed down from Mother Eve; and the other is that, as the men go to these places, it is the right thing for them to go also; for is it not written that now fashion says what men may do, women should do also? Inconsistent they are; if one of their own class has the misfortune to stray from the paths of virtue and be found out, she must be treated as a black sheep, and shunned; yet it is the correct thing now to go where the demi-monde gathers in all its strength and numbers, to study its members and watch them with all interest, as though their mode of life had transmogrified them into some interesting study of nature or beautiful work of art. There is the feeling that women are seeing life, and that they are turning over the pages of a book that has hitherto been sealed to them, though open to their male companions, and they think that by going where the men go they get an insight into some of the manners of spending time and money adopted by the latter, and that the advanced ideas of the present day should, in all fairness, allow them to assume the knowledge that has hitherto been acquired by the other sex only.

There are many sports that, though in themselves most excellent for women as well as men, are sometimes carried to excess, such as riding, driving, etc.; and, though nothing is more charming than a good lady whip, yet the tendency of the day is, by the style of the turn-out, to degenerate that excellent art into a semblance of fastness, and in London ladies who adopt dogcarts, gigs, T carts, and other

two-wheeled traps do so, as a rule, to look manly. As we have said before, the rage now is for women to appear manly and to copy men in all things; and a great mistake it is, as by doing so they are apt to lose the great charms, that have always surrounded well-bred Englishwomen, of gentleness and modesty, and they run the

risk of losing the respect of true gentlemen, who should look up to them, instead of being tempted as they are now to treat them as boon companions who have adopted their own pursuits and their own ways of thinking, acting, and talking. — Saturday Review.

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VENEZIA ha saputo trovar modo che non uno, non pochi, non molti signoreggiano; ma molti buoni, pochi migliori, e insiememente un ottimo solo." "Venice has discovered a method of rule which is not that of one, nor of a few, nor yet of many; but under which many good citizens, some few still better, and one best of all, combine to govern the State." This description, which reads like one of those eulogies, once so common on the British Constitution when the component elements of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy were believed to be equally blended and balanced-was there in truth ever such an age?-was written some three hundred years ago, and not ill expresses the admiration that was for a long time felt for Venice. For generations she was the marvel of her contemporaries; but her Constitution has passed away never to return, and to the vast majority of travellers and tourists who pass through her strange waterways, and who, intelligently or unintelligently, as the case may be, admire her stately buildings, it is a closed chapter. They may know something of her pictures or her architecture, but most of her history and almost all knowledge of her Constitution have passed into forgetfulness. And yet, with one mighty exception that Constitution has had since the Christian era no European parallel or compeer in efficiency or endurance. In many of its main characteristics the Venetian Republic reflected or imitated the earlier Roman Commonwealth from which she claimed descent; she gave birth to no great writers or poets like Florence; but she produced a race of statesmen who preserved from age to age her liberties, when every other state in Northern Italy lost or surrendered them.

I will not dwell here on the wonderful beauty of that bright emanation of the Hadriatic, which even in her decay has all the glamour of romance about her; she has been abundantly described at every hour of the day or night, in all the many moods and aspects which such a child of ocean wears; I rather propose to say a few words on the political Constitution which governed her fortunes for a thousand years.

Historically, perhaps the most remarkable features of that strange city are the coherence and almost unbroken continuity of a polity, which existed through all the strain and trouble of the Middle Ages, amid the intellectual revolution of the Renaissance, and even the vast changes of the eighteenth century. It is not a hundred years since Venice stood erect not only in all the external magnificence of her material splendor, but in the apparently unshaken strength of her laws and public institutions. In the fifth century. some desolate mud-islands in the Hadriatic were appropriated by the panic-stricken refugees who fled from Attila and thought that the end of human society was at hand. On those islands the fishermen spread their nets, and the relics of the old Roman civilization found a shelter. From these rough and rude beginnings came a polished and luxurious life; and on those banks and shaking piles in the midst of desolation and sea-waves grew up a people that were destined to have ideas and institutions of no common order. At first these insignificant islands were not worth the trouble of an invader's attack; but before long they became sufficiently powerful and independent to defy the assaults of their enemies. In her early days Venice stood between envious and conflicting

Powers the Eastern Empire, with its great traditions and not insignificant strength, the growing but half barbarous West, and the Popes of Rome; her policy at times wavered and inclined from one to the other, but she never surrendered herself to any patron or competitor. Her independence, which the fresh sea-breeze seemed to fan into vigorous and self-conscious life, was her first and constant object. During the ninth and tenth centuries the connection with Constantinople was close, and Eastern wares found a ready market in Venice. The wife of one Doge was the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople, and the chroniclers record how the simpler tastes of the young Republic were shocked by her perfumed baths, and the golden fork with which she ate her food. In this connection, and in the titular honors bestowed by the Byzantine Court upon some of the early Doges, some have seen an unquestionable evidence of the subjection of Venice to the East; but if it were so, it was very temporary, and, in the words of the historian, "the bands of dependence were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the weakness of Constantinople."

Amid the crimes and ingratitude and selfishness that tarnish Venetian policy there is nothing more remarkable than the persistence and courage with which, in reverses and danger, she clung to her independence and refused to bend to any for eign master. In this she stands absolutely alone. Neither literature nor art, nor the splendor of romance nor the conscious sense of inherited liberties, availed to save the Republics of Northern Italy. One by one, they succumbed to the temptations and the difficulties of the time, and gave themselves up to some despot. Venice alone remained self-governing and independent, unscathed by foreign usurper, unsubdued by Emperor, uncajoled by Pope, uninfluenced by great baron or mercenary captain, untouched by Eastern or Western Powers. Alone, too, she observed a steady and continuous policy where all around her was variable and uncertain. She was ready to make common cause with Europe against the Turk if Europe was really in earnest; but was equally resolved not to quarrel needlessly with a great Power conterminous to her own possessions. Around her was a maze of intrigue, treaties of plunder and spolia

tion, forming, breaking, reforming, as chance or ambition on the mainland dictated; sometimes she was courted; sometimes, as in the League of Cambray, she was the object of secret and treacherous attack; but her rulers never faltered in courage or wavered in policy. Nor were great dangers wanting. They suffered calamitous reverses by sea; they experienced great defeats on land; they were blockaded by hostile fleets till hope itself well-nigh abandoned them; they experienced even the risks of secret conspiracy and rebellion; but the fabric of the Venetian Constitution remained apparently unshaken through every trial-its years counted by centuries, and its visible honors undimmed, almost to the very close of its public life. That this was in a great measure due to her insular position is true; but insularity aione neither would nor could have preserved Venice through the long centuries of lawless might and unscrupulous ambition, which tore Europe, and particularly Italy, into pieces. Something else there must have been to give this remarkable vitality; and that something was found in a powerful and efficient Constitution based upon the general goodwill of all classes. During the long period that that Constitution lasted, there were moments and opportunities, when, if there had been any rooted or strong hatred of the institutions under which they lived, one or other class of the people might have broken up the exquisitely complicated fabric of Venetian polity. The early days of the Republic were doubtless stormy, and Doges repeatedly met a violent death in the bloody struggles for power; but when once the Constitution was accepted the people never revolutionized it-they never made any serious attempt to do so; and the more that I have read of the much-abused Venetian Republic, the more I have been led to the conclusion that, severe and restrictive as its system undoubtedly was, the pressure was less than existed under most other contemporary Governments-perhaps not more than is incidental to any Government which has the elements of permanence and stability in it.

The tide of popular opinion in these days runs in the opposite direction to that in which Venetian polity flowed. The drift of all government now is popular in the widest sense of the word—the forms

under which it is conducted are essentially democratic-the type is on a very large scale. In Venice everything was exactly the reverse of this. In size she bore no similarity to the colossal populations of our day, in name she was a republic, and through a long period of her existence the popular element counted for much, though it was so conjoined with other elements that it was never in a position of command. Even at a comparatively later time, when the Constitution assumed a more restricted form and the Doge elect was presented to the citizens, there was a recognition of the people's consent in the formula, "This is your Doge, if it so pleases you." But in the realities of public administration at home or abroad there was from a comparatively early period no room for the fluctuations of popular indecision; the ship of the state was steered by statesmen who knew no variations of policy, and subordinated every public and private consideration to the general well-being. Such policy may be impossible at the end of the nineteenth century; it may be at variance with modern ideas; and there is probably not a politician now bold enough to compromise his orthodoxy by an approval of a Constitution which has been so branded and stigmatized as has that of Venice. Yet for all this, it is impossible, as a matter of history, to deny that government in Venice was through a period of time-by the side of which our modern Parliamentarism is as the creature of a day-quite as efficient and possibly even as popular as any of the systems of administration which we now see around us.

To visit Venice then-to navigate her narrow canals, where the old Palaces seem to grow out of the water; to wander round the Sala del Consiglio, to see the rooms where the Council of Ten decided in secret on affairs of life and death; to breathe the fresh sea-breeze which brought into port the galleys laden with Eastern commerce, or crowned with victory, as on that famous evening when Petrarch saw them glide alongside the quays with laurelled masts and shouting crew and rejoicing people at the glad news of the reduction of Candia-all this not only recalls the varied history of the great Capital, with its stirring events in war and peace, but it seems also to call up the political Constitution, which made this splendid

life possible. Men make the Constitutions of States, but the Constitutions of States also make the citizens who grow up under them; they react on each other; and Venetian history could never have been written but for the wonderful Constitution by which her sons were governed and moulded.

The Aristocracy of Venice ruled with absolute power, and that power only ceased in the presence of Napoleon's legions in 1797. Aristocratic rule came early in Venetian history; but it was not at first a jealous or exclusive Aristocracy; tastes were simple, all shared in the adventures of a seafaring life, and commerce and war were the education and the inseparable conditions of the governing class. In those days the Great Council was the basis of the Constitution; and through it was the approach to all honor and fame. At first it was open to the whole of the citizen nobility of the Republic; but a time came when a party in the State usurped and "closed" the Council, and thus became the sole depositaries of all authority. It was the change from a less to a more aristocratic regimen, from the rule of an open Aristocracy to that of a comparatively close Oligarchy; but, unlike other oligarchies, this one lasted for nearly five hundred years. Under their rule some of the greatest acts of peace and war were achieved; Venice triumphed over her great rival in the West; she became mistress of her possessions on terra firma ;" she fought her heroic way through the desperate siege that threatened her existence; she preserved her independence and strengthened her position anid the wars which wrecked the liberties of Florence, Milan, and Genoa; she grew in splendor of architecture and gorgeousness of art until she became the wonder of the ruder kingdoms of Europe. That Oligarchy was a strange phenomenon to contemporaries, and in the eyes of subsequent generations it has seemed an unlovely creation. It was organized on so intricate a system of checks and counterchecks, and elections and ballots, that to the student it has all the appearance of a Chinese puzzle; but its complexity did not diminish its efficiency. It was secret in its councils, certain in its instruments, unhesitating in its actions. "Shall it be good morning or good evening to you, illustrious sir?" said Carmagnola to the

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Doge, when in the early morning he met him and the councillors, who had all night been discussing the affairs of State, and particularly the course to be taken with himself; to whom the Prince replied, smiling, that among the many serious matters which had been talked of in that long discussion, nothing had been oftener mentioned than his-Carmagnola's name." They had indeed been debating of him, of his arrest and torture and terrible death; but the smiling answer awoke no suspicion in the mind of the great Captain, and only veiled the coming tragedy. The secret never transpired; the tongue of the babbler had no part in Venetian policy, and the dark counsels of these stern judges were never betrayed. Even

in the days when these tragedies were enacted, and when men were much more familiar than they now are with deeds of blood, such action on the part of the governors of the State-swift, dark, relentless -sent a thrill of terror through the body of the people; but, measured by the lights and judgments of our age, they naturally seem horrible; and the Council of Ten, the three Inquisitors, the Lion's Mouth, the detestable system of delation, the secret trial, the torture chamber, and the fatal spot of execution between the two granite columns, conjure up before the minds of most nineteenth-century readers the picture of some devilish organization without a redeeming feature. But this is not an entirely just judgment. The moral sentiments of one generation are not a fair measure of the acts of another and an earlier one; and I confess that, revolting as was much of the State machinery employed by the Venetian rulers, I do not trace in their actions cruelty so much as an inexorable and pitiless sternness, which subordinated every affection and devoted every energy to the public service-in this resembling those Roman statesmen of older time who, widely differing in individual character, concurred in maintaining a continuous policy for the Mistress of the World. So indeed does a great office sometimes exact a great price; and so do the duties of State raise or depress men beyond the ordinary standard of humanity. But after all, the most remarkable phenomenon in this system of government is as Plato says of one of the Greek states of his day-not that it should have existed, but that it should have

struck its roots so deeply as to last so long.

Dante,

If reasons for this are to be sought, they may be found partly in the character of the people, but still more in the system of government. In the people, high and low, of every degree, "senatori e barnaboti," there dwelt an inextinguishable love of national independence; from the earliest times the Republic was an object of passionate affection, and nothing is more striking than the personal sacrifices which were ungrudgingly lafd on the altar of patriotism, and the patience with which ingratitude and neglect and unmerited wrong were borne when they came in the name and by order of the State. The "neri" and " bianchi," the Guelph and Ghibellin, the rival factions driving each other into exile, which disfigure the Florentine annals, have little or no place in Venetian story. Venice was open to all who were not at enmity with her. Petrarch, and Boccaccio, enjoyed her hospitality; English royalties were welcomed at her pageants: Cardinal Pole, when an exile from England, lived there; Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire and Marquis of Exeter, who aspired to the hand of Queen Mary, died from a chill caught on the Lido when flying his hawks; Sir Philip Sidney, that "President of Chivalry and nobleness," was a guest of her senators and merchants. Venice was for a long time the great station for European travellers bound for the East, and at one time there was an inn with the sign of the Dragon, kept by John the Englishman, that entertained the pilgrims on their journey. But while Florence was seething with faction and civil war, Venice was emphatically a city at unity with herself; and therefore through long ages of public turmoil and violence she was respected, courted, honored and prosperous.

Thus the national sentiment became, I believe, one of general acquiescence in, if not of liking for, the existing condition of things; and the Constitution was the main cause of it. It was not only that under that Constitution there was peace and order at home and a stream of wealth flowing in from foreign commerce,-all of which gave a sense of contentment and security very different from what was to be found in many Italian towns on the mainland—but that the system of government, by a singular accommodation, lent