His figure was tall and elegant. He wore a loose, scarlet cloak thrown over his fine limbs, Greek sandals, and a cap like that of the Italian princes of three centuries before, a kind of low circle of green and vermilion striped silk, clasped by a large rose of topaz. The men universally said, that there was an atrocious expression in his countenance; but the women, the true judges after all, said, without exception, that this was envy in the men, and that the stranger was the most "delightful looking Diavolo" they had ever set eyes on.

The stranger, on his landing, desired to be led to the principal hotel; but he had not gone a dozen steps from the water-side, when he exclaimed that he had lost his purse. Such an imputation was never heard before in an Italian city; at least so swore the multitude; and the stranger was on the point of falling several fathoms deep in his popularity. But he answered the murmur by a laugh; and stopping in front of a beggar, who lay at the corner of an hospital roaring out for alms, demanded the instant loan of fifty sequins. The beggar lifted up his hands and eyes in speechless wonder, and then shook out his rags, which, whatever else they might show, certainly showed no sequins, "The sequins, or death!" was the demand, in a tremendous voice. The beggar fell on the ground convulsed, and from his withered hand, which every one had seen empty the moment before, out flew fifty sequins, bright as if they had come that moment from St. Mark's mint. The stranger took them from the ground, and, with a smile, flung them up in a golden shower through the crowd. The shouts were immense, and the mob insisted on carrying him to the door of his hotel.

But the Venetian vigilance was by this time a little awakened, and a patrol of the troops was ordered to bring this singular stranger before the sublime podesta. The crowd instantly dropped him at the sight of the bayonets, and knowing the value of life in the most delicious climate of the world, took to their heels. The guard took possession of their prisoner, and were leading him rather roughly to the governor's house, when he requested them to stop for a moment beside a convent gate, that he might get a cup of wine. But the Dominicans would not give the satirist of their illustrious order a cup of water.

"If you will not give me refreshment," exclaimed he, in an angry tone, "give me wherewithal to buy it. I demand a hundred sequins."

The prior himself was at the window above his head; and the only answer was a sneer, which was loyally echoed through every cloister.

"Let me have your bayonet for a moment," said the stranger to one of his guard. He received it; and striking away a projecting stone in the wall, out rushed the hundred sequins. The prior clasped his hands in agony, that so much money should have been so near, and yet have escaped his pious purposes, The soldiers took off their caps for the discoverer, and bowed them still lower when he threw every sequin of it into the shakos of those polite warriors. The officer, to whom he had given a double share, showed his gratitude by a whisper, offering to assist his escape for as much more. But the stranger declined the civility, and walked boldly into the presence-chamber of the sublime podesta.

The Signer Dominico Castello-Grande Tremamondo was a little Venetian noble, descended in a right line from Aeneas, with a palazzo on the Canale Regio of Venice, which he let for a coffee-house; and living in the pomp and pride of a magnifico on something more than the wages of an English groom. The intelligence of this extraordinary stranger's discoveries had flown like a spark through a magazine, and the illustrissimo longed to be a partaker in the secret. He interrogated the prisoner with official fierceness, but could obtain no other reply than the general declaration, that he was a traveller come to see the captivations of Italy. In the course of the inquiry the podesta dropped a significant hint about money.

"As to money," was the reply, "I seldom carry any about me; it is so likely to tempt rascals to dip deeper in roguery. I have it whenever I choose to call for it."

"I should like to see the experiment made, merely for its curiosity," said the governor.

"You shall be obeyed," was the answer; "but I never ask for more than a sum for present expenses. Here, you fellow!" said he, turning to one of the half-naked soldiery, "lend me five hundred sequins!"

The whole guard burst into laughter. The sum would have been a severe demand on the military chest of the army. The handsome stranger advanced to him, and, seizing his musket, said, loftily, "Fellow, if you won't give the money, this must." He struck the butt-end of the musket thrice upon the floor. At the third blow a burst of gold poured out, and sequins ran in every direction. The soldiery and the officers of the court were in utter astonishment. All wondered, many began to cross themselves, and several of the most celebrated swearers in the regiment dropped upon their knees. But their devotions were not long, for the sublime podesta ordered the hall to be cleared, and himself, the stranger, and the sequins, left alone.

For three days nothing more was heard of any of the three, and the Vicenzese scarcely ate, drank, or slept, through anxiety to know what was become of the man in the scarlet cloak, and cap striped green and vermilion. Jealousy, politics, and piety, at length put their heads together, and, by the evening of the third day, the cavalieri had agreed that he was some rambling actor, or Alpine thief, the statesmen, that he was a spy; and the Dominicans that he was Satan in person. The women, partly through the contradiction natural to the lovely sex, and partly through the novelty of not having the world in their own way, were silent; a phenomenon which the Italian philosophers still consider the true wonder of the whole affair.

On the evening of the third day a new Venetian governor, with a stately cortege, was seen entering at the Water Gate, full gallop, from Venice: he drove straight to the podesta's house, and, after an audience, was provided with apartments in the town-house, one of the finest in Italy, and looking out upon the Piazza Grande, in which are the two famous columns, one then surmounted by the winged lion of St. Mark, as the other still is by a statue of the founder of our faith.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 340, Supplementary Number (1828)

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