Mr. Ruskin has given it up, that is very true; but only after extracting half a lifetime of pleasureand an immeasurable quantity of fame from it. We all may do the same, after it has served our turn, which it probably will not cease to do for many a year to come. Meantime it is Mr. Ruskin whobeyond anyone helps us to enjoy. He has indeed lately produced several aids to depression in theshape of certain little humorous-ill-humorous-pamphlets (the series of St. Mark's Rest) whichembody his latest reflections on the subject of our city and describe the latest atrocities perpetratedthere. These latter are numerous and deeply to be deplored; but to admit that they have spoiledVenice would be to admit that Venice may be spoiled-an admission pregnant, as it seems to us, with disloyalty. Fortunately one reacts against the Ruskinian contagion, and one hour of the lagoonis worth a hundred pages of demoralised prose. This queer late-coming prose of Mr. Ruskin(including the revised and condensed issue of the Stones of Venice, only one little volume of which hasbeen published, or perhaps ever will be) is all to be read, though much of it appears addressed tochildren of tender age. It is pitched in the nursery-key, and might be supposed to emanate from anangry governess. It is, however, all suggestive, and much of it is delightfully just. There is aninconceivable want of form in it, though the author has spent his life in laying down the principlesof form and scolding people for departing from them; but it throbs and flashes with the love of hissubject-a love disconcerted and abjured, but which has still much of the force of inspiration.Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she has had the good fortune to becomethe object of a passion to a man of splendid genius, who has made her his own and in doing so hasmade her the world's. There is no better reading at Venice therefore, as I say, than Ruskin, for everytrue Venice-lover can separate the wheat from the chaff. The narrow theological spirit, the moralismà tout propos, the queer provincialities and pruderies, are mere wild weeds in a mountain of flowers.One may doubtless be very happy in Venice without reading at all-without criticising or analysingor thinking a strenuous thought. It is a city in which, I suspect, there is very little strenuous thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost as much happiness as misery. The misery of Venicestands there for all the world to see; it is part of the spectacle-a thoroughgoing devotee of localcolour might consistently say it is part of the pleasure. The Venetian people have little to call theirown-little more than the bare privilege of leading their lives in the most beautiful of towns. Theirhabitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their opportunities few. One receivesan impression, however, that life presents itself to them with attractions not accounted for in thismeagre train of advantages, and that they are on better terms with it than many people who havemade a better bargain. They lie in the sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear bright rags; they fallinto attitudes and harmonies; they assist at an eternal conversazione.