T. DAVISON, LOMBARD-STREET, WHITEFRIARS.

A VENETIAN STORY.

BY LORD BYRON.

ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: Look, you lisp, and wear
strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love
with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance
you are; or I will scarce think that you have swam in a GONDOLA.

AS YOU LIKE IT, Act IV. Sc. I.

Annotation of the Commentators.

That is, been at Venice, which was much visited by the young English
gentlemen of those times, and was then what Paris is now-the seat of all
dissoluteness. S. A.

SIXTH EDITION.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.

1818.

BEPPO.

I.

'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
All countries of the Catholic persuasion,

Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,
The people take their fill of recreation,

And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,

However high their rank, or low their station,

With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing, And other things which may be had for asking.

B

II.

The moment night with dusky mantle covers

The skies (and the more duskily the better), The time less liked by husbands than by lovers Begins, and prudery flings aside her fetter; And gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,

Giggling with all the gallants who beset her;

And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.

III.

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,

Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews, And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos;

All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,

All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.