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and seem to converse in song; if there is
company on the water, in a gondola, it is
the same; a mere melody, unaccompanied
with a second part, is not to be heard
in this city: most of the ballads in the
streets are sung in duo.
Luckily for me, this night, a barge, in
which there was an excellent band of
music, consisting of violins, flutes, horns,
bases, and a kettle-drum, with a pretty
good tenor voice, was on the great canal,
and stopped very near the house where I
lodged; it was a piece of gallantry, at
the expence of an innamorato, in order to
serenade his mistress. Shakespeare says of
nocturnal music,
" Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
" Silence bestows the virtue on it--I think
" The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
" When every goose is cackling, would be thought
" No better a musician than the wren."
Whether the time, place, and manner
of performing this music, gave it adven-
titious and collateral charms, I will not
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