When Henry III. of France passed through Venice, on his return from Poland, he went to visit Titian at his own house. Titian returned this high honour by en tertaining several of the king's suite at his mansion, with a liberality becoming a noble of the empire, hitherto a rare occurrence in the lives of artists. While conversing with the king, and displaying his collection, with those pictures on which he was then engaged, he alluded with grateful emotion to the munificence of Charles V. and his successor. He then presented the king with several fine pictures, to mark, he said, his sense of the honour conferred upon him. There were, indeed, few distinguished personages of his times, in a succession of pontiffs, emperors, and princes, from whom Titian had not received marks of favour and regard. He was no less esteemed by his friends, among whom he counted some of the most distinguished literary characters of the period. Next to those already mentioned were Marcolini, Sperone Speroni, Pigna, Torquato Bembo, Lodovico Dolce; besides a number of learned and accomplished ladies; as Paola Sansovina, La Marcolina, Angiola Zaffetti, La Franceschini, La Violante. In the earlier portion of his protracted career he was intimate also not only with Ariosto, but with Casa, Navagero, Bernardo Tasso, Fracastoro, Geraldi Cintio, the celebrated novelist, and a crowd of other writers.

Fortunate in his life, crowned with honour and fulness of days, Titian died, aged 99 years, in 1576. Though carried off by an epidemic resembling the plague, public testimony was rendered to the brilliant genius and merit of such a man by the respect shown to his remains.

While he lived the senate had exempted him from a tax imposed upon all other citizens, and at his death he was excepted from the rule which denied the honours of burial to those who died of the plague. He was interred in the church of the Frari, for which more than one of his master-pieces had been produced.

In Ridolfi is contained an account of the proposed honours that were to have been bestowed on his obsequies by the entire body of Venetian artists, had not the calamitous state of the city prevented them. The insignia of his order were laid in his tomb, but no stone marked the spot where reposed the ashes of him who had conferred immortality on his name and country. At the distance of nearly half a century, the younger Palma erected a monument to the common fame of Titian, of his predecessor Giacomo Palma, and of himself. It is in the church of S. Giovanni and Paolo, and is inscribed thus:

TITIANO. VICELLIO.

JACOPO. PALMA. SENIORI. JUNIORIQUE.

AERE. PALMEO.

COMMUNI. GLORIA.

MDCXXI.

Few painters have lived who produced such a variety of works, and so admirably finished as Titian. His extended career, combined with extreme assiduity and despatch, enabled him to effect so much and so perfectly. Spain boasts many of his productions; Rome, Venice, and other Italian cities more; while France, Germany, and, in particular, England, are enriched with them.

Perhaps some of the most beautiful specimens are to be seen in the royal cabinet at Paris. Besides his numerous paintings, Titian is said to have left behind him many designs, particularly in landscape, beautifully sketched in ink. Nor was his genius less excellent in frescoes, and in those cartoons he produced for the workers in mosaic. He also made designs of many works for engraving upon wood; and when Cornelius Cort went to Venice in 1570, he was received by Titian into his house, by whom he was engaged some time to make engravings from his pictures and designs, and many of these plates are still met with.

THE DOGANA.

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,-
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or as it were, the pageants of the sea,-

Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

THIS noble edifice was erected in the year 1682, after the designs of Giuseppe Benoni. Its front is adorned with a magnificent colonnade of marble pillars, and over these rises a small but beautiful tower, the summit of which supports a statue bearing a large golden globe, to represent the world. Above the sphere stands a figure of fortune, so placed as to turn with every change of the wind, and thus teach the moral most necessary to the frequenters of the Dogana. It is in this building that the customs are paid by foreign ships and on merchandize from abroad. A sort of council was early appointed to assemble here, and take cognizance of every thing pertaining to the commerce of the state; but the structure has lost much both of its importance and elegance; and though it is still a beautiful and striking object when observed from the sea, it owes its present interest principally to the connexion of its design with the earlier glory of the city.

The commerce of Venice is invested with a traditional