people of far less importance than the gourd and melon. The 'melon boats,' as late as 1845, were still so splendid in beauty of fruit, that my then companion, J. D. Harding, always spent with me the first hour of our day in drawing at the Rialto market. Of these fruits, being a staple article in constant domestic consumption, not only the quality, but the price, became an object of anxious care to the government; and the view taken by the Venetian Senate on the question I proposed to you in last Fors, the function of the middle-man in raising prices, is fortunately preserved at length in the following decree of 8th July, 1577:

DECREE OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORDS, THE FIVE OF THE MARIEGOLE.*

"It is manifestly seen that Melons in this City have reached a price at which scarcely anybody is bold enough to buy them; a condition of things discontenting to everybody, and little according with the dignity of the persons whose duty it is to take such precautionary measures as may be needful," (the Five most Illustrious, to wit,) "and although our Presessors and other Magistrates, who from time to time have had special regard to this difficulty, have made many and divers provisional decrees, yet it is seen manifestly that they have always been vain, nor have ever brought forth the good effect which was desired; and the cause of this is seen expressly to be a great number of buyers-to-sell-again who find themselves in this city, and in whose presence it is impossible so quickly to make public anything relating to the import or export of food, but this worst sort of men pounce on it, and buy it, before it is born; in this, using all the intelligences, cunnings, and frauds which it is possible to imagine; so that the people of this city cannot any more buy anything, for their living, of the proper Garden-master of it; but only from the buyers-to-sell-again, through whose hands such things will pass two or three times before they are sold,

A Mariegola, Madre-Regola, or Mother-Law, is the written code of the religious and secular laws either of a club of Venetian gentlemen, or a guild of Venetian tradesmen. With my old friend Mr. Edward Cheney's help, I shall let you hear something of these, in next Fors.

Those who before us sat on this Seat of Judgment.

Most illustrious, a little better grammar might here have been ad

visable ;-had indignation permitted.

which notable disorder is not by any manner of means to be put up with. Wherefore, both for the universal benefit of all the City, and for the dignity of our Magistracy, the great and illustrious Lords, the Five Wise Men, and Foreseers upon the Mariegole, make it publicly known that henceforward there may be no one so presumptuous as to dare, whether as Fruiterer, Green-grocer, Buyer-to-sell-again, or under name. of any other kind of person of what condition soever, to sell melons of any sort, whether in the shops or on the shore of our island of Rialto, beginning from the bridge of Rialto as far as the bridge of the Beccaria; and similarly in any part of the piazza of St. Mark, the Pescaria, or the Tèra Nuova,* under penalty to whosoever such person shall sell or cause to be sold contrary to the present order, of 120 ducats for each time; to lose the melons, and to be whipped round the Piazza of the Rialto, or of San Marco, wheresoever he has done contrary to the law; but the Gardenmasters and gardeners may seli where they like, and nobody shall hinder them.

5th January, Morning.

I will give the rest of this decree in next Fors; but I must pause to-day, for you have enough before you to judge of the methods taken by the Duke and the statesmen of Venice for the ordering of her merchandize, and the aid of her poor.

I say, for the ordering of her merchandize; other merchandize than this she had ;-pure gold, and ductile crystal, and inlaid marble,-various as the flowers in mountain turf. But her first care was the food of the poor; she knew her first duty was to see that they had each day their daily bread. Their corn and pomegranate; crystal, not of flint, but life; manna, not of the desert, but the home--" Thou shalt let none of it stay until the morning."

"To see that they had their daily bread;" yes-but how to make such vision sure? My friends, there is yet one more thing, and the most practical of all, to be observed by you as to the management of your commissariat. Whatever laws you make about your bread-however wise and brave,

*These limitations referring to the Rialto market and piazza, leave the town greengrocers free to sell, they being under vowed discipline of the Mariegola of Greengrocers.