SCENE I.—_The interior Arcade of the Doge’s Palace.

_Sp._ Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear! But see, a noble shelter here, This grand arcade where our Venetian Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian A combination strange, but striking, And singularly to my liking! Let moderns reap where ancients sowed, I at least make it my abode. And now let’s hear your famous Ode: ‘Through the great sinful’—how did it go on? For principles of Art and so on I care perhaps about three curses, But hold myself a judge of verses.

_Di._ ‘My brain was lightened when my tongue had said, “Christ is not risen.”’

* * * * *

_Sp._ Well, now it’s anything but clear What is the tone that’s taken here: What is your logic? what’s your theology? Is it, or is it not, neology? That’s a great fault; you’re this and that, And here and there, and nothing flat; Yet writing’s golden word what is it, But the three syllables ‘explicit’? Say, if you cannot help it, less, But what you do put, put express. I fear that rule won’t meet your feeling: You think half showing, half concealing, Is God’s own method of revealing.

_Di._ To please my own poor mind! to find repose; To physic the sick soul; to furnish vent To diseased humours in the moral frame!

_Sp._ A sort of seton, I suppose, A moral bleeding at the nose: H’m;—and the tone too after all, Something of the ironical? Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter To style it the religious bitter?

_Di._ Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it.

_Sp._ Perhaps; but none that read can doubt it, There is a strong Strauss-smell about it. Heavens! at your years your time to fritter Upon a critical hair-splitter! Take larger views (and quit your Germans) From the Analogy and sermons; I fancied—you must doubtless know— Butler had proved an age ago, That in religious as profane things ’Twas useless trying to explain things; Men’s business-wits, the only sane things, These and compliance are the main things. God, Revelation, and the rest of it, Bad at the best, we make the best of it. Like a good subject and wise man, Believe whatever things you can. Take your religion as ’twas found you, And say no more of it, confound you! And now I think the rain has ended; And the less said, the soonest mended.