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GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXIII.   PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1848.     NO. 5.




THE BRIDE OF FATE.

A TALE: FOUNDED UPON EVENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF VENICE.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.


It was a glad day in Venice. The eve of the feast of the Purification
had arrived, and all those maidens of the Republic, whose names had
been written in the "Book of Gold," were assembled with their parents,
their friends and lovers--a beautiful and joyous crowd--repairing, in
the gondolas provided by the Republic, to the church of San Pietro de
Castella, at Olivolo, which was the residence of the Patriarch. This
place was on the extreme verge of the city, a beautiful and isolated
spot, its precincts almost without inhabitants, a ghostly and small
priesthood excepted, whose grave habits and taciturn seclusion seemed
to lend an additional aspect of solitude to the