The Bravo Of Venice -- A Romance

It was evening. Multitudes of light clouds, partially illumined by the moonbeams, overspread the horizon, and through them floated the full moon in tranquil majesty, while her splendour was reflected by every wave of the Adriatic Sea. All was hushed around; gently was the water rippled by the night wind; gently did the night wind sigh through the Colonnades of Venice. It was midnight; and still sat a stranger, solitary and sad, on the border of the great canal. Now with a glance he measured the battlements and proud towers of the city; and now he fixed his melancholy eyes upon the waters with a vacant stare. At length he spoke - Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (March 22, 1771 - June 27, 1848) was a German author and reformer. Born in Magdeburg, Prussia, he was educated at the monasterial (Kloster) school and at the Altstädter Gymnasium there. He spent some time as playwright with a company of strolling actors, but afterwards studied philosophy, theology and history at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), where in 1792 he established himself as a Privatdozent. Zschokke created a sensation by the extravagant novel, Abällino, der grosse Bandit (1793; subsequently also dramatized), modelled on Schiller's Die Räuber, and the melodramatic tragedy Julius von Sassen (1796).