his brothers; but only to two. Permission of carrying arms was also granted to the four Notaries of the Chancery, that is to say, of the Supreme Court, who took the depositions; and they were, Amedio, Nicoletto di Lorino, Steffanello, and Pietro de Compostelli, the secretaries of the Signori di Notte. After the traitors had been hanged, and the Duke had had his head cut off, the state remained in great tranquillity and peace. And, as I have read in a Chronicle, the corpse of the Duke was removed in a barge, with eight torches, to his tomb in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, where it was buried. The tomb is now in that aisle in the middle of the little church of Santa Maria della Pace which was built by Bishop Gabriel of Bergamo. It is a coffin of stone, with these words engraven thereon: Heic jacet Dominus Marinus Faletro Dux.-And they did not paint his portrait in the hall of the Great Council: -but in the place where it ought to have been, you see these words:Hic est locus Marini Faletro, decapitati pro crimin. bus. And it is thought that his house was granted to the church of Sant' Apostolo; it was that great one near the bridge. Yet this could not be the case, or else the family bought it back from the church; for it still belongs to Cá Faliero. I must not refrain from noting, that some wished to write the following words in the place where his portrait ought to have been, as aforesaid :-'Marinus Faletro Dux, temeritas me cepit. Panas lui, decapitatus pro criminibus.-Others, also, indited a couplet, worthy of being inscribed upon his tomb. 'Dux Venetum jacet heic, patriam qui prodere tentans, Sceptra, decus, censum perdidit, atqué caput. NOTE B. PETRARCH ON THE CONSPIRACY OF MARINO FALIERO. The Italian translation from the Latin epistles of Petrarch (LEVATI, Viaggi di Petrarca, vol. iv. p. 323) proves-1stly, That Marino Faliero was a personal friend of Petrarch's: antica dimestichezza,' old intimacy, is the phrase of the poet. 2ndly, That Petrarch thought that he had more courage than conduct, più di corraggio che di senno." 3rdly, That there was some jealousy on the part of Pe trarch; for he says that Marino Faliero was treating of the peace which he himself had vainly attempted to conclude. 4thly, That the honour of the Dukedom was conferred upon him, which he neither sought nor expected, 'che nè chiedeva nè aspettava,' and which had never been granted to any other in like circumstances, ciò che non si concedette a nessun altro,' a proof of the high esteem in which he must have been held. 5thly, That he had a reputation for wisdom, only for feited by the last enterprise of his life, si usurpò per tanti anni una falsa fama di sapienza. He had usurped for so many years a false fame of wisdom,' rather a difficult task, I should think. People are generally found out before eighty years of age, at least in a republic.-From these, and the other historical notes which I have collected, it may be inferred, that Marino Faliero possessed many of the qualities, but not the success of a hero; and that his passions were too violent. The paltry and ignorant account of Dr Moore falls to the ground. Petrarch says, that there had been no greater event in his times (our times literally), nostri tempi,' in Italy. He also differs from the historian in saying that Faliero was 'on the banks of the Rhone,' instead of at Rome, when elected: the other accounts say, that the deputation of the Venetian senate met him at Ravenna. How this may have been, it is not for me to decide, and is of no great importance. Had the man succeeded, he would have changed the face of Venice, and perhaps of Italy. As it is, what are they both? NOTE C. VENETIAN SOCIETY AND MANNERS. Vice without splendour, sin without relief Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er; But, in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,' &c. [See p. 390.] by priests and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, veiled under another name, became so frequent that the most important act of civil society was discovered to be amenable to a tribunal of exceptions; and to restrain the open scandal of such proceedings became the office of the police. In 1782 the Council of Ten decreed, that every woman who should sue for a dissolution of her marriage should be compelled to await the decision of the judges in some convent, to be named by the court. Soon afterwards the same council summoned all causes of that nature before itself.t This intringement on ecclesiastical jurisdiction having occasioned some remonstrance from Rome, the council retained only the right of rejecting the petition of the married persons, and consented to refer such causes to the holy office as it should not previously have rejected. There was a moment in which, doubtless, the destruction of private fortunes, the ruin of youth, the domestic discord occasioned by these abuses, determined the government to depart from its established maxims concerning the freedom of manners allowed the subject. All the courtesans were banished from Venice; but their absence was not enough to reclaim and bring back good morals to a whole people brought up in the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached the very bosom of private families, and even into the cloister; and they found themselves obliged to recall, and even to indem nify,§ women who sometimes gained possession of important secrets, and who might be usefully employed in the ruin of men whose fortunes might have rendered them dangerous. Since that time licentiousness has gone on increasing: and we have seen mothers, not only selling the innocence of their daughters, but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the signature of a public officer, and the performance of which was secured by the protection of the laws. The parlours of the convents of noble ladies and the houses of the courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a number of spies about them, were the only assemblies for 50ciety in Venice; and in these two places, so different from each other, there was equal freedom. Music, collations, gallantry, were not more forbidden in the parlours than at the casinos. There were a number of casinos for the purpose of public assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the company. It was a strange sight to see persons of either sex masked, or grave in their magisterial robes, round a table, invoking chance, and giving way at one instant to the agonies of despair, at the next to the illusions of hope, and that without uttering a single word. The rich had private casinos, but they lived incognito in them; and the wives whom they abandoned found compensation in the liberty they enjoyed. The corruption of morals had deprived them of their empire. We have just reviewed the whole history of Venice, and we have not onee seen them exercise the slightest influence.'-DARU: Hist, de la Répub. de Venise, vol. v. p. 95. DON JUAN. CANTO V., STANZA CXLVII, p. 606. BACON'S APOPHTHEGMS. 91. Michael, Angelo, the famous painter, painting in the Pope's chapel the por traiture of hell and dainned souls, made one of the damned souls so like a cardinal that was his enemy, as everybody at first sight knew it: whereupon the cardinal complained to Pope Clement, humbly praying it might be defaced. The Pope said to him, Why, you know very well I have power to deliver a soul out of purga tory, but not out of hell. 155. To these attacks so frequently pointed by the government Alexander, after the battle of Graagainst the clergy, to the continual struggles between the nicum, had very great offers made him different constituted bodies,-to these enterprises carried on by Darius. Consulting with his cap by the mass of the nobles against the depositaries of power,tains concerning them, Parmenio said, to all those projects of innovation, which always ended by a stroke of state policy, we must add a cause not less fitted to spread contempt for ancient doctrines; this was the excess of corruption. That freedom of manners, which had been long boasted of as the principal charm of Venetian society, had degenerated into scandalous licentiousness: the tie of marriage was less sacred in that Catholic country, than among those nations where the laws and religion admit of its being dissolved. Because they could not break the contract, they feigned that it had not existed; and the ground of nullity, immodestly alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility OBSERVATIONS. This was not the portrait of a cardinal, but of the Pope's mas ter of the ceremonies. It was after the bat tle of Issus and during the siege of Tyre, and not immediately after Correspondence of M. Schlick, French chargé d'affaires. Despatch of 24th August, 1782. t1bid. Despatch 31st August. Ibid. Despatch of 3rd September, 1785. § The decree for their recall designates them as nostre benemerite meretrici: a fund and some houses, called Case rampane, were assigned to them; hence the opprobrious appellation of Carampane. Mayer, Description of Venice, vol. ii.; and M. Archenholz, Picture of Italy, vol. i. ch. 2. Sure, I would accept of these offers, if I were as Alexander, Alexander answered, So would I, if I were as Parmenio. 158. Antigonus, when it was told him that the enemy had such volleys of arrows that they did hide the sun, said, That falls out well, for it is hot weather, and so we shall fight in the shade. 162. There was a philosopher that disputed with Adrian the Emperor, and did it but weakly. One of his friends that stood by afterwards said unto him, Methinks you were not like yourself last day, in argument with the Emperor: I could have answered better myself. Why, said the philosopher, would you have me contend with him that commands thirty legions? 164. There was one that found a great mass of money, digging underground in his grandfather's house, and being somewhat doubtful of the case signi fied it to the emperor that he had found such treasure. The emperor made a rescript thus: Use it. He writ back again, that the sum was greater than his state or condition could use. The emperor writ a new rescript thus: Abuse it. 178. One of the seven was wont to say, that laws were like cobwebs: where the small flies were caught, and the great break through. 209. An orator of Athens said to Demosthenes, The Athenians will kill you if they wax mad. Demosthenes replied, And they will kill you if they be in good sense. 221. There was a philosopher about Tiberius that, looking into the nature of Caius, said of him, That he was mire mingled with blood. 97. There was a king of Hungary took a bishop in battle, and kept him prisoner: whereupon the Pope writ a monitory to him, for that he had broken the privilege of holy church, and taken his son: the king sent an embassage to him, and sent withal the armour wherein the bishop was taken, and this only in writing-Vide num hæc sit vestis filii tui? Know now whether this be thy son's coat? 267. Demetrius, king of Macedon, had a petition offered him divers times by an old woman, and answered he had no leisure; whereupon the woman said aloud, Why then give over to be king. VOLTAIRE. the passage of the This was not said by Antigonus, but by a Spartan, previously to the battle of Thermopylæ. dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension. For another distinguished testimony to Voltaire's merits in literary research, see also Lord Holland's excellent Acceent of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, vol i. p. 215, edition of 1817. Voltaire has even been termed a shallow fellow,' by some of the same school who called Dryden's Ode a drunken song;-a school (as it is called, I presume, from their edacation being still incomplete) the whole of whose filthy trash of Epics, Excursions, &c. &c. &c., is not worth the two words in Zaire, Vous pleures,' or a single speech of Tancred: a school, the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their tea drinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient treachery n This happened un-politics-in the record of their accumulated pretences to virtue der Augustus Cæsar, can produce no actions (were all their good deeds drawn up and not during the in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the family reign of Adrian." of Calas, by that great and unequalled genius-the universal Voltaire. I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuracies of 'the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced,' merely to show our national injustice in condemning generally the greatest genius of France for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of Eng. land has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater IDtellect than Newton? CAMPBELL This happened to the father of Herodes Atticus, and the answer was made by the Being in the humour of criticism, I shall proceed, after having Emperor Nerva, who ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to touch upon one or two as deserved that his name trifling in the edition of the British Poets, by the justly cele should have been stat-brated Campbell. But I do this in good will, and trust it will ed by the greatest be so taken. If anything could add to my opinion of the talents wisest-meanest of and true feeling of that gentleman, it would be his classica, honest, and triumphant defence of Pope, against the vulgar mankind.' cant of the day, and its existing Grub Street. This was said by The inadvertencies to which I allude are Firstly, in speaking of Anstey, whom he accuses of having taken his leading characters from Smollett. Anstey's Bath Guide was published in 1766. Sinollett's Humphrey Cisker (the only work of Smollett's from which Tabitha, &c &c.comd have been taken) was written during Smollett's last residence at Leghorn in 1770- Argal,' if there has been any borrowing, Anstey must be the creditor, and not the debtor. I refer Mr This was not said by Campbell to his own data in his Lives of Smollett and Anstey. Demosthenes, but to Secondly, Mr Campbell says in the Life of Cowper (note to Demosthenes by Pho-page 358, vol. vii.) that he knows not to whom Cowper alludes cion. in these lines, made by a king of This version by no means improves the original, which is as vais. This did not happen to Demetrius, but to Philip, king of Mace don. Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect in his citations from history, I have thought it necessary in what regards so great a name (however trifling), to support the assertion by such facts as more immediately occur to me. They are but trifles, and yet for such trifles a school-boy would be whipped (if still in the fourth form); and Voltaire for half-adozen similar errors has been treated as a superficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned Warton :- Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and customs of the To throw a perfume on the violet,' &c.-King John. also be accurate, when he accuses a Parnassian brother of that A great poet quoting another should be correct; he should dangerous charge 'borrowing: a poet had better borrow any thing (excepting money) than the thoughts of another they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been the lender, to be denounced as the debtor, as is the case of Anstey versus Smollett. As there is 'honour amongst thieves,' let there be some amongst poets, and give each his due,-none can afford to give it Laore than Mr Campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which cannot be shaken, is the cay poet of the times (except Rogers) who can be reproached fand in him it is indeed a reproach) with having written too lative. Ravenna, Jan. 5, 1821. • Dissertation I. Il est trop vrai que l'honneur me l'ordonne, CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BUNGAY. |