l IV.; Venice weaker in 1605 than in 1484.

"* * * The exclusion from the Grand Council, whether at the end of the
fourteenth or commencement of the following century, of the Venetian
ecclesiastics, (as induced either by the republic's acquisitions on the
main land then made, and which, through the rich benefices they
embraced, might have rendered an ambitious churchman as dangerous in the
Grand Council as a victorious condottiere; or from dread of their
allegiance being divided between the church and their country, it being
acknowledged that no man can serve two masters,) did not render them
hostile to their fatherland, whose interests were, with very few
exceptions, eagerly fathered by the Venetian prelates at Rome, who, in
their turn, received all honor at Venice, where state receptions given
to cardinals of the houses of Correr, Grimani, Cornaro, Pisani,
Contarini, Zeno, Delfino, and others, vouch for the good understanding
that existed between the 'Papalists' and their countrymen. The Cardinal
Grimani was instrumental in detaching Julius II. from the league of
Cambrai; the Cardinal Cornaro always aided the state to obtain anything
required of Leo X.; and, both before and after their times, all
Venetians that had a seat in the Sacred College were patriots rather
than pluralists: I mean that they cared more for Venice than for their
benefices, admitting thus the soundness of that policy which denied them
admission into the Grand Council."

To this interesting statement, I shall add, from the twenty-eighth book
of Daru, two passages, well deserving consideration by us English in
present days:

"Pour etre parfaitement assuree contre les envahissements de la
puissance ecclesiastique, Venise commenca par lui oter tout pretexte
d'intervenir dans les affaires de l'Etat; elle resta invariablement
fidele au dogme. Jamais aucune des opinions nouvelles n'y prit la
moindre faveur; jamais aucun heresiarque ne sortit de Venise. Les
conciles, les disputes, les guerres de religion, se passerent sans
qu'elle y prit jamais la moindre part. Inebranlable dans sa foi, elle ne
fut pas moins invariable dans son systeme de tolerance. Non seulement
ses sujets de la religion grecque conserverent l'exercise de leur culte,
leurs eveques et leurs pretres; mais les Protestantes, les Armeniens,
les Mahomitans, les Juifs, toutes les religions, toutes les sectes qui
se trouvaient dans Venise, avaient des temples, et la sepulture dans les
eglises