private tendencies of the Venetian character.

"There is, however, another most interesting feature in the policy of
Venice, which a Romanist would gladly assign as the reason of its
irreligion; namely, the magnificent and successful struggle which she
maintained against the temporal authority of the Church of Rome. It is
true that, in a rapid survey of her career, the eye is at first arrested
by the strange drama to which I have already alluded, closed by that
ever memorable scene in the portico of St. Mark's, the central
expression in most men's thoughts of the unendurable elevation of the
pontifical power; it is true that the proudest thoughts of Venice, as
well as the insignia of her prince, and the form of her chief festival,
recorded the service thus rendered to the Roman Church. But the enduring
sentiment of years more than balanced the enthusiasm of a moment; and
the bull of Clement V., which excommunicated the Venetians and their
doge, likening them to Dathan, Abiram, Absalom, and Lucifer, is a
stronger evidence of the great tendencies of the Venetian government
than the umbrella of the doge or the ring of the Adriatic. The
humiliation of Francesco Dandolo blotted out the shame of Barbarossa,
and the total exclusion of ecclesiastics from all share in the councils
of Venice became an enduring mark of her knowledge of the spirit of the
Church of Rome, and of her defiance of it. To this exclusion of papal
influence from her councils the Romanist will attribute their
irreligion, and the Protestant their success. The first may be silenced
by a reference to the character of the policy of the Vatican itself; and
the second by his own shame, when he reflects that the English
Legislature sacrificed their principles to expose themselves to the very
danger which the Venetian senate sacrificed theirs to avoid.

"One more circumstance remains to be noted respecting the Venetian
government, the singular unity of the families composing it,--unity far
from sincere or perfect, but still admirable when contrasted with the
fiery feuds, the almost daily revolutions, the restless succession of
families and parties in power, which fill the annals of the other states
of Italy. That rivalship should sometimes be ended by the dagger, or
enmity conducted to its ends under the mask of law, could not but be
anticipated where the fierce Italian spirit was subjected to so severe a
restraint: it is much that jealousy appears usually commingl