gain such labour
brings; over the originals so injured, and so hard to decipher, linger
the spirits of that long-past age. Especial attention is due to the
almost complete series of pamphlets of the time, which the Museum
possesses. As we read them, there are years in which we are present,
as it were, at the public discussion that went on, at least in the
capital, from month to month, from week to week, on the weightiest
questions of government and public life.

If any one has ever attempted to reconstruct for himself a portion of
the past from materials of this kind,--from original documents, and
party writings which, prompted by hate or personal friendship, are
intended for defence or attack, and yet are withal exceedingly
incomplete,--he will have felt the need of other contemporary notices,
going into detail but free from such party views. A rich harvest of
such independent reports has been supplied to me for this, as well as
for my other works, by the archives of the ancient Republic of Venice.
The 'Relations,' which the ambassadors of that Republic were wont to
draw up on their return home, invaluable though they are in reference
to persons and the state of affairs in general, are not, however,
sufficient to supply a detailed and consecutive account of events. But
the Venetian archives possess also a long series of continuous
Reports, which place us, as it were, in the very midst of the courts,
the capitals, and the daily course of public business. For the
sixteenth century they are only preserved in a very fragmentary state
as regards England; for the seventeenth they lie before us, with gaps
no doubt here and there, yet in much greater completeness. Even in the
first volume they have been useful to me for Mary Tudor's reign and
the end of Elizabeth's; in the later ones, not only for James I's
times, but also far more for Charles I's government and his quarrel
with the Parliament. Owing to the geographical distance of Venice from
England, and her neutral position in the world, her ambassadors were
able to devote an attention to English affairs which is free from all
interested motives, and sometimes to observe their general course in
close communication with the leading men. We could not compose a
history from the reports they give, but combined with the documentary
matter these reports form a very welcome supplement to our knowledge.

Ambassadors who have to manage matters of all kinds, great and small,
at the