the brilliant pages of the French author, ever existed, is more than dubious; for it rests on the very slight contemporaneous authority of a letter from a Frenchman then resident at Venice, dated the 21st of May 1618, and inserted in the Mercure de France for that year (tom. v. p. 38); and slender indeed are the materials which that solitary original document supplies for the elegant but frail superstructure so ingeniously raised on it.

"Quæ bene et eximie quamvis disposta ferantur, Longe sunt tamen a verâ ratione repulsa." Lucret. lib. ii. 643.

"On est fâché," says the editor of Saint-Réal's Work, (Paris, 1781), "de ne plus trouver qu'une fable où l'on aimoit à voir un événement réel." Nor does any distinct advertence to the event occur, I apprehend, in any native writer, before J. B. Nani published his "Historia della Republica Veneta (1676, 2 vols. 4to)," where it is first mentioned, lib. iii. p. 156; but this work, though undertaken by desire of the Senate, and estimable for its general accuracy, exhibits little evidence that the secrets of state-the mysterious doings of that body-were unreservedly revealed to the chosen annalist. Besides, except the first part, (embracing the early periods of the republic, which had originally appeared in 1662,) it is posterior in date to Saint-Réal's narration, published in 1674, and of which it consequently could not have formed the groundwork. The Spanish historians of that æra are not more explanatory of the transaction, of which, like the English, the later writers seem to have derived their information almost exclusively from the French author, whom Watson, or his continuator, (Life of Philip III. book v.) implicitly follows, or rather transcribes.

Of a subject so involved in obscurity, the truth must be of difficult attainment; and doubt is the necessary result- "Che non men che saver, dubbiar m'aggrata" (Dante, Inferno xi. 93); but it opened, of course, a wide scope for hypothesis and conjecture. Among those, however, whose attention has been most laboriously directed to its elucidation, Monsieur J. P. Grosley, a learned advocate of Troyes (the capital of Champagne), and equally esteemed as a citizen and a writer, was the first who produced FRA-PAOLO on the stage, and assigned to him a prominent part on the occasion. In 1756, this gentleman published a refutation of Saint-Réal's story, which, after some controversy, and a second journey to Italy for the purpose of local investigation, he considerably enlarged and appended to his work, "Observations de deux Gentilshommes Suédois sur l'Italie"* (Lond. 1775, 4 vols. 12mo.), under the title of "Discussion Historique et Critique sur la Conjuration de Venise." His chief guide, as well as inducement, in undertaking the inquiry, was a manuscript, composed of contemporaneous documents, in the library of the Marquis de Paulmy, whose ancestor, Réné d'Argenson (Voyer de Paulmy), had amassed these vouchers, while ambassador at Venice, where he died in 1653. This precious manuscript, as the editor of Saint-Réal designates it, is now, I believe, in the library of the Arsenal at Paris, with the general collection of the Marquis's books, which, on his death in 1785, were bought by the late Charles X. then Comte d'Artois. A copy is also in the Royal Library.

From this mass of original evidence, so viewed at least by M. Grosley, he arrived at the conclusion, that the conspiracy had no real existence, but was the concoction of the fertile brain of Sarpi, who persuaded the Senate, (of which he was the soul and oracle, and by whom he was "trusted with the most important secrets," as Burnet, in his life of Bedel, says, ever since the great contest with Paul V. in 1607,) to magnify into a state-plot an accidental ebullition of discontent among some foreign mercenaries, in order to remove the Spanish Ambassador, by imputing it to him.* This person, whom Saint-Réal describes as "un des plus puissants génies et des plus dangereux esprits que l'Espagne ait jamais produits," had long been a peculiar object of dread and aversion to the Republic, whose intrigues he detected, and whose policy he opposed, as insidiously hostile to his sovereign, Philip III. when lately at war with Savoy, and not repelled, he conceived, with sufficient energy by that monarch, one of the feeblest of his race. To Bedemar was attributed, at the time, the famous "Squittinio della Liberta Veneta," or Scrutiny into the Liberty of Venice (La Mirandola, 1612, 4to.), as to Burke were generally ascribed, on their appearance, the Letters of Junius, because he was deemed most capable of the composition; and Bedemar alone was supposed to possess the deep information which that volume unfolded on all the elements of Venetian government. No book had appeared so pregnant with truth or so virulent in spirit, nor one which, consequently, created a more deadly hatred of the presumed author, who laid open the darkest recesses of the State; the overweening pretensions of which to maritime sovereignty, liberality of principle, and territorial independence, he exposed or derided. In Saint-Réal's opinion, also, Bedemar was the parent of this libel, as he terms it (page 166); but it is now more generally considered the production of Welserus, of Augsburg, whom a long residence at Venice, and other parts of Italy, had made a perfect

master of the subject and language.(See Bayle, article Velserus, and Placcius de libris anonymis, Hamb. 1707). A French translation, under the title of "Examen de la Liberté Originaire de Venise," by Amelot de la Houssaie, forms part of his work-“ Sur le Gouvernement de Venise" (Amst. 1714, 3 vols. 12mo.); for which, in consequence of its freedom of thought and expression, he was committed to the Bastille. He had been Secretary to the French Ambassador at Venice, where, he states, that all intercourse, more especially after the event of 1618, was most rigidly interdicted between the nobles and foreign ministers, and which he exemplifies by some ludicrous instances in his own person. "Si un noble," he says, "se rencontrait quelque part avec un gentilhomme, ou quelque autre personne de la maison d'un ambassadeur.... il ne serait pas en vie deux heures après." J. J. Rousseau likewise adverts to the Squittinio, in his Contrat Social (denominated by Voltaire, Contrat Insocial), liv. iii. chap. xi.; and Monsieur Barbier also treats of it in his "Dictionnaire des Anonymes"(1824).

But, whoever was the author of the book, the ascription of it to Bedemar is at once a presumption of his capacity, and declarative of the Senate's anxiety to be freed from his obnoxious presence. Sarpi's device was effective of its purpose; and the ambassador, after a residence of eleven years, though he indignantly repelled the imputation in an audience of the Senate, with difficulty escaped the excited rage of the populace. His subsequent fortunes were singular enough. In 1622 he was raised to the purple-then appointed Governor of the Netherlands, whence he was removed for his severity, and was successively Bishop of Palestrina in Italy, and of Malaga in Spain, where he died in 1665, aged above eighty. The name in Spanish is Bedmar, not Bedemar, as written

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