by Saint-Réal, whom, however, I have followed, as it is to his work I more particularly refer.

Meanwhile, the governments of Spain and Venice appeared alike solicitous to wrap in darkness the whole transaction, of which no official record has ever been discovered; and the Senate issued a proclamation, prohibiting, under pain of death, the imputation of the plot to the Spanish monarchy. It is easy to understand how the mystery may have remained unrevealed under a despotic state; but the secrecy which shrouded the deli berations of so numerous a body as the Senate of Venice has always been a source of astonishment. Constituted, in some degree, after the model of that of Rome, and reckoning, in like manner, about 300 members, who were divided into various departments of legislation, seldom did the object or result of their deliberations transpire, until the Council or Executive gave it effect. "Non dicam unum, sed neminem audisse crederes, quod tam multorum auribus fuerat commissum"-(Valerius Maximus, lib. ii. cap. 2), is an observation not inapplicable to the circumstance. And similarly in Rome, when Eumenes, King of Pergamus, disclosed to the Conscript Fathers the secret preparations of war by Perseus, nothing was known of the debate for five years-(U. C. 580-585). "Hæc oratio movit Patres Conscriptos: ceterum in præsentia nihil præterquam fuisse in curiâ regem, scire quisquam potuit; eo silentio clausa curia erat! bello denique perfecto, quæque dicta ab rege, quæque responsa essent, emanavere." (Livy, lib. xlii. cap. 14, and De la Houssaie, ut supra.)

M. Grosley, I think it right to ob. serve, has also offered a second solution of the enigma; in which he ascribes the principal agency to another celebrated monk, the Capuchin Père Joseph (Le Clerc), who subsequently became the subtle instrument of Cardinal Richelieu's intrigues. His object, it would seem, was to excite a crusade against the Turks; but the attempt was quickly defeated and punished by the Venetian Government, just then particularly desirous of peace with the Ottoman power. Count Daru, however, at once rejects this GENT. MAG. VOL. X.

version of the occurrence as improbable. His own exposition of it, as detailed in his valuable History of Venice (7 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1819), after the most diligent investigation, to which he has devoted his thirty-first book (tome iv.), is equally declaratory of Bedemar's innocence. The real conspirators, according to this sagacious writer, were the Duke of Ossuna, and the Senate of Venice, in secret league to wrest Naples, of which the ambitious Duke was Viceroy, from Spain; but the project immaturely exploded, and as these high parties were too powerful to assail, even if suspected, the subordinate agents or dupes were as usual sacrificed as victims of propitiation. In fact, as Muratori (Annali d'Italia, Milano, 1749, ad annum 1618) observes, and the remark is confirmed by the laborious compilers of "L'Art de vérifier les Dates," (tom. xvii. p. 493, 8vo. ed.), the sole deducible certainty on the occasion is the execution of several obscure individuals, chiefly foreigners, necessary to impart a semblance and colouring of existence to some plot, whether the contrivance of Fra-Paolo or the enterprise of Ossuna. But the whole still remains an unsolved problem, and well may it be said, in reference to it

"De las cosas mas seguras,
La mas segura es dudar."

"Solum certum nihil esse certi."

Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. 7.

With respect, however, to the part assigned to Sarpi in D'Argenson's manuscript, though more creditable, it must be confessed, to his ingenuity than to his morality, it presents nothing inconsistent with his habits and general character. Nor does it fall under any impeachment of veracity from his writings, even if we admit the disclaimer of his friends, as to the authorship of the "Memoria Presentata al Senato," though generally attributed to him by his contemporaries, and translated by the Abbé Marsey under the title of "Le Prince de FraPaolo." (Paris, 1751, 12mo.) was not by any means a novice in combining or unfolding state intrigues; and few indeed, eed, in his day or in his country, would, from conscientious scruples, have recoiled from the act

T

He

great talents and extraordinary acquirements, though divergent in the extreme have been their opinions as to the use and application of these advantages. His mind and memory grasped, in their most comprehensive range, all the departments of existing science; but his literary taste or discrimination was signally obtuse or paradoxical; for to him Homer appeared, it is asserted, no better than an old chronicler, or at best a mere historian! Of the numerous fruits of his pen, his History of the Council of Trent, (Londra, 1619, folio) necessarily assumes, both from its subject and execution, the foremost place. It is, doubtless, a masterly production; but the feeling that dictates, and the spirit that pervades it, harmonise ill, indeed, with his habitual submission, more especially exemplified in his last moments, to all the forms of the church, which he undermines or assails with consummate art, while in the exercise of her most important functions, and just then, as Mr. Hallam observes, (Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 258) "effect. ing such considerable reforms in her discipline."

Sarpi's dying ejaculation-Esto Per. petua, allusive, it is supposed, to Venice, has not, as I observed on a former occasion, (Gent. Mag. for September 1837,) received the sanction of heaven; for

"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord," and

"Venice lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose !" Childe Harold, IV. 11, 13.

or, in the classical strains of his countryman Sannazaro (Elegia in Oper. Ald. 1535. 8vo.)

"Et querimur cito si nostræ data tempora

vitæ

Diffugiunt! Urbes mors violenta rapit : Fata trahunt homines; fatis urgentibus, urbes Et quodcumque vides auferet ipsa dies."

What a contrast with the proud and

palmy days of Venice, which her citi-
zens vaunted as the special work of
the Most High, "Opus Excelsi," and
superior to Rome herself!
"Si pelago Tybrim præfers, urbem aspice
utramque;

Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos."
Idem Sannaz.

As for the second portion of my subject, "the consideration of FraPaolo's pretensions to the discovery of the circulation of the blood;" or, at least, those urged by his admirers, though more warmly by the English reviewer even than by the foreign biographer, it is of easy decision, because resolvable by clear and unambiguous evidence. It will be sufficient to shew that, in a work contemporaneous with Sarpi's birth-one, moreover, with which, though on different grounds, all Christendom resounded on its publication, -the fact appeared stated, if not in full and lucid, at least in intelligible, language. Fra-Paolo was born the 14th August 1552, and a few months after, early in 1553, issued from the press, the CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO of the ill-fated Servetus, in which a passage, that I shall presently recite, unequivocally indicates, in the opinion of those most competent to determine its construction, the circulation through the lungs; thus evincing the earliest perception of the truth, or the nearest approach to it, before its complete development seventy-five years afterwards, (15531628) by Harvey, in his work "De motu cordis et sanguinis." But, as the suppression and supposed destruction of the book-at once the cause and instrument of the author's death, for it served to kindle the flames to which he was condemned for its heterodoxy, -make it most probable that the Venetian had no knowledge of his predecessor's incidental view, rather than professed exposition of the great discovery, he may be absolved from the reproach of unfounded assumption or plagiarism. Just so

in the controversy on the invention of fluxions, though, as Fontenelle acknowledged, the original discovery was due to Newton, yet, as it subsequently beamed on the genius of Leibnitz without previous communication, it has been judged the fruit of equal and independent, but not simultaneous, sagacity in both. Fra-Fulgenzio (Vita del Padre Paolo, p. 64, ed. Venez. 1677) says, that Sarpi reflected that the blood from its specific gravity could not remain suspended and motionless in the veins, "senza che vi fasse angine che la retinesse è chiusure, ch' aprendosi é riserrandosi, gli dassero il flusso è l'equilibrio necessario alla vita." I shall now transcribe the words of Servetus, premising that occasional expressions are found in the writers of antiquity, which would seem to denote some dark and distant glimpses of the truth; but nothing in the remotest degree approaching the light thrown on it in the following passage, which I extract from De Bure's "Bibliographie Instructive," tom. i. p. 421.

"Vitalis spiritus in sinistro cordis ventriculo suam originem habet, juvantibus maxime pulmonibus ad ipsius perfectio

nem.

Generatur ex factâ in pulmone commixtione inspirati äeris cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quem dexter ventriculus

sinistro communicat. Fit autem communicatio hæc, non per parietem cordis medium, ut vulgò creditur, sed magno artificio a dextro cordis ventriculo, longo per pulmones ductu agitatur sanguis subtilis; à pulmonibus præparatur, flavus efficitur, et à venâ arteriosâ in arteriam venosam transfunditur. Deinde in ipsâ arteriâ venosa, inspirato äeri miscetur, et exspiratione à fuligine expurgatur, atque ita tandem a sinistro cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolen attrahitur.. Quod ita per pulmones fiat communicatio et præparatio, docet conjunctio varia, et communicatio venæ arteriosæ cum arteria venosa in pulmonibus. Confirmat hoc magnitudo insignis venæ arteriosæ, quæ nec talis nec tanta facta esset, nec tantum A corde ipso vim purissimi sanguinis in pulmones emitteret, ob solum eorum nutrimentum; nec cor pulmonibus hâc ratione serviret, cum præsertim antea in embrione solerent pulmones ipsi aliunde nutriri, ob membranulas illas, seu valvulas cordis usque ad horum nativitatem; ut docet GALENUS, &c. Itaque ille spiritus

a sinistro cordis ventriculo arterias totius corporis deinde transfunditur, &c."

Upon which the writer of an able article on the subject, in Rees's Cyclopædia, remarks, that it incontestably proves that Servetus knew the minor circulation. He laid the foundation of a building which had baffled all the efforts of antiquity. He indicated the route through which the blood passes from the right to the left ventricle; and it only remained to be shown that all the blood takes this passage, and that it returns again to the heart from the arteries through the veins. As for the claim of Fra-Paolo, this writer considers it so destitute of foundation as scarcely to be entitled to notice. At all events it is demonstrably posterior to that of Servetus, which it is my object to establish. Some further advances, intermediately between the incipient light of Servetus and the conclusive work of Harvey, were made by Realdus Columbus, Arantius, Cæsalpinus, and the great anatomist Aquapendente (or Fabricius). This last-named physiologist's pretensions have been specially insisted on by his disciples; but Fulgenzio stoutly contends that his views were derived from the communications of Sarpi ("del padre").

But, though not unconscious of having already trespassed too far on your indulgence, the celebrity of the work of Servetus, to which it has been necessary on this occasion to refer, and the peculiar interest which concomitant circumstances have communicated to it, induce, and will, I trust, excuse, a few additional observations on it.

There does not appear any certainty of the existence of more than one copy of the book, which, as I have said, was consumed with its author. "Femori auctoris alligatus fuit, et cum ipso combustus," asserts Meerman, (Origines Typ Typographicæ, 1765,) and Mr. Pettigrew (Bibliotheca Sussexiana, p. 408,) confirms the fact. This copy had been surreptitiously preserved by Collardon, one of the judges of Servetus, and successively passed through the hands of Dr. Meade, M. de Boze, M. Gaignat, and the Duke de la Vallière, at whose sale, in 1783, it was purchased for the Royal Parisian Library, not at the price of 3810 livres, as represented by Mr. Pettigrew, (p. 292, 1st part,) but for 4120 livres