offices of the magistracy naturally devolved upon those who possessed the influence of property in the highest degree; and as these were, of course, comparatively few in number, the abuse of became less difficult. Hence arose dissensions among power those who aspired to govern, intrigues in the annual elections, licentiousness among the people, and all the symptoms of impending civil war, at the very time when their struggles with external enemies imperiously demanded union and co-operation. In this emergency, they elected, for the first time, a chief Magistrate, called a Doge, who was to hold his office for life. (A. D. 697.) This title, which is a corruption of Dux, while it excluded the idea of Sovereignty, more peculiarly indicated the office of leader of the national armies. He was an object, however, of constant jealousy and vigilance to the existing magistrates, and especially to the council of forty, in which the seeds of the state inquisition, though yet imperceptible on the surface, had taken firm root. Having thus provided a conductor of their wars abroad, and combined vigour in the government with security to popular rights at home, their determination never to yield even the shadow of their political independence acquired new strength.

There was not at that time a single prince in Europe, whether hereditary or elective, who could emancipate himself from vassalage to the Emperor, either of the East or of the West, or perhaps to both. Yet, at that very moment, Venice regarded the concessions made to her by both empires as rewards for her eo-operation in their commercial and maritime expeditions, but never acknowledged them to be held at the pleasure of either emperor as feudal chief. All her historians treat this as a fundamental axiom of the law of nations; while foreign writers have denied it, and have contended that the right of the emperors to make or to recall grants is inalienable.

Charlemagne, indeed, affected to consider the Venetians as his feudal dependents; but either he wanted their assistance, or felt that he had not power to withhold what they demanded; for it is unquestionable, that he declared them independent.* Immediately after the establishment of his family on the throne of Italy, Pepin found a pretext for charging the Venetians with ingratitude, or disobedience to the emperor, and attacked them with all his forces, and with the determination entirely to subdue them but they repulsed his fleet, manned with the troops that had conquered the western empire, and thus put an end to

Machiavelli. Storia. Lib. I.

all claims on their allegiance. We may advert hereafter to the pretensions of the Emperor of the East; but we shall now only say a word on the degree of obedience paid by Venice to the Ecclesiastical oracles of Rome.

"The Doges were invested with power" (we translate from Andrea Dandolo, who was himself a Doge, and the earliest of Venetian historians)" of convoking assemblies; of declaring war, or concluding treaties; of commanding the armies of the state; of appointing the military tribunes and the judges; of hearing appeals, and deciding definitively on all matters at issue; of collecting the citizens in their different islands, and in the quarters or districts of Venice, for the purpose of choosing their parish priests and bishops; of judging all matters concerning the clergy, in causes as well civil as criminal, leaving to the pope the decision of such only as were purely spiritual; lastly, of awarding ecclesiastical punishments, investing the bishops, and installing them in their churches. By the assertion of this latter right, however consonant at the time with the practice of the church of Rome, Venice involved herself afterwards in a struggle with the popes; yet though this struggle was so fierce as sometimes to threaten her immediate destruction, and though every monarch successively yielded to the arrogant pretensions of the sovereign pontiffs, she never, through the whole period of her existence, permitted the court of Rome to interfere in the government of her church.” *

Although invested with such vast powers, it does not appear that the first Doge abused them; he advanced the glory, and augmented the prosperity of the state, and died respected by his subjects. The second did little either for the advantage or injury of the republic. The third, availing himself of the pretext afforded him by a letter from the pope, requesting his aid against the Barbarians, made war upon the Lombards, besieged them in Ravenna, which they had occupied, and reconquered, and restored it to the Emperor of the East. As a reward for these services, he obtained for the republic a tract of land bordering on the sea, and extending to the Adige. But his successes against an enemy hitherto deemed invincible, and the magnificence which he affected after his return from this expedition, alarmed the jealousy of his countrymen, who foresaw a dictator in their victorious general. He was assassinated by the populace in his palace, and the dignity of Doge was abolished. (A. D. 737.)

In its stead was established the office of a chief, removable

Ejusque jussione (Ducis) clericorum consilia et electiones prælaturarum a Clero et Populo debeant inchoare, et electi ab eo (Duce) investitionem accipere, et ejus mandato inthronisari.-And. Dandolo, apud Gallicioli, chron. I.-Daru, Hist. vol. 1. p. 42.

from year to year, with the title of Maestro della Milizia. Only four successive leaders enjoyed this dignity; the fifth was imprisoned, his eyes were put out, and he was deposed. (A. D. 742.)

The Venetians then restored the office of Doge, which was, as before, elective, and held for life. Of forty-three who reigned in the course of three hundred years, scarcely one-half concluded their career in peace. Five were compelled to abdicate, three were assassinated by conspirators, one was condemned to death according to legal forms, and nine sentenced to be deposed, and deprived of sight, or to exile, and sometimes to all these punishments united. Some only escaped them by dying on the field of battle. Yet few of them, if any, had brought any great calamity upon the republic, whilst many had extended her dominion and her fame, by the acquisition of extensive provinces on the Adriatic, and by planting some of those colonies in the Archipelago, which afterwards facilitated her conquests in the East, and aided the growth of her adventurous commerce.

The persecutions and punishments which followed every attempt, on the part of the Doges, to render the throne hereditary, and the judicial trial and execution, by which the state repressed all schemes of personal ambition, afford the strongest proofs that the abhorrence of the Venetians for the government of one man continued unabated during the first seven centuries of their political existence. The real depositary of the republican power, was the council of forty. Like the Ephori of Sparta, they exercised directly but few of the functions of the executive-but they ruled over their kings. On the forty also devolved the sovereign power during the interregna; sometimes after the deposition or death of Doges, whom they themselves had tried and condemned. Thus slowly and imperceptibly arose that aristocratical domination which prepared the way for the silent usurpations of the oligarchy, and was at length matured into the tremendous despotism of the State-Inquisition. A body of Magistrates, however, existed in Venice, at this period, whose functions were totally different from those of the Ephori, and were borrowed (if, indeed, they were imitated at all,) from those of the tribunes of the people in Rome. They were called Avvogadore del Comun -advocates of the Commonwealth. They were three in number; but the Veto of one of them was sufficient to suspend the execution of all sentences of the courts of justice, all decrees of the Doges, and all deliberations of the council of forty, or of the popular assemblies. The Avvogador assigned no reason for his Veto till the expiration of a month and a day, and might even twice extend this for a like period; he had then the privilege of appointing either the Doge or the Forty, or any other body of

magistrates, or the assembly of the people, to decide exclusively on the validity of his reason.

It is manifest, therefore, that the preponderance of the Avvogadori was resistless, since they had only to avail themselves of the jealousies necessarily existing between the various bodies of the state, and select that one as their judge, whose views and interests were opposed to the law or decree suspended by their Veto. They thus prevented the powers of the government from being concentrated in the hands of any one of those bodies. The name, the office, the dignity, and the functions of the Avvogadori were preserved in appearance until the total ruin of the republic. But their power of opposing either the introduction of monarchy, the usurpations of aristocracy, or the licentiousness of the people, although always admitted as a constitutional and inalienable right, had been long substantially annihilated by the State-Inquisition. We shall see hereafter, that the fate of the council of forty was not very dissimilar; it was eventually bound in the chains forged for it by a magistracy which sprang from its own body. Thus were the various powers of the Doge, in whom resided the executive-of the forty, who possessed the legislative and the judicial—and of the Avvogadori, to whom was intrusted the guardianship of the popular rights, balanced according to that system which has been thought to be the contrivance of theoretical politicians. It is, however, far more probable that these checks grew out of the imperious necessity of circumstances, or out of those principles, or rather antipathies, which governed the people of Venice, than that they were formally instituted in imitation of the Republics of Greece or Rome, or in conformity to the speculations of theorists. Such speculations were, indeed, unknown to the age of which we are treating. But no human precautions, however wise, can avail against the slow but certain and irresistible influence of property. Whereever its possession has been confirmed by time, it becomes the surest basis of ambition, and at length bears down everything before it. The families which, for ages, had filled the civil and military offices of the state, while they continued to enrich themselves by commerce, had thus accumulated a stock of influence which was transmitted, increased in every generation, from father to son. Hence arose that Aristocracy which is the result of no positive institutions, but the offspring of wealth rendered venerable by antiquity. It owes its birth and its duration to itself alone, nor can princes or people either establish or abolish it. At the epoch, however, under our consideration, an aristocracy of this nature, although it existed in Venice, did not constitute a distinct body, nor enjoy any exclusive right or privilege.

It formed, no doubt, the reigning class, because every people who have their government to form, and the power of choosing their governors, will prefer those who have most influence and power as individuals. The Roman people maintained a struggle for ages with the senate, for the right of electing plebeian consuls, yet, when they prevailed, they made no use of their power, but continued to choose them from among the patrician class.

In the meanwhile, the population of Venice increased; her territorial sovereignty, although still confined within the boundaries of her own marshes in Italy, was extended, in other directions, by her conquests in the Mediterranean. These acquisitions whetted her eagerness for fresh expeditions, and drew her into long wars, which were fed by the fruits of her commerce. Her principal citizens were at once warlike and mercantile,—they commanded her fleets and her armies, and exercised vigilant control over their chief; and while they thus acquired both glory and riches, they maintained the free constitution of the republic. The authority of the Doge, perilous and precarious as it always was, served to divert all popular jealousy from the powerful citizens, to whom it ought rather to have been directed. When the magistrates, who were generally selected from that class, sat in judgment on their prince, the dignity and the legal formality of their proceedings prevented the suspicion of corrupt designs,especially as, in order to get rid of a dangerous responsibility, they usually contrived to have their sentences confirmed by the popular assemblies.

It does not appear, from any existing record, that the sanguinary tumults of the populace, who sometimes constituted themselves judges and executioners of their Doges, were ever punished. On some occasions, possibly, they were; but it is probable that the number of the offenders afforded a reason, or a pretext, for granting impunity to all; and yet more probable, that they had powerful accomplices in their judges.

In whatever degree personal hatred conspired to hurl one Doge after another from the throne, the frequency of the event clearly shows, that it could not have been disagreeable to that great aristocracy in whom the power of prevention or punishment was undoubtedly vested, and that their connivance in these frequent assassinations, was secured by their design of availing themselves of these scenes of lawlessness and bloodshed as a pretext for abolishing the popular election of the chief magistrate, who was thus summarily disposed of by his constituents. Sometimes the people deposed a Doge whom, but a month before, they had chosen by acclamation; he was sent