II. PRIDE OF STATE II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE 99

Michael Morosini; and Morosini was chosen. It might be anticipated, therefore, that there was something more than usually admirable or illustrious in his character. Yet it is difficult to arrive at a just estimate of it, as the reader will at once understand by comparing the following statements:

§ 67. 1. “To him (Andrea Contarini) succeeded Morosini, at the age of seventy-four years; a most learned and prudent man, who also reformed several laws.”-Sansovino, Vite de’ Principi.

2. “It was generally believed that, if his reign had been longer, he would have dignified the state by many noble laws and institutes; but by so much as his reign was full of hope, by as much was it short in duration, for he died when he had been at the head of the republic but four months.”-Sabellico, lib. viii.

3. “He was allowed but a short time to enjoy this high dignity, which he so well deserved by his rare virtues, for God called him to Himself on the 15th of October.”-Muratori, Annali d’ Italia.

4. “Two candidates presented themselves; one was Zeno, the other that Michael Morosini who, during the war, had tripled his fortune by his speculations. The suffrages of the electors fell upon him, and he was proclaimed Doge on the 10th of June.”-Daru, Histoire de Venise, lib. x.

5. “The choice of the electors was directed to Michaele Morosini, a noble of illustrious birth, derived from a stock which, coeval with the republic itself, had produced the conqueror of Tyre, given a queen to Hungary, and more than one Doge to Venice. The brilliancy of this descent was tarnished in the present chief representative of the family by the most base and grovelling avarice; for at that moment, in the recent war, at which all other Venetians were devoting their whole fortunes to the service of the state, Morosini sought in the distresses of his country an opening for his own private enrichment, and employed his ducats, not in the assistance of the national wants, but in speculating upon houses which were brought to market at a price far beneath their real value, and which, upon the return of peace, insured the purchaser a fourfold profit. ‘What matters the fall of Venice to me, so as I fall not together with her?’ was his selfish and sordid reply to some one who expressed surprise at the transaction.”-Sketches of Venetian History. Murray, 1831.

§ 68. The writer of the unpretending little history¹ from which the last quotation is taken has not given his authority for this statement, and I could not find it, but believed, from the general accuracy of the book, that some authority might exist better than Daru’s. Under these circumstances,

¹ [The anonymous author of these Sketches from Venetian History, forming two volumes in Murray’s “Family Library,” was the Rev. Edward Smedley.]

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