Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Under the Republic these collections of State papers were not known as archives, but as chancelleries. The collections of highest interest, the papers to which the student is most likely to turn his attention, are those relating to the ceremony, to the home, and to the foreign policy of Venice. These three groups are contained in the Ducal, the Secret, and the Inferior Chancelleries. The three chancelleries were committed to the charge of the Grand Chancellor and his staff of secretaries, who received, arranged, and registered the official papers as they issued from the various Councils of State. The Grand Chancellor was not a patrician; he was chosen from that upper class of commoners known as _cittadini originarii_, an inferior order of nobility, ranking below the governing caste, but bearing coat armour. The office of Grand Chancellor was of great dignity and antiquity, and was held for life. The Chancellor was head and representative of the people, as the Doge was head and representative of the patricians; and, when the nobility began to exclude the people from all share in the government, the Grand Chancellor was allowed to be present at all sessions of the Great Council and of the Senate as the silent witness of the people, confirming the acts of the Government, and bridging, though by the finest thread, the gulf that otherwise separated the governed from the governing. The part which the Grand Chancellor took in the business of the Maggior Consiglio and of the Senate was a constant and an active part. It was his duty to superintend the arrangements for every election, to direct the secretaries in attendance, to announce the names of the candidates for office, and to proclaim the successful competitor. His seat in the Great Council Hall was on the left-hand of the Doge's dais, and his secretaries sat below him. But the custody of the State papers was by far the most important function which the Grand Chancellor had to perform. To assist him in these labours he was placed at the head of a large College of Secretaries, trained in a school especially established to fit them for their duties. In the year 1443 a decree of the Great Council required the Doge and the Signoria to elect each year twelve lads to be taught Latin, rhetoric and philosophy, and the number of the pupils was gradually increased. From this school they passed out by examination, and became first extra-ordinaries and ordinaries, called Notaries Ducal, then secretaries to the Senate, and finally secretaries to the Ten. The post of secretary was one which required much diligence and discretion. The secretaries were in constant attendance on the various Councils of State, and thus became intimately acquainted with all the secret affairs of the Republic. They were frequently sent on delicate missions. It was a secretary of the Ten who brought Carmagnola to Venice to stand his trial; and, as we shall presently relate, it was a secretary of the Senate who announced to Thomas Killigrew, the English Minister, his dismissal from Venice. The secretaries were sometimes accredited as Residents to foreign Courts, though they were not eligible for the post of Ambassador. Inside the Chancellery the secretaries were entirely at the disposal of the Grand Chancellor, and their duties were to study, to invent, and to read cipher; to transcribe the registers and rubrics; to keep the annals of the Council of Ten, and to enter the laws in the statute book.

We may now turn our attention to the principal series of State papers which issued from the five great members of the Constitution, the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, the Ten, the College, and the Doge, and show how these papers were arranged under the three Chancelleries of which we have spoken.

The Cancelleria Inferiore was preserved in one large room near the head of the Giants' Staircase in the Ducal Palace, and was entrusted to the care of the Notaries Ducal, the lowest order of secretaries. The documents in this Chancellery related chiefly to the Doge; his rights, his official possessions, his restrictions, and his state. Among these papers, accordingly, we find the coronation oaths, the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to examine those oaths, and the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to review the life of each Doge deceased. This series is valuable as revealing the steps by which the aristocracy slowly curtailed the personal authority of the Doge, and bound his office about with iron fetters, and crushed his power. In addition to these papers the Inferior Chancellery contained the documents relating to the dignitaries of St. Mark's in its capacity as Ducal Chapel; the order and ceremony of the Ducal household; the expenditure of the Civil List; and the archives of the Procurators of Saint Mark, which contained the will, trusts, and bequests of private citizens.

The Ducal Chancellery, which the Council of Ten once called 'cor nostri status,' was preserved on the upper floor of the palace, and was reached by the Scala d'oro. The papers were arranged in a number of cupboards surmounted by the arms of the various Grand Chancellors who had presided in that office. The documents of the Ducal Chancellery are of far higher importance than those contained in the Cancelleria Inferiore; they consist of political papers which it was not necessary to keep secret. Among the many interesting series of documents which fell to the Ducal Chancellery, the most valuable are the 'Compilazione delle Leggi,' or statute-books distinguished by the various colours of their bindings--gold, roan, and green--to mark the statutes which relate to the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, and the College respectively; the Secretario alle voci, or record of all elections in the Great Council; the Libri gratiarum, or special privileges. But most important of all is the great series of documents which include the whole legislation of the State relating to Venetian affairs on sea and land. Of this vast series those marked _Terra_ contain 3128 volumes of files, 411 volumes of registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics; those marked _Mar_ number 1286 volumes of files, 247 volumes of registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics. It will easily be seen how important the Ducal Chancellery is both for the verification of dates, and also as displaying so large a tract of the Venetian home administration.

But important as the Ducal Chancellery undoubtedly is, it cannot vie in interest with the Cancelleria Secreta, which might, with every justice, have been called 'cor nostri status', for it is in the papers of that Chancellery that the long history of the growth, splendour, and decline of the Republic is to be traced in all its manifold details and complicated relations. The Secret Chancellery was established by a decree of the Great Council in the year 1402. Its object was to preserve those papers of the highest State importance, from the publicity to which the Ducal Chancellery was exposed. The regulation of the Secret Chancellery was undertaken by the Council of Ten, and the rigorous orders which they issued from time to time abundantly prove the difficulty they experienced in securing the secrecy which they desired. The Secret Chancellery became the depository of all State papers of great moment; and if we take the chief members of the constitution in order, and note the documents issuing from them which fell to the custody of the Secreta, we shall see how the great flow of Venetian history is to be followed here rather than in any other department of the archives.

To begin with the Maggior Consiglio, we have the long series of registers containing the deliberations of the Council from the year 1232 down to the fall of the Republic in 1797, occupying forty-two volumes, and distinguished, at first, by such capricious names as Capricornus, Philosus, Presbiter, and Fronesis; and later on by the names of the secretaries who prepared them, Ottobonus primus, Ottobonus filius, Busenellus, and Vianolus. In the special archive of the Avogadori di Commun a contemporary series of registers is to be found; it covers from 1232 to 1547, and should be consulted together with the first series, for it is more voluminous and minute. The first reference to England that occurs in the Venetian archives is in the volume Fronesis (1318-1385). This, and all other documents relating to Great Britain, have been collected and rendered accessible in the splendid and monumental series of the 'Calendar of State Papers,' edited with such diligence and care by the late Mr. Rawdon Brown. Mr. Brown's published work goes down to the year 1552; and it is only after that date that any work relating to England remains to be done. That work, however, is voluminous, for the regular and unbroken series of dispatches from England does not begin till the reign of James I. Little more respecting England is to be expected from the papers of the Great Council, however; for at the date where Mr. Brown's work ends, the Maggior Consiglio had ceased to occupy a high position in the direction of Venetian foreign policy; its functions were chiefly confined to the election of magistrates.

The Senate supplied a far larger number of papers to the Secret Chancellery than that yielded by the Great Council. This was to be expected, owing to the central position of the Senate in the constitution, and its prominent place in the management of Venetian policy, home and foreign. The oldest documents in the archives of Venice belong to the Senate. They are contained among the volumes of Pacts or treaties, seven in number, without including the volume Albus, which is devoted to treaties between the Republic and the Eastern Empire, nor the volume Blancus, which contains the treaties between Venice and the Emperors of the West. The thirty-three volumes of Commemoriali formed a sort of commonplace book for the use of statesmen; in them were registered briefly the most important events and abstracts of principal documents which passed through the hands of the Government. The Commemoriali cover the years 1293 to 1797; but after the middle of the sixteenth century they were neglected, and they are chiefly valuable down to that date only. After the Patti and Commemoriali we begin the record of the regular proceedings in the Senate. This series contains papers relating to home government, foreign policy, the dominions of Venice on the mainland, in Dalmatia and the Levant, ecclesiastical matters, relations with Rome, instructions to ambassadors and reports from governors. So widely spread and so varied were the attributes of the Senate, that the analysis of a single day's proceedings in that house would prove most instructive to the student of the Venetian constitution, and would, in all probability, bring him into contact with a large number of the leading magistracies of the Republic. The series of senatorial papers proceeds in almost unbroken completeness from the year 1293 down to the close of the Republic; and counting files, registers and rubrics, numbers 1599 volumes. This main series is known by different names at different periods, and shows signs of that tendency to subdivision which characterizes all Venetian Government offices. The volumes which run from the year 1293 to 1440 were known as Registri misti; those covering from 1491 to 1630, and overlapping the first Misti, were called Registri secreti. After the year 1630 the papers of the Senate are divided into those known as Corti, relating to foreign Powers; and those known as Rettori, relating to the government of the Venetian dominion.

Besides this great series of Deliberazioni, containing the general movement of business in the Senate, there is another voluminous series of documents, equally important, and even more interesting to the student of general history, the dispatches received from Venetian representatives in foreign Courts, and the Relazioni, or reports which ambassadors read before the Senate upon their return from abroad. Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of this series; and the value of the Relazioni at least has been fully recognized. Yet it should be borne in mind that the Relazioni are only a part of the series, and that, taken alone and isolated from the dispatches, they lose much of their value. For we must not forget that the Relazioni were drawn up on more or less conventional lines; the headings, under which the report was to fall, were indicated by the Government, and were invariable; and, further, the home-coming ambassador handed his report to his successor, who frequently used it as a basis in drawing up his own. The result is that, except in the descriptions of Court life, and in the sketches of prominent characters, the Relazioni are apt to repeat themselves. But, taken with the dispatches, which arrived almost daily, they form the most varied, brilliant, and minute gallery of national portraits that the world possesses. The reports and dispatches were made by men whose whole political training had rendered them the acutest of observers, and they were presented to critics who were filled with the keenest curiosity, and were accustomed to demand full and precise information. Not a detail is omitted as unimportant; the diurnal gossip of the Court, the daily movements of the sovereign and his favourites; are all recorded with impartial and unerring observation. The relation of the Dispacci to the Relazioni is the relation of the study to the picture. The Relazioni are the large canvas upon which the whole nation is broadly depicted, the Dispacci are the patient and minute studies upon which the excellence of the picture depends. The majority of the Venetian Relazioni between the years 1492 and 1699 have been published; the earlier part by Signor Alberi, and the later by Signori Barozzi and Berchet. The eighteenth century still remains to be worked out. In the series of Relazioni and Dispacci, Great Britain occupies a comparatively small space. While France, Germany, and Constantinople, each give five volumes of reports, England gives one only, dating from 1531 to 1763. Of dispatches from England there are 139 volumes in all; while from Constantinople we have 242, from France 276, from Milan, 230, and from Germany 202.

Previous to the year 1603, when the regular series of dispatches from England begins, there had been intermittent relations between the Republic and the English Court. Sebastian Giustiniani was Venetian ambassador in London in the reign of Henry VIII. (1515-1519); and in the reign of Mary, Giovanni Michiel represented the Republic for four years--from 1554 to 1558. The Protestant reign of Elizabeth caused a long break, during which the Republic received its information about the affairs of England from its ambassadors in France and Spain. Permanent relations were not resumed between the two Powers till the accession of James I., one of whose earliest acts was to send Sir Henry Wotton to Venice as his ambassador. The appointment of Sir Henry Wotton was a movement of gratitude on the part of the King; and the cause of it cannot be better told than in the words of Sir Henry's biographer, who thus describes this 'notable accident:'

'Immediately after Sir Henry Wotton's return from Rome to
Florence--which was about a year before the death of Queen
Elizabeth--Ferdinand, the Great Duke of Tuscany, had
intercepted certain letters that discovered a design to take
away the life of James, the then King of Scots. The Duke
abhorring this fact, and resolving to endeavour a prevention
of it, advised with his Secretary Vietta, by what means a
caution might be best given to that King; and after
consideration it was resolved to be done by Sir Henry
Wotton, whom Vietta first commended to the Duke, and the
Duke had noted and approved of above all the English that
frequented his Court.

'Sir Henry was gladly called by his friend Vietta to the
Duke, who dispatched him into Scotland with letters to the
King, and with those letters such Italian antidotes against
poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to.

'Having parted from the Duke, he took up the name and
language of an Italian; and thinking it best to avoid the
line of English intelligence and danger, he posted into
Norway, and through that country towards Scotland, where he
found the King at Stirling. Being there, he used means, by
Bernard Lindsey, one of the King's bed-chamber, to procure
him a speedy and private conference with his Majesty.

'This being by Bernard Lindsey made known to the King, the
King required his name--which was said to be Octavio
Baldi--and appointed him to be heard privately at a fixed
hour that evening.

'When Octavio Baldi came to the Presence-chamber door, he
was requested to lay aside his long rapier--which,
Italian-like, he then wore;--and being entered the chamber,
he found there with the King three or four Scotch Lords
standing distant in several corners of the chamber; at the
sight of whom he made a stand; which the King observing,
bade him be bold and deliver his message; for he would
undertake for the secrecy of all that were present. Then did
Octavio Baldi deliver his letters and message to the King in
Italian; which when the King had graciously received, after
a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps to the table, and
whispers to the King in his own language that he was an
Englishman, beseeching him for a more private conference
with his Majesty, and that he might be concealed during his
stay in that nation; which was promised and really performed
by the King, during all his abode there, which was about
three months. All which time was spent with much
pleasantness to the King, and with as much to Octavio Baldi
himself as that country could afford; from which he departed
as true an Italian as he came thither.'

The presence of Sir Henry in Venice, where he was a _persona gratissima_, both for his love of Italy and his knowledge of the language, did much to strengthen the new relations between England and the Republic. The feeling between Venice and the Stuart kings became extremely cordial; but on the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1642, the Republic suspended the commission of Vincenzo Contarina, who had been appointed to succeed Giovanni Giustinian as ambassador to England. The secretary Girolamo Agostino, however, continued to discharge Venetian affairs till the year 1645; and his dispatches contain minute particulars concerning the progress of the Civil War. In the year 1645, Agostino was recalled, and the interests of Venice in England were entrusted to Salvetti, the Florentine resident. Agostino left behind him in England a secret agent, with instructions to forward a weekly report on the progress of affairs to the Venetian ambassador in France, among whose dispatches we find these newsletters from London. After the death of Charles I it is not likely that the Republic would have been represented at the Court of Cromwell, towards whom the feeling of Venice was not cordial, had she not been in great straits for help against the Turk. But in the year 1652 she resolved to dismiss the representative of Charles II, then in Venice; and, at the same time, the Government instructed the ambassador at Paris to send his secretary, Lorenzo Pauluzzi, to London to open negociations with Cromwell. With Pauluzzi the series of dispatches from London recommences; but these dispatches are to be found among the communications from the Venetian ambassador in Paris, by whom they were forwarded to the Senate. The dispatches of Pauluzzi are of great importance, and give us a vivid though hostile picture of Cromwell and his surroundings. 'Nell' universale,' he says, 'ha pochissimo affetto;' and further on, 'non ardiscono tentare alcuna cosa ne parlare che tra i denti; ma ognuno sta sperando un giorno verificate le profizie che questo governo non possa a lungo durare.' In 1655 the negociations between England and Venice had advanced so far that the Republic had determined to send an Ambassador Extraordinary to the Protector's Court. Giovanni Sagredo, ambassador at Paris, was chosen, and the closing paragraph of his first dispatch shows how strongly Cromwell's personality impressed him. 'Per il resto,' he writes, 'e uomo di 56 anni, con pochissima barba, di complessione sanguigna, di statura media e robusta e di presenza marziale. Ha una fisonomia cupa e profonda. Porta una gran spada al fianco. Soldato insieme ed oratore, e dotato di talenti per persuadere e per operare.' The result of Sagredo's mission is contained in the long and brilliant Relazione which he read in the Senate on his return to Venice in 1656. In this splendid specimen of a Venetian report, he gives, with singular lucidity and grasp, a brief sketch of the condition of Great Britain; of the causes of the Civil War; of Cromwell's rise to power; of his foreign relations; and closes with a portrait of the Protector which confirms Pauluzzi's unfavourable view, and draws a terrible picture of that restlessness and dread which clouded Cromwell's last days--'piu temuto che amato ... vive con sempiterno sospetto.' When Sagredo returned to Venice, his secretary Francesco Giavarnia was left behind in England, as Venetian resident, and continued to hold that post till the Restoration, sending dispatches every week direct to Venice, detailing the close of the Protectorate, and the return of Charles II., whom he was the first to welcome at Canterbury the day after his landing. In 1661 the Republic gladly re-opened full relations with the Stuarts. Giavarnia was superseded by two Ambassadors Extraordinary, who conveyed to Charles two gondolas for the water in St. James's Park, and from that date onwards the diplomatic connection between England and the Republic followed the ordinary course.

We come now to the papers of the Council of Ten; all of these were committed to the custody of the Secret Chancellery. We have already seen that the Council of Ten was an extraordinary office, used upon extraordinary occasions, where secrecy and speed were required. Its chief occupations may be summed up under three heads--safety of the State, protection of citizens, and public morals. That being the case, the number and interest of its documents is very great--greater than that of any other Council of State; but this interest is confined, for the most part, to matters affecting the home policy of the Republic; foreign affairs finds comparatively little illustration among the papers of the Ten. The series of documents, containing the ordinary business of the Ten, dates from the year 1315 to the close of the Republic. The documents are arranged according to the matter they deal with, that is to say political matter, _parti communi_ and _secreti_, or criminal matter, _parti crimminali_. The immense importance and interest attaching to the papers of the Ten will be illustrated by the statement, that there we find the cases of Marino Faliero, of the Carraresi, of Carmagnola, of Foscari, of Caterina Cornaro, and of Foscarini.

Among the papers of the Collegio we find ourselves once more in the general current of foreign politics. The ordinary proceedings of the College, the papers containing the arrangement and discussion of affairs to be presented to the Senate, are included in the volumes of files and registers, known as the Notatorii del Collegio. The College was entrusted, as we have said, to receive all the representatives of foreign Powers and to open all letters and dispatches addressed to the Government. It is in the three series known as Lettere Principi, Espozioni Principi, and Ceremoniali, that we obtain the fullest information about the action of the agents from foreign Courts resident in Venice. The series called Lettere Principi, letters from royal personages, covers the years between 1500 and 1797, and is contained in fifty-four volumes of _filze_. England is represented by two of these, beginning with the year 1570, and ending with 1796, entitled 'Collegio, Secreta, Lettere. Re e Regina d'Inghilterra.' These volumes contain one hundred and seventy-one letters, thus distributed among the various sovereigns; there are thirteen in the reign of Elizabeth; forty in that of James I.; four in that of Charles I.; three from Oliver Cromwell; one from Richard Cromwell; one from Speaker Lenthal: ten during the reign of Charles II.; five during that of his brother; three during the reign of William, including one from the Old Pretender; seven in the reign of Anne; eight in that of George I.; twenty-one from George II; and fifty-five from George III. These letters are concerned with formal announcements and the exchange of courtesies, the credentials of ambassadors and notices of royal births, marriages and deaths. Their historical importance is very slight. The long series of George III. is almost entirely occupied by noting the yearly increase of his family. The autographs of the ministers who countersigned the letters, form their greatest attraction. The late Mr. Rawdon Brown has published facsimiles of these autographs down to the year 1659; but after that date we find such interesting endorsements as those of Lauderdale, Arlington, Bolingbroke, Carteret, Pitt, Halifax, Henry Conway, Shelburne, and Charles James Fox. On a loose parchment among these letters is one very curious document. It is dated Bologna, 21st February, 1671, and begins 'Carlo Dudley per la gratia di Dio Duca di Northumbria et del Sacro Romano Impero, Conte di Woruih e di Licester, et Pari d'Ingliterra.' The document goes on to state that Charles Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in consideration of the affection and partiality always shown towards his person and house, grants to Ottavio Dionisio, noble of Verona, the title of Marquis to him and to his eldest son, to his younger sons and to his brothers and their sons the title of Count, in perpetuity; and this in virtue of the declaration and authority of His Holiness Pope Urban VIII., which conferred on Charles Dudley and his eldest born the right to exercise all the privileges of an independent prince. At the date which this document bears, 1671, there was no Duke of Northumberland; that title had lately been bestowed by Charles II. on an illegitimate son, and had perished with him. This Charles Dudley was probably some pretender to the honours of the Dudley family who once held the dukedom of Northumberland. The document is curious, for the noble family on whom Charles Dudley conferred this title of Marquis still exists, and we do not know if any British subject, either before or after, has even claimed to be a fountain of honour. But Charles Dudley is not the only English pretender who figures among the papers at the Frari. Filza 8 of the loose papers, titled 'Miscellanea Diversi Manoscritti,' contains the marriage certificate and will of James Henry de Boveri Rossano Stuart, natural son of Charles II., and seven letters from his son James Stuart, dated Milan, Gemona and Padua, 1722 to 1728. The majority of these letters are addressed to Cardinal Panighetti, from whom this 'povero principe Stuardo,' as he calls himself, hoped to receive money and support in some imaginary claims on the Crown of England. The letters are full of a certain pathos--the pathos which cannot fail to attach itself to fallen royalty. The handwriting is that of an uneducated man; and James Stuart, in these letters, certainly shows no signs of the ability required to meet so trying a situation. He appeals to the Cardinal first on the grounds of his creed. It is 'for the Faith that he finds himself in the miserable little town' of Gemona. Failing upon this line, James Stuart abandons himself to astrology, in the hope that the stars may give an answer favourable to his hopes. But to all his appeals the Cardinal replies with cold reserve, and when he hears of astrology, he adds a sharp and crushing reprimand.

Leaving the Lettere Principi we come to the last two series of State papers of which we shall speak, the Espozioni Principi, or record of all audiences granted to ambassadors and of the communications made by them in the name of the Power they represented; and the Libri Ceremoniali, or record of the great functions of State, coronations and funerals of the Doges, the elections of the Grand Chancellors, the reception accorded to ambassadors, princes and distinguished travellers. The Republic of Venice was as punctilious as any Court of Europe upon the points of precedence, ceremony, and etiquette. The reader will not have forgotten the amusing account, given by the elder Disraeli, of the long struggle between the Master of the Ceremonies and the Venetian ambassador at the Court of St. James. The Government required from its representatives a minute account of every detail of etiquette observed towards them, and replied in kind in their treatment of foreign ministers in Venice. The Republic was punctilious abroad, and no less so at home. Every stage in the public entry, first audience and _conge_ of foreign ambassadors were carefully regulated and based upon precedent. The ambassadors of Spain and France had each a special volume devoted to the ceremonies and etiquette which the Republic observed towards them. M. Baschet describes at length the receptions of the French ambassadors, for whom he claims the highest rank among the representatives of foreign Powers at Venice. Great Britain sent fifty-eight embassies, in all, to the Republic, between the years 1340 and 1797. Of these ambassadors, Sir Gregory Cassalis filled the office twice, Sir Henry Wotton thrice, the Earl of Manchester twice, and Elizeus Burgess twice. The ceremony to which the ambassador was entitled may be gathered from the accounts of these embassies preserved in the Esposizioni Principi and the Ceremoniali.

The reception of Lord Northampton in the year 1762 will afford us the most detailed view of the ceremony, for on that occasion some questions of precedent arose, and the Cavaliere Ruzzini, who was entrusted with the conduct of the affair, presented a long report to the Senate on the subject. The ambassador was not officially recognized by the Government until he had made his public entry, and presented his credentials at his first audience in the College. Until that had taken place, he remained incognito, and was in fact supposed not to be in Venice. Before the ambassador arrived, the English Consul was expected to hire a palace for his use. There was no fixed embassy in Venice; Thomas Killigrew lodged at San Cassano, Lord Holdernesse at San Benedetto, Lord Manchester at San Stae. John Udny, who was consul at the time of Lord Northampton's Embassy, rented the Palazzo Grimani at Cannaregio for the ambassador whenever his appointment was announced, and an amusing and characteristic story attaches to this affair. The palace belonged to a Contessa Grimani, and was in bad repair; but the owner promised to restore and fit it up for the ambassador. When the consul went to see the palace, shortly before the ambassador's arrival, he found that nothing had been done to it, and moreover that a gondolier and his wife occupied the ground-floor and refused to move. He wrote at once to the Contessa requesting her to remove the gondolier, to which he received for answer that the gondolier's wife had been nurse to one of the Countess's boys, and the Grimanis had promised her twenty ducats a-year; if the ambassador liked to pay that amount, the gondolier would turn out; if not, they must manage to share the palace between them. The consul appealed to the English Resident, John Murray, who wrote an angry letter to the Government, complaining of this treatment; 'La carita della nobile donna,' he says, 'verso la moglie del gondoliere merita senza dubbio gran lode, ma il sottoscritto s'imagina che l'avvocato piu scaltro si troverebbe bene intrigato di produrre una legge o esempio per incaricare l'Ambasciatore Inglese di questa carita.'

The matter was probably arranged, for on the 22nd of October Lord Northampton arrived, incognito, of course, with all his suite, and took up his residence. Lord Northampton was ill, and it was not until the beginning of the next year that he took the necessary steps to make his entry and to secure his first audience. The etiquette observed upon such occasions required that the ambassador should send his secretary to leave copies of his credentials at the door of the College, and to ask on what day the Doge would receive him. The College reply through one of their secretaries that an answer will be sent. The Doge was then consulted what day would suit him, and he answers by putting himself at the disposal of the College. The Senate is then informed of the ambassador's arrival, and sixty senators, under the direction of a leader, are appointed to attend the ambassador until the ceremonies of his reception shall be completed. The days selected for Lord Northampton's reception were the 29th and 30th of May, 1763; and the Caveliere Ruzzini was named as head of the sixty senators who were to attend the ambassador. Ruzzini informed Lord Northampton of these arrangements, and at the same time sent him a programme of the ceremony, which was based upon that observed towards Lord Holdernesse, and was identical with that which the Republic offered to the ambassador of the King of Sardinia. Before his public entry, the ambassador and all his suite went to the island of San Spirito, in the lagoon towards Malamocco. The fiction of the ceremony supposed all ambassadors to be lodged there until they had presented their credentials. San Spirito was chosen as the point of departure for the ambassadorial procession because the distance between that island and Venice was supposed to correspond exactly with the distance between London and Greenwich, whence the Venetian ambassador was wont to begin his progress. Sir Henry Wotton's second embassy forms a rare exception to this rule, for the Venetians were so fond of that charming and accomplished poet, that they allowed him to make his entry from San Giorgio Maggiore, which is much nearer the city and more convenient. After midday on the 29th, Ruzzini and his sixty senators, each in his gondola, arrived at San Spirito, and found the household of the ambassador drawn up along the landing-place _en grande tenue_. Lord Northampton was informed of Ruzzini's arrival, and came to meet him on the staircase. After exchanging the prescribed compliments, Ruzzini, with the ambassador on his right hand, descended, and both entered the Cavaliere's gondola. The whole procession left San Spirito and proceeded by the Grand Canal to the ambassador's lodging at San Girolamo, accompanied, as Ruzzini says, by 'un immenso popolo spettatore del nostro viaggio;' for these official entries were among the most popular of the Venetian spectacles, and the whole city went out to witness them. At the palace fresh speeches and compliments followed. Lord Northampton was suffering acutely from an illness of which he died that same year, but Ruzzini reports with obvious satisfaction that he did not spare him a single ceremony, 'adempi ad ogni parte del consueto ceremoniale.' The next day Ruzzini and the sixty senators again attended at the ambassador's palace to conduct him to his audience in the College. Lord Northampton was worse than he had been the day before; but Ruzzini was implacable. It cost the ambassador three-quarters of an hour to ascend the Giant's Stair. When at last he reached the door of the Collegio, the Doge and all the College rose; the ambassador uncovered and made three bows, and, leaving his suite behind him, he mounted the dais and took his seat on the right hand of the Doge. The ambassador then covered his head, and simultaneously one of each order of the Savii did the same. The ambassador handed his credentials to the Doge, and remained uncovered while they were being read. The Doge made a brief and formal reply, welcoming the ambassador to Venice, and each time the King's name occurred, the ambassador raised his cap. After repeating his three bows, the ambassador retired, and was accompanied to his palace by the sixty senators who had waited for him at the door of the Collegio. This closed the ceremony of entry.

The English Ambassador Extraordinary enjoyed certain privileges which were established on the precedent of the embassy of Lord Falconberg, Cromwell's son-in-law. Among these privileges was the right to lodging and maintenance at the cost of the Republic, a right which the ambassador usually compounded for the sum of five or six hundred ducats; a box at each theatre in Venice was placed at his disposal, and when he took his _conge_ the Senate voted him a gold chain and medal of the value of two thousand scudi. The ambassadors ordinary enjoyed certain exemptions from customs dues. These exemptions were frequently abused, and were the cause of constant friction between the Government and the representatives of the Powers. In the year 1763 Mr. John Murray's Istrian wine was seized, and he only recovered it after expressing himself _ben mortificato_. Mr. Murray was constantly in trouble on this subject. The year before he had addressed an indignant letter to the Government because 'a certain official of the Custom House had accused him of allowing his servants to sell wine and flour at the door of the Residency. It is but a poor satisfaction after so long a period of suspicion to know that that official is bankrupt and no proof of the accusation is forthcoming.' But by far the most curious episode of this nature was that which befell Tom Killigrew, the poet, grandfather of the Mrs. Anne Killigrew of Dryden's famous ode and a friend of Pepys, who recals him as 'a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King, who told us many merry stories,' this, perhaps, among the number. Killigrew was sent to represent Charles II. at Venice in 1649, just after the execution of Charles I., and while his son was _a ramingo_, or knocking about, as the Venetian ambassador politely puts it. Killigrew was received in the usual way on February 10, 1650, and made his address 'in lingua cattiva,' as the report affirms. But the Republic soon tired of its alliance with an exiled king, and resolved to dismiss Killigrew as soon as possible. Killigrew was poor, and his master had little or nothing to give him, so he hit upon the expedient of keeping a butcher's shop, where he could sell meat, cheaper than any one else in Venice, by availing himself of his exemptions from octroi. The Senate resolved to fasten upon this illicit traffic as a pretext for dismissing Killigrew; and on the 22d of June, 1652, they sent their Secretary, Busenello, to tell Killigrew, _viva voce_, that he must go. Busenello went to San Fantin, and there found one of Killigrew's butchers, who told him that the Resident only kept his shop there, but lived himself at San Cassano. At San Cassano Busenello was told that Killigrew was dining at Murano, and would not be home till evening; but very soon after he saw the Resident at his window, and insisted on being announced. He explained 'with all possible delicacy,' as he says, the order of the Senate; but Killigrew received the message with every sign of anger and pain. With tears in his eyes he declared that it was the other ambassadors who robbed the customs, while he had all the blame. It was true that he did keep 'a little bit of a butcher's shop to support himself,' but that could not hurt the revenue; and he added that, under any circumstance he should leave Venice, for he had received his letters of recall from France, four days previously. The Senate no more than their secretary believed in the existence of this letter of recall; but Killigrew really had the letter, dated March 14th, and it was sent into the College, along with a brief exculpatory epistle from the Resident, on the 27th of June. Killigrew left Venice the same day as he was bound to do by ambassadorial etiquette; and Charles had not another recognized agent to the Republic until his restoration; for the Venetians definitely adopted the policy of courting Cromwell, in the vain hope that he would assist them against the Turk.

With the papers of the College we close this notice of the political documents in the archives at the Frari. The other departments of the Government had each their own series of papers, equally copious and valuable. The heraldic and genealogical archives of the Avvogadori di Commun, for example, the Charters of the German and Turkish Exchanges and the records of the Mint and the public Banks, offer a wide and a rich field for study; and in spite of the profound and extensive labours of such scholars as Thomas, Checchetti, Barozzi, Berchet, Fulin, Lamansky, Mas Latrie, and Rawdon Brown, it will be long before the materials in the vast storehouse of the Frari are exhausted or even adequately displayed.

Art. IV.--1. _Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years 1834, 1835 and 1836._ By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.

2. _Le Royaume de Norvege et le Peuple Norvegien._ Par le Dr. O. I. Broch. Christiania, 1878.

3. _Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of the Provinces of Norway in 1876-80._ Christiania, 1884.

4. _Publications of the Statistical Bureau, Christiania._

The advocates of a general redistribution of landed property in Ireland, as well as those who are holding out to the agricultural labours of other portions of the United Kingdom the Arcadian lure figuratively known as the 'three acres and a cow,' will find in the work cited at the head of this article the amplest materials for the justification of the views they are pressing for adoption partly as a remedy for agricultural distress, but essentially in application of the Socialist doctrine that the people of a country have an inherent right to an absolute, proportionate possession of its soil.

Mr. Laing's 'Journal' is, indeed, not a record of travel and adventure, but a treatise, admirably written and replete with facts, in demonstration of the great superiority of the Norwegian system of land tenure over that of any other part of civilized Europe. His views have, moreover, been to a great extent adopted in the numerous works that have since been produced by British travellers who, after a rapid drive over the main routes of Norway, have described in terms equally glowing the happy and enviable condition of the _Bonde_ or yeoman farmer of that country.

Considering there is much in common in regard to race, religion, language, character, and civilization, between the inhabitants of that interesting little country and its maritime neighbours--the populations, more especially, of England and Scotland, it will be instructive, on the eve of the agrarian revolution with which the United Kingdom is threatened, to study and analyse the statements and conclusions of Mr. Laing, and to trace the subsequent and present operation of the peculiar land laws which he so highly extolled in the earlier part of this century.

With that object we proceed to describe, almost in Mr. Laing's own words, the condition of the peasant proprietors of Norway at a period (1835) when, out of a population of 1,194,827, only about eleven per cent. inhabited towns, the land in rural districts being held by 103,192 proprietors and tenants, the proportion of the two latter being respectively seventy and thirty per cent.

'The Norwegians,' wrote Mr. Laing, 'are the most interesting
and singular group of people in Europe. They live under
ancient laws and social arrangements totally different in
principle from those which regulate society and property in
the feudally constituted states. Their country is peculiarly
interesting to the political economist. It is the only part
of Europe in which property from the earliest ages has been
transmitted upon the principle of partition among all the
children. The feudal structure of society with its law of
primogeniture, and its privileged class of hereditary
nobles, never prevailed in Norway. In this remote corner of
the civilized world we may therefore see the effects upon
the condition of society of the peculiar distribution of
property; it will exhibit, on a small scale, what America
and France will be a thousand years hence.... Here are the
Highland glens without the Highland lairds.... If there be a
happy class of people in Europe it is the Norwegian _Bonde_,
king of his own land, and landlord as well as king.'

This state of happiness is, according to Mr. Laing, the result of the still existing _Odels ret_ or Allodial Right, under which, he asserts, the land of Norway was always the property of the people, not of a feudal class of high nobility. But although this assertion does not much affect the main and practical object of our enquiry, it may be as well to point out at once that, whatever might have been the inherent right of every Norwegian to a portion of the soil on which he was born, Dr. Broch, an eminent native authority, maintains that a considerable portion of the land belonged anciently to the kings of Norway, and had been acquired, as in other countries, partly by confiscation from nobles. Those lands were leased and, gradually, to a certain extent, sold. In the days of Roman Catholicism, the Church also held great landed estates, which the State appropriated at the Reformation. No inconsiderable part of the State domains was then leased, and, in short, before the middle of the seventeenth century, leases comprised a little more than half of the landed property of the country; while even in 1814, they constituted one-third of it. Later, the State lands, and those which had been distributed among nobles at the Reformation, were repartitioned among the bulk of the population or sold.

But to return to the _Odels ret_. It gives, Mr. Laing shows,

'to all the kindred of the Odelsmand in possession, in the
order of consanguinity, a certain interest in it. If the
Odelsmand should sell or alienate his land, the next of kin
is entitled to redeem it on paying the purchase-money; and
should he decline to do so, it is in the power of the one
next to him to claim his _Odelsbaarn ret._'

At the present time, the allodial right is acquired only by the uninterrupted possession of the same person, his descendants or his wife, during a period of at least twenty years, and it is lost if the property has been in strange hands for three years. Testamentary dispositions, in the case of persons leaving issue, are now limited to one quarter of the testator's property; whereas before 1854, a testator could not bequeath anything individually. Since the year 1860, also, there is perfect equality between the two sexes in the division of real and personal property. At the period when Mr. Laing visited Norway, the division of land among children had

'not had the effect of reducing properties to the minimum
size that would barely support human existence. One sells to
the other and turns his capital and industry to pursuits
that would enable him to acquire the necessaries of life.
The heirs who sell, very often, instead of a sum of money,
which is seldom at the command of the parties, take a
life-rent payment or annuity of so much grain, the keep of
so many cows, so much firewood, a dwelling-house on the
property, or some equivalent of that kind. Few properties
have no such burthens.' He argued that 'in a country where
land is held, not in tenancy merely, as in Ireland, but in
full ownership, its aggregation by the death of co-heirs,
and by the marriages of female heirs,[5] will balance its
subdivision by the equal succession of children; and also,
that in such a condition of society, the whole mass of
property would be found in such a State to consist of as
many estates of 1000l., as many of 100l., as many of 10l. a
year, at one period as at another.'

'Norway,' our author urges, 'affords a strong confutation of
the dreaded excessive subdivision of land. Notwithstanding,
the partition system, continued for ages, it contains farms
of such extent that the owner possesses forty cows.'

On the whole, the farms appeared to him to be of various sizes: many so large that a bell was used to call the labourers to or from their work; while some were so small as to have only a few sheaves of corn, or a rig or two of potatoes, scattered among the trunks of the trees. These, however, were occupied by the farm servants, or cotters, paying for their houses and land in work (_Husmoena_). Twenty to forty cows could be counted on the large farms. In the district of Verdal (Trondhjemsfiord) Mr. Laing saw beautiful little farms of forty to fifty acres, each having a pasturage or grass tract in the mountains, where the cattle were kept during the summer until the crops were taken in, and upon each such out-farm, or _Soeter_, there was a house and regular dairy, to which, he informs us, 'the whole of the cattle and the dairy-maids, with their sweethearts, are sent to junket and to amuse themselves for three or four months of the year.[6] We can well believe that, in such circumstances, Mr. Laing found 'this class of _Boender_ the most interesting people in Norway,' and that 'there are none similar to them in the feudal countries of Europe.' He appears to have been more particularly impressed with

'the farms large enough to keep a score of cows, six horses
and a small flock of sheep and goats, and to maintain a
family and servants in all that land usually produces,
leaving a surplus for sale sufficient to pay taxes, wages,
and to provide the comforts and necessaries of life to a
fair extent,' all which could be bought 'for 1000l. or
1200l., or even less.'

As regards the agricultural labourer, or cotter, Mr. Laing conceived 'his average condition to be that of holding land on which he could sow three-quarters of an imperial quarter of corn and three imperial quarters of potatoes, and which would enable him to keep two cows, or an equivalent number of sheep or goats.' His wages are stated to have been 4-1/2d. to 6d. per diem, in addition to his food. It was consequently 'amusing to recollect the benevolent speculations in our Agricultural Reports, of the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases in our midland counties of England, for bettering the condition of labourers in husbandry, by giving them, at a reasonable rent, a quarter of an acre of land to keep a cow on, or by allowing them to cultivate the slips of land on the roadside, outside of their hedges.' He also derides 'the agricultural writers' who 'tell us, indeed, that labourers in agriculture are much better off as farm servants, than they would be as small proprietors,' for 'if property is a good and desirable thing, the very smallest quantity of it is good and desirable.' It was obvious to Mr. Laing that the forty families of two or three Norwegian highland glens, 'each possessing and living on its own little spot of ground and farming well or ill, as the case might be, were in a better and happier state, and formed a more rationally constituted society, than if the whole belonged to one of these families (and it would be no great estate), while the other thirty-nine families were tenants and farmers.'

Mr. Laing found the happy agricultural population of Norway 'much better lodged than our labouring and middling classes, even in the south of Scotland;' and that no nation was at that period either better housed, or so well provided with fuel. The standard of living appeared to be higher in Norway than in most of our Scotch highland districts, although the materials were the same, namely, oatmeal, barley meal, potatoes, fish--fresh and salted--cheese, butter, and milk. He understood that it was even usual for the yeoman farmers to have animal food--'salt beef and black-puddings'--at least twice a week. At all events, he says, four meals a day formed the regular fare, and with two of those meals even the labourers had a glass of home-made brandy, distilled from potatoes by the yeoman, who 'could malt and distil in every way he pleased,' and thereby 'make free use of his agricultural produce,' with the result of 'increasing the general prosperity, improving the condition of the people, and promoting the increase of their numbers.'[7]

There was, at the time of Mr. Laing's residence in Norway, 'small difference in the way of living between high and low, because every man lived from the produce of his farm, and observed the utmost simplicity and economy with regard to everything that took money out of his pocket.' Furniture and clothes, except the yeoman's Sunday hat, were all home-made. 'Here was a whole population, in an old European country, dealing direct with Nature, as it were, for every article, without the intervention of money, or even of barter.' It was only the small yeomen on the verge of the Fjeld, or in the glens, far above the level of the land producing corn, and the inhabitants of districts less favoured by nature, 'whose common bread consisted of the bark of trees, mixed and ground up with ill-ripened oats; but even in their case, trout, dried and salted for winter, was no inconsiderable part of their provision, their houses being, at the same time, comfortable, though small, with wooden floors and glass windows.