As a
Venetian he was equally opposed to the domination of one, or of the
whole; being, as respects the first, a furious republican, and, in
reference to the last, leaning to that singular sophism which calls the
dominion of the majority the rule of many tyrants! In short, he was an
aristocrat; and no man had more industriously or more successfully
persuaded himself into the belief of all the dogmas that were favorable
to his caste. He was a powerful advocate of vested rights, for their
possession was advantageous to himself; he was sensitively alive to
innovations on usages and to vicissitudes in the histories of families,
for calculation had substituted taste for principles; nor was he
backward, on occasion, in defending his opinions by analogies drawn from
the decrees of Providence. With a philosophy that seemed to satisfy
himself, he contended that, as God had established orders throughout his
own creation, in a descending chain from angels to men, it was safe to
follow an example which emanated from a wisdom that was infinite.
Nothing could be more sound than the basis of his theory, though its
application had the capital error of believing there was any imitation
of nature in an endeavor to supplant it.
CHAPTER VII.
"The moon went down; and nothing now was seen
Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone
Faintly."
ROGERS.
Just as the secret audiences of the Palazzo Gradenigo were ended, the
great square of St.
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