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'