vii., for an
extraordinary instance of his oratory.) Yet Renier's character does not
inspire respect. Before he became Doge, he had pursued a tortuous course
in politics, and had only escaped serious entanglements by his
extraordinary intellectual finesse. He married a woman off the stage,
who impaired his social credit; and when he appeared as candidate for
the ducal cap, he lavished bribes with cynical shamelessness. Gratarol
has penned two pungent pages upon Renier's character, which are worth
attention. "Talent and art," he says, "both fail me in describing this
man of hundred colours. An intellect of the highest, a heart of the
proudest, a face of the most deceptive; such are his component parts. A
more fraudulently plausible orator, a more turbulent politician, I have
never known. Whether fortune or some charm defends him, he always
escapes unhurt from the mortal perils into which he wilfully
plunges."--_Op. cit._, p. 77.

[77] Gozzi publishes a copy of his memorial to the Inquisitors of State.
Since the document is long, and repeats what is already known to the
readers of his Memoirs, I have not judged it necessary to translate it.
The text will be found on pp. 395-399 of the second volume of the
_Memorie Inutili_.

[78] Gratarol reports this letter, but expressly states that he was
obliged by Signor Zon, secretary to the Inquisitors of State, to omit
the words _dimenticando il passato_. His account of how he was compelled
to sit down and scribble off the apology, while Zon stood over him, is
very amusing. He taught his servant, on delivering the letter into
Gozzi's hands, to repeat these words: "el mio paron xe sta comanda de
scriverghe sto viglietto." In fact, Gratarol was forced by the supreme
authority in Venice to send this apology, and refusal to do so would
have involved his immediate imprisonment. According to his own
confession, Gratarol, after hearing the ultimatum of the Supreme
Tribunal, went to his writing-table and penned the above letter,
expressing at the same time his readiness to kiss Count Gozzi's ... on
the piazza, or to do anything else ridiculous which the Inquisitors
might impose upon him. The Republic of S. Mark had reached the last
stage of decrepitude, and well deserved to be swept into the lumber-room
of bygone greatnesses, when Gratarol's and Gozzi's squabble about a
woman and a play brought the machinery of state thus into action.
Venice, always an artificial power (in the same sens