ay night and
one o'clock on Tuesday morning disproves the legend that the discrowned
Doge ruptured a blood-vessel at the moment when the bell was tolling for
the election of his successor, the truth remains that, old as he was, he
died of a broken heart.

His predecessor, Tomaso Mocenigo, had prophesied on his death-bed that
if the Venetians were to make Foscari Doge they would forfeit their
"gold and silver, their honour and renown." "From your position of
lords," said he, "you will sink to that of vassals and servants to men
of arms." The prophecy was fulfilled. "If we look," writes Mr. H. F.
Brown (_Venice, etc._, 1893, p. 306), "at the sum-total of Foscari's reign
... we find that the Republic had increased her land territory by the
addition of two great provinces, Bergamo and Brescia ... But the price
had been enormous ... her debt rose from 6,000,000 to 13,000,000 ducats.
Venetian funds fell to 18-1/2.... Externally there was much pomp and
splendour.... But underneath this bravery there lurked the official
corruption of the nobles, the suspicion of the Ten, the first signs of
bank failures, the increase in the national debt, the fall in the value
of the funds. Land wars and landed possessions drew the Venetians from
the sea to _terra ferma_.... The beginning of the end had arrived." (See
_Two Doges of Venice_, by Alethea Wiel, 1891; _I due Foscari, Memorie
Storicho Critiche_, di Francesco Berlan, 1852; _Storia Documentata di
Venezia_, di S. Romanin, 1855, vol. iv.; _Die beiden Foscari_, von
Richard Senger, 1878. For reviews, etc., of _The Two Foscari, vide
ante_, "Introduction to _Sardanapalus_," p. 5.)

Both Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh_, and Heber in the _Quarterly Review_,
took exception to the character of Jacopo Foscari, in accordance with
the Horatian maxim, "Incredulus odi." "If," said Jeffrey, "he had been
presented to the audience wearing out his heart in exile, ... we might
have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives." As it is (in
obedience to the "unities") "we first meet with him led from the
'Question,' and afterwards ... clinging to the dungeon walls of his
native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them." The situation
lacks conviction.

"If," argued Heber, "there ever existed in nature a case so
extraordinary as that of a man who gravely preferred tortures and a
dungeon at home, to a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a
fine climate; it is what few can be made to beli