his
somewhat baffling personality, we might compare him to a Macaulay of
finer edge, to a Dean Stanley of more vigorous build. He was less
commonplace than the one, more substantial than the other. But we must
be cautious in offering any interpretation of his real opinions. It was
not for nothing that he dedicated himself to the monastic life in
boyhood, and persevered in it to the end of his long career. The
discipline of the convent renders every friar inscrutable; and Sarpi
himself assured his friends that he, like all Italians of his day, was
bound to wear a mask.[130]

[Footnote 129: It was under the supervision of the Servites that Sarpi
gained the first rudiments of education. Thirst for knowledge may
explain his early entrance into their brotherhood. Like Virgil and like
Milton, he received among the companions of his youthful studies the
honorable nickname of 'The Maiden.' Gross conversation, such as lads
use, even in convents, ceased at his approach. And yet he does not seem
to have lost influence among his comrades by the purity which marked him
out as exceptional.]

[Footnote 130: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 237.]

Be this as it may, Sarpi was not the man to work his way by monkish
intrigue or courtly service into high place either in his Order or the
Church. Long before he unsheathed the sword in defense of Venetian
liberties, he had become an object of suspicion to Rome and his
superiors. Some frank words which escaped him in correspondence,
regarding the corruption of the Papal Curia, closed every avenue to
office. Men of less mark obtained the purple. The meanest and poorest
bishoprics were refused to Sarpi. He was thrice denounced, on frivolous
charges, to the Inquisition; but on each occasion the indictment was
dismissed without a hearing. The General of the Servites accused him of
wearing cap and slippers uncanonical in cut, and of not reciting the
_Salve Regina_. After a solemn trial, Sarpi was acquitted; and it came
to be proverbially whispered that 'even the slippers of the
incorruptible Fra Paolo had been canonized.' Being a sincere Catholic at
heart, as well as a man of profound learning and prudent speech, his
papalistic enemies could get no grip upon him. Yet they instinctively
hated and dreaded one whom they felt to be opposed, in his strength,
fearlessness and freedom of soul, to their exorbitant pretensions and
underhand aggressions upon public liberties. His commerce with heretics
both in co