The secular historians of the period are very numerous, but, with the exception of the Latinist Strada, only two have attained a durable celebrity. Enrico Caterino Davila (1576-1631), who had become well acquainted with French affairs by military service in the wars of religion, wrote the history of these contests from 1558 to 1598 “with Venetian sagacity and soldierly brevity.” He wants few of the qualifications of an excellent historian, and his history is placed not far below that of Guicciardini, to which, indeed, it is preferred by Macaulay. He is accused, however, of affecting more penetration than he possessed into the secret counsels of princes. Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio’s history of the revolt of the Low Countries against the Spaniards (1558-1609) is necessarily defective as coming from the wrong side. Such a history could not be adequately written without sympathy with its heroes and comprehension of the principles involved, neither of which could be expected from a Papal nuncio. Bentivoglio nevertheless writes with reasonable impartiality, and is well informed on the exterior of the transactions he records, though utterly blind to their real significance. His style is most agreeable. His relation of his mission as nuncio, with speculations on the possibility of suppressing the Reformation in England and elsewhere, is perhaps more intrinsically valuable than his history; and his memoirs of his own career at the Papal court, though necessarily worded with great reserve and caution, are both entertaining and instructive. He was born in 1577, and died in conclave in 1644, just as he seemed about to be elected Pope; done to death, Nicius Erythræus affirms, by the snoring of the Cardinal in the next cell, which deprived him of sleep for eleven successive nights.