Venice. No government was ever more punctual, and impartial, than that of Venice, in the execution of the laws. This was thought essential to the well-being, and very existence, of the State. For this, all respect for individuals, all private considerations whatever, and every compunctious feeling of the heart, is sacrificed. To execute law with all the rigour of justice, is considered as the chief virtue of a judge; and, as there are cases in which the sternest may relent, the Venetian government has taken care to appoint certain magistrates, whose sole business is to see that others perform their duty upon all occasions. All this is very fine in the abstract, but we often find it detestable in the application. In the year 1400, while Antonio Venier was Doge, his son having committed an offence which evidently sprung from mere youthful levity, and nothing worse, was condemned in a fine of one hundred ducats, and to be imprisoned for a certain time. While the young man was in prison, he fell sick, and petitioned to be removed to a purer air. The Doge rejected the petition; declaring, that the sentence must be executed literally; and that his son must take the fortune of others in the same predicament. The youth was much beloved, and many applications were made, that the sentence might be softened, on account of the danger which threatened him. The father was inexorable, and the son died in prison. Of whatever refined substance this man’s heart may have been composed, I am better pleased that mine is made of the common materials. Carlo Zeno was accused, by the Council of Ten, of having received a sum of money from Francis Carraro, son of the Seignior of Padua, contrary to an express law, which forbids all subjects of Venice, on any pretext whatever, accepting any salary, pension, or gratification, from a foreign Prince, or State. This accusation was grounded on a paper found among Carraro’s accounts, when Padua was taken by the Venetians. In this paper was an article of four hundred ducats paid to Carlo Zeno, who declared, in his defence, that while he was, by the Senate’s permission, governor of the Milanese, he had visited Carraro, then a prisoner in the castle of Asti; and finding him in want of common necessaries, he had advanced to him the sum in question; and that this Prince, having been liberated some short time after, had, on his return to Padua, repaid the money.