disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a maritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget that if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she avoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy; the doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly; as long as he was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed, or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude. The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to a cipher. [39] [Footnote 35: History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.] [Footnote 36: The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin's invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 81, No. 4, &c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. ItaliÊ Medii ∆vi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the republic.] [Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV douloi Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;) and the report of the ixth establishes the fact of the xth century, which is confirmed by the embassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their servitude; but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.] [Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the Antiquitates Medii ∆vi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understand that the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. The most flourishing state of their wealth and commerce, in the beginning of the xvth century, is agreeably described by the AbbÈ Dubos, (Hist. de la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443--480.)]