them what happened in Italy on the side of the Emperor, or what transpired of his dangerous schemes. He excused the sending of a solitary, youthful, undistinguished man, to such an enlightened republic by the necessity of the case, the desire to avoid notice,--to conceal the movement toward a close alliance between two free states from the watchful glance of the Emperor and his assistants. But Venice herself had just then concluded a treaty of peace with the Emperor. This was disclosed to the deputy, and a reply made to his offer in very general terms, so that the distrust, which a mission of such doubtful appearance awakened in the minds of the Doge and the Senate, could not escape his notice. He was strictly questioned as to what Confederate cities composed this _Buergerrecht_, what opposed it, and what remained neutral. Everything was written down. The ceremonies with which he was dismissed, and a present of twenty crowns show also that no great importance was attached to the embassy. Far otherwise did they receive the ambassadors, who in former years had appeared before them in the name of the whole Confederacy. Although an attempt was made to keep the matter secret, it yet became known, and produced indignation among those who were not privy to it, and chagrin at the sorry roll which such crooked dealings obliged them to play. Zwingli alone and his princely confidents were not discouraged. "The transaction with the Venitians," he wrote to Duke Ulric of Wuertemberg, "is greatly despised, but, as I observe from your letter, may yet turn to our advantage. For with my cousin (the _Landgrave_) there is no lack of devotion in person and property, as you can in some degree learn from his letters. Therefore he is willing to aid as much as possible toward a settled understanding, especially on account of the Venitians; for we may depend very much on the wheel of fortune to bring about, what we never have been able to accomplish hitherto with great cunning. Time and opportunity are gone; they will not wait. The raging hand also is not idle; he prepares one grave after another." Pursuing his design with unshaken resolution, Zwingli hoped in the end to make it intelligible to the Swiss cities, who had formed the Christian _Buergerrecht_, that the alliance must be increased, in order to array against the great powers pledged for the destruction of liberty, great ones for its maintenance. In fact, at the close of the year, Strassburg was also admitted into the _Buergerrecht_; but when this city along with Zurich and Basel proposed that it should be extended likewise to the _Landgrave_ of Hess, Bern raised difficulties, and at last refused consent, with the remark, that she could not justify before her own subjects the admission of so remote a prince. Zwingli was highly displeased. "Bern always," he wrote to a friend, "sends _bears_ to negotiate," and to another: "The Bear is lying in the pains of