"Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear,-- Then awake not, fair sleeper,--believe he is here; For the young and the loving no sorrow endures. If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours; May the next time you listen your fancy be true, 'I am coming--sciàr--and for you and to you! Sciàr--and to you!'" {175} CHAPTER X. THE TWO FOSCARI; CARMAGNOLA AND COLLEONI. When the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo was about to die, he made a most remarkable statement, summing up the past and present condition of Venice, and giving much advice concerning its future, especially as to the election of his successor. One of his most pronounced judgments was against the election of Francesco Foscari. He prophesied that under his rule Venice would be perpetually at war, and that many other events would occur to lessen her prosperity. But in spite of all that he said, Foscari was made Doge at the tenth scrutiny, on April 15, 1423. It is true that under his reign Venice was constantly at war; but since he had even less power than any of his predecessors, the responsibility of war or peace did not rest with him. He was a man of great ability, and had filled many offices of trust with honor. Abroad he had served as ambassador at several courts. At home he had once been Chief of the Forty, three times Chief of the Ten, and twice their Inquisitor. At the time of his election he was fifty-one years old, the father of a large family, and the husband of a young wife who added to the number every year. Such festivities as satisfied even the Venetian taste for splendor followed his election; and, indeed, the tournaments and other spectacles were continued for a twelve-month. The thirty-four years of Foscari's reign was a {176} period of great importance. The Republic, by joining the Florentines against Milan, was involved in a series of conflicts, sometimes gaining, at others losing, always engaged in intrigues, sending and receiving embassies, making treaties only to be broken, as it would seem, but finally, in 1454, emerging from a struggle of thirty years indisputably the first of Italian powers. Hazlitt says: