VENETIAN STUDIES.* THIS is a disappointing book. We are sorry
to find that Mr. Brown has not been able to keep up to the level of his first essay. It is extremely probable that the subjects of the book before us are not so well suited to the capabilities of the author. Life on the Lagoons was to a great extent compiled from personal observation and inquiry into the ways and manners of the Venetian people, and the result was a series of light, readable sketches, which made up a sufficiently attractive volume. But in his Venetian Studies, Mr. Brown has little to offer us, "save base authority from others' books," with, of course, his own deductions and theories concerning the facts established thereby. Undoubtedly, it is in the power of man to make a book of this kind intensely interesting, but it hardly seems to be Mr. Brown's proper line of country. We miss the easy and lively, perhaps sometimes rather frothy, style of his former work.
Possibly it may be Mr. Brown's intention that we should do so. Should it be his purpose to appear in the light of a serious historian, he may have deliberately renounced those airs and graces which we regret, as unfitting the dignity of his theme. No doubt it is a more serious thing to describe the Constitution of the Venetian Republic than the making of a gondola, and more pompous expressions and "a mien more grave" may be requisite. But whether the author is, with the most excellent intentions, deliberately suppressing his tendencies to a lighter style of writing, or whether there is a certain element of stiff- ness and formality about his subjects—for, as we know well, the quality of dullness is not strained ; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven on many of the highly deserving persons who devote themselves to the cause of history—there is no denying the fact that the book in question is somewhat lacking in interest. It is neither one thing nor the other. The "studies" are far too slight to be regarded as a serious contri- bution to Venetian history, while they are by no means lively enough for general reading. To take the article upon Car- magnola, which is, perhaps, the weakest point of the whole book, we have here a really interesting story, which is attractive even in the somewhat dry pages of the old chronicler, Bigli, quite shorn of its interesting features, and made just a kind of pendant to a discourse upon mediawal Italian affairs which occupies more than half of the article. "There is an observa- tion," says Mr. Brown, "which is continually forced upon the student of Italian history." It seems to us that there are a great number of observations which force themselves upon this particular student of Italian history, and that he takes a most unwarrantable revenge in forcing them, in his turn, upon = Venetian Studies. By 'tomtit, F. Brown. Lonlcn : Regan Pont, Trench, and CO. 1887.
his hapless readers. In the case in question, it is the novel discovery that Italy "has experienced an almost insurmount- able difficulty in achieving union." To take another instance, the wanderings of Novella Carrara are so curious, that it is a thousand pities they are not better told. At the same time, there are other cases in which Mr. Brown has been more successful. The account of the conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo, for instance, is interesting reading enough. It is true that the actual story of the conspiracy is almost smothered in long dis- quisitions upon the state of Venetian politics at the time ; but then, the system of government at Venice in those days is very complicated and difficult to understand, and the explanations are really necessary. A good account, too, is given of another strange and mysterious affair, which Mr. Brown calls the Spanish Conspiracy. There is also great interest in the article on "Oliver Cromwell and the Venetian Republic," though it seems rather out of place here, as it consists almost entirely Of extracts from the reports of Venetian envoys concerning the affairs of England. This seems hardly appropriate in a book of Venetian history, but it is excessively interesting, as the account of the history of our own country given by an in- telligent, and probably impartial, foreigner always will be. The criticism of Cromwell's character supplied by Sagredo is curious and valuable. The account of his personal appearance may be quoted here :—
"He is a man of fifty-six years ; a thin beard ; a full habit; short, robust, and martial in appearance. His countenance is dark and profound ; he carries a large sword by his side."
It is perhaps not so striking a description as the famous one given by Sir Philip Warwick, but it acquires an additional interest from the personality of the speaker, the shrewd Italian diplomatist, eager for a sight of the famous English ruler, not losing a single detail of his appearance. The Protector appeared out of health ; "for I noticed that while he remained uncovered, the hand which held his hat trembled." Carlyle spoke of the curious interest attaching to the writings of a man who had actually seen King John ; and there is a peculiar attraction in the account of a writer who not only saw a great historical character face to face, but did so with the express intention of observing him carefully and recording his ex- perience. The report of Sagredo on the state of affairs in England is given at full length ; it contains a review of con- temporary English history from the time of Charles I. It is curious to find that the dominating quality in the King's character was an "incomparable sincerity." According to Sagredo, the King was undoubtedly a Catholic at heart :— "it is true, however, that his Majesty on the scaffold, guided by a diabolical desire to prove the injustice of his condemnation, publicly professed the dogmas of Protestantism, and, to the damnation of his own soul, endeavoured to give the lie to the rumour that he leaned towards the Catholic faith."
The next sentence is no less curious :— " We must add, as no unimportant agent in his ruin, that he lacked the spirit to govern by himself, and availed himself of Ministers whose wits were slow and heavy, such as Lord Holland, or of austere prelates like the Bishop of Canterbury, who desired to govern London as though it had been a college or a religious house."
Mr. Brown has done well to print the whole of this curious document. By-the-way, it appears that we had a fine Navy in those days, although there was no brave Lord Charles, no honest Beresford then, to keep the Admiralty up to the mark Among the other "studies" contained in this volume, there is a very careful description of the complicated Venetian Constitu- tion, with all its various Boards and Councils, which will no doubt be found valuable by those who desire information on this subject. The account of Catarina Cornaro is slight and sketchy, but Queen Catarina seems to be one of those dis- appointing characters whom we occasionally meet with in history, who remain uninteresting in the most romantic circumstances. The story of Marcantonio Bragadin, the discoverer of the "spirit of gold," is very curious, and will he new to most readers. "Cardinal Contarini and his Friends" is a very queer production, the raison d'être of which is some- what difficult to discover. There remain the first and last articles,—" The City of Rialto," which is occupied with the early days of Venice, and "Venice of To-day." In both of these our author has yielded to that unfortunate tendency to rhapsodise which he evinced in his former work. There is a thing in literature which is known to many in our land by the name of a "trot." It is used to describe those occasions wilco a writer indulges in flights of fancy or outbursts of
grandiloquence, either in the enthusiasm of his subject or because he has nothing particular to say. It is an excellent expedient, which helps one round many a difficult corner ; but it should be used with moderation. We regard with kindly indulgence, and even sympathy, the writer who breaks into a " trot " at proper intervals; but Mr. Brown is continually trotting, and when thoroughly animated with the fierce joy of metaphor, there is practically no telling where he will stop. We cannot help feeling that he trots not only with the animal which he is naturally obliged to employ for business purposes, but also with a cheval de luxe, a pleasure Pegasus which Mr. Goschen would be fully justified in taxing. He has taken care to shelter himself from criti- cism in this respect, by alleging that the wild exuberance of his language is only the outcome of the enthusiasm natural to every lover of Venice. He is prepared to see it misunderstood, and set down as "sheer moon-madness "—which we take to be Old High German for lunacy—by the kind of Englishmen who stand in a row in the halls of the hotels, and curse the porter when it rains. Now, without entering into the ethical question whether it is proper to swear at hotel-porters on account of the bad weather—which many excellent per- sons undoubtedly believe—we must demur to this plea, lest we be thought to be wanting in respect to Venice when we are only criticising Mr. Brown. We remember hearing of a Scotch divine of some eminence, who, on his return from a journey in England, spoke in disparaging terms of the bare, undecorated Scotch churches, and in particular likened the pulpit in which he himself officiated to a pigstye ; whereat an old lady of the parish indignantly remarked,—" It's no the pegstye that we mind ; it's the peg that's in it." Far be it from us to apply such expressions to Mr. Brown ; we only mean to show it is from no want of admiration or sympathy for Venice that we disapprove of the loftiness of his language. But really to meet with such a phrase as "flaming in sinister splendour down the road of corruption," on the very first page of a book, is calculated to give a shock to the ordinary reader which might have a serious effect on persons of delicate constitution. There are times, too, when the full soul, we will not say loathes, but hardly feels equal to his "bold and buttressed piles of cloud-mountains," his "hurricanes leaping out from the city," and his "grains of orange and crimson that stain the water before his prow." But there is no great harm in all this. As Sam Weller says, " Arter all, my Lord, it's a amable weakness." Slightly more objectionable is the fondness for such oracular sayings as, "The dynamics of balance were always potent enough to destroy the statics," or, "Advice, when not self-chosen, is frequently a con- stitutional synonym for command." But there is an inherent tendency in the nature of man, when he has written a short sentence which he finds he does not exactly understand him- self, to treat it as an epigram; and one finds a certain pleasure in re-reading and dwelling on such phrases oneself, though it is weary work for others.
There is one thing, however, which will always give an interest to Mr. Brown's books, and that is that he undoubtedly understands and is in sympathy with the Venetians of to-day. The spirit of medireval Venice, it seems to us, he is unable to appreciate properly, and his attempts at Venetian history cannot be said to be successful on the whole. But he knows Venice as it now is, and has studied carefully its people and its customs. Of course, like any other observer of any parti- cular people, he now and then tries to prove that his investi- gations have been more succe,ssfu]. than the public will be ready to allow. For instance, in his search for quaint sayings, he often mistakes very ordinary remarks for wit. It is the natural result of the researches of the writer who wishes to be fcrrtement document6 in such a matter. He gives us, however, one anecdote which hits off Italian imperturbability very well. He was on one occasion summoned as a witness in a Venetian Court, and after long waiting in an antechamber where smoking and throwing about of lighted matches was tolerated, a catastrophe happened to an old woman who was his fellow-witness :— " One of the policemen suddenly said to the old woman, You're burning,' but he never moved; and sure enough a thin thread of
smoke was rising from the old lady's petticoat. Santissima Vergine Maria!' she cried in horror, but no one moved. The Judge on the bench put his finger-tips together, observed the witness for a second, and confirmed the policeman's remark, Yes, you are burning ;' and prosecutor, counsel, and general public confirmed the Judge, and said, Yes, she's burning.' The old lady's fellow-witness" (the author) "could not let her burn in this way quite quietly, so he caught her petticoats tight in his hands, while the Judge, still with his finger-tips together, nodded approval from the bench, and said, Squeeze her, squeeze her, squeeze her well.' The smouldering flame was soon put out. The Judge smiled, the policeman smiled, the public smiled, and the ease went on."
Altogether, it is an unequal book, which contains a certain amount of very fair writing, and a good deal that is decidedly indifferent. There are some misspellings of Italian names, which, of course, are chargeable to the printer, as no one will suspect Mr. Brown of making mistakes in this respect. Still, such things should be carefully revised. In conclusion, we will venture to suggest to our author that as he is manifestly more at home with contemporary Venetian matters, which he has had peculiar opportunities of studying, he will do well to confine himself to this subject, in which case we may be able to give to a future work the less qualified applause which we awarded to his first attempt.
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