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Again Father Paul's memory was virtually proscribed, and in 1803 another desperate attempt was made to cover him with infamy. In that year appeared a book entitled The Secret History of the Life of Fra Paolo Sarpi, and it contained not only his pretended biography, but what claimed to be Sarpi's own letters and other documents showing him to be an adept in scoundrelism and hypocrisy.

For a full and fair statement of the researches which exposed this pious fraud, see Castellani, Prefect of the Library of St. Mark, preface to his Lettere Inedite di F. P. S., p. xvii. For methods used in interpolating or modifying passages in Sarpi's writings, see Bianchi Giovini, Biografia di Sarpi, Zurigo, 1847, vol. ii. pp. 135, et seq.

At this he gave me a most interesting account of the opposition of Pope Gregory XVI who, before his elevation to the papacy, had been abbot of the monastery to Sarpi's burial within its sacred precincts, and of the compromise under which his burial was allowed.

On his various missions he met and discoursed with churchmen and statesmen concerned in the greatest transactions of his time, notably at Mantua with Oliva, secretary of one of the greatest ecclesiastics at the Council of Trent; at Milan with Cardinal Borromeo, by far the noblest of all who sat in that assemblage during its eighteen years; in Rome and elsewhere with Arnauld Ferrier, who had been French Ambassador at the Council, Cardinal Severina, head of the Inquisition, Castagna, afterward Pope Urban VII., and Cardinal Bellarmine, afterward Sarpi's strongest and noblest opponent.

The amazing prophecy of Jefferson against American slavery, beginning with the words, "I tremble when I remember that God is just," which, in the light of our civil war, seems divinely inspired, is paralleled by some of Sarpi's utterances against the unmoral tendencies of Jesuitism and Ultramontanism; and these too seem divinely inspired as one reads them in the light of what has happened since in Spain, in Sicily, in Naples, in Poland, in Ireland, and in sundry South American republics.

It was believed by Sarpi's friends that Bellarmine's Scotch ideas of duty to humanity prevailed over his Roman ideas of fealty to the Vatican, and we may rejoice in the hope that his nobler qualities did really assert themselves against the casuistry of his brother prelates which sanctioned assassination. These warnings were soon seen to be well founded.

Sarpi's defence of Venice against Paul V, an attorney in the seat of Hildebrand, occurred in 1605. It consists of two works the Tractate and the Considerations and probably of a third drawn up for the secret use of the Council of Ten. Like Voltaire, Sarpi seems to have lived with a pen in his hand. His manuscripts in the Venice archives fill twenty-nine folio volumes.

With wonderful breadth of knowledge and clearness of statement he made his points and answered objections. To this day, his letter remains a masterpiece. For Sarpi's advice to the Doge, see Bianchi Giovini, vol. i. pp. 216, et seq.

So, too, during one of our walks, the talk happening to fall upon one of my heroes, Fra Paolo Sarpi, I asked how it was that, while in the old church on the Lagoon at Venice I had at three different visits sought Sarpi's grave in vain, I had at the last visit found it just where I had looked for it before.

For his version of Sarpi's History, he had received from Cave, before the 21st of April in this year, fifty pounds, and some sheets of it had been committed to the press, when, unfortunately, the design was stopped, in consequence of proposals appearing for a translation of the same book, by another person of the same name as our author, who was curate of St.