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This may be no bad mode of government,--provided
that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds,
that their cabals and factions are guarded against with a severe
vigilance, and that the people (who have no share in granting their own
money) are subjected to but light impositions, and are otherwise treated
with attention, and with indulgence to their humors and prejudices.
The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly confines all the
great functions and offices, such as are truly _stale_ functions and
_state_ offices, to those who by hereditary right or admission are noble
Venetians. But there are many offices, and some of them not mean nor
unprofitable, (that of Chancellor is one,) which are reserved for the
_cittadini_. Of these all citizens of Venice are capable. The
inhabitants of the _terra firma_, who are mere subjects of conquest,
that is, as you express it, under the state, but "not a part of it," are
not, however, subjects in so very rigorous a sense as not to be capable
of numberless subordinate employments.


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