information afforded by these persons, officially connected with the transactions of the Council, Sarpi had at his command the Archives of Venice, including the dispatches of ambassadors, and a vast store of published documents, not to mention numerous details which in the course of his long commerce with society he had obtained from the lips of credible witnesses.  All these sources, grasped in their diversity by his powerful memory and animated with his vivid intellect, are worked into an even, plain, dispassionate narration, which, in spite of the dryness of the subject, forms a truly fascinating whole.  That Sarpi was strictly fair in his conception of the Council, can scarcely be maintained; for he wrote in a spirit of distinct antagonism to the ends which it achieved.  Yet the more we examine the series of events described by him, the more are we convinced that in its main features the work is just.  When Sir Roger Twysden pronounced it ’to be written with so great moderation, learning and wisdom, as might deserve a place among the exactest pieces of ecclesiastic story any age had produced,’ he did not overshoot the mark.  Nor has the avowedly hostile investigation to which Cardinal Pallavicini submitted it, done more than to confirm its credit by showing that a deadly enemy, with all the arsenal of Roman documents at his command, could only detect inaccuracies in minor details and express rage at the controlling animus of the work.

It was Sarpi’s object to demonstrate that the Council of Trent, instead of being a free and open Synod of Christians assembled to discuss points at issue between the Catholic and Protestant Churches, was in reality a closely-packed conciliabulum, from which Protestants were excluded, and where Catholics were dominated by the Italian agents of the Roman Court.  He made it clear, and in this he is confirmed by masses of collateral proofs, that the presiding spirit of the Council was human diplomacy rather than divine inspiration, and that Roman intrigue conducted its transactions to an issue favorable for Papal supremacy by carefully manipulating the interests of princes and the passions of individuals.  ‘I shall narrate the causes,’ he remarks, in his exordium, ’and the negotiations of an ecclesiastical convocation during the course of twenty-two years, for divers ends and with varied means; by whom promoted and solicited, by whom impeded and delayed; for another eighteen years, now brought together, now dissolved; always held with various ends; and which received a form and accomplishment quite contrary to the design of those who set it going, as also to the fear of those who took all pains to interrupt it.  A clear monition that man ought to yield his thoughts resignedly to God and not to trust in human prudence.  Forasmuch as this Council, desired and put in motion by pious men for the reunion of the Church which had begun to break asunder, hath so established schism and embittered factions that it has rendered those discords irreconcilable;