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, as great a deficiency of incident, as if "to be born and die" made all the history of aspiring natures contending for supremacy. The character of the hero is pourtrayed in words, not in actions; it does not unfold itself in any struggle of opposite feelings and passions, and the interest excited for him only commences at the moment when it ought to have reached its climax. The merits of the piece may be summed up in the occasional energy of the language and dignity of the thoughts; and the truth with which the spirit of the age is characterized, as well in the developement of that suspicious policy distinguishing the system of the Venetian government, as in the pictures of the fiery Condottieri, holding their councils of war,

Jealous of honour, sudden and quick in quarrel.