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"For Catherine looked what she had been, At once the beauty and the queen."

"The new king of Cyprus had been attached from early youth to Catarina, niece of Andréa Cornaro, a Venetian noble, resident on his Cypriote estate; and no sooner was he freed from certain political and domestic obstacles, than he tendered his hand to that lady. In order to satisfy the rigid law which forbade the marriage of any Venetian of noble birth with a foreigner, the destined royal bride was solemnly adopted by the state, and declared a daughter of St. Mark; she was then married by proxy, in the presence of the doge and signory, conducted by the bucentaur to the galley which awaited her in the port, and escorted by a squadron of ships of war, with becoming pomp, and a portion of 100,000 ducats, to the territories of her husband." After his death the island was governed by his widow. "Fifteen years had now passed during which the signory had governed Cyprus, under the name of Catarina, whose son died not long after his birth; and the islanders, who at first chafed beneath the yoke of the Republic, and earnestly sought