Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	become_v	cover_v	great_a	49	3	2.1330	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30476	Dr. Burnet's travels, or Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany, &c written by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing B5934; ESTC R9984	167,242	250

design and going back another way could not see the bottom of this It is true the Famous Magliabecchi who is the Great Dukes Library-keeper and is a Person of most wonderful civility and full of candour as well as he is learned beyond imagination assured me that this could be no other than a mistake of the Library-keepers he said such a discovery could not have been made without making so much noise that he must have heard of it He added there was not one Man in Florence that either understood Greek or that examined Manuscripts so that he assured me I could not build on what an Ignorant Library-keeper had told me So I set down this matter as I found it without building much on it Florence is much sunk from what it was for they do not reckon that there are above Fifty thousand Souls in it and the other States that were once great Republicks such as Siena and Pisa while they retained their liberty are now shrunk almost into nothing It is certain that all three together are now not so numerous as any one of them was Two hundred Years ago Legorn is full of People and all round Florence there are a great many Villages but as one goes over Tuscany it appears so dispeopled that one cannot wonder to find a Country that hath been a Scene of so much action and so many Wars now so forsaken and so poor and that in many places the Soil is quite neglected for want of hands to cultivate it and in other places where there are more People they look so poor and their houses are such miserable ruines that it is scarce accountable how there should be so much poverty in so rich a Country which is all over full of beggars and here the style of begging was a little altered from what I found in Lombardy for whereas there they begged for the sake of S. Anthony here all begged for the Souls that were in Purgatory and this was the stile in all the other parts of Italy through which I passed In short the dispeopling of Tuscany and most of the Principalities of Italy but chiefly of the Popes Dominions which are more abandoned than any other part of Italy seemed to flow from nothing but the severity of the Government and the great decay of Trade for the greatest Trade of Italy being in Silk the vast importation of Silks that the East-India Companies bring into Europe hath quite ruined all those that deal in this manufacture Yet this is not the chief cause of the dispeopling of those rich Countries the severity of the Taxes is the true reason notwithstanding all that decay of Trade the Taxes are still kept up Besides this the vast Wealth of the Convents where the only People of Italy are to be sound that live not only at their ease but in great plenty and luxury makes many forsake all sort of Industry and seek for a retreation of those seats of pleasure so that the People do not encrease fast enough to make a new Race to come instead of those whom a hard Government drives away It must needs surprize an unattentive Traveller to see not only the Venetian Territory which is indeed a rich Country but the Baliages of the Switzers and the Coast of Genoa so full of People when Tuscany the Patrimony and the Kingdom of Naples have so few Inhabitants In the Coast of Genoua there is for many miles as it were a constant tract of Towns and Villages and all those are well peopled though they have scarce any Soil at all lying under the Mountains that are very barren and that exposed them to a most uneasie Sun and that they lie upon a boistrous Sea that is almost always in a storm and that affords very few Fish and yet the gentleness of the Government draws such multitudes thither and those are so full of Wealth that Money goes at Two per cent But on the other hand to ballance this a little so strange and wild a thing is the nature of Man at least of Italians that I was told that the worst People of all Italy are the Genoeses and the most generally corrupted in their Morals as to all sorts of Vice so that though a severe Government and Slavery are contrary to the nature of Man and to human Society to Justice and Equity and to that essential equality that Nature hath made among Men yet on the other hand all Men cannot bear that ease and liberty that becometh human Nature The superstition of Italy and the great wast of Wealth that one sees in their Churches particularly those prodigious masses of Plate with which their Altars are covered on Holy-days doth also sink their Trade extreamly for Silver being in Commerce what blood is in the Body when so much of that is dead and circulates no more it is no wonder if such extravasation if I may use so long and hard a word of Silver occasions a great deadness in Trade I had almost forgot one Remark that I made in the Hill of the Appenins just above Florence that I never saw such tall and big Cypresses as grew over all that Hill which seemed a little strange that Tree being apt to be starved by a cold Winter among us and there the Winters are severe All the way in Tuscany is very rugged except on the sides of the Arne But the uneasiness of the Road is much qualified by the great care that is had of the High-ways which are all in very good case The Inns are wretched and ill furnished both for Lodging and Diet. This is the plague of all Italy when once one hath passed the Appennins for except in the great Towns one really suffers so much that way that the pleasure of Travelling is much abated by the inconveniences that one meets in every Stage through which he passes I am SIR Yours BOOK II. The Fourth Letter From Rome the Eight of December 1685. I Am now in my last stage of my Voyage over Italy for since my last from Florence I have not only got hither but have been in Naples and have now satisfied my Curiosity so fully that I intend to leave this Place within a day or two and go to Civita-vecchia and from thence by Sea to Marseilles and to avoid an unpleasant Winters Journey over the Alps. It is true I close the sight of Turin Genoa and some other Courts but tho I am told these deserve well the pains of the Journey yet when one rises from a great Meal no Delicacies how much soever they might tempt him at an other time can provoke his appetite so I confess freely that the sight of Naples and Rome have so fil'd my stomack that way that the Curiosity of seeing new Places is now very low with me and indeed these that I have of last seen are such that Places which at an other time would please me much would now make but a slight and cold Impression All the way

as it was among the Florentines who though they value themselves as a size of Men much above the Venetians whom they despise as a phlegmatick and dull race of People yet shewed how little they understood with all their vivacity to conduct their state since by their domestick heats they lost their liberty which the Venetians have had the wisdom still to preserve This Faction of the Case Ducale was perhaps willing to let the matter fall for they lost more than they got by it for the ancient Families in revenge set themselves against them and excluded them from all the other advantagious imployments of the State For the others being only united in that single point relating to the Dukedom the ancient Families let them carry it but in all other Competitions they set up always such Competitors against the pretenders that were of the Ducal Families that were much more esteemed than these were so that they shut them out of all the best Offices of the Republick Such a Faction as this was ●f it had been still kept up might in conclusion have proved fatal to their Liberty It is indeed a wonder to see the Dignity of the Duke so much courted for h● is only a prisoner of state tied up to such rules so severely r●strained and shut up as it were in an apartment of the Palace of St. Mark that it is not strange to see some of the greatest Families in particular the Cornara's decline it All the Family if ever so numerous must retire o●t of the Senate when a Duke is chosen out of it only one that is next to him of kin sits still but without a Vote And the only real Priviledge that the Duke hath is that he can of himself without communicating with the Savii propose matters either to the Council of Ten to the Senate or to the Great Council whereas all other propositions must be first offered to the Savii and examined by them who have a so●t of Tribunitian power to reject what they d●slike and though they cannot hinder the Duke to make a proposition yet they can mortifie him when he hath made it They can h●●der it to be voted and after it is voted they can suspend the execution of it till it is examined over again And a Duke that is of an active Spirit must resolve to endure many of these afflictions and it is certain that the Savii do sometimes affect to shew the greatness of their Authority and exercise a sort of Tyranny in the rejecting of Pro●ositions when they intend to humble those that make them Yet the greatest part of the best Families court this Honour of Dukedom extreamly when Segrado was upon the point of being chosen Duke there was so violent an outcry against it over all Venice because of the disgrace that they thought would come on the Republick if they had a Prince whose Note had miscarried in some unfortunate disorders the Senate complyed so far with this Aversion that the People testified That though the Inquisitors took care to hang or drown many of the chief of the Mutineers yet they let the design for Sagredo fall Upon which he was so much disgusted that he retired to a house he had in the Terra firma and never appeared more at Venice During which time of his retirement he writ two Books the one Memorie Ottomaniche which is Printed and he is accounted the best of all the Modern Authors The other was Memoir●s of the Government and History of Venice which hath never been Printed and some say it is too sincere and too particular so that it is thought it will be reserved among their Archives It hath been a sort of maxim now for some time not to chuse a married Man to be Duke for the Coronation of a Dutchess goes high and hath cost above Hundred thousand Ducats Some of the ancient Families have affected the Title of Prince and have called their branches Princes of the Blood and though the Cornara's have done this more than any other yet others upon the account of some Principalities that their Ancestors had in the Islands of the Archipelago have also affected those vain Titles But the Inquisitors have long ago obliged them to lay aside all those high Titles and such of them that boast too much of their Blood find the dislike which that brings on them very sensibly for whensoever they pretend to any great Employments they find themselves always excluded When an Election of Ambassadors was proposed or of any of the chief Offices it was wont to be made in those terms that the Council must chuse one of its principal Members for such an Employment But because this lookt like a term of distinction among the Nobility they changed it Five and twenty Years ago and instead of Principal they use now the term Honourable which comprehends the whole body of the Nobility without any distinction It is at Venice in the Church as well as in the State that the Head of the Body hath a great Title and particular Honours done him whereas in the mean while this is a meer Pageantry and under these big words there is lodged only a light shadow of Authority for their Bishop has the glorious Title of Patriark as well as the Duke is called their Prince and his serenity and hath his name stampt upon their Coin so the Patriark with all his high Title hath really no Authority For not only St. Mark 's Church is intirely exempted from his jurisdiction and is immediately subject to the Duke but his Authority is in all other things so subject to the Senate and so regulated by them that he hath no more power than they are pleased to allow him So that the Senate is as really the supream Governor over all Persons and in all Causes as the Kings of England have pretended to be in their own Dominions since the Rrformation But besides all this the Clergy of Venice have a very extraordinary sort of exemption and are a sort of a Body like a Presbytery independent of the Bishop The Curats are chosen by the Inhabitants of every Parish and this makes that no Noble Venetian is suffered to pretend to any Curacy for they think it below that Dignity to suffer one of their Body to engage in a Competition with one of a lower Order and to run the hazard of being rejected I was told the manner of those Elections was the most scandalous thing possible for the several Candidates appear on the day of election and set out their own merits and defame the other pretenders in the foulest language and in the most scurrilous manner imaginable the secrets of all their lives are publisht in most reproachful terms and nothing is so abject and ridiculous that is not put in practice on those occasions There is a sort of an Association among the Curats for judging of their common concerns and some of the Laity of the several Parishes assist in those