A frightful silence succeeded the call. There was neither answer nor human form Jacopo compressed the handle of his oar with fingers. of iron. On every side he bent a frenzied eye.

L.C

THE

BRAV 0;

A VENETIAN STORY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"THE PILOT," "THE BORDERERS," "THE
WATER WITCH," &c.

Cooper, James Femmor.

Giustizia in palazzo,
E pane in piazza.

REVISED, CORRECTED,

AND ILLUSTRATED WITH A NEW PREFACE, NOTES, ETC.

BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH.

36X399

PREFACE

TO THE

PRESENT EDITION IN "THE STANDARD NOVELS."

THE BRAVO was projected during a short residence in Venice, in the spring of 1830. Those great political events which have since effected so much in Europe, and which are probably destined to produce so many more changes, were still in embryo; nothing being apparent but those eternal principles whose tendency is ever towards truth. The work was written chiefly at Paris, where opportunity was not wanting to illustrate the subject by observing the manner in which the specious and designing trifled with the just hopes of the mass; abusing their confidence and perverting the fruits of popular energy to the purposes of the mercenary and selfish. It is scarcely necessary after this to add that the drift of the book is political. Its objects are to demonstrate the manner in which men get entangled in the meshes of mystifications, when even the best intentioned become the subjects of circumstances; and to expose the irresponsible nature of an aristocratical form