it, has been subjected to harassing and vexatious proceedings on the part of the Tuscan government, and Niccolini is undisturbed, only because he has no doubt taken proper care to destroy all proofs of his authorship. The material interests of the people are attended to with great care by the Austrian Government in its provinces, as well as by that of Piedmont, in those which belong to the King of Sardinia. At Naples, the King is a worthy descendant of Philip V. of Spain, whose race, for the curse of the unhappy countries under its sway, seems distinguished by a mixture of ignorance, superstition, cruelty, eccentricity bordering on insanity, and, above all, falseness unparalleled in the history of any other family. Whilst in some parts of his dominions the people die of sheer want and misery, he squanders the ill-gotten and oppressive taxes on the theatrical dress of his showy army. Military commissions overrun the country, and leave behind tracks of blood, shed with cruel indifference by mock tribunals, which look upon mercy and pity for the victims as proofs of treasonable intentions; whilst the King amuses himself with reviewing his armed Marionettes, and enjoying the delicious climate, and the effeminate amusements of his court; from which he runs to the feet of his confessor, in the degrading and demoralizing hope of receiving from the Almighty that forgiveness which the proud priest takes on himself to grant, and which has never been known to the heart of this royal penitent. The Duke of Modena enriches himself at the expense of his subjects, whom he oppresses with a tyranny which has a parallel only in Russia; and the widow of Napoleon, after having forgotten her past grandeur in the arms of two successive husbands, has now betaken herself to protecting the Jesuits, and to providing for them, as well as for her children, at the expense of her impoverished subjects. Among these varieties of despotic and oppressive government, there is one feature common to them all; it is the dread of political information, political inquiry, political knowledge, among the people. Any one suspected of a leaning towards this sort of knowledge, is a marked victim, and is sooner or later made to pay for his imprudence, which is characterized as a crime. Under such governments it is not enough to obey; one must obey blindly, because it is one's duty, not from conviction; and he who attempts to prove even the advantages of obedience, is liable to suspicion, inasmuch as he attempts to reason. Formed at such a school, with such governments before their eyes, no wonder that the people, who have so much ground for wishing themselves delivered from such intolerable thraldom, prove themselves utterly unequal to the task of substituting rational and truly free institutions for the misgovernment under which they groan.

Yet every one of the Governments of Italy is almost perfection, every one of its most glaring defects a slight blemish, when compared with the Papal government, and its vices. There is nothing like it but the government of Turkey, which, however, has the advantage of being supported by some religious virtue and enthusiasm, of which every spark is extinguished in the Roman States. Religious despotism and intolerance are there supported by mental ignorance and enslaved mind, and enforced by spiritual tyranny, which imparts a sacred character to the temporal power on which it rests. Read "Locke on Government," ," "Hallam's Middle Ages," or "Calvin's Catechisms," and you are liable to be excommunicated and imprisoned, by the Bishop's order; the temporal power visits your sins, and the priest your crimes. Birth, connexions, and, above all, money, will deliver you from both. The Pope is a trustee of his temporal power, not for his subjects, but for the Church; and were he ever so inclined to correct abuses, by which the Cardinals profit, he would never be able to do so. The Cardinals, who elect the Pope, and every one of whom hopes to be himself elected, will never consent to any diminution of the middle-age religious and political despotism, by which the extravagant power of the Popes is raised to such a sinful height.* An aristocracy always endeavour to encroach upon the sovereign power, and to seize what it wrests from it: but a Cardinal likes better to run his chance of possessing himself of an extravagant power, if elected Pope, than to share with the rest of the "Sacred College," as the body of cardinals are called, whatever power might be wrested from Papacy. On the other hand, the highest offices of State are filled only by cardinals and prelates, and all the inferior places by priests of various degrees of dignity at the Court. The cardinals affect to be patrons or protectors, not only of families but of public bodies, of powerful corporations, even of great monarchies. France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, have still a "Cardinal Protettore," who patronizes the interest of the nation which he protects. Add to this, that the Pope, before his election to the pontificate, was one of their own body, often old and infirm, chosen by, and therefore bound to, them; and that it is their interest to support each other against any person who is not one of them; it will not be surprising then that every one of them may act independently of

* The maxims of law by which the all-power of the Pope is expressed at Rome, are such as these :-"Si totus mundus in aliquo negotio sententiaret contra Papam, sententiæ Papæ standum est-Papa est omnia et super omnia-Papa potest mutare quadrata rotundis et facere de albo nigrum-Est causa causarum, ideoque non est de ejus potestate inquirendum, cum primæ causæ nulla sit causa sola enim potestas est pro causa; et qui de hoc dubitat dicitur dubitare de fide Catholica."

all laws and power, including that of the Pope. Their followers are almost as independent, resting on the support and credit of their patrons. Hence, not even in Turkey is such barefaced sale of sacred as well as profane things known: places are sold, the right of smuggling is purchased, the judges of the several tribunals have their price, impunity for every crime can be secured.* Add to this, the utter contempt for fitness for office that is universally shown. A bad, perhaps a corrupt, judge is raised to a bishopric; a bishop is appointed secretary at war; a monk is intrusted with the finances, and a friar goes from his cell to the government of a province; and then each and all of them are, by new arrangements and for the benefit of individuals, transferred from one of these places to another the most distinct, and requiring altogether different knowledge, habits and pursuits. As tenacious as the Chinese of old customs and etiquette, all these public officers are bound to live in the same style, have the same number of carriages, livery servants, hangers-on and parasites, as was the case when Rome had the picking of all the rich livings of Europe, which, intended originally pro salute anima, were bestowed by the See of Rome on her creatures, for her own benefit and splendour. To meet these expenses, saints are canonized, and Jews persecuted; the glories of heaven and the torments of hell profusely bartered with profligate impudence and horrible profaneness. The priests, parasitic plants, often foreigners and still oftener utter strangers to the Roman States, where they have neither friends nor kin, have all a common interest in supporting this system of misgovernment, in plundering the oppressed fathers of families, who have no other right than that of paying taxes and suffering in peace their misfortunes, except they think it better either to purchase some relief at the expense of their neighbour, or to shake off at any risk a yoke which spreads death and desolation wherever it extends its withering power. There is no community of interests, of feelings, of views, between the governors and the governed. The former, exempted from taxes, monopolize all the offices, power and influence of the state, with which they have no social and lasting connexion; the latter are excluded from office, power and influence, and have to support all the burdens of the state, of which they and their descendants are the subjects, and can never be

*Not only can impunity be secured, but the very blackest crimes are rewarded. One Massocco, who had been for seventeen years at the head of a gang of highwaymen, in the province of Frosinone, was not only pardoned but appointed captain of bersaglieri (a body intrusted with the police) in the same province; and Barbone, for whose apprehension a reward of 1000 crowns (more than £210 sterling) had been offered, was afterwards commissary of police at Rome itself. 2 H

VOL. I. NO. II.

more, except by breaking all family connexion and taking

orders.

The people are the more ready to overthrow so vile a government, as its weakness is as well known as its corruption, both of which render it contemptible. Within the last twelve years, the Papal government has subsisted only because Austria has supported it. But, although this power has never hesitated, in lending her bayonets to the Pope, to force the people to submission, she has never exerted herself to enforce the correction of glaring abuses, which she, as well as the other potentates of Europe, had in 1831 pointed out to the Papal Government, from which a solemn, although reluctant, promise of reform was extorted, when nothing but Austrian assistance could save it from ruin. But no sooner was "order" restored, than the Papal promises were broken in the teeth, and with the acquiescence of Louis Philippe, who had boasted of having obtained them, but under a very solemn and creditable protest by Sir George H. Seymour, then English minister at Florence, who, by order of Lord Palmerston, pointed out to the other powers the folly as well as the baseness of the Pope's conduct, and forewarned them of the consequences. The events justified his foresight. In 1832, the Papal Government was again indebted to Austria for its existence; and Louis Philippe, to please his clamorous subjects, took the strong measure of seizing upon Ancona, the most important fortress and post in the Papal States. The peace of Europe was then on the point of being broken; Louis Philippe, however, was more anxious to have a subject for a bombastic speech to his Parliament, than to relieve the subjects of the Pope from oppression. Accordingly, after having been as good policemen to His Holiness as the Austrians, the French left Ancona, with as little dignity and credit as they had entered it. But a few years have elapsed, the government of the Pope has continued the same, and it now finds itself on the brink of ruin without Austrian interference, which may be postponed, but most certainly cannot be eventually dispensed with. Incapable of being just as well as of being merciful, the governing priests sanction the murder of poor victims at day-break, but these corrupt and cowardly agents dare not grapple with the influential and important persons who are determined to free their country from the abominations of a Popish Government.*

We have lately seen in the public papers the execution of six persons, put to death at day-break at Bologna by order of a military tribunal. A military tribunal established and appointed by priests! But those six unhappy persons, slaughtered under circumstances not unlike those which accompanied the murder of the Duke of Enghien, were persons of very humble condition in life, and whose relatives were unable to purchase or to frighten their assassins, dignified with the name of judges.

Insignificant as these Papal affairs may at first seem, when compared with the great European interests, they will be found to be pregnant with portentous consequences, when a little more narrowly examined. After the peace of 1814, Austria was very unwilling to dispossess herself of the Legations, particularly of Bologna, which it evacuated in 1815; the Austrian governor leaving behind a proclamation, wherein he stated, that His Imperial master GAVE, instead of saying RESTORED, the province to the Pope. Austria had made great efforts at the Congress of Vienna to obtain Bologna and Ferrara for herself, and she would have probably succeeded in spite of Papal anathemas, had not France, supported by Russia, resolutely and successfully resisted this attempt. Neither the penchant of one power, nor the jealousy of the other, have ever ceased. Add to this, that no government, and still more, no Roman Catholic government, can see with indifference the Pope at the absolute mercy of Austria. Whoever is paramount at Rome has a prodigious influence over all the Romish priesthood in the world, and over the consciences of all Papists. It is very well for shallow theorists to affect contempt for the Pope's spiritual power, and to pretend that Rome is no longer what it was. Look at the prodigious strength gained by the ultramontane principles, and by the bishops in France. Observe Mr. O'Connell, abusing alike Louis Philippe and the Spanish patriots, praising the Belgian clergy, and offering a legion to the French Pretender; and then argue from these facts the credit due to the fancies of theorists. The Church of Rome, as settled by the Council of Trent, is unchanged and unchangeable. She may postpone her pretensions, and allow people to think that she has forgotten her so-called rights; she may seem to sympathize with free opinions, and pretend to toleration; but she cannot be sincere, so long as she founds her claims on divine right, which neither lapse of time nor renunciation, tacit or express, can impair-so long as she denies the right of private judgment, proclaims auricular confession, (the most tyrannical, wicked, and corrupting system of police ever devised by priestly cunning,) and sanctions the censorship of the press as part of her religion; so long as her most recent divines tell you, that she ought to be tolerant only when she cannot help it, and not at any other time or on any other occasion.*

It is, for instance, held, that although the followers of the confession of Augsburg are tolerated by the peace of Possau and Augsburg, the Calvinists, Zwinglians, Huguenots, &c., not being included in that peace by name, are subject to punishment for heresy; although they be tolerated by the treaty of Munster. Nam illa pax (of Munster) non tantum nullo nec tacito modo approbata, sed positive reprobata, et annullata, et irrita declarata fuerit ab ecclesia per bullam