torch and the burning pile, which made desolate so many hearths and homes during the reign of the sanguinary Pope Paul IV.

The intermission, however, was short. On the accession of Pius V., the work of persecution openly recommenced at Rome with the same unrelenting fury. Here at least the Pope was spiritual and temporal chief, and as such, his wretched subjects were doomed to behold day after day the auto-da-fè in all its horrors, till the whole of Italy was again filled with horror and dismay. This heartless bigot, in order to justify one of the darkest atrocities ever perpetrated by man, decreed that forthwith and for ever, thanksgivings should be offered up to heaven in all the Roman Catholic churches throughout Christendom for that great victory obtained over heresy, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew ! The same Pope was also accustomed to boast as a proof of his humanity, that he always strangled his porkers (Protestants) before he roasted them!

While the streets of Rome were smoking with the burning pyres of the most illustrious

men of Italy, when the stern patriot Machievello was lying bruised and lacerated by the rack, to which the vengeance of a Medici had condemned him, when the immortal Galileo, enfeebled with age and infirmities, trembled before the Inquisition; the strongest spirits began to waver, despair prevailed, the brilliant Italian mind set in darkness, and the noblest children of ruined Italy, fled to the land of the stranger, carrying with them their genius, their industry, and their arts.

At length this long and protracted struggle, the most sanguinary, perhaps, in the annals of history, terminated in the complete triumph of the Reformers in England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and the Northern countries of Europe. The spell of Papal power was now completely broken. Insulted at home, and harassed abroad by the continued arbitrary encroachments of the laity and their princes on their feudal rights, the pontiffs and princes of the Church of Rome in the eighteenth century, with regard to temporal and spiritual power, remained in a state of torpid inactivity. They had not the

means to indulge in the profligacy of their predecessors, and if there was vice they were compelled to hide it from the public gaze. Above all, there were no more examples of that scandalous nepotism, which had been hitherto one of the besetting sins of the Roman pontiffs, when a Pope, in the plentitude of his power and divine right, could with a stroke of his pen invest one of his natural sons with the sove

reignty of a neighbouring state. The ambitious designs of a Farnese, a Riario, or a Borgia could never be revived by their successors; they felt they were doomed to atone for the iniquitous proceedings of their predecessors, and notwithstanding the prestige that still remained of spiritual authority, they were perpetually haunted by forebodings of some great evil; and they must have known that, having destroyed the vigour and manliness of the Italian people by a system of priestcraft and jesuitical helotism, they would be compelled to submit to the first successful adventurer of the day, and become involved with their people in one common ruin. Of this we have had a

practical illustration in the facility with which Papal conservativeness gave way before Gallic destructiveness. Thus no sooner did Napoleon make his appearance in Italy, than Pope and princes fled the land or were made captive, and their large army of Jesuits, monks, and spies vanished as if they had never existed-affording a lesson to rulers, or at least it ought to do so, of the necessity of encouraging liberal institutions among their people, without which they will never have either the courage or the inclination to defend themselves against invasion.

VOL. II.

E

CHAPTER III.

Criticism on the Italian character-Flourishing state of Italy under the Republics-Hostility of the Papal Church to intellectual progress-How it has acted on the Italian mind-General observations on priestly government.

THERE are certain races among mankind, who appear to be endowed with that degree of intellectual superiority necessary for self-government, and we may reckon the Italians among the number, a highly practical people, who have already shown they could enjoy and appreciate freedom. The Republics of Venice, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Sienna, Naples, still live in the memory of the people, linked as they are with national greatness, political power, and