Transcriber's note:

 The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been preserved faithfully. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. 

PILGRIMAGE FROM THE ALPS TO THE TIBER. 

Or

The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge. 

by

REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL. D. 

Author of "The Papacy, " &c. &. C. 

EdinburghShepherd & Elliot, 15, Princes Street. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co. MDCCCLV. 

CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. PAGE THE INTRODUCTION, 1

 CHAPTER II. THE PASSAGE OF THE ALPS, 8

 CHAPTER III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN PIEDMONT, 23

 CHAPTER IV. STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS, 43

 CHAPTER V. STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE VAUDOIS CHURCH, 62

 CHAPTER VI. FROM TURIN TO NOVARA--PLAIN OF LOMBARDY, 83

 CHAPTER VII. FROM NOVARA TO MILAN--DOGANA--CHAIN OF THE ALPS, 94

 CHAPTER VIII. CITY AND PEOPLE OF MILAN, 105

 CHAPTER IX. ARCO DELLA PACE--ST AMBROSE, 119

 CHAPTER X. THE DUOMO OF MILAN, 126

 CHAPTER XI. MILAN TO BRESCIA--THE REFORMERS, 137

 CHAPTER XII. THE PRESENT THE IMAGE OF THE PAST, 152

 CHAPTER XIII. SCENERY OF LAKE GARDA--PESCHIERA--VERONA, 158

 CHAPTER XIV. FROM VERONA TO VENICE--THE TYROLESE ALPS, 168

 CHAPTER XV. VENICE--DEATH OF NATIONS, 178

 CHAPTER XVI. PADUA--ST ANTONY--THE PO--ARREST, 198

 CHAPTER XVII. FERRARA--RENÉE AND OLYMPIA MORATA, 209

 CHAPTER XVIII. BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES, 216

 CHAPTER XIX. FLORENCE AND ITS YOUNG EVANGELISM, 237

 CHAPTER XX. FROM LEGHORN TO ROME--CIVITA VECCHIA, 262

 CHAPTER XXI. MODERN ROME, 276

 CHAPTER XXII. ANCIENT ROME--THE SEVEN HILLS, 289

 CHAPTER XXIII. SIGHTS IN ROME--CATACOMBS--PILATE'S STAIRS--PIO NONO, &C. , 302

 CHAPTER XXIV. INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE, 333

 CHAPTER XXV. INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE--(CONTINUED), 352

 CHAPTER XXVI. JUSTICE AND LIBERTY IN THE PAPAL STATES, 366

 CHAPTER XXVII. EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE PAPAL STATES, 401

 CHAPTER XXVIII. MENTAL STATE OF THE PRIESTHOOD IN ITALY, 415

 CHAPTER XXIX. SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC CUSTOMS OF THE ROMANS, 430

 CHAPTER XXX. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE WHOLE, OR, ROME HER OWN WITNESS, 447

ROME, AND

THE WORKINGS OF ROMANISM

IN ITALY. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE INTRODUCTION. 

I did not go to Rome to seek for condemnatory matter against the Pope'sgovernment. Had this been my only object, I should not have deemed itnecessary to undertake so long a journey. I could have found materialson which to construct a charge in but too great abundance nearer home. The cry of the Papal States had waxed great, and there was no need to godown into those unhappy regions to satisfy one's self that theoppression was "altogether according to the cry of it. " I had otherobjects to serve by my journey. 

There is one other country which has still more deeply influenced thecondition of the race, and towards which one is even more powerfullydrawn, namely, Judea. But Italy is entitled to the next place, asrespects the desire which one must naturally feel to visit it, and theinstruction one may expect to reap from so doing. Some of the greatestminds which the pagan world has produced have appeared in Italy. In thatland those events were accomplished which have given to modern historyits form and colour; and those ideas elaborated, the impress of whichmay still be traced upon the opinions, the institutions, and the creedsof Europe. In Italy, too, empire has left her ineffaceable traces, andart her glorious footsteps. There is, all will admit, a peculiar andexquisite pleasure in visiting such spots: nor is there pleasure only, but profit also. One's taste may be corrected, and his judgmentstrengthened, by seeing the masterpieces of ancient genius. New trainsof thought may be suggested, and new sources of information opened, bythe sight of men and of manners wholly new. But more than this, --Ibelieved that there were lessons to be learned there, which it wasemphatically worth one's while going there to learn, touching theworking of that politico-religious system of which Italy has so longbeen the seat and centre. I had previously been at some little pains tomake myself acquainted with this system in its principles, and wished tohave an opportunity of studying it in its effects upon the government ofthe country, and the condition of the people, as respects their trade, industry, knowledge, liberty, religion, and general happiness. All Ishall say in the following pages will have a bearing, more or lessdirect, upon this main point. 

It is impossible to disjoin the present of these countries from thepast; nor can the solemn and painful enigma which they exhibit beunriddled but by a reference to the past, and that not the immediate, but the remote past. There is truth, no doubt, in the saying of the oldmoralist, that nations lose in moments what they had acquired in years;but the remark is applicable rather to the accelerated speed with whichthe last stages of a nation's ruin are accomplished, than to the slowand imperceptible progress which usually marks its commencement. Unlesswhen cut off by the sudden stroke of war, it requires five centuries atleast to consummate the fall of a great people. One must pass, therefore, over those hideous abuses which are the immediate harbingersof national disaster, and which exclusively engross the attention ofordinary inquirers, and go back to those remote ages, and those minuteand apparently insignificant causes, amid which national declension, unsuspected often by the nation itself, takes its rise. The destiny ofmodern Europe was sealed so long ago as A. D. 606, when the Bishop ofRome was made head of the universal Church by the edict of a man stainedwith the double guilt of usurpation and murder. Religion is the parentof liberty. The rise of tyrants can be prevented in no other way but bymaintaining the supremacy of God and conscience; and in the earlycorruptions of the gospel, the seeds were sown of those frightfuldespotisms which have since arisen, and of those tremendous convulsionswhich are now rending society. The evil principle implanted in theEuropean commonwealth in the seventh century appeared to lie dormant forages; but all the while it was busily at work beneath those imposingimperial structures which arose in the middle ages. It had not been castout of the body politic; it was still there, operating with noiselessbut resistless energy and terrible strength; and while monarchs werebusily engaged founding empires and consolidating their rule, it waspreparing to signalize, at a future day, the superiority of its ownpower by the sudden and irretrievable overthrow of theirs. Thus societyhad come to resemble the lofty mountain, whose crown of white snows androbe of fresh verdure but conceal those hidden fires which aresmouldering within its bowels. Under the appearance of robust health, amoral cancer was all the while preying upon the vitals of society, eating out by slow degrees the faith, the virtue, the obedience of theworld. The ground at last gave way, and thrones and hierarchies cametumbling down. Look at the Europe of our day. What is the Papacy, but anenormous cancer, of most deadly virulency, which has now run its course, and done its work upon the nations of the Continent. The Europeancommunity, from head to foot, is one festering sore. Soundness in itthere is none. The Papal world is a wriggling mass of corruption andsuffering. It is a compound of tyrannies and perjuries, --of lies andblood-red murders, --of crimes abominable and unnatural, --of priestlymaledictions, socialist ravings, and atheistic blasphemies. The whine ofmendicants, the curses, groans, and shrieks of victims, and the demoniaclaughter of tyrants, commingle in one hoarse roar. Faugh! the spectacleis too horrible to be looked at; its effluvia is too fetid to beendured. What is to be done with the carcase? We cannot dwell in itsneighbourhood. It would be impossible long to inhabit the same globewith it: its stench were enough to pollute and poison the atmosphere ofour planet. It must be buried or burned. It cannot be allowed to remainon the surface of the earth: it would breed a plague, which wouldinfect, not a world only, but a universe. It is in this direction thatwe are to seek for instruction; and here, if we are able to receive it, thirty generations are willing to impart to us their dear-boughtexperience. Lessons which have cost the world so much are surely worthlearning. 

But I do not mean to treat my readers to lectures on history, instead ofchapters on travel. It is not an abstract disquisition on the influenceof religion and government, such as one might compose without stirringfrom his own fire-side, which I intend to write. It is a real journey weare about to undertake. You shall have facts as well asreflections, --incidents as well as disquisitions. I shall be grave, --aswho would not at the sight of fallen nations?--but "when time shallserve there shall be smiles. " You shall climb the Alps; and when theirtops begin to burn at sunrise, you shall join heart and song with themusic of the shepherd's horn, and the thunder of a thousand torrents, asthey rush headlong down amid crags and pine-forests from the icysummits. You shall enter, with pilgrim feet, the gates of proudcapitals, where puissant kings once reigned, but have passed away, andhave left no memorial on earth, save a handful of dust in astone-coffin, or a half-legible name on some mouldering arch. The solemnand stirring voice of Monte Viso, speaking from the midst of the CottianAlps, will call you from afar to the martyr-land of Europe. You shallworship with the Waldenses beneath their own Castelluzzo, which coverswith its mighty shadow the ashes of their martyred forefathers, and thehumble sanctuary of their living descendants. You shall count the townsand campaniles on the broad Lombardy. You shall pass glorious days onthe top of renowned cathedrals, and sit and muse in the face of theeternal Alps, as the clouds now veil, now reveal, their never-troddensnows. You shall cross the Lagunes, and see the winged lion of St Marksoaring serenely amid the bright domes and the ever calm seas of Venice, where you may list

 "The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, Mellowed by distance, o'er the waters sweep. "

You shall travel long sleepless nights in the _diligence_, and beferried at day-break over "ancient rivers. " You shall tread thegrass-grown streets of Ferrara, and the deserted halls of Bologna, wherethe wisdom-loving youth of Europe erst assembled, but whose solitude nowis undisturbed, save by the clank of the Croat's sabre, or thewine-flagon of the friar. You shall visit cells dim and dank, aroundwhich genius has thrown a halo which draws thither the pilgrim, whowould rather muse in the twilight of the naked vault, than wander amidthe marble glories of the palace that rises proudly in itsneighbourhood. You shall go with me, at the hour of vespers, to aisledcathedrals, which were ages a-building, and the erection of whichswallowed up the revenues of provinces, --beneath whose roof, ampleenough to cover thousands and tens of thousands, you may see a solitarypriest, singing a solemn dirge over a "Religion" fallen as a dominantbelief, and existing only as a military organization; while statues, mute and solemn, of mailed warriors, grim saints, angels and wingedcherubs, ranged along the walls, are the only companions of thesurpliced man, if we except a few beggars pressing with naked knees thestony floor. You shall see Florence, --

 "The brightest star of star-bright Italy. "

You shall be stirred by the craggy grandeur of the Apennines, andsoothed by the living green of the Tuscan vales, with their hoarcastles, their olives, their dark cypresses, and their forests, --

 "Where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn. "

You shall taste the vine of Italy, and drink the waters of the Arno. Youshall wander over ancient battle-fields, encounter the fierce Apennineblast, and be rocked on the Mediterranean wave, which the sirocco heapsup, huge and dark, and pours in a foaming cataract upon the strand ofItaly. Finally, we shall tread together the sackcloth plain on whichRome sits, with the leaves of her torn laurel and the fragments of hershivered sceptre strewn around her, waiting with discrowned anddowncast head the bolt of doom. Entering the gates of the "seven-hilledcity, " we shall climb the Capitol, and survey a scene which has itsequal nowhere on the earth. Mouldering arches, fallen columns, buriedpalaces, empty tombs, and slaves treading on the dust of the conquerorsof the world, are all that now remain of Imperial Rome. What a scene ofruin and woe! When the twilight falls, and the moon begins to climb theeastern arch, mark how the Coliseum projects, as if in pity, its mightyshadow across the Forum, and covers with its kindly folds the moulderingtrophies of the past, and draws its mantle around the nakedness of theCæsars' palace, as if to screen it from the too curious eye of thevisitor. Rome, what a history is thine! One other tragedy, terrible asbefits the drama it closes, and the curtain will drop in solemn, and, itmay be, eternal silence. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. 

 The Rhone--Plains of Dauphiny--Mont Blanc and the "Reds"--Landscape by Night--Democratic Club in the _Diligence_--Approach the Alps--Festooned Vines--Begin the Ascent--Chamberry--Uses of War--An Alpine Valley--Sudden Alternations of Beauty and Grandeur--Travellers--Evening--Grandeur of Sunset--Supper at Lanslebourg--Cross the Summit at Midnight--Morning--Sunrise among the Alps--Descent--Italy. 

It was wearing late on an evening of early October 1851 when I crossedthe Rhone on my way to the Alps. It had rained heavily during the day, and sombre clouds still rested on the towers of Lyons behind me. Theriver was in flood, and the lamps on the bridge threw a troubled gleamupon the impetuous current as it rolled underneath. It was impossiblenot to recollect that this was the stream on the banks of which Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, himself the disciple of John, had, at almostthe identical spot where I crossed it, laboured and prayed, and into thefloods of which had been flung the ashes of the first martyrs of Gaul. These murky skies formed no very auspicious commencement of my journey;but I cherished the hope that to-morrow would bring fair weather, andwith fair weather would come the green valleys and gleaming tops of theAlps, and, the day after, the sunny plains of Italy. This fair visionbeckoned me on through the deep road and the scudding shower. 

We struck away into the plains of Dauphiny, --those great plains thatstretch from the Rhone to the Alps, and which offer to the eye, as seenfrom the heights that overhang Lyons, a vast and varied expanse of woodand meadow, corn-field and vineyard, city and hamlet, with the snowypile of Mont Blanc rising afar in the horizon. On the previous evening Ihad climbed these heights, so stately and beautiful, with conventshanging on their sides, and a chapel to Mary crowning their summit, torenew my acquaintance, after an interval of some years' absence, withthe monarch of the Alps. I was greatly pleased to find, especially inthese times, that my old friend had not grown "red. " Since I saw himlast, changes not a few had passed upon Europe, and more than onemonarch had fallen; but Mont Blanc sat firmly in his seat, and wore hisicy crown as proudly as ever. 

Since my former visit to Lyons the "Reds" had made great progress in allthe countries at the foot of the Alps. Their party had been especiallyprogressive in Lyons; so much so as to affect the nomenclature of thehills that overlook that city on the north. That hill, which is nearlywholly covered with the houses and workshops of the silk-weavers, is nowknown as the "red mountain, " its inhabitants being mostly of thatfaction; while the hill on the west of it, that, namely, which I hadascended on the evening before, and which is chiefly devoted toecclesiastical persons and uses, is called the "white mountain. " Butwhile men had been changing their faith, and hills their names, MontBlanc stood firmly by his old creed and his old colours. There he was, dazzlingly, transcendently white, defying the fuller's art to whitenhim, and shading into dimness the snowy robe of the priest; lookingwith royal majesty over his wide realm; standing unchanged in the midstof a theatre of changes; abiding for ever, though kingdoms at his feetwere passing away; pre-eminent in grace and glory amidst his princelypeers; and looking the earthly type of that eternal and all-gloriousOne, who stands supreme and unapproachable amid the powers, dominions, and royalties of the universe. 

The night wore on without any noticeable event, or any specialinterruption, save what was occasioned necessarily by our arrival at theseveral stages, and the changes consequent thereon of horses andpostilions. There was a rag of a moon overhead, --at least so one mightjudge from the hazy light that struggled through the fog, --by the helpof which I kept watching the landscape till past midnight. Then a spiritof drowsiness invaded me. It was not sleep, but sleep's image, orsleep's counterfeit, --an uneasy trance, in which a confused vision oftall trees, with their head in the clouds, and very long and very narrowfields, marked off by straight rows of very upright poplars, and largeheavy-looking houses, with tall antique roofs, kept marching past, without variety and without end. I would wake up at times and look out. There was the same picture before me. I would fall back into my tranceagain, and, an hour or so after, I would again wake up; still theidentical picture was there. I could not persuade myself that the_diligence_ had moved from the spot, despite the rumbling of its wheelsand the jingling of the horses' bells. All night long the samechangeless picture kept moving on and on, ever passing, yet never past. 

I may be said to have crossed the Alps amid a torrent of curses. Myplace was in the _banquette_, the roomiest and loftiest part of thelofty _diligence_, and which, perched in front, and looking down uponthe inferior compartments of the _diligence_, much as the attics of athree-storey house look down upon the lower suits of apartments, commands a fine view of the country, when it is daylight and clearweather. There sat next me in the _banquette_ a young Savoyard, whotravelled with us as far as Chamberry, in the heart of the Alps; and onthe other side of the Savoyard sat the _conducteur_. This last was aPiedmontese, a young, clever, obliging fellow, with a voluble tongue, and a keen dark eye in his head. Scarce had we extricated ourselves fromthe environs of Lyons, or had got beyond the reach of the guns that lookso angrily down upon it from the heights, till these two broke into aconversation on politics. The conversation soon warmed into an energeticand vehement discussion, or philippic I should rather say. Theirdiscourse was far too rapid, and I was too unfamiliar with the languagein which it was uttered to do more than gather its scope and drift. ButI could hear the names of France and Austria repeated every othersentence; and these names were sure to be followed by a volley ofcurses, fierce, scornful, and defiant. Austria was cursed, --France wascursed: they were cursed individually, --they were cursedconjunctly, --once, again, and a hundred times. What were the politics ofthe passengers in the other compartments of the diligence I know not;but little did they wot that they had a democratic club overhead, andthat more treason was spouted that night in their company than mighthave got us all into trouble, had there been any evesdropper in anycorner of the vehicle. When I chanced to awake, they were still at it. The harsh grating sound of the anathemas haunted me during my sleepeven. It was like a rattling hail-shower, or like the continuouscorruscations of lightning, --the lightning of the Alps. Had it beenpossible for the authorities to know but a tithe of what was spokenthat night by my two neighbours, their journey would have been short:they would have been shot at the next station, to a certainty. 

With the night, the dream-like landscape, and the maledictory harangueswhich had haunted me during the darkness, passed away, and the morningfound us nearing the mountains. The Alps open upon you by little. Onewho has never climbed these hills imagines himself standing at theirfeet, and looking up the long unbroken vista of fields, vineyards, forests, and naked rocks, to the eternal snows of their summit. Not so. They do not come marching thus upon you in all their grandeur tooverwhelm you. To see them thus, you must stand afar off, --at leastfifty miles away. There you can take in the whole at a glance, from thebeauteous fringe of stream, and hamlet, and woodland, that skirts theirbase, to the white serrated line that cuts so sharply the blue of thefirmament. Nearer them, --unless, indeed, in the great central valleys, where you can see the icy fields hanging in the firmament at an awfuldistance above you, --their snow-clad summits are invisible, being hiddenby an intervening sea of ridges, that are strewn over with rocks, orwave darkly with pines. 

As we approached the mountains, they offered to the eye a beauteouschain of verdant hills, with the morning mists hanging on their sides. The torrents were in flood from the recent rains; the woods had the richtints of autumn upon them; but the charm of the scene lay in thebeautiful festoonings of the vine. The uplands before me were barred bywhat I at first took to be long horizontal layers of fleecy cloud. On anearer approach, these turned out to be the long branchy arms of thevine. The vine-stock is made to lean against the cut trunk of a chestnutor poplar tree, and its branches are bent horizontally, and extendedtill they meet those of the neighbouring vine-stock, which have beensimilarly dealt with. In this way, continuous lines of luxuriantfoliage, with pendulous blood-red clusters in their season, may be madeto run for miles together along the hill-side. There might be fromthirty to forty parallel lines in those I now saw. Tinted with themorning sun, and relieved against the deep verdure of the mountain, theyappeared like stripes of amber, or floating lines of cloud fringed withgold. 

It was the Mont Cenis route I was traversing, --the least rugged of allthe passes of the Alps, and the same by which Hannibal, as some suppose, passed into Italy. The day cleared up into one of unusual brilliancy. Webegan to ascend by a path cut in the rock of the mountain, having on ourleft an escarpment of limestone several hundred feet high, and on ourright a deep gorge, with a white foaming torrent at its bottom. Thefrontier chain passed, we descended into a rich valley, with a finestream flowing through it, and the poor town of Les Echelles hiding fromview in one of its angles. These noble valleys are sadly blotted byfilth and disease. The contrast offered betwixt the noble features ofnature and the degraded form of man is painful and humiliating. Boweddown by toil, stolid with ignorance, disfigured with the goitre, struckwith cretinism, the miserable beings around you do more to sadden youthan all that the bright air and glorious hills can do to exhilarateyou. 

The valley where we now were was a complete _cul de sac_. It was walledin all round by limestone hills of great height, and the eye sought invain for visible outlet. At length one could see a white line runninghalf-way up the mountain's face, and ending in an opening no bigger thana pigeon-hole. We slowly climbed this road, --for road it was; and whenwe came to the diminutive opening we had seen from the valley below, itexpanded into a tunnel, --one of the great works of Napoleon, --which ranright through the mountain, and brought us out on the other side. We nowtraversed a narrow and rocky ravine, which at length expanded into amagnificent valley, rich in vines and fruit-trees of all kinds, andoverhung by lofty mountains. On this plain, surrounded by the livinggrandeur of nature, and the faded renown of its monastic andarchiepiscopal glory, and half-buried amid foliage and ruins, sitsChamberry, the capital of Savoy. 

At Chamberry our route underwent a change. Beauty now gave place tograndeur; but still a grandeur blended with scenes of exquisiteloveliness. These I cannot stay to describe at length. The whole day waspassed in winding and climbing among the hills. We toiled slowly to riseabove the plains we had left, and to approach the region where winterspreads out her boundless sea of ice and snow. We followed themagnificent road which we owe to the genius of Napoleon. The fruits ofMarengo are gone. Austerlitz is but a name. But the passes of the Alpsremain. "When will it be ready for the transport of the cannon?"enquired Napoleon respecting the Simplon road. War is a rough pioneer;but without such a pioneer to clear the way the world would stand still. Look back. What do you see throughout the successive ages? War, with hisred eye, his iron feet, and his gleaming brand, marching in the van; andcommerce, and arts, and Christianity, following in the wake of thisblood-besmeared Anakim. Such has ever been the order of procession. Mankind in the mass are a sluggish race, and will march only when theword of command is sounded from iron-throated, hoarse-voiced war. Lookat the Alps. What do you see? A gigantic form, busy amid the blindingtempests and the eternal ice of their summits. With herculean might herends the rocks and levels the mountains. Who is he, and what does hethere? That is war, in the person of Napoleon, hewing a path throughrocks and glaciers, for the passage of the Bible and the missionary. Under the reign of the Mediator the promise to Christianity is, All isyours. War is yours, and Peace is yours. 

As we passed on, innumerable nooks of beauty opened to the eye, andromantic peaks ever and anon shot up before us. Now the path led along ameadow, with its large bright flowers; and now along the brink of anAlpine river, with its worn bed and tumultuous floods. Now it roundedthe shoulder of a hill; and now it lost itself in some frightful gorge, where the overhanging mountain, with its drapery of pine forests, madeit dark as midnight almost. You emerge into daylight again, and beginthe same succession of green meadow, pine-clad hill, foaming torrent, and black gorge. Thus you go onward and upward. At length white Alpsbegin to look down upon you, and give you warning that you are nearingthose central regions where eternal winter holds his seat amid pinnaclesof ice and wastes of snow. 

Let us take an individual picture. The road has made a sudden turn; anda valley, hitherto concealed by the mountains, opens unexpectedly. It issome three or four miles long; and the road traverses it straight as thearrow's flight, till it loses itself amid the rocks and foliage at thebottom of the mountain which you see lying across the valley. On thishand is a stream of water, clear as crystal; on that is the ridgy, wavy, lofty mass of a purple Alp. The bright air and light incorporate, as itwere, with the substance of the mountain, and spiritualize it, so thatit looks of mould intermediate betwixt the earth and the firmament. Thepath is bordered with the most delicious verdure, fresh and soft as acarpet, and freckled with the dancing shadows of the trees. On thishand is a chalet, with a vine climbing its wall and mantling itsdoorway; on that is a verdant knoll, planted a-top with chestnut trees;and from amidst their rich, massy foliage, the little spire of thechurch, with its glittering vane, looks forth. Near it is the curé'shouse, buried amidst flower-blossoms, the foliage of vines, and theshadows of the sycamore and chestnut. There is not a spot in the littlevalley which beauty has not clothed and decked with the most painstakingcare; while grandeur has built up a wall all round, as if to keep outthe storms that sometimes rage here. It looks so quiet and tranquil, andis so shut in from the great world outside, that one thinks of it as aspot which happy beings from another sphere might come to visit, andwhere he might list the melody of their voices, as they walk ateven-tide amid the bowers of this earthly Eden. 

The road makes another turn, and the scene is changed in a moment, --inthe twinkling of an eye. The happy valley is gone, --it has vanished likea dream; and a scene of stern, savage, overpowering sublimity risesbefore you. Alp is piled upon Alp, chasms yawn, torrents growl, juttingrocks threaten; and far over head is the dark pine forest, amid whichyou can descry, perhaps, the frozen billows of the glacier, or haveglimpses of those still higher and drearier regions where winter sits onher eternal throne, and holds undivided sway. Your farther progress iscompletely barred. So it looks. A cyclopean wall rises from earth toheaven. The gate of rock by which you entered seems to have closed itsponderous jaws behind you, and shut you in, --there to remain till somesupernatural power rend the mountains and give you egress. The mood ofmind changes with the scene. The beauty soothed and softened you; nowyou grow impulsive and stern. The awful forms around you blend with thesoul, as it were, and impart something of their own vastness to it. Youfeel yourself carried into the very presence of that Power which sankthe foundations of the mountains in the depths of the earth, and builtup their giant masses above the clouds; which hung the avalanche ontheir brow, clove their unfathomable abysses, poured the river at theirfeet, and taught the forked lightning to play around their awful icysteeps. You seem to hear the sound of the Almighty's footsteps stillechoing amid these hills. There passes before you the shadow ofOmnipotence; and a great voice seems to proclaim the Godhead of Him "whohath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heavenwith the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, andweighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. "

The road was comparatively solitary. We passed at times a waggoner, whowas conveying the produce of the plains to some village among themountains; and then a couple of pedestrians, with the air of tradesmen, on their way perhaps to a Swiss town to seek employment; and next acowherd, driving home his herds from the glades of the forest; and nowan occasional gendarme would present himself, and force you to remember, what you would willingly have forgotten amid such scenes, that therewere such things as armies in the world; and sometimes the long, darkfigure of the curé, reading his breviary to economize time, might beseen gliding along before you, representative of the murky superstitionthat still fills these valleys, and which, indeed, you can read in thestolid face of the Savoyard, as he sits listlessly under the broadeasings of his cottage roof. 

Anon the evening came, walking noiselessly upon the mountains, andshedding on the spirit a not unpleasant melancholy. The Alps seemed togrow taller. Deep masses of shade were projected from summit to summit. Pine forest, and green vale, and dashing torrent, and quiet hamlet, allretired from view, as if they wished to go to sleep beneath the friendlyshadows. A deep and reverent silence stole over the Alps, as if thestillness of the firmament had descended upon them. Over all nature wasshed this spirit of quiet and profound tranquillity. Every tree wasmotionless. The murmur of the brook, the wing of the bird, the creak ofour diligence, the voices of the postilion and _conducteur_, all feltthe softening influence of the hour. 

But mark! what glory is this which begins to burn upon the crest of thesnowy Alps? First there comes a flood of rosy light, and then a deepbright crimson, like the ruby's flash or the sapphire's blaze, and thena circlet of flaming peaks studs the horizon. It looks as if a greatconflagration were about to begin. But suddenly the light fades, andpiles of cold, pale white rise above you. You can scarce believe them tobe the same mountains. But, quick as the lightning, the flash comesagain. A flood of glory rolls once more along their summits. It is alast and mighty blaze. You feel as if it were a struggle for life, --asif it were a war waged by the spirits of darkness against thesecelestial forms. The struggle is over: the darkness has prevailed. Thesemighty mountain torches are extinguished one after one; and cold, ghastly piles, of sepulchral hue, which you shiver to look up at, andwhich remind you of the dead, rise still and calm in the firmament aboveyou. You feel relieved when darkness interposes its veil betwixt you andthem. The night sets in deep, and calm, and beautiful, with troops ofstars overhead. The voice of streams, all night long, fills the silenthills with melodious echoes. 

We now threaded the black gorge of the Arc, passing, unperceived in thedarkness, Fort Lesseillon, which, erecting its tiers of batteries abovethis tremendous natural fosse, looks like a mailed warrior guarding theentrance to Italy. It was eleven o'clock, and we were toiling up themountain. We had left all human habitations far below, as we thought, when suddenly we were startled by a peal of village bells. Never hadbells sounded sweeter in my fancy than those I now heard in these drearyregions. These were the convent bells of the little village ofLanslebourg, which lies at the foot of the summit of the Mont Cenis. Here we were to sup. It was a sort of Arbour in the midst of the hillDifficulty, where we Pilgrims might refresh ourselves before beginningour last and steepest ascent. It was a most substantial repast, as allsuppers in that part of the world are; and we had the pleasure ofthinking that we were perhaps the highest supper party in Europe. It wasour last meal before crossing the mountain, and passing from the modernto the ancient world; for the ridge of the Alps is the limit thatdivides the two. On this side are modern times; on that are the darkages. You retrograde five full centuries when you step across the line. We ate our supper, as did the Israelites their last meal in Egypt, withour loins girded, --scarce even our greatcoats put off, and our staff inour hand. 

Now for the summit. We started at midnight. Above us was an ebon vault, studded thick with large bright stars. Around us was the awful silenceof the mountains. The night was luminous; for in that elevated regiondarkness is unknown, save when the storm-cloud shrouds it. Of our party, some betook them to the diligence, and were carried over asleep; othersof us, leaving the vehicle to follow the road, which zig-zags up to thesummit, addressed ourselves to the old route, which winds steeplyupward, now through forests of stunted firs, now over a matting ofthick, short grass, and now over the bare debris-strewn scalp of themountain. The convent bells followed us with their sweet chimes up thehill, and formed a link between us and the living world below. Theechoes of our voices were strangely loud. They rung out in the thinelastic air, as if all we said had been caught up and repeated by someinvisible being, --some genius of the mountains. The hours wore away; andso delighted were we with the novelty of our position, --climbing thesummits of the Alps at midnight, --that they seemed but so many minutes. 

Ere we were aware, the night was past, and the dawn came upon us; andwith the dawn, new and stupendous glories burst forth. How fresh andholy the young day, as it drew aside the curtains of the east, andsmiled upon the mountains! The valleys were buried under a fathomlessocean of haze; but the pearly light, sown by the rosy hand of morn, fringed the mountain ridges, and a multitudinous sea of silvery wavesspread out around us. The dawn stole on, waxing momentarily; and thegreat white Alps, which had been standing all night around us so silent, and cold, and sepulchral-like, in their snowy shrouds, now began to growpalpable and less dream-like. The stars put out their fires as the purecrystal light mounted into the sky. Each successive scene waslovely, --inexpressibly lovely, --but momentary. We wished we could havestereotyped it till we had had time to admire it; but while we weregazing it had passed and was gone, like the other glories of the world. But, lo! the sun is near. Mighty torch-bearers run before his chariot, and cry to the rocks, the pine-forests, the torrents, the glaciers, thevine-clad vales, the flower-enamelled glades, the rivers, the cities, that their king is coming. Awake and worship! A mighty Alp, whoseloftier stature or more favourable position gives it the start of allthe others, has caught the first ray; and suddenly, as if an invisiblehand had kindled it, it rises into the firmament, a pyramid of flame, soft, mild, yet gloriously bright, like a dome of living sapphire. Whileyou gaze, another flashes upon you, and another, and another, and atlength the whole horizon is filled with gigantic pyres. The stupendousvision has risen so suddenly, that you almost look if you may see theseraph which has flown round and kindled these mighty torches. The gloryis inexpressible, and on a scale so vast, that you have no words todescribe it. You can scarce believe it to be reflected light which givessuch glory to these mountains. They are so rosy, so vividly, intenselyradiant, that you feel as if that boundless effulgence emanated fromthemselves, --were flowing forth from some hidden fountain of lightwithin. It is like no other scene of earthly glory you ever saw. You cancompare it only to some celestial city which has been let down from thefirmament upon the tops of the mountains, with its glittering turrets, its domes of sapphire, and its wall of alabaster, needing no sun orother source of earthly light to enlighten and glorify it. But while yougaze, it is gone. The sun is up, and the mighty mountain-torches whichhad carried the tidings of his coming to the countries beneath areextinguished. 

It was now full day, and we had reached the summit of the pass. Above uswere still the snow-clad peaks; but the road does not ascend higher. Wenow crossed the frontier, and were in Italy. A little rocky plainsurrounded by weather-beaten peaks, a deep blue lake, and a sea of bareridges in front, were all that we saw of Italy. The road now begansensibly to decline, and the diligence quickened its pace. We soonreached the ridges before us, and began to descend over the brow of theAlps, which are steep and perpendicular as a wall almost, on theirsouthern side. You first traverse a region covered with immenselichen-clothed boulders; next come stretches of heath; then stuntedfirs: by and by fruit and forest trees begin to make their appearance;next comes the lovely acacia; and last of all the vine, tall andluxuriant, veiling the peasant's cot with its shadow. The road isliterally a series of hanging stairs, which zig-zag down the face of themountain. At certain points the rock is perforated; at others it is hewninto terraces; and at others the path rests on vast substructions ofmasonry. Now an immense rock leans over the road, and now you findyourself on the edge of some frightful precipice, with the gulph runningright down many thousands of feet, and a white torrent at the bottom, boiling and struggling, but unable to make itself heard at that heighton the mountain. The turns are frequent and sharp; and the heavy, overladen vehicle, in its furious downward career, gives a swing ateach, as if it would cut short the passage into Italy, and land thepassenger, sooner than he wishes, at the bottom. At length, after fourhours' riding, the descent is accomplished. The scene has changed in thetwinkling of an eye. The plain is as level as a floor. The warmsun, --the brilliant sky, --the luxuriant vines, --the handsomearchitecture, --the picturesque costumes, --the dark oval faces, and blackfiery eyes of the natives, --all tell you that it is a new world intowhich you have entered, --that this is ITALY. 

CHAPTER III. 

RISK AND PROGRESS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN PIEDMONT. 

 First Entrance into Italy--Never can be Repeated--The Cathedral of Turin--The Royal Palace--The Museum--Egyptian Mummies--Reflections--Landmark of the Vaudois Valleys--Piedmontese House of Commons--Piedmontese Constitution--Perils that surrounded it--Providentially shielded from these--Numbers and Wealth of the Priesthood--Want of Public Opinion--Rise of a Free Press--Its Power--The _Gazetta del Popolo_--The Bible quoted by the Journalists--The flourishing State of the Country--The Waldensian Temple and Congregation--Workmen's Clubs--The Capuchin Monastery--A Capuchin Friar--Sunset. 

One can enter Italy for the first time only once. For, however often wemay climb the Alps, and tread the land that lies stretched out at theirbase, it is with a cold pulse, compared with the fever of excitementinto which we are thrown by the first touch of that soil. The charm isflown; the tree of knowledge has been plucked; and never more can wetaste the dreamy yet intense delight which attended the first unfoldingof the gates of the Alps, and the first rising of the fair vision ofItaly. 

In truth, the Italy which one comes to see on his second visit is notthe Italy that first drew him across the Alps. That was the Italy ofhistory, or rather of his own imagination. The fair form his fancy waswont to conjure up, draped in the glowing recollections of empire and ofarms, and encompassed with the halo of heroic deeds, he can see no more. There meets him, on the other side of the Alps, a vision very unlikethis. The Italy of the Cæsars is gone; and where she sat is now a poor, naked, cowering thing, with a chain upon her arm, --the Italy of thePopes. But the fascination attends the traveller some short way intothat land. Indeed, he is loath to lose it, and would rather see Italythrough the warm colourings of history, and the bright hues of his ownfancy, than look upon her as she is. 

I shall never forget the intense excitement that thrilled me when Ifound myself rolling along on the magnificent avenue of pollard-elms, that runs all the way from Rivoli to Turin. The voluptuous air, whichseemed to fill the landscape with a dreamy gaiety; the intense sunlight, which tinted every object with extraordinary brilliancy, from the brightleaves overhead, to the burning domes of Turin in front; the dark eyesof the natives, which flashed with a fervour like that of their own sun;the Alps towering above me, and running off in a vast unbroken line ofglittering masses, --all contributed to form a picture of so novel andbrilliant a kind, that it absolutely produced an intoxication ofdelight. 

I passed a few days at Turin; and the pleasure of my stay was muchenhanced by the society of my friend the Rev. John Bonar, whom I had metat Chamberry, _en route_, with his family, for Malta. We visitedtogether the chief objects of interest in the capital of Piedmont. Thechurches we saw of course. And though we had been carried blindfoldedacross the Alps, and set down in the cathedral of Turin, the statuaryalone would have told us that we were in Italy. The most unpractised eyecould see at once the difference betwixt these statues and those of theTransalpine churches. The Italian sculptors seemed to possess somesecret by which they could make the marble live. Some half-dozen ofpriests, with red copes (I presume it was a martyr's day, for on suchdays the Church's dress is red), ranged in a pew near the altar, weresinging psalms. Whether the good men were thinking of their dinner, Iknew not; but they yawned portentously, wrung their hands with an air ofhelplessness, and looked at us as if they half expected that we wouldvolunteer to do duty for an hour or so in their stead. A bishop chantinghis psalter under the groined roof of cathedral, and a covenanterpraying in his hill-side cave, would form an admirable picture of twovery different styles of devotion. There were some dozen of old women onthe floor, whom the mixed motive of saying their prayers and picking upa chance alms seemed to have drawn thither. From the Duomo we went tothe King's palace. We walked through a suit of splendid apartments, though not quite accordant in their style of ornament and comfort withour English ideas. The floor and roof were of rich and beautifulmosaics; the walls were adorned with the more memorable battles of theSardinian nation; and the furniture was minutely and elaborately inlaidwith mother-of-pearl. Three rooms more particularly attracted myattention. The first contained the throne of the kings of Savoy, --agilded chair, under a crimson canopy, and surrounded by a gilt railing. I thought, as I gazed upon it, how often the power of that throne hadlain heavily upon the poor Waldenses. The other room contained the bedon which King Charles Albert died. It is yet in my readers'recollection, that Charles Albert died at Oporto; but the wholefurniture of the room in which he breathed his last was transported, together with his ashes, to Turin. It was an affecting sight. There itstood, huddled into a corner, --a poor bed of boards, with a plaincoverlet, such as a Spanish peasant might sleep beneath; a chest of dealdrawers; and a few of the necessary utensils of a sick chamber. Thethird room contained the Queen's bed of state. Its windows openedsweetly upon the fine gardens of the palace, where the first ray, as itslants downwards from the crest of the Alps into the valley of the Po, falls on the massy foliage of the mulberry and the orange. On the tablewere some six or eight books, among which was a copy of the Psalms ofDavid. "It is very fine, " said my friend Mr Bonar, glancing up at thegilded canopy and silken hangings of the bed, and poking his hand at thesame time into its soft woolly furnishings, "but nothing but blanketscan make it comfortable. "

From the palace we passed to the Museum. There you see pictures, statues, coins stamped with the effigies of kings that lived thousandsof years ago, and papyrus parchments inscribed with the hieroglyphics ofold Egypt, and other curiosities, which it has required ages to collect, as it would volumes to describe. Not the least interesting sight thereis the gods of Egypt, --cats, ibises, fish, monkeys, heads of calves andbulls, all lying in their original swathings. I looked narrowly at thesedivinities, but could detect no difference betwixt the god-cat of Egyptand the cats of our day. Were it possible to re-animate one of them, andmake it free of our streets, I fear the god would be mistaken for anordinary quadruped of its own kind, pelted and worried by mischievousboys and dogs, as other cats are. I do not know that a modern priest ofTurin has any very good ground for taunting an old Egyptian priest withhis cat-worship. If it is impossible to tell the difference betwixt acat which is simply a cat, and a cat which is a god, it is just asimpossible to tell the difference betwixt a bread-wafer which is simplybread, and a bread-wafer which is the flesh and blood, the soul anddivinity, of Christ. 

Seeing in Egypt the gods died, it will not surprise the reader that inEgypt men should die. And there they lay, the brown sons and daughtersof Mizraim, side by side with their gods, wrapt with them in the samestoney, dreamless slumber. One mummy struck me much. It lay in a stonesarcophagus, the same in which the hands of wife or child mayhap hadplaced it; and there it had slept on undisturbed through all the changesand hubbub of four thousand years. Over the face was drawn a thin cloth, through which the features could be seen not indistinctly. Now, thoughtI, I shall hear all about old Egypt. Perhaps this man has seen Joseph, or talked with Jacob, or witnessed the wonders of the exodus. Come, tellme your name or profession, or some of the strange events of yourhistory. Did you don the mail-coat of the warrior, or the white robe ofthe priest? Did you till the ground, and live on garlic; or were youowner of a princely estate, and wont to sit on your house-top ofevenings, enjoying the delicious twilight, and the soft flow of theNile? Come now, tell me all. The door of a departed world seemed aboutto open. I felt as if standing on its threshold, and looking in upon theshadowy forms that peopled it. But ah! these lips spoke not. With theRosetta stone as the key, I could compel the granite slabs and the brownworn parchments around me to give up their secrets. But where was thekey that could open that breast, and read the secrets locked up in it?

And this form had still a living owner! This awoke a train of thoughtyet more solemn. Who, what, and where is he? Anxious as I had been tohave the door of that mysterious past in which he had lived opened tome, I was yet more anxious to look into that more mysterious and awfulfuture into which he had gone. What had he seen and felt these fourthousand years? Did the ages seem long to him, or was it but as a fewdays since he left the earth? I went close up to the dark curtain, butthere was no opening, --no chink by which I could see into the worldbeyond. Will no kind hand draw the veil aside but for a moment? There ithas hung unlifted age after age, concealing, with its impenetrablefolds, all that mortals would most like to know. Myriads and myriadshave passed within, but not one has ever given back voice, or look, orsign, to those they left behind, and from whom never before did theyconceal thought or wish. Why is this? Do they not still think of us? Dothey not still love us? Would they softly speak to us if they could?What gulf divides them? Ah! how silent are the dead!

Close by the great highway into Italy lie the "Valleys of the Vaudois. "One might pass them without being aware of their near presence, or thathe was treading upon holy ground;--so near to the world are they, andyet so completely hidden from it. Ascend the little hill on the south ofTurin, and follow with your eye the great wall of the Alps which boundsthe plain on the north. There, in the west, about thirty miles fromwhere you stand, is a tall pyramidal-shaped mountain, towering highabove the other summits. That is Monte Viso, which rises like aheaven-erected beacon, to signify from afar to the traveller the land ofthe Waldenses, and to call him, with its solemn voice, to turn aside andsee the spot where "the bush burned and was not consumed. " We shall makea short, a very short visit to these valleys, than which Europe has nomore sacred soil. But first let us speak of some of the bulwarks whichan all-wise Providence has erected in our day around a Church and peoplewhose existence is one of the great living miracles of the world. 

The revolutions which swept over Italy in 1848 were the knell of theother Italian States, but to Piedmont they were the trumpet of liberty. No man living can satisfactorily explain why the same event should haveoperated so disasterously for the one, and so beneficially for theother. No reason can be found in the condition of the country itself:the thing is inexplicable on ordinary principles; and the moreintelligent Piedmontese at this day speak of it as a miracle. But so isthe fact. Piedmont is a constitutional kingdom; and I went with M. Malan, himself a Waldensian, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies, tosee the hall where their Parliament sits. A spacious flight of stepsconducts to a noble hall, in form an ellipse, and surmounted by a dome. At one end of the ellipse hangs a portrait of the President, andunderneath is his richly gilt chair, with a crimson-covered table beforeit. Right in front of the Speaker's chair, on a lower level, is placedthe tribune, which much resembles the precentor's desk in a Scottishchurch. The tribune is occupied only when a Minister makes a Ministerialdeclaration, or a Convener of a Committee gives in his Report. An openspace divides the tribune from the seats of the members. These last runall round the hall, in concentric rows of benches, also covered withcrimson. "There, on the right, " said M. Malan, "sit the priest party. Inthe front are the Ministerial members; on the left is my seat. There isan extreme left to which I do not belong: I have not passed theconstitutional line. This lower tier of galleries is for the conductorsof the press and the diplomatic corps; this higher gallery is for ladiesand military men. We are 204 members in all. We have a member for everytwenty-five thousand inhabitants. Our population is four millions and ahalf. Our House of Peers contains only ninety members. The King has theprivilege of nominating to it, but peers so created are only for life. "

It was, in truth, a marvellous sight;--a free and independent Parliamentmeeting in the ancient capital of the bigoted Piedmont, with a freepress and a public looking on, and one of the long proscribed Vaudoisrace occupying a seat in it. The more I thought of it, the more Iwondered. The causes which had led to so extraordinary a result seemedclearly providential. When King Charles Albert in 1848 gave his subjectsa Constitution, no one had asked it, and few there were who could valueit, or even knew what a Constitution meant. One or two public writersthere were who said that public opinion demanded it; but, in sooth, there was then no public opinion in the country. Soon after this thecampaign in Lombardy was commenced, and the result of that campaignthreatened the Piedmontese Constitution with extinction. The Piedmontesearmy was beaten by the Austrians, and had to make a hasty and ingloriousretreat into their own country. Every one then expected that Radetzkywould march upon Turin, put down the Constitution, and seize uponSardinia. Contrary to his usual habits, the old warrior halted on thefrontier, as if kept back by an invisible power, and the Constitutionwas saved. Then came the death of Charles Albert, of a broken heart, inOporto, whither he had fled; and every one believed that the Piedmontesecharter would accompany its author to the tomb. The dispositions andpolicy of the new king were unknown; but the probability was that hewould follow the example of his brother sovereigns of Italy, all of whomhad begun to revoke the Constitutions which they had so recentlyinaugurated with solemn oaths. Happily these fears were not realized. The new perils passed over, and left the Constitution unscathed. KingVictor Immanuel, --a constitutional monarch simply by accident, --turnedout a good-natured, easy-minded man, who loved the chase and his countryseat, and found it more agreeable to live on good terms with hissubjects, and enjoy a handsome civil list, --which his Parliament hastaken care to vote him, --than to be indebted for his safety and abankrupt exchequer to the bayonets of his guards. Thus marvellously, hitherto, in the midst of dangers at home and re-action abroad, has thePiedmontese charter been preserved. I dwell with the greater minutenesson this point, because on the integrity of that charter are suspendedthe civil liberties of the Church of the Vaudois. When I was in Turinthe Constitution was three years old; but even then its existence wasexceedingly precarious. The King could have revoked it at any moment;and there was not then, I was assured by General Beckwith, --who knowsthe state of the Piedmontese nation well, --moral power in the country tooffer any effectual resistance, had the royal will decreed thesuppression of constitutional government. "But, " added he, "should theConstitution live three years longer, the people by that time will havebecome so habituated to the working of a free Constitution, and publicopinion will have acquired such strength, that it will be impossible forthe monarch to retrace his steps, even should he be so inclined. " It isexactly three years since that time, and the state of the Piedmontesenation at this moment is such as to justify the words of the sagaciousold man. 

The first grand difficulty in the way of the Constitution was, thenumbers and power of the priesthood. In no country in Europe, --not evenin France and Austria, when their size is compared, --were the beneficesso numerous, or their holders so luxuriously fed. Piedmont was theparadise of priests. The ecclesiastical statistics of that kingdom, furnished to the French journal _La Presse_, on occasion of theintroduction of the bill for suppressing the convents, on the 8th ofJanuary 1855, reveals a state of things truly astonishing. Notwithstanding that the population is only four and a half millions, there are in Sardinia 7 archbishops; 34 bishops; 41 chapters, with 860canons attached to the bishoprics; 73 simple chapters, with 470 canons;1100 livings for the canons; and, lastly, 4267 parishes, with somethousands of parish priests. The domain of the Church represents acapital of 400 millions of francs, with a yearly revenue of 17 millionsand upwards. This enormous wealth is divided amongst the clergy inproportions grossly unequal. The 41 prelates of Sardinia enjoy a revenueof nearly a million and a half of francs, which is double what used tomaintain all the bishops of the French empire. The Archbishop of Turinhas an income of 120, 000 francs, which is more than the whole bench ofBelgian bishops. The other prelates are paid in proportion. As a set-offto this wealth, there are in Sardinia upwards of 2000 curates, not oneof whom has so much as 800 francs, or about L. 35 sterling. These arethus tempted to prey upon the people. Such is the terrible organizationwhich the King and Parliament have to encounter in carrying out theirreforms, and such is the fearful incubus which has pressed for ages uponthe social rights and industrial energies of the Piedmontese people. 

But this is but a part of the great sacerdotal army encamped inPiedmont. There are 71 religious orders besides, divided into 604houses, containing in all 8563 monks and nuns. The expense of feedingthese six hundred houses, with their army of eight thousand strong, forms an item of two millions and a-half of francs, and represents acapital of forty-five millions. The greatest admirer of thesefraternities will scarce deny that this is a handsome remuneration fortheir services; indeed, we never could make out what these servicesreally are. They do not teach the youth, or pray with the aged. Forreading they have no taste; and to write what will be read, or preachwhat will be listened to, is far beyond their ability. Their pious handsdisdain all contact with the plough, and the loom, and the spade. Theyshare with their countrymen neither the labours of peace, nor thedangers of war. They lounge all day in the streets, or about the wineshops; and, when the dinner-hour arrives, they troop home-wards, toretail the gossip of the town over a groaning board and a well-filledflagon. Thus they fatten like pigs, being about as cleanly, but scarceas useful. It is not surprising that a bill should at last have reachedthe Chambers, proposing, _first_, the better distribution of therevenues of the Church, equal to a fourth of the kingdom; and, _second_, the suppression of those "houses, " the rules of which bind over theirmembers to sheer, downright idleness, leaving only those who have someshow of public duty to perform. The priests denounce the bill as"spoliation and robbery" of course, and prophesy all manner of thingsagainst so wicked a kingdom. Doubtless it is daring impiety in the eyesof Rome to forbid a man with a shaven crown and a brown cloak to playthe idler and vagabond. We are only surprised that the people ofPiedmont have so long suffered their labours to be eaten up by an orderof men useless, and worse than useless. 

Another grand difficulty in Piedmont was the absence of a middleclass, --wealthy, intelligent, and independent. No one felt that he hadrights, and you never heard people saying there, as you may do inBritain, "this is my right, and I will have it. " A feeling of individualright, and of responsibility, --for the two go together, --was thenjust beginning to dawn upon the popular mind. This was accompaniedby a certain amount of disorganizing influence; not that ofSocialism, --which, happily, scarce existed in Piedmont, --but that ofself-action. Every one was feeling his own way. The priests, of course, were exceedingly wroth, and loudly accused Protestantism as the cause ofall this commotion in men's minds. Alas! there was no Protestantism inPiedmont, for it had been one of the most bigoted kingdoms in Italy. Itwas their own handiwork; for a tyranny always produces a democracy. Asif by a miracle, a powerful and popular press started up in Turin. Thewriters in the _Opinione_ and the _Gazetta del Popolo_, acting, Isuspect, on a hint given by some Vaudois that there was an old book, nowlittle known, that would help them in the war they were now waging, wentto the Bible, and, finding that it made against the priests, wereliberal in their quotations from it. Their most telling hits were theextracts from Scripture; and finding it so, they quoted yet morelargely. The priests were much concerned to see Holy Scripture so farprofaned as to be quoted in newspapers, and exposed freely to the gazeof the vulgar. But what could they do? Their own literary qualificationsdid not warrant them to enter the lists with these writers: they hadforgot the way to preach, unless at Lent; they could work theconfessional, but even it began to be silenced by the powerful artilleryof the press. At an earlier stage they might have roused the peasantry, and marched upon the Constitution, whose life they knew was the death oftheir power; but it was too late in 1851. An attempt of this sort made ayear or two after, among the peasantry of the Val d'Aosta, turned out amiserable failure. Thus, a movement which in other countries cameforward under the sanction of the priesthood, from the very outset inPiedmont took a contrary direction, and set in full against the Church. Since that day liberty has been working itself, bit by bit, into theaction of the Constitution, and the feelings of the people; and now, Ibelieve, neither King nor Parliament, were they so inclined, could putit down. 

The sum of the matter then is, that of all the kingdoms which the era of1848 started in the path of free government, the brave little State ofPiedmont alone has persevered to this day. Amid the wide weltering seaof Italian anarchy and despotism, here, and here alone, liberty finds aspot on which to plant her foot. Again we ask, why is this? There isnothing in the past history of the country, --nothing in the presentstate of the nation, --which can account for it. We must look elsewherefor a solution; and we do not hesitate to avow our firm conviction, thata special Providence has shielded the Constitution of Piedmont, becausewith that Constitution is bound up the liberties of the ancient martyrChurch of the Vaudois. It was the only one of the Italian Constitutionsthat carried in it so sacred a guarantee of permanency. On the 17th ofFebruary 1848 (the day is worth remembering), Charles Albert, by a royaledict, admitted the Waldenses to the enjoyment of all civil andpolitical rights, in common with the rest of their fellow-subjects. Now, for the first time in a thousand years, the trumpet of liberty soundedamid the Vaudois valleys; and the shout of joy which the Alps sent backseemed like the first response to the prayer which had so often ascendedfrom these hills, "How long, O Lord. " Would not Sodom have been sparedhad ten righteous men been found in it? and why not Piedmont, seeing theWaldensian Church was there? Yes, Piedmont is the little Zoar of theItalian plains! Little may its people reck to whom it is they owe theirescape. It is nevertheless a truth that, but for the poor Vaudois, whom, instigated by the Pope, they long and ruthlessly laboured toexterminate, their country would have been at this day in the samegulph of social demoralization and political re-action with Tuscany, andNaples, and Rome. These last were taken, and Piedmont escaped. 

And the country is truly flourishing. It has thriven every day sinceCharles Albert emancipated the Vaudois. No one can cross its frontierwithout being struck with the contrast it presents to the other ItalianStates. While they are decaying like a corpse, it is flourishing likethe chestnut-tree of its own mountains. The very faces of the people maytell you that the country is free and prosperous. Its citizens walkabout with the cheerful, active air of men who have something to do andto enjoy, and not with the listless, desponding, heart-sick look whichmarks the inhabitants of the other States of Italy. Here, too, you missthat universal beggary and vagabondism that disfigure and pollute allthe other countries of the Peninsula. What rich loam the ploughman turnsup! What magnificent vines shade its plains! Public works are inprogress, railways have been formed, and new houses are building. Notfewer than a hundred houses were built in Turin last year, which ismore, I verily believe, than in all the other Italian towns out ofPiedmont taken together. Thus, while the other States of Italy arefoundering in the tempest, Piedmont lives because it carries the Vaudoisand their fortunes. 

From the hall of the Chamber of Deputies I went with M. Malan to theoffice of the _Gazetta del Popolo_, to be introduced to its editors. The_Gazetta del Popolo_ is a daily paper, with a circulation of 15, 000;and, being sold at a penny, is universally read by the middle and lowerclasses. It is the _Times_ of Piedmont. Its editors are men of greattalent, and write with the practical good sense and racy style ofCobbett. They are not religious men, neither are they Romanists, thoughnominally connected with the Church of the State; but they are warmadvocates of constitutional government, hearty haters of the Papacy, andhave done much to enlighten the public mind, and loosen it fromRomanism. They first of all made inquiries respecting the externalresemblance of Puseyistic and Popish worship, as I had seen the latterin Italy. They made yet more eager inquiries respecting the progress andprospects of Puseyism in England, and about a then recent declaration ofthe Archbishop of Canterbury, to the effect that there were only twoBishops in the Church of England that had gone over to Puseyism. Theyseemed to feel that the fortunes of the Papacy would turn mainly uponthe fortunes of Puseyism in England. As regarded the Archbishop, Ireplied, that I believed in the substantial accuracy of his statement, that there were not more than two members of the episcopate who could beheld to be decided Puseyites; and as regarded the progress of Puseyism, I said, that it had been making great and rapid progress, but that thepapal aggression, in my humble opinion, had dealt a somewhat heavy blowto both Popery and Puseyism, --that so long as Romanism came begging fortoleration, it had found great favour in the eyes of the liberals; butwhen it came claiming to govern, it had scared away many of its formersupporters, who had come to know it better, --and that the Protestantfeeling which the aggression had evoked on the part of the Court, theParliament, and the people, had tended to discourage Romanism, and allkindred or identical creeds. They were delighted to hear this, and saidthat they would baptize the fact in the _Gazetta del Popolo_, "theassassination of the Papacy by Cardinal Wiseman. " Their paper, M. Malanafterwards told me, is published on Sabbaths as well (there are worsethings done on that day in Italy, even by bishops), on which day theyprint their weekly sermon. "You won't preach, " say they to the priests;"therefore we will;" and it is in their Sabbath sheet that they maketheir bitterest assaults upon the priesthood. They quote largely fromScripture: not that they wish to establish evangelical truth, of whichthey know little, but because they find such quotations to be the mostpowerful weapons which they can employ against the Papacy. In truth, they advertised in this way the Bible to their countrymen, many of whomhad never heard of such a book till then. 

I was inexpressibly delighted to find such men in Turin wielding suchinfluence, and took the liberty of saying at parting, that we in Englandhad beheld with admiration the noble stand Piedmont had made in behalfof constitutional government, --that we were watching with intenseinterest the future career of their nation, --that we were cherishing thehope that they would manfully maintain the ground they had takenup, --and that in England, and especially in Scotland, we felt that theroot of all the despotism of the Continent was the Papacy, --that the wayto strike for liberty was to strike at Rome, --and that till the Papacywas overthrown, never would the nations of the world be either free orhappy. They assured me that in these sentiments they heartily concurred, and that they were the very ideas they were endeavouring to propagate. They gave me, on taking leave, a copy of that morning's paper as a_souvenir_; and on examining it afterwards, I found that the topic ofits leading article was quite in the vein of our conversation. The greatbulk of the liberal party in Piedmont shared even then the ideas of theeditors of the _Gazetta del Popolo_, and felt that to lay thefoundations of constitutional liberty, they needs must raze those ofRome. This is a truth; and not only so, --it is the primal truth in thescience of European liberty. This truth only now begins to beunderstood on the Continent. It is the main lesson which the re-actionof 1849 has been overruled to teach. All former insurrections have beenagainst kings and aristocrats: even in 1848 the Italians were willing toaccept the leadership of the Pope. The perfidies and atrocities of whichthey have since been the victims have burned the essential tyranny ofthe papal system into their minds; and the next insurrection that takesplace will be against the Papacy. 

A constitution, a free press, and a public opinion, are but the outwarddefences of a divine and immortal principle, which, rooted in the soilof Piedmont, has outlived a long winter, and is now beginning to budafresh, and to send forth goodlier shoots than ever. To this I nextturned. Conducted by M. Malan, I went to the western quarter of Turin, where, amid the gardens and elegant mansions of the suburbs, workmenwere digging the foundations of what was to be a spacious building. Onthis spot the Dominicans in former ages had burned the bodies of themartyrs; and now the Waldensian temple stands here, --a striking proof, surely, of the immortality of truth, --to rise, and live, and speakboldly, on the very spot where she had been bound to a stake, burned, and extinguished, as the persecutor believed. This church, not the leastelegant in a city abounding with elegant structures, has since beenopened, and is filled every Sabbath with well-nigh a thousandauditors, --the largest congregation, I will venture to say, in Turin. 

In 1851 I could visit the cradle of this movement. It had its first risein the labours of Felix Neff, twenty-five years before; but it was nottill the revolution of 1848 that it appeared above ground. Even in 1851, colportage among the Piedmontese was prohibited, though it was allowableto print or import the Bible for the use of the Waldenses, and theGovernment winked at its sale to their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. Iwas shown in M. Malan's banking office the Bible depot, and wasgratified to find that the sales which were made to applicants only hadduring the past year amounted to a thousand copies. Evening meetingswere held every day of the week, in various parts of Turin, at which theBible was read, and points of controversy betwixt Christianity andRomanism eagerly discussed. The Rev. M. Meille, the able editor of the_Buona Novella_, --a paper then just starting, --informed me that notfewer than ninety persons had been present at the meeting superintendedby him the night before. These week-day assemblages, as well as theSabbath audiences, were of a very miscellaneous character, --Vaudois, whohad come to Turin to be servants, for, prior to the revolution, theycould be nothing else; Piedmontese tradesmen; Swiss, Germans, andItalian refugees, to whom three pastors ministered, --one in French, onein German, and a third in the Italian tongue. There were then not fewerthan ten re-unions every week in Turin. The idea, too, had been startedof taking advantage of the workmen's clubs for the propagation of thegospel. A network of such societies covered northern and central Italy. The clubs in Turin corresponded with those in Genoa, Alessandria, andall the principal towns of Piedmont; and these again with similar clubsin central Italy; and any new theory or doctrine introduced into onesoon made the round of all. The plan adopted was to send evangelicalworkmen into these clubs, who were listened to as they propounded thenew plan of justification by faith. The clubs in Turin were firstleavened with the gospel; thence it was extended to Genoa, and graduallyalso to central Italy. While the _prolétaires_ in France were discussingthe claims of labour, the workmen in Piedmont were canvassing thedoctrines of the New Testament; and hence the difference betwixt thetwo countries. 

It was now drawing towards sunset, and I purposed enjoying thetwilight, --delicious in all climates, but especially in Italy, --on theterrace of the College or Monastery of the Capuchins. This monasterystands on the Collina, a romantic height on the south of Turin, washedby the Po, with villas and temples on its crest and summits. I took myway through the noble street that leads southwards, halting at thebook-stalls, and picking out of their heaps of rubbish an Italian copyof the Catechism of Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. The Collina was all in ablaze; the windows of the Palazzo Regina glittered in the setting beams;and the dome of the Superga shone like gold. Crossing the Po, I ascendedby the winding avenue of shady acacias, which are planted there toprotect the cowled heads of the fathers from the noonday sun. One of themonks was winding his way up hill, at a pace which gave me fullopportunity of observing him. A little black cap covered his scalp; hisround bullet-head, which bristled with short, thick-set hairs, joinedon, by a neck of considerably more than the average girth, to shouldersof Atlantean dimensions. His body was enveloped in a coarse brownmantle, which descended to his calves, and was gathered round his middlewith a slender white cord. His naked feet were thrust into sandals. Thefeatures of the "religious" were coarse and swollen; and he strode uphill before me with a gait which would have made a peaceful man, had hemet him on a roadside in Scotland, give him a wide offing. Parties ofsoldiers wounded in the late campaign were sauntering in the square ofthe monastery, or looking over the low wall at the city beneath. Theirpale and sickly looks formed a striking contrast to the athletic formsof the full-fed monks. It was inexplicable to me, that the youth ofSardinia, immature and raw, should be drafted into the army, while suchan amount of thews and sinews as this monastery, and hundreds more, contained, should be allowed to run to waste, or worse. If but for theirhealth, the monks should be compelled to fight the next campaign. 

The sun went down. Long horizontal shafts of golden light shot throughamidst the Alps; their snows glittered with a dazzling whiteness:whiteness is a weak term;--it was a brilliant and lustrous glory, likethat of light itself. Anon a crimson blush ran along the chain. Itfaded; it came again. A wall of burning peaks, from two to three hundredmiles in length, rose along the horizon. Eve, with her purple shadows, drew on; and I left the mountains under a sky of vermilion, with MonteViso covering with its shadow the honoured dust that sleeps around it, and pointing with its stony finger to that sky whither the spirits ofthe martyred Vaudois have now ascended. It seemed to say, "Come andsee. "

CHAPTER IV. 

STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS. 

 Journey to "Valleys"--Dinner at Pignerolo--Grandeur of Scenery--Associations--Bicherasio--Procession of _Santissimo_--Connection betwixt the History and the Country of the Vaudois--The Three Valleys of Martino, Angrona, and Lucerna--Their Arrangement--Strength--Fertility--La Tour--The Castelluzzo--Scenery of the Val Lucerna--The Manna of the Waldenses--Populousness of the Valleys--Variety of Productions--The Roman Flood and the Vaudois Ark. 

The Valleys of the Vaudois lie about thirty miles to the south-west ofTurin. The road thither it is scarce possible to miss. Keeping the loftyand pyramidal summit of Monte Viso in your eye, you go straight on, in aline parallel with the Alps, along the valley of the Po, which is but aprolongation of the great plain of Lombardy. On my way down to thesevalleys, I observed on the roadside numerous little temples, which thenatives, in true Pagan fashion, had erected to their deities. The nichesof these temples were filled with Madonnas, crucifixes, and saints, gaunt and grizzly, with unlighted candles stuck before them, or rudepaintings and tinsel baubles hung up as votive offerings. Thesignboards--especially those of the wine venders--were exceedinglyreligious. They displayed, for the most part, a bizarre painting of theVirgin, and occasionally of the Pope; and not unfrequently underneaththese personages were a company of heretics, such as those I was goingto visit, sweltering in flames. Were a Protestant vintner to sell hisale beneath a picture of Catholics burning in hell, I fear we shouldnever hear the last of it. But I must say, that these pictures seemedthe production of past times. They were one and all sorely faded, as iftheir owners were beginning to be somewhat ashamed of them, or lackedzeal to repair them. The _conducteur_ of the stage had an Italiantranslation of Mr Gladstone's well-known pamphlet on Naples in his hand, which then covered all the book-stalls in Turin, and was read by everyone. This led to a lively discussion on the subject of the Church, between him and two fellow-travellers, to whom I had been introduced atstarting, as Waldenses. I observed that, although he appeared to comeoff but second best in the controversy, he bore all with unruffledhumour, as if not unwilling to be beaten. At length, after a ride oftwenty miles over the plain, in which the husbandman, with plough as oldin its form as the Georgics, was turning up a soil rich, black, andglossy as the raven's wing, we arrived at Pignerolo, a town on theborders of the Vaudois land. 

The two Vaudois and myself adjourned to the hotel to dine. Even in thiswe had an instance of changed times. In this very town of Pignerolo alaw had been in existence, and was not long repealed, forbidding, undersevere penalties, any one to give meat or drink to a Vaudois. The"Valleys" were only ten miles distant, and we agreed to walk thither onfoot. Indeed, all such spots must be so visited, if one would feel theirfull influence. Leaving Pignerolo, the road began to draw into the bosomof the mountains, and the scenery became grander at every step. On theright rose the hills of the Vaudois, with knolls glittering with woodsand cottages scattered at their feet. On the left, long reaches of thePo, meandering through pasturages and vineyards, gleamed out golden inthe western sun. The scenery reminded me much of the Highlands atComrie, only it was on a scale of richness and magnificence unknown toScotland. 

After advancing a few miles, I chanced to turn and look back. The changethe mountains had undergone struck me much. A division of Alps, tall andcloud-capped, appeared to have broken off from the main army, and tohave come marching into the plain; and while the mountains were closingin upon us behind, they appeared to be falling back in front, andarranging themselves into the segment of a vast circle. A magnificentamphitheatre had risen noiselessly around us. On all sides save thesouth, where a reach of the valley was still visible, the eye met only alofty wall of mountains, hung in a rich and gorgeous tapestry of brightgreen pasturages and shady pine-forests, with the frequent sunlightgleam of white chalets. The snows of their summits were veiled in massesof cloud, which the southerly winds were bringing up upon them from theMediterranean. I seemed to have entered some stately temple, --a templenot of mortal workmanship, --which needed no tall shaft, no groined roof, no silver lamps, no chisel or pencil of artist to beautify it, and nowhite-robed priest to make it holy. It had been built by Him whose powerlaid the foundations of the earth, and hung the stars in heaven; and ithad been consecrated by sacrifices such as Rome's mitred priests neveroffered in aisled cathedral. Nor had it been the scene only of loftyendurance: it had been the scene also of sweet and holy joys. There theVaudois patriarchs, like Enoch, had "walked with God;" there they hadread his Word, and kept his Sabbaths. They had sung his praise by thesesilvery brooks, and kneeled in prayer beneath these chestnut trees. There, too, arose the shout of triumphant battle; and from those valleysthe Vaudois martyrs had gone up, higher than these white peaks, to taketheir place in the white-robed and palm-bearing company. Can the spirit, I asked myself, ever forget its earthly struggles, or the scene on whichthey were endured? and may not the very same picture of beauty andgrandeur now before my eye be imprinted eternally on the memory of manyof the blessed in Heaven?

There was silence on plain and mountain, --a hush like that of asanctuary, reverent and deep, and broken only by the flow of the torrentand the sound of voices among the vineyards. I could not fail to observethat sounds here were more musical than on the plain. This is apeculiarity belonging to mountainous regions; but I have nowhere seen itso perceptible as here. Every accent had a fullness and melody of tone, as if spoken in a whispering gallery. Right in the centre of the circleformed by the mountains was the entrance of the Vaudois valleys. Theplace was due north from where we now were, but we had to make aconsiderable detour in order to reach it. A long low hill, rough withboulders and feathery with woods, lay across the mouth of these valleys;and we had to go round it on the west, and return along the fertile valewhich divides it from the high Alps, whose straths and gorges form thedwellings of the Waldenses. 

A dream it seemed to be, walking thus within the shadow of the Vaudoishills. And then, too, what a strange chance was it which had thrown meinto the society of my two Waldensian fellow-travellers! They had met meon the threshold of their country, as if sent to bid me welcome, andconduct my steps into a land which the prayers and sufferings of theirforefathers had for ever hallowed. They could not speak a word of mytongue; and to them my transalpine Italian was not more thanintelligible. Yet, such is the power of a common sympathy, theconversation did not once flag all the way; and it had reference, ofcourse, to one subject. I told them that I was not unacquainted withtheir glorious history;--that from a child I had known the noble deedsof their fathers, who had received an equal place in my veneration withthe men of old, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wroughtrighteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions. And othershad trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds andimprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins andgoatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world wasnot worthy;"--and that, next to the hills of my own land, hallowed, too, with martyr-blood, I loved the mountains within whose shadow mywandering steps had now brought me. The eyes of my Vaudois friendskindled; they were not unconscious, I could see, of their noble lineage;and they were visibly touched by the circumstance that a stranger from adistant land--drawn thither by sympathy with the great struggles oftheir nation--should come to visit their mountains. Every object in anyway connected with their history, and especially with theirpersecutions, was carefully pointed out to me. "There, " said they, "isour frontier church, the first of the Vaudois candles, " pointing to awhite edifice that gleamed out upon us amid woods and rocks, on thesummit of a hill, soon after leaving Pignerolo. They mentioned, too, with peculiar emphasis, the year of the last great massacre of theirbrethren. The memory of that transaction, I feel assured, will perishonly with the Vaudois race. Nor can I forget the evident pride withwhich, on nearing the valley of Lucerne, they pointed to the giant formof their Castelluzzo, now looming through the shades of night, and toldme that in the caves of that mighty rock their fathers found shelter, when the valley beneath was covered with armed men. 

Nowhere had I seen more luxuriant vines. They were festooned, too, afterthe manner of those I had seen among the Alps; but here the effect wasmore beautiful. They were literally stretched out over entire fields inan unbroken web of boughs. Clothed with luxuriant foliage, they lookedlike another azure canopy extended over the soil. There was ample roombeneath for the ploughman and his bullocks. The golden beams, strugglingthrough the massy foliage, fell in a mellow and finely tinted shower onthe newly ploughed soil. Wheat is said to ripen better beneath thevine-shade than in the open sun. The season of grapes was shortly past;but here and there large clusters were still pendent on the bough. 

Hitherto, although we had been skirting the Vaudois territory, we hadnot set foot upon it. The line which separates it from the rest ofPiedmont touches the small town of Bicherasio, on the western flank ofthe low hill I have mentioned; and the roofs of the little town werealready in sight. Passing, on the left, a white-walled mass-house on asmall height, with the priest looking at us from amid the autumn-tintedvine leaves that shaded the wall, we entered the town of Bicherasio. Thefirst sight we saw was a procession advancing up the street atdouble-quick time. I was at first sorely puzzled what to make of it. There was an air of mingled fun and gravity on the faces of the crowd;but the former so greatly predominated, that I took the affair for afrolic of the youths of Bicherasio. First came a squad of dirty boys, some of whom carried prayer-books: these were followed by some dozen orso of young women in their working attire, ranged in line, and carryingflambeaux. In the centre of the procession was a tall raw-boned priest, of about twenty-five years of age, with a little box in his hand. Hishead was bare, and he wore a long brown dress, bound with a cord roundhis middle. A canopy of crimson cloth, sorely soiled and tarnished, wasborne over him by four of the taller lads. He had a flurried and wildlook, as if he had slept out in the woods all night, and had had timeonly to shake himself, and put his fingers through his hair, beforebeing called on to run with his little box. The procession closed, as ithad opened, with a cloud of noisy and dirty urchins hanging on the rearof the priest and his flambeaux-bearing company. The whole swept past usat such a rapid pace, that I could only, by way of divining its object, open large wondering eyes upon it, which the large-boned lad in thebrown cloak noticed, and repaid with a scowl, which broke no bones, however. "He is carrying the _santissimo_, " said my fellow-travellers, when the procession had passed, "to a dying man. " We passed the line, and set foot on the Vaudois territory. Being now on privileged soil, andsafe from any ebullition which the scant reverence we had paid theprocession of the _santissimo_ might have drawn upon us, we entered asmall albergo, and partook together of a bottle of wine. Our long walk, and the warmth of the evening, made the refreshment exceedinglyagreeable. By way of commending the qualities of their soil, mycompanions remarked, that "this was the vine of the land. " I feltdisposed to deal with it as David did with the water of the well ofBethlehem, for here--

 "The nurture of the peasant's vines Hath been the martyr's blood!"

It was dark before I reached La Tour; but one of myfellow-travellers--the other having left us at San Giovanni--accompaniedme every footstep of the way, having passed his own dwelling two fullmiles, to do me this kindness. 

I must remind the reader, that this is simply a look in upon theVaudois, on my way to Rome. I purpose here no description in full of theterritory of the Vaudois, or of the people of the Vaudois. Their hillswere shrouded in cloud and rain all the while I lived amongst them; andalthough my intention was to visit on foot every inch of their country, and more especially the scenes of their great struggles, I wascompelled, after waiting well nigh a week, to take my departure withouthaving accomplished this part of my object. Leaving, then, the seeingand describing these famous valleys to some possibly future day, all Ishall attempt here is to convey some idea of the structuralarrangement--the osteology, if I may call it so--of the Waldensianterritory, and the general condition of the Waldensian people. First, oftheir country. 

A country and its people can never well be separated. The former, withsilent but ceaseless influence, moulds the genius and habits of thelatter, and determines the character of their history. It marks them outas fated for slavery or freedom, --degradation or glory. The country ofthe Vaudois is the material basis of their history; and the sublimepoints of their scenery join in, as it were, with the sublime passagesof their nation. Without such a country, we cannot conceive how theVaudois could have escaped extermination. The fertility and grandeur oftheir valleys were no chance gifts, but special endowments, havingreference to the mighty moral struggle of which they were the destinedtheatre. It is this sentiment that forms the living spirit in thebeautiful lines of Mrs Hemans, entitled, "The Hymn of the VaudoisMountaineers:"--

 For the strength of the hills we bless thee. Our God, our fathers' God. Thou hast made thy children mighty, By the touch of the mountain sod. Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

 We are watchers of a beacon Whose light must never die; We are guardians of an altar 'Midst the silence of the sky. The rocks yield founts of courage, Struck forth as by thy rod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

 For the dark resounding caverns, Where thy still small voice is heard; For the strong pines of the forests That by thy breath are stirred; For the storms on whose free pinions Thy spirit walks abroad; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

 The banner of the chieftain Far, far below us waves; The war horse of the spearman Cannot reach our lofty caves. Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold Of freedom's last abode; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

 For the shadow of thy presence Round our camp of rock outspread; For the stern defiles of battle, Bearing record of our dead; For the snows and for the torrents, For the free heart's burial sod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

We read in the Apocalypse, that "the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there athousand two hundred and threescore days. " "A place prepared"undoubtedly implies a special arrangement and a special adaptation, inthe future dwelling of the Church, to the mission to be assigned her. The "wilderness" of the Apocalypse, we are inclined to think, is thegreat chain of the Alps; and the "place prepared" in that wilderness, weare also inclined to think, are the Cottian Alps, and more especiallythose valleys in the Cottian Alps which the confessors, known as theVaudois, inhabited. Long after Rome had subjugated the plains, shepossessed scarce a foot-breadth among the mountains. These, throughoutwell-nigh their entire extent, from where the Simplon road now cuts thechain, to the sea, were peopled by the professors of the gospel. Theywere a Goshen of light in the midst of an Egypt of darkness; and inthese peaceful and sublime solitudes holy men fed their flocks amid thegreen pastures and beside the clear waters of evangelical truth. Butpersecution came: it waxed hot; and every succeeding century beheldthese confessors fewer in number, and their territory more restricted. At last all that remained to the Vaudois were only three valleys at thefoot of Monte Viso; and if we examine their structure, we will find themarranged with special reference to the war the Church was here called towage. 

The three valleys are the Val Martino, the Val Angrona, and the ValLucerna. Nothing could be simpler than their arrangement; at the sametime, nothing could be stronger. The three valleys spread out like afan, --radiating, as it were, from the same point, and stretching away ina winding vista of vineyards, meadows, chestnut groves, dark gorges, andfoaming torrents, to the very summits and glaciers of the Alps. Nearlyat the point of junction of the Val Angrona and the Val Lucerna standsLa Tour, the capital of the valleys. It consists of a single street (forthe few off-shoots are not worth mentioning) of two-storey houses, whitewashed, and topped with broad eves, which project till they leaveonly a narrow strip of sky visible overhead. The town winds up the hillfor a quarter of a mile or so, under the shadow of the famousCastelluzzo, --a stupendous mountain of rock, which shoots up, erect as acolumn on its pedestal, to a height of many thousands of feet, and, inother days, sheltered, as I have said, in its stony arms, the persecutedchildren of the valleys, when the armies of France and Savoy gatheredround its base. How often I watched it, during my stay there, as itsmighty form now became lost, and now flashed forth from the mountainmists! Over what sad scenes has that rock looked! It has seen thepeaceful La Tour a heap of smoking ruins, and the clear waters of thePelice, which meander at its feet, red with the blood of the children ofthe valleys. It has heard the wrathful execrations of armed menascending where the prayers and praises of the Vaudois were wont tocome, borne on the evening breeze, --scenes unspeakably affecting, butwhich, nevertheless, from the principle which they embodied, and theChristian heroism which they evoked, add dignity to humanity itself. When we would rebut those universal libels which infidels have writtenupon our race, we point to the Vaudois. However corrupt whole nationsand continents may have been, that nature which could produce theVaudois must have originally possessed, and be still capable of havingimparted to it, God-like qualities. 

The strength of the Vaudois position, as I take it, lies in this, thatthe three valleys have their entrance within a comparatively narrowspace. The country of the Vaudois was, in fact, an immense citadel, withits foundation on the rock, and its top above the clouds, and with butone gate of entrance. That gate could be easily defended; nay, it _was_defended. He who built this mighty fortress had thrown up a rampartbefore its gate, as if with a special eye to the protection of itsinmates. The long hill of which I have already spoken, which rises to aheight of from four to five hundred feet, lies across the opening ofthese valleys, at about a mile's breadth, and serves as a wall ofdefence. But even granting that this entrance should be forced, as itsometimes was, there were ample means within the mountains themselves, which were but a congeries of fortresses, for prolonging the contest. The valleys abound with gorges and narrow passages, where one man mightmaintain the way against fifty. There were, too, escarpments of rock, with galleries and caves known only to the Vaudois. Even the mists oftheir hills befriended them; veiling them, on some memorable instances, from the keen pursuit of their foes. Thus, every foot-breadth of theirterritory was capable of being contested, and _was_ contested againstthe flower of the French and Sardinian armies, led against them inoverwhelming numbers, with a courage which Rome never excelled, and apatriotism which Greece never equalled. 

I found, too, that it was "a good land" which the Lord their God hadgiven to the Vaudois, --"a land of brooks of water, of fountains anddepths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, andbarley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, oliveand honey. " The same architect who built the fortress had provisionedit, so to speak, and that in no stinted measure. He who placedmagazines of bread in the clouds, and rained it upon the Israeliteswhen they journeyed through the desert, had laid up store of corn, andoil, and wine, in the soil of these valleys; so that the Vaudois, whentheir enemies pressed them on the plain, and cut off their supplies fromwithout, might still enjoy within their own mountain rampart abundanceof all things. 

On the first morning after my arrival, I walked out along the ValLucerna southward. Flowers and fruit in rich profusion covered everyspot of ground under the eye, from the banks of the stream to the skirtsof the mist that veiled the mountains. The fields, which were coveredwith the various cultivation of wheat, maize, orchards, and vineyards, were fenced with neatly dressed hedge-rows. The vine-stocks weremagnificently large, and their leaves had already acquired the finegolden yellow which autumn imparts. At a little distance, on a low hill, deeply embosomed in foliage, was the church of San Giovanni, looking asbrilliantly white as if it had been a piece of marble fresh from thechisel. Hard by, peeping out amidst fruit-bearing trees, was the villageof Lucerna. On the right rose the mighty wall of the Alps; on the leftthe valley opened out into the plain of the Po, bounded by a range ofblue-tinted hills, which stretched away to the south-west, mingling inthe distant horizon with the mightier masses of the Alps. The sun nowbroke through the haze; and his rays, falling on the luxuriant beauty ofthe valley, and on the more varied but not less rich covering of thehill-side, --the pasturages, the winding belts of planting, the whitechalets, --lighted up a picture which a painter might have exhibited as arelic of an unfallen world, or a reminiscence of that garden from whichtransgression drove man forth. 

After breakfast, I sallied out to explore the valley of Lucerne, at theentrance of which is placed, as I have said, La Tour, the capital of theWaldenses. My intention was to trace its windings all the way, past thevillage and church of Bobbio, and up the mountains, till it loses itselfamid the snows of their summits, --an expedition which was brought to anabrupt termination by the black clouds which came rolling up the valleyat noon like the smoke of a furnace, followed by torrents of rain. Threading my way through the narrow winding street of La Tour, andskirting the base of the giant Castelluzzo, I emerged upon the openvalley. I was enchanted by its mingled loveliness and grandeur. Itsbottom, which might be from one to two miles in breadth, though lookingnarrower, from the titanic character of its mountain-boundary, was, upto a certain point, one continuous vineyard. The vine there attains anoble stature, and stretches its arms from side to side of the valley inrich and lovely festoons, veiling from the great heat of the sun thegolden grain which grows underneath. On either hand the mountains riseto the sky, not bare and rocky, but glowing with the vine, or shady withthe chestnut, and pouring into the lap of the Vaudois, corn, and wine, and fruit. Their sides were covered throughout with vineyards, corn-fields, glades of green pasturages, clumps of forests andfruit-trees, mansions and chalets, and silvery streamlets, whichmeandered amid their terraces, or leaped in flashing light down themountain, to join the Pelice at its bottom. Not a foot-breadth wasbarren. This teeming luxuriance attested at once the qualities of thesoil and sun, and the industry of the Vaudois. 

As I proceeded up the Val Lucerna, the same scene of mingled richnessand magnificence continued. The golden vine still kept its place in thebottom of the valley, and stretched out its arms in very wantonness, asif the limits of the Val Lucerna were too small for its exuberant andgenerous fruitfulness. The hills gained in height, without losing infertility and beauty. They offered to the eye the same picture ofvine-rows, pasturages, chestnut-groves, and chalets, from the torrent attheir bottom, up to the edge of the floating mist that covered theirtops. At times the sun would break in, and add to the variety of lightswhich diversified the landscape. For already the hand of autumn hadscattered over the foliage her beautiful tints of all shades, from thebright green of the pastures, down through the golden yellow of thevine, to the deep crimson of those trees which are the first to fade. 

A farther advance, and the aspect of the Val Lucerna changed slightly. The vineyards ceased on the level grounds at the bottom of the valley, and in their place came rich meadow lands, on which herds were grazing. The hills on the left were still ribbed with the vine. On the right, along which, at a high level on the hill-side, ran the road, thechestnut groves became more frequent, and large boulders beganoccasionally to be seen. It was here that the rolling mass of cloud, sofearfully black, that it seemed of denser materials than vapour, whichhad followed me up hill, overtook me, and by the deluge of rain which itlet fall, effectually forbade my farther progress. 

The same shower which forbade my farther exploration of the Val Lucerna, arresting me, with cruel interdict, as it seemed, on the very thresholdof a region teeming with grandeur, and encompassed with the halo ofimperishable deeds, threw me, by a sort of compensatory chance, upon thediscovery of another most interesting peculiarity of the Waldensianterritory. The heavy rain compelled me to seek shelter beneath theboughs of a wide-spread chestnut-tree; and there, for the space of anhour, I remained perfectly dry, though the big drops were falling allaround. Soon a continuous beating, as if of the fall of substances froma considerable height on the ground, attracted my attention, --tap, tap, tap. The sound told me that something was falling bigger and heavierthan the rain-drops; but the long grass prevented me at first seeingwhat it was. A slight search, however, showed me that the tree beneathwhich I stood was actually letting fall a shower of nuts. These nutswere large and fully ripened. The breeze became slightly stronger, andthe fruit shower from the trees increased so much, that a soft muffledsound rang through the whole wood. It was literally raining food. Somemillions of nuts must have fallen that day in the Val Lucerna. I saw theyoung peasant girls coming from the chalets and farm-houses, to gleanbeneath the boughs; and a short time sufficed to fill their sacks, andsend them back laden with the produce of the chestnut-tree. These nutsare roasted and eaten as food; and very nutritious food they are. In allthe towns of northern Italy you see persons in the streets roasting themin braziers over charcoal fires, and selling them to the people, to whomthey form no very inconsiderable part of their food. I have oftener thanonce, on a long ride, breakfasted on them, with the help of a cluster ofgrapes, or a few apples. This was the manna of the Waldenses. And howoften have the persecuted Vaudois, when driven from their homes, andcompelled to seek refuge in those high altitudes where the vine does notgrow, subsisted for days and weeks upon the produce of thechestnut-tree! I could not but admire in this the wise arrangement ofHim who had prepared these valleys as the future abode of his Church. Not only had He taught the earth to yield her corn, and the hills wine, but even the skies bread. Bread was rained around their caves andhiding-places, plenteous as the manna of old; and the Vaudois, like theIsraelites, had but to gather and eat. 

I came also to the conclusion, that the land which the Lord had given tothe Waldenses was a "large" as well as a "good" land. It is only of latethat the Vaudois have been restricted to the three valleys I have named;but even taking their country as at present defined, its superficialarea is by no means so inconsiderable as it is apt to be accounted byone who hears of it as confined to but three valleys. Spread out thesevalleys into level plains, and you find that they form a large country. It is not only the broad bottom of the valley that is cultivated;--thesides of the hills are clothed up to the very clouds with vineyards andcorn-lands, and are planted with all manner of trees, yielding fruitafter their kind. Where the husbandman is compelled to stop, naturetakes up the task of the cultivator; and then come the chestnut-groves, with their loads of fruit, and the short sweet grass on which cattledepasture in summer, and the wild flowers from which the bees elaboratetheir honey. Overtopping all are the fields of snow, the greatreservoirs of the springs and rivers which fertilize the country. Thisarrangement admitted, moreover, of far greater variety, both of climateand of produce, than could possibly obtain on the plain. There is aneternal winter at the summit of these mountains, and an almost perpetualsummer at their feet. 

In accordance with this great productiveness, I found the hills of theVaudois exceedingly populous. They are alive with men, at least ascompared with the solitude which our Scottish Highlands present. I hadbrought thither my notions of a valley taken from the narrow winding andinfertile straths of Scotland, capable of feeding only a few scores ofinhabitants. Here I found that a valley might be a country, and containalmost a nation in its bosom. 

But, not to dwell on other peculiarities, I would remark, that such adwelling as this--continually presenting the grandest objects--must haveexerted a marked influence upon the character of the inhabitants. It wasfitted to engender intrepidity of mind, a love of freedom, and anelevation of thought. It has been remarked that the inhabitants ofmountainous regions are less prone than others to the worship of images. On the plain all is monotony. Summer and winter, the same landmarks, thesame sky, the same sounds, surround the man. But around the dweller inthe mountains, --and especially such mountains as these, --all is varietyand grandeur. Now the Alps are seen with their sunlight summits andtheir shadowless sides; anon they veil their mighty forms in clouds andtempests. The living machinery of the mist, too, is continually varyingthe landscape, now engulphing valleys, now blotting out crags andmountain peaks, and suspending before the eye a cold and cheerlesscurtain of vapour; anon the curtain rises, the mist rolls away, andgreen valley and tall mountain flash back again upon you, thrilling anddelighting you anew. What variety and melody of sounds, too, exist amongthe hills! The music of the streams, the voices of the peasants, theherdsman's song, the lowing of the cattle, the hum of the villages. Thewinds, with mighty organ-swell, now sweep through their mountain gorges;and now the thunder utters his awful voice, making the Alps to trembleand their pines to bow. 

Such was the land of the Vaudois; the predestined abode of God's Churchduring the long and gloomy period of Anti-christ's reign. It was the arkin which the one elect family of Christendom was to be preserved duringthe flood of error that was to come upon the earth. And I have been themore minute in the description of its general structure andarrangements, because all had reference to the high moral end it wasappointed to serve in the economy of Providence. 

When of old a flood of waters was to be sent on the world, Noah wascommanded to build an ark of gopher wood for the saving of his house. God gave him special instructions regarding its length, its breadth, itsheight: he was told where to place its door and window, how to arrangeits storeys and rooms, and specially to gather "of all food that iseaten, " that it might be for food for him and those with him. When allhad been done according to the Divine instructions, God shut in Noah, and the flood came. 

So was it once more. A flood was to come upon the earth; but now Godhimself prepared the ark in which the chosen family were to be saved. Helaid its foundations in the depths, and built up its wall of rock to thesky. A door also made He for the ark, with lower, second, and thirdstoreys. It was beautiful as strong. Corn, wine, and oil were laid up instore within it. All being ready, God said to his persecuted ones in theearly Church, "Come, thou and all thy house, into the ark. " He gave themthe Bible to be a light to them during the darkness, and shut them in. The flood came. Century after century the waters of Papal superstitioncontinued to prevail upon the earth. At length all the high hills thatwere under the whole heaven were covered, and all flesh died, save thelittle company in the Vaudois ark. 

CHAPTER V. 

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE VAUDOIS CHURCH. 

 Dawn of the Reformation--Waldensian Territory a Portion of Italy--Two-fold Mission of Italy--Origin of the Vaudois--Evidence of Romanist Historians--Evidence of their own Historians--Evidence arising from the Noble Leyçon from their Geographical Position--Grandeur of the Vaudois Annals--Their Martyr Age--Their Missionary Efforts--Present Condition--Population--Churches--Schools--Stipends--Students--Social and Moral Superiority--Political and Social Disabilities--The Year 1848 their Exodus--Their Mission--A Sabbath in the Vaudois Sanctuary--Anecdote--Lesson Taught by their History. 

How often during the long night must the Vaudois have looked from theirmountain asylum upon a world engulphed in error, with the mingled wonderand dismay with which we may imagine the antediluvian fathers gazingfrom the window of their ark upon the bosom of the shoreless flood! Whatan appalling and mysterious dispensation! The fountains of the greatdeep had a second time been broken up, and each successive century sawthe waters rising. Would Christianity ever re-appear? Or had the Churchcompleted her triumphs, and finished her course? And was time to closeupon a world shrouded in darkness, with nought but this feeble beaconburning amid the Alps? Such were the questions which must often havepressed upon the minds of the Vaudois. 

Like Noah, too, they sent forth, from time to time, messengers fromtheir ark, to go hither and thither, and see if yet there remainedanywhere, in any part of the earth, any worshippers of the true God. They returned to their mountain hold, with the sorrowful tidings thatnowhere had they found any remnant of the true Church, and that thewhole world wondered after the beast. The Vaudois, however, had powergiven them to maintain their testimony. In the midst of universalapostacy, and in the face of the most terrible persecutions, they borewitness against Rome. And ever as that Church added another error to hercreed, the Vaudois added another article to their testimony; and in thisway Romish idolatry and gospel truth were developed by equal stages, andan adequate testimony was maintained all through that gloomy period. Thestars of the ecclesiastical firmament fell unto the earth, like theuntimely figs of the fig-tree; but the lamp of the Alps went not out. The Vaudois, not unconscious of their sacred office, watched theirheaven-kindled beacon with the vigilance of men inspired by the hopethat it would yet attract the eyes of the world. At length--thricewelcome sight!--the watch-fires of the German reformers, kindled attheir own, began to streak the horizon. They knew that the hour ofdarkness had passed, and that the time was near when the Church wouldleave her asylum, and go forth to sow the fields of the world with theimmortal seed of truth. 

We must be permitted to remark here, that the fact that the Waldensianterritory is really a part of Italy, and that the Vaudois, or Valdesi, or People of the Valleys (for all three signify the same thing), arestrictly an Italian people, invests ITALY with a new and interestinglight. In all ages, Pagan as well as Christian, Italy has been the seatof a twofold influence, --the one destructive, the other regenerative. Inclassic times, Italy sent forth armies to subjugate the world, andletters to enlighten it. Since the Christian era, her mission has beenof the same mixed character. She has been at once the seat of idolatryand the asylum of Christianity. Her idolatry is of a grosser and moreperfected type than was the worship of Baal of old; and her Christianitypossesses a more spiritual character, and a more powerfully operativegenius, than did the institute of Moses. We ought, then, to think ofItaly as the land of the martyr as well as of the persecutor, --as notonly the land whence our Popery has come, which has cost us so manymartyrs of whom we are proud, and has caused the loss of so many soulswhich we mourn, --but also as the fountain of that blessed light whichbroke mildly on the world in the preaching of John Huss, and morepowerfully, a century afterwards, in the reformation of the sixteenthcentury. Though there was no audible voice, and no visible miracle, theWaldenses were as really chosen to be the witnesses of God during thelong night of papal idolatry, as were the Jews to be his witnessesduring the night of pagan idolatry. They are sprung, according to themore credible historical accounts, from the unfallen Church of Rome;they are the direct lineal descendants of the primitive Christians ofItaly; they never bowed the knee to the modern Baal; their mountainsanctuary has remained unpolluted by idolatrous rites; and if they werecalled to affix to their testimony the seal of a cruel martyrdom, theydid not fall till they had scattered over the various countries ofEurope the seed of a future harvest. Their death was a martyrdom enduredin behalf of Christendom; and scarcely was it accomplished till theywere raised to life again, in the appearance of numerous churches bothnorth and south of the Alps. Why is it that all persons and systems inthis world of ours must die in order to enter into life? We enter intospiritual life by the death of our old nature; we enter into eternallife by the death of the body; and Christianity, too, that she mightenter into the immortality promised her on earth, had to die. The wordsof our Lord, spoken in reference to his own death, are true also inreference to the martyrdom of the Waldensian Church:--"Verily verily, Isay unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, itabideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. "

The first question touching this extraordinary people respects theirorigin. When did they come into being, and of what stock are theysprung? This question forces itself with singular power upon the mind ofthe traveller, who, after traversing cities and countries covered withdarkness palpable as that of Egypt of old, and seeing nought around himbut image-worship, lights unexpectedly, in the midst of these mountains, upon a little community, enjoying the knowledge of the true God, andworshipping Him after the scriptural and spiritual manner of prophetsand apostles of old. He naturally seeks for an explanation of a fact soextraordinary. Who kindled that solitary lamp? Their enemies havestriven to represent them as dissenters from Rome of the twelfth andthirteenth centuries; and it is a common error even among ourselves tospeak of them as the followers of Peter Waldo, the pious merchant ofLyons, and to date their rise from the year 1160. We cannot here go intothe controversy; suffice it to say, that historical documents existwhich show that both the Albigenses and the Waldenses were known longbefore Peter Waldo was heard of. Their own traditions and ancientmanuscripts speak of them as having maintained the same doctrine "fromtime immemorial, in continued descent from father to son, even from thetimes of the apostles. " The Nobla Leyçon, --the Confession of Faith ofthe Vaudois Church, of the date of 1100, --claims on their behalf thesame ancient origin; Ecbert, a writer who flourished in 1160--the yearof Peter Waldo--speaks of them as "perverters, " who had existed duringmany ages; and Reinerus, the inquisitor, who lived a century afterwards, calls them the most dangerous of all sects, because the most ancient;"for some say, " adds he, "that it has continued to flourish since thetime of Sylvester; others, from the time of the apostles. " This last isa singular corroboration of the authenticity of the Nobla Leyçon, whichrefers to the corruptions which began under Sylvester as the cause oftheir separation from the communion of the Church of Rome. Rorenco, thegrand prior of St Roch, who was commissioned to make enquiriesconcerning them, after hinting that possibly they were detached from theChurch by Claude, the good Bishop of Turin, in the eighth century, says"that they were not a new sect in the ninth and tenth centuries. "Campian the Jesuit says of them, that they were reputed to be "moreancient than the Roman Church. " Nor is it without great weight, as thehistorian Leger observes, that not one of the Dukes of Savoy or theirministers ever offered the slightest contradiction to the oft-reiteratedassertions of the Vaudois, when petitioning for liberty of conscience, "We are descendants, " said they, "of those who, from father to son, havepreserved entire the apostolical faith in the valleys which we nowoccupy. "[1] We have no doubt that, were the ecclesiastical archives ofLombardy, especially those of Turin and Milan, carefully searched, documents would be found which would place beyond all doubt what thescattered proofs we have referred to render all but a certainty. 

The historical evidence for the antiquity of the Vaudois Church isgreatly strengthened by a consideration of the geographical position of"the Valleys. " They lie on what anciently was the great high-roadbetween Italy and France. There existed a frequent intercourse betwixtthe Churches of the two countries; pastors and private members werecontinually going and returning; and what so likely to follow thisintercourse as the evangelization of these valleys? There is a traditionextant, that the Apostle Paul visited them, in his journey from Rome toSpain. Be this as it may, one can scarce doubt that the feet of Irenæus, and of other early fathers, trod the territory of the Vaudois, andpreached the gospel by the waters of the Pelice, and under the rocks andchestnut trees of Bobbio. Indeed, we can scarce err in fixing the firstrise of the Vaudois Churches at even an earlier period, --that ofapostolic times. So soon as the Church began to be wasted bypersecution, the remote corners of Italy were sought as an asylum; andfrom the days of Nero the primitive Christians may have begun to gatherround those mountains to which the ark of God was ultimately removed, and amid which it so long dwelt. 

 "I go up to the ancient hills, Where chains may never be; Where leap in joy the torrent rills; Where man may worship God alone, and free. 

 There shall an altar and a camp Impregnably arise; There shall be lit a quenchless lamp, To shine unwavering through the open skies. 

 And song shall 'midst the rocks be heard, And fearless prayer ascend; While, thrilling to God's holy Word, The mountain-pines in adoration bend. 

 And there the burning heart no more Its deep thought shall suppress; But the long-buried truth shall pour Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness. "

How could a small body of peasants among the mountains have discoveredthe errors of Rome, and have thrown off her yoke, at a time when thewhole of Europe received the one and bowed to the other? This could nothave happened in the natural order of things. Above all, if they did notarise till the twelfth or thirteenth century, how came they to frame soelaborate and full a testimony as the _Noble Lesson_ against Rome? AChurch that has a creed must have a history. Nor was it in a year, oreven in a single age, that they could have compiled such a creed. Itcould acquire form and substance only in the course of centuries, --theVaudois adding article to article, as Rome added error to error. We canhave no reasonable doubt, then, that in the Vaudois community we have arelic of the primitive Church. Compared with them, the house of Savoy, which ruled so long and rigorously over them, is but of yesterday. Theyare more ancient than the Roman Church itself. They have come down to usfrom the world before the papal flood, bearing in their heaven-built andheaven-guarded ark the sacred oracles; and now they stand before us as awitness to the historic truth of Christianity, and a living copy, indoctrine, in government, and in manners, of the Church of the Apostles. 

Fain would we tell at length the heroic story of the Vaudois. We use noexaggerated speech, --no rhetorical flourish, --but speak advisedly, whenwe say, that their history, take it all in all, is the brightest, thepurest, the most heroic, in the annals of the world. Their martyr-agelasted five centuries; and we know of nothing, whether we regard thesacredness of the cause, or the undaunted valour, the pure patriotism, and the lofty faith, in which the Vaudois maintained it, that can becompared with their glorious struggle. This is an age of hero-worship. Let us go to the mountains of the Waldenses: there we will find heroes"unsung by poet, by senators unpraised, " yet of such gigantic stature, that the proudest champions of ancient Rome are dwarfed in theirpresence. It was no transient flash of patriotism and valour that brokeforth on the soil of the Vaudois: that country saw sixteen generationsof heroes, and five centuries of heroic deeds. Men came from pruningtheir vines or tending their flocks, to do feats of arms which Greecenever equalled, and which throw into the shade the proudest exploits ofRome. The Jews maintained the worship of the true God in their countryfor many ages, and often gained glorious victories; but the Jews were anation; they possessed an ample territory, rich in resources; they weretrained to war, moreover, and marshalled and led on by skilful andcourageous chiefs. But the Waldenses were a primitive and simple people;they had neither king nor leader; their only sovereign was Jehovah;their only guides were their _Barbes_. The struggle under the Maccabeeswas a noble one; but it attained not the grandeur of that of theVaudois. It was short in comparison; nor do its single exploits, braveas they were, rise to the same surpassing pitch of heroism. When readafter the story of the Vaudois, the annals of Greece and Rome even, fruitful though they be in deeds of heroism, appear cold and tame. Inshort, we know of no other instance in the world in which a great andsacred object has been prosecuted from father to son for such a lengthof time, with a patriotism so pure, a courage so unshrinking, adevotion so entire, and amidst such a multitude of sacrifices, sufferings, and woes, as in the case of the Vaudois. The incentives tocourage which have stimulated others to brave death were wanting intheir case. If they triumphed, they had no admiring circus to welcomethem with shouts, and crown them with laurel; and if they fell, theyknew that there awaited their ashes no marble tomb, and that no lay ofpoet would ever embalm their memory. They looked to a greater Judge fortheir reward. This was the source of that patriotism, the purest theworld has ever seen, and of that valour, the noblest of which the annalsof mankind make mention. 

Innocent III. , who hid under a sanctimonious guise the boundlessambition and quenchless malignity of Lucifer, was the first to blow thetrumpet of extermination against the poor Vaudois. And from the middleof the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century they sufferednot fewer than thirty persecutions. During that long period they couldnot calculate upon a single year's immunity from invasion and slaughter. From the days of Innocent their history becomes one long harrowing taleof papal plots, interdicts, excommunications, of royal proscriptions andperfidies, of attack, of plunder, of rapine, of massacre, and of deathin every conceivable and horrible way, --by the sword, by fire, and byunutterable tortures and torments. The Waldenses had no alternative butto submit to these, or deny their Saviour. Yet, driven to arms, --evertheir last resource, --they waxed valiant in fight, and put to flight thearmies of the aliens. They taught their enemies that the battle was notto the strong. When the cloud gathered round their hills, they removedtheir wives and little ones to some rock-girt valley, to the caverns ofwhich they had taken the precaution of removing their corn and oil, andeven their baking ovens; and there, though perhaps they did not mustermore than a thousand fighting men in all, they waited, with calmconfidence in God, the onset of their foes. In these encounters, sustained by Heaven, they performed prodigies of valour. The combinedarmies of France and Piedmont recoiled from their shock. Their invaderswere almost invariably overthrown, sometimes even annihilated; and theirsovereigns, the Dukes of Savoy, on whose memory there rests theindelible blot of having pursued this loyal, industrious, and virtuouspeople with ceaseless and incredible injustice, cruelty, treachery, andperfidy, finding that they could not subdue them, were glad to offerthem terms of peace, and grant them new guarantees of the quietpossession of their ancient territory. Thus an invisible omnipotent armwas ever extended over the Vaudois and their land, delivering themmiraculously in times of danger, and preserving them as a peculiarpeople, that by their instrumentality Jehovah might accomplish hisdesigns of mercy towards the world. 

Nor were the Waldenses content simply to maintain their faith. Even whenfighting for existence, they recognised their obligations as amissionary Church, and strove to diffuse over the surrounding countriesthe light that burned amid their own mountains. Who has not heard of thePra de la Torre, in the valley of Angrona? This is a beautiful littlemeadow, encircled with a barrier of tremendous mountains, and watered bya torrent, which, flowing from an Alpine summit, _La Sella Vecchia_, descends with echoing noise through the dark gorges and shining dells ofthe deep and romantic valley. This was the inner sanctuary of theVaudois. Here their _Barbes_ sat; here was their school of the prophets;and from this spot were sent forth their pastors and missionaries intoFrance, Germany, and Britain, as well as into their own valleys. It wasa native and missionary of these valleys, Gualtero Lollard, which gavehis name, in the fourteenth century, to the Lollards of England, whosedoctrines were the day-spring of the Reformation in our own country. Thezeal of the Vaudois was seen in the devices they fell upon to distributethe Bible, and along with that a knowledge of the gospel. Colporteurstravelled as pedlars; and, after displaying their laces and jewels, theydrew forth, and offered for sale, or as a gift, a gem of yet greatervalue. In this way the Word of God found entrance alike into cottage andbaronial castle. It is a supposed scene of this kind which the followinglines depict:--

 Oh! lady fair, these silks of mine Are beautiful and rare, -- The richest web of the Indian loom Which beauty's self might wear; And these pearls are pure and mild to behold, And with radiant light they vie: I have brought them with me a weary way;-- Will my gentle lady buy?

 * * * * *

 Oh! lady fair, I have got a gem, Which a purer lustre flings Than the diamond flash of the jewell'd crown On the lofty brow of kings: A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, Whose virtue shall not decay, -- Whose light shall be as a spell to thee, And a blessing on the way!

 * * * * *

 The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, As a small and meagre book, Unchased by gold or diamond gem, From his folding robe he took. Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price;-- May it prove as such to thee! Nay, keep thy gold--I ask it not; _For the Word of God is free!_

 * * * * *

 And she hath left the old gray halls, Where an evil faith hath power, And the courtly knights of her father's train, And the maidens of her bower; And she hath gone to the Vaudois vale, By lordly feet untrod, Where the poor and needy of earth are rich In the perfect love of God!

But, turning from this inviting theme, to which volumes only could dojustice, let us lift the curtain, and look at this simple, heroicpeople, as they appear now, after the "great tribulation" of fivecenturies. The Protestant population of "the Valleys" is 22, 000 andupwards. They have fifteen churches and parishes, and twenty-fivepersons in all engaged in the work of the ministry. This was their statein 1851. Since then, two other parishes, Pignerolo and Turin, have beenadded. To each church a school is attached, with numerous sub-schools. It is to the honour of the Vaudois that they led the way in that systemof general education which is extending itself, more or less, in everyState in Europe. Repeated edicts of the Waldensian Table rendered itimperative upon the community to provide means of religious andelementary education for all the children capable of receiving it. Theyhave a college at La Tour, fifteen primary schools, and upwards of onehundred secondary schools. The whole Waldensian youth is at schoolduring winter. In their congregations, the sacrament of the Supper isdispensed four times in the year; and it is rare that a young personfails to become a communicant after arriving at the proper age. Thereare two preaching days at every dispensation of the ordinance; and thecollections made on these occasions are devoted to the poor. There wasat that time no plate at the church-door on ordinary Sabbaths; and nocontributions were made by the people for the support of the gospel. Ipresume this error is rectified now, however; for it was then incontemplation to adopt the plan in use in Scotland, and elsewhere, of apenny-a-week subscription. The stipends of the Waldensian pastors arepaid from funds contributed by England and Holland. Each receivesfifteen hundred francs yearly, --about sixty-two pounds sterling. Theirincomes are supplemented by a small glebe, which is attached to each_living_. The contribution for the schools and the hospitals iscompulsory. In their college, in 1851, there were seventy-five students. Some were studying for the medical profession, some for commercialpursuits; others were qualifying as teachers, and some few as pastors. 

The Waldenses inhabit their hills, much as the Jews did their Palestine. Each man lives on his ancestral acres; and his farm or vineyard is nottoo large to be cultivated by himself and his family. There are amongstthem no titles of honour, and scarce any distinctions of rank andcircumstances. They are a nation of vine-dressers, husbandmen, andshepherds. In their habits they are frugal and simple. Their peacefuldeportment and industrial virtues have won the admiration, and extortedthe acknowledgments, even of their enemies. In the cultivation of theirfields, in the breed and management of their cattle and their flocks, inthe arrangements of their dairies, and in the cleanliness of theircabins, they far excel the rest of the Piedmontese. To enlarge theirterritory, they have had recourse to the same device with the Jews ofold; and the Vaudois mountains, like the Judæan hills, exhibit in manyplaces terraces, rising in a continuous series up the hill-side, sownwith grain or planted with the vine. Every span of earth is cultivated. 

The Vaudois excel the rest of the Piedmontese in point of morals, justas much as they excel them in point of intelligence and industry. Allwho have visited their abodes, and studied their character, admit, thatthey are incomparably the most moral community on the Continent ofEurope. When a Vaudois commits a crime, --a rare occurrence, --the wholevalleys mourn, and every family feels as if a cloud rested on its ownreputation. No one can pass a day among them without remarking thegreater decorum of their deportment, and the greater kindliness andcivility of their address. I do not mean to say that, either in respectof intelligence or piety, they are equal to the natives of our ownhighly favoured Scotland. They are surrounded on all sides bydegradation and darkness; they have just escaped from ages ofproscription; books are few among their mountains; and they havesuffered, too, from the inroads of French infidelity; an age ofModeratism has passed over them, as over ourselves; and from these evilsthey have not yet completely recovered. Still, with all these drawbacks, they are immensely superior to any other community abroad; and, insimplicity of heart, and purity of life, present us with no feebletranscript of the primitive Church, of which they are therepresentatives. 

The lotus-flower is said to lift its head above the muddy current of theNile at the precise moment of sunrise. It was indicative, perhaps, ofthe dawning of a new day upon the Vaudois and Italy, that that Churchexperienced lately a revival. That revival was almost immediatelyfollowed by the boon of political and social emancipation, and by a newand enlarged sphere of spiritual action. The year 1848 opened the doorsof their ancient prison, and called them to go forth and evangelize. Formerly, all attempts to extend themselves beyond their mountain abode, and to mingle with the nations around them, were uniformly followed bydisaster. The time was not come; and the integrity of their faith, andthe accomplishment of their high mission, would have been perilled bytheir leaving their asylum. But when the revolutions of 1848 threw thenorth of Italy open to their action, then came forth the decree ofCharles Albert, declaring the Vaudois free subjects of Piedmont, and theChurch of "the Valleys" a free Church. The disabilities under which theWaldenses groaned up till this very recent period may well astonish us, now that we look back to them. Up till 1848 the Waldensian wasproscribed, in both his civil and religious rights, beyond the limits ofhis own valleys. Out of his special territory he dared not possess afoot-breadth of land; and, if obliged to sell his paternal fields to astranger, he could not buy them back again. He was shut out from thecolleges of his country; he could not practise as a member of any of thelearned professions; every avenue to distinction and wealth was closedagainst him, --his only crime being his religion. He could not marry butwith one of his own people; he could not build a sanctuary, --he couldnot even bury his dead, --beyond the limits of "the Valleys. " Thechildren were often taken away and trained in the idolatrous rites ofRomanism, and the unhappy parents had no remedy. They were slandered, too, to their sovereigns, as men marked by hideous deformities; andgreat was the surprise of Charles Albert to find, on a visit he paid tothe Valleys but a little before granting their emancipation, that theVaudois were not the monsters he had been taught to believe. I have beentold, that to this very day they carry their dead to the grave in opencoffins, to give ocular demonstration of the falsehood of the calumniespropagated by their enemies, that the corpses of these heretics aresometimes consumed by invisible flames, or carried off by evil spiritsbefore burial. But now all these disabilities are at an end. The year1848 swept them all away; and a bulwark of constitutional feeling andaction has since grown up around the Vaudois, cutting off the prospectof these disabilities ever being re-imposed, unless, indeed, Austria andFrance should combine to put down the Piedmontese constitution. Buthitherto that nation which gave religious liberty to the people of Godhas had its own political liberties wonderfully protected. 

The year 1848, then, was the "exodus" of the Vaudois. And why were theybrought out of their house of bondage? Surely they have yet a work todo. Their great mission, which was to bear witness for the truth duringthe domination of Antichrist, they nobly fulfilled; but are they to haveno part in diffusing over the plains of Italy that light which they solong and so carefully preserved? This undoubtedly is their mission. Allthe leadings of Providence declare it to be so. They were visited withrevival, brought from their Alpine asylum, had full liberty of actiongiven them, all at the moment that Italy had begun to be open to thegospel. They are the native evangelists of their own country: let themremember their own and their fathers' sufferings, and avenge themselveson Rome, not with the sword, but the Bible. And let British Christiansaid them in this great work, assured that the door to Rome and Italylies through the valleys of the Vaudois. 

The last day of my sojourn in the Waldensian territory was Sabbath the19th of October, and I worshipped with that people, --rare enjoyment!--intheir sanctuary. The day broke amid high winds and torrents of rain. Theclouds now veiled, now revealed, the hill-side, with its variouslytinted foliage, and its white torrents dashing headlong to the vale. Themighty form of the Castelluzzo was seen struggling through mists; andhigh above the winds rose the roar of the swollen waters. At a quarterbefore ten, the church-bell, heard through the pauses of the storm, camepealing from the heights. The old church of La Tour, --the new and moreelegant fabric which stands in the village was not then opened, --issweetly placed at the base of the Castelluzzo, embowered amid vines andfragrant foliage, and commanding a noble view of the plains of Piedmont. Even amidst the driving mists and showers its beauty could not fail tobe felt. The scenery was--

 "A blending of all beauties, streams and dells, Fruits, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine. "

General Beckwith did me the honour to call at my hotel, and I walkedwith him to the church. Outside the building--for worship had notcommenced--were numerous little conversational parties; and around itlay the Vaudois dead, sleeping beneath the shadow of their giant rock, and free, at last and for ever, from the oppressor. They had foundanother "exodus" from their house of bondage than that which KingCharles Albert had granted their living descendants. We entered, andfound the schoolmaster reading the liturgy. This service consists of twochapters of the Bible, with at times the reflections of Ostervaldannexed; during it the congregation came dropping in, --the husbandmenand herdsmen of the Val Lucerna, --and took their seats. In a little theelders entered in a body, and seated themselves round a table in frontof the pulpit. Next came the pastor, habited, like our Scotch ministers, in gown and bands, when the regent instantly ceased. The pastor beganthe public worship by giving out a psalm. He next offered a prayer, read the ten commandments, and then preached. The sermon was anhalf-hour's length precisely, and was recited, not read; for I was toldthe Waldenses have a strong dislike to read discourses. The minister ofLa Tour is an old man, and was trained under an order of thingsunfavourable to that higher standard of pulpit qualification, and thatfuller manifestation of evangelical and spiritual feeling, which, I amglad to say, characterize all the younger Waldensian pastors. The peoplelistened with great attention to his scriptural discourse; but I wassorry to observe that there were few Bibles among them, --a circumstancethat may be explained perhaps with reference to the state of theweather, and the long distance which many of them have to travel. Thestorm had the effect at least of thinning the audience, and bringing itdown from about 800, its usual number, to 500 or so. The church was anoblong building, with the pulpit on one of the side walls, and a deepgallery, resting on thick, heavy pillars, on the other. The men andwomen occupied separate places. With this exception, I saw nothing toremind me that I was out of Scotland. One may find exactly such anothercongregation in almost any part of our Scottish Highlands, with thisdifference, that the complexions of the Vaudois are darker than that ofour Highlanders. They have the same hardy, weather-beaten features, andthe same robust frames. I saw many venerable and some noble heads amongthem, --men who would face the storms of the Alps for the lost wandererof the flock, and the edicts and soldiers of Rome for their home-steadsand altars. There they sat, worshipping their fathers' God, amid theirfathers' mountains, --victorious over twelve centuries of proscriptionand persecution, and holding their sanctuaries and their hills indefiance of Europe. In the evening Professor Malan preached in theschoolhouse of Margarita, a small village on the ascent from La Tour toCastelluzzo. He discoursed with great unction, and the crowded audiencehung upon his lips. 

On my way back to my hotel, Professor Malan narrated to me a touchinganecdote, which I must here put down. Monsignor Mazzarella was a judgein one of the High Courts of Sicily; but when the atrocities of there-action began, he refused to be a tool of the Government, and resignedhis office. He came to Turin, like numerous other political refugees;and in one of the re-unions of the workmen, he learned the doctrine of"justification by faith. " Soon thereafter, that is, in the summer of1851, he and a few companions paid a visit to the Vaudois Church. Apublic meeting, over which Professor Malan presided, was held at LaTour, to welcome M. Mazzarella and his friends. Professor Malanexpressed his delight at seeing them in "the Valleys;" welcomed them asthe first fruits of Italy; and, in the name of the Vaudois Church, gavethem the right hand of fellowship. The reply of the converted exiles wastruly affecting, and moved the assembly to tears. Rising up, Mazzarellasaid, "We are the children of your persecutors; but the sons have otherhearts than the fathers. We have renounced the religion of theoppressor, and embraced that of the Vaudois, whom our ancestors so longpersecuted. You have been the people of God, the confessors of thetruth; and here before you this night I confess the sin of my fathers inputting your fathers to death. " Mazzarella at this day is an evangelistin Genoa. In his speech we hear the first utterance of repentantChristendom. "The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall comebending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselvesdown at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee the city of theLord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. "

I had now been well nigh a week in "the Valleys. " A dream long andfondly cherished had become a reality; and next morning I started forTurin. 

The eventful history of the Vaudois teaches one lesson at least, whichwe Protestants would do well to ponder at this hour. The measures of theChurch of Rome are quick, summary, and on a scale commensurate with thedanger. Her motto is instant, unpitying, unsparing, utter exterminationof all that oppose her. Twice over has the human mind revolted againsther authority, and twice over has she met that revolt, not withargument, but with the sword. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries theWaldensian movement had grown to such a head, that the dominion of Romewas in imminent jeopardy. Had she delayed, the Reformation would havebeen anticipated by some centuries. She did not delay. She cried forhelp to the warriors of France and Savoy; and, by the help of somehundred thousand soldiers, she put down the Waldensian movement as anaggressive power. The next revolt against her authority was theReformation. Here again she boldly confronted the danger. She graspedher old weapon; and, by the help of the sword and the Jesuits, she putdown that movement in one half the countries of Europe, and greatlyweakened it in the other half. 

We are now witnessing a third revolt against her authority; and itremains to be seen how the Church of Rome will deal with it. Will shenow adopt half measures? Will she now falter and draw back, --she thatnever before feared enemy or spared foe? Will that Church that quenchedin blood the Protestantism of the Waldenses, --that put down theReformation in France by one terrible blow, --that by the help ofdungeons and racks banished the light from Italy and Spain, --will thatChurch, we ask, spare the Protestantism of Britain? What folly andinfatuation to think that she will! What matters it that, in rooting outBritish Protestantism, she should shed oceans of blood, and sound thedeath-knell of a whole nation? These are but dust in the balance to her:her dominion must be maintained at all costs. Her motto still is, --letRome triumph though the heavens should fall. But she tells us that sherepents. Repents, does she? She has grown pitiful, and tender hearted, has she? She fears blood now, and starts at the cry of murdered nations!Ah! she repents; but it is her clemency, not her crimes, of which sherepents. She repents that she did not make one wide St Bartholomew ofEurope; that when she planted the stake for Huss, and Cranmer, andWishart, she did not plant a million of stakes. Then the Reformationwould not have been. Yes, she repents, deeply, bitterly repents, herfatal blunder. But it will not be her fault, the _Univers_ assures us, if she have to repent such a blunder a second time. Let us hear thepriests speaking through one of the country papers in France:--"The warsof religion were not deplorable catastrophes; these great butcheriesrenewed the life of France. The incense cast away the smell of thecorpses, and psalms covered the noise of angry shouts. Holy water washedaway all the bloody stains. With the Inquisition, the most beautifulweather succeeded to storms, and the fires that burned the hereticsshone like supernatural torches. " The hand that wrote these lines wouldmore gladly light the faggot. Let only the present regime in France lasta few years, and the priests will again rejoice in seeing the colour ofheretic blood. There cannot and will not be peace in the world, theysay, till for every Protestant a gibbet or stake has been erected, andnot one man left to carry tidings to posterity that ever there was sucha thing as Protestantism on the earth. 

CHAPTER VI. 

FROM TURIN TO NOVARA. 

 At Turin begins Pilgrimage to Rome--Description of _Diligence_--Dora Susina--Plain of Lombardy--Its Boundaries--Nursed by the Alps--Lessons taught thereby--The Colina--Inauspicious Sunset--The Road to Milan--The Po--Its Source--Tributaries and Function--Evening--Home remembered in a Foreign Land--Inference thence regarding Futurity--Thunderstorm among the Alps--Thunderstorm on the Plain of Lombardy--Grandeur of the Lightning--Enter Novara at Day-break. 

I had two objects in view in crossing the Alps. The first was to visitthe land of the Vaudois; the second was to see Rome. The first of theseobjects I had accomplished in part; the second remained to beundertaken. 

This plain of Piedmont was the richest my foot had ever trodden; butoften did I turn my eyes wistfully towards the Apennines, which, like aveil, shut out the Italy of the Romans and the City of the Seven Hills. At Turin, which the Po so sweetly waters, and over which the snow-cladhills of the Swiss fling their noble shadows, properly begins my journeyto Rome. 

I started in the _diligence_ for Milan about four of the afternoon ofthe 21st October. Did you ever, reader, set foot in a _diligence_? It isa castle mounted on wheels, rising storey upon storey to a fearfulheight. It is roomy withal, and has apartments enough within itsleathern walls for well-nigh the population of a village. There is theglass _coupé_ in front, the drawing-room of the house. There is the_interieur_, which you may compare, if you please, to the dining-room, only there you do not dine; and there is the _rotundo_, a sort of cabinattached, the limbo of the establishment, in which you may findhalf-a-dozen unhappy wights for days and nights doing penance. Then, inthe very fore-front of this moving castle--hung in mid air, as itwere--there is the _banquette_. It is the roomiest of all, and has, moreover, spacious untenanted spaces behind, where you may stow awayyour luggage; and, being the loftiest compartment, it commands thecountry you may happen to traverse. On this account the _banquette_ wasthe place I almost always selected, unless when so unfortunate as tofind it already bespoke. Half-hours are of no value in the south of theAlps, and a very liberal allowance of this commodity was made us beforestarting. At last, however, the formidable process of loading wascompleted, and away we went, rumbling heavily over the streets of Turinto the crack of the postilion's whip and the music of the horses' bells. 

On emerging from the buildings of the city, we crossed the fine bridgeover the Dora Susina, an Alpine stream, which attains almost the dignityof a river, and which, swollen by recent rains, was hurrying on to jointhe Po. Our course now lay almost due east, over the great plain ofLombardy; and there are few rides in any part of the world which canbring the traveller such a succession of varied, rich, and sublimesights. The plain itself, level as the floor of one's library, andwearing a rich carpeting, green at all seasons, of fruits and verdure, ran out till it touched the horizon. On the north rose the Alps, amagnificent wall, of stature so stupendous, that they seemed to propthe heavens. On the south were the gentler Apennines. Between these twomagnificent barriers, this goodly plain--of which I know not if theearth contains its equal--stretches away till it terminates in the blueline of the Adriatic. On its ample bosom is many a celebrated spot, manyan interesting object. It has several princely cities, in which art iscultivated, and trade flourishes to all the extent which Austrianfetters permit. Its old historic towns are numerous. The hoar of eld isupon them. It has rags of castles and fortresses which literally havebraved for a thousand years the battle and the breeze. It has spotswhere empires have been lost and won, and where the dead of the tentedfield sleep their dreamless sleep. It has fine old cathedrals, withtheir antique carvings, their recumbent statues of old-world bishops, and their Scripture pieces by various masters, sorely faded; and hereand there, above the rich foliage of its various woods, like the tallmast of a ship at sea, is seen the handsome and lofty campanile, sopeculiar to the architecture of Lombardy. 

The great Alps look down with most benignant aspect upon this plain. They seem quite proud of it, and nurse it with the care and tendernessof a parent. Noble rivers not a few--the Ticino, the Adige, and streamsand torrents without number--do they send down, to keep its beauty everfresh. These streams cross and re-cross its green bosom in alldirections, forming by their interlacings a curious network of silverylines, like the bright threads in the mine, or the white veins in theporphyritic slab. Observe this little flower, with its bright petals, growing by the wayside. That humble flower owes its beauty to yonderchain. From the frozen summits of the Alps come the waters at which itdaily drinks. And when the dog-days come, and a fiery sun looks downupon the plain from a sky that is cloudless for months together, andwhen every leaf droops, and even the tall poplar seems to bow itselfbeneath the intolerable heat, the mountains, pitying the panting plain, send down their cool breezes to revive it. Would that from the loftypinnacles of rank and talent there descended upon the lower levels ofsociety an influence equally wholesome and beneficent! Were there morestreams from the mountain, there would be more fruits upon the plain. The world would not be the scorched desert which it is, in which thevipers of envy and discontent hiss and sting; but a fragrant garden, full of the fruits of social order and of moral principle. Truly, manmight learn many a useful lesson from the earth on which he treads: thegreat, to dispense freely out of their abundance, --for by dispensingthey but multiply their blessings, as Mont Blanc, by sending down itsstreams to enrich the plain, feeds those snows which are its glory andcrown, --and the humble, the lesson of a thankful reciprocation. Thisplain does not drink in the waters of the Alps, and sullenly refuse toown its obligations. Like a duteous child, it brings its yearly offeringto the foot of Mont Blanc, --fields of golden wheat, countless vines withtheir blood-red clusters, fruits of every name, and flowers of everyhue;--such is the noble tribute which this plain, year by year, lays atthe feet of its august parent. There is but one drawback to itsprosperity. Two sombre shadows fall gloomily athwart its surface. Theseare Austria and Rome. 

The plain of Lombardy is so broad, and the road to Milan by Novara is somuch on a level with its general surface, that the eye catches thedistant Apennines only at the more elevated points. The screen whichhere, and for miles after leaving Turin, shuts out the view of theApennines, is the Colina. The Colina is a range of lovely hills, whichrise to a height of rather more than 1200 feet, and run eastward alongthe plain a few miles south of the Milan road. Soft and rich in theircovering, picturesque in their forms, and indented with numerous dells, they look like miniature Alps set down on the plain, nearly equidistantfrom the great white hills on the north and the purple peaks on thesouth. The sun was near his setting; and his level rays, passing throughfields of vapour, --presages of storm, --and shorn of the fiery brilliancywhich is wont at eve to set these hills on a blaze, fell softly upon thedome of the Superga, and lighted up the white villas which stud themountain by hundreds and hundreds throughout its whole extent. Vividlyrelieved by the deep azure of the vineyards, and looking, from theirdistance, no bigger than single blocks, these villas reminded one of ashower of marble, freshly fallen, and glittering in pearly whiteness inthe setting rays. 

The road, which to me had an almost sacred character, being thebeginning of my journey to Rome, was a straight line, --straight as thearrow's flight, --between fields of rich meadow land, and rows of elmsand poplars, which ran on and on, till, in the far distance, theyappeared to converge to a point. It was a broad, macadamized, substantial highway, of about thirty feet in width, having a white lineof curb-stones placed eight or ten paces apart; outside of which was anexcellent pathway for foot passengers. On the left rose the Alps, calmand majestic, clothed in the purple shadows of evening. 

I have mentioned the Po as flowing past Turin. This stream is doubtlessthe relic of that mighty flood which covered, at some former period, thevast space between the Alps and the Apennines, from the Graian andCottian chains on the west, to the shores of the Adriatic on the east. As the waters drained off, this central channel alone was left, toreceive and convey to the sea the innumerable torrents which are formedby the springs and snows of the mountains. The noble river thus formedis called the Po, --the pride of Italy, and the king of its streams. TheGreeks, who clothed it with fable, and drowned Phaeton in its stream, called it Eridanus. Its Roman appellation was Padus, which in course oftime resolved itself into its present name, the Po. Unlike the Nile, which rolls in solemn and solitary majesty through Egypt withoutpermitting one solitary rill to mingle with its flood, the Po welcomesevery tributary, and accepts its help in discharging its great functionof giving drink to every flower, and tree, and field, and city, in broadLombardy. It receives, in its course through Piedmont alone, not fewerthan fifty-three torrents and rivers; and in depth and grandeur ofstream it is not unworthy of the praises which the Greek and Roman poetslavished upon it. The cradle of this noble stream is placed in thecentre of the ancient territory of the Vaudois, whose most beautifulmountain, Monte Viso, is its nursing parent. A fountain of crystalclearness, placed half-way up this hill, is its source. Thence it goesforth to water Piedmont and Venetian-Lombardy, and to mingle at lastwith the clear wave of the Adriatic, --emblem of those living waterswhich were to go forth from this same land into all quarters of Europe. 

The sun had now set; and I marked that this evening no golden beamsamong the mountains, no burning peaks, attended his departure. He wentin silent sadness, like a friend quitting a circle which he fears maybefore his return be visited with calamity. With him departed the gloryof the scene. The vine-clad Colina, erst sparkling with villas, put outits lights, and resolved itself into a dark bank, which leaned, cloud-like, against the sky. The stupendous white piles on the left drewa thin night vapour around them, and retired from the scene, like somemighty spirit gathering his robe about him, and leaving the earth, which his presence had enlightened, dark and solitary. The plain laybefore us a sombre expanse, in which all objects--towns, spires, andforests--were fast blending into one darkly-shaded and undefinedpicture. Dwellers in _diligences_, as well as dwellers in hotels, mustsleep if they can; but the hour for "turning in" had scarce arrived, andmeanwhile, I remember, my thoughts took strongly a homeward direction. 

With these, of course, I shall not trouble the reader; only I must bepermitted to mention a misconception into which I had fallen, inconnection with my journey, and into which it is possible others mayfall in similar circumstances. One is apt to imagine, before starting, that should he reach such a country as Italy, he will there feel as ifhome was very distant, and the events of his former life far removed inpoint of time. He thinks that a journey across the Alps has somehow atalismanic power to change him. He crosses the Alps, but finds that heis the same man still. Home has come with him: the friendships, thejoys, the sorrows, of his past existence are as near as ever; nay, farnearer, for now he is alone with them; and though he goes southward, andkingdoms and mountain-chains are between him and his native country, hecannot feel that he is a foot-breadth more distant than ever. He movesabout through strange lands in a shroud of home feelings andrecollections. 

How wretched, thought I, the man whom guilt chases from his country! Heflies to distant lands in the hope of shaking off the remembrance of hiscrime. He finds that, go where he will, the spectre dogs his steps. InParis, in Milan, in Rome, the grizzly form starts up before him. He mustchange, not his country, but his heart--himself--before he can shake offhis companion. 

May not the same principle be applicable, in some extent, to ourpassage from earth into the world beyond? When at home in Scotland, Ihad thought of Italy as a distant country; but now that I was in Italy, Scotland seemed very near--much nearer than Italy had done when inScotland. We who are dwellers on earth think of the state beyond as veryremote; but once there, may we not feel as if earth was in closeproximity to us, --as if, in fact, the two states were divided by but anarrow gulph? Certain it is that the passage across it will work in usno change; and, like the stranger in a foreign country, we shall enterwith an eternal shroud of joys and sorrows, springing out of the deedsand events of our present existence. 

I found that if in this region the day had its beauty, the night had itssublimity and terrors. I had years before become familiar with thephenomena of thunder-storms among the Alps; and one who has seenlightning only in the sombre sky of Britain can scarce imagine itsintense brilliancy in these more southern latitudes. With us it breakswith a red fiery flicker; there it bursts upon you like the sun, andpours a flood of noonday light over earth and sky. One evening, inparticular, I shall never forget, on which I saw this phenomenon incircumstances highly favourable to its finest effect. I had walked outfrom Geneva to pass a few hours with the Tronchin family, whose mansionstands on the southern shores of the lake. It was evening; and the deeprolling of the thunder gave us warning that a storm had come on. Westepped out upon the lawn to enjoy the spectacle; for in the vicinity ofthe Alps, whose summits attract the fluid, the lightning is seldomdangerous to life. All was dark as midnight; not even the front of themansion could we see. In a moment the flash came; and then it wasday, --boundless, glorious day. All nature was set before us as if underthe light of a cloudless sun. The lawn, the blue lake, the distantAlpine summits, the landscape around, with its pines, villas, andvineyards, all leaped out of the womb of night, stood in vivid intensesplendour before the eye, and in a twinkling was again gone. Thisamazing transition from midnight to noonday, and from noonday tomidnight, was repeated again and again. I was now to witness thesublimities of a thunder-storm on the plain of Lombardy. 

Right before us, on the far-off horizon, gleams of light began to shootalong the sky. The play of the electric fluid was so rapid andincessant, as to resemble rather the continuous flow of light from itsfountain, than the fitful flashes of lightning. At times these gleamswould mantle the sky with all the soft beauty of moonlight, and atothers they would dart angrily and luridly athwart the horizon. Soon thestorm assumed a grander form. A ball of fire would suddenly blaze forth, in livid, fiery brilliancy; and, remaining motionless, as it were, foran instant, would then shoot out lateral streams or rays, colouredsometimes like the rainbow, and quivering and fluttering like theoutspread wings of eagles. One's imagination could almost conceive of itas being a real bird, the ball answering to the body, while the flashesflung out from it resembled the wings, which were of so vast a spread, that they touched the Apennines on the one hand, and the Alps on theother. 

The storm took yet another form, and one that increased the sublimity ofthe scene, by adding a slight feeling of uneasiness to the admirationwith which we had contemplated it so far. A cloud of pitchy darknessrose in the south, and crossed the plain, shedding deepest night in itstrack, and shooting its fires downward on the earth as it came onwards. It passed right over our heads, enveloping us for the while (like somemighty archer, with quiver full of arrows) in a shower of flamingmissiles. The interval between the flashes was brief, --so very brief, that we were scarcely sensible of any interval at all. There was notmore than four seconds between them. The light was full and strong, asif myriads and myriads of bude lights had been kindled on the summits ofthe Apennines. In short, it was day while it lasted, and every objectwas visible, as if made so by the light of the sun. The horses whichdragged our vehicle along the road, --the postilion with the red facingson his dress, --the meadows and mulberry woods which bordered ourpath, --the road itself, stretching away and away for miles, with itsrows of tall poplars, and its white curb-stones, dotted with waggons andcouriers, and a few foot-passengers, --and the red autumnal leaves, asthey fell in swirling showers in the gust, --all were visible. Indeed, wemay be said to have performed several miles of our journey under broaddaylight, excepting that these sudden revelations of the face of naturealternated with moments of profoundest night. At length the bigrain-drops came rattling to the earth; and, to protect ourselves, wedrew the thick leathern curtain of the _banquette_, buttoning it tightdown all around. It kept out the rain, but not the lightning. The seamsand openings of the covering seemed glowing lines of fire, as if the_diligence_ had been literally engulphed in an ocean of living flame. The whole heavens were in a roar. The Apennines called to the Alps; theAlps shouted to the Apennines; and the plain between quaked and trembledat the awful voice. At length the storm passed away to the north, andfound its final goal amid the mountains, where for hours afterwards thethunder continued to growl, and the lightnings to sport. 

Order being now restored among the elements, we endeavoured to snatchan hour's sleep. It was but a dreamy sort of slumber, which failed tobestow entire unconsciousness to external objects. Faded towns and tallcampaniles seemed to pass by in a ghost-like procession, which wasinterrupted only by the arrival of the _diligence_ at the variousstages, where we had to endure long, weary halts. So passed the night. At the first dawn we entered Novara. It lay, spread out on the duskyplain, an irregular patch of black, with the clear, silvery crescent ofa moon hanging above it. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE INTRODUCTION. 

 Novara--Examination of Passports--Dawn--Monks prefer Dim Light to Clear--Battle of Novara, and its Results--The Ticino--Croats--Austrian Frontier and Dogana--Examination of Books and Baggage--Grandeur of the Alps from this Point--Contrast betwixt the Rivers and the Governments of Italy--Proof from thence of the Fall--Providence "from seeming Evil educing Good"--Rich but Monotonous Scenery of the Plain--Youth of the Alps, and Decay of the Lombard nations--The only Remedy--An Expelled Democrat--First View of Milan. 

Novara, of course, like all decent towns in Lombardy and elsewhere, atfour in the morning was a-bed, and our heavy vehicle, as its harshechoes broke roughly on the silent streets, sounded strangely loud. Wewere driven right into a courtyard, to have our passports examined. Wehad left Turin the evening before, with a clean bill of politicalhealth, duly certified by three legations, --the Sardinian, the English, and the Austrian; and in so short a journey--not to speak of the floodand fire we had passed through--it was scarce possible that we couldhave contracted fresh pollution. We were examined anew, however, lestthe plague-spot should have broken out upon us. All was found right, andwe were let go to a neighbouring restaurant, where we swallowed a cup ofcoffee, --our only meal betwixt Turin and Milan. After a full hour'shalt, we re-mounted the _diligence_, and set forth. 

On emerging from the streets of the city, I found the east in the glowof dawn. Still, and pure, and calm broke the light; and under its raythe rich plain awoke into beauty, forgetful of the fiery bolts which hadsmitten it, and the darkness and destruction which had so lately passedacross it. "Hail, holy light!" exclaims the bard of "Paradise. " Yes, light is holy. It is undefiled and pure, as when "God saw the light thatit was good. " Man has ravaged the earth and reddened the seas; but lighthas escaped his contaminating touch, and is still as God made it, unless, indeed, when man imprisons it within the stained glass of thecathedral, and then obligingly helps its dimness by lighting a score orso of tapers. Did no monk ever think of putting a stained window in theeast, and compelling the sun to ogle the world through spectacles? "Thelight is good, " said He who created it, as He saw it darting its firstpure beam across creation. Not so, says the Puseyite; it is not goodunless it is coloured. 

I looked with interest on the plains around Novara; for there, albeit notrace of the bloody fray remains, the army of Charles Albert in 1848 metthe host of Radetzky; and there the fate of the campaign for Italianindependence was decided. The battle which was fought on these plainsled to the destruction of King Charles Albert, but not to thedestruction of his kingdom of Sardinia, --though why Radetzky did notfollow up his victory by a march on Turin, is to this hour a mystery. Nay, though it sounds a little paradoxical, it is probable that thisbattle, by destroying the king, saved the kingdom. Had Charles Albertsurvived till the re-action set in 1849 and 1850, there is too muchreason to fear, from his antecedents, that he would have thrown himselfinto the current with the rest of the Italian rulers; and so Sardiniawould have missed the path of constitutional liberty and materialdevelopment which it has since, under King Victor Emanuel, so happilypursued. Had that happened, the horizon of Italy, dark as it is at thishour, would have been still darker, and the peninsula, from the Alps toSicily, would not have contained a single spot where the hunted friendsof liberty could have found asylum. 

We soon approached the Ticino, the boundary between Sardinia andAustrian Lombardy. The Ticino is a majestic river, here spanned by oneof the finest bridges in Italy. It contains eleven arches; is of thegranite of Mount Torfano; and, like almost all the great modern works inItaly, was commenced by Napoleon, though finished only after his fall. Here, then, was the gate of Austria; and seated at that gate I saw threeCroats, --fit keepers of Austrian order. 

I was not ignorant of the hand these men had had in the suppression ofthe revolution of 1848, and of the ruthless tragedies they were said tohave enacted in Milan and other cities of Lombardy; and I rode up tothem in the eager desire of scrutinizing their features, and readingthere the signs of that ferocity which had given them such wide-spreadbut evil renown. They sat basking themselves on a bench in front of theDogana, with their muskets and bayonets glittering in the sun. They werelads of about eighteen, of decidedly low stature, of square build, andstrongly muscular. They looked in capital condition, and gave every signthat the air of Lombardy agreed with them, and that they had had theirown share at least of its corn and wine. They wore blue caps, grayduffle greatcoats like those used by our Highlanders, light bluepantaloons fitting closely their thick short leg, and boots which roseabove the ankle, and laced in front. The prevailing expression on theirbroad swarthy faces was not ferocity, but stolidity. Their eyes weredull, and contrasted strikingly with the dark fiery glances of thechildren of the land. They seemed men of appetites rather than passions;and, if guilty of cruel deeds, were likely to be so from the dull, cold, unreflecting ferocity of the bull-dog, rather than from the warmimpulsive instincts of the nobler animals. In stature and feature theywere very much the barbarian, and were admirably fitted for being whatthey were, --the tools of the despot. No wonder that the _ideal_ Italianabominates the _Croat_. 

The Dogana! So soon! 'Twas but a few miles on the other side of theTicino that we passed through this ordeal. But perhaps the river, glorious as it looks, flowing from the democratic hills of the Swiss, may have infected us with political pravity; so here again we mustundergo the search, and that not a mere _pro forma_ one. The _diligence_vomits forth, at all its mouths, trunks, carpet-bags, and packages, encased, some in velvet, some in fir-deals, and some in brown paper. Themultifarious heap was carried into the Dogana, and its various articlesunroped, unlocked, and their contents scattered about. One might havethought that a great fair was about to begin, or that a great IndustrialExhibition was to be opened on the banks of the Ticino. The hunt wasespecially for books, --bad books, which England will perversely print, and Englishmen perversely read. My little stock was collected, boundtogether with a cord, and sent in to the chief douanier, who sat, Radamanthus-like, in an inner apartment, to judge books, papers, andpersons. There is nothing there, thought I, to which even an Austrianofficial can take exception. Soon I was summoned to follow my littlelibrary. The man examined the collection volume by volume. At last helighted on a number of the _Gazetta del Popolo_, --the same which I havealready mentioned as given me by the editors in Turin. This, thought I, will prove the dead fly in my box of ointment. The sheet was opened andexamined. "Have you, " said the official, "any more?" I could reply witha clear conscience that I had not. To my surprise, the paper wasreturned to me. He next took up my note-book. Now, said I to myself, this is a worse scrape than the other. What a blockhead I am not to haveput the book into my pocket; for, except in extreme cases, thetraveller's person is never searched. The man opened the thin volume, and found it inscribed with mysterious and strange characters. It waswritten in short-hand. He turned over the leaves; on every page the sameunreadable signs met the eye. He held it by the top, and next by thebottom: it was equally inscrutable either way. He shut it, and examinedits exterior, but there was nothing on the outside to afford a key tothe mystic characters within. He then turned to me for an explanation ofthe suspicious little book. Affecting all the unconcern I could, I toldhim that it contained only a few commonplace jottings of my journey. Heopened the book; took one other leisurely survey of it; then looked atme, and back again at the book; and, after a considerable pause, bigwith the fate of my book, he made me a bland bow, and handed me thevolume. I was equally polite on my part, inly resolving, thathenceforward Austrian douanier should not lay finger on my note-book. 

The halt here was one of from two to three hours, which were spent inunlading the _diligence_, opening and locking trunks, --for in Austrianothing is done in a hurry, save the trial and execution of Mazzinists. But the long halt was nothing to me: I could not possibly lose time, andI could scarce be stopped at the wrong place; and certainly the bridgeof the Ticino is the very spot one would select for such a halt, werethe matter left in one's own choice. It commands the finest assemblageof grand objects, in a ride abounding in magnificent objects throughout. Having been pronounced, in passport phrase, "good to enterAustria, "--for my carpet-bag was clean, though doubtless my mind wasfoul with all sorts of notions which, in the latitude of Austria, arerankly heretical, --(and, by the way, of what use is it to search trunks, and leave breasts unexplored? Here is an imperfection in the system, which I wonder the Jesuits don't correct)--having, I say, had theCroat-guarded gates of Austria opened to me till I should find itconvenient to enter, I retraced the few paces which divided the Doganafrom the bridge, and stood above the rolling floods of the Ticino. 

Refreshing it verily was to turn from the petty tyrannies of an Austriancustom-house, to the free, joyous, and glorious face of nature. Beforeme were the Alps, just shaking the cold night mists from their shaggypine-clad sides, as might a lion the dew-drops from his mane. Here roseMonte Rosa in a robe of never-fading glory and beauty; and there stoodMont Blanc, with his diadem of dazzling snows. The giant had planted hisfeet deep amid rolling hills, covered with villages, and pine-forests, and rich pastures. Anywhere else these would have been mountains; but, dwarfed by the majestic form in whose presence they stood, they lookedlike small eminences, scattered gracefully at his base, as pebbles atthe foot of some lofty pile. On his breast floated the fleecy clouds ofmorn, while his summit rose high above these clouds, and stood, in thecalm of the firmament, a stupendous pile of ice and snow. Never had Iseen the Alps to such advantage. The level plain ran quite up to them, and allowed the eye to take their full height from their flower-girtbase to their icy summit. Hundreds and hundreds of peaks ran along thesky, conical, serrated, needle-shaped, jagged, some flaming like theruby in the morning ray, others dazzlingly white as the alabaster. 

As I bent over the parapet, gazing on the flood that rolled beneath, Icould not help contrasting the bounty of nature with the oppression ofman. Here had this river been flowing through the long centuries, dispensing its blessings without stop or grudge. Day and night, summerand winter, it had rolled gladsomely onwards, bringing verdure to thefield, fruitage to the bough, and plenty to the peasant's cot. Now itlaved the flower on its brink, --now it fed the umbrageous sycamore andthe tall poplar on the plain, --and now it sent off a crystal streamletto meander through corn-field and meadow-land. It exacted nothing of manfor the blessings it so unweariedly dispensed. It gave all freely. Whether, said I to myself, does Italy owe most to its rivers or to itsGovernments? Its rivers give it corn and wine: its Governments give itchains and prisons. They load the patient Lombard with burdens thatpress him down into toil and poverty; or they lead him away to shed hisblood and lay his bones in a foreign soil. Why is it that all thefunctions of nature are beneficent? Even the storms that rage aroundMont Blanc, the ice of its eternal winter, yield only good. Here theycome, a river of crystal water, decking with living green thisfar-spreading plain. But the institutions of man are not so. From theirfrozen summits have too oft, alas! descended, not the peaceful river, but the thundering avalanche, burying in irretrievable ruin, man, withhis labours and hopes. I suspect, however, that this is a narrow as wellas a sombre philosophy. Doubtless the great fact of the Fall is writtenon the face of life. Nevertheless, we have a strong belief that themighty schemes of Providence, like the arrangements of external nature, will all in the end become dispensers of good; that those evil systemswhich have burdened the earth, like those mountains of ice and snowwhich rise on its surface, have their uses, though as yet we stand toonear them, and too much within the sphere of their tempests and theiravalanches, fully to comprehend these uses. We must descend into thelow-lying plains of the future, and contemplate them afar off; and thenthe glaciers and tempests of these moral Mont Blancs may dissolve intotender showers and crystal rivers, which will fructify and gladden theworld. 

In a few minutes I must leave the bridge of the Ticino. Could I, whenfar away, --in the seclusion of my own library, for instance, --bid theAlps rise before me, in stupendous magnificence, as now? I turned round, and fixed my gaze on the tamer objects of the plain; then back again tothe mountains; but every time I did so, I felt the scene as new. Itsglory burst on me as if seen for the first time. Alas! thought I, ifthis majestic image has so faded in the interval of a few moments, whatwill it be years after? A scene like this, it is true, can never beforgotten; but it is but a dwarfed picture that lives in the memory; andit is well, perhaps, it should be so; for were one to see always theAlps, with what eyes would one look upon the tamer though still romantichills of his own country! And we may extend the principle. There aretimes when great truths--eternal verities--flash upon the soul in Alpinemagnitude. It is a new world that discloses itself, and we are thrilledby its glory; but for the effective discharge of ordinary duties, it isbetter, perhaps, that these stupendous objects should be seen "asthrough a glass darkly, " though still seen. 

All too soon was the _diligence_ ready to start. From the bridge of theTicino the scenery was decidedly tamer. The Alps fell more into thebackground, and with their white peaks disappeared the chief glory ofthe scene. The plain was so level, and its woods of mulberry and walnutso luxuriant, that little could be seen save the broad road, with itswhite lines of curb-stones running on and on, and losing itself in thedeep foliage of the plain. Its windings and turnings, though coming onlyat an interval of many miles, were a pleasant relief from the samenessof the journey. Occasionally side views of great fertility opened uponus. There were the small farms of the Lombard; and there was the tallLombard himself, striding across his fields. If the farms were small, amends was made by the largeness of the farm-house. There was no greatair of comfort about it, however. It wanted its little garden, and itsover-arching vine-bough, which one sees in the happier cantons ofSwitzerland; and the furrowed and care-shaded face of the owner bespokegreater acquaintance with hard labour than with the dainties which thebounteous earth so freely yields. The Lombard plants, but another eats. We could see, too, how extensively and thoroughly irrigated was theplain. Numerous canals, brim-full of water, the gift of the Alps, traversed it in all directions; and by means of a system of sluices andaqueducts the surrounding fields could be flooded at pleasure. The plainenjoys thus the elements of a boundless fertility, and is the seat of analmost eternal summer. 

 Hic Ver perpetuum, atque alienis mensibus Æstas. 

But the little towns we passed looked so very old and tottering, and theinhabitants, too, appeared as much oppressed with years or cares as theheavy dilapidated architecture amid which they dwelt, and out of whichthey crept as we passed by, that one's heart grew sad. How evident wasit that the immortal spirit was withered, and that the land, despite itsimages of grandeur and sublimity, nourished a stricken race! The Alpswere still young, but the men that lived within their shadow had grownvery old. Their ears had too long been familiar with the clank ofchains, and their hearts were too sad to catch up the utterances offreedom which came from their mountains. The human soul was dying, andwill die, unless new fire from a celestial source descend to rekindleit. Architecture, music, new constitutions, the ever glorious face ofnature itself, will not prevent the approaching death of the continentalnations. There is but one book in the world that can do it, --the Book ofLife. Unfold its pages, and a more blessed and glorious effulgence thanthat which lights up the Alps at sunrise will break upon the nations;but, alas! this cannot be so long as the Jesuit and the Croat are there. We saw, too, on our journey, other things that did not tend to put usinto better spirits. As we approached Milan, we met a couple ofgensdarmes leading away a poor foot-sore revolutionist to the frontier. Ah! said I inly, could the Jesuits look into my breast, they would findthere ideas more dangerous to their power, in all probability, thanthose that this man entertains; and yet, while he is expelled, I amadmitted. No thanks to them, however. I rode onwards. League followedleague of the richest but the most unvaried scenery. Campanile andhamlet came and went: still Milan came not. I strained my eyes in thedirection in which I expected its roofs and towers to appear, but all tono purpose. At length there rose over the green woods that covered theplain, as if evoked by enchantment, a vision of surpassing beauty. Igazed entranced. The lovely creation before me was white as the Alpinesnows, and shot up in a glorious cluster of towers, spires, andpinnacles, which flashed back the splendours of the mid-day sun. Itlooked as if it had sprung from under the chisel but yesterday. Indeed, one could hardly believe that human hands had fashioned so fair astructure. It was so delicate, and graceful, and aerial, and unsullied, that I thought of the city which burst upon the pilgrims when they hadgot over the river, or that which a prophet saw descending out ofheaven. Milan, hid in rich woods, was before me, and this was itsrenowned Cathedral. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CITY AND PEOPLE OF MILAN. 

 The Barrier--Beautiful Aspect of the City--Hotel Royale--History of Milan--Dreariness of its Streets--Decay of Art--Decay of Trade--The Cathedral--Beauty, not Sublimity, its Characteristic--Its Exterior described--The Piazza of the Cathedral--Austrian Cannon--Pamphlets on Purgatory--Punch--Punch _versus_ the Priest--Church and State in Italy--Austrian Oppression--Confiscation of Estates in Lombardy--Forced Loans--Niebuhr's Idea that the Dark Ages are returning. 

It was an hour past noon when the _diligence_, with its polyglotfreight, drove up to the harrier. There gathered round the vehicle awhite cloud of Austrian uniforms, and straightway every compartment ofthe carriage bristled with a forest of hands holding passports. Thesethe men-at-arms received; and, making them hastily up into a bundle, andtying them with a piece of cord, they despatched them by a specialmessenger to the Prefect; so that hardly had we entered the PortaVercellina, till our arrival was known at head-quarters. There washanded at the same time to each passenger a printed paper, in which thesame notification was four times repeated, --first in Italian, next inFrench, then in German, and lastly in English, --enjoining the holder, under certain penalties, to present himself within a given number ofhours at the Police Office. 

It was under these conditions, --a pilgrim from a far land, --that Iappeared at the gates of Milan. The passport detention seemed less anannoyance here than I had ever felt it before. The beauteous city, sitting so tranquilly amidst the sublimest scenery, seemed to havesomething of a celestial character about it. It looked so resplendent, partly by reason of the materials of which it is built, and partly byreason of the sun that shone upon it as an Italian sun only can shine, that none but pure men, I felt, might dwell here, and none but pure menmight enter at its gates. There were white sentinels at its portals;rows of white houses formed its exterior; and in the middle of the city, floating above it, --for it seemed to float rather than to rest onfoundations, --was its snow-white temple, --a place too holy almost, as itseemed, for human worship and human worshippers; and then the city hadfor battlements a glorious wall, white as alabaster, which rose to theclouds. Everything conspired to cheat the visitor into the belief thathe had come at last to an abode where every hurtful passion was hushed, and where Peace had fixed her chosen seat. 

"All right, " shouted the passport official: the gensdarmes, who guardedthe path with naked bayonet, stepped aside; and the quick, sharp crackof the postilion's whip set the horses a-moving. We skirted the spaciousesplanade, and saw in the distance the beauteous form of the Arco dellaPace. We had not gone far till the drum's roll struck upon the ear, anda long glittering line of Austrian bayonets was seen moving across theesplanade. It was evident that the time had not yet come to Milan, allglorious as she seemed, when men "shall learn war no more. " We plungedinto a series of narrow streets, which open on the Mercato Vecchio. Wecrossed the Corso, and came out upon the broad promenade that traversesMilan from the square of the Duomo to the Porta Orientale. We soon foundourselves at the _diligence_ office; and there, our little colony ofvarious nations breaking up, I bade adieu to the good vehicle which hadcarried me from Turin, and took my way to the Hotel Royale, in theContrada dei tre Re. 

At the first summons of the porter's bell the gate opened. On entering, I found myself in what had been one of the palaces of Milan when thecity was in its best days. But the Austrian eagle had scared the nativeprinces and nobles of the Queen of Lombardy, who were gone, and had lefttheir streets to be trodden by the Croat, and their palaces to betenanted by the wayfarer. The buildings of the hotel formed a spaciousquadrangle, three storeys high, with a finely paved court in the centre. I was conducted up stairs to my bed-room, which, though by no meanslarge, and plainly furnished, presented the luxury of extremecleanliness, with its beautifully polished wooden floor, and itsdelicately white napery and curtains. The saloon on the ground-flooropened sweetly into a little garden, with its fountain, its bit ofrock-work, and its gods and nymphs of stone. The apartment had apeculiarly comfortable air at breakfast-time. The hissing urn, flankedby the tea-caddy; the rich brown coffee, the delicious butter, and thenot less delicious bread, the produce of the plains around, notunnaturally white, as with us, but golden, like the wheat when it wavesin the autumnal sun; and the guests, mostly English, which assembledmorning after morning, --made the return of this hour very pleasant. Establishing myself at the Albergo Reale for this and the two followingdays, I sallied out, to wander everywhere and see everything. 

Milan is of ancient days; and few cities have seen greater changes offortune. In the reign of Diocletian and Maximilian it became the capitalof the western empire, and was filled with the temples, baths, theatres, and other monuments which usually adorn royal cities. The tempest whichAttila, in the middle of the fifth century, conducted across the Alps, fell upon it, and swept it away. Scarce a vestige of the Roman Milan hascome down to our day. A second Milan was founded, but only to fall, inits turn, before the arms of Frederick Barbarossa. There was a strongvitality in its site, however; and a third Milan, --the Milan of thepresent day, --arose. This city is a huge collection of churches andbarracks, cafés and convents, theatres and palaces, traversed by narrowstreets, ranged mostly in concentric circles round its grand centralbuilding, the Duomo. The streets, however, that lead to its variousports, are spacious thoroughfares, adorned with noble and elegantmansions. Such is the arrangement of the town in which I now foundmyself. 

I sought everywhere for the gay Milan, --the white-robed city I had seenan hour ago, --but it was gone; and in its room sat a silent and sullentown, with an air of most depressing loneliness about it. There were fewpersons on the streets; and these walked as if they dragged a chain attheir heels. I passed through whole streets of a secondary character, without meeting a single individual, or hearing the sound of man or ofliving thing. It seemed as if Milan had proclaimed a fast and gone tochurch; but when I looked into the churches, I saw no one there save asolitary figure in white, in the distance, bowing and gesticulating withextraordinary fervour, in the presence of dumb pictures and dim tapers. How can a worship in which no one ever joins edify any one? I coulddiscover no signs of a flourishing art. There were not a few pretty andsome beautiful things in the shop-windows; but the latter were allcopies generally of the more striking natural objects in theneighbourhood, or of the works of art in the city, the productions ofother times, --things which a dying genius might produce, but not such asa living genius, free to give scope to her invention, would delight tocreate. Such was the art of Milan, --the feeble and reflected gleam of aglory now set. As regards the trade of Milan, --a yet more importantmatter, --I could see almost no signs of it either. There were walkingsticks, and such things, in considerable variety in the shops; butlittle of more importance. The fabrics of the loom, and the productionsof the plane, the forge, and the printing press, which crowd our citiesand dwellings, and give honest bread to our artizans, were all wantingin Milan. How its people contrived to get through the twenty-four hours, and where they got their bread, unless it fell from the clouds, I couldnot discover. 

What an air of languor and weariness on the faces of the people! Amidthese heavy-hearted and dull-eyed loiterers, what a relief it would havebeen to have met the soiled jacket, the brawny arm, and the manly brow, of one of our own artizans! I felt there were worse things in the worldthan hard work. Better it were to roll the stone of Sisyphus alllife-long, than spend it in such idleness as weighs upon the cities ofItaly. Better the clang of the forge than the rattle of the sabre. TheMilanese seemed looking into the future; and a dismal future it is, ifone may judge from their looks, --a future full of revolutions, toconduct, mayhap, to freedom; more probably to the scaffold. 

I turned sharply round the corner of a street, and there, as if it hadrisen from the earth, was the Cathedral. As the sun breaking through afog, or an Alpine peak flashing through mists, so burst thismagnificent pile upon me; and its sudden revelation dispelled on theinstant all my gloomy musings. I could only stand and gaze. Beauty, notsublimity, is the attribute of this pile. Beauty it rains around it in anever-ending, overflowing shower, as the sun does light, or Mont Blancglory. I sought for some one presiding idea, simple and grand, whichmight take its place in the mind, and dwell there as an image of glory, never more to fade; but I could find no such idea. The pile is the slowcreation of centuries, and the united conception of innumerable minds, which have clubbed their ideas, so to speak, to produce this Cathedral. Quarries of marble and millions of money have been expended upon it; andthere is scarce an architect or sculptor of eminence who has flourishedsince the fourteenth century, who has not contributed to it someseparate grace or glory; and now the Cathedral of Milan is perhaps themost numerous assemblage of beauties in stone which the world contains. Impossible it were to enumerate the elegances that cover it from top tobottom, --its carved portals, its flying buttresses, its arabesquepilasters, its richly mullioned windows, its basso-reliefs, itsbeautiful tracery, and its forest of snow-white pinnacles soaring in thesunlight, so calm and moveless, and yet so airy and light, that you fearthe nest breeze will scatter them. You can compare it only to someAlpine group, whose flashing peaks shoot up by hundreds around somesnow-white central summit. 

The building, too, is populous as a city. There are upwards of threethousand statues upon it, and places for a thousand more. Here stands amonk, busy with his beads, --there a mailed warrior, --there a mitredbishop, --there a pilgrim, staff in hand, --there a nun, gracefullyveiled, --and yonder hundreds of seraphs perched upon the loftierpinnacles, and looking as if a white cloud of winged creatures from thesky had just lighted upon it. 

I purposed to-morrow to climb to the roof, and thence survey the plainsof Lombardy and the chain of the Alps; so, turning away from the door, Imade the tour of the square in which the Cathedral stands. I came firstupon a row of cannon, so pointed as to sweep the square. Behind theguns, piled on the pavement, were stacks of arms, and soldiers loiteringbeside them. Ah! thought I, these are the loving ties that bind thepeople of Lombardy to the House of Hapsburg. The priest's chant is heardall day long within that temple; and outside there blend with it thesentinel's tramp and the drum's roll. I passed on, and came next upon amost unusual display of literature. Four-paged pamphlets in hundreds laypiled upon stalls, or were ranged in rows against the wall. The subjectsdiscussed in these pamphlets were of a high spiritual cast, and woodcutswere freely employed to aid the reader's apprehension. These latterbelonged to a very different style of art from that conspicuous in theCathedral, but they had the merit of great plainness; and a glance atthe woodcut enabled one to read at once the story of the pamphlet. Thewall was all a-blaze with flames; and I saw the advantage of aninfallible Church to teach one secrets which the Bible does not reveal. The sin chiefly insisted on was that of despising the priest; and thepunishment awaiting it was set before me in a way I could not possiblymistake. Here, for instance, was a wealthy sinner, who lay dying in asplendid mansion. With horrible impiety, the man had refused the wafer, and ordered the priest about his business, despite the imploring tearsof wife and family, who surrounded his bed. A glance at the othercompartment of the picture showed the consequence of this. There youfound the man just launched into the other world. A crowd of blackfiends, hideous to behold, had seized upon the poor soul, and weredragging it down into a weltering gulf of lurid flame. In anotherpicture you had an equally graphic illustration of the happiness ofobeying Mother Church. Here lay one dying amid beads, crucifixes, andshaven crowns. The devil was fleeing from the house in terror; and inthe compartment devoted to the spiritual world, the soul was following abenevolent-looking gentleman, who carried a big key, and was walking inthe direction of a very magnificent mansion on a high hill, where, Idoubt not, a welcome and hospitable reception waited both. The samelesson was repeated along the wall times without number. 

Here was the doctrine of purgatory as incontestably proved as paintedflames, and images of creatures with tails who tormented other creatureswho had no tails, could prove it. If there was no purgatory, how couldthe painters of an infallible Church ever have given so exact arepresentation of it? And exact it must have been, else the priestswould never have allowed these pictures to be hung up here, under theirvery eye. This was as much as to write "_cum privilegio_" underneaththem. The whole scenery of purgatory was here most vividly depicted. There were fiends flying off with souls, or tossing them with pitchforksinto the flames. There were boiling cauldrons, red-hot gridirons, cataracts of fire, and innumerable other modes of torment. A walk alongthis infernal gallery was enough, one would have thought, to make theboldest purgatory-despiser quail. But no one who has a little sparecash, and is willing to part with it, need fear either purgatory or thedevil. In the large marble house in the centre of the square one mightbuy at a reasonable rate an excision of some thousands of years fromhis appointed sojourn in that gloomy region. And doubtless that was onereason for bringing this purgatorial gallery and the indulgence-marketinto such close proximity. It reminded the people of the latterinestimable blessing; and without some such salutary impulse the trafficin indulgences might flag. 

I could not but remark, that the only person for whom theseextraordinary representations appeared to have any attractions wasmyself. Not so the exhibition on the other side of the square. Havingperused with no ordinary interest, though, I fear, with not much profit, this "Theory of a Future State, " I crossed the quadrangle, passing rightunder the eastern towers of the Cathedral, and came suddenly upon a knotof persons gathered round a tall rectangular box, in which was enactingthe melo-drama of Punch. These persons were enjoying the fun with arelish which was noways abated by the spectacle over the way. The wholething was acted exactly as I had seen it before; but to me it was anovelty to hear Punch, and all the other interlocutors in the piece, discourse in the language in which Dante had sung, and in which I hadheard, just before leaving Scotland, Gavazzi declaim. In all lands Punchis an astute scoundrel; but, strange to say, in all lands the popularfeeling is on his side. His imperturbable coolness and truculent villanyprocured him plaudits among the Milanese, as I had seen them doelsewhere. Courage and self-possession are valuable qualities, and fortheir sake we sometimes forgive bad men and bad causes; whereas, fromnothing do we more instinctively recoil than from hypocrisy. On thisprinciple it is, perhaps, that we have a sort of liking for Punch, incorrigible scoundrel as he is; and that great criminals, who rob andmurder at the head of armies, we deify, while little ones we hang. 

I had now completed my tour of the Cathedral, and could not helpreflecting on the miscellaneous, and apparently incongruous, characterof the spectacles grouped together in the square. In the middle was thegreat temple, in which priests, in stole and mitre, celebrated the highmysteries of their Church. In one of the angles were rows of mountedcannon, and a forest of bayonets. In another was seen the whole processof refining souls in purgatory. Strange, that if men here are shut up inprisons and hulks amid desperadoes, they come out more finished villainsthan they entered; whereas hereafter, if men are shut up with even worsecharacters, amid blazing fires, glowing gridirons, and cauldrons ofboiling lead, they come out perfected in virtue. They pass at once fromthe society of fiends, where they have been whipped, roasted, and I knownot what, to the society of angels. This is a strange schooling to givedignity to the character and conscious purity to the mind. And yet Romesubjects all her sons to this discipline for a longer or shorter period. Much do we marvel, that the same process which unfits men forassociating with respectable people here should be the very thing toprepare them for good society hereafter. The other side of the squarePunch had all to himself; and Punch, I saw, was the favourite. Theinhabitants of Milan kept as respectable a distance from the paintedfiends as if they had been veritable Satans, ready to clutch theincautious passer-by, and carry him off to their den. They kept the samerespectable distance from the Austrian cannon; and these were no paintedterrors. And as regards the Cathedral, scarce a solitary foot crossedits threshold, though there, --astounding prodigy!--He who made theworlds was Himself made many times every day by the priests. But Punchhad a dense crowd of delighted spectators around him; and yet hecompeted with the priest at immense disadvantage. Punch played his partin a humble wooden shed, while the priest played his in a magnificentmarble Cathedral, with a splendid wardrobe to boot. Still the peopleseemed to feel, that the only play in which there was any earnestnesswas that which was enacted in the wooden box. A stranger from India orChina, who was not learned in either the religion or the drama ofEurope, would probably have been unable to see any great differencebetween the two, and would have taken both for religious performances;concluding, perhaps, that that in the Cathedral was the establishedform, while that in the wooden box was the disestablished; in short, that Punch had been a priest at some former period of his life, and sungmass and sold indulgences; but that, imbibing some heterodox notions, orhaving fallen into some peccadillo, such as eating flesh on Friday, hehad been unfrocked and driven out, and compelled to play the priest in awooden tabernacle. 

To return once more to the paintings and woodcuts illustrative of thepunitive and purgative processes of purgatory, and which were in a styleof art that demonstratively shows, that if Italy is advancing in theknowledge of a future life, she is retrograding in the arts of thepresent, --to recur, I say, to these, there rested some doubt, to say theleast of it, over their revelations of the world to come; but thererested no doubt whatever over their revelations of the present conditionof Church and State in Italy. On this head the cannon and woodcuts toldfar more than the priests wished, or perhaps thought. They showed thatboth the State and the Church in that country are now reduced to their_ultima ratio_, brute force. The State has lost all hope of governingits subjects by giving them good laws, and inspiring them with loyalty;and the Church has long since abandoned the plan of producing obedienceand love by presenting great truths to the mind. Both have found out ashorter and more compendious policy. The State, speaking through hercannon, says, "Obey me or die;" and the Church, speaking throughpurgatory, says, "Believe me or burn. " There is one comfort in this, however, --the present system is obviously the last. When force givesway, all gives way. The Church will stand, doubtless, because they tellus she is founded on a rock; but what will become of the State? When mencan be awed neither by painted fiends nor real cannon, what is to awethem? Indeed, we shrewdly suspect, that even now the fiends would countfor little, were it not for the fiends incarnate, in the shape ofCroats, by which the others are backed. The Lombards would boldly facethe gridirons, cauldrons, and stinging creatures gathered in the onecorner of the square at Milan, if they but knew how to muzzle the cannonwhich are assembled in the other. 

In truth, things in this part of the world are not looking up. Auniversal serfdom and barbarism are slowly creeping over all men and allsystems. The Government of Austria has become more revolutionary thanthe Revolution itself. By violating the rights of property, it hasindorsed the worst doctrines of Socialism. That Government has, in agreat number of instances, seized upon estates, without making out atitle to them by any regular process of law. After the attemptedoutbreak at Milan in 1852, the landed property of well-nigh all theroyalist emigrants was swept away by a decree of sequestration. The_Milan Gazette_ published a list of seventy-two political refugees whoseproperty has been laid under sequestration in the provinces of Milan, Como, Mantua, Lodi, Pavia, Brescia, Cremona, Bergamo, and Sondrio. Inthis list we find the names of many distinguished persons, such asCount Arese, the two Counts Borromeo, General Lechi, Duke Litta, CountLitta, Marquis Pallavicini, Marquis Rosales, Princess Belgioso. Thepretext for seizing their estates was, that their owners had contributedto the revolutionary treasury; which was incredible to those who knowthe difference in feeling and views which separate the royalist emigrantnobles of Lombardy from the democratic republicans that follow Mazzini. In truth, the Government of Vienna needs their estates; and, imitatingthe example of the French Convention, and furnishing another precedentfor Socialism when it shall come into power, it seized them without anycolour of right or form of law. Another branch of the scourging tyrannyof Austria is the system of forced loans. Some of the wealthiestfamilies of Lombardy have been impoverished by these, and, of course, thrown into the ranks of the disaffected. The Austrian method of makingslavery maintain itself is also peculiarly revolting. The hundredmillions raised annually in Venetian Lombardy, instead of being spent inthe service of these provinces, are devoted to the payment of the troopsthat keep down Hungary. The soldiers levied in Italy are sent into theGerman provinces; and those raised in Croatia are employed in keepingdown Italy. Thus Italy holds the chain of Hungary, and Hungary, in herturn, that of Italy; and so insult is added to oppression. 

The very roots of liberty are being dug out of the soil. The free townshave lost their rights; the provinces their independence; and thetendency of things is towards the formation of great centralizeddespotisms. Thus an Asiatic equality and barbarism is sinking down uponcontinental Europe. So much is this the case, that some of the thinkingminds in Germany are in the belief that the dark ages are returning. Thefollowing passage in the "Life and Letters of Niebuhr, " written lessthan two months before his death in 1831, is almost prophecy:--

"It is my firm conviction that we, particularly in Germany, are rapidlyhastening towards barbarism; and it is not much better in France. 

"That we are threatened with devastation such as that two hundred yearsago, is, I am sorry to say, just as clear to me; and the end of the talewill be, _despotism enthroned amidst universal ruin. In fifty years, andprobably much less, there will be no trace left of free institutions, orthe freedom of the press, throughout all Europe, at least on theContinent_. Very few of the things which have happened since therevolution in Paris have surprised me. "

The half of that period has scarce elapsed, and the prognostication ofNiebuhr has been all but realized. At this hour, Piedmont excepted, there is _no trace left of free institutions, or the freedom of thepress_, in Southern and Eastern Europe. Nor will these nations ever beable to lift themselves out of the gulph into which they have fallen. Revolution, Socialism, war, will only hasten the advent of a centralizeddespotism. We know of only one agency, --even Christianity, --which, byreviving the virtue and self-government of the individual, and the moralstrength of nations, can recover their liberties. If Christianity can bediffused, well; if not, I do firmly believe with Niebuhr that, on theContinent at least, we shall have a return of "the dark ages, " and"despotism enthroned amidst universal ruin. "

CHAPTER IX. 

ARCO DELLA PACE. 

 Depressing Effect produced by Sight of Slavery--The Castle of Milan--Non-intercourse of Italians and Austrians--Arco della Pace--Contrasted with the Duomo--Evening--Ambrose--Milanese Inquisition--The Two Symbols. 

It was now drawing towards evening; and I must needs see the sun go downbehind the Alps. There are no sights like those which nature hasprovided for us. What are embattled cities and aisled cathedrals to theeternal hills, with their thunder-clouds, and their rising and settingsuns? Making my exit by the northern gate of the city, I soon forgot, inthe presence of the majestic mountains, the narrow streets and cloudedfaces amid which I had been wandering. Their peaks seemed to lookserenely down upon the despots and armies at their feet; and at sight ofthem, the burden I had carried all day fell off, and my mind mounted atonce to its natural pitch. How crushing must be the endurance ofslavery, if even the sight of it produces such prostration! Day by dayit eats into the soul, weakening its spring, and lowering its tone, tillat last the man becomes incapable of noble thoughts or worthy deeds;and then we condemn him because he lies down contentedly in his chains, or breaks them on the heads of his oppressors. 

Emerging from the lanes of the city, I found myself on a spaciousesplanade, enclosed on three of its sides by double rows of noble elms, and bounded on the remaining side by the cafés and wine-shops of thecity, filled with a crowd of loquacious, if not gay, loiterers. In themiddle of the esplanade rose the Castle of Milan, --a gloomy and majesticpile, of irregular form, but of great strength. It was on the top ofthis donjon that the beacon was to be kindled which was to call Lombardyto arms, in the projected insurrection of 1852. The soft green of theesplanade was pleasantly dotted by white groupes in the Austrianuniform, who loitered at the gates, or played games on the sward. Butneither here nor in the cafés, nor anywhere else, did I ever see theslightest intercourse betwixt the soldiers and the populace. On thecontrary, the two seemed on every occasion to avoid each other, as men, not only of different nations, but of different eras. 

There are two monuments, and only two, in Italy, which redeem its modernarchitecture from the reproach of universal degeneracy. One of these isthe Triumphal Arch of Milan, known also as the Arco della Pace. It wasfull in view from where I stood, rising on the northern edge of theesplanade, with the line of road stretching out from it, and running onand on towards the Alps, over which it climbs, forming the famousSimplon Pass. I crossed the plain in the direction of the Arco dellaPace, to have a nearer inspection of it. It was more to my taste thanthe Duomo. The Cathedral, much as I admired it, had a bewildering anddissipating effect. It presented a perfect universe of towers, pinnacles, and statues, flashing in the Italian sun, and in the yet moredazzling splendour of its own beauty. But, stript of the tracery withwhich it is so profusely covered, and the countless statues that nestlein its niches, it would be a withered, naked, and unsightly thing, likea tree in winter. Not so the arch to which I was advancing. It rosebefore me in simple grandeur. It might be defaced, --it might grow old;but its beauty could not perish while its form remained. It presents butone simple and grand idea; and, seen once, it never can be forgotten. Ittakes its place as an image of beauty, to dwell in the mind for ever. Tolook upon it was to draw in concentration and strength. 

I found this arch guarded by a Croat, --beauty in the keeping ofbarbarism. Much I wondered what sensations it could produce in such amind: of course, I had no means of knowing. I touched the arch with mypalm, to ascertain the quality of its polish and workmanship. The Croatmade a threatening gesture, which I took as a hint not to repeat theaction. I walked under it, --walked round it, --viewed it on all sides;but why should I describe what the engraver's art has made so familiarall over Europe? And such is the power of a simple and sublimeidea, --whether the pen or the chisel has given it body, --to transmititself, and retain its hold on the mind, that, though I had only nowseen the Arco della Pace for the first time, I felt as if I had beenfamiliar with it all my life; and so, doubtless, does my reader. Thelittle squat figure, with the swarthy face, and dull, cold eye, thatkept pacing beside it, watched me all the while my survey was going on. Sorely must it have puzzled him to discover the cause of the interest Itook in it. Most probably he took me for a necromancer, whose simpleword might transport the arch across the Alps. 

The very spirit of peace pervaded the scene around the Arco della Pace. Peace descended from the summits of the Alps, and peace breathed uponme from the tops of the elms. It was sweet to see the gathering of theshadows upon the great plain; it was sweet to see the waggoner comeslowly along the great Simplon road; it was sweet to see the husbandmanunyoke his bullocks, and come wending his way homeward over the richploughed land, beneath the beautiful festoonings of the vine; sweet evenwere the city-stirs, as, mellowed by distance, they broke upon the ear;but sweeter than all was it to mark the sun's departure among the Alps. One might have fancied the mountains a wall of sapphire inclosing someterrestrial paradise, --some blessed clime, where hunger, and thirst, andpain, and sorrow, were unknown. Alas! if such were Lombardy, what meantthe Croat beside me, and the black eagle blazoned on the flag, that Isaw floating on the Castle of Milan? The sight of these symbols offoreign oppression recalled the haggard faces and toil-bent frames I hadseen on my journey to Milan. I thought of the rich harvests which thesun of Lombardy ripens only that the Austrian may reap them, and thefertile vines which the Lombard plants only that the Croat may gatherthem. I thought of the sixty thousand expatriated citizens whose landsthe Government had confiscated, and of the victims that pined in thefortresses and dungeons of Lombardy; and I felt that truly this was noparadise. To me, who could demand my passport and re-cross the Alpswhenever I pleased, these mountains were a superb sight; but what couldthe poor Lombard, whom Radetzky might order to prison or to execution onthe instant, see in them, but the walls of a vast prison?

The light was fast fading, and I re-crossed the esplanade, on my wayback to the city. High above its roofs, rose the spires and turrets ofthe Duomo, looking palely in the twilight, and reminding one of acluster of Norwegian pines, covered with the snows of winter. As Islowly and musingly pursued my way, my mind went back to the better daysof Milan. Here Ambrose had lived; and how oft, at even-tide, had hisfeet traversed this very plain, musing, the while, on the futureprospects of the Church. Ah! little did he think, that what he believedto be the opening day was but a brief twilight, dividing the pagandarkness now past from the papal night then fast descending. But to theChurches of Lombardy it was longer light than to those of southernItaly. Ambrose went to the grave; but the spirit of the man who hadclosed the Cathedral gates in the face of the Goths of Justina, andexacted a public repentance of the Emperor Theodosius, lived after him. From him, doubtless, the Milanese caught that love of independence inspiritual matters which long afterwards so honourably distinguishedthem. They fought a hard battle with Rome for their religious freedom, but the battle proved a losing one. It was not, however, till towardsthe twelfth century, when every other Church in Christendom almost hadacknowledged the claims of Rome, and an Innocent was about to mount thethrone of the Vatican, that the complete subjugation of the Churches ofLombardy was effected. When the sixteenth century, like the breath ofheaven, opened on the world, the Reformation began to take root inLombardy. But, alas! the ancient spirit of the Milanese revived for buta moment, only to be crushed by the Inquisition. The arts by which thisterrible tribunal was introduced into the duchy finely illustrate thepolicy of Rome, which knows so well how to temporize withoutrelinquishing her claims. Philip II. Proposed to establish this tribunalin Milan after the Spanish fashion; and Pope Pius IV. At first favouredhis design. But finding that the Milanese were determined to resist, thepontiff espoused their cause, and told them, in effect, that it was notwithout reason that they dreaded the Spanish Inquisition. It was, hesaid, a harsh, cruel, inexorable Court--(he forgot that he hadsanctioned it by a bull)--which condemned men without trial; but he hadan Inquisition of his own, which never did any one any harm, and whichhis subjects in Rome were exceedingly fond of. This he would send tothem. The Milanese were caught in the trap. In the hope of getting ridof the Spanish Inquisition, they accepted the Roman one, which provedequally fatal in the end. The degradation of Lombardy dates from thatday. The Inquisition paved the way for Austrian domination. Thefamiliars of the Holy Office were the avant couriers of the black eaglesand Croats of the house of Hapsburg. 

In the arch behind me, so simple withal, and yet so noble in its design, and whose beauty, dependent on no adventitious helps or meretriciousornaments, but inherent in itself, was seen and felt by all, I saw, Ithought, a type of the Gospel; while the many-pinnacled andrichly-fretted Cathedral before me seemed the representative of thePapacy. As stands this arch, in simple but eternal beauty, beside theinflated glories of the Duomo, so stands the gospel amid the spurioussystems of the world. They, like the Cathedral, are elaborate andartificial piles. The stones of which they are built are absurddoctrines, burdensome rites, and meaningless ceremonies. In beautifulcontrast to their complexity and inconsistency, the Gospel presents tothe world one simple and grand idea. They perplex and weary theirvotaries, who lose themselves amid the tangled paths and intricatelabyrinths with which they abound. The Gospel, on the other hand, offersa plain and straight path to the enquirer, which, once found, can neverbe lost. These systems grow old, and, having lived their day, return tothe earth, out of which they arose. The Gospel never dies, --never growsold. Fixed on an immoveable basis, it stands sublimely forth amid thelapse of ages and the decay of systems, charming all minds by itssimplicity, and subduing all minds by its power. It says nothing ofpenances, nothing of pilgrimages, nothing of tradition, nor of works ofsupererogation, nor of efficacious sacraments dispensed by the hands ofan apostolically descended clergy: its one simple and sublimeannouncement is, that _Eternal Life is the Free Gift of God through theDeath of his Son_. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE DUOMO OF MILAN. 

 Interior Disappoints at First Sight--Expands into Magnificence--Description of Interior--Mummy of San Carlo Borromeo--His too early Canonization--A Priest at Mass--The Two Mysteries--Distinction between Religion and Worship--Roof of Cathedral--Aspect of Lombardy from thence--Ascend to the Top of Tower--Objects in the Square--Miniature of the World--The Alps from the Cathedral Roof--Martyr Associations--A Future Morning. 

My next day was devoted to the Cathedral. Entering by the great westerndoorway, --a low-browed arch, rich in carving and statuary, --I pushedaside the thick, heavy quilt that closes the entrance of all the Italianchurches, and stood beneath the roof. My first feeling was one ofdisappointment; so great was the contrast betwixt the airy and sunlightbeauty of the exterior, and the massive and sombre grandeur within. Themarble of the floor was sorely fretted by the foot: its original coloursof blue and red had passed into a dingy gray, chequered with thevariously-tinted light which flowed in through the stained windows. Thewhite walls and unadorned pillars looked cold and naked. Beggars wereextending their caps towards you for an alms. On the floor rose a stackof rush-bottomed chairs, as high as a two-storey house, --as if thepriests, dreading an eméute, had made preparations by throwing up abarricade. A carpenter, mounted on a tall ladder, was busied, withhammer and nails, suspending hangings of tapestry along the nave, inhonour, I presume, of some saint whose fête-day was approaching. The dimlight could but feebly illuminate the many-pillared, long-aisledbuilding, and gave to the vast edifice something of a cavern look. 

But by and by the eye got attempered; and then, like an autumnal hazeclearing away from the face of the landscape, and revealing the gloriesof green meadow, golden field, and wooded mountain, the obscurity thatwrapped pillar and aisle gradually brightened up, and the temple aroundme began to develope into the noblest proportions and the mostimpressive grandeur. Some hundred and fifty feet over head was suspendedthe stone roof; and one could not but admire the lightness and eleganceof its groined vaultings, and the stately stature of the columns thatsupported it. Their feet planted on the marble floor, they stood, bearing up with unbowing strength, through the long centuries, themassive, stable, steadfast roof, from which the spirit of tranquillityand calm seemed to breathe upon you. On either hand three rows ofcolossal pillars ran off, forming a noble perspective of well nigh fivehundred feet. They stretched away over transept and chancel, towards thegreat eastern window, which, like a sun glowing with rosy light, wasseen rising behind the high altar, bearing on its ample disc theemblazoned symbols of the Book of the Apocalypse. The aisles were deepand shadowy; and through their forests of columns there broke on thesight glimpses of monumental tombs and altars ranged against the wall. Ipassed slowly along in front of these beautiful monuments, and readupon their marble the names of warriors and cardinals, some of whomstill keep their place on the page of history. It took me some threehours to make the circuit of the Cathedral; but I shall not spend asmany minutes in describing the works of art--some of them marvels oftheir kind--which passed under my eye; for my readers, I suspect, wouldnot thank me for doing worse what the guide-books have done better. Below the great window in the apsis, --the same that contains what is oneof the earliest of modern commentaries on the Book of Revelation, --thepavement was perforated by a number of small openings; and on lookingdown, I could see a subterranean chamber, with burning lamps. Its wallwas adorned with pictures like the great temple above: and I couldplainly hear the low chant of priests issuing from it. I had lighted, inshort, upon a subterranean chapel; and here, in a shrine of gold andsilver, lay embalmed the body of a former Archbishop of Milan--San CarloBorromeo. Through the glass-lid of the coffin you could see thehalf-rotten corpse, --for the skill of the embalmer had been no match forthe stealthy advances of decay, --tricked out in its gorgeous vestments, with the ring glittering on its finger, and the mitre pressing upon itsfleshless skull. San Carlo Borromeo is the patron saint of Milan; andhence these perpetual lamps and ceaseless chantings at his tomb. Theblack withered face and naked skull grin horribly at the flauntingfinery that surrounds him; and one almost expects to see him stretch outhis skeleton hands, and tear it angrily in rags. The unusually shortperiod of thirty years was all that intervened betwixt the death and thecanonization of San Carlo; and his mother, who was alive at the time, though a very aged woman, had the peculiar satisfaction of seeing herson placed on the altars of Rome, and become an object of worship, --ahappiness which, so far as we know, has not been enjoyed by mortalmother since the days of Juno and other ladies of her time. We do notenvy San Carlo his honours; but we submit whether it was judicious toconfer them just so soon. Before decreeing worship to one, would it notbe better to let his contemporaries pass from the stage of time?Incongruous reminiscences are apt to mix themselves up with his worship. San Carlo had been like other children when young, we doubt not, and wasnone the worse of the castigation he received at times from the hand ofher whose duty it now became to worship him. His mother little dreamtthat it was an infant god she was chastising. "He was a pleasantcompanion, " said a lady, when informed of the canonization of St Francisde Sales, "but he cheated horribly at cards. " "When I was at Milan, "says Addison, "I saw a book newly published, that was dedicated to thepresent head of the Borromean family, and entitled, _A Discourse on theHumility of Jesus Christ, and of St Charles Borromeo_. "

I came round, and stood in front of the high altar. It towers to a greatheight, looking like the tall mast of a ship; and, could any supposableinfluence throw the marble floor on which it rests into billows, itmight ride safely on their tops, beneath the stone roof of theCathedral. A priest was saying mass, and some half-dozen of persons onthe wooden benches before the chancel were joining in the service. Itwas a cold affair; and the vastness of the building but tended to throwan air of insignificance over it. The languid faces of the priest andhis diminutive congregation brought vividly to my recollection the crowdof animated countenances I had seen outside the same building, aroundPunch, the day before. The devotion before me was a dead, not a livingthing. It had been dead before the foundations of this august templewere laid. But it loved to revisit "the glimpses" of these tapers, andto grimace and mutter amid these shadowy aisles. To nothing could Icompare it but to the skeleton in the chapel beneath, that lay rottingin a shroud of gorgeous robes. It was as much a corpse as that skeleton, and, like it too, it bore a shroud of purple and scarlet, and fine linenand gold, which concealed only in part its ghastliness. Were Ambrose tocome back, he would once more close his Cathedral gates, but this timein the face of the priests. 

"Without controversy, " says the apostle, "great is the mystery ofgodliness. God was manifest in the flesh. " "Without controversy, greatis the mystery of" iniquity. "God was manifest in the" mass. These arethe two INCARNATIONS--the two MYSTERIES. They stand confronting oneanother. Romish writers style the mass emphatically "the mystery;" andas that dogma is a capital one in their system, it follows that theirChurch has _mystery_ written on her forehead, as plainly as John saw iton that of the woman in the Apocalypse. But farther, what is theprinciple of the mass? Is it not that Christ is again offered insacrifice, and that the pain he endures in being so propitiates God inyour behalf? Is not, then, the area of Europe that is covered withmasses "_the place where our Lord was crucified_?"

The stream can never rise higher than its source; and so is it withworship. That worship that cometh of man cannot, in the nature ofthings, rise higher than man. The worship of Rome is manifestlyman-contrived. It may be expected, therefore, to rise to the level ofhis tastes, but not a hairbreadth higher. It may stimulate and delighthis faculties, such as they are, but it cannot regenerate them. At thebest, it is only the æsthetic faculties which the worship of Rome callsinto exercise. It presents no truth to the mind, and cannot thereforeact upon the moral powers. God is unseen: He is hidden in the darkshadow of the priest. How, then, can He be regarded with confidence orlove? The doctrine of the atonement, --the central glory of the Christiansystem, --is unknown. It is eclipsed by the mass. If you want to bereligious, --to obtain salvation, --you buy masses. You need not cultivateany moral quality. You need not even be grateful. You have paid themarket-price of the salvation you carry home, and are debtor to no one. 

Those who speak of the worship of the Church of Rome as well fitted tomake men devout, only betray their complete ignorance of all thatconstitutes worship. Men must be devout before they can worship. Thereis no error in the world more common than that of putting worship forreligion. Worship is not the cause, but the effect. Worship is simplythe expression of an inward feeling, that feeling being religion; andnothing is more obvious, than that till this feeling be implanted, therecan be no worship. The man may bow, or chant, or mutter; he cannotworship. He may be dazzled by fine pictures, but not melted into love orraised to hope by glorious truths. Moral feelings can be produced nototherwise than by the apprehension of moral truths; but in the Church ofRome all the great verities of revelation lie out of sight, beingcovered with the dense shadow of symbol and error. A single verse ofScripture would do more to awaken mind and produce devotion than all thestatues and fine pictures of all the cathedrals in Italy. 

I got weary at last of these shadowy aisles and the priests' monotonouschant; and so, paying a small fee, I had a low door in the southtransept opened to me; and, groping my way up a stair of an hundred andfifty steps, or rather more, I came out upon the top of the Cathedral. Ihad left a noble temple, but only to be ushered into a far nobler, --itsroof the blue vault, its floor the great Lombardy plain, and its wallsthe Alps and Apennines. The glory of the temple beneath was forgotten byreason of the greater glory of that into which I had entered. It was notyet noon, and the morning mists were not yet wholly dissipated. The Alpsand the Apennines were imprisoned in a shroud of vapour. Neverthelessthe scene was a noble one. Lombardy was level as the sea. I have seen aslevel and as circular an expanse from a ship's deck, when out of sightof land, but nowhere else. One of the most prominent features of thescene were the long straight rows of the Lombardy poplar, which, rootedin its native soil, and drinking its native waters, shoots up into themost goodly stature and the most graceful form. And then, there wereglimpses of beautifully green meadows, and long silvery lines of canals;and all over the plain there peeped out from amidst rich woods, thewhite walls of hamlets and towns, and the tall, slender Campanile. Thecountry towards the north was remarkably populous. From the gates ofMilan to the skirts of the mists that veiled the Alps the plain was alla-gleam with white-walled villages, beautifully embowered. A fairerpicture, or one more suggestive of peace and happiness, is perhapsnowhere to be seen. But, alas! past experience had taught me, that thesedwellings, so lovely when seen from afar, would sink, on a nearapproach, into ill-furnished and filthy hovels, with inmates groaningunder the double burden of ignorance and poverty. 

When the more distant objects allowed me to attend to those at hand, Ifound that I was not alone on the Cathedral's roof. There were around mean assembly of some thousands. The only moving figure, it is true, wasmyself: the rest stood mute and motionless, each in his little house ofstone; but so eloquent withal, in both look and gesture, that you halfexpected to find yourself addressed by some one in this life-like crowdof figures. 

I ascended to the different levels by steps on the flying buttresses. Awinding staircase in a turret of open tracery next carried me to theOctagon, where I found myself surrounded by a new zone of statues. HereI again made a long halt, admiring the landscape as seen under this newelevation, and doing my best to scrape acquaintance with my newcompanions. I now prepared for my final ascent. Entering the spire, Iascended its winding staircase, and came out at the foot of the pyramidthat crowns the edifice. Higher I could not go. Here I stood at a heightof about three hundred and fifty feet, looking down upon the city andthe plain. I had left the grosser forms of monks and bishops farbeneath, and was surrounded--as became my aerial position--with wingedcherubs, newly alighted, as it seemed, on the spires and turrets whichshot up like a forest at my feet. Here I waited the coming of the Alps, with all the impatience with which an audience at the theatre waits therising of the curtain. 

Meanwhile, till it should please Monte Rosa and her long train ofwhite-robed companions to emerge, I had the city spectacles to amuse me. There was Milan at my feet. I could count its every house, and trace thewindings of its every street and lane, as easily as though it had beenlaid down upon a map. I could see innumerable black dots moving about inthe streets, --mingling, crossing, gathering in little knots, thendissolving, and the constituent atoms falling into the stream, andfloating away. Then there came a long white line with nodding plumes;and I could faintly hear the tramp of horses; and then there followed amustering of men and a flashing of bayonets in the square below. I satwatching the manoeuvres of the little army beneath for an hour or so, while drum and clarionet did their best to fill the square with music, and send up their thousand echoes to break and die amid the spires andstatues of the Cathedral. At last the mimic war was ended, and I wasleft alone, with the silent and moveless, but ever acting statues aroundand below me. What a picture, thought I, of the pageantry of life, asviewed from a higher point than this world! Instead of an hour, take athousand years, and how do the scenes shift! The golden spectacle ofempire has moved westward from the banks of the Euphrates to those ofthe Tiber and the Thames. You can trace its track by the ruins it hasleft. The field has been illuminated this hour by the gleam of arts andempire, and buried in the darkness of barbarism the next. Man has beenever busy. He has builded cities, fought battles, set up thrones, constructed systems. There has been much toil and confusion, but, alas!little progress. Such would be the sigh which some superior being fromsome tranquil station on high would heave over the ceaseless struggleand change in the valley of the world. And yet, amid all its changes, great principles have been taking root, and a noble edifice has beenemerging. 

But, lo! the mists are rising, and yonder are the Alps. Now that thecurtain is rent, one flashing peak bursts upon you after another. Theycome not in scores, but in hundreds. And now the whole chain, from thesnowy dome of the Ortelles in the far-off Tyrol, to the beauteouspyramid of Monte Viso in the south-western sky, is before you in itsnoble sweep of many hundreds of miles, with thousands of snowy peaks, amid which, pre-eminent in glory, rises Monte Rosa. Turning to thesouth, you have the purple summits of the Apennines rising above theplain. Between this blue line in the south and that magnificent rampartof glaciers and peaks in the north, what a vast and dazzling picture ofmeadows, woods, rivers, cities, with the sun of Italy shining over all!

Ye glorious piles! well are ye termed everlasting. Kings and kingdomspass away, but on you there passes not the shadow of change. Ye saw thefoundations of Rome laid;--now ye look down upon its ruins. Incomparison with yours, man's life dwindles to a moment. Like the flowerat your foot, he blooms for an instant, and sinks into the tomb. Nay, what is a nation's duration, when weighed against thine? Even theforests that wave on your slopes will outlast empires. Proud piles, howdo ye stamp with insignificance man's greatest labours! This gloriousedifice on which I stand, --ages was it in building; myriads of handshelped to rear it; and yet, in comparison with your gigantic masses, what is it?--a mere speck. Already it is growing old;--ye are stillyoung. The tempests of six thousand winters have not bowed you down. Your glory lightened the cradle of nations, --your shadows cover theirtomb. 

But to me the great charm of the Alps lay in the sacred character whichthey wore. They seemed to rise before me, a vast temple, crowned, astemple never was, with sapphire domes and pinnacles, in which a holynation had worshipped when Europe lay prostrate before the Dagon of theSeven Hills. I could go back to a time when that plain, now covered, alas! with the putridities of superstition, was the scene of churches inwhich the gospel was preached, of homes in which the Bible was read, ofhappy death-beds, and blessed graves, --graves in which, in the sublimewords of our catechism, "the bodies of the saints being still united toChrist, do rest in their graves till the Resurrection. " Sleep on, yeblessed dead! This pile shall crumble into ruin; the Alps dissolve, Rome herself sink; but not a particle of your dust shall be lost. Thereflection recalled vividly an incident of years gone by. I hadsauntered at the evening hour into a retired country churchyard inScotland. The sun, after a day of heavy rain, was setting in glory, andhis rays were gilding the long wet grass above the graves, and tintingthe hoar ruins of a cathedral that rose in the midst of them, when myeye accidentally fell upon the following lines, which I quote frommemory, carved in plain characters upon one of the tombstones:--

 The wise, the just, the pious, and the brave, Live in their death, and flourish from the grave. Grain hid in earth repays the peasant's care, And evening suns but set to rise more fair. 

There are no such epitaphs in the graveyards of Lombardy; nor couldthere be any such in that of Dunblane, but for the Reformation. 

CHAPTER XI. 

MILAN TO BRESCIA. 

 Biblioteca Ambrosiana--A Lamp in a Sepulchre--The Palimpsests--Labours of the Monks in the Cause of Knowledge--Cardinal Mai--He recovers many valuable Manuscripts of the Ancients which the Monks had Mutilated--Ulfila's Bible--The War against Knowledge--The Brazent Serpent at Sant' Ambrogio--Passport Office--Last Visit to the Duomo and the Arco Della Pace--The Alps apostrophized--Dinner at a Restaurant--Leave Milan--Procession of the Alps--Treviglio--The River Adda--The Postilion--Evening, with dreamy, decaying Borgos--Caravaggio--Supper at Chiari--Brescia--Arnold of Brescia. 

The morning of my last day in Milan was passed in the BibliotecaAmbrosiana. This justly renowned library was founded in 1609 by CardinalBorromeo, the cousin of that Borromeo whose mummy lies so gorgeouslyenshrined in the subterranean chapel of the Duomo. This prelate was atvast care and expense to bring together in this library the mostprecious manuscripts extant. For this purpose he sent learned men intoevery part of Europe, with instructions to buy whatever of value theymight be fortunate enough to discover, and to copy such writings astheir owners might be unwilling to part with. The Biblioteca Ambrosianais worth a visit, were it only to see the first public libraryestablished in Europe. There were earlier libraries, and some notinconsiderable ones, but only in connection with cathedrals andcolleges; and access to them was refused to all save to the members ofthese establishments. This, on the contrary, was opened to the public;and, with a liberality rare in those days, writing materials were freelysupplied to all who frequented it. The library buildings form aquadrangle of massive masonry, with a grave, venerable look, becomingits name. The collection is upwards of 80, 000 volumes; but, what is notvery complimentary to the literary tastes of the prefetto and honorarycanons of Sant' Ambrogio, the curators of the library, they arearranged, not according to their subjects, but according to their sizes. This library reminded me of a lamp in an Etrurian tomb. There was lightenough in that hall to illuminate the whole duchy of the Milanese, couldit but find an outlet. As it is, I fear a few straggling rays are allthat are able to escape. There is no catalogue of the books, save somevery imperfect lists; and I was told that there is a pontifical bullagainst making any such. I saw a few visitors in its halls, attracted, like myself, by its curiosities; but I saw no one who had come torestore volumes they had read, and receive others in their room. Themodern inhabitant of Milan gives his days and nights to the café and theclub, --not to the library. He lives and dies unpolluted by the printingpress, --an execrable invention of the fifteenth century, from which apaternal Government and an infallible Church employ their utmostenergies to shield him. The works of dead authors he dare not read; theproductions of living ones he dare not print; and the only compositionsto which he has access are the decrees of the Austrian police, and theCatechism of the Jesuit. He fully appreciates, of course, the care takento preserve the purity of his political and religious faith, and willone day show the extent of his gratitude. 

I saw in this library the famous _Palimpsests_. My readers know, ofcourse, what these are. The _Palimpsests_ are little books of vellum, from which an original and ancient writing has been erased, to make roomfor the productions of later ages and of other pens. These pages boreoriginally the thoughts of Virgil and Livy, and, in short, of almost allthe great writers of pagan, antiquity; but the monks, who did not relishtheir pagan notions, thought the vellum would be much better bestowed iffilled with their own homilies. The good fathers conceived the projectof enlightening and evangelizing the world by purging of its paganismall the vellum in Europe; and, being much intent on their object, theysucceeded in it to an amazing extent. 

 "A second deluge learning did o'errun, And the monks finished what the Goths begun. "

Our readers have often seen with what rapidity a fog swallows up alandscape. They have marked, with a feeling of despair, golden peak andemerald valley sinking hopelessly in the dank drizzle. So the classicswent down before the monks. The ancients were set a-trudging through theworld in a monk's cowl and a friar's frock. On the same page from whichCicero had thundered, a monk now discoursed. Where Livy's picturednarrative had been, you found only a dull wearisome legend. Where thethunder of Homer's lyre or the sweet notes of Virgil's muse hadresounded, you heard now a dismal croak or a lugubrious chant. Such wasthe strange metamorphosis which the ancients were compelled to endure atthe hands of the' monks; and such was the way in which they strove toearn the gratitude of succeeding ages by the benefits they conferred onlearning. 

It gives us pleasure to say that Cardinal Mai was amongst the mostdistinguished of those who undertook the task of setting free theimprisoned ancients, --of stripping them of the monk's hood and thefriar's habit, and presenting them to the world in their own form. Helaboured in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, and succeeded in exhuming fromdarkness and dust the treasures which neglect and superstition hadburied there. In the number of the works which the monks hadpalimpsested, and which Mai rescued from destruction, we may cite somefragments of Homer, with a great number of paintings equally ancient, and of which the subjects are taken from the works of this great poet;the unpublished writings of Cornelius Fronto; the unpublished letters ofAntoninus Pius, of Marcus Aurelius, of Lucius Verus, and of Appian; somefragments of discourses of Aurelius Symmachus; the Roman Antiquities ofDionysius of Halicarnassus, which were up to that time imperfect;unpublished fragments of Plautus, of Isæus, of Themistius; anunpublished work of the philosopher Porphyrius; some writings of the JewPhilo; the ancient interpreters of Virgil; two books of the Chroniclesof Eusebius Pamphilus; the VI. And XIV. Sibylline Books; and the sixbooks of the Republic of Cicero. I saw, too, in the BibliotecaAmbrosiana, fragments of the version of the Bible made in the middle ofthe fourth century, by Ulfila, bishop of the Mæsogoths. The labours ofthe bishop underwent a strange dispersion. The gospels are at Upsala;the epistles were found at Wolfenbuttel; while a portion of the Acts ofthe Apostles and of the Old Testament were extracted from thepalimpsests. The original writing--the superincumbent rubbish beingremoved--looked out in a bold, well defined character, in as fresh ablack, in some places, as when newly written; in others, in a dim, rustycolour, which a practised eye only could decipher. Thus the war againstknowledge has gone on. The Caliph Omer burnt the Alexandrine library. Next came the little busy creatures the monks, who, mothlike, ate up theancient manuscripts. Last of all appeared the Pope, with his IndexExpurgatorius, to put under lock and key what the Caliph had spared, andthe monks had not been able to devour. The torch, the sponge, theanathema, have been tried each in its turn. Still the light spreads. 

I cannot enter on the other curious manuscripts which this librarycontains; nor have I anything to say of the numerous beautiful portraitsand pictures with which its walls are adorned. The _Cenacolo_, or "LastSupper, " by Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the Dominicanconvent, is fast perishing. It has not yet "lost all its originalbrightness, " and is mightier in its decay than most other pictures arein the bloom and vigour of their youth. I recollect the great Scottishpainter Harvey saying to me, that he was more affected by "that ruin, "than he was by all the other works of art which he saw in Italy. Thegrandeur of the central head has never been approached in any copy. Onething I regret, --I did not visit the Sant' Ambrogio, and so missedseeing the famous brazen serpent which is to hiss just before the worldcomes to an end. This serpent is the same that Moses made in thewilderness, and which Hezekiah afterwards brake in pieces: at least itwould be heresy in Milan not to believe this. It must be comfortable toa busy age, which has so many things to think of without troublingitself about how or when the world is to end, to know that, if it mustend, due warning will be given of that catastrophe. The vineyards ofLombardy are good, and monks, like other men, occasionally get thirsty;and it might spoil the good fathers' digestion were the brazen serpentof Sant' Ambrogio to hiss after dinner. But doubtless it will bediscreet on this head. There is said to be in some one of thegraveyards of Orkney, a tombstone on which an angel may be seen blowinga great trumpet with all his might, while the dead man below is made tosay, "When I hear this, I will rise. " The stone-trumpet will be heard toblow, we daresay, about the same time that the serpent of Sant' Ambrogiowill be heard to hiss. 

I was now to bid farewell to Milan, and turn my face towards the blueAdriatic. But one unpleasant preliminary must first be gone through. Thepolice had opened the gates of Milan to admit me, and the sameauthorities must open them for my departure. I walked to the passportoffice, where the officials received me with great politeness, and bademe be seated while my passport was being got ready. This interestingprocess was only a few minutes in doing; and, on payment of thecustomary fee, was handed me "all right" for Venice, bating theinnumerable intermediate inspections and _visés_ by the way; for apassport, like a chronometer, must be continually compared with themeridian, and put right. I put my passport into my pocket; but onopening it afterwards, I got a surprise. Its pages were getting coveredall over with little creatures with wings, and, as my fancy suggested, with stings, --the black eagles of Austria. How was I to carry in mypocket such a cage of imps? How was I to sleep at night in theircompany? Should they take it into their head to creep out of my book, and buzz round my bed, would it not give me unpleasant dreams? And yetpart with them I could not. These black, impish creatures must be mypioneers to Venice. 

I now made haste to take my last look of the several objects which hadendeared themselves to me during my short stay. I felt towards them asfriends, --long known and beloved friends; and never should I turn andlook on the track of my past existence without seeing their forms ofbeauty, dim and indistinct, it might be, as the haze of lapsed timeshould gather over them; still, always visible, --never altogetherblotted out. I walked round the Cathedral for the last time. There itstood, --beauty, like an eternal halo, sitting rainbow-like upon itstowers and pinnacles. Its thousand statues and cherubs stood silent andentranced, tranquil as ever, all unmoved by the city's din, remindingone of dwellers in some region of deep and unbroken bliss. "Gloriouspile!" said I, apostrophizing it, "I am but a pilgrim, a shadow; so areall who now look on thee, --shadows. But you will continue to delight theages to come, as you have done those that are past. " I had a run, too, to the _Piazza di Armi_, to see Beauty incarnate, if I may so expressmyself, in the form of the Arco della Pace. It is a gem, the brightestof its kind that earth contains. The faultless grace of its form isfinely set off by the overwhelming Alpine masses in the distance, whichseemed as if raised on purpose to defend it, and which rise, piled oneabove another, in furrowed, jagged, unchiselled, fearful sublimity. 

I came round by the boulevard of the Porte Orientale, on my way back tothe city. It is a noble promenade. Above are the boughs of theover-arching elms; on this hand are the city domes and cathedral spires, with their sweet chimes continually falling on the ear; and on that arethe suburban gardens, with the poplars and campaniles rising in statelygrace beyond. The glorious perspective is terminated by the Alps. As thebreezes from their flashing summits stirred the leaves overhead, theyseemed to speak of liberty. I wonder the Croat don't impose silence onthem. What right have they, by their glowing peaks, and their free playof light and shade, and their storms, and their far-darting lightnings, to stir the immortal aspirations in man's bosom? These white hills aregreat, unconquerable democrats. They will continually be singing hymnsin praise of liberty. Yet why they should, I know not. Milan is deaf. Why preach liberty to men in chains? Surely the Alps, --the free andjoyous Alps, --which scatter corn and wine from their horn of plenty sounweariedly, have no delight in tormenting the enslaved nations at theirfeet. Why do ye not, ye glorious mountains, put on sackcloth, and mournwith the mourning nations beneath you? How can ye look down on thesedungeons, on these groaning victims, on the tears of so many widows andorphans, and yet wear these robes of beauty, and sing your song ofgladness at sunrise? Or do ye descry from afar the coming of a betterera? and is the glory that mantles your summits the kindling of aninward joy at the prospect of coming freedom? and are these whisperingsof liberty the first utterances of that shout with which you willwelcome the opening of the tomb and the rising of the nations?

The formidable process of loading the _diligence_ was not yet completed. There was a perfect Mont Blanc of luggage to transfer from the courtyardto the top of the _diligence_, not in a hurry, but calmly anddeliberately. The articles were to be selected one by one, and put uponthe top, and taken down again, and laid in the courtyard, and put up asecond time, and perhaps a third time; and after repeated attempts andfailures, and a reasonable amount of vociferation and emphaticejaculations on the part of postilions and commissionaires, the thingwas to be declared completed, and finally roped down, and the greatleathern cover drawn over all. Still the process would be got throughbefore the hour of table d'hote at the Albergo de Reale. I must needstherefore dine at a restaurant. I betook me to one of theseestablishments hard by the _diligence_ office, and took my place at asmall table, with its white napery, small bottle of wine, and roll ofLombardy bread, in the same room with some thirty or so of the merchantsand citizens of Milan. I intimated my wish to dine _à la carte_; andinstantly the waiter placed the tariff before me, with its list ofdishes and prices. I selected what dishes I pleased, marking, at thesame time, what I should have to pay for each. I dined well, havingrespect to the journey of two days and a night I was about to begin, andknowing, too, that an Italian _diligence_ halts only at long intervals. The reckoning, I thought, could be no dubious or difficult matter. Iknew the dishes I had eaten, and I saw the prices affixed, and Iconcluded that a simple arithmetical process would infallibly conduct meto the aggregate cost. But when my bill was handed me (a formalitydispensed with in the case of those beside me), I found that myreckoning and that of "mine host" differed materially. The sum total onhis showing was three times greater than on mine. I was curious todiscover the source of this rather startling discrepancy in so small asum. I went over again the list of eaten dishes, and once more wentthrough the simple arithmetical process which gave the sum total oftheir cost, but with no difference in the result. It was plain thatthere was some mysterious quality in the arithmetic, or some nicedistinctions in the cookery, which I had not taken into account, whichdisturbed my calculations. I became but the more anxious to have theriddle explained. In my perplexity I applied to the waiter, who referredme to his master. The day was hot; and boiling, stewing, and roasting, is hot work; and this may account for the passion into which my simpleinterrogatory put "mine host. " "It was a just bill, and must be paid. " Ihinted that I did not impugn its justice, but simply craved someexplanation about its items. Whereupon mine host, becoming cooler, condescended to inform me that I had not dined exactly according to the_carte_; that certain additions had been made to certain dishes; andthat it did not become an Englishman to inquire farther into the matter. If not so satisfactory as might be wished, this defence was better thanI had expected; so, paying my debts to Boniface, I departed, consolingmyself with the reflection, that if I had three times more to pay thanmy neighbours, having fared neither better nor worse than they, I had, unlike these poor men, eaten my dinner without fetters on my hands. 

This time the _banquette_ of the _diligence_, with all its rich views, was bespoke, so I had to content myself with the _interieur_. It wasroomy, however; there were but four of us, and its window admitted, Ifound, ample views of meadow and mountain. We drove to the station ofthe Venice railway, pleasantly situated amid orchards and extra-muralalbergos. The horses were taken out, and the immense vehicle was liftedup, --wheels, baggage, passengers and all, --and put upon a truck. Awaywent the long line of carriages, --away went the _diligence_, standing uplike a huge leathern castle upon its truck; while the engine whistled, snorted, screeched, groaned, and uttered all sorts of irreverent andevery-day sounds, just as if the Alps had not been looking down upon it, and classic towns ever and anon starting up beside its path: a gloriousvision of fresh meadows, bordered with little canals, brimful of water, and barred with the long shadows of campanile and sycamore, --for the sunwas westering, --shot past us. The Alps came on with more slow andmajestic pace. As peak after peak passed by, it seemed as if the wholecommunity of hills had commenced a general march on Monte Viso, with alltheir crags, glaciers, and pine-forests. One might have thought thatSovran Blanc had summoned the nobles and high princes of his kingdom tomeet him in his hall of audience, to debate some weighty point of Alpinegovernment. An august assembly as ever graced monarch's court, in theirrobes of white and their cornets of eternal ice, would these tall andproud forms present. 

Treviglio, beyond which the railway has not yet been opened, was reachedin less than two hours. When near the town, the vast mirror of the blueComo, spread out amid the dark overhanging mountains, burst upon us. From it flowed forth the Adda, which we crossed. As its mighty stream, burning in the sunset, rolled along, it spangled with glory the greenplain, as the milky-way the firmament. There is nothing in nature likethese Alpine rivers. They fill their banks with such a wastefulprodigality of water, and they go on their way with a conscious might, as if they felt that behind them is an eternally exhaustless source. Letthe sun smite them with his fiercest ray; they dread him not. Others mayshrink and dry up under his beam: their fountains are the snows of athousand winters. 

On reaching the station, our _diligence_, --including passengers, and allthat pertained to them, --was lifted from its truck and put on wheels, and once more stood ready to move, in virtue of its own inherent power, that is, so soon as the horses should be attached. This operation wasperformed in the calm eve, amid the glancing casements of the littletown, on which the purple hills and the tall silent poplars lookedcomplacently down. 

Away we rumbled, the declining light still resting sweetly on the woodsand hamlets. There are no postilions in the world, I believe, who canhandle their whip like those of Italy. In very pride and joy ourpostilion cracked his whip, till the woods rang again. He took apeculiar delight in startling the echoes of the old villages, and theears of the old villagers. Each report was like that of atwelve-pounder. This continual thunder, kept up above their heads, didnot in the least affright the horses: they rather seemed proud of amaster who could handle his whip in so workmanlike a fashion. He couldso time the strokes as to make not much worse melody than that of somemusic-bells I have heard. He could play a tune on his whip. 

We passed, as the evening thickened its shadows, several ancient_borgos_. Gray they were, and drowsy, as if the sleep of a centuryweighed them down. They seemed to love the quiet, dying light of eve;and as they drew its soft mantle around them, they appeared most willingto forget a world which had forgotten them. They had not always led soquiet a life. Their youth had been passed amid the bustle of commerce;their manhood amid the alarms and rude shocks of war; and now, in theirold age, they bore plainly the marks of the many shrewd brushes they hadhad to sustain when young. The houses were tall and roomy, and theirarchitecture of a most substantial kind; but they had come to knowstrange tenants, that is, those of them that _had_ tenants, for not afew seemed empty. At the doors of others, dark withered faces lookedout, as if wondering at the unusual din. I felt as if it were cruel torouse these quiet slumber-loving towns, by dragging through theirstreets so noisy a vehicle as a _diligence_. 

We passed Caravaggio, famous as the birthplace of the two great painterswho have both taken their name from their city, --the Caravacchi. Wepassed, too, the little Mozonnica, that is, all of it which thecalamities of the middle ages have left. Darkness then fell upon us, --ifa firmament begemmed with large lustrous stars could be called dark. The night wore on, varied only by two events of moment. The first wassupper, for which we halted at about eleven o'clock, in the town ofChiari. At eleven at night people should think of sleeping, --not ofeating. Not so in Italy, where supper is still the meal of the day. AnItalian _diligence_ never breakfasts, unless a small cup of coffee, hurriedly snatched while the horses are being put to, can be calledsuch. Sometimes it does not even dine; but it never omits to sup. Thesupper chamber in Chiari was most sumptuously laid out, --vermicellisoup, flesh, fowls, cheese, pastry, wine, --every viand, in short, thatcould tempt the appetite. But at midnight I refused to be tempted, though most of the other guests partook abundantly. I was much struck, on leaving the town, with the massive architecture of the houses, thestrength of the gates, and other monuments of former greatness. ImagineEdinburgh grown old and half-ruined, and you have a picture of the townsof Italy, which was a land of elegant stone-built cities at a time whenthe capitals of northern Europe were little better than collections ofwooden sheds half-buried in mire. 

There followed a long ride. Sleep, benignant goddess, looked in upon us, and helped to shorten the way. What surprised me not a little was, howsoundly my companions snoozed, considering how they had supped. Thestages passed slowly and wearily. At length there came a long, a verylong halt. I roused myself, and stepped out. I was in a spacious street, with the cold biting wind blowing through it. The horses were away; thepostilions had disappeared; some of the passengers were perambulatingthe pavement, and the rest were fast asleep in the _diligence_, whichstood on the causeway, like a stranded vessel on the beach. Onconsulting my watch, I found it was three in the morning, and in answerto my inquiries I was told that I was in Brescia, --a famous city; but Ishould have preferred to visit it at a more seasonable hour. "The bestfeelings, " says the poet, "must have victual, " and the most classictowns must have sleep; so Brescia, forgetful that famous geographers wholived well-nigh two thousand years ago had mentioned its name, and thatfamous poets had sung its streams, and that it still containsinnumerable relics of its high antiquity, slept on much as a Scotchvillage would have done at the same hour. 

Time is of no value on the south of the Alps. This long halt at thisunseasonable hour was simply to set down an honest woman who had comewith us from Milan. She was as big well-nigh as the _diligence_ itself;but what caused all our trouble was, not herself, but her trunk. It layat the bottom of an immense pile of baggage, which rose on the top ofthe vehicle; and before it could be got at, every article had to betaken down, and put on the pavement. Of course, the baggage had to beput back, and the operation was gone through most deliberately andleisurely. A full hour and a half was consumed in the process; and thepassengers, having no place to retire to, did their best to withstandthe chill night air by a quick march on the street. 

So, these silent midnight streets I was treading were those ofBrescia, --Brescia, within whose walls had met the valour of themountains and the arts of the plain. I was now treading where pagantemples had once stood, where Christian sanctuaries had next arisen, andwhere there had been disciples not a few when the light of theReformation broke on northern Italy. I remembered, too, that this wasthe city of "Arnold of Brescia, " one of the reformers before theReformation. Arnold was a man of great learning, an intrepid championof the Church's purity, and the founder of the "Arnoldists, " whoinherited the zeal and intrepidity of their master. 

On the death of Innocent II. , in the middle of the twelfth century, Arnold, finding Rome much agitated from the contests between the Popeand the Emperor, urged the Romans to throw off the yoke of a priest, andstrike for their independence. The Romans lacked spirit to do so; andwhen, seven centuries afterwards, they came to make the attempt underPius IX. , they failed. Arnold was taken and crucified, his body reducedto ashes, and it was left to time, with its tragedies, to vindicate thewisdom of his advice, and avenge his blood; but to this hour no suchopportunity of freeing themselves from thraldom as that which theBrescians then missed has presented itself. 

 "Time flows, --nor winds, Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course; But many a benefit borne upon his breast For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone, No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth An angry arm that snatches good away, Never perhaps to re-appear. "

CHAPTER XII. 

THE PRESENT THE IMAGE OF THE PAST. 

 Failure of the Reformation in Italy--Causes of this--Italian Martyrs--Their great Numbers--Consequences of rejecting the Reformation--The _Present_ the Avenger of the _Past_--Extract from the _Siècle_ to this Effect--An "Accepted Time" for Nations--Alternative offered to the several European Nations in the Sixteenth Century--According to their Choice then, so is their Position now--Protestant and Popish Nations contrasted. 

Of the singular interest that attaches to Italy during the first days ofthe Reformation I need not speak. The efforts of the Italians to throwoff the papal yoke were great, but unsuccessful. Why these efforts cameto nought would form a difficult but instructive subject of inquiry. They failed, perhaps, partly from being made so near the centre of theRoman power, --partly from the want of union and comprehension in theplans of the Italian reformers, --partly by reason of the dependence ofthe petty princes of the country upon the Pope, --and partly because thegreat sovereigns of Europe, although not unwilling that the Papacyshould be weakened in their own country, by no means wished itsextinction in Italy. But though Italy did not reach the goal ofreligious freedom, the roll of her martyrs includes the names ofstatesmen, scholars, nobles, priests, and citizens of all ranks. Fromthe Alps to Sicily there was not a province in which there were notadherents of the doctrines of the Reformation, nor a city of any note inwhich there was not a little church, nor a man of genius or learning whowas not friendly to the movement. There was scarce a prison whose wallsdid not immure some disciple of the Lord Jesus; and scarce a publicsquare which did not reflect the gloomy light of the martyr's pile. Muchhas been done, by mutilating the public records, to consign these eventsto oblivion, and the names of many of the martyrs have beenirretrievably lost; still enough remains to show that the doctrines ofthe Reformation were then widely spread, and that the numbers whosuffered for them in Italy were great. Need I mention the names ofMilan, of Vicenza, of Verona, of Venice, of Padua, of Ferrara, --one ofthe brightest in this constellation, --of Bologna, of Florence, ofSienna, of Rome? Most of these cities are renowned in the classicannals; all of them shared in the wealth and independence which thecommerce of the middle ages conferred on the Italian republics; all ofthem figure in the revival of letters in the fifteenth century; but theyare encompassed by a holier and yet more unfading halo, as the spotswhere the Italian reformers lived, --where they preached the blessedtruths of the Bible to their countrymen, --and where they sealed theirtestimony with their blood. "During the whole of this century, " that is, the sixteenth, says Dr M'Crie, in his "Progress and Suppression of theReformation in Italy, " "the prisons of the Inquisition in Italy, andparticularly at Rome, were filled with victims, including persons ofnoble birth, male and female, men of letters, and mechanics. Multitudeswere condemned to penance, to the galleys, or other arbitrarypunishments; and from time to time individuals were put to death. " "Thefollowing description, " says the same historian, "of the state ofmatters in 1568 is from the pen of one who was residing at that time onthe borders of Italy:--'At Rome some are every day burnt, hanged, orbeheaded. All the prisons and places of confinement are filled; and theyare obliged to build new ones. That large city cannot furnish jails forthe number of pious persons which are continually apprehended. '"

I had time to ruminate on these things as I paced to and fro in theempty midnight streets of Brescia. Methought I could hear, in the silentnight, the cry of the martyrs whose ashes sleep in the plains around, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avengeour blood on them that dwell on the earth!" Yes; God has judged, and isavenging; and the doom takes the very form that the crime wore. An eraof dungeons, and chains, and victims, has again come round to Italy; butthis time it is "the men which dwell on the" papal "earth" that aresuffering. When the Italians permitted Arnold, and thousands such as he, to be put to death, they were just opening the way for the wrath of thePapacy to reach themselves, which it has now done. Ah! little do thosewho gnash their teeth in the extremity of their torments, and curse thepriests as the authors of these, reflect that their own and theirfathers' wickedness, still unrepented of, has not less to do with theirpresent miseries than the priestly tyranny which they so bitterly andjustly execrate. In those ages these men were the _tools_ of thepriesthood; in this they are its _victims_. Thus it is that the Present, in papal Europe, and especially in Italy, rises stamped with thelikeness of the Past. The _Siècle_ of Paris, while the _Siècle_ was yetfree, brought out this fact admirably, when it reminded the champions ofPopery that the horrors of the first French Revolution were not newthings, but old, which the Jacobins inherited from the Papists; and wenton to ask them "if they have forgotten that the Convention found all thelaws of the Terror written upon the past? The Committee of Public Safetywas first contrived for the benefit of the monarchy. Were not thecommissions called revolutionary tribunals first used against theProtestants? The drums which Santerre beat round the scaffolds ofroyalists followed a practice first adopted to drown the psalms of thereformed pastors. Were not the fusilades first used at the bidding ofthe priests to crush heresy? Did not the law of the suspected compelProtestants to nourish soldiers in their houses, as a punishment forrefusing to go to mass? Were not the houses burned down of those whofrequented Protestant preaching? Were not the properties of theProtestant emigrants confiscated? Did not the Marshal Nouilles order awar against bankers? Was not the law of the maximum, which regulatedprices, practised by the regency? Was not the law of requisition for thepublic roads practised to prepare the roads for Queen Marie Leczinska?It is true, many priests perished in the Terror, but they were men ofterror perishing by terror, --men of the sword perishing by the sword. "

I could not help feeling, too, when reflecting upon the state ofBrescia, and of all the towns of Italy, and, indeed, of all thecountries of Europe, that to nations, as well as individuals, there is"an accepted time" and a "day of salvation, " which if they miss, theyirremediably perish. If they enter not in when the door is open, it isin vain that they knock when it is shut. The same sentiment has beenexpressed by our great poet, in the well-known lines, --

 "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their lives is bound In shallows and in miseries. "

The sixteenth century started the European nations in a new career, andput it in the power of each to choose the principle of will orauthority, --the compendious principle according to which both Church andState were governed under the Papacy, or that of law, --expressing notthe will of one man, but the collective reason of the nation, --thedistinctive principle of government under Protestantism. The century inquestion placed government by the canon law or government by the Bibleside by side, and invited the nations of Europe to make their choice. The nations made their choice. Some ranged themselves on this side, someon that; and the sixteenth century saw them standing abreast, likecompetitors at the ancient Olympic games, ready, on the signal beinggiven, to dart forward in the race for victory. 

They did not stand abreast, be it observed. The several competitors inthis high race did not start on equally advantageous terms. The rich andpowerful nations declared for Popery and arbitrary government; the weakand third-rate ones, for Protestantism. On one side stood Spain, then atthe head of Europe, --rich in arts, in military glory, in the genius andchivalry of its people, in the resources of its soil, and mistress, besides, of splendid colonies. By her side stood France, --the equal ofSpain in art, in civilization, in military genius, and inferior only toher proud neighbour in the single article of colonies. Austria camenext, and then Italy. Such were the illustrious names ranged on the oneside. All of them were powerful, opulent, highly civilized; and some ofthem cherished the recollections of imperishable renown, which is amighty power in itself. We have no such names to recount on the otherside. Those nations which entered the lists against the others were butsecond and third-rate Powers: Britain, which scarce possessed afoot-breadth of territory beyond her own island, --Holland, a countrytorn from the waves, --the Netherlands and Prussia, neither of which wereof much consideration. In every particular the Protestant nations wereinferior to the Papal nations, save in the single article of theirProtestantism: nevertheless, that one quality has been sufficient tocounterbalance, and far more than counterbalance, all the advantagespossessed by the others. Since the day we speak of, what a differentcareer has been that of these nations! Three centuries have sufficed toreverse their position. Civilization, glory, extent of territory, andmaterial wealth, have all passed over from the one side to the other. Ofthe Protestant nations, Britain alone is more powerful than the whole ofcombined Europe in the sixteenth century. 

But, what is remarkable also, we find the various nations of Europe atthis hour on the same side on which they ranged themselves in thesixteenth century. Those that neglected the opportunity which thatcentury brought them of adopting Protestantism and a free government areto this day despotic. France has submitted to three bloody revolutions, in the hope of recovering what she criminally missed in the sixteenthcentury; but her tears and her blood have been shed in vain. The courseof Spain, and that of the Italian States, have been not unsimilar. Theyhave plunged into revolutions in quest of liberty, but have found only adeeper despotism. They have dethroned kings, proclaimed newconstitutions, brought statesmen and citizens by thousands to the block;they have agonized and bled; but they have been unable to reverse theirfatal choice at the Reformation. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SCENERY OF LAKE GARDA--PESCHIERA--VERONA. 

 Lake Garda--Memories of Trent--The Council of Trent fixed the Destiny as well as Creed of Rome--Questions for Infallibility--Why should Infallibility have to grope its Way?--Why does it reveal Truth piecemeal?--Why does it need Assessors?--The Immaculate Conception--Town of Desenzano--Magnificent Bullocks--Land of Virgil--Grandeur of Lake Garda--The Iron Peschiera--The Cypress Tree--Verona--Imposing Appearance of its Exterior--Richness and Beauty of surrounding Plains--Palmerston. 

When the morning broke we were skirting the base of the Tyrolese Alps. Icould see masses of snow on some of the summits, from which a piercinglycold air came rushing down upon the plains. In a little the sun rose;and thankful we were for his warmth. Day was again abroad on the watersand the hills; and soon we forgot the night, with all its untowardoccurrences. The face of the country was uneven; and we kept alternatelywinding and climbing among the spurs of the Alps. At length themagnificent expanse of Lake Garda, the Benacus of the ancients, openedbefore us. In breadth it was like an arm of the sea. There were one ortwo tall-masted ships on its waters; there were fine mountains on itsnorthern shore; and on the east the conspicuous form of Monte Baldoleaned over it, as if looking at its own shadow in the lake. With theLago di Garda came the memories of Trent; for at the distance of twentymiles or so from its northern shore is "the little town among themountains, " where the famous Council assembled, in which so many thingswere voted to be true which had been open questions till then, but todoubt which now were certain and eternal anathema. 

The Reformation addressed to Rome the last call to reconsider herposition, and change her course while yet it was possible. It said toher, in effect, Repent now: to-morrow it will be too late. Rome gave herreply when she summoned the Council of Trent. That Council crystallized, so to speak, the various doubtful opinions and dogmas which had beenfloating about in solution, and fixed the creed of Rome. It didmore, --it fixed her doom. Amid these mountains she issued the fiat ofher fate. When she published the proceedings of Trent to the world, shesaid, "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; so help me----. " To whom didshe make her appeal? To the Emperor in the first place, when she prayedfor the vengeance of the civil sword; and to the Prince of Darkness inthe second, when she invoked damnation on all her opponents. Then hercourse was irrevocably fixed. She dare not now look behind her: tochange a single iota were annihilation. She must go forward, amidaccumulating errors, and absurdities, and blasphemies: amid opposingarts and sciences, and knowledge, she must go steadily onward, --onwardto the precipice!

It is interesting to mark, as we can in history, first, the feeblegerminations of a papal dogma; next, its waxing growth; and at last, after the lapse of centuries, its full development and maturity. It iseasy to conceive how a mere human science should advance only by slowand gradual stages, --astronomy, for instance, or geology, or even themore practical science of mechanics. Their authors have no infalliblegift of discerning truth from error. They must observe nature; they mustcompare facts; they must deduce conclusions; they must correct previouserrors; and this is both a slow and a laborious process. ButInfallibility is saved all this labour. It knows at once, and from thebeginning, all that is true, and all that is erroneous. It does so, orit is not Infallibility. Why, then, was it not till the sixteenthcentury that Infallibility gave anything like a fixed and complete creedto the Church? Why did it permit so many men, in all preceding ages, tolive in ignorance of so many things in which it could so easily haveenlightened them? Why did it permit so many questions to be debated, which it could so easily have settled? Why did it not give that creed tothe Church in the first century which it kept back till the sixteenth?Why does it deal out truth piecemeal, --one dogma in this century, another in the next, and so on? Why does it not tell us all at once? Andwhy, even to this hour, has it not told us all, but reserved some veryimportant questions for future decision, or revelation rather?

If it is replied that the Pope must first collect the suffrages of theCatholic bishops, this only lands us in deeper perplexities. Why shouldthe Pope need assessors and advisers? Can Infallibility not walk alone, that it uses crutches? Can an infallible man not know truth from errortill first he has collected the votes of fallible bishops? Why shouldInfallibility seek help, which it cannot in the nature of things need?

If it is further replied, that this Infallibility is lodged betwixt thePope and the Council, we are only confronted with greater difficulties. Is it when the decree has been voted by the Council that it becomesinfallible? Then the Infallibility resides in the Council. Or is itwhen it is confirmed by the Pope that it becomes infallible? In thatcase the Infallibility is in the Pope. Or is it, as others maintain, only when the decree has been accepted by the Church that it isinfallible, and does the Pope not know whether he ought to believe hisown decree till he has heard the judgment of the Church? We had thoughtthat Infallibility was one and indivisible; but it seems it may beparted in twain; nay, more, it may be broken down into an indefinitenumber of parts; and though no one of these parts taken separately isInfallibility, yet taken together they constitute Infallibility. Inother words, the union of a number of finite quantities can make aninfinite. Sound philosophy, truly!

If we go back, then, as the Ultramontanist will, to the dogma that theseat of Infallibility is the chair of Peter, the question returns, whycannot, or will not, the Pope determine in one age what he is able andwilling to determine in another? The dogma of the Immaculate Conceptionof the Virgin, for instance, if it is a truth now, was a truth in thefirst age, when it was not even dreamed of; it was a truth in thetwelfth century, when it _was_ dreamed of; it was a truth in theseventeenth century, when it gave rise to so many scandalous divisionsand conflicts; and yet it was not till December 1854 that Infallibilitypronounced it to be a truth, and so momentous a truth, that no one canbe saved who doubts it. Will any Romanist kindly explain this to us? Wecan accept no excuses about the variety of opinion in the Church, orabout the darkness of the age. No haze, no clouds, can dim an infallibleeye. Infallibility should see in the dark as well as in the daylight;and an infallible teacher is bound to reveal all, as well as to knowall. 

And how happens it, too, that the Pope is infallible in only onescience, --even the theological? In astronomy he has made some terribleblunders. In geography he has taken the earth to be a plain. Inpolitics, in trade, and in all ordinary matters, he is daily fallinginto mistakes. He cannot tell how the wind may blow to-morrow. He cannottell whether the dish before him may not have poison in it. And yet theman who is daily and hourly falling into mistakes on the most commonsubjects has only to pronounce dogmatically, and he pronouncesinfallibly. He has but to grasp the pen, with a hand, it may be, likeBorgia's, fresh from the poisoned chalice or the stiletto, andstraightway he indites lines as holy and pure as ever flowed from thepen of a Paul or a John!

The road now led down upon the lake, which lay gleaming like a sheet ofsilver beneath the morning sun. We entered the poor, faded, stragglingtown of Desenzano, where the usual motley assemblage of commissionaires, albergo-masters, dwarfs, beggars, and idlers of all kinds, waited toreceive us. The poor old town crept close in to the strand, as if adraught of the crystal waters would make it young again. It reminded meof the company of halt, blind, and impotent folk which lay at the poolof Bethesda. So lay paralytic Desenzano by the shores of the Lake Garda. Alas! sunshine and storm pass across the scene, clothing the waters andthe hills with alternate beauty and grandeur; but all changes come aliketo the poor, tradeless, bookless, spiritless town. Whether summer comesin its beauty or winter in its storms, Desenzano is old, withered, dyingDesenzano still. I hurried to an albergo, swallowed a cup of coffee, andrejoined the _diligence_. 

Our course lay along the southern shore of the lake, over a fine rollingcountry, richly covered with vineyards, and where the rich red soil wasbeing ploughed with bullocks. Such bullocks I had never before seen. Thestateliest of their kind which graze the meadows of England andScotland are but as grasshoppers in comparison. Truly, I saw before methe Anakims of the cattle tribe. To them the yoke was no burden. As theymarched on with vast outspread horns, they could have dragged a hundredploughs after them. They were not unworthy of Virgil's verse. And itgave additional charms to the region to think that Mantua, the poet'sbirthplace, lay not a long way to the south, and that, doubtless, theauthor of the Bucolics often visited in his youth this very spot, andwalked by the margin of these waters, and marked the light and shade onthese noble hills; or, turning to the rich agricultural country on theright, had seen exactly such bullocks as those I now saw, drawingexactly such ploughs, and making exactly such furrows in the red earth;and, spreading the beauty of his own mind over the picture, he had goneand imprinted it eternally on his page. The true poet is a realclairvoyant. He may not give you the shape, or colour, or size ofobjects; he may not tell how tall the mountains, or how long thehedge-rows, or how broad the fields; but by some wonderful art he canconvey to your mind what is present to his own. On this principle itwas, perhaps, that the landscape, with all its scenery, was familiar tome. I had seen it long years before. These were the very fields, thevery bullocks, the very ploughs, the very swains, my imagination hadpainted in my schoolboy days, when I sat with the page of the greatpastoral poet of Italy open before me, --too frequently, alas! only open. On these shores, too, had dwelt the poet Catullus; and a doubtful ruinwhich the traveller sees on the point of the long sharp promontory ofSermio, which runs up into the lake from the south, still bears the nameof Catullus' Villa. If these are the ruins of Catullus' house, which isvery questionable, he must have lived in a style of magnificence whichhas fallen to the lot of but few poets. 

The complexion of a day or of a lifetime may hang upon the commonestoccurrence. A shoe here dropped from the foot of one of the horses; andthe postilion, diving into the recesses of the _diligence_, and drawingforth a box with the requisite tools, began forthwith, on the highway, the process of shoeing. I stepped out, and walked on before, thankfulfor the incident, which had given me the opportunity of a saunter alongthe road. You can _see_ nature from the windows of your carriage, butyou can _converse_ with her only by a quiet stroll amidst her scenes. Onthe right were the great plains which the Po waters, finely mottled withmeadow and corn-field, besprint with chestnut trees, mulberries, andlaurels, and fringed, close by the highway, with rolling heights, onwhich grew the vine. On the left was the far expanding lake, with itsbays and creeks, and the shadows of its stately hills mirrored on itssurface. It looked as if some invisible performer was busy shifting thescenes for the traveller's delight, and spreading a different prospectbefore his eye at every few yards. New bays were continually opening, and new peaks rising on the horizon. "It was so rough with tempests whenwe passed by it, " says Addison, "that it brought into my mind Virgil'sdescription of it. "

 "Here, vexed by winter storms, _Benacus_ raves, Confused with working sands and rolling waves; Rough and tumultuous, like a sea it lies; So loud the tempest roars, so high the billows rise. "

I saw it in more peaceful mood. Cool and healthful breezes were blowingfrom the Tyrol; and the salubrious character of the region was amplyattested by the robust forms of the inhabitants. I have seldom seen afiner race of men and women than the peasants adjoining the Lake Garda. They were all of goodly stature, and singularly graceful and noble intheir gait. 

In a few hours we approached the strong fortress of Peschiera. We passedthrough several concentric lines of fortifications, walls, moats, drawbridges, and sloping earthen embankments, in which cart-loads ofballs, impelled with all the force which powder can give, would sink andbe lost. In the very heart of these grim ramparts, like a Swiss hamletamid its mountain ranges, or a jewel in its iron-bound casket, lay thelittle town of Peschiera, sleeping quietly beside the blue andfull-flooded Mincio, Virgil's own river:--

 "Where the slow Mincius through the valley strays; Where cooling streams invite the flocks to drink, And reeds defend the winding water's brink. "

It issues from the lake, and, flowing underneath the ramparts, freshensa spot which otherwise wears sufficiently the grim iron-visaged featuresof war. Nothing can surpass the grandeur of Lake Garda, which herealmost touches the walls of the fortress. It lies outspread like thesea, and runs far up to where the snow-clad summits of the Tyrol propthe northern horizon. 

Leaving behind us the iron Peschiera and the blue Garda, we held on ourway over an open, breezy country, where the stony and broken scenery ofthe mountains began to mingle with the rich cultivation of the plains. It reminded me of the line where the lowlands of Perthshire join itshighlands. Here the cypress tree met me for the first time. The familiarform of the poplar, --now too familiar to give pleasure, --disappeared, and in its room came the less stately but more graceful and beautifulform of the cypress. The cypress is silence personified. It stands wraptin its own thoughts. One can hardly see it without asking, "What ailsthee? Is it for the past you mourn?" Yet, pensive as it looks, itsunconscious grace fills the landscape with beauty. 

Verona, gilded by the beams of Shakspeare's mighty genius, and by theyet purer glory of the martyrs of the Reformation, was in sight milesbefore we reached it. It reposes on the long gentle slope of a low hill, with plenty of air and sunlight. The rich plains at its feet, whichstretch away to the south, look up to the old town with evidentaffection and pride, and strive to cheer it by pouring wheat, and wine, and fruits into its markets. Its appearance at a distance is imposing, from its numerous towers, and the long sweep of its forked battlements, which seem to encircle the whole acclivity on which the town stands, leaving as much empty space within their lines as might containhalf-a-dozen Veronas. Its environs are enchanting. Behind it, and partlyencircling it on the east, are an innumerable array of low hills, of thetrue Italian shape and colour. These were all a-gleam with white villas;and as they sparkled in the sunlight, relieved against the deep azure ofthe mountains, they showed like white sails on the blue sea, or stars inthe dark sky. At its gates we were met, of course, by the Austriangendarmerie. To have the affair of the passport finished and over asquickly as possible, I unfolded the sheet, and carelessly hung it overthe window of the carriage. The corner of the paper, which bore, intall, bold characters, the name of her Majesty's Foreign Secretary, caught the eye of a passenger. "PALMERSTON!" "PALMERSTON!" he shoutedaloud. Instantly there was a general rush at the document; and fearingthat it should be torn in pieces, which would have been an awkwardaffair for me, seeing without it it would be impossible to get forward, and nearly as impossible to get back, I surrendered it to the firstspeaker, that it might be passed round, and all might gratify theircuriosity or idolatry with the sight of a name which abroad is but asynonym for "England. " After making the tour of the _diligence_, thepassport was handed out to the gendarme, who, feeling no such intensedesire as did the passengers to see the famous characters, had waitedgood-naturedly all the while. The man surveyed with grim complacency aname which was then in no pleasant odour with the statesmen andfunctionaries of Austria. In return he gave me a paper containing"permission to sojourn for a few hours in Verona, " with its co-relative"permission to depart. " I felt proud of my country, which could aseffectually protect me at the gates of Verona as on the shores of theForth. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

FROM VERONA TO VENICE. 

 Interior of Verona--End of World seemingly near in Italy--The Monks and the Classics--A Cast-Iron Revolutionist--A Beautiful Glimpse--Railway Carriages--Railway Company--Tyrolese Alps--Dante's Patmos--Vicenza--Padua--The Lagunes--The Omnibus or Gondola--Silence of City--Sail through the Canals--Charon and his Boat--Piazza of Saint Mark. 

The gates of Verona opened, and the enchantment was gone. He who wouldcarry away the idea of a magnificent city, which the exterior of Veronasuggests, must go round it, not through it. The first step within itswalls is like the stroke of an enchanter's wand. The villa-begemmedcity, with its ramparts and its cypress-trees, takes flight, and thererises before the traveller an old ruinous town, with dirty streets and aragged and lazy population. It reminds one of what he meets in tales ofeastern romance, where young and beautiful princesses are all at oncetransformed by malignant genuises into old and withered hags. 

In truth, on entering an Italian town one feels as if the last trumpetwere about to sound. The world, and all that is in it, seems old--veryold. Man is old, his dwellings are old, his works are old, and the veryearth seems old. All seems to betoken that it is the last age, and thatthe world is winding up its business, preparatory to the final closingof the drama. Commerce, the arts, empire, --all have taken theirdeparture, and have left behind only the vestiges of their formerpresence. The Italians, living in a land which is but a sort ofsepulchre, look as if they had voted that the world cannot outlast thepresent century, and that it is but a waste of labour to rebuildanything or repair anything. Accordingly, all is allowed to go todecay, --roads, bridges, castles, palaces; and the only thing which is inany degree cared for are their churches. Why make provision forposterity, when there is to be none? Why erect new houses, when thosealready built will last their time and the world's? Why repair theirmouldering dwellings, or renew the falling fences of their fields, orreplace their dying olives with young trees, or even patch their ownragged garments? The crack of doom will soon be upon them, and all willperish in the great conflagration. They account it the part of wisdom, then, to pass the interval in the least fatiguing and most agreeablemanner possible. They sip their coffee, and take their stroll, and watchthe shadows as they fall eastward from their purple hills. Why shouldthey incur the toil of labouring or thinking in a world that is soon topass away, and which is as good as ended already?

Of Verona I can say but little. My stay there, which was not much overthe hour, afforded me no opportunity for observation. Its famousAmphitheatre, coeval with the great Coliseum at Rome, and the bestpreserved Roman Amphitheatre in the world, I had not time to visit. Itsnumerous churches, with their frescoes and paintings, I less regret nothaving seen. Its _Biblioteca Capitolare_, which is said to be anunwrought quarry of historic and patristic lore, I should have liked tovisit. There, too, the monks of the middle ages were caught tripping. "Sophocles or Tacitus, " in the words of Gibbon, "had been compelled toresign the parchment to missals, homilies, and the golden legend. " The"Institutes of Caius, " which were the foundation of the Institutes ofJustinian, were discovered in this library palimpsested. A rumour hadbeen spread that the author of the Pandects had reduced the "Institutesof Caius" to ashes, that posterity might not discover the source of hisown great work. Gibbon ventured to contradict the scandal, and to pointto the monks as the probable devastators. His sagacity was justifiedwhen Niebuhr discovered in the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona thesevery Institutes beneath the homilies of St. Jerome. Verona yet retainsone grand feature untouched by decay or time, --the river Adige, --which, passing underneath the walls, dashes through the city in a magnificenttorrent, spanned by several noble bridges of ancient architecture, andturns in its course several large floating mills, which are anchoredacross the stream. The market-place, a large square, was profuselycovered with the produce of the neighbouring plains. I purchased a rollof bread and a magnificent cluster of grapes, and lunched in fine style. 

At Verona the railway resumes, and runs all the way to Venice. What atransition from the _diligence_--the lumbering, snail-paced_diligence_--to the rail. It is like passing by a single leap from thedark ages to modern times. Then only do you feel what you owe to Watt. In my humble opinion, the Pope should have put the steam-engine into theIndex Expurgatorius. His priests in France have attended at the openingof railways, and blessed the engines. What! bless the steam-engine!Sprinkle holy water on the heads of Mazzini and Gavazzi. For what arethese engines, but so many cast-iron Mazzinis and Gavazzis. The Popeshould have anathematized the steam-engine. He should have cursed itafter the approved pontifical fashion, in standing and in running, inwatering and in coaling. He should have cursed it in the whole structureof its machinery, --in its funnel, in its boiler, in its piston, in itscranks, and in its stopcocks. I can see a hundred things which are sureto be crushed beneath its ponderous wheels. I can see it tearingruthlessly onwards, and dashing through prejudices, opinions, usages, and time-honoured and venerated institutions, and sweeping all away likeso many cobwebs. Was the Argus of the Vatican asleep when this wolfbroke into the fold? But _in_ he is, and the Pope's bulls will haveenough to do to drive him out. But more of this anon. 

The station of the railway is on the east of the town, in a spot ofenchanting loveliness. It was the first and almost the only spot thatrealized the Italy of my dreams. It was in a style of beauty such as Ihad not before seen, and was perfect in its kind. The low lovely hillswere ranged in crescent form, and were as faultless as if Grace herselfhad moulded them on her lathe. Their clothing was a deep rich purple. White villas, like pearls, sparkled upon them; and they were dotted withthe cypress, which stood on their sides in silent, meditative, etherealgrace. The scene possessed not the sublime grandeur of Switzerland, northe rugged picturesqueness of Scotland: its characteristic was thefinished, spiritualized, voluptuous beauty of Italy. But hark! therailway-bell rings out its summons. 

The carriages on the Verona and Venice Railway are not thosestrong-looking, crib-like machines which we have in England, and whichseem built, as our jails and bridewells are, in anticipation that theinmates will do their best to get out. They are roomy and elegantsaloons (though strong in their build), of about forty feet in length, and may contain two hundred passengers a-piece. They are fitted up witha tier of cushioned seats running round the carriage, and two sofa-seatsrunning lengthways in the middle. At each end is a door by which theguard enters and departs, and passes along the whole train, as if itwere a suit of apartments. So far as I could make out, I was the only_Englese_ in the carriage, which was completely filled with the citizensand peasantry of the towns and rural districts which lay on ourroute, --the mountaineer of the Tyrol, the native of the plain, theinhabitant of the city of Verona, of Vicenza, of Venice. There was agreater amount of talk, and of vehement and eloquent gesture, than wouldhave been seen in the same circumstances in England. The costume wasvaried and picturesque, and so too, but in a less degree, thecountenance. There were in the carriage tall athletic forms, reared amidthe breezes and vines of the Tyrol; and there were noble faces, --faceswith rich complexions, and dark fiery eyes, which could gleam in love orburn in battle, and which bore the still farther appendage of moustacheand beard, in which the wearer evidently took no little pride, and onwhich he bestowed no little pains. The company had somewhat the air of amasquerade. There was the Umbrian cloak, the cone-shaped beaver, thevest with its party-coloured lacings. There were the long loose robe andlow-crowned hat of the priest, with its enormous brim, as if to shadethe workings of his face beneath. There was the brown cloak of thefriar; and there were hats and coats of the ordinary Frank fashion. TheLeghorn bonnet is there unknown, as almost all over the Continent, unless among the young girls of Switzerland; and the head-gear of thewomen mostly was a plain cotton napkin, folded on the brow and pinnedbelow the chin, --a custom positively ugly, which may become a mummy or ashaven head, but not for those who have ringlets to show. Some withbetter taste had discarded the napkin, and wore a smart cap. On thepersons of not a few of the females was displayed a considerable amountof value, in the shape of gold chains, rings, and jewellery. This is anindication, not of wealth, but of poverty and stagnant trade. It was acustom much in use among oriental ladies before banks were established. 

The plains eastward of Verona on the right were amazingly rich, and theuplands and heights on the left were crowned with fine castles andbeautiful little temples. Yet the beauty and richness of the regioncould not soothe Dante for his lost Florence. For here was his "Patmos, "if we may venture on imagery borrowed from the history of a greaterseer; and here the visions of the Purgatorio had passed before his eye. After a few hours' riding, the fine hills of the Tyrolese Alps camequite up to us, disclosing, as they filed past, a continuous successionof charming views. When the twilight began to gather, and they stood intheir rich drapery of purple shadows, their beauty became a thingindescribable. We saw Vicenza, where, of all the spots in Italy, theReformation found the largest number of adherents, and where Palladioarose in the sixteenth century, to arrest for a while, by his genius, the decay of the architectural arts in Italy. We saw, too, the grayPadua looking at us through the sombre shadows of its own and the day'sdecline. We continued our course over the flat but rich country beyond;and as night fell we reached the edge of the Lagunes. 

I looked out into the watery waste with the aid of the faint light, butI could see no city, and nothing whereon a city could stand. All wassea; and it seemed idle to seek a city, or any habitation of man, in themidst of these waters. But the engine with its great red eye could seefarther into the dark; and it dashed fearlessly forward, and entered onthe long bridge which I saw stretching on and away over the flood, tillits farther end, like that of the bridge which Mirza saw in vision, waslost in a cloud. I could see, as we rode on, on the bosom of the floodbeneath us, twinkling lights, which were probably lighthouses, and blackdots, which we took for boats. After a five miles' run through sceneryof this novel character, the train stopped, and we found that we hadarrived, not in a cloud or in a quicksand, as there seemed some reasonto fear, but in a spacious and elegant station, brilliantly lighted withgas, and reminding one, from its sudden apparition and its strange site, of the fabled palace of the Sicilian Fairy Queen, only not built, likehers, of sunshine and sea-mist. We were marched in file past, first thetribunal of the searchers, and next the tribunal of the passportofficials; and then an Austrian gendarme opening to each, as he passedthis ordeal, the door of the station-house, I stepped out, to have myfirst sight, as I hoped, of the Queen of the Adriatic. 

I found myself in the midst of the sea, standing on a little platform ofland, with a cloudy mass floating before me, resembling, in theuncertain light, the towers and domes of a spectral city. It was now forthe first time that I realized the peculiar position of Venice. I hadoften read of the city whose streets were canals and whose chariots weregondolas; but I had failed to lay hold of it as a reality, and hadunconsciously placed Venice in the region of fable. There was no missingthe fact now. I was hemmed in on all sides by the ocean, and could notmove a step without the certainty of being drowned. What was I to do? Inanswer to my inquiries, I was told that I must proceed to my hotel inan omnibus. This sounded of the earth, and I looked eagerly round to seethe desired vehicle; but horses, carriage, wheels, I could see none. Icould no more conceive of an omnibus that could swim on the sea, thanthe Venetians could of a gondola that could move on the dry land. I wasshown a large gondola, to which the name of omnibus was given, which layat the bottom of the stairs waiting for passengers. I descended into it, and was followed by some thirty more. We were men of various nations andvarious tongues, and we took our seats in silence. We pushed off, andwere soon gliding along on the Grand Canal. Not a word was spoken. Although we had been a storming party sent to surprise an enemy's fortby night, we could not have conducted our proceedings in profounderquiet. There reigned as unbroken a stillness around us, as if, insteadof the midst of a city, we had been in the solitude of the high seas. Nofoot-fall re-echoed through that strange abode. Sound of chariot-wheelthere was none. Nothing was audible but the soft dip of the oar, and thestartled shout of an occasional gondolier, who feared, perhaps, that ourheavier craft might send his slim skiff to the bottom. In about aquarter of an hour we turned out of the Grand Canal, and began threadingour way amid those innumerable narrow channels which traverse Venice inall directions. Then it was that the dismal silence of the city fellupon my heart. The canals we were now navigating were not over threeyards in width. They were long and gloomy; and tall, massive palaces, sombre and spectral in the gloom, rose out of the sea on either hand. There were columns at their entrances, with occasional pieces ofstatuary, for which time had woven a garland of weeds. Their lowerwindows were heavily grated; their marble steps were laved by the idletide; and their warehouse doors, through which had passed, in theirtime, the merchandise of every clime, had long been unopened, and wererotting from age. As we pursued our way, we passed under low-browedarches, from which uncouth faces, cut in the stone, looked down upon us, and grinned our welcome. The voice of man, the light of a candle, thesound of a millstone, was not there. It seemed a city of the dead. Theinhabitants had lived and died ages ago, and had left their palaces tobe tenanted by the mermaids and spirits of the deep, for other occupantsI could see none. Spectral fancies began to haunt my imagination. Iconceived of the canal we were traversing as the Styx, our gondola asthe boat of Charon, and ourselves as a company of ghosts, who had passedfrom earth, and were now on our silent way to the inexorable bar ofRhadamanthus. A more spectral procession we could not have made, withour spectral boat gliding noiselessly through the water, with itsspectral steersman, and its crowd of spectral passengers, though myfancy, instead of being a fancy, had been a reality. All things aroundme were sombre, shadowy, silent, as Hades itself. 

Suddenly our gondola made a rapid sweep round a tall corner. Then it wasthat the Queen of the Adriatic, in all her glory, burst upon us, --

 "Looking a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers. "

We were flung right in front of the great square of St. Mark. It waslike the instantaneous raising of the curtain from some glorious vision, or like the sudden parting of the clouds around Mont Blanc; or, if I mayuse such a simile, like the unfolding of the gates of a better world tothe spirit, after passing through the shadows of the tomb. The spaciouspiazza, bounded on all sides with noble structures in every style ofarchitecture, reflected the splendour of a thousand lamps. There wasthe palace of the Doge, which I knew not as yet; and there, on its loftycolumn, was the winged lion of St Mark, which it was impossible not toknow; and, crowding the piazza, and walking to and fro on its marblefloor, was a countless multitude of men in all the costumes of theworld. With the deep hum of voices was softly blended the sound of theItalian lute. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the Hotel dell'Europa. I made a spring from the gondola, and alighted on the steps ofthe hotel. 

CHAPTER XV. 

CITY OF VENICE. 

 Sabbath Morning--Beauty of Sunrise on the Adriatic--Worship in S. Mark's--Popish Sabbath-schools--Sale of Indulgences for Living and Dead--An Astrologer--How the Venetians spend their Sabbath Afternoon and Evening--The Martyrs of Venice--A Young Englishman in Trouble--The Doge's Palace--The Stone Lions--The Prisons of Venice--The Venetians Discard their Old God, and adopt a New--The Gothic Tower--The Academy of Fine Arts--The Moral of Venice--Why do Nations Die?--Common Theory Unsatisfactory--History hitherto a Series of ever-recurring Cycles, ending in Barbarism--Instances--The "Three-score and Ten" of Nations--The Solution to be sought with reference to the False Religions--The Intellect of the Nation outgrows these--Conscience is Dissolved--Virtue is Lost--Slavery and Barbarism ensue--Christianity only can give Immortality to Nations--Decadence of Civilization under Romanism--A Papist foretelling the Doom of Popery. 

The deep boom of the Austrian cannon awoke me next morning at day-break. I remembered that it was Sabbath; and never had I seen the Sabbath dawnamidst a silence so majestic. More tranquil could not have been itsfirst opening in the bowers of Eden. In this city of ocean there was nosound of hurrying feet, no rattle of chariot-wheel, nor any of thosemultitudinous noises that distract the cities of earth. There wassilence on the domes of Venice, silence on her seas, silence in the airaround her. In a little the sun rose, and shed a flood of glory on theLagunes. It would be difficult to describe the grandeur of the scene, which has nothing elsewhere of the kind to equal it, --the white marblecity, serenely seated on the bosom of the Adriatic, with the Lagunesoutspread in the morning sun like a mirror of molten gold. But, alas! itwas only a glorious vision; for the power and wealth of Venice aredeparted. 

 "The long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust. 

 * * * * *

 Empty halls, Thin streets and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. "

The gun which had awaked me reminds the Queen of the Adriatic everymorning that the day of her dominion and glory is over, and that thenight has come upon her, --a night, the deep unbroken shadows of which, even the bright morning that was now opening on the Adriatic could notdispel. 

After breakfast I hurried to the church of S. Mark. Mass was proceedingas usual; and a large crowd of worshippers, --spectators I should rathersay, --stood densely packed in the chancel. If I except the Madeleine inParis, I have nowhere seen in a Roman Catholic church an attendance atall approximating even a tolerable congregation, save here. I remarked, too, that these were not the beggars which usually form the largerproportion of the attendance, such as it is, in Roman churches. Thepeople in S. Mark's were well dressed, though it was not easy toconceive where these fine clothes had come from, seeing the sea has nowfailed Venice, and land she never possessed. This was the first symptomI saw (I met others in the course of the day) that in Venice the Romanreligion has a stronger hold upon the people than in the rest of Italy. It is an advantage in this respect to be some little distance from Rome, and to have an insular position. Besides, I believe that the priests inVenetian Lombardy, and, I presume, in Venice also, are men of morereputable lives than their brethren in other parts of the Peninsula. Anciently it was not so. Venice was wont to be termed "the paradise ofmonks. " There no pleasure allowable to a man of the world was forbiddento a priest. The Senate, jealous of everything that might abridge itsauthority, encouraged this relaxation of the Church's discipline, in thehope of lowering the influence of its clergy with the people. 

S. Mark's is an ancient, quaint-looking pile, with the dim hoar light ofhistory around it. On its threshold Pope Alexander III. Met the EmperorFrederick in 1177, and, with pride unabated by his enforced flight fromRome in the disguise of a cook, put his foot upon the monarch's neck, repeating the words of the psalm, --"Thou shalt tread upon the lion andadder. " This high temple of the Adriatic is vast and curious, butwanting in effect, owing to the low roof and the gloomy light. TheLevant was searched for columns and marbles to decorate it; acres ofgold-leaf have been expended in gilding it; and every corner is stuckfull of allegorical devices, some of which are so very ingenious, thatthey have not yet been read. The priests wore a style of dress admirablybefitting the finery of the Cathedral; for their vestments werebespangled with gold and curious devices. What a contrast to the simpletemple and the plain earnest worshippers with whom I had passed myformer Sabbath amid the Vaudois hills! But the God of the Vaudois, unlike the wafer-god of the priests, "dwelleth not in temples made withhands. "

Passing along on the narrow paved footpaths which tie back to back thelong lofty ranges of the city, --the fronts being filled with theocean, --I visited several of its one hundred and twenty churches. Ifound mass ended, and the congregation, if any such there had been, dismissed; but I saw what was even more indicative of a revivingsuperstition: in every church I entered I found classes of boys andgirls under instruction. The Sabbath-school system was in full operationin Venice, in Rome's behalf. The boys were in charge of the youngpriests; and the girls, of the nuns and sisters. In some cases, laymenhad been pressed into the service, and were occupied in unfolding themysteries of transubstantiation to the young mind. Seating myself on abench in presence of a class of boys, I watched the course ofinstruction. Their text-book was the "Catechism of Christian Doctrine, "which contains the elements of the Roman faith, as fixed by the Councilof Trent. The boys were repeating the Catechism to the teacher. Noexplanations were given, for the process was simply that of fixingdogmas in the memory, --of conveying as much of fact, or what professedto be so, as it was possible to convey into the mind without awakeningthe understanding. The boys were taught to _believe_, not _reason_; andthose who acquitted themselves best had little medals and pictures of StFrancis given them as prizes. I remarked that most of the shops wereshut: indeed, so little business is done in Venice, that this involvedno sacrifice to the traders. As it was, however, the city contrastedfavourably with Paris; than the Sabbaths of which, I know of nothingmore terrible on earth. I remarked, too, that if the trade of theAdriatic is at an end, and beggars crowd the quays which princes oncetrod, and gondolas, in funereal black, glide gloomily through thosewaters which rich argosies ploughed of old, the spiritual traffic ofVenice flourishes more than ever. I read on the doors of all thechurches, "INDULGENCES SOLD HERE FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, AS INROME. " What matters it that the Adriatic is no longer the highway of theworld's merchandise, and that India is now closed to Venice? Is not thewhole of Peter's treasury open to her; and, to facilitate the enrichingcommerce, have not the priests obligingly opened a direct road to thecelestial mine, to spare the Venetians the necessity of the morecircuitous path by the Seven Hills? Happy Venice! her children may bestarved now, but paradise is their's hereafter. 

After noon each betook himself to what pastime he pleased. Not a fewopened their shops. Others gathered round an astrologer, --a personage nolonger to be seen in the cities of the west, --who had taken his stand onthe _Riva degli Schiavoni_, and there, begirt with zone inscribed withcabalistic characters, and holding in his hand his wizard's staff, wassetting forth, with stentorian voice, his marvellous power of healing bythe combined help of the stars and his drugs. By the way, why should theprofession of astrology and the cognate arts be permitted to only oneclass of men? In the middle ages, two classes of conjurors competed forthe public patronage, but with most unequal success. The one classprofessed to be master of spells that were all-powerful over theelements of the material world, --the air, the earth, the ocean. Theother arrogated an equal power over the invisible and spiritual world. They were skilled in a mysterious rite, which had power to open thegates of purgatory, and dismiss to a happier abode, souls there immuredin woe. The pretensions of both were equally well founded: both werejugglers, and merited to have fared alike; but society, while itlavished all its credence and all its patronage upon the one, denouncedthe other as impostors. One colossal system of necromancy filled Europe;but the age gave the priest a monopoly; and so jealously did it guardhis rights, that the conjuror who did not wear a cassock was banished orburned. We can assign no reason for the odium under which the one lay, and the repute in which the other was held, save that the art, thoughone, was termed witchcraft in the one case, and religion in the other. The one was compelled to shroud his mysteries in the darkness of thenight, and seek the solitary cave for the performance of his spells. Thearts of the other were performed in magnificent and costly cathedrals, in presence of admiring assemblies. The latter were the licensed dealersin magic; and, enjoying the public patronage, they carried theirpretensions to a pitch which their less favoured brethren dared notattempt to rival. They juggled on a gigantic scale, and the moreenormous the cheat, the better was it received. They rapidly grew innumbers and wealth. Their chief, the great Roman necromancer, enjoyedthe state of a temporal prince, and had a whole kingdom appropriated tohis use, that he might suitably support his rank and dignity asarch-conjuror. 

But to return to Venice;--the great stream of concourse flowed in thedirection of the _Giardini Pubblici_, which are a nook of one of themore southerly islands on which the city stands, fitted up as aminiature landscape, its lilliputian hills and vales being the only onesthe Venetians ever see. The intercourse betwixt Venice and the Continenthas no doubt become more frequent since the opening of the railway; butformerly it was not uncommon to find persons who had never been on theland, and who had no notion of ploughs, waggons, carts, gardens, and ahundred other things that seem quite inseparable from the existence of anation. Twilight came, walking with noiseless sandals on the seas. Adelicious light mantled the horizon; the domes of the city stood up withsilent sublimity into the sky; and over them floated, in the deepazure, a young moon, thin as a single thread, and bright as the polishedsteel. 

 "A silver bow, New bent in heaven. "

When darkness fell on the Lagunes, the glories of the piazza of SanMarco again blazed forth. What with cafés and countless lamps, a floodof light fell upon the marble pavement, on which some ten or twelvethousand people, rich and poor, were assembled, and were being regaledwith occasional airs from a numerous band. The Sabbath closed in theAdriatic not altogether so tranquilly as it had opened. 

The Venetians have long been famous for their peculiar skill incombining devotion with pleasure, --more devout than home in the morning, and gayer than Paris in the evening. Such has long been the character ofthe Queen of the Adriatic. She has been truly, as briefly described bythe poet, --

 "The revel of the earth, the mask of Italy!"

Once a better destiny appeared to be about to dawn on Venice. In thesixteenth century the Reformation knocked at her gates, and for a momentit seemed as if these gates were to be opened, and the strangeradmitted. Had it been so, the chair of her Doge would not now have beenempty, nor would Austrian manacles have been pressing upon her limbs. "The evangelical doctrine had made such progress, " writes Dr M'Crie, "inthe city of Venice, between the years 1530 and 1542, that its friends, who had hitherto met in private for mutual instruction and religiousexercises, held deliberations on the propriety of organizing themselvesinto regular congregations, and assembling in public. " Several membersof the Senate were favourable to it, and hopes were entertained at onetime that the authority of that body would be interposed in its behalf. This hope was strengthened by the fact, that when Ochino ascended thepulpit, "the whole city ran in crowds to hear their favourite preacher. "But, alas! the hope was delusive. It was the Inquisition, not theReformation, to which Venice opened her gates; and when I surveyed hercalm and beautiful Lagunes, my emotions partook at once of grief andexultation, --grief at the remembrance of the many midnight tragediesenacted on them, and exultation at the thought, that in the seas ofVenice there sleeps much holy dust awaiting the resurrection of thejust. "Drowning was the mode of death to which they doomed theProtestants, " says Dr M'Crie, "either because it was less cruel andodious than committing them to the flames, or because it accorded withthe customs of Venice. But if the _autos da fe_ of the Queen of theAdriatic were less barbarous than those of Spain, the solitude andsilence with which they were accompanied were calculated to excite thedeepest horror. At the dead hour of midnight the prisoner was taken fromhis cell, and put into a gondola or Venetian boat, attended only, besides the sailors, by a single priest, to act as confessor. He wasrowed out into the sea, beyond the Two Castles, where another boat wasin waiting. A plank was then laid across the two gondolas, upon whichthe prisoner, having his body chained, and a heavy stone affixed to hisfeet, was placed; and, on a signal given, the gondolas retiring from oneanother, he was precipitated into the deep. " "We can do nothing againstthe truth, " says the apostle. Venice is rotting in her Lagunes: theReformation, shaking off the chains with which men attempted to bind it, is starting on a new career of progress. 

Next morning, at breakfast in my hotel, formerly the palace of theGiustiniani, I met a young Englishman, who had just come from Rome. Hehad the misfortune to be of the same name with one on the "suspectedlist, " and for this offence he was arrested on entering the Austrianterritory; and, though allowed to come on to Venice, his passport wastaken from him, and his journey to England, which he meant to make byway of Trieste and Vienna, stopped. The list to which I have referred, which is kept at all the continental police offices, and which the eyeof policeman or sbirro only can see, has created a sort of inquisitionfor Europe. The poor traveller has no means of knowing who has denouncedhim, or why; and wherever he goes, he finds a vague suspicionsurrounding him, which he can neither penetrate nor clear up, and whichexposes him to numberless and by no means petty annoyances. Iaccompanied my friend, after breakfast, to the _Prefecture_, to transactmy own passport matters, and was glad to find that the authorities werenow satisfied that he was not the same man who figured on the blacklist. Still they had no apology, no reparation, to offer him: on thecontrary, he was informed that he must submit to a detention of two orthree days more, till his passport should be forwarded from theprovincial office where it was lying. His misfortune was my advantage, for it gave me an intelligent and obliging companion for the rest of theday; and we immediately set out to visit together all the great objectsin Venice. It would be preposterous to dwell on these, for an hundredpens have already described them better; and my object is to advert toone great lesson which this fallen city, --for the sea, which once wasthe bulwark and throne of Venice, is now her prison, --teaches. 

Betaking ourselves to a gondola, we passed down the Giudecca, Canal. Wemuch admired--as who would not?--the-noble palaces which on either handrose so proudly from the bosom of the deep, yet invested with an air ofsilent desolation, which made the heart sad, even while their beautydelighted the eye. We disembarked at the stairs of the _piazzetta_ of S. Mark, and repaired to the Doge's palace, --the dwelling of a line ofrulers haughtier than kings, and the throne of a republic moreoppressive than tyrannies. We walked through its truly majestic halls, glowing with great paintings from Venetian history; and visited itssenatorial chamber, and saw the vacant places of its nobles, and theempty chair of its Doge. There was here no lack of materials formoralizing, had time permitted. She that sat as a Queen upon thewaves, --that said, "I am of perfect beauty, "--that sent her fleets tothe ends of the earth, and gathered to her the riches and glory of allnations, --alas! how is she fallen! "The princes of the sea" have "comedown from their thrones, and" laid "away their robes, and put off theirbroidered garments. " "What city is like" Venice, --"like the destroyed inthe midst of the sea!"

We passed out between the famous stone lions, which, even so late as theend of the last century, no Venetian could look on but with terror. There they sat, with open jaws, displaying their fearfully significantsuperscription, "_Denunzie secrete_, "--realizing the poet's idea ofrepublics guarded by dragons and lions. The use of these guardian lionsthe Venetians knew but too well. Accusations dropped by spies andinformers into their open mouths, were received in a chamber below. Thusthe bolt fell upon the unsuspicious citizen, but the hand from which itcame remained invisible. Crossing by the "bridge of sighs, "--the canal, _Rio de Palazzo_, which runs behind the ducal palace, --we entered thestate prisons of Venice. In the dim light I could discern what seemed alabyrinth of long narrow passages; traversing which, we arrived at thedungeons. I entered one of them: it was vaulted all round; and its onlyfurniture, besides a ring and chain, was a small platform of boards, about half a foot from the floor, which served as the prisoner's bed. Inthe wall of the cell was a small aperture, by which the light might bemade to stream in upon the prisoner, when the jailor did not wish toenter, simply by placing the lamp in an opposite niche in the passage. Here crime, despair, madness, and sometimes innocence, have dwelt. Horrible secrets seemed to hover about its roof, and float in its air, and to be ready to break upon me from every stone of the dungeon. Ilonged, yet trembled, to hear them. But silent they are, and silent theywill remain, till that day when "the sea shall give up its dead. " Thereare yet lower dungeons, deep beneath water-mark, but I was told thatthese are now walled up. 

We emerged again upon the marble piazzetta; and more welcome than everwas the bright light, and the noble grace of the buildings. At itssouthern extremity, where the piazzetta looks out upon the Adriatic, aretwo stately granite columns; the one surmounted by St Theodore, and theother by the lion of St Mark. These are the two gods of Venice. Theywere to the Republic what the two calves were to Israel, --theirall-powerful protectors; and so devoutly did the Venetians worship them, that even the god of the Seven Hills became jealous of them. "TheVenetians in general care little about God, " says an old traveller, "less about the Pope, but a great deal about St Mark. " St Theodoresheltered the Republic in its infancy; but when it grew to greatness, itdeemed it unbecoming its dignity to have only a subordinate for itstutelar deity. Accordingly, Venice sought and obtained a god of thefirst water. The Republic brought over the body of St Mark, enshrined itin a magnificent church, and left its former patron no alternative butto cross the Lagunes, or occupy a second place. 

Before bidding adieu to the piazza of St Mark, around which therehovers so many historic memories, and which every style of architecture, from the Greek and the Byzantine down to the Gotho-Italian, has met todecorate, and which, we may add, in point of noble grace and chastebeauty is perhaps not excelled in the world, we must be allowed tomention one object, which appeared to us strangely out of keeping withthe spot and its edifices. It is the tall Gothic tower that risesopposite the Byzantine front of S. Mark's Cathedral. It attains a heightof upwards of three hundred feet, and is used for various purposes, which, however, it could serve equally well in some other part ofVenice. It strikes one the more, that it is the one deformity of theplace. It reminded me of the entrance of a clown at a royal levee, orthe appearance of harlequin in a tragedy. 

Betaking ourselves again to a gondola, and gliding noiselessly along thegrand canal, --

 "For silent rows the songless gondolier, "

we visited the _Academia delle Belle Arte_. It resembled a great andelaborately compiled work on painting, and I could there read off thehistory of the rise and progress of the art in Venice. The severalgalleries were arranged, like the successive chapters of a book, inchronological order, beginning with the infancy of the art, and going onto its full noon, under the great masters of the Lombardschool, --Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and others. The pictures ofthe inner saloons were truly magnificent; but on these I do not dwell. 

Let us sit down here, in the midst of the seas, and meditate a little onthe great _moral_ of Venice. We shall let the poet state the case:--

 "Her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. "

But now, after power, wealth, empire, have come corruption, slavery, ruin; and Venice, --

 "Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose. "

But the course which Venice has run is that of all States which have yetappeared in the world. History is but a roll of defunct empires, whosecareer has been alike; and Venice and Rome are but the latest names onthe list. Egypt, Chaldea, Tyre, Greece, Rome, --to all, as if by aninevitable law, there came, after the day of civilization and empire, the night of barbarism and slavery. This has been repeated again andagain, till the world has come to accept of it as its establishedcourse. We see States emerging from infancy and weakness slowly andlaboriously, becoming rich, enlightened, powerful; and the moment theyseemed to have perfected their civilization, and consolidated theirpower, they begin to fall. The past history of our race is but a historyof efforts, successful up to a certain point, but only to a certainpoint; for whenever that point has been reached, all the fruits of pastlabour, --all the accumulations of legislators, philosophers, andwarriors, --have been swept away, and the human family have found thatthey had to begin the same laborious process over again, --to toilupwards from the same gulph, to be overtaken by the same disaster. History has been simply a series of ever-recurring cycles, ending inbarbarism. This is a discouraging aspect of human affairs, and throws adoubtful shadow upon the future; but it is the aspect in which historyexhibits them. The Etrurian tombs speak of an era of civilization andpower succeeded by barbarism. The mounds of Nineveh speak of a similarrevolution. The day of Greek glory sank at last in unbroken night. Atthe fall of the Roman empire, barbarism overspread Europe; and now thecycle appears to have come round to the nations of modern Europe. Sincethe middle of last century there has been a marked and fearfully rapiddecline in all the States of continental Europe. The entire region southof the Alps, including the once powerful kingdoms of Italy and Spain, issunk in slavery and barbarism. France alone retains its civilization;but how long is it likely to retain it, with its strength undermined byrevolution, and its liberties completely prostrated? Niebuhr has givenexpression in his works to his decided opinion, _that the dark ages arereturning_. And are we not at this moment witnessing an attemptedrepetition of the Gothic invasion of the fourth century, in thebarbarian north, which is pressing with ever-growing weight upon thefeeble barrier of the East?

 "Nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt. "

But why is this? It would almost seem, when we look at these examplesand facts, as if there were some malignant influence sporting with theworld's progress, --some adverse power fighting against man, baulking allhis efforts at self-advancement, and compelling him, Sysiphus-like, toroll the stone eternally. Has the Creator set limits to the life ofkingdoms, as to that of man? Certain it is, they have seldom survivedtheir twelfth century. The most part have died at or about their twelvehundred and sixtieth year. Is this the "three-score-and-ten" of nations, beyond which they cannot pass?

The common explanation of the death of nations is, that power begetswealth, wealth luxury, and luxury feebleness and ruin. But we are unableto accept this as a satisfactory account of the matter. It appears amere _statement_ of the fact, --not a _solution_ of it. It is evidentlythe design of Providence that nations should live happily in theabundant enjoyment of all good things; and that every human being shouldhave all that is good for him, of what the earth produces, and thelabour of man can create. Then, why should affluence, and the otheraccessories of power, have so uniformly a corrupting and dissolvingeffect upon society? This the common theory leaves unexplained. There isno necessary connection betwixt the enjoyment of abundance and thecorruption of nations. The Creator surely has not ordained laws whichmust necessarily result in the death of society. 

The real solution, we think, it is not difficult to find. All religions, one excepted, which have hitherto appeared in the world, have beenunable to hold the balance between the _intellect_ and the _conscience_beyond a certain stage; and therefore, all kingdoms which have arisenhitherto have been unable to exist beyond a certain term. So long as anation is in its childhood, a false religion affords room enough for thefree play of its intellect. Its religion being regarded as true andauthoritative, the conscience of the nation is controlled by it. So longas conscience is upheld, law has authority, individual and social virtueis maintained, and the nation goes on acquiring power, amassing wealth, and increasing knowledge. But whenever it attains a certain stage ofenlightenment, and a certain power of independent thinking, it begins tocanvass the claims of that religion which formerly awed it. Itdiscovers its falsehood, the national conscience breaks loose, and anera of scepticism ensues. With the destruction of conscience and therise of scepticism, law loses its authority, individual honour andsocial virtue decline, and slavery or anarchy complete the ruin of thestate. This is the course which the nations of the world have hithertorun. They have uniformly begun to decline, not when they attained acertain amount of power or of wealth, but when they attained such anamount of intellectual development as set free the national consciencefrom the restraints of religion, or what professed to be so. No falsereligion can carry a nation beyond a certain point; because no suchreligion can stand before a certain stage of light and inquiry, which issure to be reached; and when that stage is reached, --in other words, whenever the intellect dissolves the bonds of conscience, --the basis ofall authority and order is razed, and from that moment national declinebegins. Hence, in all nations an era of scepticism has beencontemporaneous with an era of decay. 

Let us take the ancient Romans as an example. In the youth of theirnation their gods were revered; and in the existence of a nationalconscience, a basis was found for law and virtue; and while these lastedthe empire flourished. But by and by the genius of its great thinkersleavened the nation; an era of scepticism ensued; that scepticisminaugurated an age of feeble laws and strong passions; and thedeclension which set in issued at length in downright barbarism. 

Papal Rome has run the very same course. The feeble intellect of theEuropean nations accepted Romanism as a religion, just as the Romansbefore them had accepted of paganism. But the Reformation introduced aperiod of growing enlightenment and independent thinking; and by the endof the eighteenth century, Romanism had shared the fate which paganismhad done before it. The masses of Europe generally had lost faith in itas a religion; then came the atheism of the French school; an era offeeble laws and strong passions again returned; the selfish andisolating principle came into play; and at this moment the nations ofcontinental Europe are rapidly sinking into barbarism. Thus, the historyof the race under the reign of the false religions exhibits butalternating fits of superstition and scepticism, with theircorresponding eras of civilization and barbarism. And it necessarilymust be so; because, these religions not being compatible with theindefinite extension of man's knowledge, they do not secure thecontinued action and authority of conscience; and without conscience, national progress, and even existence, is impossible. 

Is there, then, no immortality in reserve for nations? Must theycontinue to die? and must the history of our race in all time coming bejust what it has been in all time past, --a series of rapidly alternatingepochs of partial civilization and destructive barbarism? No. He who isthe former of society is the author of the Bible; and we may be surethat there is a beautiful meetness and harmony between the laws of theone and the doctrine of the other. Christianity alone can enable societyto fulfil its terrestrial destiny, because it alone is true, and, beingtrue, it admits of the utmost advancement of the human understanding. Inits case the centrifugal force of the intellect can never overcome thecentripetal power of the conscience. It has nothing to fear from theadvance of science. It keeps pace with the human mind, however rapid itsprogress. Nay, more; the more the human mind is enlarged, the moreapparent becomes the truth of Christianity, and, by consequence, thegreater becomes the authority of conscience. Under the reign ofChristianity, then, there is no point in the onward progress of societywhere conscience dissolves, and leaves man and nations devoid of virtue;there is no point where conviction compels man to become a sceptic, andscepticism pulls him down into barbarism. As the atmosphere whichsurrounds our planet supplies the vital element alike to the full-grownman and to the infant, so Christianity supplies the breath of life tosociety in all its stages, --in its full-grown manhood, as well as in itsimmature infancy. There is more meaning than the world has yetunderstood in the statement that the Gospel has brought "life andimmortality to light. " Its Divine Founder introduced upon the stage thatsystem which is the _life_ of nations. The world does not furnish aninstance of a nation that has continued to be Christian, that hasperished. We believe the thing to be impossible. While great Rome hasgone down, and Venice sits in widowed glory on the Adriatic, the poorWaldenses are still a people. The world tried but could not extinguishthem. Christianity is synonymous with life: it gives immortality tonations here, and to the individual hereafter. Hence Daniel, whenunfolding the state of the world in the last age, gives us to understandthat, when once thoroughly Christianized, society will no longer beoverwhelmed by those periodic lapses into barbarism which in everyformer age has set limits to the progress of States. "And in the days ofthose kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall neverbe destroyed. " Unlike every preceding era, immortality will then be thechief characteristic of nations. 

But must it not strike every one, in connection with this subject, thatin proportion as Romanism developes itself, the nations under its swaysink the deeper into barbarism? This fact Romanist writers now see andbewail. What stronger condemnation of their system could they pronounce?For surely if religion be of God, it must, like all else that comesfrom Him, be beneficent in its influence. He who ordained the sun toirradiate the earth with his light, and fructify it with his warmth, would not have given a religion that fetters the understanding andbarbarises the species. And yet, if Romanism be divine, He has done so;for the champions of that Church, compelled by the irresistible logic offacts, now tacitly acknowledge that a decaying civilization is followingin the wake of Roman Catholicism in every part of the world. Listen, forinstance, to the following confession of M. Michel Chevalier, in the_Journal des Debats_:--

"I cannot shut my eyes to the facts that militate against the influenceof the Catholic spirit, --facts which have transpired more especiallyduring the last third of a century, and which are still inprogress, --facts that are fitted to excite in every mind thatsympathises with the Catholic cause, the most lively apprehensions. Oncomparing the respective progress made since 1814 by non-CatholicChristian nations, with the advancement of power attained by Catholicnations, one is struck with astonishment at the disproportion. Englandand the United States, which are Protestant Powers, and Russia, a GreekPower, have assumed to an incalculable degree the dominion of immenseregions, destined to be densely peopled, and already teeming with alarge population. England has nearly conquered all those vast andpopulous regions known under the generic name of India. In America shehas diffused civilization to the extreme north, in the deserts of UpperCanada. Through the toil of her children, she has taken possession ofevery point and position of an island, --New Holland (Australia), --whichis as large as a continent; and she has been sending forth her freshshoots over all the archipelagos with which the great ocean is studded. The United States have swollen out to a prodigious extent, in wealthand possessions, over the surface of their ancient domain. They have, moreover, enlarged on all sides the limits of that domain, ancientlyconfined to a narrow stripe along the shores of the Atlantic. They nowsit on the two oceans. San Francisco has become the pendant of New York, and promises speedily to rival it in its destinies. They have provedtheir superiority over the Catholic nations of the New World, and havesubjected them to a dictatorship which admits of no farther dispute. Tothe authority of these two Powers, --England and the UnitedStates, --after an attempt made by the former on China, the two mostrenowned empires of the East, --empires which represent nearly thenumerical half of the human race, --China and Japan, --seem to be on thepoint of yielding. Russia, again, appears to be assuming every day aposition of growing importance in Europe. During all this time, what wayhas been made by the Catholic nations? The foremost of them all, themost compact, the most glorious, --France, --which seemed fifty years agoto have mounted the throne of civilization, has seen, through a courseof strange disasters, her sceptre shivered and her power dissolved. Onceand again has she risen to her feet, with noble courage and indomitableenergy; but every time, as all expected to see her take a rapid flightupward, fate has sent her, as a curse from God, a revolution to paralyzeher efforts, and make her miserably fall back. Unquestionably, since1789 the balance of power between Catholic civilization and non-Catholiccivilization has been reversed. "

CHAPTER XVI. 

PADUA. 

 Doves of Venice--Re-cross the Lagunes--Padua--Wretchedness of Interior--Misery of its Inhabitants--Splendour of its Churches--The Shrine of St Antony--His Sermon to a Congregation of Fishes--A Restaurant in Padua--Reach the Po at Day-break--Enter Peter's Patrimony--Find the Apostles again become Fishermen and Tax-Gatherers--Arrest--Liberty. 

Contenting myself with a hasty perusal of the great work on paintingwhich the academy forms, and which it had taken so many ages and so manyvarious masters to produce, I returned again to the square of St Mark. Doves in thousands were assembled on the spot, hovering on wing at thewindows of the houses, or covering the pavement below, at the risk, asit seemed, of being trodden upon by the passengers. I inquired at mycompanion what this meant. He told me that a rich old gentleman by lastwill and testament had bequeathed a certain sum to be expended infeeding these fowls, and that, duly as the great clock in the Gothictower struck two, a certain quantity of corn was every day thrown from awindow in the piazza. Every dove in the "Republic" is punctual to aminute. There doves have come to acquire a sort of sacred character, and it would be about as hazardous to kill a dove in Venice, as of old acat in Egypt. We wish some one would do as much for the beggars, whichare yet more numerous, and who know no more, when they get up in themorning, where they are to be fed, than do the fowls of heaven. Tradethere is none; "to dig, " they have no land, and, even if they had, theyare too indolent; they want, too, the dove's wing to fly away to somehappier country. Their seas have shut them in; their marble city is buta splendid prison. The story of Venice is that of Tyre over again, --herwealth, her glory, her luxuriousness, and now her doom. But we mustleave her. Bidding adieu, on the stairs of St Mark, to the partner ofthe day's explorations, with a regret which those only can understandwho have had the good fortune to meet an intelligent and estimablecompanion in a foreign land, I leaped into a gondola, and glided away, leaving Venice sitting in silent melancholy beauty amid her tidelessseas. 

Traversing again the long bridge over the Lagunes, and the flat countrybeyond, covered with memorials of decay in the shape of dilapidatedvillas, and crossing the full-volumed Brenta, rolling on within itslofty embankments, I sighted the fine Tyrolean Alps on the right, and, after a run of twenty-four miles, the gray towers of Padua, at about amile's distance from the railway, on the left. 

Poor Padua! Who could enter it without weeping almost. Of all thewretched and ruinous places I ever saw, this is the most wretched andruinous, --hopelessly, incurably ruinous. Padua does, indeed, lookimposing at a little distance. Its fine dome, its numerous towers, thelarge vine-stocks which are rooted in its soil, the air of vastfertility which is spread over the landscape, and the halo of formerglory which, cloud-like, rests above it, consort well with one'spreconceived ideas of this once illustrious seat of learning, whicheven the youth of our own land were wont to frequent; but enterit, --alas the dismal sight!--ruins, filth, ignorance, poverty, on everyhand. The streets are narrow and gloomy, from being lined with heavy anddark arcades; the houses, which are large, and bear marks of formeropulence, are standing in many instances untenanted. Not a few statelymansions have been converted into stables, or carriers' sheds, or aresimply naked walls, which the dogs of the city, or other creatures, maketheir den. The inhabitants, pale, emaciated, and wrapt in huge cloaks, wander through the streets like ghosts. Were Padua a heap of ruins, without a single human being on or near its site, its desolation wouldbe less affecting. An unbearable melancholy sat down upon me the momentI entered it, and the recollection oppresses me at the distance of threeyears. 

In the midst of all this ruin and poverty, there rise I know not howmany duomos and churches, with fine cupolas and towers, as if they meantto mock the misery upon which they look. They are the repositories ofvast wealth, in the shape of silver lamps, votive offerings, paintings, and marbles. To appropriate a penny of that treasure in behalf of thewretched beings who swarm unfed and untaught in their neighbourhood, would bring down upon Padua the terrible ire of their great god StAntony. He is there known as "Il Santo" (the saint), and has a gorgeoustemple erected in his honour, crowned with not less than eight cupolas, and illuminated day and night by golden lamps and silver candlesticks, which burn continually before his shrine. "There are narrow clefts inthe monument that stands over him, " says Addison, "where good Catholicsrub their beads, and smell his bones, which they say have in them anatural perfume, though very like apoplectic balsam; and, what wouldmake one suspect that they rub the marble with it, it is observed thatthe scent is stronger in the morning than at night. " Were the preciousmetals and the costly marbles which are stored up in this churchtransmuted into current coin, the whole province of Padua might besupplied with ploughs and other needful implements of agriculture. Butit is better that nature alone should cultivate their fields, and thatthe Paduans should eat only what she is pleased to provide for them, than that, by robbing the shrine of St Antony, they should forfeit thegood esteem of so powerful a patron, "the thrice holy Antony of Padua;the powerful curer of leprosy, tremendous driver away of devils, restorer of limbs, stupendous discoverer of lost things, great andwonderful defender from all dangers. "

The miracles and great deeds of "the saint" are recorded on the tabletsand bas-reliefs of the church. His most memorable exploit was his"preaching to an assembly of fishes, " whom, "when the heretics would notregard his preaching, " says his biographer, "he called together, in thename of God, to hear his holy Word. " The congregation and the sermonwere both extraordinary; and, if any reader is curious to see what asaint could have to say to a congregation of fishes, he will find theoration quoted _ad longam_ in "Addison's Travels. " The mule on whichthis great man rode was nearly as remarkable as his master. With adevotion worthy of the mule of St Antony, he left his hay, after a longfast, to be present at mass. The modern Paduans, from what I saw ofthem, fast quite as oft and as long as Antony's mule; whether they areequally punctual at mass I do not know. 

My stay in Padua extended only from four in the afternoon till nine atnight. The hours wore heavily, and I sought for a restaurant where Imight dine. I was fortunate enough at length to discover a vast hall, orshed I should rather say, which was used as a restaurant. Some rich andnoble Paduan had called it his in other days; now it received as gueststhe courier and the wayfarer. Its massive walls were quite naked, andenclosed an apartment so spacious, that its extremities were lost indarkness. Some dozen of small tables, all ready for dinner being servedupon them, occupied the floor; and some three or four persons wereseated at dinner. I took my seat at one of the tables, and was instantlyserved with capillini soup, and the usual _et ceteras_. I made a goodrepast, despite the haunted look of the chamber. On the conclusion of mydinner I repaired to the market-place, and, till the hour of _diligence_should arrive, I began pacing the pavement beneath the shadow of thetown-hall, which looks as if it had been built as a kind of anticipationof the crystal palace, and the roof of which is said to be the largestunsupported by pillars in the world. It covers--so the Paduansbelieve--the bones of Livy, who is claimed as a native of Padua. It washere Petrarch died, which has given occasion to Lazzarini to jointogether the cradle of the historian and the tomb of the poet, in thefollowing lines addressed to Padua:--

 Here was he born whose lasting page displays Rome's brightest triumphs, and who painted best; Fit style for heroes, nor to shun the test, Though Grecian art should vie, and Attic lays. And here thy tuneful swan, Arezzo lies, Who gave his Laura deathless name; than whom No bard with sweeter grace has poured the song. O, happy seat! O, favoured by the skies! What store and store is thine, to whom belong So rich a cradle and so rich a tomb!

I bought a pennyworth of grapes from one of the poor stall-keepers, and, in return for my coin, had my two extended palms literally heaped. I cansafely say that the vine of Padua has not declined; the fruit wasdelicious; and, after making my way half through my purchase, Icollected a few hungry boys, and divided the fragments amongst them. 

It was late and dark when, ensconced in the interior of the _diligence_, we trundled out of the poor ruined town. The night was dreary andsomewhat cold; I courted sleep, but it came not. My companions weremostly young Englishmen, but not of the intellectual stamp of thecompanion from whom I had parted that morning on the quay of Venice. They appeared to be travelling about mainly to look at pictures andsmoke cigars. As to learning anything, they ridiculed the idea of such athing in a country where there "was no society. " It did not seem to haveoccurred to them that it might be worth while learning how it had cometo pass that, in a country where one stumbles at every step on thestupendous memorials of a past civilization and knowledge, there is nowno society. At length, after many hours' riding, we drew up before atall white house, which the gray coat and bayonet of the Croat, and thedemand for passports, told me was a police office. It was the lastdogana on the Austrian territory. We were next requested to leave the_diligence_ for a little. The day had not yet broke, but I could seethat we were on the brink of a deep and broad river, which we werepreparing to cross, but how, I could not discover, for I could see nobridge, but only something like a raft moored by the margin of thestream. On this frail craft we embarked, horses, _diligence_, passengers, and all; and, launching out upon the impetuous current, wereached, after a short navigation, the opposite shore. The river we hadcrossed was the Po, and the craft which had carried us over was a _pontcolant_, or flying bridge. This was the frontier of the Papal States;and now, for the first time, I found myself treading the sacred soil ofPeter's patrimony. 

Peter, in the days of his flesh, was a fisherman; but some of hisbrother apostles were tax-gatherers; and here was the receipt of customagain set up. Both "toll" and "fishing-net, " I had understood, wereforsaken when their Master called them; but on my arrival I found theapostles all busy at their old trades: some fishing for men at Rome; andothers, at the frontiers, levying tribute, both of "the children" and of"strangers;" for on looking up, I could see by the dim light a lowbuilding, like an American log-house, standing at a little distance fromthe river's brink, with a huge sign-board stuck up over the door, emblazoned with the keys and the tiara. This told me that I was in thepresence of the Apostolic Police-Office, --an ecclesiastical institutionwhich, I doubt not, has its authority somewhere in the New Testament, though I cannot say that I have ever met with the passage in my readingsin that book; but that, doubtless, is because I want the Church'sspectacles. 

When one gets his name inserted in an Italian way-bill, he delivers uphis passport to the _conducteur_, who makes it his business to have itviséed at the several stations which are planted thick along all theItalian routes, --the owner, of course, reckoning for the charges at theend of the journey. In accordance with this custom, our _conducteur_entered the shed-like building I have mentioned, to lay his way-bill andhis passports before the officials within. In the interim, we took ourplaces in the vehicle. The _conducteur_ was in no hurry to return, but Idreaded no evil. I had had a wakeful night; and now, throwing myselfinto my nook in the _diligence_, the stillness favoured sleep, and I washalf unconscious, when I found some one pulling at my shoulder, andcalling on me to leave the carriage. "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Your passport is not _en règle_, " was the reply. "My passport notright!" I answered in astonishment; "it has been viséed at everypolice-office betwixt and London; and especially at those of Austria, under whose suzerainty the territory of Ferrara is, and no one mayprevent me entering the Papal States. " The man coolly replied, "Youcannot go an inch farther with us;" and proceeded to take down myluggage, and deposit it on the bank. I stept out, and bade the manconduct me to the people inside. Passing under the papal arms, wethreaded a long narrow passage, --turned to the left, --traversed anotherlong passage, --turned to the left again, and stood in a little chamberdimly lighted by a solitary lamp. The apartment was divided by a bench, behind which sat two persons, --the one a little withered old man, withsmall piercing eyes, and the other very considerably younger and taller, and with a face on which anxiety or mistrust had written fewer sinisterlines. They quickly told me that my passport was not right, and that Icould not enter the Papal States. I asked them to hand me the littlevolume; and, turning over its pages, I traced with them my progress fromLondon to the Po, and showed that, on the testimony of everypassport-office and legation, I was a good man and true up to thefurther banks of their river; and that if I was other now, I must havebecome so in crossing, or since touching their soil. They gave me tounderstand, in reply, that all these testimonies went for nothing, seeing I wanted the _imprimatur_ of the papal consul in Venice. Iassured them that omission was owing to misinformation I had received inVenice; that the Valet de Place (an authority in all such matters) atthe Albergo dell' Europa had assured me that the two visées I had got inVenice were quite enough; and that the pontifical visée could beobtained in Ferrara or Bologna; and entreated them to permit me to go onto Ferrara, where I would lay my passport before the authorities, andhave the error rectified. I shall never forget the emphasis with whichthe younger of the two officials replied, "Non possum. " I had oftendeclined "possum" to my old schoolmaster in former days, little dreamingthat I was to hear the vocable pronounced with such terrible meaning ina little cell, at day-break, on the banks of the Po. The postilioncracked his whip, --I saw the _diligence_ move off, --and the sound of itsretreating wheels seemed like a farewell to friends and home. A sad, desolate feeling weighed upon me as I turned to the faces of thepolice-officers and gendarmes in whose power I was left. We all wentback together into the little apartment of the passport office, where Iopened a conversation with them, in order to discover what was to bedone with me, --whether I was to be sent back to Venice, or home toEngland, or simply thrown into the Po. I made rapid progress in myItalian studies that day; and had it been my hap to be arrested a dozendays on end by the papal authorities, I should by that time have been afluent Italian speaker. The result of much questioning and explanationwas, that if I liked to forward a petition to the authorities inFerrara, accompanied by my passport, I should be permitted to wait whereI was till an answer could be returned. It was my only alternative; and, hiring a special messenger, I sent him off with my passport, and apetition craving permission to enter "the States, " addressed to thePontifical Legation at Ferrara. Meanwhile, I had a gendarme to take careof me. 

To while away the time, I sallied out, and sauntered along the banks ofthe river. It was now full day: and the cheerful light, and the nobleface of the Po, --here a superb stream, equal almost to the Rhine atCologne, --rolling on to the Adriatic, chased away my pensiveness. Theriver here flows between lofty embankments, --the adjoining lands beingbelow its level, and reminding one of Holland; and were anyextraordinary inundation to happen among the Alps, and force theembankments of the Po, the territory around Ferrara, if not also thatcity itself, would infallibly be drowned. A few lighters and smallcraft, lifting their sails to the morning sun, were floating down thecurrent; and here and there on the banks was a white villa, --the remainsof that noble setting of palaces which adorned the Po when the House ofD'Este vied in wealth and splendour with the larger courts of Europe. Prisoners must have breakfast; and I found a poor café in the littlevillage, where I got a cup of coffee and an egg, --the latter unboiled, by the way; and discussed my meal in presence of the gendarme, who satopposite me. 

Toward noon the messenger returned, and to my joy brought back the papalpermission to enter "the States. " Light and short as my constraint hadbeen, it was sufficient to make me feel what a magic influence is inliberty. I could again go whither I would; and the poor village of PonteLagoscuro, and even the faces of the two officials, assumed a kindlieraspect. Bidding these last, whose Italian urbanity had won upon me, adieu, I started on foot for Ferrara, which lay on the plain some fivemiles in advance. The road thither was a magnificent one; but I learnedafterwards that I had Napoleon to thank for it; but alas, what a picturethe country presented! The water was allowed to stagnate along the path, and a thick, green scurf had gathered upon it. The rich black soil wascovered with weeds, and the few houses I saw were mere hovels. The sunshone brilliantly, however, and strove to gild this scene of neglect andwretchedness. The day was the 28th of October, and the heat was that ofa choice summer day in Scotland, with a much balmier air. I hurried onalong the deserted road, and soon, on emerging from a wood, sighted thetown of Ferrara, which stretched along the plain in a low line ofroofs, with a few towers breaking the uniformity. Presenting my "pass"to the sentinel at the barrier, I entered the city in which Calvin hadfound an asylum and Tasso a prison. 

Poor fallen Ferrara! Commerce, learning, the arts, religion, had byturns shed a glory upon it. Now all is over; and where the "Queen of thePo" had been, there sits on the darkened plain a poor city, moulderinginto dust, with the silence of a sepulchre around it. I entered thesuburbs, but sound of human voice there was none; not a single humanbeing could I see. It might be ages since these streets were trodden, for aught that appeared. The doors were closed, and the windows werestanchioned with iron. In many cases there was neither door nor window;but the house stood open to receive the wind or rain, the fowls ofheaven, or the dogs of the city, if any such there were. I passed on, and drew nigh the centre of the town; and now there began to be visiblesome signs of vitality. Struck at the extremities, life had retreated tothe heart. A square castellated building of red brick, surrounded on allsides by a deep moat, filled with the water of the Po, and guarded byAustrian soldiers, upreared its towers before me. This was the PapalLegation. I entered it, and found my passport waiting me; and the tiaraand the keys, emblazoned on its pages, told me that I was free of thePapal States. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

FERRARA. 

 Lovely in its Ruins--Number and Wealth of its Churches--Tasso's Prison--Renée's Palace--Calvin's Chamber--Influence of Woman on the Reformation--Renée and her Band--Re-union above--Utter Decay of its Trade, its Manufactures, its Knowledge. 

Even in its ruins Ferrara is lovely. It wears in the tomb the sunsethues of beauty. Its streets run out in straight lines, and are of noblebreadth and length. Unencumbered with the heavy arcades that darkenPadua, the marble fronts of its palaces rise to a goodly height, coveredwith rich but exceedingly sweet and chaste designs. On the stone oftheir pilasters and door-posts the ilex puts forth its leaf, and thevine its grapes; and the carving is as fresh and sharp, in manyinstances, as if the chisel were but newly laid aside. But it ismelancholy to see the long grass waving on its causeways, and the ivyclinging to the deserted doorways and balconies of palatial residences, and to hear the echoes of one's foot sounding drearily in the emptystreet. 

I passed the afternoon in visiting the churches. There is no end ofthese, and night fell before I had got half over them. It amazes one tofind in the midst of ruins such noble buildings, overflowing withwealth. Pictures, statuary, marbles, and precious metals, dazzle, and atlast weary, the traveller, and form a strange contrast to the desolatefields, the undrained swamps, the mouldering tenements, and the beggarlypopulation, that are collected around them. Of the churches of Ferrara, we may say as Addison of the shrine of Loretto, "It is indeed an amazingthing to see such a prodigious quantity of riches lie dead anduntouched, in the midst of so much poverty and misery as reign on allsides of them. If these riches were all turned into current coin, andemployed in commerce, they would make Italy the most flourishing countryin the world. "

Two objects specially invited my attention in Ferrara: the one was theprison of Tasso, --the other the palace of Renée, the Duchess of Ferrara. Tasso's prison is a mere vault in the courtyard of the hospital of StAnna, built up at one end with a brick wall, and closed at the other bya low and strong door. The floor is so damp that it yields to the foot;and the arched roof is so low that there is barely room to standupright. I strongly doubt whether Tasso, or any other man, could havepassed seven years in this cell and come out alive. It is written allover within and without with names, some of them illustrious ones. "Byron" is conspicuous in the crowd, cut in strong square characters inthe stone; and near him is "Lamartine, " in more graceful but smallerletters. 

Tasso seems to have regarded his country as a prisoner not less thanhimself, and to have strung his harp at times to bewail its captivity. The dungeon "in which Alphonso bade his poet dwell" was dreary enough, but that of Italy was drearier still; for it is Italy, fully more thanthe poet, that may be regarded as speaking in the following lines, whichfurnish evidence that, along with Dante, and all the great minds of theperiod, Torquato Tasso had seen the hollowness of the Papal Church, andfelt the galling bondage which that Church inflicts on both theintellect and the soul. 

 "O God, from this Egyptian land of woe, Teeming with idols and their monstrous train, O'er which the galling yoke that I sustain Like Nilus makes my tears to overflow, To thee, her land of rest, my soul would go: But who, ah! who will break my servile chain? Who through the deep, and o'er the desert plain Will aid and cheer me, and the path will show? Shall God, indeed, the fowls and manna strew, -- My daily bread? and dare I to implore Thy pillar and thy cloud to guide me, Lord? Yes, he may hope for all who trusts thy word. O then thy miracles in me renew; Thine be the glory, and my boasting o'er. "

From the reputed prison of Tasso I went to see the roof which hadsheltered the presiding intellect of the Reformation, --John Calvin. Tasso's glory is like a star, burning with a lovely light in the deepazure; Calvin's is like the sun, whose waxing splendour is irradiatingtwo hemispheres. The palace of the illustrious Renée, --now the Austrianand Papal Legations, and literally a barrack for soldiers, --has nopretensions to beauty. Amid the graceful but decaying fabrics of thecity, it erects its square unadorned mass of dull red, edged with astrip of lawn, a few cypresses, and a moat brim-full of water, which notonly surrounds it on all sides, but intersects it by means of arches, and makes the castle almost a miniature of Venice. Good part of theinterior is occupied as passport offices and guard-rooms. The staircaseis of noble dimensions. Some of the rooms are princely, their panellingsbeing mostly covered with paintings, but not of the first excellence. The small room in the southern quadrangle which Calvin is said to haveoccupied is now fitted up as an oratory; and a very pretty littleshow-room it is, with its marble altar-piece, its silver candlesticks, its crucifixes, and, in short, all the paraphernalia of such places. Ifthere be any efficacy in holy water, the little chamber must by thistime be effectually cleansed from the sad defilement of thearch-heretic. 

Ferrara is indissolubly connected with the Reformation in Italy. Infact, it was the centre of the movement in the south of the Alps. Thisdistinction it owed to its being the residence of Renée, the daughter ofLouis XII. Of France, and wife of Hercules II. , Duke of Ferrara. Thislady, to a knowledge of the ancient classics and contemporaryliterature, and the most amiable and generous dispositions, added a deeplove of evangelical truth, and gladly extended shelter to the friends ofthe Reformation, whom persecution now forced to leave their nativecountry. Thus there came to be assembled round her a galaxy of talent, learning, and piety. If we except John Calvin, who was known during hisbrief sojourn of three months as Charles Heppeville, the two noblestminds in this illustrious band were women, --Renée and Olympia Morata. The cause of the Reformation lies under great obligations to woman;though the part she acted in that great drama has never beensufficiently acknowledged. [2] In the heart of woman, when sanctified byDivine grace, there lies concealed under a veil of gentleness andapparent timidity, a fund of fortitude and lofty resolution, whichrequires a fitting occasion to draw it forth; but when that occasionarrives, there is seen the strength and grandeur of the femalecharacter. For woman, whatever is noble, beautiful, and sublime, haspeculiar attractions. A just cause, overborne by power or numbers, appeals peculiarly to her unselfish nature; and thus it has happenedthat the Reformation sometimes found in woman its most devoted discipleand its most undaunted champion. Who can tell how much the firmness andperseverance of the more prominent actors in these struggles were owingto her wise and affectionate counsels? And not only has she been thecounsellor of man, --she has willingly shared his sufferings; and thesame deep sensibility which renders her so shrinking on ordinaryoccasions, has at these times given her unconquerable strength, andraised her above the desolation of a prison, --above the shame and horrorof a scaffold. Of such mould were the two illustrious women I havementioned, --the accomplished Renée, the daughter of a king of France, and the yet more accomplished Olympia Morata, the daughter of aschoolmaster and citizen of Mantua. 

To me these halls were sacred, for the feet which had trodden them threecenturies ago. They were thronged with Austrian soldiers and passportofficials; but I could people them with the mighty dead. How often hadRenée assembled her noble band in this very chamber! How often here hadthat illustrious circle consulted on the steps proper to be taken foradvancing their great cause! How often had they indulged alternate fearsand hopes, as they thought now of the power arrayed against them, andnow of the progress of the truth, and the confessors it was calling toits aid in every city of Italy! And when the deliberations and prayersof the day were ended, they would assemble on this lawn, to enjoy, underthese cypresses, the delicious softness of the Italian twilight. Ah! whocan tell the exquisite sweetness of such re-unions! and howinexpressibly soothing and welcome to men whom persecution had forcedto flee from their native land, must it have been to find so secure ahaven as this so unexpectedly opened to receive them! But ah! too soonwere they forced out upon an ocean of storms. They were driven todifferent countries and to various fates, --some to a life of exhaustinglabour and conflict, some to exile, and some to the stake. But all thisis over now: they dread the dungeon and the stake no more; they arewanderers no longer, having come to a land of rest. Renée has once againgathered her bright band around her, under skies whose light no cloudshall ever darken, and whose calm no storm shall ever ruffle. But dothey not still remember and still speak of the consultations and sweetcommunings which they had together under the shady cypress trees, andthe still, rich twilights of Ferrara?

Ferrara was the first town subject to the Pope I had entered; and I hadhere an opportunity of marking the peculiar benefits which attendinfallible government. This city is only less wretched than Padua; andthe difference seems to lie rather in the more cheerful look of itsbuildings, than in any superior wealth or comfort enjoyed by its people. Its trade is equally ruined; it is even more empty of inhabitants; itswalls, of seven miles' circuit, enclose but a handful of men, and thesehave a wasted and sickly look, owing to the unhealthy character of thecountry around. The view from its ramparts reminded me of the prospectfrom the walls of York. The plain is equally level; the soil isnaturally more rich; but the drainage and cultivation of the Englishlandscape are wanting. The town once enjoyed a flourishing trade inhemp, --an article which found its way to our dockyards; but this branchof traffic now scarcely exists. The native manufactures of Ferrara havebeen ruined; and a feeble trade in corn is almost all that is left it. How is this? Is its soil less fertile? Has its natural canal, the Po, dried up? No; but the Government, afraid perhaps that its fields wouldyield too plenteously, its artizans become too ingenious, and itscitizens too wealthy in foreign markets, has laid a heavy duty on itsexports, and on every article of home manufacture. Hence the desolatePolesina without, and the extinct forges and empty workshops within, itswalls. A city whose manufactures were met with in all the markets ofEurope is now dependent for its own supply on the Swiss. The ruin of itstrade dates from its annexation to the Papal States. The decay ofintelligence has kept pace with that of trade. At the beginning of thesixteenth century Ferrara was one of the lights of Europe: now I knownot that there is a single scholar in its university; and its library ofeighty thousand volumes and nine hundred manuscripts, among which arethe Greek palimpsests of Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom, and themanuscripts of Ariosto and Tasso, is becoming, equally with Ariosto'sdust, which reposes in its halls, the prey of the worm. 

I have to thank the papal police at Ponte Lagoscuro for the opportunityof seeing Ferrara; for, with the bad taste which most travellers inItaly display on this head, I had overlooked this town, and bookedmyself right through to Bologna. I lodged at a fine old hotel, whosespacious apartments left me in no doubt that it had once belonged tosome of the princely families of Ferrara. I saw there, however, men whohad "a lean and hungry look, " and not such as Cæsar wished to have abouthim, --"fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights;" and mysuspicions which were awakened at the time have since unfortunately beenconfirmed, for I read in the newspapers, rather more than a year ago, that the landlord had been shot. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES. 

 Road from Ferrara to Bologna--Wayside Oratories--Miserable Cultivation--Barbarism of People--Aspect of Bologna--Streets, Galleries, and Churches of its Interior--Decay of Art--San Petronio--View of Plain from Hill behind Bologna--Tyranny of Government--Night Arrests--Ruinous Taxation--Departure from Bologna--Brigands--The Apennines--Storm among these Mountains--Two Russian Travellers--Dinner at the Tuscan Frontier--Summit of the Pass--Halt for the Night at a Country Inn--The Hostess and her Company--Supper--Resume Journey next Morning--First Sight of Florence. 

On the morrow at ten I took my departure for Bologna. It was sweet toexchange the sickly faces and unnatural silence of the city for thebright sun and the living trees. The road was good, --so very good, thatit took me by surprise. It was not in keeping with the surroundingbarbarism. Instead of a hard-bottomed, macadamized highway, whichtraversed the plain in a straight line, bordered by noble trees, Ishould have expected to find in this region of mouldering towns andneglected fields, a narrow, winding, rutted path, ploughed by torrentsand obstructed by boulders; and so, I am sure, I should have done, hadany of the native governments of Italy had the making of this road. Butit had been designed and executed by Napoleon; and hence its excellence. His roads alone would have immortalized him. They remain, after all hisvictories have perished, to attest his genius. Would that that geniushad been turned to the arts of peace! Conquerors would do well to ponderthe eulogium pronounced on a humble tailor who built a bridge out of hissavings, --that the world owed more to the scissors of that man than tothe sword of some conquerors. 

Along the road, at short intervals, were little temples, where goodCatholics who had a mind might perform their devotions. This reminded methat I was now in Peter's patrimony, --the holy land of Romanism; andwhere, it was presumed, the wayfarer would catch the spirit of devotionfrom the soil and air. The hour of prayer might be past, --I know not;but I saw no one in these oratories. Little shrines were perched uponthe trees, formed sometimes of boards, at others simply of the cavity ofthe trunk; while the boughs were bent so as to form a canopy over them. Little images and pictures had been stuck into these shrines; but therooks, --these black republicans, --like the "reds" at Rome, had waged awar for possession, and, pitching overboard the little gods thatoccupied them, were inhabiting in their room. The "great powers" weretoo busy, or had been so, in the restoration of greater personages, totake up the quarrel of these minor divinities. A strange silence anddreariness brooded over the region. The land seemed keeping itsSabbaths. The fields rested, --the villages were asleep, --the road wasuntrodden. Had one been dropt from the clouds, he would have concludedthat it was but a century or so since the Flood, and that these were therude primitive great-grandchildren of Noah, who had just found their wayinto these parts, and were slowly emerging from barbarism. The fieldsaround afforded little indication of such an instrument as the plough;and one would have concluded from the garments of the people, that theloom was among the yet uninvented arts. The harnessings of the horsesformed a curiously tangled web of thong, and rope, and thread, twisted, tied, and knotted. It would have puzzled OEdipus himself to discoverhow a horse could ever be got into such gear, or, being in, how it evercould be got out. There seemed a most extraordinary number of beggarsand vagabonds in Peter's patrimony. A little congregation of theseworthies waited our arrival at every village, and whined round us foralms so long as we remained. Others, not quite so ragged, stood aloof, regarding us fixedly, as if devising some pretext on which to claim apaul of us. There were worse characters in the neighbourhood, thoughhappily we saw none of them. But at certain intervals we met theAustrian patrol, whose duty it was to clear the road of brigands. Peter, it appeared to us, kept strange company about him, --idlers, beggars, vagabonds, and brigands. It must vex the good man much to find his dearchildren disgracing him so in the eyes of strangers. 

These dismal scenes accompanied us half the way. We then entered theBolognese, and things began to look a little better. Bologna, thoughunder the Papal Government, has long been famous for nourishing a hardy, liberty-loving people, though, if report does them justice, extremelylicentious and infidel. Its motto is "_libertas_;" and the air ofliberty is favourable, it would seem, to vegetation; for the fieldslooked greener the moment we had crossed the barrier. Soon we werecharmed with the sight of Bologna. Its appearance is indeed imposing, and gives promise of something like life and industry within its walls. A noble cluster of summits, --an offshoot of the Apennines, --risesbehind the city, crowned with temples and towers. Within their boskydeclivities, from which tall cypress-trees shoot up, lie emboweredvillas and little watch-towers, with their glittering vanes. At the footof the hill is spread out the noble city, with its leaning towers andits tall minaret-looking steeples. The approach to the walls reminded methat below these ramparts sleeps Ugo Bassi. I afterwards searched forhis resting-place, but could find no one who either would or could showme his tomb. A more eloquent declaimer than even Gavazzi, I have beenassured by those who knew him, was silenced when Ugo Bassi fell beneaththe murderous fire of the Croat's musket. 

After the death-like desertion and silence of Ferrara, the feeble bustleof Bologna seemed like a return to the world and its ways. Its streetsare lined with covered porticoes, less heavy than those of Padua, butharbouring after nightfall, says the old traveller ARCHENHOLTZ, robbersand murderers, of whom the latter are the more numerous. He accounts forthis by saying, that whereas the robber has to make restitution beforereceiving absolution, the murderer, whether condemned to die or set atliberty, receives full pardon, without the "double labour, " as Sir JohnFalstaff called it, of "paying back. " Its hundred churches are vastmuseums of sculpture and painting. Its university, which the Bologneseboast is the oldest in Europe, rivalled Padua in its glory, and nowrivals it in its decay. Its two famous leaning towers, --the rent in thebottom of one is quite visible, --are bending from age, and will one daytopple over, and pour a deluge of old bricks upon the adjoiningtenements. Its "Academy of the Fine Arts" is, after Rome and Florence, the finest in Italy. It is filled with the works of the Caracci, Domenichino, Guido Albani, and others of almost equal celebrity. I am nojudge of such matters; and therefore my reader need lay no stress uponmy criticisms; but it appeared to me, that some paintings placed in thefirst rank had not attained that excellence. The highly-praised "Victoryof Sampson over the Philistines, " I felt, wanted the grandeur of theHebrew Judge on this the greatest occasion of his life; although it gaveyou a very excellent representation of a thirsty man drinking, with rowsof prostrate people in the background. Other pieces were disfigured byglaring anachronisms in time and dress. The artist evidently had drawnhis inspiration, not from the _Bible_, but from the _Cathedral_. TheApostles in some cases had the faces of monks, and looked as if they haddivided their time betwixt Liguori and the wine-flagon. SeveralScriptural personages were attired in an ecclesiastical dress, whichmust have been made by some tailor of the sixteenth century. But thereis one picture in that gallery that impressed me more than any otherpicture I ever saw. It is a painting of the Crucifixion by Guido. Thebackground is a dark thundery mass of cloud, resting angrily above thedimly-seen roofs and towers of Jerusalem. There is "darkness over allthe land;" and in the foreground, and relieved by the darkness, standsthe cross, with the sufferer. On the left is John, looking up withundying affection. On the right is Mary, --calm, but with eyes full ofunutterable sorrow. Mary Magdalene embraces the foot of the cross: herface and upper parts are finely shaded; but her attitude and form arestrongly expressive of reverence, affection, and profound grief. Thereare no details: the piece is simple and great. There are no attempts toproduce effect by violent manifestations of grief. Hope is gone, butlove remains; and there before you are the parties standing calm andsilent, with their great sorrow. 

It so happened that the exhibition of the works of living artists wasopen at the time, and I had a good opportunity of comparing the presentwith the past race of Italian painters. I soon found that the race ofGuidos was extinct, and that the pencil of the masters had fallen intothe hands of but poor copyists. The present artists of Italy have givenover painting saints and Scripture-pieces, and work mostly in portraitsand landscapes. They paint, of course, what will sell; and the publictaste appears decidedly to have changed. There was a great dearth ofgood historical, imaginative, and allegorical subjects; too often anattempt was visible to give interest to a piece by an appeal to thebaser passions. But the living artists of that country fall below notonly their great predecessors, but even the artists of Scotland. Thisexhibition in Bologna did not by any means equal in excellence orinterest the similar exhibition opened every spring in Edinburgh. Thestatuary displayed only beauty and voluptuousness of form: it wanted thesimple energy and the chastened grandeur of expression whichcharacterize the statuary of the ancients, and which have made it theadmiration of all ages. 

The only god whom the Bolognese worship is San Petronio. His temple, inwhich Charles V. Was crowned by Clement VII. , stands in the PiazzaMaggiore, the forum of Bologna in the middle ages, and rivals the"Academy" itself in its paintings and sculptures. Though the façade isnot finished, nor likely soon to be, it is one of the largest churchesin Italy, and is a fine specimen of the Italian Gothic. In a little sidechapel is the head of San Petronius himself, certified by Benedict XIV. On the forms on the cathedral floor lie little framed pictures of thesaint, with a prayer addressed to him. I saw a country girl enter thechurch, drop on her knees, kiss the picture, and recite the prayer. Iafterwards read this prayer, though not on bended knee; and can certifythat a grosser piece of idolatry never polluted human lips. Petroniowas addressed by the same titles in which the Almighty is usuallyapproached; as, "the most glorious, " "the most merciful. "

 "Towards him they bend With awful reverence prone; and as a god Extol him equal to the Highest in heaven. "

Higher blessings, whether for time or for eternity, than those for whichthe devotee was directed to supplicate San Petronio, man needs not, andGod has not to bestow. Daily bread, protection from danger, grace tolove San Petronio, grace to serve San Petronio, pardon, a happy death, deliverance from hell, and eternal felicity in Paradise, --all whooffered this prayer, --and other prayer was unheard beneath thatroof, --supplicated of San Petronio. The Church of Rome affirms that shedoes not pray _to the_ saints, but _through_ them, --namely, asintercessors with Christ and God. This is no justification of thepractice, though it were the fact; but it is not the fact. In protestantcountries she may insert the name of God at the end of her prayers; butin popish countries she does not deem it needful to observe thisformality. The name of Christ and of God rarely occurs in her popularformulas. In the Duomo of Bologna, the only god supplicated, --the onlygod known, --is San Petronio. The tendency of the worship of the Churchof Rome is to efface God from the knowledge and the love of her members. And so completely has this result been realized, that, as one said, "Youmight steal God from them without their knowing it. " Indeed, that "Greatand Dreadful Name" might be blotted out from the few prayers of thatChurch in which it is still retained, and its worship would go on asbefore. What possible change would take place in the Duomo of SanPetronio at Bologna, and in thousands of other churches in Italy, though Rome was to decree in _words_, as she does in _deeds_, that"_there is no God_?"

On the second day of my stay at Bologna I ascended the fine hill on thenorth of the city. A noble pillared arcade of marble, three miles inlength, leads up to the summit. At every twelve yards or so is analcove, with a florid painting of some saint; and at each station sits apoor old woman, who begs an alms of you, in the name of the saintbeneath whose picture she spins her thread, --her own thread being nearlyended. There met me here a regiment of little priests, of about anhundred in number, none of whom seemed more than ten years of age, andall of whom wore shoes with buckles, silk stockings, breeches, a looseflowing robe, a white-edged stock, and shovel hat, --in short, miniaturepriests in dress, in figure, and in everything save their greatersportiveness. On the summit is a magnificent church, containing one ofthose black madonnas ascribed to Luke, and said to have been broughthither by a hermit from Constantinople in the twelfth century. Be thisas it may, the black image serves the Bolognese for an occasion of anannual festival, kept with fully as much hilarity as devotion. 

From the summit one looks far and wide over Italy. Below is spread outthe plain of Lombardy, level as the sea, and as thickly studded withwhite villas as the heavens with stars. On the north, the cities ofMantua and Verona, and numerous other towns and villages, are visible. On the east, the towers and cathedral roofs of Ferrara are seen risingabove the woods that cover the plain; and the view is bounded by theAdriatic, which, like a thin line of blue, runs along the horizon. Onthe south and west is the hill country of the Apennines, among whoseserrated peaks and cleft sides is many a lovely dell, rich in waters, and vines, and olive trees. The distant country towards theMediterranean lay engulphed in a white mist. A violent electrical actionwas going on in it, which, like a strong wind moving upon its surface, raised it into billows, which appeared to sweep onward, tossing andtumbling like the waves of ocean. 

I had taken up my abode at the Il Pellegrino, one of the bestrecommended hotels in Bologna, --not knowing that the Austrian officershad made it their head-quarters, and that not a Bolognese would enterit. At dinner-time I saw only the Austrian uniform around the table. This was a matter of no great moment. Not so what followed. When I wentto bed, there commenced overhead a heavy shuffling of feet, and anincessant going and coming, with slamming of doors, and jolting oftables, which lasted all night long. A sad tragedy was enacting aboveme. The political apprehensions are made over-night in the Italiantowns; and I little doubt that the soldiers were all night busilyengaged in bringing in prisoners, and sending them off to jail. Thepersons so arrested are subjected to moral and physical tortures, whichspeedily prostrate both mind and body, and sometimes terminate in death. Loaded with chains, they are shut up in stinking holes, where they canneither stand upright nor lie down at their length. The heat of theweather and the foul air breed diseases of the skin, and cover them withpustules. The food, too, is scanty, often consisting of only bread andwater. The Government strive to keep their cruel condition a secret fromtheir relatives, who, notwithstanding, are able at times to penetratethe mystery that surrounds them, but only to have their feelingslacerated by the thought of the dreadful sufferings undergone by thosewho are the objects of their tenderest affection. And what agony can bemore dreadful than to know that a father, a husband, a son, is rottingin a putrid cell, or being beaten to death by blows, while neitherrelief nor sympathy from you can reach the sufferer? The case of a youngman of the name of Neri, formerly healthy and handsome, found its way tothe public prints. Broken down by blows, he was carried to the militaryhospital in an almost dying condition, where an English physician, incompany with an Austrian surgeon, found him with lacerated skin, and thevertebral bones uncovered. He was enduring at the same time so acutepain from inflammation of the bowels, that he was unable, but by hints, to express his misery. It was here that the atrocities of the PapalNuncio BEDINI were perpetrated, --the same man who was afterwards chasedfrom the soil of America by a storm of execration evoked against him bythe friends and countrymen of the victims who had been tortured and shotduring his sway in Bologna. In short, the acts of the Holy Office areimitated and renewed; so that numbers, distracted and maddened by thetorments which they endure, avow offences which they never committed, and name accomplices whom they never had; and the retractations of theseunhappy beings are of no avail to prevent new arrests. The Bolognese arepermitted to weep their complicated evils only in secret; to do soopenly would be charged as a crime. 

The fiscal oppression is nearly as unbearable as the political andsocial. The taxation, both as regards its amount and the mode ofenforcing it, is ruinous to the individual, and operates as a fatalcheck to the progress of industry. The country is eaten up with foreignsoldiers. The great hotels in all the principal towns resemble casernes. The reader may judge of my surprise on opening my bed-room door onemorning, to find that a couple of Croats had slept on the mat outside ofit all night. It might be a special mark of honour to myself; but Irather think that they are accustomed to bivouac in the passages andlobbies. The eternal drumming in the streets is enough to deafen one forlife. To the traveller it is sufficiently annoying; how much more so tothe Bolognese, who knows that that is music for which he must pay dear!Since 1848, the aggregate of taxation between Leghorn and Ancona hasbeen increased about 40 per cent. ; and the taxes are levied upon aprinciple of arbitrary assessment which compels the rich to simulatepoverty, as in Turkey, lest they should be stripped of their lastfarthing. In Bologna, the payments of the house and land tax, which usedto be made every two months, are now collected for the same sums everyseven weeks; and a per centage is added at the pleasure of theGovernment, of which no one knows the amount till the collector callswith his demand. In other towns an income-tax is levied upon trades andprofessions, framed upon no rule but the supposed capabilities of theindividual assessed to pay. Bologna, I may note, although in the PapalStates, is now quite an Austrian town. The Austrians have theresix-and-twenty pieces of artillery, and are building extensive barracksfor cavalry and infantry. Bologna belongs to that part of the PapalStates called the Four Legations, where, whether it pleases the Pope tobe so protected or not, it is now quite understood that the Austrianshave come to stay. The officer in command at Bologna styles himself itscivil as well as military governor. 

On the third day after my arrival, I started at four of the morning forFlorence. It was dark as we rode through the streets of Bologna; and our_diligence_, piled a-top with luggage, smashed several of the oil-lamps, which dangled on cords at a dangerous proximity to the causeway. I don'tknow that the Bolognese would miss them, for we left the street verylittle, if at all, darker than we found it. I looked forward with nolittle interest to the day's ride, which was to lie among the dells ofthe Apennines, and to terminate at eve with the fair sight of the Queenof the Arno. How unlike the reality, will appear in the sequel. In halfan hour we came in the dim light to a little valley, where the villagebell was sweetly chiming the matins. I note the spot because I narrowlymissed being an actor in a tragedy which took place here the very nextmorning. I may tell the story now, though I anticipate somewhat. I wassitting at the table d'hote in Florence three days after, when thegentleman on my right began to tell the company how he had travelledfrom Bologna on the Saturday previous, and how he and all hisfellow-passengers had been robbed on the way. They had got to the spot Ihave indicated, when suddenly a little band of brigands, which lay inambush by the wayside, rushed on the _diligence_. Some mounted on thefront, and attended to the outside passengers; others took charge ofthose in the _interieur_. Now it was, when the passengers saw into whathands they had fallen, that nothing was heard but groaning in all partsof the _diligence_. Our informant, who sat next the window in the_interieur_, was seized by the collar, a long knife was held to hisbreast, and he was admonished to use all diligence in making over to hisnew acquaintance any worldly goods he had about him. He had to part withhis gold watch and chain, his breast-pin, and sundry other articles ofjewellery; but his purse and sovereigns he contrived to drop among thestraw at the bottom of the vehicle. All the rest fared as he did, andsome of them worse, for they lost their money as well as jewels. Thesegrave proceedings were diversified by a somewhat humorous incident. Thecoachman had providently put his dinner in the form of a sausage, rolledin brown paper, under his seat. This is the form in which Austrianzwanzigers are commonly made up; and the brigands, fancying thecoachman's sausage to be a roll of silver zwanzigers, seized on it withavidity, and bore it off in triumph. They were proceeding to rifle thebaggage, when, hearing the horse-patrol approaching, they plunged intothe thicket as suddenly as they had appeared. The morning chimes weresounding, as on the previous day, while this operation was going on. Butwhat is not a little extraordinary is, that all this took place withintwo miles of the city gates of Bologna, where there could not be fewerthan twelve thousand Austrian soldiers. But these, I presume, were toomuch engaged on this, as on previous nights, in apprehending andimprisoning the citizens in the Pope's behalf, to think of looking afterbrigands. In Peter's privileged patrimony one may rob, murder, and breakevery command of the decalogue, and defy the police, provided he obeythe Church. Were I to travel that road again, I would provide myselfwith a tinsel watch and appendages, and a sausage carefully rolled up inpaper, to avoid the unpleasantness of meeting such wellwishersempty-handed. 

In another half hour we came to the spurs of the Apennines. The day wasbreaking, and its light, I hoped, would lay open many a sweet dell andmany a romantic peak, before evening. These hopes, as, alas! too oftenhappens in the longer journey of life, were to be suddenly dashed. Ifelt a warm, suffocating current of air breathing over the valley, andlooked up to see the furnace whence, as I supposed, it proceeded. Thiswas the sirocco, the herald of the tempest that soon thereafter burstupon us. Masses of whitish cloud came rolling over the summits of thehills; furious gusts came down upon us from the heights; and in a fewminutes we found ourselves contending with a hurricane such as I havenever seen equalled save on one other occasion. The cloud becamefearfully black, and made the lightning the more awful as it touchedwith fire the peaks around us, and bathed in an ocean of flame the vinesand hamlets on the hill-side. Terrible peals of thunder broke over us;and these were followed by torrents of rain, which the furious windsdashed against our vehicle with the force and noise of a cataract. We had to make our way up the mountain's side in the face of thistempest. At times more than a dozen animals were yoked to our_diligence_, --horses, oxen, and beasts of every kind which we couldpress into the service; while half-a-dozen postilions, shouting andcracking their whips, strove to urge the motley cavalcade onward. Stillwe crept up only by inches. The road in most cases wound over the verypeak of the mountain; and there the tempest, rushing upon us from allsides at once, threatened to lay our vehicle, which shook and quiveredin the blast, flat on its side, or toss it into the valley below. Thestorm continued to rage with unabated violence from day-break tillmid-day; and, by favour of horses, bullocks, and postilions, we keptmoving on at the rate of two miles an hour, now climbing, nowdescending, well knowing that at every summit a fresh buffeting awaitedus. 

I had as my companions on this journey, two Russian gentlemen, with whomafterwards, at several points of my tour, I came into contact. They wereurbane and intelligent men, full of their own country and of the Czar, yet professing great respect for England, which they had just visited, and looking down with a contempt they were at little pains to conceal, upon the Frenchmen and Italians among whom they were moving. Theypossessed the sobriety of mind, the turn for quiet, shrewd observation, in short, much of the physical and intellectual stamina, of Englishmen, with just a shade less of the exquisite polish which marks the latterwherever they are met with. These, no doubt, were favourable specimensof the Russian nation; but it is such men who give the tone to a State, while the masses below execute their designs. I have ever since feltthat, should we ever meet that people on the field of battle, thecontest would be no ordinary one. I recollect one of these gentlemenmeeting me on the streets of Rome some weeks afterwards, and informingme that he had been the day before to visit the ball on the top of StPeter's, and that he had been delighted at seeing his Emperor's name, inhis Emperor's own handwriting, inside the ball, with a few lines beneaththe signature, stating that he had stood in that ball, and had thereprayed for Mother Holy Russia, --a fact full of significance. 

About mid-day we came, wet, and weary, and cold, to the Duana on theTuscan frontier, where was a poor inn, at which, after our passports hadbeen viséed, and our trunks and carpet-bags plumbed, we dined. Therewere some twenty of us at table; a priest taking the top, and the_conducteur_ the bottom. I remember that two persons of the party kepttheir hats on at table, and that these were the priest and a poorcountry lad, --the priest because he presided perhaps, and the countrymanbecause, not knowing the etiquette of the point, he wisely determined tofollow in that, as in greater matters, the priest. Our dinner consistedof coarse broth, black bread, buffalo beef, and wine of not the sweetestflavour; but what helped us was an excellent appetite, for we had notbreakfasted beyond a few chestnuts and grapes picked up at the poorvillages through which we passed. We obtained, however, an hour'sshelter from the elements. 

We resumed our journey, and in about an hour's ride we gained thecentral chain of the Apennines. Happily the tempest had moderatedsomewhat; for this, lying midway between the two seas, is ordinarily thestormiest point of the pass. We crossed it, however, with lessinconvenience than we had looked for. The summits, which had hithertobeen conical, with vines straggling up their sides, now became rounded, or ran off in serrated lines, with sides scarred with tempests andstrewn with stones. The scenery was bleak and desolate, as that of theGrampian pass leading by Spittal of Glenshee to Dee-side. But as wecontinued our descent, the richly wooded glens returned; the cloudsrose; and at one time I ventured to hope that I should yet have my firstsight of Florence under a golden sky, and that Milton's descriptionmight, after all, be applicable to this day of storms:--

 "As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face, the low'ring element Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow or shower; If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet, Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. "

But the hope was short-lived: no Florence was I to see that night; norwas note of bird to gladden the dells. The mists again fell, and hid inpremature night those fine valleys, so famous in Florentine history, which we were now approaching. We wound round hills, traversed deepravines, heard on every side the thunder of the swollen torrents, and, when the parting vapour permitted, had glimpses of the luxuriant woodsof myrtle and laurel that clothe these valleys, --

 "Where round some mouldering tower pale ivy creeps, And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps. "

At last we found ourselves on the banks of a broad and swollenriver, --the Save, --with no means of transit save a dismantled bridge, so sorely shattered by the flood, that it was an even question whetherour vehicle might not, like the last straw on the dromedary's back, sinkthe structure outright. 

We dismounted, and, by the help of lights, measured first the bridge, and next the _diligence_, and found that the breadth of the formerexceeded that of the latter by just two inches. The passengers passed onfoot; the _diligence_, with the baggage, came after; and so all arrivedsafely on the other side. Our first care was to assemble a council ofwar in the poor inn which stood on the spot, and deliberate what next todo. 

The _conducteur_ opened the debate. "We had, " he said, "twenty miles ofroad still before us; the way lay through deep ravines, and overtorrents which the rains must have rendered impassable: it would be longpast midnight till we should reach Florence, --if we should ever reachit: his opinion was, therefore, that we ought to stay where we were;nevertheless, if we insisted, he would go on at all risks. " Socounselled our leader; and if we wanted an argument on the other side, we had only to look around. The walls of the inn were naked and black;the floor was covered inch-deep with slime, the deposit of the floodwhich had that day broke into the dwelling; and the place was evidentlyunequal to the "entertainment" of such a number of "men and horses" ashad thus unexpectedly been thrown upon it. It is not wonderful, in thesecircumstances, that a small opposition party sprung up, headed by anEnglish lady, whose delicate slippers were never made for such a flooras that on which she now stood. She could see no danger in going on, andurged us to set forward. Better counsels prevailed, however; and weresolved to endure the evils we knew, rather than adventure on those weknew not. 

The next matter to be negotiated was supper, of which the aspect of theplace gave no great promise. The landlady was a thin, wiry, black, voluble Tuscan. "Have you beef?--Have you cheese?--Have youmacaroni?"--inquired several voices in succession. "Oh, she had allthese, and a great many dainties besides, in the morning; but theflood, --the flood!" The same flood, however, which had swept off ourhostess's larder, had swept in a great deal of good company, and she wasevidently resolved on setting the one evil over against the other. Shenow showered upon us a long, rapid, and vehement address; and he who hasnot heard the Tuscan discourse does not know what volubility is. "Whatdoes she say?" I inquired at one of my two Russian friends. "She saysvery many words, " he replied, "but the meaning is moneys, moneys. " "Haveyou any coffee?" I asked. "Oh, coffee! delightful coffee; but it hadgone sailing down the flood. " "And it carried off the eggs too, Isuppose?" "No; I have eggs. " We resolved to sup on eggs. A fire of logswas kindled up stairs, and a table was extemporized out of some deals. In a quarter of an hour in came our supper, --black bread, fried eggs, and a skein of wine. We fell to; but, alack! what from the smut of thechimney and the dust of the pan, the eggs were done in the _chiaroscuro_ style; the wine had so villanous a twang, that a few sips of itcontented me; and the bread, black as it was, was the only thingpalatable. I got the landlady persuaded to boil me an egg; and thoughthe Italian peasants only dip their eggs in hot water, and serve them upraw, it was preferable to the conglomerate of the pan. We made merry, however, over our poor meal and the grateful warmth of the fire; andsomewhere towards midnight we entertained the question of going to bed. We had avoided the topic as long as possible, from a foreboding that ourhostess would present us with some rueful tale of blankets lost in theflood. Besides, we were not without misgivings that, should the cloudsreturn and the river rise as before, house and all might follow theother things down the stream, and no one could tell where we might findourselves on awakening. On broaching the subject, however, we found toour delight, that cribs, couches, shakedowns, and all sorts ofcontrivances, with store of cloaks, garments, and blankets, had been gotready for our use. 

We were told off into parties; and the first to be sorted were the twoRussians, an Italian, and myself. We four were shown into a room, which, to our great surprise, contained two excellent four-posted beds, one ofwhich was allotted to the two Russian gentlemen, and the other to theItalian and myself. Our mode of turning in was somewhat novel. TheRussians put away simply their greatcoats, and lay down beneath thecoverlet. My bed-fellow the Italian took up a position for the night bythrowing himself, as he was, on the top of the bed-clothes. Notapproving of either mode, I slipped off both greatcoat and coat, and, covering myself with the blankets, soon forgot in sleep all the mishapsof the day. 

The voice of the _conducteur_ shouting at the door of our apartmentawakened us before day-break. Our company mustered with what haste theycould, and we again betook us to the road, "While the still morn went out with sandals gray. "

The path lay along the banks of the torrent Carza, and the valley wefound frightfully scarred by the flood of the former day. Fiercetorrents rushing from the hills had torn the fences, ploughed up theroad, piled up hillocks of mud among the vineyards, and covered withbarren sand, or strewn with stones, many an acre of fine meadow. Had weattempted the path in the darkness, our course must have found a speedytermination. At length, ascending a steep hill, we found ourselvesoverlooking the valley of the Arno. 

Every traveller taxes his descriptive powers to the utmost to paint theview from this hill-top; and I verily believe that, seen under acloudless sky, it is one of the most enchanting landscapes in the world. The numberless conical hills, --the white villas and villages, which lieas thick as if the soil had produced them, --the silvery stream of theArno, --the rich chestnut and olive woods, --the domes of the ItalianAthens, --the songs, --the fragrance, --and the great wall of the Apenninesbounding all, --must present a picture of rare magnificence. But I saw itunder different conditions, and must needs describe it as it appeared. 

Sub-Apennine Italy was before me, and it seemed the Italy I had dreamedof, could I only see it; but, alas! it was blotted with mists, andovershadowed by a black canopy of cloud. Outspread, far as the eye couldextend southward, was a landscape of ridges and conical tops, separatedby winding wreaths of white mist, giving to the country the aspect of anocean broken up into creeks, and bays, and channels, with no end ofislands. The hills were covered to their very summits with the richestvegetation; and the multitude of villages sprinkled over them lent theman air of great animation. The great chain of the Apennines, withrolling masses of cloud on its summits, ran along on the east, andformed the bounding wall of the prospect. Below us there floated on thesurface of the mist an immense dome, looking like a balloon of huge sizeabout to ascend into the air. It did not ascend, however; but, surrounded by several tall shafts and towers which rose silently out ofthe mist, it remained suspended over the same spot. Like a buoy at seaaffixed to the place where some noble vessel lies entombed, this dometold us that engulphed in this ocean of vapour lay FLORENCE, with herrich treasures of art, and her many stirring recollections andtraditions. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

FLORENCE AND ITS YOUNG EVANGELISM. 

 Beauty of Position--Focus of Italian Art--Education on the Æsthetic Principle--Effects as shown in the Character and Manners of the Florentines--The result not Civilization, but Barbarism--The Artizans of Britain surpass the Florentines in Civilization--Early English Scholars at Florence--Man's Power for Good--Savonarolo--History of present Religious Movement in Tuscany--Condition of Tuscan Government and Priesthood prior to 1848--Attempts to introduce Religious Books--The Priests compel the Government to interfere--The Revolution of 1848--The Bible translated and seized--Visit of Vaudois Pastors--Secret Religious Press--Work now carried on by the Converts--Denunciation of DEATH for Bible Reading--Great Increase of Converts notwithstanding--Present State and Prospects of Movement--Leave Florence--Beauty of the Vale of the Arno--Pisa--Arrive at Leghorn. 

Of Florence "the Beautiful, " I must say that its beauty appeared scarceequal to its fame. In an age when the capitals of northern Europe wereof wood, the Queen of the Arno may have been without a rival on thenorth of the Alps; but now finer streets, handsomer squares, and noblerfaçades, may be seen in any of our second-rate towns. But its dome, byBrunelleschi, the largest in the world, --its tall campanile, --itsbaptistry, with its beautiful gates, --and its public statuary, --areworthy of all admiration. Its environs are superb. 

Florence is sweetly embosomed in an amphitheatre of mountains, of themost lovely forms and the richest and brightest colouring. Castles andconvents crown their summits; while their slopes display the pillar-likecypress, the gray olive, the festooned vine, with a multitude ofembowered villas. On the north-east, right in the fork of the Apennines, lie the bosky and wooded dells of Valombrosa. On the north, seated on apyramidal hill, is the ancient Fiesole, which the genius of Milton hastouched and immortalized. On the west are the spacious lawns and parksof the Grand Duke; while the noble valley runs off to the south-west, carpeted with vines, or covered with chestnut woods, with the Arnostealing silently through it in long reaches to the sea. During my stay, the girdling Apennines were tipped with the snows of winter; and whenthe sun shone out, they formed a gleaming circlet around the greenvalley, like a ring of silver enclosing an enormous emerald. I saw thesun but seldom, however. The bad weather which had overtaken me amid theApennines descended with me into the valley of the Arno; and murkyclouds, with torrents of rain, but too often obscured the sky. But Icould fancy the delicious beauty of a summer eve in Florence, with thestill balmy air enwrapping the purple hills, the tall cypresses, thedomes, and the gently stealing waters. In spring the region must be avery paradise. Indeed, spring is seldom absent from the banks of theArno; for though at times savage Winter is heard growling amid theApennines, he dare seldom venture farther than midway down their slopes. 

I cannot recall the past glories of Florence, or even touch on Cosmo's"immortal century;" I cannot speak of its galleries, so rich inpainting, so unrivalled in statuary; nor can I enter its Pitti palace, with its hanging gardens; or the city churches, with their store offrescoes and paintings; or its Santa Crocé, with its six mightytombs, --those even of Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, Leonardo Aretino. The size of Florence brings all these objectswithin a manageable distance; and, during my stay of well-nigh a week, Ivisited them, as any one may do, almost every day. But every travellerhas entered largely into their description, and I pass them over, totouch on other things more rarely brought into view. 

Florence is the focus of Italian art; and here, if anywhere, one can seethe effect of educating a population solely on the æsthetic principle. The Florentines have no books, no reading-rooms, no public lectures, nopreaching in their churches even, bating the occasional harangue of amonk. They are left to be trained solely by fine pictures and lovelystatues. From these they are expected to learn their duties as men andas citizens. The sole employment of the people is to produce thesethings; their sole study, to be able to admire them. The result is notcivilization, but barbarism. Nor can it well be otherwise. We find the"beautiful" abundantly in nature, but never dissociated from the"useful;" teaching us that it cannot be safely sought but in union withwhat is true and good; and that we cannot make it "an end" withoutreversing the whole constitution of our nature. When a people make thelove of "the beautiful" their predominant passion, they rapidly declinein the better and nobler qualities. The beautiful yields only enjoyment;and those who live only to enjoy soon become intensely selfish. Thatenjoyment, moreover, is immediate, and so affords no room for theexercise of patience and foresight. A race of triflers arise, who thinkonly of the present hour. They are wholly undisciplined in the higherqualities of mind, --in perseverance and self-control; and, beingwithdrawn from the contemplation of facts and principles, they becomeincapable of attending to the useful duties of life, and are whollyunable to rise to the higher efforts of virtue and patriotism. TheItalian Governments, for their own ends, have restricted their subjectsto the fine arts, but at the expense of the trade, the agriculture, andthe civilization, of their dominions. The fabric of British power wasnot raised on the æsthetic principle. Take away our books, and give uspictures; shut up our schools and churches, and give us museums andgalleries; instead of our looms and forges, substitute chisels andpencils; and farewell to our greatness. The artizan of Birmingham orGlasgow is a more civilised man than the same class in the Italiancities. His dwelling, too, displays an amount of comfort and elegancewhich few in Italy below the rank of princes, and not always they, cancommand. The condition of the Italian people shows conclusively that thepredominating study of "the beautiful" has a most corrupting andenfeebling effect. In fact, their pictures have paved the way for theirtyrants; and when one marks their demoralizing effects, he feels howsalutary is the restriction of the Decalogue against their use in Divineworship. If pictures and images lead to idolatry in the Church, theirexclusive study as infallibly produces serfdom in the State. 

In the early dawn of the Reformation, several of our own countrymenvisited the city of the Medici, that they might have access to the worksof antiquity which Cosmo had collected, and enjoy the converse of thelearned men that thronged his palace. "William Selling, " says D'Aubigné, "a young English ecclesiastic, afterwards distinguished at Canterbury byhis zeal in collecting valuable manuscripts, --his fellow-countrymen, Grocyn, Lilly, and Latimer, 'more bashful than a maiden, '--and, aboveall, Linacre, whom Erasmus ranked above all the scholars of Italy, --usedto meet in the delicious villa of the Medici, with Politian, Chalcondyles, and other men of learning; and there, in the calm eveningsof summer, under that glorious Tuscan sky, they dreamt romantic visionsof the Platonic philosophy. When they returned to England, these learnedmen laid before the youth of Oxford the marvellous treasures of theGreek language. " We are repaying the debt, by sending to that land abetter philosophy than any these learned men ever brought from it. Thisleads us to speak of the religious movement in progress in Tuscany. 

After all, man's power for evil is extremely limited. The very oppositeis the ordinary estimate. When we mark the career of a conqueror likeNapoleon, or the withering effects of an organization like that of Rome, and compare these with the feeble results of a preacher like Savonarola, whose body the fire reduced to ashes, and whose disciples persecutionspeedily scattered, we say that man's power to destroy his species isalmost omnipotent, --his power to benefit them scarce appreciable. Butspread out the long cycles of history and the long ages of the world, and you learn that the triumphs of evil, though sudden, are temporary, and those of truth slow but eternal. A true word spoken by a single manhas in it more power than armies, and will, in the long run, do more tobless than all that tyrannies can do to blight mankind. Savonarola, feeble as he seemed, and unprotected as he was, wielded a power greaterthan that of Rome. The truths sown by the preacher on the banks of theArno so many centuries ago are not yet dead. They are springing up; and, long after Rome shall have passed away, they will be a source ofliberty, of civilization, of arts, and of eternal life, to hiscountrymen. 

A political storm heralded the quiet spring-time of evangelical truthwhich has of late blessed that land. Prior to 1848, although there hadbeen no change for the better in the law, a very considerable degree ofpractical liberty was enjoyed by the subjects of Tuscany. The Tuscansare naturally a quiet, well-behaved people; the Grand Duke was an easy, kind-hearted man; his Government was exceedingly mild; and, as heconducted himself towards his people like a father, he was greatlybeloved by them. Tuscany at that period was universally acknowledged tobe the happiest province of Italy. 

The priesthood of those days were a good-natured, easy set of men also. They had never known opposition. They could not imagine the possibilityof anything occurring to endanger their power, and therefore wereexceedingly tolerant in the exercise of it. They were an illiterate andill-informed race. An Abbatte of their own number assured Dr Stewart, sofar back as 1845, that there was not one amongst them, from theArchbishop downwards, who could read Hebrew, nor half-a-dozen who couldbe found among the upper orders who could read Greek. They were mastersof as much Latin as enabled them to get through the mass; but they werewholly unskilled in the modern tongues of Europe, and entire strangersto modern European literature. Though poorly paid, they durst not ekeout their means of subsistence by entering into any trade. Many of themwere fain to become major domos in rich families, and might be seenchaffering in the markets in the public piazza, and weighing out flour, coffee, and oil to the servants at home. No priest can say more than onemass a-day; and for that he is paid one lira, or eightpence sterling. 

Such being the state of matters, little notice was taken of what foreignProtestants might be doing. The priests were secure in their ignorance, and deemed it impossible that any attempt would be made to introduce thediabolical heresies of Luther among their orthodox flocks. Indeed, these flocks were removed almost beyond the reach of contamination, notso much by the vigilance of the priests, as by their own ignorance andbigotry. The degree of popular enlightenment may be judged of from thefollowing circumstance which happened to Dr Stewart, and of which theDoctor himself assured me Soon after his first coming into Tuscany in1845, he came into contact with a countryman, who, on being told that hewas a Protestant minister, began instantly to scrutinize his lowerextremities, to ascertain whether he had cloven hoofs. The priests hadtold the people that Protestants were just devils in disguise. 

The Government, I have said, was a mild one. It was more: it wasaffected with the usual Italian sluggishness and indolence, --the _dolcefar niente_; and accordingly it winked at innumerable ongoings, so longas these did not attract public attention. Bibles and religiousProtestant works were introduced secretly, the Government knowing it, but winking at it, as the Church did not complain. The arrest of thedeputation from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to theHoly Land in 1839 was an exception to what I have now stated, but suchan exception as confirms the general statement. The deputation, with theignorance of us Britishers abroad for the first time, imagined thatbecause Leghorn was a free port, they were free to give away Bibles, tracts, and all kinds of religious books; and accordingly they madevigorous use of their time. Scarcely had they stepped on shore when theycommenced a liberal distribution of Bibles, books on the "Evidences, "and other valuable works, among the boatmen, facchini, and beggars. Itdid not occur to them, that of those to whom they gave these books, fewcould read, and none were able to appreciate them. Many persons whoreceived these books carried them to the priests, who, confounded atthe suddenness as well as the boldness of the assault, carried them tothe police, and the police to the Government; and before the deputationhad been an hour and a half in Thomson's hotel, they were under arrest. It was the Church which compelled the Government to interfere; and it isthe Church which is now driving forward the civil power in its madcareer of persecution. As a proof that we bring no heavier chargeagainst the priests than they deserve, we may mention, that in 1849 DrStewart was summoned to appear before the delegate of Government, toanswer for having allowed one or two Italian Protestant ministers topreach in his pulpit. The delegate informed him that the Government wasnot taking this step of its own accord, but that the Archbishop ofFlorence was compelling the Government to put the law in force, and thatthe Archbishop was the prosecutor in the case. 

The old statute of Ferdinand I. , which allows to foreigners the fullexercise of their religion within the city of Leghorn, was takenadvantage of to open the Scotch church there. This was in 1845. It wastwo years after this, --in the winter of 1847-48, --that the religiousmovement first developed itself, --full six months before the revolutionsand changes of 1848. The work was at first confined almost entirely to ahandful of foreigners--Captain Pakenham; M. Paul, a Frenchman, and theSwiss pastor in Florence;---- at----; and Mr Thomson, Vice-Consul atLeghorn. Count Guicciardini was the only Florentine connected with themovement. It was resolved to print and circulate such books as werelikely to pass the censorship, and might be openly sold by allbooksellers. The censor of that day was a remarkably liberal man, and hegave his consent very willingly. Five or six little volumes were printedin that country; but the people were not yet prepared for such a step;the books lay unsold, and were got into circulation only by being givenaway as presents. But the very fact that the friends of the movement hadbeen able to print and publish such works openly at Florence, with theapprobation of the censor, greatly encouraged them. It was next proposedto attempt to get the censor's approbation to an edition of the NewTestament; and the work was before him waiting his imprimatur, when therevolutions of 1848 broke over Italy with the suddenness of one of itsown thunder-storms. 

I cannot go particularly into the changes that followed, and which areknown to my readers through other sources, --the flight of the GrandDuke, --the new Tuscan Constitution, --the free press. The political for atime buried the religious. Captain Pakenham, taking advantage of theliberty enjoyed under the republic, commenced printing an edition ofMartini's Bible (the Romanist version), believing that it would be moreacceptable than Diodati's (the Protestant version). Before he had gotthe book put into circulation, the re-action commenced, the Grand Dukereturned, and the work was seized. When engaged in making the seizure, the gendarmes pressed a young apprentice printer to tell them whetherthere were any more copies concealed. The lad replied that he had onlyone suggestion to offer, which was, that, now they had seized the book, they should seize the author too. And who is he? eagerly inquired thegendarmes, preparing to start on the chase. Jesus Christ, was the lad'sreply. 

Meanwhile the revolution had greatly enlarged the privileges of theWaldensian Church in Piedmont, and three of her pastors, MM. Malan, Meille, and Geymonat, arrived in Florence in the winter of 1848-49, forthe purpose of making themselves more familiar with the tongue andaccent of the Tuscans, in order to be able to avail themselves of thegreater openings of usefulness now presented to them, both in their owncountry and in central Italy. 

They preached occasionally, and attended the prayer-meeting, which nowgreatly increased, and which was the only one at this time among theFlorentines. Having by their visit helped forward the good work, theseevangelists, after a six months' stay in Florence, returned to their owncountry. 

A full year elapsed between the departure of the Waldensian brethren andthe movement among the Florentines to obtain an Italian pastor. Aftermuch deliberation they resolved on this step, and in May 1850 adeputation set out for the Valleys, which, arriving at La Tour, prevailed on Professor Malan to accept of the charge at Florence. M. Malan returned to that city, and, on the 1st of July 1850, began hisministry, among a little flock of thirty persons, in the Swiss chapelVia del Seraglio, in which the Grisons had a right to Italian service. The work now went rapidly forward. Formerly there had been but onere-union; now there were ten in Florence alone, besides others in thetowns and villages adjoining. M. Malan had service once a fortnight inItalian; and so large was the attendance, that the chapel, which holdsfour hundred, was crowded to the door with Florentine converts orinquirers. The priests took the alarm. They wrought upon the mind of thedeformed Archduchess, --a great bigot, and sister to the Grand Duke. Alikely tool she was; for she had made a pilgrimage to Rimini, andoffered on the shrine of the winking Madonna a diamond tiara andbracelet. The result I need not state. The immediate result was, thatthe Italian service was put a stop to in January 1851; and the finalresult was the banishment of Malan and Geymonat from Tuscany in the Mayof that year, --the expulsion of the pastors being accompanied withcircumstances of needless severity and ignominy. Geymonat, after lyingtwo days in the Bargello of Florence, was brought forth and conducted onfoot by gendarmes, chained like an assassin, to the Piedmontesefrontier. On this miserable journey he was thrust every night into thecommon prison, along with characters of the worst description, whoseblasphemies he was compelled to hear. The foul air and the disgustingfood of these places made him sometimes despair of coming out alive; buthe had his recompense in the opportunities which he thus enjoyed ofpreaching the gospel to the gendarmes by the way, and to the keepers ofthe prisons, some of whom heard him gladly. 

The departure of the Vaudois pastors threw the work into the hands ofthe native converts, by whom it has been carried on ever since. It is tobe feared that, in the absence of pastors, not a little that ispolitical is mixed with the religious. It is difficult forming anestimate of the numbers of the converts and inquirers. They havemeetings in all the towns of Tuscany and Lucca, between whom a constantintercourse is maintained. Each member subscribes two crazzia a-week forthe purchase of Protestant religious books. To supply these books, twopresses are at work, --one in Turin, the other in Florence. The latter isa secret press, which the police, with all their efforts, have not beenable to this day to discover. The Bible can be got into Tuscany withgreat difficulty; yet the demand for it is greater than ever. Theconverts have been tried by every mode of persecution short of death;yet their numbers grow. The prisons are full with political andreligious offenders; yet fresh arrests continually take place inFlorence. 

The first and more notable instance of persecution on which theGovernment of Tuscany ventured, after the banishment of CountGuicciardini and his companions, was the imprisonment of Francesco andRosa Madiai, for reading the Word of God in the Italian language. Thesufferings of these confessors turned out for the furtherance of theGospel. The attention of many of their own countrymen was drawn to thecause of their sufferings; and the bigotry of the Grand Duke, or ratherof the Court of Rome, with which the Tuscan Government had entered intoa concordat for the suppression of heresy, was proclaimed before allEurope. A Protestant deputation visited Florence to intercede in behalfof these confessors; but their plea found so little favour with theGrand Duke, that he immediately issued a decree, reviving an old lawwhich makes all offences against the religion of the State punishable_by death_. To provide for carrying the decree into effect, a guillotinewas imported from Lucca, and an executioner was hired at a salary of tenpounds a month. As if this were not sufficiently explicit, the GrandDuke told his subjects that he was "_determined to root outProtestantism from his State, though he should be handed down toposterity as a monster of cruelty_. " Neither the spectacle of theguillotine nor the terrible threat of the Grand Duke could arrest theprogress of the good work. The Bible was sought after, and read insecret; and the numbers who left the communion of the Romish Church grewand multiplied daily. In the beginning of 1853, the Protestants, orEvangelicals as they prefer to call themselves in Tuscany, wereestimated at many thousands. I doubt not that this estimate was correct, if viewed as including all who had separated their interests from theChurch of Rome; but I just as little doubt that a majority of these, ifbrought to the test, rather than suffer would have denied the Gospel. Many of them knew it only as a political badge, not as a _new life_. But, on the judgment of those who had the best means of knowing, therewere at least _a thousand_ in Tuscany who had undergone a change ofheart, and were prepared to confess Christ on the scaffold. To hunt outthese peaceful ones, and bring them to punishment, is the grand objectof the priesthood; and in the confessional they have an instrumentalityready-made for the purpose. Taking advantage of the greater timidity ofthe female mind, it has become a leading question with the confessor, "Does your husband read the Bible? Has he political papers?" Alas!according to the ancient prophecy, the brother delivers up the brotherto death. I heard of some affecting cases of this sort when I was inFlorence. Of the fifty persons, or thereabouts, who were then in prisonon religious grounds, not a few had been accused by their own relatives, the accusation being extorted by the threat of withholding absolution. At the beginning of the English Reformation, with an infernal refinementof cruelty, children were often compelled to light the faggots whichwere to consume their parents; and in Tuscany at this hour, thetrembling wife is compelled, by the threat of eternal damnation, todisclose the secret which is to consign the husband to a dungeon. Thepolice are never far from the confessor's box, and wait only the signalfrom it, what house to visit, and whom to drag to prison. As with us informer days, the Bible is secreted in the most unlikely places; it isread at the dead hour of night; and the prayers and praises that followare offered in whispering accents, --for fear of the priests and theguillotine. 

Every subsidiary agency that might further the progress of the truth hasbeen suppressed by the Government. All the liberal papers have been putdown. They appeared again and again under new names, but only toencounter, under every form, the veto of the authorities. At last theirwhole printing establishments were confiscated. The public press havingbeen silenced, the secret one continued to speak to the Tuscans fromits hiding-place; and its voice was the more heard that the other wasdumb. Besides Bibles, a variety of religious books have issued from it, and have been widely circulated. Among the translated works spread amongthe Tuscans are D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation, " M'Crie's"Suppression of the Reformation in Italy, " "The Mother's Catechism, "Watts' "Catechism, " "The Pilgrim's Progress, " and a variety of religioustracts. The prohibition of a book by the Government is sure to befollowed by a universal demand for it; and the Government decree is thusthe signal for going to press with a new edition of the forbidden work. Mr Gladstone's letters on Naples were prohibited by Government; and thevery means adopted to keep the Tuscans ignorant of what Englishmenthought of the state of Naples, and of the Continent generally, only ledto its being better known. Though not a single copy of these letters wasto be seen in the shops or on the stalls, they found their way intoevery one's hands. The same thing happened to Count Guicciardini. TheGovernment prohibited his statement, and all Florence read it. Thewell-known hatred of the priests to the Bible has been its bestrecommendation in the eyes of the Tuscans. Thus the Government findsthat it cannot move a step without inflicting deadly damage on its owninterests. Its interposition is fatal only to the cause it seeks tohelp. To prohibit a book is to publish it; to bring a man to trial is togive liberty an opportunity of speaking through his advocate; to cast aconfessor of the Lord Jesus into prison is but to erect a light-houseamidst the Tuscan darkness. The Government and the priesthood find thattheir efforts are foiled and their might paralyzed by a mysteriouspower, which they know not how to grapple with. The guillotine has stoodunused: not that any scruples of conscience or any feelings of humanityrestrain the priests; fain would they bring every convert to thescaffold if they dared; but the odium which they well know would attendsuch a deed deters them; and they anxiously wait the coming of a timewhen it may be safe to do what could not be done at present but at therisk of damaging, and perhaps ruining, their cause. It does not followthat the Tuscan priesthood have not the guilt of blood to answer for. Ifthe confessors of the Gospel in that land are not perishing by theguillotine, they are pining in prisons, and sinking into the grave, byreason of the choking stench, the disgusting vermin, and theinsufficient food, to which they are exposed. 

But the condition of these victims, perishing unknown and unpitied inthe fangs of an ecclesiastical tyranny, is not the most distressingspectacle which Tuscany at this hour presents. Theirs is an enviablestate, compared with that of the great body of the people. These occupybut a larger prison, and groan in yet stronger fetters; while theircaptivity is uncheered by any such hope as that which sustains theTuscan confessors of the truth. Mistrust of their Church is widelyspread in the country. There is no religion in Tuscany. There is aslittle morality. The marriage vow is but little regarded, and theseducer boasts of his triumphs over married chastity, as if they werepraiseworthy deeds. Thousands have plunged into atheism. Of those whohave not gone this length, the great body are dissatisfied, ill at ease, without confidence in the doctrines of Rome, but ignorant of a moreexcellent way. Straitly shut up, they grope blindfolded round the wallsof their prison-house, wistfully turning their eyes to any ray of lightthat strikes in through its crevices. How this state of things may endis known only to God;--whether in the gradual spread of Gospel light, and the peaceful fall of that system which has so long enthralled theintellect and soul of the Tuscans; or whether, as a result of thegrowing exasperation and deepening horrors of these bondsmen, they maygive a violent wrench to the pillars of the ecclesiastical and socialfabric, and pull it down upon the heads of themselves and theiroppressors. 

I may avail myself of this opportunity of introducing a few recent factsrelative to the analogous work in Genoa; and this I do because thesefacts are of a character which may enable the reader more clearly toconceive of the present religious condition of Italy, and the state ofthe movement in that country. 

The north of Italy and kingdom of Sardinia, as I have already said, since the Constitution granted in 1848, is open to the promulgation ofevangelical truth; that is, it may be taught in almost every conceivableway, provided it is not done offensively or obtrusively. While thereligion of the State is Roman Catholic, there is toleration and libertyof conscience to all; indeed, there is _no religion_ at all. The kingcares for none of these things, and most of his Ministers are at onewith him. The present Ministry is Liberal; and Count Cavour is, to allintents and purposes, Radical. It is said that he declares he will neverrest until Sardinia is another England. The Constitution is somethingvery similar to that of England, and only requires to be developed. Thepresent Government, however, is more liberal than the Constitution; andthe Constitution gives more liberty than the majority of the people areyet able to receive: hence collision frequently takes place. Oldstatutes are still unrepealed; and the priest party compels theGovernment to do things which they are very unwilling to do. Forexample, one of the Cereghini was recently tried, and condemned to pay afine of two hundred pauls, and go to prison for four months, for havingsome little thing to do in publishing a small controversial catechismagainst the Romish Church, and vending it rather too openly. An appealwas made against the sentence, and it stands unexecuted, and will do. As a matter of law, the executive Government is obliged to take up suchcases and deal with them; and the nobility or priesthood--for they areone and the same--are ever on the look-out for such cases. The case ofCaptain Pakenham, who was expelled from Sardinia, comes under this head. The Constitution is the same now as it was then; only it is furtherdeveloped in the minds of the people, and the same offence would not nowlikely meet the same unjust punishment, or create the same stir amongthe people, as it did then. But Captain Pakenham need not have beenexpelled from the State if our British Ministers in Sardinia had donetheir duty; but they are sometimes only too glad to get quit of such menas Captain Pakenham. If they had protested against the sentence, itwould never have been executed. Such a thing would never have occurredto an American subject. "British residents or travellers in Italy, "writes one to us, "will never have any comfort or satisfaction under theunion-jack, until the present race of consuls and plenipotentiaries, sitting in high places, truckling with petty kings and grand dukes, ishanged, every one of them. There is an obliging old consul at Rome whomight be exempted. "

The following extract from a letter written in March last, and addressedto ourselves, from the Rev. David Kay, the able pastor of the Scotchcongregation in Genoa, will be read with deep interest. We know none whoknows better than Mr Kay the condition of Sardinia, or is more familiarwith all that has been done and is doing there. What he says of themoral condition of Genoa may be taken as a fair sample of the othertowns and States of Italy. None of them are superior to Genoa in thisrespect, and most of them, we believe, are below it. Alas! the pictureis a sad one. 

"Nothing could be more foolish or detrimental to the evangelical workin Sardinia than for every man and woman who enters the country, to passthrough it or spend a few months even, to commence 'doing something, ' asthey generally express it. They scatter Bibles and tracts broad-cast, without knowing anything of the people they give them to; andnine-tenths of these books are carried forthwith to the priest or thepawnshop, generally the former, and are burned. This does not affectthem much, perhaps, because they will soon be off; but it renders theposition of those stationed in the country very precarious. The priestlikes very much to collect all the Bibles, Testaments, tracts, &c. , intoa heap, and, before setting the match to them, bring some of his Englishfriends to see them. This is no exaggeration. At least two such caseshave come under my notice. Knowledge and prudence are very essentialqualities, --some knowledge of the country and its people, and somelittle common sense to use that knowledge well. If our Britishtravellers and residents would give the Italians a better example of howthe Sabbath ought to be kept, and is kept, by the serious in Britain, and let precept for the most part alone, --the real missionary work to bedone by people competent, --generally speaking, they would advance thework far more than by the way they often adopt. We talk of liberalSardinia; but _liberal_ is a relative term, and all who know Sardiniawill only apply it relatively. When an injudicious thing is done, oreven when a lawful thing is done injudiciously, we soon see where theliberty of Sardinia is. It is as lawful for a man to have a thousandItalian Bibles in his house as to have a thousand copies of 'Rob Roy. 'Both packages come regularly through the custom-house, and duty is paidfor them; and yet the other day in Nice several houses were searched bythe gendarmes, and all Bibles and tracts carried away. This is contraryto the Constitution of the country, and yet it was done. Englishmen willmake a cry about it, and demand justice (a thing generally sold to thehighest bidder); but it is no use, --only harm will be done by it. Everyday things in _kind_ differing in _degree_ are done throughout theState. The long and short of the matter is this; the minds of the peoplemust open, and be allowed time to open gradually, ere the liberalConstitution of Sardinia can be applied to its full extent. And it isthe forgetting this, or not knowing it, that usually brings these thingsabout. Something, perhaps a very common thing, and quite lawful, anddone every day, is done in a foolish way, and a foolish thing is done bythe executive Government to meet it. It is not the presentgeneration, --it has been too long under the yoke, --but the risinggeneration, that will exhibit the new Constitution. The grand secret isto do as much as possible, --and almost anything may be done, --and saynothing about it. It is truly interesting to watch the gradual openingup of the long shut kingdom, and very exciting to give every day astronger blow to the wedge that opens it. I remember well, when I camehere, nearly two years ago, Italian Bibles could not be got into Genoa, as other goods, by paying the duty on them, although it was perfectlylawful then, as now, to bring them in that way. For a year past we havegot all the Bibles the Bible-senders of Britain will send us. Hundredsor thousands of them can be brought through the custom-house without anydifficulty. We are anxiously waiting the arrival of six thousand at thismoment. And yet a month has not passed since four thousand religiousbooks, --less mischievous by far than the Bible, --were sent from our portto Marseilles. They could not be landed in any part of his Majesty'sdominions. From these facts you will see that we live in a kingdom ofpractical contradictions. 

"The priests, meanwhile, are by no means idle. They are instructingtheir people in the dogmas of their Church; and for this they haveclasses in the evening, --the zealous at least, among them have. Apartfrom their petty persecution in preventing us getting a place of worship(the affair of the 'Madre di Dio' you know all about, as also theirgeneral story of every convert being paid), they send missionaries toEngland once or twice a-year, (there is a priest whom I know just nowreturned), who bring, generally prostitutes, but women of a better orderif they can find them, put them into a convent, to train, and, whentrained, send them out to strengthen the Catholics here in their faith, and, if possible, bring back to the fold those who have gone toGeymonat; and highly accomplished trustworthy dames they send home toEngland to bring out others, or remain there and proselytise; or theysend them here and there among the English on the Continent, sometimesto profess one thing and sometimes another. A few weeks ago one triedher skill upon us residing in Genoa, and partially succeeded. Her talewas, that she was the daughter of an English clergyman, who came abroadwith her aunt, travelling in great style of course, and was put into aconvent, and kept there against her will; and now she had contrived tomake her escape, and perfectly trembled when she saw a priest, or evenheard one named; and, although of high family, was ready to teach or doanything in an English family, to be out of reach of the priests. Thethings she told were most harrowing, and some of them very true-like. One English gentleman here thought of taking her into his family asgoverness, until he should get her father to come for her. I was askedto visit her at his house, and hear her woeful history. I went; but theline 'Timeo Danaos, ' &c. , was ever forcing itself upon me as I walkedmusingly along to the house, which was a little distance out of town. While hearing her long unconnected string of falsehoods, the thing thatastonished me was, why the Roman Catholic priests should have chosensuch an ugly woman to do such a piece of work; and not only had she themost forbidding appearance of any woman I ever saw, but she was the mostilliterate; not a single sentence came correctly from her lips, and, inpronunciation, the letter 'h' ever was prefixed to the 'aunt' and the'Oxford, '--the very quintescence of Cockneyism. It was clear to my mindthat she had 'done' the priests, and the sequel proves my suspicions tobe correct. That day before she left, she discovered that she wassuspected, and very prudently threw off her mask very soon after. Hercorrect history we are only getting bit by bit; but all we have learnedconvinces us that she has deceived the Italian priest, who knows verylittle of English, by persuading him that she is the daughter of anEnglish clergyman, and very highly connected in England. You have enoughof the story to see the kind of plot regularly carried on. What theyexpected to gain by passing her off upon us, we cannot tell, unless thatthey wished to know earlier and more fully our movements. There is anEnglish pervert here just now, --a weak fool, but an educated one, --on amission to Geymonat's people, to assure them that they have committed agreat sin. Having proved both systems of religion, he can judge, andthere is no comfort whatever in the Protestant. He has taken up hisabode here, and is prosecuting his mission vigorously. 

"A traveller passing through Genoa, and visiting the churches, particularly on a feast-day, would fancy that the Genoese, or, indeed, the Catholics in Sardinia generally, are the most devoted Catholics inItaly. Many have gone away with that impression. The reason is this. Allwho attend the churches in Genoa do so from choice, --from religiousmotives; and even feel, in these days of heresy, that they are wearingthe martyr's crown, --standing firmly for the true Church, while allwithout are scoffers; whereas in the Tuscan, Roman, and NeapolitanStates, people attend church from compulsion. If they are not in churchon certain days, and at mass, they are immediately suspected. I believethe male population of Italy is one moving mass of infidelity. Sardiniais professedly so. In Genoa not one young man in a hundred attendschurch. If you see him there, it is to select a pretty woman for his ownpurposes. Morality is at a very low ebb, --lower far than you can haveany idea of. Every man is sighing after his neighbour's wife; and heconfesses it, and talks as gallantly of his conquest as if he had foughton the heights of Alma. A stranger walking the streets in the eveningwould not suppose this, for he would not be attacked, as in a town inBritain; but they have their dens, and licensed ones too. Shocking as itmay appear, these houses are regularly licensed by the Government; andmedical men visit them once every week for sanitary purposes. Thedefilement of the marriage-bed is little or nothing thought of. Marriagehere is generally a money speculation, and is very frequently broughtabout through means of regular brokers or agents, who receive a percentage on the bride's dowry. A woman without a pretty good dowry hasvery little chance of a husband, unless she is young and very pretty, and willing to accept an old man. There are very few women in Geymonat'scongregation. The converts are nearly all men. "

While we rejoice in the spread of the light, we cannot but marvel at themysterious connection which may be traced between the first and thesecond reformations in Italy, as regards the spots where this divineillumination is now breaking out. We have already adverted to theprogress of the Gospel in the sixteenth century in so many of thecities of Italy, and the long roll of confessors and martyrs which everyclass of her citizens contributed to furnish. Not only did these men, intheir prisons and at their stakes, sow the seeds of a future harvest, but they appear to have earned for the towns in which they lived, andthe families from which they were sprung, a hereditary right, as itwere, to be foremost in confessing that cause at every subsequent era ofits revival. We cannot mark but with a feeling of heartfelt gratitude toGod, in whose sight the death of his saints is precious, and who, by theeternal laws of his providence, has ordained that the example of themartyr shall prove more powerful and more lasting than that of thepersecutor, that on the _self-same spots_ where these men died of old, the same mighty movement has again broken out. And not only are the samecities of Turin, and Milan, and Venice, and Genoa, and Florence, figuring in this second reformation of Italy, but the same families andthe same names from which God chose his martyrs in Italy three centuriesago are again coming forward, and offering themselves to the dungeon, and the galleys, and the scaffold, in the cause of the Gospel. Does notthis finely illustrate the indestructible nature of truth, which enablesit to survive a long period of dormancy and of apparent death, and toflourish anew from what seemingly was its tomb? And does it not alsoshed a beautiful light upon the order of the providence of God, wherebyhe remembers and revisits the seed of the righteous man, and keeps hismercy to a thousand generations of them that fear Him?

On Wednesday the 6th of November, after a stay of well-nigh a week inFlorence, I took my departure by rail for Pisa. The weather was stillwild and wintry, and the Apennines were white with snow to almost theirbottom. The railway runs along the valley, close to the Arno, which, swollen with the rains, had flooded the vineyards and meadows in manyplaces. A truly Italian vale is that of the Arno, whose silvery streamin ordinary times is seen winding and glistening amid the olives and thechestnut groves which border its course. When evening came, a deepspiritual beauty pervaded the region. As we swept along, many a romantichill rose beside our path, with its clustering village, its mantlingvines, and its robe of purple shadows; and many a long withdrawingravine opened on the right and left, with its stream, and its crags, andits olives, and its castles. What would we have given for but a minute'spause, to admire the finer points! But the engine held its onward way, as if its course had been amidst the most indifferent scenery in theworld. It made amends, however, for the enchanting views which it sweptinto oblivion behind, by perpetually opening in front others as lovelyand fascinating. The twilight had set, and the moon was shiningbrightly, when we reached the station at Pisa. 

The Austrian soldier who kept the gate challenged me as I passed, but Ipaid no attention, and hurried on. Had he secured my passport, I wouldinfallibly have been detained a whole day. I traversed the long windingstreets of the decaying town, crossed the Arno, on which the citystands, and, coming out on the other side of Pisa, found myself inpresence of its fine ecclesiastical buildings. A moon nearly full, whichseemed to veil while it in reality heightened their beauty, enabled meto see these venerable edifices to advantage. The hanging tower is abeautiful pile of white marble; the Cathedral is one of the mostchastely elegant specimens of architecture in all Italy; the baptistry, too peculiar to be classic, is, nevertheless, a tasteful and elegantdesign. Having surveyed these lovely creations of the wealth and geniusof a past age, I returned in time to take my seat in the last train forLeghorn. 

The country betwixt Pisa and the coast is perfectly flat, and theflooded Arno had converted it into a sea. I could see nothing around mebut a watery waste, above which the railway rose but a few inches. Ifelt as if again amid the Lagunes of Venice. After an hour and a half'sriding, we reached Leghorn, where I took up my abode at Thomson's hotel, so well and so favourably known to English travellers. After my longsojourn in Italian _albergi_, whose uncarpeted floors, and chinkywindows and doors, are but ill fitted to resist the winds and cold ofwinter, I sat down in "Thomson's, "--furnished as it is with all thecomforts of an English inn, --with a feeling of home-comfort such as Ihave rarely experienced. 

CHAPTER XX. 

FROM LEGHORN TO ROME. 

 First Sight of the Mediterranean--Embark at Leghorn--Elba--Italian Coast--Civita Vecchia--Passport Offices--Aspect and Population of Civita Vecchia--Papal Dungeons--Start for Rome--First View of the Campagna--Its Desolation--Changed Times--The Postilion--The Road--The Milestones--First Sight of the Eternal City--The Gate--Desolate Look of the City by Night--The Pope's Custom-House and Custom-House Officer. 

I rose early next morning, and walked down to the harbour, to have myfirst sight of the Mediterranean, --that renowned sea, on whose shoresthe classic nations of antiquity dwelt, and art and letters arose, --onwhose waters the commerce of the ancient world was carried on, and thebattles of ancient times fought, --whose scenery had often inspired theGreek and Latin poets, --and the grandeur of whose storms Inspirationitself had celebrated. A stiff breeze was blowing, and a white curlcrested the wave, and freckled the deep blue of the waters. TheMediterranean looked young and joyous in the morning sun, as when itbore the fleets of Tyre, or heard the victorious shouts of Rome, albeitit is now edged with mouldering cities, and listens only to the clank ofchains and the sigh of enslaved nations. 

Early in the forenoon I waited on the Rev. Dr Stewart, the accomplishedminister of the Free Church in Leghorn. He opened freely to me his amplestores of information on the subject of Tuscany, and the work inprogress in that country. We called afterwards on Mr Thomas Henderson, anative of Scotland, but long settled in Leghorn as a merchant. This kindand Christian man has since, alas! gone to his grave; but the futurehistorian of the Reformation in Italy will rank him with those piousmerchants in our own land who in former days consecrated their energyand wealth to the work of furthering the Gospel, and of sheltering itspoor persecuted disciples. After sojourning so long among strange facesand strange tongues, it was truly pleasant to meet two suchfriends, --for friends I felt them to be, though never till that day hadI seen their faces. 

At four of the afternoon I embarked in the steamer for Civita Vecchia, the port of Rome. The vessel I did not like at first: it was dirty, crowded, and, from some fault in the loading, lurched over while a stiffbreeze was rising. By and by we got properly under weigh, and sweptgallantly over the waves, along the coast, whose precipices andheadlands were getting indistinct in the fading twilight. I walked thedeck till past midnight, watching the moon as she rode high amid thescud overhead, and the beacon-lights of the island of Elba, as theygleamed full and bright astern. "What of the night?" I asked thehelmsman. "Buono notte, Signore, " was the reply. I descended to myberth. 

I awoke at four of the morning, and found the steamer labouring in arolling sea. The sirocco was blowing, and a huge black wave rolled upbefore it from the south. The distant coast stretched along on the left, naked and iron-bound, with the high lands of Etruria rising behind it. Iwondered whether that coast had looked as unkindly to Æneas, when firsthe cast anchor on it after long ploughing the deep? We drew towards thatsilent shore, where signs of man and his labours we could discover none;and in an hour or so a small bay opened under the vessel's bows. Theswell was rising every moment, and the steamer made some magnificentbounds in taking the entrance to the harbour. We entered the port ofCivita Vecchia at six, passing between the two round towers, with theirtiers of guns looking down upon us; and cast anchor in the ample basin, protected by the lofty walls of the forts, over which the green-toppedwaves occasionally looked as if enraged at missing their prey. Here wewere, but not a man of us could land till first our passports had beensubmitted to the authorities on shore. The passengers, who were of allclasses, from the English nobleman with his equipage and horses, down tothe lazzaroni of Naples, crowded the deck promiscuously; and amongstthem I was happy to meet again my two Russian friends, with whom I hadshared the same bed-room among the Apennines. In about an hour and ahalf we were boarded by a police-officer. Forming us into a row on deck, and calling our names one by one, this functionary handed to each abillet, permitting the holder to go ashore, on condition of an instantcompearance at the pontifical police-office. An examination of thebaggage followed. This done, I leaped into one of the small boats whichlay alongside the steamer, and was rowed to the quay at a few strokes, but for which service I had to recompense the boatman with about as manypauls. No sooner had I set foot on shore, than the everlasting passportbother began. The "apostolic consul" at Florence had certified me as"good for Rome;" the governor of Leghorn had but the day before done thesame; but here were I know not how many officials, all assuring me thatwithout their signatures in addition, Rome I should never see. Firstcame the English consul, who graciously gave me--what Lord Palmerstonhad already given--permission to travel in the Papal States, charging meat the same time five pauls. I could not help saying, that it was allvery well for nations that made no pretensions to liberty to sell totheir subjects the right of moving over the earth, but that it appearedto me to be somewhat inconsistent in Britain to do so. The consul lookedas if he could not bring himself to believe that he had heard aright. The number of my visa told me that I was the 4318th Englishman who hadentered the port of Civita Vecchia that season. I next took my way tothe French consulate in the town-hall. I found the ante-chamber filledwith Etrurian antiquities, in which the district adjoining CivitaVecchia on the north is particularly rich; and the sight of these wasmore than worth the moderate charge of one paul, which was made for myvisée. At length I got this business off my hand; and, having secured myseat in the _diligence_ for Rome, I had leisure to take a stroll throughthe town. 

Civita Vecchia, though the port of Rome, and raised thus above itsoriginal insignificance, is but a poor place. A black hill leans over iton the north, and a naked beach, dreary and silent, runs off from it onthe south. A small square, overlooked by stately mansions, emblazonedwith the arms of the consuls of the various nations, forms its nucleus, from which numerous narrow and wriggling streets run out, much like theclaws of a crab, from its round bulby body. It smells rankly of garlicand other garbage, and would be much the better would the Mediterraneangive it a thorough cleansing once a-week. Its population is a motley andworshipful assemblage of priests, monks, French soldiers, facini, andbeggars; and it would be hard to say which is the idlest, or which isthe dirtiest. They seemed to be gathered promiscuously into thecaffés, --priests, facini, and all, --rattling the dice and sippingcoffee. Every one you come in contact with has some pretext or other fordemanding a paulo of you. The Arabs of the desert are not more greedy of_backsheish_. A gentleman, as well dressed as I was at least, made up tome when I had taken my seat in the _diligence_, and, after talking fiveminutes on indifferent subjects, ended by demanding a paulo. "For what?"I asked, with some little surprise. "For entertaining Signore, " hereplied. Yet why blame these poor people? What can they do but beg?Trade, husbandry, books, --all have fled from that doomed shore. 

There are three conspicuous buildings in Civita Vecchia. Two of theseare hotels; the third and largest is a prison. This is one of the Stateprisons of the Pope. Rising story above story, and meeting the travelleron the very threshold of the country, it thrusts somewhat tooprominently upon his notice the Pope's peculiar method of propagatingChristianity, --namely, by building dungeons and hiring French bayonets. But to do the Pope justice, he is most unwearied in Christianizing hissubjects after his own fashion. His prisons are well-nigh as numerous ashis churches; and if the latter are but thinly attended, the former arecrowded. He is a man "instant in season and out of season, " as a goodshepherd ought to be: he watches while others sleep; for it is at nightthat his sbirri are most active, running about in the darkness, andcarrying tenderly to a safe fold those lambs which are in danger ofbeing devoured by the Mazzinian wolves, or ensnared by Bible heretics. But to be serious, --when one finds as many prisons as churches in aterritory ruled over by a minister of the Gospel, he begins to feel thatthere is something frightfully wrong somewhere. 

When I passed the fortress of Civita Vecchia, many a noble heart laypining within its walls. No fewer, I was assured, than two thousandRomans were there shut up as galley-slaves, their only crime being, thatthey had sought to substitute a lay for a sacerdotal Government, --theregime of constitutionalism for that of infallibility. In this prisonthe renowned brigand Gasperoni, the uncle of the prime minister of thePope, Antonelli, had been confined; but, being too much in the way ofEnglish travellers, he was removed farther inland. This man was wont tocomplain loudly to those who visited him, of the cruel injustice whichthe world had done his fair fame. "I have been held up, " he was used tosay, "as a person who has murdered hundreds. It is a foul calumny. Inever cut more than thirty throats in my life. " He had had, moreover, tocarry on his profession at a large outlay, having to pay the Pope'spolice an hundred scudi a-month for information. 

At last mid-day came, and off we started for Rome. We trundled down thestreet at a tolerable pace; and one could not help feeling that everyrevolution of the wheel brought him nearer the Eternal City. Suddenlyour course was brought to an unexpected stop. Another examination ofpassports and baggage at the gate! not, I verily believe, in the hope offinding contraband wares, but of having a pretext to exact a few morepauls. The half-hour wore through, though wearily. The gate was flungopen; and there lay before us a blackened expanse, stretching far andwide, dreary and death-like, terminated here by the sea, and there bythe horizon, --the Campagna di Roma. I turned for relief to the ocean, all angry with tempest as it was; and felt that its struggling billowswere a more agreeable sight than the tomb-like stillness of the plain. The sirocco was still blowing; and the largest breakers I ever saw weretumbling on the beach. The only bright and pleasant thing in thepicture was the shining, sandy coast, with its margin of white foam. Itran off in a noble crescent of fifty miles, and was seen in the fardistance terminating in the low sandy promontory of Fumacina, where theTiber falls into the sea. Alas! what vicissitudes had that coast beenwitness to! There, where the idle wave was now rolling, rode in otherdays the galleys of Rome; and there, where the stifling sirocco wassweeping the herbless plain, rose the villas of her senators, amid thebloom and fragrance of the orange and the olive. To that coast Cæsar hadloved to come, to inhale its breezes, and to pass, in the society of hisselect friends, those hours which ambition left unoccupied. But what achange now! There was no sail on that sea; there was no dwelling on thatshore: the scene was lonely and desolate, as if keel had never ploughedthe one, nor human foot trodden the other. 

I had seated myself in front of the vehicle, in the hope of catching thefirst glimpse of St Peter's, as its dome should emerge above the plain;but so wretched were our cattle, that though we started at mid-day, andhad only fifty miles of road, night fell long before we reached thegates of the Eternal City. I saw the country well, however, so long asdaylight lasted. We kept in sight of the shore for twenty-five miles;and glad I was of it; for the waves, with their crest of snow and voiceof thunder, seemed old friends, and I shuddered to think of plunginginto that black silent wilderness on the left. At the gate of CivitaVecchia the desolation begins; and such desolation! I had often readthat the Campagna was desolate; I had come there expecting to find itdesolate; but when I saw that desolation I was confounded. I cannotdescribe it; it must be seen to be conceived of. It is not that it issilent;--the Highlands of Scotland are so. It is not that it isbarren;--the sands of Arabia are so. They are as they were and shouldbe. But not so the Campagna. There is something frightfully unnaturalabout its desolation. A statue is as still, as silent, and as cold, asthe corpse; but then it never had life; and while you love to gaze onthe one, the other chills you to the heart. So is it with the Campagna. While the sands of the desert exhilarate you, and the silence of theSwiss or Scottish Highlands is felt to be sublime, the desolation of theCampagna is felt to be unnatural: it overawes and terrifies you. Such avoid in the heart of Europe, and that, too, in a land which was the homeof art, --where war accumulated her spoils, and wealth hertreasures, --and which gave letters and laws to the surroundingworld, --is unspeakably confounding. One's faith is staggered in the pasthistory of the country. The first glance of the blackened bosom of theCampagna makes one feel as if he had retrograded to the barbarous ages, or had been carried thousands and thousands of miles from home, and setdown in a savage country, where the arts had not yet been invented, orcivilization dawned. Its surface is rough and uneven, as if it had beentumbled about at some former period; it is dotted with wild bushes; andhere and there lonely mounds rise to diversify it. There are no houseson it, save the post-houses, which are square, tower-like buildings, having the stables below and the dwellings above. It has its patches ofgrass, on which herds depasture, followed by men clothed in sheepskinsand goatskins, and looking as savage almost as the animals they tend. Itis, in short, a wilderness, and more frightful than the otherwildernesses of the earth, because the traveller feels that here thereis the hand of doom. The land lies scathed and blackened under the curseof the Almighty. To Rome the words of the prophet are as applicable asto Babylon, whom she resembled in sin, and with whom she is now joinedin punishment: "Because of the wrath of the Lord, it shall not beinhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate. Every one that goeth byBabylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Cut off thesower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time ofharvest. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools ofwater. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, shall be as when Godoverthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: it shall never be inhabited, neither dweltin from generation to generation; but wild beasts of the deserts shalllie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owlsshall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. "

About half-way to Rome the road parted company with the shore, and weturned inland over the plain. The night came on with drifting showers, which descended in torrents, lashing the naked plain, and battering ourvehicle with the force and noise of a waterspout. And though at lengththe moon rose, and looked out at times from the cloud, she had nothingto show us but houseless, treeless desolation; and, as if scared at whatshe saw, she instantly hid her face in another mass of vapour. Thestages were short, and the halts long; for which the postilion had buttoo good excuse, in the tangled web of thong and cord which formed theharnessings of his horses. The harnessing of an Italian _diligence_ is amystery to all but an Italian postilion. The postilion, on arriving at astage, has to get down, shake himself, stride into the post to announcehis arrival, unharness his horses, lead them deliberately into thestable, bring out the fresh ones, transfer the same harness to theirbacks, put them to, gulp down his glass of brandy, address a few morelast observations to the loiterers, and, finally, light his cigar. Hethen mounts with a flourish of his whip; but his wretched nags are notable to proceed at a quicker trot than from three to four miles anhour. He meets very probably a brother of the trade, who has been atRome, and is returning with his horses. He dismounts on the road, inquires the news, and mounts again at his pleasure. In short, you arecompletely in the postilion's power; and he is quite as much an autocratin his way as the Czar himself. He sings, it may be, but his song is thevery soul of melancholy, --

 "Roma, Roma, Roma, non e piu, Come prima era. "

It needed but a glance at that pale moon, and drifting cloud, and nakedplain, to tell me that "Rome was not now as in her first age. "

As the night grew late, the inquiries became more frequent, "Are we notyet at Rome?" We were not yet at Rome; but we did all that men couldwith four, and sometimes six, half-starved animals, bestrode by drowsypostilions, to reach it. Now we were labouring in deep roads, --nowfording impetuous torrents, --and now jolting along on the hard pavementof the Via Aurelia. By the glimpses of the moon we could see themilestones by the roadside, with "ROME" upon them. Seldom has writingthrilled me so. To find a name which fills history, and which for thirtycenturies has extorted the homage of the world, and still awes it, written thus upon a common milestone, and standing there amid thetempest on the roadside, had in it something of the sublime. Was it thena reality, and not a dream? and should I in a very short time be in Romeitself, --that city which had been the theatre of so many events ofworld-wide influence, and which for so many ages had borne sway over allthe kings and kingdoms of the earth? Meanwhile the night became darker, and the torrents of rain more frequent and more heavy. 

Towards midnight we began to climb a low hill. We could see that therewas cultivation upon it, and, unless we were mistaken, a few villas. Wehad passed its summit, and were already engaged in the descent, when aterrific flash of lightning broke through the darkness, and tipped witha fiery radiance every object around us. On the left was the old hoarywall, with a whitish bulby mass hanging inside of it. On the right was asteep bank, with a few straggling vines dripping wet. The road between, on which we were winding downwards, was deep and worn. I had had myfirst view of Rome; but in how strange a way! In a few minutes we werestanding at the gate. 

Some little delay took place in opening it. The moments which one passeson the threshold of Rome are moments he never can forget. While waitingthere till it should please the guard to open that old gate, the wholehistory of the wonderful city on whose threshold I now stood seemed topass before my mind, --her kings, her consuls, her emperors, --herlegislators, her orators, her poets, --her popes, --all seemed to stalksolemnly past, one after one. There was the great Romulus; there was theproud Tarquin; there was Scylla with his laurel, and Livy with his page, and Virgil with his lay, and Cæsar with his diadem, and Brutus with hisdagger; there was the lordly Augustus, the cruel Nero, the beastlyCaligula, the warlike Trajan, the philosophic Antoninus, the sternHildebrand, the infamous Borgia, the terrible Innocent; and last of all, and closing this long procession of shades, came one, with shufflinggait and cringing figure, who is not yet a shade, --Pio Nono. The creakof the old gate, as the sentinel undid its bolt and threw back itsponderous doors, awoke me from my reverie. 

We were stopped the moment we had entered the gate, and desired tomount to the guard-room. In a small chamber on the city-wall, seated ata table, on which a lamp was burning, we found a little tight-madebrusque French officer, busied in overhauling the passports. Declaringhimself satisfied after a slight survey, he hinted pretty plainly that afew pauls would be acceptable. "Did you ever, " whispered my Russianfriend, "see such a people?" We were remounting our vehicle, when asoldier climbed up, with musket and fixed bayonet, and forced himself inbetween my companion and myself, to see us all right to thecustom-house, and to take care that we dropped no counterband goods bythe way. Away we trundled; but the Campagna itself was not more solitarythan that rain-battered and half-flooded street. No ray streamed outfrom window; no sound or voice of man broke the stillness; no one wasabroad; the wind moaned; and the big drops fell heavily upon the plashylava-paved causeway; but, with these exceptions, the silence wasunbroken; and, to add to the dreariness, the city was in well-nigh totaldarkness. 

I intently scrutinized the various objects, as the glare of our lampsbrought them successively into view. First there came a range of massivecolumns, which stalked past us, wearing in the sombre night an air ofEgyptian grandeur. They came on and on, and I thought they should neverhave passed. Little did I dream that this was the piazza of St Peter's, and that the bulb I had seen by favour of the lightning was the dome ofthat renowned edifice. Next we found ourselves in a street of low, mean, mouldering houses; and in a few moments thereafter we were riding underthe walls of an immense fortress, which rose above us, till itsbattlements were lost in the darkness. Then turning at right angles, wecrossed a long bridge, with shade-like statues looking down upon us fromeither parapet, and a dark silent river flowing underneath. I couldguess what river that was. We then plunged into a labyrinth of streetsof a rather better description than the one already traversed, butequally dreary and deserted. We kept winding and turning, till, as Isupposed, we had got to the heart of the city. In all that way we hadnot met a human being, or seen aught from which we could infer thatthere was a living creature in Rome. At last we found ourselves in asmall square, --the site of the Forum of Antoninus, though I knew it notthen, --in one of the sides of which was an iron gate, which opened toreceive us, _diligence_ and all, and which was instantly closed andlocked behind us; while two soldiers, with fixed bayonets, took theirstand as sentinels outside. It was a vast barn-looking, cavern-likeplace, with mouldering Corinthian columns built into its massive wall, and its roof hung so high as to be scarce visible in the darkness. Ithad been a temple of Antoninus Pius, and was now converted into thePope's dogana or custom-house. 

In a few minutes there entered a dapper, mild-faced, gentle-mannered, stealthy-paced man, with a thick long cloak thrown over his shoulders, to protect him from the night air. The Pope's dogana-master stood beforeus. He paced to and fro in the most unconcerned way possible; and thoughit was past midnight, and trunks and carpet-bags were all open andready, he seemed reluctant to begin the search. Nevertheless the baggagewas disappearing, and its owners departing at the iron gate, --a mysteryI could not solve. At length this most affable of dogana-masters drew upto me, and in a quiet way, as if wishing to conceal the interest he feltin me, he shook me warmly by the hand. I felt greatly obliged to him forthis welcome to Rome, but would have felt more so if, instead of thissalute, he had opened the gate and let me go. In about five minutes heagain came round to where I stood, and, grasping my hand a second time, gave it a yet heartier squeeze. I was at a loss to explain this suddenfriendship; for I was pretty sure this exceedingly agreeable gentlemanhad never seen me till that moment. How long this might have lasted Iknow not, had not a person in the dogana, compassionating my dullness, stepped up to me, and whispered into my ear to give the searcher a fewpaulos. I was a little scandalized at this proposal to bribe hisHoliness's servant; but I could see no chance otherwise of having theiron gate opened. Accordingly, I got ready the requisite douceur; and, waiting his return, which soon happened, took care to drop the few paulsinto his palm at the next squeeze. On the instant the gate opened. 

But alas! I was in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario tobe had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; norwas there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputationRome had of late acquired for midnight assassinations, I began to grow alittle apprehensive. After wandering about for some time, I lighted on aFrench sentry, who obligingly led me to a caffé hard by, which is keptopen all night. There I found a young German, an artist evidently, who, having finished his coffee, politely volunteered to conduct me to theHotel d'Angleterre. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

MODERN ROME. 

 Tower of Capitol best Site for studying Topography of Rome--Resemblance in the Sites of great Cities--Site of Rome--Campagna di Roma--Its Extent and Boundaries--Ancient Fertility and Magnificence--Modern Desolation of Campagna--Approach to Rome from the North--Etruria--Solitariness of this once famous Highway--First Sight of Rome--The Flaminian Way--The Porta del Popolo--The Piazza del Popolo--Its Antiquities--Pincian Hill--General Plan of Rome--The Corso--The Via Ripetta--The Via Babuina--Population--Disproportionate Numbers of Priests--Variety of Ecclesiastical Costumes--Dresses of the various Orders--Their indescribably Filthy Appearance--The ordinary Priest--The Priest's Face--The Beggars--Want of Arrangement in its Edifices--Rome an unrivalled Combination of Grandeur and Dirt. 

One of my first days in Rome was passed on the top of the tower of theCapitol. It is incomparably the best spot on which to study thetopography of the Eternal City, with that of the surrounding region. Here one stands between the living and the dead, --between the city ofthe Cæsars, which lies entombed on the Seven Hills, with the vine, theivy, and the jessamine mantling its grave, and the city of the Popes, spread out with its cupolas, and towers, and everlasting chimes, on thelow flat plain of the Campus Martius. The world has not such anotherruin, --so vast, colossal, and magnificent, --as Rome. Let us sketch thefeatures of the scene as they here present themselves. 

There would appear to be a law determining the _site_, as well as the_character_, of great events. It has often been remarked, that there isa resemblance between all the great battle-fields of the world. Oneattribute in especial they all possess, namely, that of vastness;inspiring the mind of the spectator with an idea of grandeur, to whichthe recollection of the carnage of which they were the scene adds afeeling of melancholy. The Troy and the Marathon of the ancient worldhave found their representative in the modern one, in that gloomyexpanse in Flanders where Napoleon witnessed the total defeat of hisarms and the final overthrow of his fortunes. We would make the sameremark regarding great capitals. There is a family likeness in theirsites. The chief cities of the ancient world arose, for the most part, on extensive plains, nigh some great river; for rivers were therailroads of early times. I might instance queenly Thebes, which arosein the great valley of the Nile, with a boundary of fine mountainsencircling the plain on which it stood. Babylon found a seat on thegreat plain of Chaldea, on the banks of the Euphrates. Niniveh arose onthe same great plain, on the banks of the Tigris, with the glitteringline of the snowy Kurdistan chain bounding its horizon. To come down tocomparatively modern times, ROME has been equally fortunate with herpredecessors in a site worthy of her greatness and renown. No one needsto be told that the seat of that city, which for so many ages held thesceptre of the world, is the CAMPAGNA DI ROMA. 

I need not dwell on the magnificence of that truly imperial plain, towhich nature has given, in a country of hills, dimensions so goodly. From the foot of the Apennines it runs on and on for upwards of anhundred miles, till it meets the Neapolitan frontier at Terracina. Itsbreadth from the Volscian hills to the sea cannot be less than fortymiles. Towards the head of this great plain lies Rome, than which afiner site for the capital of a great empire could nowhere have beenfound. By nature it is most fertile; its climate is delicious. It iswatered by the Tiber, which is seen winding through it like a thread ofgold. A boundary of glorious hills encloses it on all sides save thesouth-west. On the south-east are the gentle Volscians, clothed withflourishing woods and sparkling with villas. Running up along the plain, and lying due east of Rome, are the Sabine hills, of a deep azurecolour, with a fine mottling of light and shade upon their sides. Shutting in the plain on the north, and sweeping round it in amagnificent bend towards the west, are the craggy and romanticApennines. Such was the stage on which sat invincible, eternal Rome. This plain was traversed, moreover, by thirty-three highways, whichconnected the city with every quarter of the habitable globe. Itssurface exhibited the richest cultivation. From side to side it wascovered with gardens and vineyards, in the verdure and blossoms of analmost perpetual spring; amid which rose the temples of the gods ofRome, the trophies of her warriors, the tombs and monuments of herlegislators and orators, and the villas and rural retreats of hersenators and merchants. Indeed, this plain would seem, in imperialtimes, to have been one vast city, stretching out from the white strandof the Mediterranean to the summit of the Volscian hills. 

But in proportion to its GRANDEUR then is its DESOLATION now. From thesea to the mountains it lies silent, waste, unploughed, unsown, --ahouseless, treeless, blackened wilderness. "Where, " you exclaim, "areits highways?" They are blotted out. "Where are its temples, itspalaces, its vineyards?" All swept away. Scarce a heap remains, to tellof its numerous and magnificent structures. Their very ruins are ruined. The land looks as if the foot of man had never trodden it, and the handof man never cultivated it. Here it rises into melancholy mounds; thereit sinks into hollows and pits: like that plain which God overthrew, itneither is sown nor beareth. It is inhabited by the fox, haunted by thebrigand, and frequented in spring and autumn by a few herdsmen, clad ingoats'-skins, and living in caves and wigwams, and reminding one, bytheir savage appearance, of the satyrs of ancient mythology. It issilent as a sepulchre. John Bunyan might have painted it for his "Valleyof the Shadow of Death. "

I shall suppose that you are approaching Rome from the north. You havedisengaged yourself from the Apennines, --the picturesque Apennines, --inwhose sunny vales the vine still ripens, and on whose sides the olivestill lingers. You are advancing along a high plateau which rises hereand there into conical mounts, on which sits some ancient and renownedcity, dwindled now into a poor village, whose inhabitants arehusbandmen, and who move about oppressed by the languor that weighs uponthis whole land. Beneath your feet are subterranean chambers, in whichmailed warriors sleep, --for it is the ancient land of Etruria over whichyour track lies. Before the wolf suckled Romulus, this soil hadnourished a race of heroes. The road, so filled in former times by anever-failing concourse of legions going forth to battle or returning intriumph, --of consuls and legates bearing the high behests of the senateto the subject provinces, --and of ambassadors and princes coming to suefor peace, or to lay their tributary gifts at the feet of Rome, --is nowsolitary and untrodden, save by the traveller from a far country, or thecowled and corded pilgrim whose vow brings him to the shrine of theapostles. Stacks of mouldering brickwork attract the eye by thewayside, --the remains of temples and monuments when the land was in itsprime. You scarce take note of the scattered and stunted olives whichare dying through age. The fields are wretchedly tilled, where tilled atall. The country appears to grow only the more desolate, and the silencethe more dreary and unsupportable, as you advance. "Roma! Roma!" ischanted forth in melancholy tones by the postilion. "Roma" is graven onthe milestones; but you cannot persuade yourself that Rome you shallfind in the heart of a desert like this. You have gained the brow of alow hill; you have passed the summit, and got half-way down thedeclivity; when suddenly a vision bursts on your sight that rivets youto the spot. There is the Tiber rolling its yellow floods at your feet;and there, spread out in funereal gloom between the mountains and thesea, is the CAMPAGNA DI ROMA. The spectacle is sublime, despite itsdesolation. There is but one object in the vast expanse, but that istruly a majestic one. Alone, on the silent plain, judgment-stricken andsackcloth-clad, occupying the same spot where she "glorified herself andlived deliciously, " and said in her heart, "I sit a queen, and am nowidow, and shall see no sorrow, " is ROME. 

You are to cross the Tiber. Already your steps are on the Pons Milvius, where Christianity triumphed over Paganism in the person of Constantine, and over the parapet of which Maxentius, in his flight, flung theseven-branched golden candlestick, which Titus brought from the templeof Jerusalem. The Flaminian way, which you are now to traverse, runsstraight to the gate of Rome. In front is the long line of the citywalls, within which you can descry the proud dome of St Peter's, thehuge rotundity of St Angelo, or "Hadrian's Mole, " and a host of inferiorcupolas and towers, which in any other city would suffice to give acharacter to the place, but are here thrown into the shade by the twounrivalled structures I have named. You are not less than two miles fromthe gate; yet such are the purity and transparency of an Italian sky, that every stone almost in the old wall, --every scar which the hand oftime or the ravages of war have made in it, --is visible. As you advance, Monte Mario rises on the right, with a temple on its crest, and rows ofpine-trees and cypresses on its sides. On the left, at a goodlydistance, are seen the purple hills of Frascati and Albano, with theirdelicate chequering of light and shadow, and the Tiber, appearing toburst like a river of gold from their azure bosom. The beauty of theseobjects is much heightened by the blackness of the plain around. 

We now enter Rome. The square in which we find ourselves, --the Porta delPopolo, --is worthy of Rome. It is a clean, neatly-paved quadrangulararea, of an hundred and fifty by an hundred yards in extent, edged onall sides by noble mansions. Fronting you as you enter the gate are thedomes of two fine churches, in one of which Luther preached when he wasin Rome. Between them the Corso is seen shooting out in a long narrowline of lofty façades, traversing the entire length of the city fromnorth to south. On the right is the house of Mr Cass, the United States'consul, behind which rises a series of hanging gardens. There was dugthe grave of Nero; but the ashes of the man before whom the worldtrembled cannot now be found. On the left rises the terraced slope ofthe Pincian hill, with its galleries, its statues, its statelycypresses, and its noble carriage-drive. On the opposite declivity arethe gardens of Sallust, looking down on the _campus sceleratus_, wherethe unfaithful vestal-virgins were burned. 

In the middle of the spacious area is a fine fountain, whose waters arereceived into a spacious basin, guarded by marble lions. And there, too, stands the obelisk of Rhamses I. , severe and solemn, a stranger, like ourselves, from a far land. This is the same which that monarcherected before the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis, the ON of Scripture, and which Augustus transported to Rome. It is a single block of redgranite, graven from top to bottom with hieroglyphics, which it is quitepossible the eyes of Moses may have scanned. When that column was hewn, not a stone had been laid on the Capitol, and the site of Rome was amere marsh; yet here it stands, with its mysterious scroll still unread. Speak, stranger, and tell us, with thy deep Coptic voice, the secrets offour thousand years ago. Say, wouldst thou not like to revisit thynative Nile, and spend thine age beside the tombs of the Pharaohs, thecompanions of thy youth, and amidst the congenial silence of the sandsof Egypt?

The traveller who would enjoy the finest view of the modern city mustascend the Pincian hill. In the basin beneath him he beholds spread outa flat expanse of red-tiled roofs, traversed by the long line of theCorso, and bristling with the tops of innumerable domes, columns, andobelisks. Some thirty or forty cupolas give an air of grandeur to theotherwise uninteresting mass of red; and conspicuous amongst these, overagainst the spectator, is the princely dome of St Peter's, and the hugebulk of the Castle of St Angelo. The Tiber is seen creeping sluggishlyat the base of the Janiculum, the sides of which are thinly dotted withvillas and gardens, while its summit is surmounted by a long stretch ofthe old wall. 

Standing in the Piazza del Popolo, the person is in a good position forcomprehending the arrangement of modern Rome. Here three streets havetheir rise, which, running off in diverging lines, like spokes from thenave of a wheel, traverse the city, and form, with the cross streetswhich connect them, the osteology of the Eternal City. This at least isthe arrangement which obtains till you reach the region lying around theCapitol, which is an inextricable network of lanes, courts, and streets. The centre one of the three streets we have indicated is the Corso. Itis a good mile in length, and runs straight south, extending from theFlaminian gate to almost the foot of the Capitol. To an English eye itis wanting in breadth, though the most spacious street in Rome. It isbut indifferently kept in point of cleanliness, though the mostfashionable promenade of the Romans. Here only you find anythingresembling a flag-pavement: all the other streets are causewayed fromside to side with small sharp pieces of lava, which pain the foot atevery step. The shops are small and dark, resembling those of our thirdand fourth-rate towns, and exhibiting in their wares a superabundance ofcameos, mosaics, Etruscan vases, and statuary, --these being almost thesole native manufacture of Rome. It is adorned with several truly noblepalaces, and with the colonnades and porticos of a great number ofchurches. It was the boast of the Romans that the Pope could say mass ina different church every day of the year. This, we believe, is true, there being more than three hundred and sixty churches in that city, butnot one copy of the Bible that is accessible by the people. 

The second street, --that on the right, --is the Via Ripetta, which leadsoff in the direction of St Peter's and the Vatican. It takes one nighthe tomb of Augustus, now converted into a hippodrome; the Pantheon, whose pristine beauty remains undefaced after twenty centuries; theCollegio Romano; and, towards the foot of the Capitol, the Ghetto, --aseries of mean streets, occupied by the Jews. The third street, --that onthe left, --is the Via Babuino. It traverses the more aristocraticquarter of Rome, --if we can use such a phrase in reference to a citywhose nobles are lodging-house keepers, and live--

 "Garreted In their ancestral palace, "--

running on by the Piazza di Spagna, which the English so much frequent, to the Quirinal, the Pope's summer palace, and the form of Trajan, whosecolumn, after the many copies which have been made of it, still standsunrivalled and unapproached in beauty. 

 "And though the passions of man's fretful race Have never ceased to eddy round its base, Not injured more by touch of meddling hands Than a lone obelisk 'mid Nubian sands. "

On the Corso there is considerable bustle. The little buying and sellingthat is done in Rome is transacted here. Half the population that onesees in the Corso are priests and French soldiers. The population ofRome is not much above an hundred thousand; its ecclesiastical persons, however, are close on six thousand. Let us imagine, if we can, the stateof things were the ecclesiastics of all denominations in Scotland to bedoubled, and the whole body to be collected into one city of the size ofEdinburgh! Such is the state of Rome. The great majority of these menhave no duty to do, beyond the dreary and monotonous task of the dailylesson in the breviary. They have no sermons to write and preach; theydo not visit the sick; they have no books or newspapers; they have nofamily duties to perform. With the exception of the Jesuits, who aremuch employed in the confessional, the whole fraternity of regulars andseculars, white, black, brown, and gray, live on the best, and literallydo nothing. But, of course, six thousand heads cannot be idle. Theamount of mischief that must be continually brewing in Rome, --the warsthat shake convents, --the gossip and scandal that pollute society, --theintrigues that destroy families, --may be more easily imagined than told. Were the secret history of that city for but one short week to bewritten, what an astounding document it would be! and what a curiouscommentary on that mark of a "true Church, " _unity_! Well were it forthe world were the plots hatched in Rome felt only within its walls. 

On the streets of the Eternal City you meet, of course, every variety ofecclesiastical costume. The eye is at first bewildered with the motleyshow of gowns, cloaks, cowls, scapulars, and veils; of cords, crosses, shaven heads, and naked feet, --provoking the reflection what a vast dealof curious gear it takes to teach Christianity! There you have the longblack robe and shovel hat of the secular priest; the tight-fitting frockand little three-cornered bonnet of the Jesuit; the shorn head and blackwoollen garment of the Benedictine;--there is the Dominican, with hisblack cloak thrown over his white gown, and his shaven head stuck into aslouching cowl;--there is the Franciscan, with his half-shod feet, histhree-knotted cord, and his coarse brown cloak, with its numerouspouches bulging with the victuals he has been begging for;--there is theCapuchin, with his bushy beard, his sandaled feet, his patched cloak, and his funnel-shaped cowl, reminding one of Harlequin's cap;--there isthe Carmelite, with shaven head begirt with hairy continuous crown, loose flowing robe, and broad scapular;--there is the red gown of theGerman student, and the wallet of the begging friar. This last has beenout all morning begging for the poor, and is now returning withreplenished wallet to his convent on the Capitol, where dwell monks now, as geese aforetime. After dining on the contents of his well-filledsack, with a slight addition from the vineyards of the Capitol, he willscatter the crumbs among the crowd of beggars which may be seen at thishour climbing the convent stairs. 

But however these various orders may differ in the colour of theircloaks or the shape of their tonsure, there is one point in which theyall agree, --that is, dirt. They are indescribably filthy. Clean waterand soap would seem to be banished the convents, as indulgences of theflesh which cannot be cherished without deadly peril to the soul, andwhich are to be shunned like heresy itself. They smell like goats; andone trembles to come within the droppings of their cloak, lest he shouldcarry away a few little _souvenirs_, which the "holy man" might be gladto part with. A fat, stalwart, bacchant, boorish race they are, givingsigns of anything but fasting and flagellation; and I know of nothingthat would so dissipate the romance which invests monks and nuns in theeyes of some, like bringing a ship-load of them over to this country, and letting their admirers see and smell them. 

Even the ordinary priest appears but little superior to the monk in thequalities we have named. Dirty in person, slovenly in dress, and wearingall over a careless, fearless, bullying air, he looks very little thegentleman, and, if possible, less the clergyman. But in Rome he canafford to despise appearances. Is he not a priest, and is not Rome hisown? Accordingly, he plants his foot firmly, as if he felt, like Antæus, that he touches his native earth; he sweeps the crowd around with afull, scornful, defiant eye; and should Roman dare to measure glanceswith him, that brow of brass would frown him into the dust. In Rome the"priest's face" attains its completest development. That face has notits like among all the faces of the world. It is the same in allcountries, and can be known under every disguise, --a soldier's uniformor a porter's blouse. At Maynooth you may see it in all stages ofgrowth; but at Rome it is perfected; and when perfected, there is anentire blotting out of all the kindly emotions and human sympathies, andthere meets the eye something that is at once below and above the faceof man. If we could imagine the scorn, pride, and bold bad daring of oneof Milton's fallen angels, grafted on a groundwork of animal appetites, we should have a picture something like the priest's face. 

The priests will not be offended should the beggars come next in ournotice of the Eternal City. The beggars of Rome are almost aninstitution of themselves; and, though not chartered, like the friars, their numbers and their ancient standing have established their rights. What is it that strikes you on first entering the "Holy City?" Is it itsnoble monuments, --its fine palaces, --its august temples? No; it is itsflocks of beggars. You cannot halt a moment, but a little colony gathersround you. Every church has its beggar, and sometimes a whole dozen. Ifyou wish to ascertain the hours of any ceremony in a church, you aredirected to ask its beggar, as here you would the beadle. Every square, every column, every obelisk, every fountain, has its little colony ofbeggars, who have a prescriptive right to levy alms of all who come tosee these objects. We shall afterwards advert to the proof thencearising as to the influence of the system of which this city is theseat. 

Rome, though it surpasses all the cities of the earth in the number, beauty, and splendour of its public monuments, is imposing only inparts. It presents no effective _tout ensemble_. Some of its noblestedifices are huddled into corners, and lost amid a crowd of meanbuildings. The Pantheon rises in the fish-market. The Navonna Mercato, which has the finest fountain in Italy, is a rag-fair. The church ofthe Lateran is approached through narrow rural lanes. The splendidedifice of St Paul's stands outside the walls, in the midst of swampsand marshes so unwholesome, that there is not a house near it. Themeanest streets of Rome are those that lie around St Peter's and theVatican. The Corso is in good part a line of noble palaces; but in otherparts of the city you pass through whole streets, consisting of largemassive structures, once comfortable mansions, but now squalid, filthy, and unfurnished hovels, resembling the worst dens of our great cities. It cannot fail to strike one, too, as somewhat anomalous, that thereshould be such a vast deal of ruins and rubbish in the _Eternal_ City. And as regards its sanitary condition, there may be a great deal ofholiness in Rome, but there is very little cleanliness in it. When ashower falls, and the odour of the garbage with which the streets arelittered is exhaled, the smell is insufferable. One had better notdescribe the spectacles that one sees every day on the marble stairs ofthe churches. The words of Archenholtz in the end of last century arestill applicable:--"Filth, " says he, "infects all the great places ofRome except that of St. Peter's; nor would this be excepted from thegeneral rule, but that it lies at greater distance from the dwellings. It is incredible to what a pitch filthiness is carried in Rome. Aspalaces and houses are mostly open, their entrance is usually renderedunsufferable, being made the receptacle of the most disgustful wants. "In fine, Rome is the most extraordinary combination of grandeur andruin, magnificence and dirt, glory and decay, which the world ever saw. We must distinguish, however: the grandeur has come down to the Popesfrom their predecessors, --the filth and ruin are their own. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

ANCIENT ROME--THE SEVEN HILLS. 

 Site of Ancient Rome--Calm after the Storm--The Seven Hills--Their General Topography--The Aventine--The Palatine--The Ruins of the Palace of Cæsar--View of Ruins of Rome from the Palatine--The Cælian--The Viminale--The Quirinal--Other two Hills, the Janiculum and the Vatican--The Forum--The Arch of Titus--The Coliseum--The Mamertine Prison--External Evidence of Christianity--Rome furnishes overwhelming Proofs of the Historic Truth of the New Testament--These stated--The Three Witnesses in the Forum--The Antichrist come--_Coup d'OEil_ of Rome. 

But where is the Rome of the Cæsars, that great, imperial, andinvincible city, that during thirteen centuries ruled the world? If youwould see her, you must seek for her in the grave. You are standing, Ihave supposed, on the tower of the Capitol, with your face towards thenorth, gazing down on the flat expanse of red roofs, bristling withtowers, columns, and domes, that covers the plain at your feet. Turn nowto the south. There is the seat of her that once was mistress of theworld. There are the Seven Hills. They are furrowed, tossed, cleft; andno wonder. The wars, revolutions, and turmoils of two thousand yearshave rolled their angry surges over them; but now the strife is at anend; and the calm that has succeeded is deep as that of the grave. These hills, all unconscious of the past, form a scene of silent andmournful beauty, with fragments of temples protruding through theirsoil, and humble plants and lowly weeds covering their surface. 

The topography of these famous hills it is not difficult to understand. If you make the Capitoline in which you stand the centre one, theremaining six are ranged round it in a semi-circle. They are low broadswellings or mounts, of from one to two miles in circumference. We shalltake them as they come, beginning at the west, and coming round to thenorth. 

First comes the AVENTINE. It rises steep and rocky, with the Tiberwashing its north-western base. It is covered with the vines and herbsof neglected gardens, amid which rises a solitary convent and a fewshapeless ruins. At its southern base are the baths of Caracalla, which, next to the Coliseum, are the greatest ruin in Rome. 

Descend its eastern slope, --cross the valley of the Circus Maximus, --andyou begin to climb the PALATINE hill, the most famous of the seven. ThePalatine stands forward from the circular line, and is divided fromwhere you stand only by the little plain of the Forum. It was the seatof the first Roman colony; and when Rome grew into an empire, the palaceof the Cæsars rose upon it, and the Palatine was henceforward the abodeof the world's master. The site is nearly in the middle of ancient Rome, and commands a fine view of the other hills, the Capitol onlyovertopping it. The imperial palace which rose on its summit must havebeen a conspicuous as well as imposing object from every part of thecity. Three thousand columns are said to have adorned an edifice, thesaloons, libraries, baths, and porticos of which, the wealth and art ofancient Rome had done their utmost to make worthy of their imperialoccupant. A dark night has overwhelmed the glory that once irradiatedthis mount. It is now a huge mountain of crumbling brickwork, bearing onits broad level top a luxuriant display of cabbages and vines, amidwhich rise the humble walls of a convent, and a small but tastefulvilla, which is owned, strange to say, by an Englishman. The proprietorof the villa and the little colony of monks are now the only inhabitantsof the Palatine. In walking over it, you stumble upon blocks of marble, remains of terraces, vaults still retaining their frescoes, arches, porticos, and vast substructions of brickwork, all crushed and blendedinto one common ruin. In these halls power dwelt and crime revelled: nowthe owl nestles in their twilight vaults, and the ivy mantles theircrumbling ruins. The western side of this mound rises steep and lofty, crested with a row of noble cypress trees. They are tall and upright, and wear in the mind's eye a shadowy shroud of gloom, looking likemourners standing awed and grief-stricken beside the grave of theCæsars. When the twilight falls and the stars come out, their darkmoveless figures, relieved against the sky, present a sight peculiarlyimpressive and solemn. 

The general aspect and condition of the Palatine have been sketched byByron with his usual power:--

 "Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower, grown, Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, Deeming it midnight;--temples, baths, or halls, Pronounce who can; for all that learning reaped From her research hath been, that these are walls. Behold the imperial mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. "

But Cowper rises to a yet higher pitch, and reads the true moral whichis taught by this fallen mount. For to Rome may we apply his lines onthe fall of the once proud monarchy of Spain. 

 "Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as we? Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies, Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid Low in the pits thine avarice has made. We come with joy from our eternal rest, To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed. Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand Rolled over all our desolated land, Shook principalities and kingdoms down, And made the mountains tremble at his frown? The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers, And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours. 'Tie thus Omnipotence his law fulfils, And Vengeance executes what Justice wills. "

One day I ascended the Palatine, picking my steps with care, owing tothe abominations of all kinds that cover the path, to spend an hour onthe mount, and survey from thence the mighty wrecks of empire strewnaround it. The steps of the stair by which I ascended were formed ofblocks of marble, the half-effaced carvings on which showed that theyhad formed parts of former edifices. Protruding from the soil, andstrewn over its surface, were fragments of columns and capitols ofpillars. I emerged on the summit at the spot where the vestibule ofNero's palace is supposed to have stood. I thought of the guards, thesenators, the ambassadors, that had crowded this spot, --the spoils, trophies, and monuments, that had adorned it; and my heart sank at thesight of its naked desolation and dreary loneliness. The flat top of thehill ran off to the south, covered with a various and somewhatincongruous vegetation. Here was a thicket of laurels, and there aclump of young oaks; here a garden of vines, and there rows of cabbages. A monk, habited in brown, was looking out at the door of his convent;and one or two women were busy among the vegetables, making up a loadfor market. On the farther edge of the hill rose the tall, moveless, silent cypresses of which I have spoken. On the right rose the squaretower of the Capitol, with the perperine substructions of itsTabularium, coeval with the age of the kings; and skirting its base werethe cupolas of modern churches, and the nodding columns of fallentemples, beautiful even in their ruin, and more eloquent than Cicero, whose living voice had often been heard on the spot where they nowmoulder in silent decay. A little nearer was the naked, jagged front ofthe Tarpeian rock, crested a-top with gardens, and its base buried inrubbish, which is slowly gaining on its height. In front was a noblebend of the Tiber, rolling on in mournful majesty, amid the majesticsilence of these mighty desolations. Beyond were the red roofs and meanstreets of the Trastevere, with the empty upland slope of the Janiculum, crowned by the line of the gray wall. Behind, and immediately beneathme, was the Forum, where erst the Romans assembled to enact their lawsand choose their magistrates. A ragged line of ghastly ruins, --porticoswithout temples, and temples without porticos, their noble vaultingsyawning like caverns in the open day, --was seen bounding its fartheredge. Its floor was a rectangular expanse of shapeless swellings andyawning pits. Here reposed a herd of buffaloes; there a little drove ofswine; yonder stood a row of carts; and in the midst of these nowayspicturesque objects rose the gray arch of Titus. At its base sat abeggar; while an artist, at a little distance, was sketching it with thecalotype. A peasant was traversing the Via Sacra, bearing to his home asupply of city-baked bread. A dozen or two of old men with spades andbarrows were clearing away the earth from the ruins of the Temple ofVenus and Rome. In the south-eastern angle of the plain rose the titanicbulk of the Coliseum, fearfully gashed and torn, yet sublime in itsdecay. Over the furrowed and ragged summits of the Cælian and Esquilinemounts were seen the early snows, glittering on the peaks of theVolscian and Sabine range. Such was the scene which presented itself tome from the top of the Palatine. How different, I need not say, fromthat which must have often met the eye of Cæsar from the same point, prompting the proud boast, --"Is not this great" Rome, "that I have builtfor the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for thehonour of my majesty?" "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, sonof the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weakenthe nations!... Is this the man that did make the earth totremble, --that did shake kingdoms, --that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof?"

A little eastward of the Palatine, and seen over its shoulder, assurveyed from the tower of the Capitol, is the CÆLIAN Mount. Its summitis marked by the ruins of an ancient edifice, --the Curia Hostilia, --andthe statued front of a modern temple, --the church of S. John Lateran, which is even more renowned in the pontifical annals than the other isin classic story. Moving your eye across the valley of the Forum, itfalls upon the flat surface of the ESQUILINE. It is marked, like theformer, by an ancient ruin and a modern edifice. Amid its vineyards andrural lanes rise the massive remains of the baths of Titus, and thegorgeous structure of Maria Maggiore. The VIMINALE comes next; butforming, as it did, a plain betwixt the Esquiline and the Quirinal, itis difficult to trace its limits. It is distinguishable mainly by thebaths of Dioclesian, now a French barrack, and the church of SanLorenzo, which occupies its highest point. The QUIRINAL is the last ofthe Seven Hills. It is covered with streets, and crowned with the summerpalace and gardens of the Pope. 

Thus have we made the tour of the Seven Hills, commencing at theAventine on the extreme right, and proceeding in a semicircular lineover the low swellings which lie in their peaceful covering of flowerand weed, onward to the Quirinal, which rises, with its glitteringcasements, on the extreme left. They hold in their arms, as it were, modern Rome, with the Tiber, like a golden belt, tying in the city, andbounding the Campus Martius, on which it is seated. On the west of theTiber are other two hills, which, though not of the seven, are worthmentioning. The first is the JANICULUM, with the _Trastevere_ at itsbase. The inhabitants of this district pride themselves on their pureRoman blood, and look down upon the rest of the inhabitants as a mixedrace; and certainly, if ferocious looks and continual frays can makegood their claim, they must be held as a colony of the olden time, which, nestling in this nook of Rome, have escaped the intermixtures andrevolutions of eighteen centuries. It has been remarked that there is astriking resemblance between their faces and those of the ancientRomans, as graven on the arch of Titus. They are the nearest neighboursof the Pope, whose own hill, the VATICAN, rises a little to the north ofthem. On the Vatican mount stood anciently the circus of Nero; and heremany of the early Christians, amid unutterable torments, yielded uptheir lives. On the spot where they died have arisen the church of StPeter and the palace of the Vatican, --now but another name for whateveris formidable to the liberties of the world. 

But beyond question, the spot of all others the most interesting in Romeis the Forum. You look right down into it from where you stand. Whetherit be the eloquence, or the laws, or the victories, or the magnificentmonuments of ancient Rome, the light reflected from them all isconcentrated on this plain. How often has Tully spoken here! How oftenhas Cæsar trodden it! Over that very pavement which the excavations havelaid bare, the chariots of Scylla, and of Titus, and of a hundred otherwarriors, have rolled. But the triumphs which this plain witnessed, oncedeemed eternal, are ended now; and the clods which that Italian slaveturns up, or which that priest treads on so proudly, are perchance partof the dust of that heroic race which conquered the world. The tombs ofthe Cæsars are empty now, and their ashes have been scattered long sinceover the soil of Rome. Of the many beautiful edifices that stood aroundthis plain, not one remains entire: a few mouldering columns, halfburied in rubbish, or dug out of the soil, only remain to show wheretemples stood. But there is one little arch which has survived that diretempest of ruin in which temple and tower went down, --the Arch of Titus, which has sculptured upon its marble the sad story of the fall ofJerusalem and the captivity of the Jews. That little arch, wonderful totell, stands between two mighty ruins, --the fallen palace of the Cæsarson the one hand, and the kingly but ruined mass of the Coliseum on theother. 

As regards the Coliseum, architects, I believe, do not much admire it;but to myself, who did not look at it with a professional eye, it seemedas if I had never seen a ruin half so sublime. I never grew weary ofgazing upon it. It rises amid the hoar ruins of Rome, scarred and rent, yet wearing an eternal youth; for with the most colossal size itcombines in the very highest degree simplicity of design and beauty ofform. To stand on its area, and survey the sweep of its broken benches, is to feel as if you were standing in the midst of an amphitheatre ofhills, and were gazing on concentric mountain-ranges. How powerfully doits associations stir the soul! How many spirits now in glory have diedon that arena! The Romans, we shall suppose, have been occupied all dayin witnessing mimic fights, which display the skill, but do notnecessarily imperil the life, of the combatants. But now the sun iswestering; the shadow of the Palatine begins to creep across the Forum, and the villas on the Alban hills burn in the setting rays, and theRomans, before retiring to their homes, demand their last grandspectacle, --the death of some poor unhappy captive or gladiator. Thevictim steps upon the arena amid the deep stillness of the overwhelmingmultitude. It is no mimic combat his: he is "appointed to death. " Thislets us into the peculiar force of Paul's words, "I think that God hathset forth us the apostles last, as it were, appointed to death; for weare made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. "

But the most touching recollection connected with this city isthis, --even that part of the Word of God was written in it, and that agreater than Cæsar has trodden its soil. A few paces below where westand is the Mamertine prison, in whose dungeons, it is probable, Paulwas confined; for this was the state-prison, and offences againstreligion were accounted state-offences. It is hewn in the rock of theCapitoline hill, dungeon below dungeon; and when surveying it, I couldnot but feel, that among all the exploits of Roman valour, there was notone half so heroic as that of the man who, with a cruel death staringhim in the face, could sit down in this dungeon, where day never dawned, and write these heroic words, --"I am now ready to be offered, and thetime of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I havefinished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid upfor me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them alsothat love his appearing. "

Here I may be allowed to allude to a branch of the external evidence ofChristianity which has not received all the notice to which it isentitled. When surveying from the tower of the Capitol the ruins ofancient Rome, I felt strongly the absurdity--the almost idiotcy--ofdenying the historic truth of Christianity. On such a spot one might aswell deny that ancient Rome existed, as deny that Christianity waspreached here eighteen centuries ago, and rose upon the ruins ofpaganism. At the distance of Rome, and amid the darkness of Italianignorance, we can conceive of a Roman holding that the life of Knox is afable, --that no such man ever existed, or ever preached in Scotland, orever effected the Reformation from Popery. But bring him to the CastleHill of Edinburgh, --bid him look round upon city and country, studdedwith the churches and schools of the reformed faith, planted byKnox, --show him the mouldering remains of the old cathedrals from whichthe priesthood and faith of Rome were driven out, --and, unless his mindis constituted in some extraordinary way, he would no longer doubt thatsuch a man as Knox existed, and that Scotland has been reformed fromRomanism to Presbyterianism. So is it at Rome. Around you are thetemples of the ancient paganism. Here are ruins still bearing theinscriptions and effigies of the pagan deities and the pagan rites. Canany sane man doubt that paganism once reigned here? You can trace thehistory of its reign still graven on the ruins of Rome; but you cantrace it down till only seventeen centuries ago: then it suddenly stops;a new writing appears upon the stones; a new religion has acquired theascendancy in Rome, and left its memorials graven upon pillar, andcolumn, and temple. Can any man doubt that Paul visited this city, --thathe preached here, as the "Acts of the Apostles" records, --and that, after two centuries of struggles and martyrdoms, the faith which hepreached triumphed over the paganism of Rome? Look along the ViaSacra, --that narrow paved road which leads southward from the Capitol:the very stones over which the chariot of Scylla rolled are still there. The road runs straight between the Palatine Mount, where the ivy and thecypress strive to mantle the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars, and thewonderful and ever beautiful structure of the Coliseum. In the valleybetween is a beautiful arch of marble, --the Arch of Titus. The palace ofthe world's master lies in ruins on the one side of it; the Coliseum, the largest single structure which human hands ever created, standsrent, and scarred, and bowed, on the other; and between these two mightyruins this little arch rises entire. What a wonderful providence hasspared it! On that arch is graven the record of the fall of Jerusalemand the captivity of the Jews; and the great fact of the existence ofthe Old Testament economy is also attested upon it; for there plainlyappears on the stone, the furniture of the temple, the goldencandlestick, the table of shew-bread, and the silver trumpets. Butfurther, about two miles to the south of Rome are the Catacombs. Inthese catacombs, which, not unlike the coal-mines of our own country, traverse under ground the Campagna for a circuit of many miles, theearly Christians, lived during the primitive persecutions. There theyworshipped, there they died, and there they were buried; and theirsimple tombstones, recording that they died in peace, and in the hope ofeternal life through Christ, are still to be seen to the number of manythousands. How came these tombstones there, if early Christianity andthe early martyrs be a fable? If Christianity be a forgery, the arch ofTitus, with its sacred symbols, is also a forgery; the catacombs, withall their tombstones, are also a forgery; and the hundred monuments inRome, with the traces of early Christianity graven upon them, are also aforgery; and the person or persons who forged Christianity, in order togive currency to their forgery, must have been at the incredible painsof building the arch of Titus, and chiselling out its sculpture work;they must have dug out the catacombs, and filled them, with infinitelabour, with forged tombstones; and they must have covered the monumentsof Rome with forged inscriptions. Would any one have been at the painsto have done all this, or could he have done it without being detected?When the Romans rose in the morning, and saw these forged inscriptions, they must have known that they were not there the day before, and wouldhave exposed the trick. But the idea is absurd, and no man can seriouslyentertain it whom an inveterate scepticism has not smitten with theextreme of senility or idiotcy. There is far more evidence at Rome forthe historic truth of Christianity than for the existence of JuliusCæsar or of Scipio, or of any of the great men whose existence no oneever takes it into his head to doubt. 

Here, in the Forum, are THREE WITNESSES, which testify respectively tothree leading facts of Christianity. These witnesses are, --the Arch ofTitus, the fallen Palace on the Palatine, and the Column of Phocas. TheArch of Titus proclaims the end of the Old Testament economy; for there, graven on its marble, is the record of the fall of the temple, and thedispersion of the Jewish nation. The ruin on the Palatine tells thatthe "let" which hindered the revelation of the Man of Sin has now been"taken out of the way, " as Paul foretold; for there lies the prostratethrone of the Cæsars, which, while it stood, effectually forbade therise of the popes. But this solitary pillar, which stands erect where somany temples have fallen, with what message is it freighted? Itwitnesses to the rise of Antichrist. That column rose with the popes;for Phocas set it up to commemorate the assumption of the title ofUniversal Bishop by the pastor of Rome; and here has it been standingall the while, to proclaim that "that wicked" is now revealed, "whom theLord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy withthe brightness of his coming. " Such is the united testimony borne bythese three Witnesses, --even that the Antichrist is come. 

To complete this _coup d'oeil_ of Rome, it is necessary only that wetransfer our gaze for an instant to the more distant objects. Thoughswept, as the site of Rome now is, with the besom of destruction, theoutlines, which no ruin can obliterate, are yet grand as ever. Immediately beneath you are the red roofs and glittering domes of thecity; around is a gay fringe of vineyards and gardens; and beyond is thedark bosom of the Campagna, stretching far and wide, meeting the horizonon the west and south, and confined on the east and north by a wall ofglorious hills, --the sweet Volscians, the blue Sabines, the craggyApennines, with their summits--at least when I saw them--hoary with thesnows of winter. Spectacle terrible and sublime! Ruin colossal andunparalleled! The Campagna is a vast hall, amid the funereal shadows andunbroken stillness of which repose in mournful state the ASHES OF ROME. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

STRIKING OBJECTS IN ROME. 

 The Baths of Caracalla--The Catacombs--Evidence thence arising against Romanism--The Scala Santa, or Pilate's Stairs--Peasants from Rimini climbing them--Irreverence of Devotees--Unequal Terms on which the Pope offers Heaven--Church of Ara Cæli--The Santissimo Bambino--Conversation with the Monks who exhibit it--The Ghetto, or Jew's Quarter--Efforts to Convert them to Romanism--Tyrannical Restrictions still imposed upon them--Their Ineradicable Characteristics of Race--The Vatican--The Apollo Belvedere--Pio Nono--His Dress and Person--St Peter's--Its Grandeur and Uselessness--Motto on Egyptian Obelisk--Gate of San Pancrazio--Graves of the French--The Convents--Exhibition of Nuns--Collegio Romano and Father Perrone--An American Student--The English Protestant Chapel--Preaching there--American Chaplain--Collection in Rome for Building a Cathedral in London--Sermon on Immaculate Conception in Church of Gesu--Ave Maria--Family Worship in Hotel--Early Christians of Rome--Paul. 

I have already mentioned my arrival at midnight, and how thankful I wasto find an open door and an empty bed at the Hotel d'Angleterre. Thereader may guess my surprise and joy at discovering next morning that Ihad slept in a chamber adjoining that of my friend Mr Bonar, from whom Ihad parted, several weeks before, at Turin. After breakfast, we salliedout to see the Catacombs. I had found Rome in cloud and darkness on theprevious night; and now, after a deceitful morning gleam, the stormreturned with greater violence than ever. Torrents swept the streets;the lightning was flashing on the old monuments; fearful peals ofthunder were rolling above the city; and we were compelled oftener thanonce during our ride to seek the shelter of an arched way from thedeluge of rain that poured down upon us. Skirting the base of thePalatine, and emerging on the Via Appia, we arrived at the Baths ofCaracalla, which we had resolved to visit on our way to the Catacombs. No words can describe the ghastly grandeur of this stupendous ruin, which, next to the Coliseum, is the greatest in Rome. Besides itssaloons, theatre, and libraries, it contained, it is said, sixteenhundred chairs for bathers. As was its pristine splendour, so now is itsoverthrow. Its cyclopean walls, and its vast chambers, the floors ofwhich are covered to the depth of some twelve or twenty feet with fallenmasses of the mosaic ceiling, like immense boulders which have rolleddown from some mountain's top, are spread over an area of about a milein circuit. The ruins, here capped with sward and young trees, thererising in naked jagged turrets like Alpine peaks, had a romantic effect, which was not a little heightened by the alternate darkness of thethunder-cloud that hung above them, and the incessant play of thelightning among their worn pinnacles. 

Resuming our course along the Appian Way, we passed the tomb of theScipios; and, making our exit by the Sebastian gate, we came, after aride of two miles in the open country, to the basilica of SanSebastiano, erected over the entrance to the Catacombs. Pulling a bellwhich hung in the vestibule, a monk appeared as our cicerone, and wemight have been pardoned a little misgiving in committing ourselves tosuch a guide through the bowels of the earth. His cloak was old andtattered, his face was scourged with scorbutic disease, misery orflagellation had worn him to the bone, and his restless eye cast uneasyglances on all around. He carried in his hand a little bundle of tallowcandles, as thin and worn as himself almost; and, having lighted them, he gave one to each of us, and bade us follow. We descended with himinto the doubtful night. The place was a long shaft or corridor, dug outof the brown tuffo rock, with the roof about two feet overhead, and thebreadth two thirds or so of the height. The descent was easy, theturnings frequent, and light there was none, save the glimmerings of ourslender tapers. The origin of the Catacombs is still a disputedquestion; but the most probable opinion is, that they were formed bydigging out the pozzolana or volcanic earth, which was used as a cementin the great buildings of Rome. They extend in a zone round the city, and form a labyrinth of subterranean galleries, which traverse theCampagna, reaching, according to some, to the shore of theMediterranean. He who adventures into them without a guide is infalliblylost. They speak at Rome of a professor and his students, to the numberof sixty, who entered the Catacombs fifty years ago, and have not yetreturned. Certain it is, that many melancholy accidents have occurred inthem, which have induced the Government to wall them up to a certainextent. I had not gone many yards till I felt that I was entirely at themercy of the monk, and that, should he play me false, I must remainwhere I was till doomsday. 

But what invests the Catacombs with an interest of so touching a kind isthe fact, that here the Christian Church, in days of persecution, madeher abode. What! in darkness, and in the bowels of the earth? Yes: suchwere the Christians which that age produced. At every few paces alongthe galleries you see the quadrangular excavations in which the deadwere laid. There, too, are the niches in which lamps were placed, soneedful in the subterranean gloom; and occasionally there opens to yourtaper a large square chamber, with its walls of dark-brownish tuffo andits stuccoed roof, which has evidently been used for family purposes, oras a chapel. How often has the voice of prayer and praise resoundedhere! The Catacombs are a stupendous monument of the faith and constancyof the primitive Church. You have the satisfaction here of knowing thatyou have the very scenes before you that met the eyes of the firstChristians. Time has not altered them; superstition has not disfiguredthem. Such as they were when the primitive believers fled to them from aNero's cruelty or a Domitian's tyranny, so are they now. 

These remarkable excavations were well known down till the sixthcentury. Amid the barbarism of the ages that succeeded, all knowledge ofthem was lost; but in the beginning of the sixteenth century, when theart of printing had been invented, and the world could profit by thediscovery, the Catacombs were re-opened. Most of the gravestones wereremoved to the Vatican, and built into the _Lapidaria Galleria_, where Ispent a day copying them; but so accurately have they been described byMaitland, in his "Church in the Catacombs, " that I beg to refer thereader who wishes farther information respecting these deeplyinteresting memorials, to his valuable work. They are plain, unchiselledslabs of marble, with simple characters, scratched with some sharpinstrument by the aid of the lamp, recording the name and age of theperson whose remains they enclosed, to which is briefly added, "inpeace, " or "in Christ. " Piety here is to be tested, not by theprofession on the tombstone, but by the sacrifice of the life. A palmbranch carved on the stone is the usual sign of martyrdom. I saw a fewslabs still remaining as they had been placed seventeen centuries ago, fastened into the tuffo rock with a cement of earth. When the Catacombswere opened, a witness rose from the dead to confront Rome. No trace hasbeen discovered which could establish the slightest identity indoctrine, in worship, or in government, between the present Church ofRome and the Church of the Catacombs. 

Will the reader accompany me to another and very different scene? Weleave these midnight vaults, and tread again the narrow lava-pavedAppian road; and through rural lanes we seek the summit of the Cælianmount, where stands in statued pomp the church of St John Lateran. Hereare shown the _Scala Santa_ which were brought from Jerusalem, and whichthe Church of Rome certifies as the very stairs which Christ ascendedwhen he went to be judged of Pilate. On the north side of the quadrangleis an open building, with three separate flights of steps leading upfrom the pavement to the first floor. The middle staircase, which iscovered with wood to preserve the marble, is the _Scala Santa_, which itis lawful to ascend only on your knees. Having reached the top, you mayagain use your feet, and descend by either of the other two stairs. Placed against the wall at the foot of the Scala Santa, is a largeboard, with the conditions to be observed in the ascent. Amongst otherprovisions, no one is allowed to carry a cane up the Scala Santa, nor isdog allowed to set foot on these stairs. On the pavement stood asentry-box; and in the box sat a little dark-visaged man, so verywithered, so very old, and so very crabbed, that I almost was tempted toask him whether he had been imported along with the stairs. He rattledhis little tin-box violently, which seemed half full of small coins, andinvited me to ascend. "What shall I have for doing so?" I asked. "Fifteen years' indulgence, " was the instant reply. There might be aboutfifteen steps in the stair, which was at the rate of a year'sindulgence for every step. The terms were fair; for with an ordinaryday's work I might lay up some thousands of years' indulgence. There wasbut one drawback in the matter. "I don't believe in purgatory, " Irejoined. "What is that to me?" said the old man, tartly, accompanyingthe remark with a quick shrug of the shoulders and a curl of his thinlip. 

I turned to the staircase. Three peasant lads from Rimini--where theMadonna still winks, and good Catholic hearts still believe--werepiously engaged in laying up a stock of merit against a future day, onthe Scala Santa. Swinging the upper part of their bodies, and holdingtheir feet aloft lest their wooden-soled shoes should touch the preciousmarble, or rather its wooden casing, they were slowly making way on thesteps. In a little they were joined by a Frenchman, with his wife andlittle daughter; and the whole began a general march up the staircase. Whether it was the greater vigour of their piety, or the greater vigourof their limbs, I know not; but the peasants had flung themselves upbefore the lady had mastered five steps of the course. It occurred to methat this way of earning heaven was not one that placed all on a level, as they should be. These strong sinewy lads were getting fifteen years'indulgence with no greater effort than it cost the lady to earn five. The party, on reaching the top, entered a room on the right, and dropton their knees before a little box of bones which stood in one corner, then before a painting of the Saviour which hung in the other; muttereda few words of prayer; and, descending the lateral stairs, commencedover again the same process. In no time they had laid up at least ahundred years' indulgence a-piece. The Frenchman and his lady wentthrough the operation with a grave face; but the peasants quite lost themastery over theirs, and the building rung with peals of laughter atthe ridiculous attitudes into which they were compelled to throwthemselves. Even in the little chapel above, bursts of smotheredmerriment interrupted their prayers. I looked at the little man in thebox, to see how he was taking it; but he was true to his own remark, "What is that to me?" Indeed, this behaviour by no means detracted fromthe merit of the deed, or shortened by a single day the term ofindulgence, in the estimation of the Italians. _Their_ understanding ofdevotion and _ours_ are totally different. With us devotion is a mentalact; with them it is a mechanical act, strictly so. The mind may beabsent, asleep, dead; it is devotion nevertheless. These peasants hadundertaken to climb Pilate's staircase on their knees; not to givedevout or reverent feelings into the bargain: they had done all theyengaged to do, and were entitled to claim their hire. The staircase, asmy readers may remember, has a strange connection with the Reformation. One day, as Luther was dragging his body up these steps, he thought heheard a voice from heaven crying to him, _The just shall live by faith. _Amazed, he sprang to his feet. New light entered into him. Luther andthe Reformation were advanced a stage. 

From the Scala Santa in the Lateran I went to see the Santissimo Bambinoin the church of Ara Cæli, on the Capitol. This church is squatted onthe spot where stood the temple of Jupiter Ferretrius of old. It is oneof the largest churches in Rome, and is unquestionably the ugliest. Amagnificent staircase of an hundred and twenty-four steps of Parianmarble leads up to it; but the church itself is as untasteful as canwell be imagined. It presents its gable to the spectator, which issimply a vast unadorned expanse of brick, the breadth greatly exceedingthe height, and terminating a-top in a sort of coping, that looks like alow, broad chimney, or rather a dozen chimneys in one. The edificealways reminded me of a short, stout Quaker, with a brim of even morethan the usual breadth, standing astride on the Capitol. Entering by themain doorway in the west, I passed along the side aisle, on my way tothe little chapel near the altar where the Bambino is kept. The wallhere was covered with little pictures in thousands, all in the homelieststyle of the art, and representing persons falling into the sea, ortumbling over precipices, or ridden over by carts. These were votiveofferings from persons who had been in the situations represented, andwho had been saved by the special interposition of Mary. Arms, legs, andheads of brass, and in some instances of silver, bore testimony to thegreater wealth or the greater devotion of others of the devotees. Passing through a door on the left, at the eastern extremity of thechurch, I entered the little chapel or side closet, in which the Bambinois kept. Here two barefooted monks, with not more than the average dirton their persons, were in attendance, to show me the "god. " They beganby lighting a few candles, though the sunlight was streaming in at thecasement. I was near asking the monks the same question which theProtestant inhabitants of a Hungarian village one day put to theirCatholic neighbours, as they were marching in procession through theirstreets, --"Is your god blind, that you burn candles to him at mid-day?"The tapers lighted, one of the friars dropped on his knees, and fell topraying with great vigour. I fear my deportment was not so edifying asthe place and circumstances required; for I could see that ever and anonthe monk cast side-long glances at me, as at a man who was scarce worthyof so great a sight as was about to be shown him. The other monk, drawing a key from under his cloak, threw open the doors of a sort ofcupboard that stood against the wall. The interior was fitted up notunlike the stage of a theatre. A tall figure, covered with a browncloak, stood leaning on a staff in the foreground. By his side stood afemale, considerably younger, and attired in an elegant robe of green. These two regarded with fixed looks a little cradle or casket at theirfeet. The background stretched away into a hilly country, amid whoseknolls and dells were shepherds with their flocks. The figures wereJoseph and Mary, and the vista beyond was meant to represent thevicinity of Bethlehem. Taking up the casket, the monk, with infinitebowings and crossings, undid its swathings, and solemnly drew forth theBambino. Poor little thing! it was all one to it whether one or ahundred candles were burning beside it: it had eyes, but saw not. It wasbandaged, as all Italian children are, from head to foot, the swathingsenveloping both arms and legs, displaying only its little feet at oneextremity, and its round chubby face at the other. But what a blaze! Onits little head was a golden crown, burning with brilliants; and fromtop to toe it was stuck so full of jewels, that it sparkled andglittered as if it had been but one lustrous gem throughout. 

Two women, who had taken the opportunity of an Inglise visiting theidol, now entered, leading betwixt them a little child, and all threedropped on their knees before the Bambino. I begged the monk to informme why these women were here on their knees, and praying. "They areworshipping the Bambino, " he replied. "Oh! worshipping, are they?" Iexclaimed, in affected surprise; "how stupid I am; I took it for a pieceof wood. " "And so it is, " rejoined the monk; "but it is miraculous; itis full of divine virtue, and works cures. " "Has it wrought any oflate?" I inquired. "It has, " replied the religioso; "it cured a woman ofdropsy two weeks ago. " "In what quarter of Rome did she live?" I asked. "She lived in the Vatican, " replied the Franciscan. "We have some greatdoctors in the city I come from, " I said; "we have some who can take offan arm, or a leg, or a nose, without your feeling the slightest pain;but we have no doctor like this little doctor. But, pray tell me, why doyou permit the cardinals or the Pope ever to die, when the Bambino cancure them?" The monk turned sharply round, and gave me a searchingstare, which I stood with imperturbable gravity; and then, taking me foreither a very dull or a very earnest questioner, he proceeded to explainthat the cure did not depend altogether on the power of the Bambino, butalso somewhat on the faith of the patient. "Oh, I see how it is, " Ireplied. "But pardon me yet farther; you say the Bambino is of wood, andthat these honest women are praying to it. Now I have been taught tobelieve that we ought not to worship wood. " To make sure both of myinterrogatories and of the monk's answers, I had been speaking to himthrough my friend Mr Stewart, whose long residence in Rome had made himperfectly master of the Italian tongue. "Oh, " replied the Franciscan, "_all Christians here worship it_. " But now the signs had become verymanifest that my inquiries had reached a point beyond which it would notbe prudent to push them. The monk was getting very red in the face; hismotions were growing quick and violent; and, with more haste thanreverence, he put back his god into its crib, and prepared to lock it upin its press. His fellow monk had started to his feet, and was rapidlyextinguishing the candles, as if he smelt the unwholesome air of heresy. The women were told to be off; and the exhibition closed with somewhatless show of devotion than it had opened. 

Here, by the banks of the Tiber, as of old by the Euphrates, sits thecaptive daughter of Judah; and I went one afternoon towards twilight tovisit the Ghetto. It is a narrow, dark, damp, tunnel-like lane. OldFather Tiber had been there but a day or two previously, and had left, as usual, very distinct traces of his visit, in the slime and wet thatcovered the place. Formerly it was shut in with gates, which were lockedevery night at Ave Maria: now the gates are gone, and the broken andragged door-posts show where they had hung. Opposite the entrance of theGhetto stands a fine church, with a large sculpture-piece over itsportal, representing a crucifix, surrounded with the motto, which meetsthe eye of the Jew every time he passes out or comes in, "All day long Ihave stretched forth my hands unto a gainsaying and disobedient people. "The allusion here, no doubt, is to their unwillingness to pay theirtaxes, for that is the only sense in which the Pope's hands are all daylong stretched out towards this people. Recently Pio Nono contracted aloan for twenty-one millions of francs, with the house of Rothschild;and thus, after persecuting the race for ages, the Vicar of God has cometo lean for the support of his tottering throne upon a Jew. To do thePope justice, however, the Jews in Rome are gathered once a-year into achurch, where a sermon is preached for their conversion. The spectacleis said to be a very edifying one. The preacher fires off from thepulpit the hardest hits he can; and the Jews sit spitting, coughing, andmaking faces in return; while a person armed with a long pole stalksthrough the congregation, and admonishes the noisiest with a firm sharprap on the head. The scene closes with a baptism, in which, it isaffirmed, the same Jew sometimes plays the same part twice, or oftenerif need be. 

The tyrannical spirit of Popery is seen in the treatment to which thesedescendants of Abraham are subjected in Rome, down to the present hour. Inquisitors are appointed to search into and examine all their books;all Rabbinic works are forbidden them, the Old Testament in Hebrew onlybeing allowed to them; and any Jew having any forbidden book in hispossession is liable to the confiscation of his property. Nor is hepermitted to converse on the subject of religion with a Christian. Theyare not permitted to bury their dead with religious pomp, or to writeinscriptions on their tombstones; they are forbidden to employ Christianservants; and if they do anything to disturb the faith of a Jewishconvert to Romanism, they are subject to the confiscation of all theirgoods, and to imprisonment with hard labour for life; they are notallowed to sell meat butchered by themselves to Christians, norunleavened bread, under heavy penalties; nor are they permitted to sleepa night beyond the limits of their quarters, nor to have carriage orhorses of their own, nor to drive about the city in carriages, nor touse public conveyances for journeying, if any one object to it. 

Enter the Ghetto, and you feel instantly that you are among anotherrace. An indescribable languor reigns over the rest of Rome. The Romanswalk the streets with their hands in their pockets, and their eyes onthe ground, for a heavy heart makes the limbs to drag. But in the Ghettoall is activity and thrift. You feel as if you had been suddenlytransported into one of the busiest lanes of Glasgow or Manchester. Eager faces, with keen eyes and sharp features, look out upon you fromamid the bundles of clothes and piles of all kinds of articles whichdarken the doors and windows of their shops. Scarce have you crossed thethreshold of the Ghetto when you are seized by the button, draggedhelplessly into a small hole stuffed with every imaginable sort ofmerchandise, and invited to buy a dozen things at once. No sooner haveyou been let go than you are seized by another and another. The womenwere seated in the doors of their shops and dwellings, plying busilytheir needle. One fine Jewish matron I marked, with seven buxomdaughters round her, all working away with amazing nimbleness, andcasting only a momentary glance at the stranger as he passed. Howinextinguishable the qualities of this extraordinary people! Here, inthis desolate land, and surrounded by the overwhelming torpor andlaziness of Rome, the Jews are as industrious and as intent on makinggain as their brethren in the commercial cities of Britain. I drew upwith a young lad of about twenty, by way of feeling the pulse of theGhetto; but though I tried him on both the past and the present, Isucceeded in striking no chord to which he would respond. He seemed oneof the prophet's dried bones, --very dry. Seventy years did their fathersdwell by the Euphrates; but here, alas! has the harp of Judah hung uponthe willow for eighteen centuries. Beneath the dark shadow of theVatican do they ever think of the sunny and vine-clad hills of theirPalestine?

I spent days not a few in the saloons of the Vatican. Into these noblechambers, --six thousand in number, it is said, --have been gathered allthe masterpieces of ancient art which have been dug up from the ruins ofvillas, and temples, and basilicas, where they had lain buried for ages. Of course, I enter on no description of these. Let me only remark, thatthough I had seen hundreds of copies of some of these sculptures, --theApollo Belvedere and the Laocoon, for instance, --no copy I had ever seenhad given me any but the faintest idea of the transcendent beauty andpower of the originals. The artist, I found, had flung into them, without the slightest exaggeration of feature, a tremendous energy, anintense life, which perhaps no coming age will ever equal, and certainlynone surpass. What a sublime, thrilling, ever-acting tragedy, forinstance, is the Laocoon group! But from these efforts of a genius longsince passed from the earth, I pass to one who represents in his livingperson a more tragical drama than any depicted in marble in the halls ofthe Vatican. One day as I was wandering through these apartments, therumour ran through them that the Pope was going out to take an airing. Iimmediately ran down to the piazza, where I found a rather shabby coachwith red wheels, to which were yoked four coal-black horses, with a veryfat coachman on the box, in antique livery, and two postilions astridethe horses, waiting for Pius. Some half-dozen of the _guardia nobile_, mounted on black horses, were in attendance; and, loitering at thebottom of the stairs, were the stately forms of the Swiss guards, withtheir shining halberds, and their quaint striped dress of yellow andpurple. I had often heard of the Pope in the symbols of the Apocalypse, and in the pages of history as the antichrist; and now I was to see himwith the eye in the person of Pio Nono. After waiting ten minutes or so, the folding doors in an upper gallery of the piazza were thrown open, and I could see a head covered with a white skull-cap, --the Popes neverwear a wig, --passing along the corridor, just visible above the stoneballustrade. In a minute the Pope had descended the stairs, and wasadvancing along the open pavement to his carriage. The Swiss guard stoodto their halberds. A Frenchman and his lady, --the same, if I mistakenot, whom I had seen on the Scala Santa, --spreading his whitehandkerchief on the causeway, uncovered and dropped on his knees; a rowof German students in red gowns went down in like manner; a score or soof wretched-looking old men, who were digging up the grass in thepiazza, formed a prostrate group in the middle; and a little knot ofEnglishmen, --some four of us only, --stood erect at about six yards fromthe line of the procession. 

Pio Nono, though king of the kings of the earth, was attired with severesimplicity. His sole dress, save the skull-cap I have mentioned, and redslippers, was a gown of white stuff, which enveloped his whole personfrom the neck downwards, and looked not unlike a camlet morningdressing-gown. A small cross which dangled on his breast was his onlyornament. The fisherman's ring I was too far off to see. In person he isa portly, good-looking gentleman; and, could one imagine him enteringthe pulpit of a Scotch Secession congregation, or an English Methodistone, his appearance would be hailed with looks of satisfaction. Hiscolour was fresher than the average of Italy; and his face had less ofthe priest in it than many I have seen. There was an air of easy goodnature upon it, which might be mistaken for benevolence, blended with asmile, which appeared ever on the point of breaking into a laugh, andwhich utterly shook the spectator's confidence in the firmness and goodfaith of its owner. Pius stooped slightly; his gait was a sort of amble;there was an air of irresolution over the whole man; and one was temptedto pronounce, --though the judgment may be too severe, --that he was halfa rogue, half a fool. He waived his hand in an easy, careless way to thestudents and Frenchman, and made a profound bow to the English party. 

St Peter's is close by: let us enter it. As among the Alps, so here atfirst, one is altogether unaware of the magnitudes before him. Whatstrikes you on entering is the vast sweep of the marble floor. It runsout before you like a vast plain or strath, and gives you a colossalstandard of measurement, which you apply unconsciously to everyobject, --the pillars, the statues, the roof; and though these are allcolossal too, yet so nicely are they proportioned to all around them, that you take no note of their bulk. You pass on, and the grandeur ofthe edifice opens upon you. Beneath you are rows of dead popes; oneither side rise gigantic statues and monuments which genius has raisedto their memory; and in front is the high altar of the Roman world, towering to the height of a three-story house, yet looking, beneath thatsublime roof, of only ordinary size. You are near the reputed tombs ofPeter and Paul, before which an hundred golden lamps burn day and night. And now the mighty dome opens upon you, like the vault of heaven itself. You begin to feel the wondrous magnificence of the edifice in which youstand, and you give way to the admiration and awe with which it inspiresyou. But next moment comes the saddening thought, that this pile, unrivalled as it is among temples made with hands, is literally useless. There is no worship in it. Here the sinner hears no tidings of a freesalvation. This temple but enshrines a wafer, and serves once or twicea-year as the scene of an idle pageant on the part of a few old men. 

Nay, not only is it useless, --it is one of the strongholds whichsuperstition has thrown up for perpetuating its sway over the world. Yousee these few poor people kneeling before these burning lamps. Theirprayer is directed, not upwards through that dome to the heavens aboveit, but downwards into that vault where sleep, as they believe, theashes of Peter and Paul. Rome has ever discouraged family worship, andtaught men to pray in churches. Why? To increase the power of the Churchand the priesthood. A country covered with households in which familyworship is kept is like a country covered with fortresses;--it isimpregnable. Every house is a citadel, and every family is a littlearmy. Or mark yonder female who kneels before the perforated brazenlattice of yonder confessional-box. She is whispering her sins into theear of a shaven priest, who receives them into his own black heart. Itis but a reeking cess-pool, not a fountain of cleansing, to which shehas come. Such are the uses of St Peter's, --a temple where the _Church_is glorified at the expense of _religion_. Its high altar stops the wayto the throne of grace, and its priest bars your access to a Redeemer'sblood. 

And how was this temple built? Romanists speak of it as a monument ofthe piety of the faithful. But what is the fact? Did it not come out ofthe foul box of Tetzel the indulgence-monger? Every stone in it isrepresentative of so much sin. With all its grandeur, it is but astupendous monument of the follies and vices, the crimes and thesuperstition, of Christendom in the ages which preceded the Reformation. It has cost Rome dear. We do not allude to the twelve millions itserection is said to have cost, but to the mighty rent to which it gaverise in the Roman world. In the centre of the magnificent piazza of StPeter's stands an Egyptian obelisk, brought from Heliopolis, with thewords graven upon it, "Christ reigns. " Verily that is a great truth; andthere are few spots where one feels its force so strongly as here. Thesuccessive paganisms of the world have been overruled as steps in theworld's progress. Their corruptions have been based upon certain greattruths, which they have written, as it were, upon the general mind ofthe world. The paganism which flourished where that column was hewn wasan admission of _God's existence_, though it strove to divert attentionfrom the truth on which it was founded, by the multitude of false godswhich it invented. In like manner, the paganism that flourishes, orrather that is fading, where this column now stands, is an admission ofthe _necessity of a Mediator_; though it strives, as its predecessordid, to hide this glorious truth under a cloud of spurious mediators. But we see in this how every successive move on the part of idolatry hasin reality been a retreat. Truth is gradually advancing its parallelsagainst the citadel of error, and the world is toiling slowly upward toits great rest. Thus Christ shows that He reigns. 

From this silent prophet at the Pope's door, let us skirt along theJaniculum, to the gate of San Pancrazio. The site is a commanding one;and you look down into the basin in which Rome reposes, where many acupola, and tower, and pillared façade, rises proudly out of the redroofs that cover the Campus Martius. If it is toward sunset, you can seethe sheen of the villas which are sprinkled over the Sabine and Volscianhills, and are much struck with the fine amphitheatre which themountains around the city form. What must have been the magnificence ofancient Rome, with her seven hills, and her glorious Campagna, with sucha mountain-wall! But let us mark the old gate. It was here that thestruggle betwixt the French and the Romans took place in 1849. The wallis here of brick, --very old, and of great breadth; and if struck with acannon ball, it would crumble into dust by inches, but not fall inmasses: hence the difficulty which the French found of breaching it. Thetowers of the gate are dismantled, and the top of the wall for somethirty yards is of new brick; but, with these exceptions, no othertraces remain of the bloody conflict which restored the Pope to histhrone. Of old, when Dagon fell, and the human head rolled in onedirection and the fishy tail lay in another, "they took Dagon, " we aretold, and, fastening together the dissevered parts, "they set him in hisplace again. " Idol worshippers are the same in all ages. Oftener thanonce has the Dagon of the Seven Hills fallen; the crown has rolled inone direction; the "palms of his hands" have been seen in another; andonly the sacerdotal stump has remained; but the kings of Europe havetaken Dagon, and, by the help of bayonets, have "set him in his placeagain;" and, having set up _him_ who could not set up himself, haveworshipped him as the prop of their own power. What I had come hither tosee especially was the graves of those who had fallen. On the left ofthe road, outside the gate, I found a grassy plateau, of some half-dozenacres, slightly furrowed, but bearing no such indications as I expectedto find of such carnage as had here taken place. A Roman youth wassauntering on the spot; and, making up to him, I asked him to be so goodas show me where they had buried the Frenchmen. "Come along, " said he, "and I will show you the French. " We crossed the plateau in thedirection of a vineyard, which was enclosed with a stone-wall. The gatewas open, and we entered. Stooping down, the youth laid hold on awhitish-looking nodule, of about the size of one's fist, and, holding itout to me, said, "that, Signor, is part of a Frenchman. " I thought atfirst the lad was befooling me; but on examining the substance, I foundthat it was animal matter calcined, and had indeed formed part of ahuman being. The vineyard for acres and acres was strewn with similarmasses. I now saw where the French were buried. The siege took place inthe heat of summer; and every evening, when the battle was over, thedead were gathered in heaps, and burned, to prevent infection; and thereare their remains to this day, manuring the vineyards around the walls. I wonder if the evening breezes, as they blow over the Janiculum, don'twaft across the odour to the Vatican. 

Let us descend the hill, and re-enter the city. There is a class ofbuildings which you cannot fail to note, and which at first you take tobe prisons. They are large, gloomy-looking houses, of from three tofour stories, with massive doors, and windows closed with strong uprightiron stanchions, crossed with horizontal bars, forming a network of ironof so close a texture, that scarce a pigeon could squeeze itselfthrough. Ah, there, you say, the brigand or the Mazzinist groans! No;the place is a convent. It is the dwelling, not of crime, but of"heavenly meditation. " The beings that live there are so perfectlyhappy, so glad to have escaped from the evil world outside, and sodelighted with their paradise, that not one of them would leave it, though you should open these doors, and tear away these iron bars. Sothe priests say. Is it not strange, then, to confine with bolt and barbeings who intend anything but escape? and is it not, to say the least, a needless waste of iron, in a country where iron is so very scarce andso very dear? It would be worth while making the trial, if only for asummer's day, of opening these doors, and astonishing Rome with thegreat amount of happiness within it, of which, meanwhile, it has not theleast idea. I have seen the dignitaries entering, but no glimpse could Iobtain of the interior; for immediately behind the strong outer door isan inner one, and how many more I know not. Mr Seymour has told us of anun, while he was in Rome, who found her way out through all these doorsand bars; but, instead of fleeing back into her paradise, she rushedstraight to the Tiber, and sought death beneath its floods. 

But although I never was privileged to see the interior of a Romanconvent, I saw on one occasion the inmates of these paradises. During mysojourn in that city, it was announced that the nuns of a certainconvent were to sing at Ave Maria, in a church adjoining the Piazza diSpagna; and I went thither to hear them. The choristers I did not see;they sat in a remote gallery, behind a screen. Their voices, which inclearness and brilliancy of tone surpassed the finest instruments, nowrose into an overpowering melodious burst, and now died away into thesweetest, softest whispers. Within the low rail, their faces frontingthe altar, and their backs turned on the audience, sat a row ofspectres. Start not, reader; spectres they were, --fleshless, bloodlessspectres. I saw them enter: they came like the sheeted dead; they worelong white dresses; their faces were pale and livid, like those thatlook out upon you from coffins; their forms were thin and wasted, andcast scarce a shadow as they passed between you and the beams of thesinking sun. Their eyes they lifted not, but kept them steadfastly fixedon the ground, over which they crept noiselessly as shadows creep. Theysat mute and moveless, as if they had been statues of cold marble, allthe while these brilliant notes were rolling above them. But I observedthey were closely watched by the priests. There were several beside thealtar; and whichever it was who happened for the moment to bedisengaged, he turned round, and stood regarding the nuns with thatstern anxious look with which one seeks to control a mastiff or amaniac. Were the priests afraid that, if withdrawn for a moment from theinfluence of their eye, a wail of woe would burst forth from these poorcreatures? The last hallelujah had been pealed forth, --the shades of evewere thickening among the aisles, --when the priests gave the signal tothe nuns. They rose, they moved; and, with eyes which were not liftedfor a moment from the floor on which they trod, they disappeared by thesame private door by which they had entered. I have seen gangs of galleyslaves, --I have seen the husbands and sons of Rome led away manacledinto banishment, --I have seen men standing beneath the gallows; butnever did I see so woe-struck a group as this. Than have gone back withthese nuns to their "paradise, " as it is cruelly termed, I felt that Iwould rather have lain, where the lost nun is, in the Tiber. 

Before visiting Italy, I had read and studied the lectures of FatherPerrone, Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the Collegio Romano, and hadhad frequent occasion to mention his name in my own humble pages; for Ihad nowhere found so clear a statement of the views held by the Churchof Rome on the important doctrine of Original Sin, as that given in theFather's writings, and few had spoken so plainly as he had done on thewickedness of toleration. Being in Rome, I was naturally desirous ofseeing the Father, and hearing him prelect. Accompanied by a young Romanstudent, whose acquaintance I had the happiness to make, but whose nameI do not here mention, I repaired one day to the Collegio Romano, --afine quadrangular building; and, after visiting its library, in whose"dark unfathomed caves" lies full many a monkish gem, I passed to theclass-room of Professor Perrone. It was a lofty hall, benched after themanner of our own class-rooms, and hung round with portraits of theProfessor's predecessors in office, --at least I took them for such. Atall pulpit rose on the end wall, with a crucifix beside it. Thestudents were assembling, and mustered to the number of about anhundred. They were raw-boned, seedy-looking lads, of from seventeen totwenty-two. They all wore gowns, the majority being black, but some fewred. Had I been a rich man, and disposed to signalize my visit to theCollegio Romano by some appropriate gift, I would have presented each ofits students with a bar of soap, with directions for its use. In a fewminutes the Professor entered, wearing the little round cap of theJesuits. With that quiet stealthy step (an unconscious struggle to passfrom matter into spirit, and assume invisibility) which is inseparablefrom the order, Father Perrone walked up to the pulpit stairs, which, after doffing his cap, and muttering a short prayer before the crucifix, he ascended, and took his place. It may interest those who are familiarwith his writings, to know that Father Perrone is a man of middle size, rather inclined to obesity, with a calm, pleasant, thoughtful face, which becomes lighted up, as he proceeds, with true Italian vivacity. His lecture for the day was on the Evidences; and of course it was notthe heretics, but the infidels, whom he combated throughout. In thenumber of his students was a young Protestant American, whom I first metin the house of the Rev. Mr Hastings, the American chaplain, where Iusually passed my Sabbath evenings. This young man had chalked out forhimself the most extraordinary theological course I ever heard of. Hehad first of all gone through a full curriculum in one of the oldorthodox halls of the United States; he had then passed into Germany, where he had taken a course of neology and philosophy; and now he hadcome to Rome, where he intended to finish off with a course of Romanism. I ventured to engage him in a conversation on what he had learned inGermany; but we had not gone far till both found that we had lostourselves in a dark mist; and we were glad to lay hold on an ordinarytopic, as a clue back to the daylight. The young divine purposedreturning to his native land, and spending his days as a Presbyterianpastor. 

Will the reader go back with me to the point where we began ourexcursion through Rome, --the Flaminian Gate? I invite the reader'sspecial attention to a building on the right. It stands a few pacesoutside the gate. The building possesses no architectural attractions, but it is illustrative of a great principle. The first floor is occupiedas a granary; the second floor is occupied as a granary; the thirdfloor, --how is it occupied, --the attic story? Why, it is the EnglishProtestant Church! Here is the toleration which the Pope grants us inRome. There are from six hundred to a thousand English subjects residentin Rome every winter; but they dare not meet within the walls to openthe Bible, or to worship God as his Word enjoins. They must go outwithout the gate, as if they were evil-doers; they must climb the stairsof this granary, as if they meditated some deed of darkness; and onlywhen they have got into this garret are they at liberty to worship God. The Pope comes, not in person, but in his cardinals and priests, toBritain; and he claims the right of building his mass-houses, and ofcelebrating his worship, in every town and village of our empire. Wepermit him to do so; for we will fight this great battle with theweapons of toleration. We disdain to stain our hands or tarnish ourcause by any other: these we leave to our opponents. But when we go toRome, and offer to buy with our money a spot of ground on which to erecta house for the worship of God, we are told that we can have--no, not afoot's-breadth. Why, I say, the gospel had more toleration in PaganRome, aye, even when Nero was emperor, than it has in Papal Rome underPio Nono. When Christianity entered Rome in the person of the ApostlePaul, did the tyrant of the Palatine strike her dumb? By no means. Forthe space of two years, her still small voice ceased not to be heard atthe foot of the Capitol. "And Paul dwelt two whole years in his ownhired house [in Rome], and received all that came in unto him; preachingthe kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the LordJesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him. " Let anyminister or missionary attempt to do so now, and what would be his fate?and what the fate of any Roman who might dare to visit him? Instantbanishment to the one, --instant imprisonment to the other. The Pope hasset up the symbol of intolerance and persecution at his gate. He haswritten over the portals of Rome, as Dante over the gates of hell, "Allye who enter here, abandon"--God. 

I do not say that the place is incommodious internally. The stigma liesin the proscription put upon Protestant worship. It is held to be anabomination so foul, that it cannot be tolerated within the walls ofRome. And the same spirit which banishes the worship to a garret, wouldbanish the worshipper to a prison, or condemn him to a stake, if itdared. The same principle that makes Rome lock her earthly gates againstthe Protestant now, makes her lock her heavenly gates against himeternally. 

There are, however, annoyances of a palpable and somewhat ludicrous kindattending this expulsion of the Protestant worship beyond the walls. Thegranary to which I have referred adjoins the cattle and pig market. InRome, although it is a mortal sin to eat the smallest piece of flesh ona Friday, it is no sin at all to buy and sell swine's flesh on aSabbath. Accordingly, the pig-market is held on Sabbath; and it iscustomary to drive the animals into the back courts of the Englishmeeting-house before carrying them to market. So I was informed, when atRome, by a member of the English congregation. The uproar created by theanimals is at times so great as to disturb the worshippers in the atticabove, who have been under the necessity of putting their hands intotheir pockets, and buying food for the swine, in order to keep themquiet during the hours of divine service. Thus the English at Rome areable to conduct their worship with some degree of decorum only when bothcardinals and swine are propitious. Should either be out of humour, --athing conceivable to happen to the most obese cardinal and thesweetest-tempered pig, --the English have but little chance of quiet. Nor is that the worst of it. I read not long since in the publicjournals, a letter from a Romish dignitary, --Dr Cahill, if I mistakenot, --who, with an immense amount of bravery, stated that there was noRoman Catholic country in the world where full toleration was notenjoyed; and that, as regarded Rome, any Roman might change his religionto-morrow with perfect impunity. He might adopt Protestantism orQuakerism, or any other ism he pleased, provided he could show that hewas not acting under the compulsion of a bribe. But how stands the fact?I passed three Sabbaths in Rome; I worshipped each Sabbath in theEnglish Protestant chapel; and what did I see at the door of thatchapel? I saw two gendarmes, with a priest beside them to give theminstructions. And why were they there? They were there to observe allwho went in and out at that chapel; and provided a Roman had dared toclimb these stairs, and worship with the English congregation, thegendarmes would have seized him by the collar, and dragged him to theInquisition. So much for the liberty the poor Romans enjoy to changetheir religion. The writer of that letter with the same truth might havetold the people of England that there is no such city as Rome in all theworld. 

I was much taken with the ministrations of the Rev. Francis B. Woodward, the resident chaplain, on hearing him for the first time. He looked likeone whose heart was in his work, and I thought him evangelical, so faras the absence of all reference to what Luther has termed "the articleof a standing or a falling Church" allowed me to form an opinion. Butnext Sabbath my confidence was sorely shaken. Mr Woodward was proceedingin a rich and sweetly pious discourse on the necessity of seeking andcultivating the gifts of the Spirit, and of cherishing the hope ofglory, when, towards the middle of his sermon, the evangelical threadsuddenly snapped. "How are we, " abruptly asked the preacher, "to becomethe sons of God?" I answer, by baptism. By baptism we are made childrenof God and heirs of heaven. But should we fall from that happy state, how are we to recover it? I answer, by penance. And then he instantlyfell back again into his former pious strain. I started as if struck, and looked round to see how the audience were taking it. But I coulddiscover no sign that they felt the real significancy of the words theyhad just heard. It seemed to me that the English chaplain was outsidethe gate for the purpose of showing men in at it; and were I the Pope, instead of incurring the scandal of banishing him beyond the walls, Iwould assign him one of the best of the many hundred empty churches inRome. The Rev. Mr Hastings, the American chaplain, conducted worship inthe dining-room of Mr Cass, the American Consul, to a littlecongregation of some thirty persons. He was a good man, and a soundProtestant, but lacked the peculiar qualities for such a sphere. He hassince passed from Rome and the earth, and joined, I doubt not, albeitdisowned as a heretic in the city in which he laboured, "the GeneralAssembly and Church of the first-born" on high. 

I have already mentioned that the priests boast that the Pope could saymass in a different church every day of the year. Nevertheless there isnext to no preaching in Rome. In Italy they convert men, not bypreaching sermons, but by giving them wafers to swallow, --not byconveying truth into the mind, but by lodging a little dough in thestomach. Hence many of their churches stand on hill-tops, or in themidst of swamps, where not a house is in sight. During my sojourn ofthree weeks, I heard but two sermons by Roman preachers. I wassauntering in the Forum one day, when, observing a little stream ofpaupers--(how could such go to the convents to beg if they did not go tosermon?)--flowing into the church of San Lorenzo, I joined in theprocession, and entered along with them. At the door was a tin-box forreceiving contributions for erecting a temple in London, where "theirpoor destitute fellow-countrymen might hear the true gospel. " Were these"destitute fellow-countrymen" in Rome, the Pope would find accommodationfor them in some one of his dungeons; but with the English Channelbetween him and them, he builds with paternal care a church for theiruse. We doubt not the exiles will duly appreciate his kindness. Everytwentieth person or so dropped a little coin into the box as he passedin. A knot of some one or two hundreds was gathered round a woodenstage, on which a priest was declaiming with an exuberance of vehementgesture. On the right and left of him stood two hideous figures, holdingcandles and crucifixes, and enveloped from head to foot in sackcloth. They watched the audience through two holes in their masks; and Ithought I could see a cowering in that portion of the crowd towardswhich the muffled figures chanced for the time to be turned. I felt achilly terror creeping over me as the masks turned their great goggleeyes upon me; and accordingly withdrew. 

The regular weekly sermon in Rome is that preached every Sabbathafternoon in the church of the Jesuits. This church is resplendentbeyond all others in the Eternal City, in marbles and precious stones, frescoes and paintings. Here, too, in magnificent tombs, sleep StIgnatius, the founder of the order, and Cardinal Bellarmin, one of the"Church's" mightiest champions. Its ample roof might cover an assemblyof I know not how many thousands. About half-way down the vast floor, onthe side wall, stood the pulpit; and before it were set some scores offorms for the accommodation of the audience, which might amount to fromfour hundred to six hundred, chiefly elderly persons. At three o'clockthe preacher entered the pulpit, and, having offered a short prayer insilence, he replaced on his head his little round cap, and flung himselfinto his theme. That theme was one then and still very popular (I meanwith the preachers, --for the people take not the slightest interest inthese matters) at Rome, --the Immaculate Conception. I can give only thebriefest outline of the discourse; and I daresay that is all my readerswill care for. In proof of the immunity of Mary from original sin, thepreacher quoted all that St Jerome, and St Augustine, and a dozenfathers besides, had said on the point, with the air of a man who deemedthese quotations quite conclusive. Had they related to the theory ofeclipses, or been snatches from some old pagan poet in praise of Juno, the audience would have been equally well pleased with them. I lookedwhen the father would favour his audience with a few proofs from StMatthew and St Luke; but his time did not permit him to go so far back. He next appealed to the miracles which the Virgin Mary had wrought. Iexpected much new information here, as my memory did not furnish me withany well-accredited ones; but I was somewhat disappointed when thepreacher dismissed this branch of his subject with the remark, thatthese miracles were so well known, that he need not specify them. Havingestablished his proposition first from tradition, and next frommiracles, the preacher wound up by declaring that the ImmaculateConception was a doctrine which all good Catholics believed, and whichno one doubted save the children of the devil and the slaves of hell. The sermon seemed as if it had been made to answer exactly the poet'sdescription:--

 "And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing sed; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. "

When this edifying sermon was ended, "Ave Maria" began. A train ofwhite-robed priests entered, and gathered in a cloud round the highaltar. The organ sent forth its thunder; the flashing censers shotupwards to the roof, and, as they rose and fell, emitted fragrantwreaths of incense. The crowd poured in, and swelled the assembly tosome thousands; and when the priests began to chant, the multitude whichnow covered the vast floor dropped on their knees, and joined in thehymn to the Virgin. This service, of all I witnessed in Rome, was theonly one that partook in the slightest degree of the sublime. 

I must except one other, celebrated in an upper chamber, and _truly_sublime. It was my privilege to pass my first Sabbath in Rome in thesociety of the Rev. John Bonar and that of his family, and at night wemet in Mr Bonar's room in the hotel, and had family worship. I wellremember that Mr Bonar read on this occasion the last chapter of thatepistle which Paul "sent by Phebe, servant of the Church at Cenchrea, "to the saints at Rome. The disciples to whom the Apostle in that lettersends greetings had lived in this very city; their dust still slept inits soil; and were they to come back, I felt that, if I were a realChristian, we would recognise each other as dear brethren, and wouldjoin together in the same prayer; and as their names were read out, Iwas thrilled and melted, as if they had been the names of beloved andvenerated friends but newly dead:--"Greet Priscilla and Aquila, myhelpers in Christ Jesus; who have for my life laid down their own necks;unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of theGentiles. Likewise _greet_ the church that is in their house. Salute mywell-beloved Epenetus, who is the first fruits of Achaia unto Christ. Greet Mary, who bestowed much labour on us. Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Greet Amplias, my beloved in theLord. Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. Salute Apelles, approved in Christ. Salute them which are ofAristobulus' _household_. Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet them that beof the _household_ of Narcissus, which are in the Lord. Salute Tryphenaand Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, whichlaboured much in the Lord. Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and hismother and mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are withthem. "

Uppermost in my mind, in all my wanderings in and about Rome, was theglowing fact that here Paul had been, and here he had left hisineffaceable traces. I touched, as it were, scriptural times andapostolic men. Had he not often climbed this Capitol? Had not his feetpressed, times without number, this lava-paved road through the Forum?These Volscian and Sabine mountains, so lovely in the Italian sunlight, had often had his eye rested upon them! I began to love the soil for hissake, and felt that the presence of this one holy man had done more tohallow it than all that the long race of emperors and popes had done todesecrate it. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE. 

 The Church the Destroyer of the Country--The Pontifical Government just the Papacy in Action--That Government makes Men _Beggars_, _Slaves_, _Barbarians_--Influence of Pontifical Government on Trade--Iron--Great Agent of Civilization--Almost no Iron in Papal States--The Church has forbidden it--Prohibitive Duties on Iron--Machinery likewise prohibited--Antonelli's Extraordinary Note--Paucity of Iron-Workmen and Mechanics in the Papal States--Barbarous Aspect of the Country--Roman Ploughs--Roman Carts--How Grain is there Winnowed--Husbandry of Italy--Its Cabins--Its Ragged Population--Its Farms--Ruin of its Commerce--Isolation of Rome--Reasons why--Proposed Railway from Civita Vecchia to Ancona--Frustrated by the Government--Wretched Conveyance of Merchandise--Pope's Steam Navy--Papal Custom-houses--Bribery--Instances. 

It is time to concentrate my observations, and to make their lightconverge around that evil system that sits enthroned in this old city. Of all the great ruins in Italy, the greatest by far is the Italiansthemselves. The ruin of the Italians I unhesitatingly lay at the door ofthe Church;--she is the nation's destroyer. When I first saw the Laocoonin the Vatican, I felt that I saw the symbol of the country;--there wasItaly writhing in the folds of the great Cobra di Capella, the Papacy. 

I cannot here go into the ceremonies practised at Rome, and whichpresent so faithful a copy, both in their forms and in their spirit, ofthe pagan idolatry. Nor can I speak of the innumerable idols of gold andsilver, wood and stone, with which their churches are crowded, andbefore which you may see votaries praying, and priests burning incense, all day long. Nor can I speak of the endless round of fêtes andfestivals which fill up the entire year, and by which the priests seekto dazzle, and, by dazzling, to delude and enthral, the Romans. Nor canI detain my readers with tales and wonders of Madonnas which havewinked, and of the blind and halt which have been cured, which knavesinvent and simpletons believe. Nor can I detail the innumerable fraudsfor fleecing the Romans;--money for indulgences, --money for the souls inpurgatory, --money for eating flesh on Friday, --money for votiveofferings to the saints. The church of the Jesuits is supposed to beworth a million sterling, in the shape of marbles, paintings, andstatuary; and in this way the capital of the country is locked up, whilenot a penny can be had for making roads or repairing bridges, orpromoting trade and agriculture. I cannot enter into these matters: Imust confine my attention to one subject, --THE PONTIFICAL GOVERNMENT. 

When I speak of the Pontifical Government, I just mean the Papacy. Theworking of the Papal Government is simply the working of the Papacy; forwhat is that Government, but just the principles of the Papacy put intojudicial gear, and employed to govern mankind? It is the Church thatgoverns the Papal States; and as she governs these States, so would shegovern all the earth, would we let her. The Pontifical Government istherefore the fairest illustration that can be adduced of the practicaltendency and influence of the system. I now arraign the system in theGovernment. I am prepared to maintain, both on general principles, andon facts that came under my own observation while in Rome, that thePontifical Government is the most flagitiously unjust, the mostinexorably cruel, the most essentially tyrannical Government, that everexisted under the sun. It is the necessary, the unchangeable, theeternal enemy of liberty. I say, looking at the essential principles ofthe Papacy, that it is a system claiming infallibility, and so layingreason and conscience under interdict, --that it is a system claiming togovern the world, not _by_ God, but _as_ God, --that it is a systemclaiming supreme authority in all things spiritual, and claiming thesame supreme authority, though indirectly, in all things temporal, --thatit sets no limits to its jurisdiction, but, on the contrary, makes thatjurisdiction to range indiscriminately over heaven, earth, and hell. Looking at these principles, which no Papist can deny to be thefundamental and vital elements of his system, I maintain that, if therebe any one thing more than another ascertained and indisputable withinthe compass of man's knowledge, it is this, that the domination of asystem like the Papacy is utterly incompatible with the enjoyment of asingle particle of liberty on the part of any human being. And I nowproceed to show, that the conclusion to which one would come, reasoningfrom the essential principles of this system, is just the conclusion atwhich he would arrive by observing the workings of this system, asexhibited at this day in Italy. 

I shall arrange the facts I have to state under three heads:--_First_, Those that relate to the TRADE of the Roman States: _second_, Those thatrelate to the administration of JUSTICE: and _third_, Those that relateto EDUCATION and KNOWLEDGE. I shall show that the Pontifical Governmentis so conducted as regards Trade, that it can have no other effect thanto make the Romans _beggars_. I shall show, in the second place, thatthe Pontifical Government is so conducted as regards Justice, that itcan have no other effect than to make the Romans _slaves_. And I shallshow, in the third place, that the Pontifical Government is so conductedas regards Education, that it can have no other effect than to make theRomans _barbarians_. This is the threefold result that Government isfitted to work out: this is the threefold result it has wrought out. Ithas made the Romans beggars, --it has made the Romans slaves, --it hasmade the Romans barbarians. Observe, I do not touch the religious partof the question. I do not enter on any discussion respecting Purgatory, or Transubstantiation, or the worship of the Virgin. I look simply atthe bearings of that system upon man's temporal interests; and Imaintain that, though man had no hereafter to provide for, and no soulto be saved, he is bound by every consideration to resist a system sodestructive to the whole of his interests and happiness in time. 

I come now to trace the workings of the Papacy on the Trade of the PapalStates. But here I am met, on the threshold of my subject, by thisdifficulty, that I am to speak of what scarce exists; for so effectuallyhas the Pontifical Government developed its influence in this direction, that it has all but annihilated trade in the Papal States. If you exceptthe manufacture of cameos, Roman mosaics, a little painting andstatuary, there is really no more trade in the country than isabsolutely necessary to keep the people from starvation. The trade andindustry of the Roman States are crushed to death under a load ofmonopolies and restrictive tariffs, invented by infallible wisdom forprotecting, but, as it seems to our merely fallible wisdom, forsacrificing, the industry of the country. 

Let us take as our first instance the Iron Trade. We all know theimportance of iron as regards civilization. Civilization may be said tohave commenced with iron, --to have extended over the earth with iron;and so closely connected are the two, that where iron is not, there youcan scarce imagine civilization to be. It is by iron in the form of theplough that man subjugates the soil; and it is by iron in the form ofthe sword that he subjugates kingdoms. What would our country be withoutits iron, --without its railroads, its steam-ships, its steam-looms, itscutlery, its domestic utensils? Almost all the comforts and conveniencesof civilized life are obtained by iron. You may imagine, then, thecondition of the Papal States, when I state that iron is all but unknownin them. It is about as rare and as dear as the gold of Uphaz. And whyis it so? There is abundance of iron in our country; water-carriage isanything but expensive; and the iron manufacturers of Britain would bedelighted to find so good a market as Italy for their produce. Why, then, is iron not imported into that country? For this simple reason, that the Church has forbidden its introduction. Strange, that it shouldforbid so useful a metal where it is so much needed. Yet the fact is, that the Pope has placed its importation under an as stringentprohibition almost as the importation of heresy: perhaps he smellsheresy and civilization coming in the wake of iron. The duty on theintroduction of bar-iron is two baiocchi la libbra, equivalent to fiftydollars, or £12 10s. , per ton; which is about twice the price ofbar-iron in this country. This duty is prohibitive of course. 

The little iron which the Romans possess they import mostly fromBritain, in the form of pig-iron; and the absurdity of importing it inthis form appears from the fact that there is no coal in the States tosmelt it, --at least none has as yet been discovered: wood-char is usedin this process. When the pig-iron is wrought up into bar-iron, it issold at the incredible price of thirty-eight Roman scudi the thousandpounds, which is equivalent, in English money, to £23 15s. Per ton, orfour times its price in Britain. The want of the steam-engine vastlyaugments the cost of its manufacture. There is a small iron-work atTerni, eighty miles from Rome, which is set down there for the advantageof water-power, which is employed to drive the works. The whole rawmaterial has to be carted from Rome, and, when wrought up, carted backagain, adding enormously to the expense. There is another at Tivoli, also moved by water-power. The whole raw material has, too, to be cartedfrom Rome, and the manufactured article carted back, causing an outlaywhich would soon more than cover the expense of steam-engine and fuel. At Terni some sixty persons are employed, including boys and men. Themanager is a Frenchman, and most of the workmen are Frenchmen, withwages averaging from forty to fifty baiocchi; labourers at the workshave from twenty-five to thirty baiocchi per day, --from a shilling tofifteenpence. 

During the reign of Gregory XVI. Machinery was admitted into the PapalStates at a nominal duty, or one baiocchi the hundred Roman pounds. Itis not in a day that a country like Italy can be taught the advantage ofmechanical power. The Romans, like every primitive people, are apt tocleave to the rude, unhandy modes which they and their fathers havepractised, and to view with suspicion and dislike inventions which arenew and strange. But they were beginning to see the superiority ofmachinery, and to avail themselves of its use. A large number ofhydraulic presses, printing presses, one or two steam-engines, a fewthreshing-mills, and other agricultural implements, were introducedunder this nominal duty; and, had a little longer time been allowed, thecountry would have begun to assume somewhat of a civilized look. ButGregory died; and, as if to show the utter hopelessness of anythinglike progress on the part of the Pontifical Government, it was thepresent Pope who took the retrograde step of restoring the law shuttingout machines. Cardinal Tosti, the Treasurer to Gregory's Government, wassucceeded by his Excellenza Monsignor (now Cardinal) Antonelli, one ofthe earliest official acts of whom was the appending a note to thetariff on machinery, which subjected machines, all and sundry, to theduty imposed in the tariff on their component parts. For example, amachine composed of iron, brass, steel, and wood, according toAntonelli's note, would have to pay separate duty on each of thematerials composing it. The way in which the thing was done is a finesample of the spirit and style of papal legislation, and shows how thesame subtle but perverted ingenuity, the same specious but hypocriticalpretexts, with which the theological part of the system abounds, areextended also to its political and civil managements. Antonelli did notrescind the tariff; he but appended a note, the quiet but sure effect ofwhich was to render it null. He did not tax machines as a whole; theywere still free, viewed in their corporate capacity: he but taxed theirindividual parts. This ingenious legislator, by a saving clause, exempted from the operation of his note _machines of new invention_, which, after being proved to be such, were to be admitted at the nominalduty! What machines would not be of new invention in the Roman States, where there is absolutely no machinery, saving--with all reverence forthe apostolic chamber--the guillotine?

But farther, Antonelli, to show at once his ingenuity and philanthropy, enacted that machines which had never before been introduced into theStates should be admitted at the nominal duty. Mark the extent of theboon herein conferred on Italy. We shall suppose that one of each of theindustrial and agricultural machines in use in Britain is admitted intothe Roman States under this law. It is admitted duty-free. Well, but thesecond plough, or the second loom, or the second steam-engine, arrives. It must pay a prohibitive duty. It is not a new machine. You can make asmany as you please from the one already introduced, says Antonelli. Butwho is to make them? There are no mechanics deserving the name in Rome;who, by the way, are the very people Antonelli said he meant to benefit. But, apart from the want of mechanical skill, there is the dearth of theraw material; for maleable iron was selling in Rome at upwards of £21per ton, at a time when the cost of bar-iron in this country was onlyfrom £6 to £7 per ton. Such insane legislation on the part of thesacerdotal Government could not be committed through ignorance orstupidity. There must be some strong reason that does not appear atfirst sight for this wholesale sacrifice of the interests of thecountry. We shall speak of this anon: meanwhile we pursue our statement. 

Antonelli supported his note, --that note which ratified the banishmentof the arts from Italy, and gave barbarism an eternal infeftment in thesoil, --by affirming that it was passed in order to encourage l'industriadello Stato; which is as if one should say that he had cut hisneighbour's throat to protect his life; for certainly Antonelli's notecut the throat of industry. Well, one would think, seeing thislegislation was meant to protect the industry of the State and theinterests of the iron-workmen, that these iron-workmen must be a largebody. How many iron-workmen are there in the Papal States? An hundredthousand? One thousand? There are not more in all than one hundred andfifty! And for these one hundred and fifty iron-workmen (to which we mayadd the seventy cardinals, the most of whom are speculators in iron), the rest of the community is put beyond the pale of civilization, theordinary arts and utensils are proscribed, improvement is at astand-still, and the country is doomed to remain from age to age inbarbarism. 

And what is the aspect of the country? It is decidedly that of abarbarous land. Everything has an old-world look, as if it belonged tothe era of the Flood. Iron being so enormously dear, its use isdispensed with wherever it is possible. Almost all implements ofagriculture, of carriage, almost all domestic utensils, and many toolsof trade, are made of wood. In consequence, they do very little work;and that little but indifferently well. Nothing could be more primitivethan the _plough_ of the Romans. It consists of a single stick or lever, fixed to a block having the form of a sock or coulter, with a projectionbehind, on which the ploughman puts his foot, and assists the bullocksover a difficulty. The work done by this implement we would not callploughing: it simply scratches the surface to the depth of some three orfour inches, with which the poor husbandman is content. The soil is ingeneral light, but it might be otherwise tilled; and, were it so, wouldyield far other harvests than those now known in Italy. Their _carts_, too, are of the rudest construction, and may be regarded as ingeniousmodels of the form which should combine the largest bulk with the leastpossible use. They have high wheels, and as wide-set as those in ourcountry, with nothing to fill the dreary space between but anuncouth-looking nut-shell of a box. The infallible Government of thePope has not judged it beneath it to legislate in reference to them. They must be made of a certain prescribed capacity, and stamped for thepurchase and sale of lime and pozzolano. In this happy country, allthings, from the Immaculate Conception down to the pozzolano cart, arecared for by the sacerdotal Government. The open-bodied carts have bars(the length and distance apart of which are also regulated by thepontiff) placed on the trams, and are licensed for the sale of greenwood, which must be sold at from three and a half to four dollars aload. The barozza is another open-bodied cart, with bars placed aroundthe trams, and contains about twelve sacks of wood-char, which is soldat from eight to ten dollars. This is the fuel of the country, and, whenkindled, does well enough for cooking. It gives considerable heat andbut little smoke, but lacks the cheerfulness and comfort of an Englishfire-side, which is unknown in Rome. 

Every agricultural process is conducted in the same rude and slovenlyway. And how can it be otherwise, when the Church, for reasons bestknown to itself, denies the people the use of the indispensableinstruments? It solemnly legislates that one British plough may beimported; and graciously permits its subjects, in a land where there areno mechanics, to make as many additional ploughs as they need. Is it notpeculiarly modest in these men, who show so little wisdom in temporalmatters, to ask the entire world to surrender its belief to them inthings spiritual and divine?

Every one knows how we winnow corn in Britain. How do they conduct thatprocess at Rome? A cart-load of grain is poured out on the barn-floor;some dozen or score of women squat down around it, and with the handseparate the chaff from the wheat, pickle by pickle. In this way a scoreof women may do in a week what a farmer in our country could do easilyin a couple of hours. An effort was made to persuade the predecessor ofthe present Pontiff, Gregory XVI. , to sanction the admission into Romeof a winnowing-machine. Its mode of working and uses were explained tothe Pontiff. Gregory shook his head; for Infallibility indicates itsdoubts at times, just as mortals do, by a shake of the head. It was adangerous thing to introduce into Rome, said the infallible Gregory. Perhaps it was; for if the Romans had begun to winnow grain, they mighthave learned to winnow other things besides grain. 

The husbandry of Italy, as a system, is in a most backward state. Itscultivation is the cultivation of Ireland. And yet Italy is excelled byfew countries on earth, perhaps by none, in point of its externaldefences, and its inexhaustible internal resources; which, however, under its present Government, are utterly wasted. On the north it isdefended by the wall of the Alps, and on all its other sides by theocean, whose bays offer boundless facilities for commerce. The plains ofLombardy are eternally covered with flowers and fruit. The valleys ofTuscany still boast the olive, the orange, and the vine. The wide wasteof the Campagna di Roma is of the richest soil, and, spread out beneaththe warm sun, might mingle on its surface the fruits of the torrid withthose of the temperate zones. Instead of this, Italy presents to thetraveller's eye a deplorable spectacle of wretched cabins, untilledfields, and a population oppressed by sloth and covered with rags. Thetowns are filled mostly with idlers and beggars. With all my inquiries, I could never get a clear idea of how they live. The alms-houses arenumerous; for when a Government puts down trade, it must build hospitalsand poor's-houses, or see its subjects die of starvation. In Rome, forexample, besides the convents, where a number of poor people get a meala day, --a sufficiently meagre one, --there is the government_Beneficenza_, which the more intelligent part account a great curse. Some fifteen hundred or two thousand persons, many of them able-bodiedmen, receive fifteen baiocchi, --sevenpence half-penny, --per day, inreturn for which they pouter about with barrows, removing earth fromthe old ruins, or cleaning the streets, which are none the cleaner, orpicking grass in the square of the Vatican. Many deplorable tales aretold in Rome of these people, and of the dire sacrifice made of thefemale portion of their families. But the grand resource is beggary, especially from foreigners; and if a beggar earn a penny a day, he willmake a shift to live. He will purchase half a pound of excellentmacaroni with the one baiocchi, and a few apples or grapes with theother; and thus he is provided for for the day. The inhabitants of thesecountries do not eat so substantially as we do. Should he earn nothing, he has it in his choice to steal or starve. This is the prolific sourceof brigandage and vagabondism. 

In the country, the peasants (and there almost all are peasants) live bycultivating a small patch of land. The farms, like those in Ireland, aremere crofts. The proprietor, who lives in the city, provides not onlythe land, but the implements and cattle also, and in return receives astipulated portion of the fruits. His share is often as high as a half, never lower than a fourth. The farmer is a tenant-at-will most commonly, but removals are rare; and sometimes, as in Ireland, the same landsremain in the occupation of the same families for generations. Theirconical little hills, with their peasant villages a-top, are curiouslyribbed with a particoloured vegetation, each family cultivating theircouple of acres after their own fashion; while the plain is notunfrequently abandoned to marshes, or ruins, or wild herbage. To digdrains, to clear out the substructions, to re-open the ancientwater-courses, or to follow any improved system of cropping, is farbeyond the enterprise of the poor farmer. He has neither skill, norcapital, nor savings. If nature takes the matter into her own hand, well; if not, one bad harvest irretrievably lands him in famine. Thus, with a soil and climate not excelled perhaps in the world, thehusbandman drags out his life in poverty, and is often on the very brinkof starvation. Whatever beauty and fertility that land still retains, itowes to nature, not to man. Indeed, it is now only the skeleton of Italythat exists, with here and there patches of its former covering, --nooksof exquisite beauty, which strike one the more from the desolation thatsurrounds them. But its cultivated portions are every year diminishing. Its woods and olives are fast disappearing; and by and by the verybeasts of the field will be compelled to leave it, and the King of theSeven Hills, could we conceive of his remaining behind, will be left toreign in undisputed and unenvied supremacy over the storks and frogs, and other animals, that breed and swarm in its marshes. 

The commerce of Italy, too, is extinct. How can it be otherwise? Undertheir terrible stagnation and death of mind, the Italians producenothing for export. In that country there are no factories, no miningoperations, no ship-building, no public works, no printing presses, notools of trade. In short, they create nothing but a few articles ofvertu; and even in those arts in which alone their genius is allowed toexert itself, foreigners excel them. The best sculptors and painters atRome are Englishmen. And as regards their soil, which might send itswheat, and wine, and olives, all delicious naturally, to every part ofthe world, its harvests are now able but to feed the few men who live inthe country. As to imports, both raw and manufactured, which the Romansneed so much, we have seen how the sacerdotal Government takes effectualmeans to prevent these reaching the population. The Pontiff has enclosedhis territory with a triple wall of protective duties and monopolies, tokeep out the foreign merchant; and thus not only are the Romansforbidden to labour for themselves, but they are prevented profiting bythe labour of others. There is a monopoly of sugar-refining, a monopolyof salt-making, and, in short, of every thing which the Romans mostneed. These monopolies are held by the favourites of the Government; andthough generally the houses that hold them are either unwilling orunable to make more than a tithe of what the Romans would require, noother establishment can produce these articles, and they cannot beimported but at a ruinous duty. 

We are reminded of another grievance under which the Romans groan. Thefew articles that are landed on their coast have to encounter tediousand almost insuperable delays before they can find their way to thecapital. This is owing to the wretched state of the communication, whichis kept purposely wretched in order to isolate Rome and the Romans fromthe rest of the world. That Church likes to sit apart and keep intacther venerable prestige, which would be apt to be contemned were itlooked at close at hand. She dreads, too, to let her people come incontact with the population of other States. A few thousands of Englisharistocracy she can afford to admit annually within her territory. Theirmoney she needs, and their indifference gives her no uneasiness. But tohave the mass of a free people circulating through her capital would bea death-blow to her influence. She deems it, then, a wise policy, indeeda necessary safeguard, to make the access such as only money and timecan overcome, though at the sacrifice of the trade and comforts of thepeople. Repeated attempts have been made to connect Rome with the restof Europe; but hitherto, through the singularly adroit management of theGovernment, all such attempts have been fruitless. 

In 1851 the long talked of concession for railways in the Roman Stateswas obtained by Count Montalembert. The railways were to be constructedby foreign money and foreign agency, of course. A line from Rome toAncona, and another from Rome to Civita Vecchia, were talked of, whichwould have put the Eternal City in immediate communication with theAdriatic and the Mediterranean. _Che belle cose!_ the Italians might beheard uttering wherever grouped. It looked too well; an extravagantguarantee was offered to the Intraprendenti (contractors) by the RomanGovernment. The Parisian Count was to procure capitalists for theundertaking. The general opinion at the time was, that the Governmentwas insincere in their extravagant guarantee; and they stipulated withthe Count a condition as to time, calculated, as was supposed, tofrustrate the undertaking. In this, however, the Government wasoutwitted; for capitalists were found within the prescribed time, engineers appointed, and contracts entered into. The iron-works of Terniand Tivoli amalgamated, in the hope of doing an extensive business bymanufacturing the rails, &c. ; and announced in their prospectus theintention of working the La Tolfa ironstone near Civita Vecchia. Manywere induced to sink money in this amalgamated concern, and there itfruitlessly remains. The affray at Ferrara put the scutch upon themighty railway scheme. 

Were the Government in earnest on the subject of railways, sufficientcapital might easily be raised to construct a line between Rome andCivita Vecchia, which would be of incalculable benefit to Rome. Vesselsof heavy burden can discharge at the port of Civita Vecchia. Merchandisecould thence be transmitted by rail to Rome, where its arrival could becalculated on to half an hour; and of what immense advantage would thisbe, contrasted with the present maritime conveyance, which keepsmerchants in expectation of goods for days and weeks, and notunfrequently for a whole month, with bills of lading in hand fromMarseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, and Sicily, by vessels carrying fromfifty to a hundred and fifty tons! The entrance to the mouth of theTiber at Fuma-Cina is both difficult and dangerous; so much so, thatsailing masters will not hazard the attempt if the weather is in theleast degree stormy. They are obliged frequently to return to CivitaVecchia or Leghorn, until the weather will permit their entering theriver at Fuma-Cina. There their vessels require to be lightened, orpartly discharged into barges, there not being sufficient water in theTiber to allow them to ascend to Rome; the average depth of waterthroughout the year being from four to five feet, which is onlysufficient for the Pope's navy force, employed in tugging barges fromFuma-Cina to Rome. It is not the least important part of the Romanmerchants' business to know that their long-expected goods have enteredthe river. This is ascertained at the custom-house at Ripa Grande, wherethe intelligence is chronicled every evening, on return of the navyforce. 

That navy consists of three small steamers, thirty horse power, and adredging boat. Two of the steamers are kept for the traffic betweenFuma-Cina and the custom-house at Rome. The other is employed on theupper part of the river, starting from the Ripetta in Rome for theSabina country, going up about forty miles, and returning with wine, oil, Indian corn, and wood for fuel, green and charred. The dredgingboat is scarcely ever used. The constantly filthy state of the rivercauses so much deposit, that the machine is unable to overcome it. 

There are custom-houses, of course, on all the frontiers. A veryrespectable amount of bribery is done in these places: indeed, I nevercould see that much business of any other sort was transacted in them. Ihave already stated, that the first thing I was compelled to do onentering Rome was to give a bribe, in order to escape from the oldtemple of Antoninus, in which I unexpectedly found myself locked up. Imet an intelligent Scotchman in Rome, who had newly returned fromNaples, and who had to endure a half-day's detention at Terra Cinabecause he refused to pay the ransom of six scudi put upon his trunks, and insisted on their being searched. Corruption pervades all classes offunctionaries. In Rome itself there are two custom-houses; one formerchandise imported by sea, and the other for overland goods. The hoursfor business are from nine o'clock till twelve o'clock. Declarations forrelieving goods must be made betwixt nine and eleven, the other hourbeing appropriated to winding up the business of the preceding twohours. Almost everything which the country produces, whether for man orfor beast, on entering the city has to pay duty at the gate. This istermed _Dazio di Consumo_. This department of the revenue is farmed outto an officer, whose servants are stationed at the gates for the purposeof uplifting the duty; and there, as in all the other Governmentcustom-houses, much systematic cheating goes on. As an example, I mayrelate what happened to my friend Mr Stewart, whose acquaintance I hadthe good fortune to make in Rome, and whose information on all mattersof trade in the Roman States, well known to him from long practicalexperience, was not only of the highest value, but was the means ofaffording me an insight into the workings of Romanism on the temporalcondition of its subjects, such as few travellers have an opportunity ofattaining. Mr Stewart was engaged to take charge of the one littleiron-work in the city; and the transaction I am about to relate in hisown words took place when he was entering the gates. "Along with myfurniture, " says he, "I had a trunk containing wearing-apparel and two_pocket-pistols_. The latter, I knew, were prohibited, and made theagent employed to pass the articles acquainted with the dilemma, whichhe heartily laughed at, --by way, I suppose, of having a bone to pick. 'Leave the matter to me, ' said he, adding, 'the officials must berecompensed, you know. ' That of course; and, to be reasonable, heinquired if I would give three dollars, for which sum he would guaranteetheir safety. I consented to this in preference to losing them, or beingobliged to send them out of the country. Notwithstanding the agent'sassurance, I felt naturally anxious at the barefaced transaction, whichwas coolly gone about. When the trunk should have been examined, theattention of the officials was voluntarily directed to some otherarticle, while the agent's porters turned the trunk upside down, chalkedit, and replied to the query, that it had been examined, and was noteven opened, which the officials well knew, and for the consideration ofthree dollars they betrayed trust. The trunk might have containedjewellery, or even _screw-nails_, --both pay a high duty. The latterespecially, being made at Tivoli, are prohibited, or admitted at theprohibitive duty of twenty-five baiocchi the Roman pound, --sufficient toillustrate what might have been the result of this transaction in amercantile point of view, not to speak of the opportunity afforded forintroducing the _Bible_. The officials are all indifferentlyremunerated, and thus do business for themselves at the cost of theGovernment. They are also very incapable for the discharge of theirduty. For example, the _Governor_ of the custom-house seriously askedme, preparatory to making a declaration for a _steam-boiler_, whetherit was made of _wood_ or of _iron_. The boiler was not before him; butthe idea of a steam-boiler of wood from the lips of the Governor of acustom-house was astounding. "

"Books of all kinds are taken to the land custom-house, where the_Revisore_ is stationed for books alone. The _Revisore_ speaks Englishtolerably well. "

CHAPTER XXV. 

INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE--(CONTINUED). 

 Why does the Church systematically discourage Trade?--Railways--Much needed--Church opposes them--Could not a man take a journey of twenty or two hundred miles and be a good Catholic?--Motion is Liberty--Motion contributed to overthrow the Serfdom of the Middle Ages--Popes understand the connection between Motion and Liberty--Romans chained to the Soil--Gregory XVI. And the Iron-bridge--Gas in Rome--Spread of the Malaria--The Pontine Marshes--Neglect of Soil--Number of Paupers--How the Church prevents the Cultivation of the Campagna--Church Lands in England and Scotland--The price which Italy pays for the Papacy--Whether would the old Roman Woman or an old Scotch Woman make the better Ruler?

Let us pause here, and inquire into the cause of this most deplorablestate of matters. Is not the Papal Government manifestly sacrificing itsown interests? Would it not be better for itself were Italy covered witha prosperous agriculture and a flourishing trade? Were its cities filledwith looms and forges, would not its people have more money to spend onmasses and absolutions? and, instead of the Government subsisting onforeign loans, and being always on the eve of bankruptcy, it might fillits exchequer from the vast resources of the country, and have, moreover, the pleasure of seeing around it a prosperous and happypeople. 

This is all very true. None knows better the value of money than Rome;but she knows, too, the infinite hazard of acquiring it in the way ofallowing trade and industry to enter the Papal States. Indeed, to do sowould be to record sentence of banishment against herself. Every onemust have remarked the difference betwixt the artizan of Birmingham andthe peasant of Ireland. They seem to belong to two different races ofmen almost. The former is employed in making a certain piece ofmechanism, or in superintending its working. He is compelled tocalculate, to trace effects to their causes, and to study the relationsof the various parts before him to the whole. In short, he is taught tothink; and that thinking power he applies to all other subjects. Hishabits of life teach him to ask for reasons, and to accept of opinionsonly on evidence. The mind of the latter lies dead. Were Italy filledwith a race of men like the first, the papacy could not live a day. Weretrade, and machinery, and wealth to come in, the torpor of Italy wouldbe broken up; and--terrible event to the papacy!--mind would awaken. What though the Pope reigns over a wasted land and a nation of beggars?he _does_ reign; he counts for a European sovereign; and his systemcontinues to exist as a power. As men in shipwreck throw overboard food, jewels, all, to save life, so Romanism has thrown all overboard to saveitself. Nothing could be a stronger proof of this than the fact that, asthe effects and benefits of trade become the more developed, thepontifical Government tightens its restrictions. The note of Antonelli, the present ruling spirit of the papacy, was the most prohibitive everframed against the introduction of iron, in other words, ofcivilization. This is the price which Italy must pay for the Pope andhis religion. She cannot participate in the advantages of foreign trade;she cannot enjoy the facilities and improvements of modern times;because, were she to enjoy these, she would lose the papacy. She must becontent to remain in the barbarism of the middle ages, covered with thatmoral malaria which has smitten all things in that doomed land, andunder the influence of which, the cities, the earth itself, and man, forwhom it was made, are all sinking into one common ruin. [3]

We have yet other illustrations of the pestiferous influence of Romanismon the temporal happiness of its subjects. We have already alluded tothe determined manner in which the Pontifical Government has hithertowithstood the introduction of railways. And yet, if there be a countryin Europe where railways are indispensable, it is the Papal States. Theroads in the territory blessed by the Government of Christ's vicar, aremore like canals than roads, with this difference, that there is toolittle water in them for floating a boat, and far too much forcomfortable travelling. Besides, they are infested by brigands, whosepursuit a railway might enable you to distance. But a railway thesubjects of the Pontifical Government cannot have. And why?

One would think that the mere mode of conveyance is a very harmlessaffair. What is it to the Pontifical Government whether the peasant ofthe Alban hills, or the citizen of Bologna, or the merchant of Ancona, visit Rome on foot, or in his waggon, or by rail? Is he not the sameman? Will his ride convert him into a heretic, or shake his faith inPeter's successor? or will the laying down of a few miles of railroadweaken the foundations of that Church which boasts that she is foundedon a rock, and that the gates of hell themselves shall not prevailagainst her? Or if it be said that it is not the mode of the journey, but the length of the journey, what difference can it make whether theman travel twenty miles or two hundred miles? The stability of theChurch cannot be seriously endangered by a few miles less or more. Isthe Pope's system of so peculiar a kind, that though it is possible forthe man who walks twenty miles on foot to believe in it, it is whollyimpossible for the man who rides two hundred miles by rail to do so? Weknow of no Roman doctor who has attempted to fix the precise number ofmiles which a good Catholic may travel from home without endangering hissalvation. One would think that all this is plain enough; that there isno element of danger here; and yet the sharper instincts of the papacyhave discovered that herein lies danger, and great danger, to its power. If the influence of Rome is to be preserved, it is not enough that theBible be put out of existence, that the missionary be banished, and thatthe art of printing, and all means of diffusing ideas, be proscribed andexterminated: the very right of moving over the earth must be taken fromman. Even _motion_ must be placed under anathema. 

We have a saying that _knowledge is power_. I would say that _motion isliberty_. The serfdom of the middle ages was in good degree maintainedby binding man to the soil. Astriction to the soil was at once thefoundation and the symbol of that serfdom. The baron became the masterof the body of the man; he became also the master of his mental ideas. But when the serf acquired the power of locomotion, he laid thefoundation of his emancipation; and from that hour feudalism began tocrumble. As the serfs' power of motion enlarged, their libertyenlarged. As formerly they had known slavery by its symbol_immovability_, so now they tasted freedom by its symbol _motion_. Theserf travelled beyond the valley in which he was born; he saw newobjects; he met his fellow-men; and learned to think. At last motion wasperfected; the steam-engine hissed past him, and he felt that now he wascompletely unchained. I do not give this as a theory of the rise andprogress of modern liberty; but unquestionably there is a close andintimate connection between motion and liberty. 

The Popes are shrewd enough to see this connection; and herein liestheir opposition to railroads. They have attempted, and still doattempt, to perpetuate papal serfdom, by tying their subjects to theirpaternal acres and their native town. Were my reader living in London orin Edinburgh, and wished to visit Chelsea or Portobello, how would heproceed? Go to the railway station and buy a ticket, and his journey ismade. But were the country under the Pontifical Government, he wouldfind it impossible to manage the matter quite so expeditiously. He mustfirst present himself at the office of the prefect of police. He muststate where he wishes to go to; what business he has there; how long heintends remaining. He must give his name, his age, his residence, and acertificate, if required, from his parish priest; and then, should theobject of his journey be approved of, a description of his person willbe taken down, a passport will be made out, for which he must pay somesix or eight pauls; and after this process has been gone through, butnot sooner, he may set out on his little journey. Very few of those wholive in Rome were ever more than outside its walls. Even the nobles havethe utmost difficulty in getting so far as Civita Vecchia; very few ofthem ever saw the sea. The Popes know that ideas as well as merchandisetravel by rail; and that if the Romans are allowed to go from home, andto see new objects, new faces, and to hear new ideas, a process will becommenced which will ultimately, and at no distant day, undermine thepapacy. But among men of ordinary intelligence there will be but oneopinion regarding a system that sees an enemy not only in the Bible, butin the most necessary and useful arts, --in the steam-ship, in therailroad, in the electric telegraph; in short, in all the improvementsand usages of civilized life. Such a system assuredly has perditionwritten upon its forehead. 

The late Pope Gregory XVI. Would not allow even an iron bridge to bethrown across the Tiber. The Romans solicited this, to get rid of aferry-boat by which the Tiber is crossed at the point in question; butno; an iron bridge there could not be. And why? Ah, said Gregory, if wehave an iron bridge in Rome, we shall next have an iron road; and if wehave an iron road, "_adio_, " the papacy will take its departure, andthat by steam. 

But the Pope had another reason for withholding his sanction from theiron bridge; and as that reason shows how some wretched crotchet, springing from their miserable system, is sure to start up on alloccasions, and defeat the most needed improvement, I shall here statewhat it was. At the point where it was wished to have the bridgeerected, the Tiber flows between two populous regions of the city. Thereis in consequence a considerable concourse, and the passengers arecarried over, as I have said, in a ferry-boat, for which a couple ofbaiocchi is paid by each person to the ferryman. The money thuscollected forms part of the revenues of a certain church in Rome, wherethe priests who receive it sing masses for the souls in purgatory. Ifyou abolish the ferry-boat, it was argued, you will abolish the penny;and if you abolish the penny, what is to become of the poor souls inpurgatory? and for the sake of the _souls_, the _living_ were forced todo without the bridge. 

I need scarcely say that there is no gas in Rome. And sure I am, ifthere be a dark spot in all the universe, --a place above all othersneeding light of all kinds, moral, mental, and physical, --it is thisdark dungeon termed Rome. It has a few oil-lamps, swung on cords, atmost respectable distances from one another; and you see their hazy, sickly, dying gleam far above you, making themselves visible, butnothing besides; and after sunset, Rome is plunged in darkness, affording ample opportunity for assassinations, robberies, and evildeeds of all kinds. I know not how many companies have been formed tolight Rome with gas. An attempt was made to light in this way theEternal City during the pontificate of Gregory XVI. A deputation went tothe Vatican, and told the Pope that they would light his capital withgas. "Gas!" exclaimed Gregory, who had an owl-like dread of light of allkinds; "there shan't be gas in Rome while I am in Rome. " Gregory is notin Rome now; Pio Nono is in the Vatican: but the same oil-lamps whichlighted the Rome of Gregory XVI. Still flourish in the Rome of PioNono. [4]

All have heard of the Pontine Marshes, --a chain of swamps which runalong the foot of the Volscian Mountains, and are the birthplace of themalaria, --a white vapour, which creeps snake-like over the country, andsmites with deadly fever whoever is so foolhardy as to sleep on theCampagna during its continuance. These marshes, I understand, areincreasing; and the malaria is increasing in consequence. That fatalvapour now comes every summer to the gates of Rome: it covers a certainquarter of the city, which, I was told, is uninhabitable during itscontinuance; and if nothing be done to lessen the malaria at its source, it will, some century or half century after this, envelope in itspestilential folds the whole of the Eternal City, and the traveller willgaze with awe on the blackened ruins of Rome, as he does on those ofBabylon on the plain of Chaldea: so, I say, will he see the heaps ofRome on the wasted bosom of the Campagna deserted by man, and become thedwelling-place of the dragons and satyrs of the wilderness. But mattersare not come to this yet. An English company (for every attemptedimprovement in Rome has originated with English skill and capital) wasformed some years ago, to drain the Pontine Marshes. They went to theVatican; and Sir Humphrey Davy being then in Rome, they induced him toaccompany them, in the hope that his high scientific authority wouldhave some weight with the Pontiff. They stated their object, which wasto drain the Pontine Marshes. They assured the Pontiff it waspracticable to a very large extent; and they pointed out its manifoldadvantages, as regarded the health of the country, and other things. "Drain the Pontine Marshes!" exclaimed Pope Gregory, in a tone ofsurprise and horror at this new project of these everlastingly schemingEnglish heretics, --"Drain the Pontine Marshes! God made the PontineMarshes; and if He had intended them to be drained, He would havedrained them himself. "

The barrenness that afflicts all countries which are the seat of a falsereligion is a public testimony of the Divine indignation againstidolatry. For the sin of man the earth was originally cursed: andwherever wicked systems exist, there a manifest curse rests upon theearth. The Mohammedan apostacy and the Roman apostacy are now seated inthe midst of wildernesses. And, to make the fact more striking, theselands, which are deserts now, were anciently the best cultivated on theglobe. There stood the proudest of earth's cities, --there the artsflourished, --and there men were free after the measure of ancientfreedom. All this is at an end long since. Ruins, silence, and a sicklyand sinking population, are the mournful spectacles which greet the eyeof the traveller in Papal and Mohammedan countries. Thus God bearsoutward testimony against the Papal and Mohammedan systems. He hascursed the ground for their sakes; not in the way of miracle, --not bysending an angel to smite it, or by raining brimstone upon it, as he didon Sodom: the angel that has smitten the dominions of the Pope and ofthe False Prophet, --the brimstone and fire which have been rained uponthem, --are the wicked systems which have there grown up, and by whichGovernment has been rendered blind, infatuated, and tyrannical, and manstupid, indolent, and vicious. But the laws the Almighty hasestablished, according to which idolatry necessarily and uniformlyblights the earth and the men who live upon it, only show that hisindignation against these evil systems is unchangeable and eternal, andwill pursue them till they perish. Of this the state of the plain aroundRome, the _Agro Romano_, forms a terrible example. 

I have endeavoured in former chapters to exhibit a picture of thefrightful desolation of this once magnificent plain. He that set hismark on the brow of the first murderer has set his mark on this plain, where so much blood has been shed. "Now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thyhand. When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield untothee her strength. " But God has cursed this plain through theinstrumentality of this evil system the Papacy, and I shall show youhow. 

I have already shown that there is not, and cannot be, anything liketrade in Rome, beyond what is necessary to repair the consumpt ofarticles in daily use. In the absence of trade there is a proportionateamount of idleness; and that idleness, in its turn, breeds beggary, vagabondism, and crime. The French Prefect, Mr Whiteside tells us, published a statistical account of Rome; and how many paupers does hesay there are in it? Why, not fewer than thirty thousand. Thirtythousand paupers in one city, and that city, in its usual state, of butabout a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants! Subtract the priests, the English residents, and the French soldiers, and every third man is abeggar. I was fortunate enough one evening to meet, in a certain shop inRome, an intelligent Roman, willing to talk with me on the state of thecountry. The shopkeeper, as soon as he found the turn the conversationhad taken, discreetly stepped out, and left it all to ourselves. "Inever in all my life, " I remarked, "saw a city in which I found so manybeggars. The people seem to have nothing to do, and nothing to eat. There are here some hundred thousand of you cooped up within these oldwalls, and one half the population do nothing all day long but whine atthe heels of English travellers, or hang on at the doors of theconvents, waiting their one meal a-day. Why is this? Outside the wallsis a magnificent plain, which, were it cultivated, would feed ten Romes, instead of one. Why don't you take picks, or spades, orploughs, --anything you can lay hands on, --and go out to that plain, anddig it, and plant it, and sow it, and reap it, and eat and drink, and bemerry?" "Ah! so we would, " said he. "Then, why don't you?" "We darenot, " he replied. "Dare not! Dare not till the earth God has givenyou?" "It is the Church's, " he said. "But come now, " said he, "and Iwill explain how it comes to be so. " He went on to say, that one portionof the Campagna was gifted to the convents in Rome, another portion wasgifted to the nunneries, another to the hospitals, and another to thepontifical families, --that is, to the sons and daughters, or, as theymore politely speak in Rome, the nephews and nieces, of the Popes. Thesewere the owners of the great Roman plain; and in their hands almostevery acre of it was locked up, inaccessible to the plough, andinaccessible to the people. Even in our country it is found thatcorporations make the worst possible landlords, and that lands in thepossession of such bodies are always less productive than estatesmanaged in the ordinary way. But what sort of farming are we to expectfrom such corporations as we find in the city of Rome? What skill orcapital have a brotherhood of lazy monks, to enable them to cultivatetheir lands? What enterprise or interest have a sisterhood of nuns tofarm their property? They know they shall have their lifetime of it, andthat is all they care for. Accordingly, they let their lands forgrazing, on payment of a mere trifle of annual rent; and so the Campagnalies unploughed and unsown. A tract of land extending from CivitaVecchia to well nigh the gates of Rome, --which would make a Scotchdukedom or a German principality, --belonging to the _San Spirito_, doeslittle more, I was told, than pay its working. The land labours under aneternal entail, which binds it over to perpetual sterility. It is God's, _i. E. _ it is the Church's; and no one, --no, not even the Pope, --darealienate a single acre of it. No Pope would set his face to such a pieceof reformation, well knowing that every brotherhood and sisterhood inRome would rise in arms against him. And even though he should screw hiscourage to such an encounter, he is met by the canon law. The Pope whoshall dare to secularize a foot-breadth of land which has been gifted tothe Church is by that law accursed. Here, then, is the price which theRomans pay for the Papacy. Outside the walls of the city lie the estatesof the Church, depastured at certain seasons by a few herds, tended bymen clad in skins, and looking as savage as the animals they tend; whileinside the walls are some hundred thousand Romans, enduring from oneyear's end to another all the miseries of a partial famine. Nor is therethe least hope that matters will mend so long as the Papacy lasts. Forwhile the Papacy is in Italy, the Campagna, once so populous and rich, will be what it now is, --a desert. 

And the Papal States, lapsed into more than primeval sterility, overrunby brigandage and beggary, are the picture of what Britain would beunder the Papacy. Let the Roman Church get the upper hand in thiscountry, and, be assured, the first thing it will do will be to demandback every acre of land that once belonged to it. Before theReformation, half the lands of England, and a third of the lands ofScotland, were in the possession of the Church. She keeps a chart ofthem to this hour: she knows every foot-breadth of British soil that atany time belonged to her: she holds its present possessors to be robbersand sacrilegious men; and the first moment she has the power, she willcompel them to disgorge what she holds to be ill-gotten wealth, andendow her with the broad acres she once possessed. Nor will she stophere. By haunting death-beds, --by putting in motion the machinery of theconfessional, --by the threat of purgatory in this case, and the lure ofparadise in that, --she will speedily add to her former ample domain. Andwhat will our country then become? We shall have Mother Church forlandlord; and while she feasts daily at her sumptuous board, we shallhave what the Romans now have, --the crumbs. We shall have monks andnuns for our farmers; and under their management, farewell to thesmiling fields, the golden harvests, and the opulent cities, of Scotlandand England. Our country will again become what it was before theReformation, --a land of moors, and swamps, and forests, with a fewpatches of indifferent cultivation around our convents and abbacies. Vagabondism, lay and sacerdotal, will flourish once more in Britain;trade and commerce will be put down, as savouring of independence andintelligence; indolence and beggary will be sanctified; and troops offriars, with wallets on their backs, impudence on their brows, andprofanity and filthiness on their tongues, will scour the country, demanding that every threshold and every purse shall be open to them. This result will come as surely as to-morrow will come, provided wepermit the Papacy to raise its head once more among us. 

Let no one imagine that this terrible wreck of man, and of all hisinterests, --of civilization, of industry, of trade and commerce, --hashappened of chance, and that there is no connection between thisdeplorable state of matters and the system which has prevailed in Italy. On the contrary, it is the direct, the necessary, and the uniform resultof that system. The barbarian hates art because he does not understandits uses, and dreads its power. But the hatred the Pope bears to theuseful arts is not that of the barbarian. It is the intelligent, theconsistent hatred of a man who knows what he is about. It is the hatredof a man who comprehends both the character of his own system, and thetendency of modern improvements, and who sees right well, that if theseimprovements are introduced, the Papacy must fall. Self-preservation isthe first law of systems, as of individuals; and the Papacy, feeling theantagonism between itself and these things, ever has and ever willresist them. It cannot tolerate them though it would. Speculatists andsentimentalists may talk as they please; but the destruction of thatsystem is the first requisite to the regeneration of Italy. 

Such, then, is the condition of Italy at this day. Were we to find astate of things like this in the centre of Africa, or in some barbarousregion thousands and thousands of miles away from European literature, arts, and influences, where the plough and the loom had yet to beinvented, it would by no means surprise us. But to find a state ofmatters like this in the centre of Europe, --in Italy, once the head ofcivilization and influence, the birthplace of modern art andletters, --is certainly wonderful. But the wonder is completed when wereflect that this state of things obtains under a Government claiming tobe guided by a higher than mortal sagacity, --a Government which saysthat it never did, and never can, err, --a Government that issupernatural and infallible. Supernatural and infallible! Why, I say, goout into the street, --stop the first old woman you meet, --carry her toRome, --put a three-storied cap on her head, --enthrone her on the highaltar in St Peter's, --burn incense before her, and call herinfallible, --I say that old woman will be a more enlightened ruler thatPio Nono. The old Scotch woman or English woman would beat the old Romanwoman hollow. 

The facts I have stated are sad enough; but the more harrowing pictureof the working of the papal system has yet to be shown. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

JUSTICE AND LIBERTY IN THE PAPAL STATES. 

 Justice the Pillar of the State--Claim implied in being God's Vicar, namely, that the Pope governs the World as God would govern it, were He personally present in it--No Civil Code in the Papal States--Citizens have no Rights save as Church Members--No Lay Judges--The Pontifical Government simply the Embodiment of the Papacy--Courts of Justice visited--Papal Tribunals--The Rota--Signatura--Cassation--Exceptional Tribunals--Apostolical Chamber--House of Peter--Justice bought and sold at Rome--POLITICAL JUSTICE--Gregorian Code--Case of Pietro Leoni--Accession of Pius IX. --His Popularity at first--Re-action--Case of Colonel Calendrelli--The Three Citizens of Macarata--The Hundred Young Men of Faenza--Butchery at Sinigaglia--Horrible Executions at Ancona--Estimated Number of Political Prisoners 30, 000--Pope's Prisons described--Horrible Treatment of Prisoners--The Sbirri--The Spies--Domiciliary Restraint--Expulsions from Rome--Imprisonment without reason assigned--Manner in which Apprehensions are made--Condemnations without Evidence or Trial--Misery of Rome--The Pope's Jubilee. 

We turn now to the JUSTICE of the Papal States. Alas! if in thepreceding chapters on _Trade_ we were discoursing on what does notexist, we are now emphatically to speak of what is but a shadow, amockery. To say that in the Papal States Justice is not, --that it is anegation, --is only to state half the truth. Were that all, thankfulindeed would the Romans be. But, alas! in the seat of Justice there sitsa stern, irresponsible, lawless power, before which virtue isconfounded and dumb, and wickedness only can stand erect. 

On the importance of justice to the welfare of society I need notenlarge. It is the main pillar of the State. But where are you to lookfor justice, --justice in its unmixed, eternal purity, --if not at Rome?Rome is the seat of the Vicar of God. Ponder, I pray you, all that thistitle imports. The Vicar of God is just God on earth; and the governmentof God's Vicar is just the government of God. It is the possession andexercise of the same authority, the same attributes, the same moralinfallibility, and the same moral omnipotence, in the government ofmankind, which God possesses and exercises in the government of theuniverse. The government of the Pope is a model set up on the earth, before kings and nations, of God's righteous and holy government in theheavens. As I, the Vicar of Christ, govern men, so would Christ himself, were he here in the Vatican, govern them. If the claim advanced by thePope, when he takes to himself the title of God's Vicar, amounts toanything, it amounts to this, --to all this, and nothing less than this. 

The case being so, where, I ask, are you entitled to look for justice, if not at Rome? This is her throne: here she sits, or should, accordingto the theory of the popedom, high above the disturbing and blindingpassions of earth, serenely calm and inexorably true, weighing allactions in her awful scales, and giving forth those solemn awards whichfind their response in the universal reason and conscience of mankind. If so, what mean these dungeons? Why these trials shrouded in secrecy?Why this clanking of chains, and that cry which has gone up to heaven, and which pleads for justice there? Come near, I pray you, and look atthe Pope's justice; enter his tribunals, and see the working of hiscourts; listen to the evidence which is there received, and thesentences which are there pronounced; visit his dungeons and galleys;and then tell me what you think of the administration of this man whostyles himself God's Vicar. 

Let me first of all give prominence to the fact that in the Papal Statesthere is no _civil_ code. It is a purely _spiritually_ governed region. The Church sustains herself as judge in _all_ causes, and holds her lawas sufficiently comprehensive in its principles, and sufficientlyflexible and practical in its special provisions, to determine allquestions that can arise, of whatever nature, --whether relating to thebody or the soul of man, to his property or his conscience. By what isstrictly and purely church law are all things here adjudicated, forother law there is none. That law is the decretals and bulls of thepopes. Only think of such a code! The Roman jurisprudence amounts tomany hundreds of volumes, and its precedents range over many centuries, so that the most plodding lawyer and the most industrious judge may welldespair of ever being able to tell exactly what the law says on anyparticular case, or of being able to find a clue to the trueinterpretation, granting that he sincerely wishes to do so, through theinextricable labyrinth of decisions by which he is to be guided. Thislaw was made by the Church and for the Church, and gives to the citizen, as such, no right or privilege of any kind. Whatever rights the Romanpossesses, he possesses solely in his character of Church member; he hasa right to absolution when he confesses; a right to the undisturbedpossession of his goods when he takes the sacrament; but he has norights in his character of citizen; and when he falls out of communionwith the Church, he falls at the same time from all rights whatever. Heis beyond the pale of the Church, and beyond the pale of the law. Ourfreethinkers, who are so ready to fraternise with the Romanists, woulddo well to consider how they would like this sort of regimen. 

Let me, in the second place, give prominence to the fact, that in thePapal States there are no lay judges. There all are "anointed prelates. "This applies to all the tribunals, from the highest to the lowest. Inshort, the whole machinery of the Government is priestly. Its head is apriest, --the Pope; its Prime Minister is a priest; its Chancellor of theExchequer is a priest; its Secretary at War is a priest; all arepriests. These functionaries cannot be impeached. However gross theirblunders, or glaring their malversations, they are secure from censure;because to punish them would be to say that they had erred, and to saythat they had erred would be to impeach the infallibility of thePontifical Government. A treasurer who enriches himself and robs theexchequer may be promoted to the cardinalate, but cannot be censured. The highest mark of displeasure on which the popes have ventured in suchcases has been, to appoint to a dignity with a very inadequate salary. The Government of the Papal States, both in its _law_ and in its_administration_, being strictly sacerdotal, the great fairness of thetest we are now applying to the Papacy is undeniable. It would be veryunfair to try the religion of Britain by the government of Britain, orto charge on Christianity the errors, the injustice, and the oppressionwhich our rulers may commit, because our religion is one thing, and ourGovernment is another. But it is not so in the Papal States. There theChurch is the Government. The papal Government is simply the embodimentof the papal religion. And I cannot conceive a fairer, a more accurate, or a more comprehensive test of the genius and tendency of a religion, than simply the condition of that country where the making of the law, the administration of the law, the control of all persons, theregulation of all affairs, and the adjudication of all questions, aredone by that religion; and where, with no one impediment to obstruct it, and with every conceivable advantage to aid it, it can exhibit all itsprinciples and accomplish all its objects. If that religion be true, thecondition of such country ought to be the most blessed on the face ofthe earth. 

One day I visited the courts of justice, which are on Mount Citorio. Weascended a spacious staircase (I say we, for Mr Stewart, the intelligentand obliging companion of my wanderings in Rome, was with me), andentered a hall crowded with a number of shabby-looking people. We turnedoff into a side-room, not larger than one's library, where the court wassitting. Behind a table slightly raised, and covered with green cloth, sat two priests as judges. A counsel sat with them, to assistoccasionally. On the wall at their back hung a painting of Pont. Max. Pius IX. ; and on the table stood a crucifix. The judges wore the roundcap of the Jesuits. I saw men in coarse bombazeen gowns, which I tookfor macers: these, I soon discovered, were the advocates. They wereclownish-looking men, with great lumpish hands, and an unmistakeablycowed look. They addressed the court in short occasional speeches inLatin; for it is one of the privileges of the Roman people to have theirsuits argued in a tongue they don't understand. There were somehalf-dozen people lounging in the place. There was an air of unconcernand meanness on the court, and all its practitioners and attendants;but, being infallible, it can dispense with the appearance of dignity. Iasked Mr Stewart to conduct me to the criminal court, which was sittingin another apartment under the same roof. He showed me the door withinwhich the assize is held, but told me at the same time, that neithermyself nor any one in Rome could cross that threshold, --the judge, theprisoner, his advocate, the public prosecutor, and the guard, being theonly exceptions. Let me now describe the machinery by which justice, asit is called, is administered. 

The judges, I have said, are prelates; and as in Rome the administrationof justice is a low occupation compared with the Church, priests whichare incapable, or which have sinned against their order, are placed onthe tribunals. A prelate who has a knowledge of jurisprudence is aphenomenon; hence the judges do not themselves examine the merits ofcauses, but cause them to be investigated by a private auditor, whomthey select from the practising counsel. According to the report of thisindividual, the members of the tribunal pronounce their judgment, nomatter what objections may be pled, or arguments offered, to thecontrary. This system gives rise, as may well be conceived, toinnumerable acts of partiality and injustice. 

There is a tribunal of appeal for the Romagnias, another for theMarshes, and a third for the Capitol. Besides these, there are tribunalsof the third class throughout the States. The tribunal of appeal for theCapitol is the ROMAN ROTA. Before this court our own Henry, and theother kings of Europe, carried their causes, in those days when the Popewas really a grand authority, and ruled Christendom. Having now littlebusiness as regards monarchs and the international quarrels of kingdoms, it has been converted into a tribunal for private suits. It stillshrouds itself in its mediæval secresy, which, if it robs its decisionsof public confidence, at least screens the ignorance of its judges frompublic contempt. There are, besides, the tribunals of the _Signatura_and of _Cassation_, in which partiality examines, incompetencepronounces judgment, delays exhaust the patience and the money of thesuitors, and the decent veil of a dead language wraps up the illegality. 

Besides these, there are the _exceptional_ tribunals, which are verynumerous. Among them the chief is the _ecclesiastical_ jurisdiction, soextensive, that it is sufficient that some very trifling interest of apriest, or of some charity fund, or even of a Jew or a recent convert, is concerned, to transfer the cause to the bar of the privilegedtribunal. The jurisdiction of the exceptional tribunal is exercised inthe provinces by the vicar-general of the bishop; and in Rome the suitsare laid before the private auditors of the cardinal-vicar, and of thebishop _in partibus_, his assistant. The auditors pronounce judgment inthe name of the cardinal or the bishop, who signs it without anyexamination on his part. The suits which concern the public finances aredecided by the exceptional tribunal, and a tribunal called the "_PlenaCamera_" (full chamber); and any private person who might chance to gainhis cause is condemned, as an invariable maxim, to pay the costs. Exceptional tribunals are to be found in very many parochial places, especially in those parishes near Rome where the judges are named by, and are removable at the will of, the baron. It can easily be imaginedwhat sort of a chance any one may have who should have a suit with thebaron. Besides all these, we must not omit the _Reverend ApostolicalChamber_, always on the brink of bankruptcy, which has been in the habitof exacting contributions, that they may sell to speculators therevenues of succeeding years. Thus private families, invested withiniquitous privileges, extort money from the unfortunate labourers, byroyal authority and the help of the bailiff. 

There is another tribunal which should be styled _monstrous_, ratherthan by the milder term of exceptional; this is the "_Fabbrica di S. Petro_" (house of St Peter. ) To this was granted, by the caprice of thePope, the right to claim from the immediate or distant heirs of anytestator, _even at remote epochs_, the sum of unpaid legacies for piouspurposes. The Cardinal Arch-Priest and the Commons, who represent thepretended creditor, are judges between themselves and the presumeddebtor. They search the archives; they open and they close testamentarydocuments not ever published; they arbitrarily burden the estates of thecitizens with mortgages or charges; and they commence their proceedingswhere other tribunals leave off, --that is, by an execution and seizure, under the pretence of securing the credits not yet determined upon. Tothe commissaries of this strange tribunal in the provinces is awardedthe fifth of the sum claimed. Whosoever desires to settle the questionby a compromise is not permitted to attempt it, unless he shall firsthave satisfied this fifth, and paid the expenses, besides the fees ofthe fiscal advocate. If any one should have the rare luck to gain hissuit, as, for instance, by producing the receipt in full, he mustnevertheless pay a sum for the judgment absolving him. 

The presidents of the tribunals--the minor judges, comprising theprivate auditors of the Vicar of Rome--have the power of legitimatizingall contracts for persons affected by legal incapacity. This isgenerally done without examination, and merely in consideration of thefee which they receive. It would take a long chapter to narrate the sumswhich have been, by a single stroke of the pen, wrongfully taken frompoor widows and orphans. Incapacity for the management of one's affairsis sometimes pronounced by the tribunal, but very frequently is decreedby the prelate-auditor of the Pope, without any judicial formality. Thusany citizen may at any moment find himself deprived of the direction ofhis private affairs and business. 

Such is the machinery employed for dispensing justice by a man whoprofesses to be the infallible fountain of equity, and the world'steacher as regards the eternal maxims of justice. Justice! The word is adelusion, --a lie. It is a term which designates a tyranny worse than anyunder which the populations of Asia groan. [5]

It would be wearisome to adduce individual cases, even were I ableto do so. But, indeed, the vast corruption of the _civil justice_of the Papal States must be evident from what I have said. Alaw so inextricable!--judges so incompetent, who decide withoutexamining!--tribunals which sit in darkness! Why, justice is notdispensed in Rome; it is bought and sold; it is simply a piece ofmerchandise; and if you wish to obtain it, you cannot, but by going tothe market, where it is openly put up for sale, and buying it with yourmoney. Mr Whiteside, a most competent witness in this case, who spenttwo winters in Rome, and made it his special business to investigate theRoman jurisprudence, both in its theory and in its practice, tells us ineffect, in his able work on Italy, that if you are so unfortunate as tohave a suit in the Roman courts, the decision will have little or noreference to the merits of the cause, but will depend on whether you oryour opponent is willing to approach the judgment-seat with the largestbribe. Such, in substance, is Mr Whiteside's testimony; and preciselysimilar was the evidence of every one whom I met in Rome who had had anydealings with the papal tribunals. 

But I turn to the political justice of the Papal States, --a departmenteven more important in the present state of Italy, and where thespecific acts are better known. Let us look first at the tribunal set upin Rome for the trial of all crimes against the State. And let thereader bear in mind, that offences against the Church are crimes againstthe State, for there the Church is the State. A secret, summary, andatrocious tribunal it is, differing in no essential particular from thatsanguinary tribunal in Paris where Robespierre passed sentence, and theguillotine executed it. The Gregorian Code[6] enacts, that in cases ofsedition or treason, the trial may take place by a commission nominatedby the Pope's Secretary; that the trial shall be secret; that theprisoner shall not be confronted with the witnesses, or know theirnames; that he may be examined in prison and by torture. The accused, according to this barbarous code, has no means of proving hisinnocence, or defending his life, beyond the hasty observations on theevidence which his advocate, who is appointed in all cases by thetribunal, may be able to make on the spur of the moment. This tribunalis simply the Inquisition; and yet it is by this tribunal that the Pope, who professes to be the first minister of justice on earth, governs hiskingdom. No man is safe at Rome. However innocent, his liberty and lifehang by a single thread, which the Government, by the help of such atribunal as this, may snap at any moment. 

This is the established, the legal course of papal justice. Let thereader lift his eyes, and survey, if he have courage, the wide welteringmass of misery and despair which the Papal States present. We cannotbring all into view; we must permit a few only to speak for the rest. Here they come from a region of doom, to tell to the free people ofBritain, if they will hear them, the dread secrets of theirprison-house; and, we may add, to warn them, "lest they also come intothis place of torment. " I shall first of all take a case that occurredbefore the Revolution, lest any one should affirm of the cases that areto follow, that the Pontifical Government had been exascerbated by theinsurrection, and hurried into measures of more than usual severity. This case I give on the authority of Mr Whiteside, who, being curious tosee a _political process_ in the Roman law, after some trouble procuredthe following, which, having been compiled under the orders of Pius IX. , may be relied on as strictly accurate. Pietro Leoni had acted asofficial attorney to the poor. Well, in 1831, under the pontificate ofGregory XVI. , he was arrested on a charge of being a member of apolitical club. He was brought to trial, acquitted, set free, butdeprived of his office, though why I cannot say, unless it was for thecrime of being innocent. To sustain an aged father, a wife and children, Pietro had to work harder than ever. In 1836 he was againarrested, --suddenly, without being told for what, --hurried to the Castleof St Angelo, in the dungeons of which he had to undergo a rigorousexamination, from which nothing could be elicited. He was not released, however, but kept there, till witnesses could be found or hired. Atlength a certain vine-dresser came forward to accuse Leoni. One day, said the vine-dresser, Pietro Leoni, whom he had never seen till then, came to his door, and, after a short conversation with him, in thepresence of his sons, handed him a manuscript relating to a _reformsociety_, of which, he said, he had been a member for years. Thevine-dresser buried this document at the bottom of a tree in his garden. The spot was searched, but nothing was found; his strange story wascontradicted by his wife and sons; and the Pontifical Government couldnot for very shame condemn him on such evidence; but neither did theylet him go. A full year passed over him in the dungeons of St Angelo. Atlast three additional witnesses--(their names never were known)--wereproduced against him. And what did they depose? Why, that they had heardsome one say that he had heard Pietro Leoni say, that he (Leoni) was amember of a secret society; and on this hearsay evidence did thePontifical Government condemn the poor attorney to a life-long slaveryin the galleys. We find him ten long years thereafter still in thedungeons of the Castle of St Angelo, and writing the Pope in a strainwhich one would think might have moved a heart of stone. The petition isprinted in the process. It begins, --

 "Most holy father, divest yourself of the splendours of royalty, and, dressed in the garb of a private citizen, cause yourself to be conducted into these subterranean prisons, where there is buried, not an enemy of his country, not a violator of the laws, but an innocent citizen, whom a secret enemy has calumniated, and who has had the courage to sustain his innocence in presence of a judge prejudiced or corrupted.... Command this living tomb to be opened, and ask an unhappy man the cause of his misfortunes. "

And concludes thus, --

 "But, holy father, neither the prolonged imprisonment of ten years, nor separation from my family, nor the total ruin of my earthly prospects, should ever reduce me to the baseness of admitting a crime which I did not commit. And I call God to witness that I am innocent of the accusation brought against me; and that the true cause of my unjust condemnation was, and is, a private pique and personal enmity.... Listen, therefore, to justice, --to the humble entreaties of an aged father, --a desolate wife, --unhappy children, --who exist in misery, and who with tears of anguish implore your mercy. "

Did the heart of Gregory relent? Did he hasten to the prison, and beghis prisoner to come forth? Ah, no: the petition was received, flungaside, and forgotten; and Pietro Leoni continued to lie in the dungeonsof St Angelo till death came to the Vatican, and Gregory went to hisaccount, and the prison-doors of St Angelo were opened, as a matter ofcourse, not of right, on the accession of a new Pope. No wonder thatLambruschini and Marini, the chief actors in the atrocities committedunder Gregory, resisted that amnesty by which Pietro Leoni, and hundredsmore, were raised from the grave, as it were, to proclaim theirvillanies. I give this case because it occurred before the Revolution, and is a fair sample, as a Roman advocate assured Mr Whiteside, of thecalm, every-day working of the Pontifical Government under Gregory XVI. I come now to relate other cases, if possible more affecting, which cameunder my own cognizance, more or less, while in Rome. 

But let me first glance at the rejoicings that filled Rome on theaccession of Pius IX. A bright but perfidious gleam heralded the night, which has since settled down so darkly on the Papal States. The scene Idescribe in the words of Mr Stewart, who was an eye-witness of it:--"Iwas at Rome when Pope Pius IX. Made his formal triumphal entrance intothe city by the Porta del Popolo, where was a magnificent arch enteringto the Corso. The arch was erected specially for the occasion, andexecuted with much artistic skill. Banners were waving in profusionalong the Corso, bearing, some of them, very far-fetched epithets; whileevery balcony and window was studded with gay and admiring citizens, allalike eager in demonstrating their attachment to the Holy Father. Nothing, in fact, could exceed the gaiety of the scene: all and sundryseemed bent on the one idea of displaying their loyalty. What withgarlands of flowers, white handkerchiefs, and vivas, the feelings wereworked up to such a pitch, that the _young nobles_, when the statecarriage arrived at the Piazza Colonna, actually unyoked the horses, andscampered off with carriage and Pope, to the Quirinal Palace, nearly amile. This ebullition of feeling was undoubtedly the result of thegeneral amnesty, and the bright expectations then cherished of a new erafor Italy. " Such an ebullition may appear absurd, and even childish, tous, who have been so long accustomed to liberty; but we must bear inmind that the Romans had groaned in fetters for centuries, and these, asthey believed, had now been struck off for ever. "Was there, " asked MrWhiteside of a sculptor in Rome, "really affecting yourself, anypractical oppression under old Gregory?" The artist started. "No man, "said he, "could count on one hour's security or happiness: I knew notbut there might be a spy behind that block of marble: the pleasure oflife was spoiled. I had three friends, who, supping in a garden nearthis spot, were suddenly arrested, flung into prison, and lay there, though innocent, till released by Pio Nono. " As regards the amnesty ofPio Nono, which so intoxicated the Romans, it is common for popes tomake political capital of the errors and crimes of their predecessors;and as regards his reforming policy, which deluded others besides theItalians, it was a very transparent dodge to restore the papacy to itsold supremacy. The Cobra di Capella relaxed its folds on Italy for amoment, to coil itself more firmly round the rest of the world. Of thisnone are now better aware than the Romans. 

The re-action, --the flight, --the Republic, --the bombardment, --the returnto the Vatican on a path deluged with his subjects' blood, --all I passover. But how shall I describe or group the horrors that have darkenedand desolated the Papal States from that hour to this? What has theirhistory been since, but one terrible tale of apprehensions, proscriptions, banishments, imprisonments, and executions, the fullrecital of which would make the ear of him that hears it to tingle? Neroand Caligula were monsters of crime; but their capricious tyranny, whileit fell heavily on individuals, left the great body of the empirecomparatively untouched. But the tyranny of the Pope penetrates everyhome, and crushes every person and thing. There was not under Nero atenth part of the misery in Rome which there is now. Were the acts ofNero and of Pio to be fully written, I have not a doubt, --I amcertain, --that the government of the imperial despot would be seen to beliberty itself, compared with the measureless, remorseless, inappeasable, wide-wasting tyranny of the sacerdotal one. The diadem waslight indeed, compared with the tiara. The little finger of the Popes isthicker than the loins of the Cæsars. The sights I saw, and the facts Iheard, actually poisoned my enjoyment of Rome. What pleasure could Itake in statues and monuments, when I saw the wretched beings thatlived beside them, and marked the faces on which despair was painted, the forms that grief had bowed to the very dust, the dead men whowandered in the streets and about the old ruins, as if they sought, butcould not find, their graves? Ah! there _is_ not, there never _was_, onearth a tyranny like the Papacy. But let me come to particulars. 

I shall first narrate the story of Colonel Calendrelli. It was told meby our own consul in Rome, Mr Freeborn, who knew intimately the colonel, and deeply interested himself in his case. Colonel Calendrelli wastreasurer at war during the Republic. The Republic came to an end; thePontifical Government returned; and Colonel Calendrelli, being unable toget away along with the other agents and friends of the Republic, was, of course, apprehended by the restored Government. It was necessary tofind some pretext on which to condemn the colonel; and what, does thereader think, was the charge preferred against Colonel Calendrelli? Why, it was this, that the colonel had embezzled the public funds to theamount of twenty scudi. Twenty scudi! How much is that? Only five poundssterling! That Colonel Calendrelli, a gentleman, a scholar, a man onwhose honesty a breath had never been blown, should risk character andliberty for five pounds sterling! Why, the Pontifical Government shouldhave made it five hundred or five thousand pounds, if they wished tohave the accusation believed. Well, then, on the charge of defraudingthe public treasury to the extent of twenty Roman scudi was ColonelCalendrelli brought to trial, and condemned! Condemned to what? To thegalleys. Nor does that bring fully out the iniquity of the sentence. Ourconsul in Rome assured me that he had investigated the case, from hisfriendship for the colonel, and that the matter stood thus:--The colonelhad engaged a man to do a piece of work, for which he was to receivefive pounds as wages. The work was done, the wages were paid, the man'sreceipt was tendered, and the witnesses in whose presence the money hadbeen paid bore their testimony to the fact. All these proofs were beforeMr Freeborn. Nay, more; the papal tribunal that tried the case was toldthat all these witnesses and documents were ready to be produced. Andyet, in the teeth of this evidence, completely establishing theinnocence of Colonel Calendrelli, which, indeed, no one doubted, was thecolonel condemned to the galleys; and when I was in Rome, he was workingas a galley-slave on the high-road near Civita Vecchia, chained toanother galley-slave. This is a sample of the pontifical justice. Takeanother case. 

The tragedy I am now to relate was consummated during my stay in theEternal City. In the town of Macerata, to the east of Rome, it happenedone day that a priest was fired at as he was passing along the street atdusk. He was not shot, happily;--the ball, missing the priest, sank deepin a door on the other side of the way. This happened under theRepublic; and the police either could not or would not discover theperpetrator of the deed. The thing was the talk of the town for a day orso, and was then forgotten for ever, as every one thought. But no. TheRepublic came to an end; back came the pontifical police to Macerata;and then the affair of the priest was brought up. The prefect had notbeen installed in his office many days till a person presented himselfbefore him, and said, "I am the man who shot at the priest. " "You!"exclaimed the prefect. "Yes; and I was hired to shoot him by----, "naming three young men of the town, who had been the most activesupporters of the Republic. These were precisely the three young men, ofall others in Macerata, whom it was most for the interest of the Papacyto get rid of. That very day these three young men were apprehended. They were at last brought to trial; and will it be believed, that on thesolitary and uncorroborated testimony of a man who, according to his ownconfession, was a hired assassin, --and surely I do the man no injusticeif I suppose that, if he was willing for money to commit murder, hemight be willing for money, or some priestly consideration, to commitperjury, --on the single and unsupported evidence, I say, of this man, ahired assassin according to his own confession, were these three youngmen condemned? And to what? To death!--and while I was in Rome they wereactually guillotined! I saw their sentence placarded on the PiazzaColonna on the morning after my arrival in Rome. This writing of doomwas the first thing I read in that city. It bore the names of theaccused, the alleged crime, and an abstract of the evidence, or, Ishould say, volunteered statement, of the would-be assassin. It had theterrible guillotine at the top, and the fisherman's ring at the bottom;and though I had known nothing more of the case than the Governmentaccount of it, as contained in that paper, I would have said that it wasenough to cover any Government with eternal infamy. Indeed, I don'tbelieve that there is a Government under the sun, save the Pope's, thatwould have done an atrocity like it. I had some talk with our consul, MrFreeborn, about that case too, and he assured me that, bad as thesecases were, they were not worse than scores, aye, hundreds, that to hisknowledge had been perpetrated in Rome, and all over the Papal States, since the return of the Pontifical Government. He added, that if MrGladstone would come to Rome, and visit the prisons, and examine thestate of the country generally, he would have a more harrowing tale tounfold than that with which he had recently thrilled the British publicon the subject of Naples: that in Naples there was still something liketrade, but in Rome there was nothing but downright grinding misery. 

There are few tales in any history more harrowing than the following. The events were posterior to my visit to Rome, and were published at thetime in the American _Crusader_. It happened that several papalproconsuls were slain in the city of Faenza: all of them had servedunder Gregory XVI. , in the galleys, as felons and forgers. Beingfavoured by the papal power, they tried to deserve it by becoming thetyrants of the unhappy population. When the gloomy news of theirtragical end reached the Holy Father, the answer returned to thegovernor of that city, as to what he should do in such a case, as thetrue perpetrators could not be found, was, "_Arrest all the young men ofFaenza!_" and more than a hundred youths were immediately snatched awayfrom the bosom of their families, handcuffed and chained, thrown intothe city prisons, and distributed afterwards among the gangs ofmalefactors, whose lives had been a continual series of robberies andmurders! Thirty of these unfortunate victims were marched off to Rome, where they were locked up in a dungeon. Innocent as well as unconsciousof the crime of which they were accused, they supplicated the Presidentof the Sacred Consulta, --who is an anointed prelate, --asking only forjustice; not for mercy and forgiveness, but for a regular trial. All wasuseless; the archbishop had neither ear nor heart, and the petition wasforgotten. Thinking that, after all, even at Rome, and even among thehigh dignitaries of the Church of Sodom and Gomorrah, there might befound a man of human feeling, they wrote a second petition, which wasthis time addressed to a different personage of the Church, hisExcellency Mgr. Mertel, Minister of Grace and Justice!

The prisoners asserted to the high papal functionary the illegality oftheir arrest, --their sufferings without any imputation of guilt, --thepainful condition of their families, increased still more by the faminewhich now desolates the Roman States, and the want of their support. Thesupplicants were brought before Mgr. Mertel, who, feigning pity andinterest for the sufferers (attention, reader!) offered them the choiceof _ten years in the chain-gang, or to be transported to the UnitedStates_, the _refugium peccatorum_! They protested; but of what benefitis a legal and natural protest to thirty poor defenceless and guiltlessyoung men, loaded with chains by a papal bureaucrat, surrounded by fiftyruffians armed to the teeth?

On the night of the 5th of May 1853, the sepulchral silence of thesubterranean prisons of St Angelo was interrupted by the rattling ofkeys and muskets. The thirty young citizens of Faenza were called out oftheir dens, and one by one, bending under his fetters, was escorted to asteamer waiting on the muddy Tiber to carry them to a distant land! Thebeautiful moon of Italy, as some call it, was shining benevolently overRome and her iniquities; the streets, deserted by the people, weretrodden by French patrols; all was silent as the grave itself; and not afriend was there to bid them adieu; not a relative to speak a consolingword to the departing; and none to acquaint the unfortunates whoremained behind with their terrible calamity! This was their partingfrom Rome, at three o'clock, after midnight! But let us follow thevictims of papal fury over the wide waters. Cast into the steerage, always handcuffed, the vessel rolling in a heavy and tempestuous sea, these wretched young men remained eighty hours in a painful position, till they reached Leghorn, where they were conducted to the quarantine, as though affected with leprosy and plague, and thence embarked for NewYork, where they arrived totally destitute of clothes and means ofsubsistence. 

The autumn of 1852 will be long remembered in the Papal States, from theoccurrence of numerous tragedies of a like deplorable character. Sixty-five citizens of Sinigaglia had been apprehended on the charge ofbeing concerned in the political disturbances of 1848, --an accusation onwhich the Pope himself might have been apprehended. These citizens, however, had not been so prudent as to turn when the Pope did. In theAugust of 1852 they were all brought to trial before the Sacra Consultaof Rome, with the exception of thirteen who had made their escape. Twenty-eight of these persons were condemned to the galleys for life, and twenty-four were sentenced to be shot. These unhappy men displayedgreat unconcern at their execution, --some singing the _Marseillaise_, others crying _Viva Mazzini_. The Swiss troops, not the Austriansoldiers, were made the executioners in this case. 

The Sinigaglia trials were followed by similar prosecutions at Ancona, Jesi, Pesaro, and Funa, where unhappy groupes of citizens, indicted forpolitical offences, waited the tender mercies which the "Holy Father"dispenses to his _figli_ by the hands of Swiss and Austrian carabiniers. Let us state the result at Ancona. 

The executions took place on the 25th of October 1852, and they may bereckoned amongst the most appalling ever witnessed. The sentence wasofficially published at Rome after the execution, and contained, asusual, simply the names of the judges and the prisoners, a summary ofthe evidence unsupported by the names of any witnesses, and the penaltyawarded--_death_. The victims were nine in number. The sacerdotalGovernment gave them a priest as well as a scaffold, but only one wouldaccept the insulting mockery. The others, being hopelessly recusant, were allowed to intoxicate themselves with rum. "The shooting of themwas entrusted to a detachment of Roman artillerymen, armed with shortcarbines, old-fashioned weapons, many of which missed fire, so that atthe first discharge some of the prisoners did not fall, but ran off, with the soldiers pursuing and firing at them repeatedly; others crawledabout; and one wretch, after being considered dead, made a violentexertion to get up, rendering a final _coup de grace_ necessary. " Thewriter who recorded these accounts added, that other executions were tofollow, and that, if these wholesale slaughters were necessary, theyought, in the dominions of a pontifical sovereign, to be conducted withmore delicacy, that is, in a more summary fashion. In truth, suchexecutions are a departure from the approved pontifical method ofkilling, --which is not by fusillades and in open day, but in silence andnight, by the help of the rack and the dungeon. 

I cannot go into any minute detail of the imprisonments, banishments, and massacres by which the Pope has signalized his return to his palaceand the chair of Peter. But I may state a few facts, from which someidea of their number may be gathered. When Pio Nono fled from Rome toGaeta, what was the amount of its population? Not less than a hundredand sixty thousand. I conversed with a distinguished literary Englishmanwho chanced to visit Rome at the time I speak of, and who assured methat there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand in Rome then, for Italians had flocked thither from every country under heaven, expecting a new era for their city and nation. But I shall give the Popethe benefit of the smaller number. When he fled, there were, I shallsuppose, only a hundred and sixty thousand human beings in his city ofRome. Take the same Rome six months after his return, and how many doyou find in it? According to the most credible accounts, the populationof the Eternal City had dwindled down to little above a hundredthousand. Here are sixty thousand human beings lacking in this one city. What has become of them? Where have they gone to? I shall suppose thatsome were fortunate enough to escape to Malta, some to Belgium, some toEngland, and others to America. I shall suppose that twenty thousandcontrived to get away. And let me here do justice to Mr Freeborn, theBritish consul, who saved much blood by issuing British passports tothese unhappy men when the French entered Rome. Twenty thousand, I shallsuppose, made good their flight. But thirty thousand and upwards arestill lacking. Where are your subjects, Pio Nono? Were we to put thisinterrogatory to the Pope, he would reply, I doubt not, as did anothercelebrated personage in history, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But ah!might not the same response as of old be made to this disclaimer, "Thevoice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground?" Again wesay, Where are your subjects, Pio Nono? Ask any Roman, and he will tellyou where these men are. Ask our own consul, Mr Freeborn, and he willtell you where they are. They are, those of them that have not beenshot, rotting at this hour at the bottom of the Pope's dungeons. That iswhere they are. 

There is a singular unanimity in Rome amongst all parties, as to thenumber of political prisoners now under confinement. This I had manyopportunities of testing. I met a Roman one evening in a book-shop, and, after a rather lengthened conversation, I said to him, "Can you tell mehow many prisoners there are at present in the Roman States?" "No, " hereplied, "I cannot. " "But, " I rejoined, "have you no idea of theirnumber?" He solemnly said, "God only knows. " I pressed him yet farther, when he stated, that the common estimate, which he believed to be notabove the truth, rather under, was, that there were not fewer thanthirty thousand political prisoners in the various fortresses anddungeons of the Papal States. Thirty thousand was the estimate of MrFreeborn. Thirty thousand was the estimate of Mr Stewart, who, minglingwith the Romans, knew well the prevailing opinion. Of course, preciseaccuracy is unattainable in such a case. No one ever counted theseprisoners. No list of them is kept, --none that is open to the public eyeat least; but it is well known, that there is scarce a family in Romewhich does not mourn some of its members lost to it, and scarce anindividual who has not an acquaintance in prison; and I have littledoubt that the Roman estimate is not far from the truth, and that it isjust as likely to be below as above it. When I was in Rome, all thejails in the city were crowded. The cells in the Castle of StAngelo, --those subterranean dungeons where day never dawned, and wherethe captive's groan can never reach a human ear, --were filled. All thegreat fortresses throughout the country, --the vast ranges ofgalley-prisons at Civita Vecchia, the fortress of Ancona, the castle ofBologna, the fortress of Ferrara, and hundreds of minor prisons over thecountry, --all were filled, --filled, do I say! they werecrowded, --crowded to suffocation with choking, despairing victims. Inthe midst of this congeries of dungeons, surrounded by clanking chainsand weeping captives, stands the chair of the "Holy Father. "

Let us take a look into these prisons, as described to me by reputableand well-informed parties in Rome. These prisons are of three classes. The first class consists of cells of from seven to eight feet square. The space is little more than a man's height when he stands erect, and aman's length when he stretches himself on the floor, and can containonly that amount of atmospheric air necessary for the consumption of oneperson. These cells are now made to receive two prisoners, who arecompelled to divide betwixt them the air adequate for only one. Thesecond class consists of cells constructed to hold ten persons each. Inthe present great demand for prison-room these are held to afford ampleaccommodation for a little crowd of twenty persons. Their one window isso high in the wall, that the wretched men who are shut in here areobliged to mount by turns on each other's shoulders, to obtain a breathof air. Last of all comes the common prison. It is a spacious place, containing from forty to fifty persons, who lie day and night on strawtoo foul for a stable. It matters not what the means of the prisoner maybe; he must wear the prison dress, and live on the prison diet. Thejailor is empowered, should the slightest provocation be offered, toflog the prisoner, or to load his limbs so heavily with irons, that hescarce can move. And who are they who tenant these places? Violators ofthe law, --brigands, murderers? No! Those who have been dragged thitherare the very _elite_ of the Roman population. There many of them lie foryears, without being brought to trial; and if they thus escape thescaffold, they perish more slowly, but not less surely, and much moremiserably, by the pestilential air, the unwholesome food, and thehorrible treatment of the jail. Nor is this the worst of it. I was toldby those in Rome who had the best opportunities of knowing, but whosenames I do not here choose to mention, that the sufferings of theprisoners had been much aggravated, --indeed, made unendurable, --by theexpedient of the Government which confines malefactors and desperadoesalong with them. These characters are permitted to have their own way inthe prisons; they lord it over the rest, compel them to do the mostdisgusting offices, and attempt even outrages on their person, whichpropriety leaves without a name. Their sufferings are indescribable. Theconsequence of this accumulation of horrors, --foul air, insufficientfood, and the fearful society with which the walls and chains of theirprison compel them to mingle, --is, that a great many of the prisonershave died, some have sought to terminate their woe by suicide, whileothers have been carried raving to a madhouse. Mr Freeborn assured methat several of his Roman acquaintances had been carried to these placessane men, as well as innocent men, and, after a short confinement, theyhad been brought out maniacs and madmen. He would have preferred to haveseen them shot at once. It is a prelate who has charge of these prisons. 

I have described the higher machinery which the Pope employs, --thetribunals, --judges, --the secret process, --the tyrannous Gregorian Code;let me next bring into view the inferior machinery of the PontificalGovernment. The Roman _sbirri_ have an European reputation. One must beno ordinary villain, --he must be, in short, a perfected and finishedscoundrel, --to merit a place in this honourable corps. The _sbirri_ arechiefly from the kingdom of Naples. They dress in plain clothes, go intwos and threes, are easily distinguished, and are permitted to carrylarger walking-sticks than the Romans, whom the French commandant hasforbidden to come abroad with any but the merest twig. Some of thesespies wear spurs, the better to deceive and to succeed in their fiendishwork. No disguise, however, can conceal the _sbirro_. His look, sounmistakeably villanous, proclaims the spy. These fellows will not bedefeated in their purposes. They carry, it is said, _articles ofconviction_, that is, political papers, on their person, which they use, in lack of other material, to compass the ruin of their victim. They canstop any one they please on the street, compel him to produce hispapers, and, when they choose not to be satisfied with them, march himoff to prison. When they visit a house where they have resolved to makea seizure, they search it; and if they do not find what may criminatethe man, they drop the papers they have brought with them, and swearthat they found them in the house. What can solemn protestations doagainst armed ruffians, backed by hireling judges, who, like Impacciantiand Belli, have been taken from the bagnio and the galleys, thrust intoorders, and elevated to the bench, to do the work of their patrons?[7]Such must show that they deserve promotion. The people loathe and dreadthe _sbirri_, knowing that whatever they do in their official capacityis done well, and speedily followed up by those in authority. 

But there is a class in the service of the Pontifical Government yetmore wicked and dangerous. What! exclaims the reader, more wicked anddangerous than the _sbirri_! Yes, the _sbirri_ profess to be only whatthey are, --the base tools of a tyrannical Government, which seems tothirst insatiably for vengeance; but there exists an invisible power, which the citizen feels to be ever at his side, listening to his everyword, penetrating his inmost thought, and ready at any moment to effecthis destruction. At noonday, at midnight, in society, in private, hefeels that its eye is upon him. He can neither see it nor avoid it. Would he flee from it, he but throws himself into its jaws. I refer to aclass of vile and abandoned men, entirely at the service of theGovernment, whose position in society, agreeable manners, flexibilityof disposition, and thorough knowledge of affairs, which they study forbase ends, and handle most adroitly in conversation, enable them topenetrate the secret feelings of all classes. They now condemn and nowapplaud the conduct of Government, as the subject and circumstancesrequire, and all to extract an unfriendly sentiment against those inauthority, if such there be in the mind of the man with whom they areconversing. If they succeed, the person is immediately denounced; anarrest follows, or domiciliary restraint. The numbers that have foundtheir way to prison and to the galleys through this secret andmysterious agency are incredible. Nor can any man imagine to himself thedreadful state of Rome under this terrible espionage. The Roman feelsthat the air around him is full of eyes and ears; he dare not speak; hedreads even to think; he knows that a thought or a look may convey himto prison. 

The oppression is not of equal intensity in all cases. Some aresubjected only to domiciliary restraint. In this predicament are manyrespectably connected young men. They are told to consider themselves asprisoners in their own houses, and not to appear beyond the threshold, but at the penalty of exchanging their homes for the common jail. Others, again, whose apparent delinquency has been less, are allowed thefreedom of the open air during certain specified hours. At the expiry ofthis time they must withdraw to their houses: Ave Maria is in many casesthe retiring hour. 

Another tyrannical proceeding on the part of the Government, which wasproductive of wide-spread misery, was the compelling hundreds of people, from the labourer to the man in business, to leave Rome for their placeof birth. These measures, which would have been oppressive under anycircumstances, were rendered still more oppressive by the shortness ofthe notice given to those on whom this sentence of expulsion fell. Somehad twenty-four hours, and others thirty-six, to prepare for theirdeparture. The labourer might plead that he had no money, and must beghis way with wife and children. The man in business might justlyrepresent that to eject him in this summary fashion was just to ruinhim; for his business could not be properly wound up; it must besacrificed. But no appeal was sustained; no remonstrance was listenedto. The stern mandate must be obeyed, though the poor man should die onthe road. Go he must, or be conveyed in irons. And, as regards those whowere fortunate enough to reach their native villages, alas! theirsufferings did then but begin. These villages, in most cases, did notneed them, and could afford no opening in the line of business or oflabour in which they had been trained. They were houseless and worklessin their native place; and, if they did not die of a broken heart, whichmany of them did, they went "into the country, " as they say inItaly, --that is, they became brigands, or are at this hour dragging outthe remainder of their lives in poverty and wretchedness. 

How atrociously, too, have many of the Romans been carried from theirbusiness to prison. Against these men neither proof nor witness existed;but a spy had denounced them, or they had fallen under the suspicions ofthe Government, and there they are in the dungeon. Their families mightstarve, their business might go to the dogs, but the vengeance of theGovernment must be satiated. Such persons are confined for a longer orshorter period, according to the view taken of their character orassociates; and if nothing be elicited by the secret ordeal ofexamination, the prison-door is opened, and the prisoner is requested togo home. No apology is offered; no redress is obtained. 

Such cases, I was told, were numerous. One such came to my knowledgethrough Mr Stewart. An acquaintance of his, a druggist, was one daydragged summarily from his business, and lodged in jail, where he wasdetained a whole month, although to this hour he has not been told whathe had done, or said, or thought amiss. During the Constitution this manhad been called in, in his scientific capacity simply, to superintend anelectric telegraph which ran, if I mistake not, betwixt the Capitol andSt Peter's. But beyond this he had taken no political action andexpressed no political sentiment whatever. He knew well that this wouldavail him nothing; and glad he was to escape from incarceration with theremark, _meno male, alias_, it might have been worse. 

They say that the Inquisition was an affair of the sixteenth century;that its fires are cold; its racks and screws are rusted; and that itwould be just as impossible to bring back the Inquisition as to bringback the centuries in which it flourished. That is fine talking; andthere are simpletons who believe it. But look at Rome. What is theGovernment of the Papal States, but just the Government of theInquisition? There there are midnight apprehensions, secret trials, familiars, torture by flogging, by loading with irons, and other yetmore refined modes of cruelty, --in short, all the machinery of the HolyOffice. The canon law, whose full blessing Italy now enjoys, is theInquisition; for wherever the one comes, there the other will follow it. Let me describe the secresy and terror with which apprehensions are madeat Rome. The forms of the Inquisition are closely followed herein. Thedeed is one of darkness, and the darkest hours of the twenty-four, namely, from twelve till two of the morning, are taken for itsperpetration. At midnight half a dozen _sbirri_ proceed to the house ofthe unhappy man marked out for arrest. Two take their place at thedoor, two at the windows, and two at the back-door, to make all sure. They knock gently at the door. If it is opened, well; if not, they knocka second time. If still it is not opened, it is driven in by force. The_sbirri_ rush in; they seize the man; they drag him from his bed; thereis no time for parting adieus with his family; they hurry him throughthe streets to prison. That very night, or the next, his trial isproceeded with, --that is, when it is intended that there shall befurther proceedings; for many, as we have said, are imprisoned for longmonths, without either accusation or trial. But what a mockery is thetrial! The prisoner is never confronted with his accuser, or with theimpeaching witnesses. He is allowed no opportunity of disproving thecharge; sometimes he is not even informed what that charge is. He has nomeans of defending his life. He has no doubt an advocate to defend him;but the advocate is always nominated by the court, and is usually takenfrom the partizans of the Government; and nothing would astonish himmore than that he should succeed in bringing off his prisoner. And evenwhen he honestly wishes to serve him, what can he do? He has noexculpatory witnesses; he has had no time to expiscate facts; theevidence for the prosecution is handed to him in court; and he can makeonly such observations as occur at the moment, knowing all the whilethat the prisoner's fate is already determined on. Sometimes theprisoner, I was told, is not even produced in court, but remains in hiscell while his liberty and life are hanging in the balance. At day-breakhis prison-door opens, and the jailor enters, holding in his hand alittle slip of paper. Ah! well does the prisoner know what that is. Hesnatches it hastily from the jailor's hands, hurries with it to hisgrated window, through which the day is breaking, holds it up withtrembling hands, and reads his doom. He is banished, it may be, or heis sentenced to the galleys; or, more wretched still, he is doomed tothe scaffold. Unhappy man! 'twas but last eve that he laid him down inthe midst of his little ones, not dreaming of the black cloud that hungabove his dwelling; and now by next dawn he is in the Pope's dungeons, parted from all he loves, most probably for ever, and within a few hoursof the galleys or the scaffold. 

I saw these men taken out of Rome morning by morning, --that is, such ofthem as were banished. They passed under the windows of my own apartmentin the Via Babuino. I have seen as many as twenty-four led away of amorning. They were put by half-dozens into carts, to which they weretied by twos, and chained together, as if they had been brigands. Thusthey moved on to the Flaminian gate, each cart escorted by a couple ofmounted gendarmes. The spectacle, alas! was too common to findspectators; not a Roman followed it, or showed that he was conscious ofit, save by a mournful look at the melancholy cavalcade from his window, knowing that what was their lot to-day might be his to-morrow. And whatthe appearance and apparent profession of these men? Those I saw hadmuch the air of intelligent and respectable artizans; for I believe itis this class that are now bearing the brunt of the papal tyranny. Thehigher classes were swept off before, and the rage of the Government isnow venting itself in a lower and wider sphere. An intelligentScotchman, who had charge of the one iron-shop in the Corso, informed methat now all the tolerably skilled workmen had been so weeded out of thecity by the Pope, that it was scarce possible to find hands to do thelittle work that requires to be done in Rome. If there be among myreaders a mechanic who has been indifferent to the question between thiscountry and the Papacy, as one the settlement of which could not affecthis interests either way, I tell him he never made a greater mistake allhis life. If the Papacy succeed, his interests will be the very first tosuffer, in the ruin of trade. Nor will that suffice; if a skilled man, he will be held to be a dangerous man; and, having taken from him hisbread, the Papacy will next take from him his liberty, as she is nowdoing to his brethren in Rome. 

And what becomes of the families of these unhappy men? This is the mostpainful part of the business. Their livelihood is gone; and nothingremains but to go out into the street and beg, --to beg, alas! frombeggars. It is not unfrequent in Rome to find families in competencethis week, and literally soliciting alms the next. You may see matronsdeeply veiled, that they may not be known by their acquaintances, hanging on at the doors of hotels, in the hope of receiving the charityof English travellers. Shame on the tyranny that has reduced the Romanmatrons to this! Nor is even this the worst. Deprived of theirprotectors, moral ruin sometimes comes in the wake of the physicalprivations and sufferings by which these families are overtaken. Thusthe misery of Rome is widening every day. Ah! could I bring before myreaders the picture of that doomed city;--could I show them Rome as itsits cowering beneath the shadow of this terrible tyranny;--could I makethem see the cloud that day and night hangs above it;--could I paint thesorrow that darkens every face; the suspicion and fear that sadden theRoman's every word and look;--could I tell the number of the brokenhearts and the desolate hearths which these old walls enclose;--ah, there is not one among my readers who would not give me his tears asplenteously as ever the clouds of heaven gave their rain. And he whostyles himself God's Vicar sees all this misery! Sees it, do I say! heis the author of it. It is to uphold his miserable throne that theseprisons are filled, and that these widows and orphans cry in thestreets. And yet he tells us that his reign is a model of Christ'sreign. 'Tis a fearful blasphemy. When did Christ build dungeons, orgather _sbirri_ about him, or send men to the galleys and the scaffold?Is that the account which we have of his ministry? No; it is verydifferent. "The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto themeek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim libertyto the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. " Afew months ago, when the Pope proclaimed his newest invented dogma, --theImmaculate Conception, --he gave, in honour of the occasion, a grandjubilee to the Roman Catholic world. We all know what a jubilee is. There is a vast treasury above, filled with the merits of Pio Nono andof such as he, out of which those who have not enough for their ownsalvation may supplement their deficiencies. At the Pope's girdle hangsthe key of this treasury; and when he chooses to open it, straightwaydown there comes a shower of celestial blessings. Well, the Pope toldhis children throughout the world that he meant to unlock this treasury;and bade his children be ready to receive with open arms and openhearts, this vast beneficence of his. Ah! Pio Nono, this is not thejubilee we wish. Draw your bolts; break the fetters of your thirtythousand captives; open your dungeons, and give back the fathers, thehusbands, the sons, the brothers, which you have torn from theirfamilies. Put off your robe, quit your palace, take the Bible in yourhand, and go round the world preaching the gospel, as your Master did. Do this, and we shall have had a jubilee such as the world has not seenfor many a long year. But ah! you but mock us, --bitterly, cruelly mockus, --when you deny us blessings which it is in your power to give, andoffer us those which are not yours to bestow. But it is a mockery whichwill return, and at no distant day, in sevenfold vengeance upon, we saynot Pio Nono, but the papal system. Untie the fetters of these men; makethem free for but a few hours; and with what terrible emphasis will theydemand back the friends whom the Papacy has buried in dungeons ormurdered on the open scaffold! They will seek their lost sons andbrothers with an eye that will not pity, and a hand that will not spare. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE PAPAL STATES. 

 Education of a Roman Boy--Seldom taught his Letters--Majority of Romans unable to Read--Popular Literature of Italy--- Newspaper of the Roman States--Censorship of the Press--Studies in the Collegio Romano--Rome unknown at Rome--Schools spring up under the Republic--Extinguished on the Return of the Pope--Conversation with three Roman Boys--Their Ideas respecting the Creator of the World, Christ, the Virgin--Questions asked at them in the Confessional--Religion in the Roman States--Has no Existence--Ceremony mistaken for Devotion--Irreverence--The Six Commands of the Church--Contrast betwixt the Cost and the Fruits of the Papal Religion--Popular Hatred of the Papacy. 

The influence of Romanism on trade, and industry, and justice, has beenless frequently a theme of discussion than its influence on knowledge. While, therefore, I have dwelt at considerable length on the former, Ishall be very brief under the present head. I shall here adduce only afew facts which I had occasion to see or hear during my stay in thePapal States. The few schoolmasters which are found in Italy are not adistinct class, as with us; they are priests, and mostly Jesuits. Thereare three classes of catechisms used in the schools; the pupil beginningwith the lowest, and of course finishing off with the highest. But ofwhat subjects do these catechisms treat? A little history, one wouldsay, that the pupil may have some notion of what has been before him;and a little geography, that he may know there are such things as landand sea, and cities beyond, which he cannot see, shut up in Rome. Withus, the lowest amount of education that ever receives the name comprisesat least the three R's, as they are termed, --Reading, Writing, and'Rithmetic. But these are far too mundane matters for a Jesuit to occupyhis time in expounding. The education of the Italian youth is athoroughly religious one, taking the term in its Roman sense. The littlecatechisms I have spoken of are filled with the weightier matters oftheir law, --the miracles wrought by the staff of this saint, the cloakof that other, and the relics of a third; the exalted rank of theVirgin, and the homage thereto appertaining; Transubstantiation, withall the uncouth and barbarous jargon of "substances" and "accidents" inwhich that mystery is wrapped up. An initiation into these matters formsthe education of the Roman boy; and after he has been locked up inschool for a certain length of time, he is turned adrift, to begin theusual aimless life of the Italian. It does not follow, because he hasbeen at school, that he can read. He is seldom taught his letters;better not, lest in after life he should come in contact with books. And, despite the vigilance of the censorship and the Index, bad books, such as the Bible, are finding their way into the Roman States; and itis better, therefore, not to entrust the people with the key ofknowledge; for nothing is so useless as knowledge under an infallibleChurch. The matters which the Italian youth are taught they are taughtby rote. "Ignorance is the mother of devotion, "--a maxim sometimesquoted with a sneer, but one which embodies a profound truth as regardsthat kind of devotion which is prevalent at Rome. 

I have seen estimates by Gavazzi and other Italians, of the proportionwho can read in the Roman States. It is somewhere about one in ahundred. The reader will take the statement at what it is worth. I hadno means of testing its accuracy; but all my inquiries on the subjectled me to believe that the overwhelming majority cannot read. And whereis the use of learning one's letters in a land where there are no books;and there are none that deserve the name in Rome. The book-stalls inItaly are heaped with the veriest rubbish: the "Book of Dreams, " "Rulesfor Winning at the Lottery, " "The Five Dolours of the Virgin, " "Tractson the Miracles of the Saints, " "Relations, " professedly given by Christabout his sufferings, and said to have been found in his sepulchre, andin other places equally likely. At Rome, on the streets at least, whereall other kinds of rubbish are tolerated, even this rubbish is notsuffered to exist; for there, book-stalls I saw none. There are, however, one or two miserable book-shops where these things may be had. 

There was but one newspaper (so called, I presume, because it containedno news) published in Rome at the time of my visit, --the _Giornale diRoma_, which, I presume, still occupies the field alone. It contains adaily list of the arrivals and departures (foreigners, of course, forthe gates of Rome never open to the Romans), the proclamations of theGovernment, the days of the lottery, and such matters. Under the foreignhead were chronicled the consecration of Catholic temples, the visits ofroyal personages, a profound silence being observed on all politicalfacts and speculations. And this is all the Romans can know, throughlegitimate channels, of what is going on beyond the walls of Rome. Adaily paper was started during the Republic, and admirably managed; but, of course, it was suppressed on the return of the Papal Government. Afew copies of the _Times_ reach Rome every morning. They are not givenout till towards mid-day, for they must first be read; and if the"editorials" are not to the taste of the Sacred College, they are notgiven out at all. The paper, during my short stay, was stopped fornearly a week on end; and the disappointment was the greater, thatrumours were then current in Rome that something was on the tapis inParis, and that the change in the constitution of France, whatever itmight be, would not be postponed till the May of 1852, as was thenbelieved in the north of Europe, but would be attempted in the beginningof December 1851. The tidings of the _coup d'etat_, which met me on themorning of the 3d December in the south of France, brought the fullrealization of these rumours. In the _Giornale di Roma_ not a strayeddog can be advertised without permission of the censor. In Brescia thereis a censorship for gravestones; and in Rome a strict watch is kept overthe English burying-ground, lest any one should write a verse ofScripture above a heretic's grave. The expression of thought is moredreaded than brigandage. 

Those who aspire to the learned professions go to the Collegio Romano. But let the reader mark how the Roman Church here, as everywhere else, contrives to keep up the show of educating, and takes care all the whileto impart the smallest possible amount of knowledge, --constructs amachinery which, through some mischievous perversion, is withoutresults. The Collegio Romano has a numerous staff of professors, whoprelect on theology, logic, history, mathematics, natural philosophy, and other branches. This looks well; but observe its working. All thelectures are delivered in Latin, which differs considerably from themodern Italian; and as the Roman youth spend only one year in the studyof the Latin tongue before entering the Collegio Romano, the lecturesmight nearly as well, so far as the run of the students is concerned, bein Arabic. Nine-tenths of the young men leave the Collegio Romano aslearned as they entered it. The higher priesthood are educated at the_Sapienza_, where, I believe, a thorough training in theologicaldialectics is given. 

It is impossible not to see that the Italians are a people of quickperceptions, lively sensibilities, and warm and kindly dispositions; butit is just as impossible not to see that they are deplorably untaught. The stranger is mortified to find that he knows far more of their ruinsand of their past history than they themselves do. The peasant wandersover the huge mounds that diversify the Seven Hills, or traverses theAppian, or passes under the arch of Titus, without knowing or caring whoerected these structures, or having even a glimmering of the heroicstory in which they were, so to speak, the actors. When he looks backinto the past, all is night. Nowhere is Rome so little known as in Romeitself. How different was it when the Pope received Italy! Then Italyoccupied the van of civilization. And when the Byzantine empire fell, and the scholars of the East fled westward, carrying with them the richtreasures of the Greek language and literature, learning had a secondmorning in Italy. Famous colleges arose, to which the youth of Europerepaired. Philosophers and poets of imperishable name shed a lustre uponthe country; but the Roman Church soon discovered that Italy wasacquiring knowledge at the expense of its Romanism, and she applied theband to the national mind. And now that same Italy that once held aloftthe lamp of knowledge to the world is herself in darkness, and, sadsight! is seen, with quenched orbs, groping about in the midnight. 

And yet proofs are not wanting to show that, were the interdict of theChurch taken off, Italy would at once throw herself into the race, andmight soon rival the most successful of her contemporaries. Most of myreaders, I doubt not, are familiar with the name of M. Leone Levi, nowengaged on the great work of the codification of the commercial laws ofthe three kingdoms, and their assimilation to the continental codes. Thefact I am now to state, and which speaks volumes as regards the effortsof "the Church" to educate Italy, I had from this gentleman; and tothose who know him, any testimony of mine to his intelligence anduprightness is superfluous. M. Leone Levi, an Italian Jew, was born atAncona, but eventually settled in England. During the Roman Republic, hepaid a visit to Italy. But such a change! He scarce knew his nativeItaly, --it was so unlike the Italy he had left. In every town, andvillage, and rural district, schools had sprung up since the fall of thePontifical Government. There were day-schools and night-schools, week-day-schools and Sabbath-schools. The young men and young women hadforgotten their "light loves, " and were busied in educating themselves, and in educating the little boys and girls below them. The countryappeared to have resolved itself into a great educational institute. Hewas inexpressibly delighted. Such a change he had never dared to hopefor in his native land. But ah! back came the Pope; and in a week, --inone short week, --every one of these schools was closed. The Roman youthare again handed over to the Jesuit. Italy is again sunk in its oldtorpor and stagnation; and one black cloud of barbaric ignorance extendsfrom the Mediterranean to the Adriatic. 

I sat down one day on the steps of the temple of Vesta, which, thoughgray and crumbling with age, is one of the most beautiful of the ruinsof Rome. Three boys came about me to beg a few baiocchi. The youngestboy, I found, was ten years, and the oldest fifteen. I took theopportunity of putting a few questions to them, judging them a fairsample of the Roman youth. My queries were pitched low enough. "Can youtell me, " I asked, "who made the world?" The question started a subjecton which they seemed never to have thought before. They stood in a musefor some seconds; and then all three looked round them, as if theyexpected to see the world's Maker, or to read His name somewhere. Atlast the youngest and smartest of the three spoke briskly up, --"Themasons, Signor. " It was now my turn to feel the excitement of a newidea. Yet I thought I could see the train of thought that led to theanswer. The masons had made the baths of Caracalla; the masons had madethe Coliseum, and those other stupendous structures which in bulk rivalthe hills, and seem as eternal as the earth on which they rest; and whymight not the masons have made the whole affair? I might have puzzledthe boy by asking, "But who made the masons?" My object, however, wassimply to ascertain the amount of his knowledge. I demurred to theproposition that the masons had made the world, and desired them to tryagain. They did try again, and at last the eldest of the three found hisway to the right answer, --"God. " "Have you ever heard of Christ?" Iasked. "Yes. " "Who is he? Can you tell me anything about him?" I couldelicit nothing under these heads. "Whose Son is he?" I then asked. "Heis Mary's Son, " was the reply. "Where is Christ?" I inquired. "He is onthe Cross, " replied the boy, folding his arms, and making therepresentation of a crucifix. "Was Christ ever on earth?" I asked. Hedid not know. "Are you aware of anything he ever did?" He had neverheard of anything that Christ had done. I saw that he was thinking ofthose hideous representations which are to be seen in all the churchesof Rome, of a man hanging on a cross. That was the Christ of the boys. Of Christ the Son of the living God, --of Christ the Saviour ofsinners, --and of his death as an atonement for human guilt, --they hadnever heard. In a city swarming with professed ministers of the gospel, these boys knew no more of Christianity than if they had beenHottentots. I next inquired respecting Mary, and here the boys seemedmore at home. "Who is she?" "She is God's mother. " "Where is she?" "Sheis in that church, " pointing to the church on one side of thepiazza, --the Bocca di Verita, if I mistake not, --before which criminalsare sometimes executed; "and in that, " pointing to the church on theother side of the piazza. "She is here, there, everywhere. " "Was Maryever on earth?" "Yes, " was the answer. "What did she do when here?""Oh, " replied the little boy, "that is an antique affair: I was not herethen. " "Do you go to church?" I asked the eldest boy. "Yes. " "Do youtake the sacrament?" "I have taken it four times. " I learned afterwardsthat the priests are attempting to seize upon the rising generation inItaly, by compelling all the children from twelve years and upwards togo to mass. "Do you go to confession?" I next asked. "Yes, I confess. ""Do other boys and girls, your acquaintances, go to confession?" "Yes, all go, " he replied. "We meet the priest in church on Sabbath, and hetells us when to come and confess. " "Well, when you go to confess, whatdoes the priest ask you?" "He asks me if I steal, and do other badactions. " "When you confess that you have done a bad action, what then?""The first time I do it, the priest pardons me. " "If you confess it asecond time, what happens?" "The second time he beats me with a rod. ""Does the priest ask you about anything else?" I inquired. "Yes, " herejoined; "he asks me about my father and my mother. " "What does he askyou about them?" "He asks me if they do dirty actions, " said the boy. Now, here the enormity and vileness of the confessional peeped out. Hereone can see how the confessor can look into every hearth, and into everyheart, in Rome. The priests had dragged this young boy into their den, and taught him to play the spy on his father and mother. The hand thatfed him, the bosom that cherished him, he must learn to betray. I appealto the fathers and mothers of Britain, whether, than see their childrendegraded to such infamous purposes, they would not an hundred timesrather see them laid in the silent grave. Yet some are labouring tointroduce the confessional among us. Should they succeed, it will be thegarrotte on the throat of English liberty. 

As regards RELIGION in Italy, this is an inquiry that lies rather beyondthe limits I have marked out for myself. I may be permitted, however, afew remarks. It appeared to me that the very idea of religion hadperished among the Italians. Not only had they lost the thing itself, but they had lost the power of conceiving of it. Religion unquestionablyis a state of mind towards God; and devotion is a mental act resultingfrom that state of mind. We cannot conceive of an automaton performingan act of devotion, or of being religious; and yet, if religion be whatit is taken to be at Rome, there is nothing to hinder an automaton beingreligious, nay, far more religious than flesh and blood, inasmuch astimber and iron will not so soon wear out under incessant crossings andgenuflections. Religion at Rome is to kiss a crucifix; religion at Romeis to climb Pilate's stairs; religion at Rome is to repeat by rote acertain number of prayers before some beautiful painting or statue; orto remain a certain number of hours on one's bare knees on the pavedfloor; or to wear a hair-shirt. Of religion as a mental act, --as an actof faith, and love, and reverence, --the Italian is not able to formeven the idea. Hence the want of decorum that shocks a stranger onvisiting the Italian churches. He finds bishops at the altar unable torestrain their sallies of wit and their bursts of laughter. And afterthis, what can he look for among the ordinary worshippers? The young mancan go through his devotions perfectly well, and make love all the whileto the young woman at his side. Young ladies can count their beads tothe Virgin, and continue their gossip on matters of dress or scandal. Itnever occurs to them that this in the least deteriorates their worship. The beads have been counted, and an Ave Maria said with each; and whatmore does the Church require? Religion as a feeling of the mind, anddevotion as an act of the soul, are unknown to them. I recollect meetingin the rural lanes leading from St John Lateran to the church of MariaMaggiore, a small party of Roman girls, who were strangely mixing mirthand worship, --chatting, laughing, and singing hymns to the Virgin, --justas Scotch maidens on a harvest field might diversify their labours with"Home, Sweet Home, " or any other air. This irreverent familiarity showsitself in other ways, after the manner of the ancient pagans, who tookstrange liberties with their gods. When the drawing of the lottery isabout to take place, the Romans most devoutly supplicate the Virgin forsuccess; but should their number come out a blank, they may be heardreviling her in the open street, and applying to her every conceivableepithet of abuse. 

So far as the moral code of Romanism is concerned, sinless perfection isno difficult attainment. The commands of the Church are six; and thesesix have quite thrown into the shade the ten of the decalogue. They arethe payment of tithes, --the not marrying in the prohibited seasons, --thehearing of mass on Sundays and festivals, --the keeping of theprescribed fasts, --confession once a-year at least, --and the taking ofthe communion in Easter week. The last two are strictly enforced. On theapproach of Easter, the priest goes round and gives a ticket to everyparishioner; and if these are not returned through the confessional, apoliceman waits on the person, and tells him that he has been remiss inhis religious duties, and must submit himself to the Church'sdiscipline, which he, the Church's officer, has come to administer tohim in the Church's penitentiary or dungeons. Innumerable are themethods taken by the Romans to evade confession, among which the morecommon is to hire some one to confess for them. Others, though they go, confess nothing of moment. "You all here believe in the Pope andpurgatory, " I remarked to a commissario one day. "A few old women do, "he replied. "Do _you_ not believe in them?" I asked. "I believe in oneGod; but I do not believe in one priest, " said he. "I hope you will sayso next time you go to confession, " I observed. "I don't confess, " hereplied. "How can you avoid confessing?" I enquired. "I pay an oldwoman, " he answered, "who can confess for me every day if she pleases. "There is not a greater contrast in the world than that which existsbetwixt the cost of the papal religion and its fruits, --betwixt thenumbers and wealth of the clergy, and the knowledge and morality of thepeople. Under these heads we append below some very instructivenotices. [8]

In fine, one word will suffice to describe the religion of Rome; andthat word is ATHEISM. There may be exceptions, but as a general rulethe Romans believe in nothing. And how can it be otherwise? Of thegospel they know absolutely nothing beyond what the priest tells them;even that he, the priest, can change a wafer into God, and, by giving itto people to eat, can save them from hell. This the Romans cannotbelieve; and therefore their creed is a negation. In the room ofindifference, which could not be said to believe or disbelieve, becauseit never thought on the subject, has now come intense hatred of thePapacy, from the destruction of the nation's hopes under Pio Nono. Hewho seven years ago heard the streets of Rome echoing to the cry thatshe alone was _La Regina delle Genti_, --"sat a queen, and should see nosorrow, "--can best form an estimate of the terrible re-action that hasfollowed the tumult of that hour, and can best understand how it hashappened, that now the hatred wherewith the Italians hate the Papacy isgreater than the love wherewith they loved it. Tradition, by itsfooleries, --the mass, by its monstrosity, --the priest, by hisimmoralities, --and, above all, the Pope, by his perfidy andtyranny, --have made the papal religion to stink in the nostrils of thegreat mass of the Roman people. You might as well look for religion inpandemonium itself, as in a country groaning under such a complicationof vices and miseries. Nay, there is more faith in pandemonium than inRome; for we are told that the devils believe and tremble; but in Rome, generally speaking, there is faith in nothing. And for this fearfulstate of matters the Papacy, beyond all question, is responsible. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

MENTAL STATE OF THE PRIESTHOOD IN ITALY. 

 First Impressions in Rome erroneous--The unseen Rome--Her devotement to one thing--In what light do the Priests in Italy regard their own System?--Can they possibly believe their Cheats to be Miracles?--A goodly number of the Priests Infidels--Others never thought on the subject--Some have strong Misgivings--Others convinced of the Falsehood of that Church, but lack Courage or Opportunity to leave it--Making Allowance for all these Classes, the Majority of Priests do believe in their System--The Explanation of this--The real Ruler in the Church of Rome, not the Pope, nor the Cardinals, nor the Jesuits, but the System--Human Machinery--The Pontiff--The College of Cardinals--Antonelli--The Bishops and Priests--The Jesuits--Their Activity and Importance at Rome--Their Appearance described. 

When an Englishman visits the Eternal City, he is very apt, during thefirst days of his sojourn, to underrate the power and influence of thePapal system. At home he has been used to see power associated withsplendour, and surrounded with the fruits and monuments of intelligence. At Rome everything on which he sets his eye bears marks of a growingbarbarism and decay. Outside the walls of the city is a vast desert, attesting the utter extinction of industry. Within is an air ofstagnation and idleness, which bespeaks the utter absence of all mentalactivity. A very considerable portion of the population have nooccupation but begging. The naked heads, necks, and feet of the monksand friars are offensive from want of cleanliness. The higherecclesiastics even are coarse and vulgar men. The fine monuments rearedby the taste and wealth of former ages want keeping. Their churches, despite the paintings and statuary with which they are filled, arerendered disagreeable by the beggars that haunt them, and the incensethat is continually burned in them. Their very processions do not riseabove a tawdry half-barbaric grandeur; and one must be far gone in thePuseyite malady before such exhibitions can inspire him with anythinglike reverence. The visitor looks around on this strange scene, sounlike what his imagination had pictured, and exclaims, "Where and inwhat lies the secret of this city's power?" Here there is neither art, nor industry, nor wealth, nor knowledge! Here all the bodily and all themental faculties of man appear to be folded up in a worse than mediævalstupor. Where are the elements of that power for which this city isrenowned, and by which she is able to thwart and control the civilizedand powerful Governments of the north of Europe? Would, says he tohimself, that those who venerate Rome when divided from her by the Alpsand the ocean, would come here and see with their own eyes hercontemptible vileness and inconceivable degradation; and that thosestatesmen who are moved by a secret fear to bow the knee to her, wouldcome hither and mark the baseness of her before whom they are content tolower the honour and independence of their country! Such, we say, arethe first impressions of the visitor to Rome. 

But a few days suffice to correct this erroneous estimate. The personlooks around him; he looks below him. There he discovers the real Rome. It is not the Rome that is seen, --it is the Rome that is unseen, --beforewhich the nations tremble. Beneath his feet are tremendous agencies atwork. There are the pent-up fires that shake the globe. Rome, cut offfrom all the world, and surrounded by leagues of silent and blackeneddeserts, is the centre of energies that rest not day nor night, and theaction of which is felt at the very extremities of the earth. It seems, indeed, as if Rome had been set free from all the anxieties and labourswhich occupy the minds and hands of the rest of the world, of verypurpose that she might attend to only one thing. The labours of thehusbandman and the artificer she has forborne. Like the lilies of thefield, she toils not, neither does she spin. She sits in the midst ofher deserts, like the sorceress on the heath, or the conspirator in hisden, hatching plots against the world. Rome is the pandemonium of theearth, and the Pope is the Lucifer of the world's drama. Fallen he isfrom the heaven of power and grandeur which he occupied in the twelfthcentury; and he and his compeers lie sunk in a very gulph of anarchy andbarbarism. Lifting up his eyes, he beholds afar off the happy nations ofProtestantism, reaping the reward of a free Bible and a free Government, in the riches of their commerce and the stability of their power. Thesight is tormenting and intolerable, and the pontiff is stung therebyinto ceaseless attempts to retrieve his fall. If he cannot mount to hisold seat, and sit there once more in superhuman pride and unapproachablepower above the bodies and the souls of men, he may at least hope todraw down those he so much envies into the same gulph with himself. Hence the villanies and plots of all kinds of which Rome is full, andwhich form a source of danger to the nations of Christendom, from whichthey may hope to be delivered only when the Papacy shall have beenfinally destroyed. 

What I propose here is to sketch the _mental state_ of the priests ofItaly, so far as my opportunities enabled me to judge. The subject ismore recondite than the foregoing; the facts are less accessible; and mystatements must partake more of the inferential than did those embracedin the former branches of the subject. 

The first question that arises is, in what light do the priests in Italyregard their own system? Do they look upon it as an unrivalled compoundof imposture and tyranny, --a cunning invention for procuring mitres, tiaras, purple robes, and other good things for themselves? or do theyregard it as indeed founded in truth, and clothed with the sanction ofheaven? They are behind the scenes, and have access to see and hear manythings which are not meant for the eye and ear of the public. The manwho pulls the strings of a winking Madonna can scarce persuade himself, one should think, that the movement that follows is the effect ofsupernatural power. The priest who liquefies the blood of St Januariusby the warmth of his hand or the warmth of the fire, must know that whathe has performed is neither more nor less than a very ordinary juggle. The monk who falls a rummaging in the Catacombs, or in any of the oldgraveyards about Rome, and finds there a parcel of decayed bones, whichhe passes off as those of Saint Theodosia or Saint Anathanasius, butwhich are as likely to be the bones of an old pagan, or a Goth, or abrigand, can hardly believe, one should suppose, his own tale. If thePope believes in his own relics, what conceptions must he have of Peter?What a strange configuration of body must he believe the apostle to havehad! Peter must have been a man with some dozen of heads; with a scoreof arms, and a hundred fingers or so on each arm; in short, a perfectrealization of the old pagan fable of the giant Briareus. The Pope mustbelieve this, or he must believe that he gives his attestation to whatis not true. Above all, one can hardly imagine it possible that any manin whom reason had not been utterly quenched could believe in themonstrous dogma of transubstantiation. What! can a priest at any hour hepleases give existence to Him who exists from eternity? Can he enclosewithin a little silver box that Almighty One whom the heaven, even theheaven of heavens, cannot contain? Let a man confess at the bar of theHigh Court of Edinburgh that he believes himself to be God, and theCourt will pronounce that that man is insane, and will hold himincompetent to manage his affairs. And yet every Roman Catholic priestprofesses to believe a more startling dogma, --even that he is thecreator of God. And yet, instead of calling that insanity, we must, Isuppose, call it religion. Seeing, then, the priests are called everyday to do things which their senses must tell them are juggles, and toprofess their belief in dogmas which their reason must tell them aremonstrous and blasphemous absurdities, is it possible, you ask, that thepriests in Italy can believe in their own system? I must here say, thatI do think the majority of them do believe in it. 

A goodly number of the priests of Italy are infidels. They no morebelieve in the Pope than they believe in the pagan Jupiter. But then, were they to speak out their disbelief, and to say that purgatory is amere bugbear for frightening men and getting their money, they know thata dungeon would instantly be their lot; and infidelity has little of themartyr spirit in it. These men, like Leo the Tenth, as thorough aninfidel as ever lived, hold that it would be the height of folly toquarrel with a fable that brings them so much gain. Others are mereworldly men. They were never at the pains to inquire whether theirsystem is true or false. They sing their mass in the morning; they passtheir forenoons at the café, sipping coffee, and taking a hand atcards; a stoup of wine washes down a substantial dinner; and, after asaunter along the Corso, or an airing on the Pincian, they doff theirclerical vestments, and go to sup with the nuns, who have the reputationof being excellent cooks. 

Others there are whose minds are occasionally visited by strongmisgivings. The cloud, so to speak, will open for a moment, and revealto their astonished sight, not the majestic form of Truth, but agigantic and monstrous imposture. A mysterious hand at times lifts theveil, and lo! they find themselves in the presence, not of a divinity, but of a demon. They disclose their doubts when they next go toconfession. My son, says the father confessor, these are the suggestionsof the Evil One. You must arm yourself against the Tempter by fastingand penance. A hair shirt or an iron girdle is called in to silence thevoice of reason and the remonstrances of conscience; and here the matterends. And there are a few--in every age there have been a few such--inthe Church of Rome, and at present they are very considerably on theincrease, who, in the midst of darkness, by some wondrous means haveseen the light. A tract, a Bible, or some Protestant friend whomProvidence had thrown in their way, or some one of the few passages ofScripture inserted in their Breviary, may have taught them a better waythan that of Rome. Instead of stopping short at the altar of Mary, or atany of the thousand shrines which Rome has erected as so many barriersbetween the sinner and God, they go at once to the Divine mercy-seat, and pour their supplications direct into the ear of the Great Mediator. You ask, why do these men remain in a Church which they see to beapostate? Fain would they fly, but they know not how or where. They lifttheir eyes to the Alps on the one side, --to the ocean on the other. Alas! they may surmount these barriers; but more difficult still thanto scale the mountains or to traverse the ocean is it to escape beyondthe power of Rome. Woe to the unhappy man who begins to feel hisfetters! He awakes to find that he is in a wide prison, with a sentinelposted at every outlet: escape seems hopeless; and the man buries hissecret in his breast. 

Some few there are who, more daring by nature, or specially strengthenedfrom above, adventure on the immense hazards of flight. Of these, someare caught, thrown into a dungeon, and are heard of no more. Others findtheir way to England, or some other Protestant State. But here newtrials await them. They are ignorant of our language perhaps. They findthemselves among strangers, whose manners seem to them cold and distant. They are without means of living; and, carrying with them too, it maybe, some of the stains of their former profession, they encounterdifficulties which are the more stumbling that they are unexpected. Onthese various grounds, the number of priests who leave the Church ofRome has been, and always will be, small, till some great revolution orupbreak takes place in that Church. 

But, making the most ample allowance for all these classes, --for the menwho are atheists and infidels, --for the mere worldings, whose only tieto their Church is the gain it brings them, --and for those who areeither doubters, or whose doubts have passed into full conviction thatthe Church of the Pope is not the Church of Jesus Christ, --making, Isay, full allowance for all these, I have little doubt that the majorityof the priests in Italy, --it may be not much more than a majority, butstill a majority, --are sincere believers in their system. 

They are not ignorant of the frauds, the knaveries, the fables, andhypocrisies, by which that system is supported. They cannot shut theireyes to these, which they regard, in fact, as sanctified by the end towhich they are devoted; but they separate between these and the systemitself; and though they cannot tell the line where truth ends andfalsehood begins, still they look upon their system, on the whole, asfounded in truth, and carrying with it the sanction of Heaven. Indeed, belief is a weak term to express the power the system has over them. Itis rather a paralyzing awe, a freezing terror, like that with which hisgrim deity inspires the barbarian, which holds captive the strongestmind, and lays reason and conscience prostrate in the dust. Such Ibelieve to be the state of mind of the greater number of the Italianpriesthood. 

But how comes this? What is it which has produced this universalslavery? Is it the Pope? Is it the cardinals? Is it the Jesuits? No; forthese men, though the tyrants of others, are themselves slaves. All arebound by the same chain of adamant, to the car of the same demon. Amournful procession of dead men truly, with the triple crown in front, and the sandals of the barefooted Capuchin bringing up the rear. What isit, I repeat, that holds the whole body in subjection, from the Popedown to the friar? It is the system, the abstract system, with itsoverwhelming prestige, --that system which lives on though popes die; thegenius of the Papacy, if you will. This is the real monarch of thatspiritual kingdom. 

A little power of mental abstraction, --and the subtile genius of theItalian gives him that power in a high degree, --will enable any one toseparate betwixt the system and its agents. Some one has remarked, thathe could form an abstraction of a lord mayor, not only without hishorse, and gown, and gold chain, but even without the stature, features, hands, and feet of any particular lord mayor. The same can be done ofthe Papacy. We can form an abstraction of the Papacy not only withoutthe tiara and the keys, but even without the stature and lineaments, thehands and feet, of any particular Pope. When we have formed such anabstraction, we have got the real ruler of the Papacy. That it is thesystem that is the dominant power in the Church of Rome, is evident fromthis one fact, namely, that councils have sometimes deposed the Pope tosave the Papacy. There is in the Pope's kirk, then, a power greater thanthe Pope. The system has taken body and shape, as it were, and sits uponthe Seven Hills, a mysterious, awe-inspiring divinity or demon; and thePope, equally with the friar, bows his head and does obeisance. Whereverthe pontiff looks, --whether backward into history, or around him in theworld, --there are the monuments of this ever living, ever present, andall pervading power. It requires more force than the mind of fallen manis capable of, to believe that a system which has filled history withits deeds and the world with its trophies, which has compelled thehomage of myriads and myriads of minds, and before which the haughtiestconquerors and the most puissant intellects have bowed with the docilityof children, is, after all, an unreality, --a mere spectre of the middleages, --a ghost conjured up by credulity and knavery from the tombs ofdefunct idolatries. This, I say, is the true state of things in Italy. Its priesthood are subdued by their own system, --by its high claims toantiquity, --its world-wide dominion, --its imposing though fadedmagnificence, --its perverted logic, --its pseudo sanctity. These not onlycarry it over the reason, but in some degree over the senses also; andthe more fully persuaded the priests are of the truth and divinity oftheir system, they feel only the more fully warranted to employ fraudand force in its support, --the winking Madonna to convince one class, and the dungeon and the iron chain to silence the other. 

Having spoken of the abstract and spiritual power that reigns overItaly, and, I may say, over the whole Catholic world, let me now speakof the corporeal and human machinery by which the Papacy is carried on. 

First comes the Pope. Pio Nono is a man of sixty-three. His years andthe various misfortunes of his reign sit lightly upon him. Were the Popemuch given to reflection, there are not wanting unpleasant topics enoughto darken the clear Italian sunlight, as it streams in through thewindows of the Vatican palace. Once was he chased from Rome; and nowthat he is returned, can he call Rome his own? Not he. The real masterof Rome is the commandant of the French garrison. And while outside thewalls are the dead whom he slew with the sword of France, inside are theliving, whose sullen scowl or fierce glare he may see through the Frenchfiles, as he rides out of an afternoon. [9] But Pio Nono takes all ingood part. There is not a wrinkle on his brow; no unpleasant thoughtappears to shade the jovial light of his broad face. He sits down todinner with evidently a good appetite; he sleeps soundly at night, andtroubles not his poor head by brooding over misfortunes which he cannotmend, or charging himself with the direction of plots which he is notcompetent to manage. But, if not fitted to take the lead in cabinets, nature has formed him to shine in a procession. He has a portly figure, a face radiant with blandness, dissimulation, and vanity; and he looksevery inch the Pope, as he is carried shoulder-high in St Peter's, andsits blazing in his jewelled tiara and purple robes, between two hugefans of peacocks' feathers. To these accomplishments he adds that of afine voice; and when he gives his blessing from the balcony of StPeter's, or assembles the Romans in the Forum, as he did on a lateoccasion, when he lifted up hands dripping with his subjects' blood, tocall his hearers to repentance, his tones ring out, in the deep calm airof Rome, clear and loud as those of a bell. Such is the man who is thenominal head of the Papacy. We say the _nominal_ head; for such a systemas the Papacy, involving the consideration of so many interests, andrequiring such skilful steering to clear the rocks and quicksands amidwhich the bark of Peter is now moving, demands the presence at the helmof a steadier hand and a clearer eye than those of Pio Nono. 

I come next to the College of Cardinals. In so large a body we find, asmight be expected, various grades of both intellectual and moralcharacter; and of course there are the corresponding indications ontheir faces. An overbearing arrogance, which always communicates to thecountenance an air of vulgarity, more or less, is a very prevailingtrait. The average intellect in the sacred college is not so high as onewould expect in men who have risen to the top of their profession; andfor this reason, perhaps, that birth has fully more to do with theirelevation than talent or services. One scrutinises their faces curiouslywhen one remembers that these men are the living representatives of theapostles. They profess to hold the rank, to be clothed with thefunctions, and to inherit the supernatural endowments, of the firstinspired preachers. There you may look for the burning eloquence of aPaul, the boldness of a Peter, the love of a John, the humility, patience, zeal, of all. You go round the circle, and examine one by onethe faces of these living Pauls and Peters. Verily, if their prototypeswere like their modern representatives, the spread of the gospel atfirst was by far the mightiest miracle the world ever saw. On one youfind the unmistakeable marks of sordid appetite and self-indulgence: onanother, low intrigue has imprinted the most sinister lines: a third isa mere man of the world;--his prayers and vigils have been kept at theshrine of pleasure. But along with much that is sordid and worldly, there are astute and far-seeing minds in the sacred college; andforemost in this class stands Antonelli. His pale face, and clear, cold, penetrating eye, reveal the presiding genius of the Papacy. He is thePrime Minister of the Pope; and though his is not the brow on which thetiara sits, he is the real head of the system. From his station on theSeven Hills his keen eye watches and directs every movement in the papalworld. Those mighty projects which the Papacy is endeavouring to realizein every part of the earth have their first birth in his fertile anddaring brain. 

His family are well known at Rome, and some of his ancestors were men ofrenown in their own way. His uncle was the most famous Italian brigandof modern times, and his exploits are still celebrated in the popularsongs of the country. The occupation of the yet more celebrated nephewis not so dissimilar after all; for what is Antonelli, but the leader ofa crew of bandits, whose hordes scour Europe, arrayed in sacerdotalgarb, and in the name of heaven rob men of their wealth, their liberty, and their souls, and carry back their booty to their den on the SevenHills. 

Next come the Bishops and Priests. These men are the agents and spies ofthe cardinals, as the cardinals of the Pope. The time which they arerequired to devote to spiritual, or rather, I should say, to officialduties, is small indeed. To study the Scriptures, visit the sick, instruct the people, which form the proper work of ministers of thegospel, are duties altogether unknown in Rome. There, as I have said, they convert and save men, not by preaching, but by giving them wafersto swallow. This is a short and simple process; and when a priest hasgone through this pantomime once, he can repeat it all his days afterwithout the slightest preparation. Their time and energies, therefore, can be almost wholly devoted to other work. And what is that work? Itis, in short, to propagate their superstition, and rivet the fetters ofthe priesthood upon the population. The bishops and priests manage theupper classes; and for the lower grades of Romans there are friars andmonks of every order and of every colour. The city swarms with thesemen. The frogs and lice of Egypt were not more numerous, and certainlynot more filthy. Unwashed and uncombed, they enter, with their sandalledfeet and shaven crowns, every dwelling, and penetrate into every bosom. You see them in the wine-shops; you see them mixing with the populace onthe street; while others, with wallets on their backs, may be seenclimbing the stairs of the houses, for the double purpose of begging forthe poor, but in reality for their own paunch, and of retailing thelatest miracle, or some thousand times told legend. Thus the darkness iscarried down to the very bottom of society; and while the Pope and hiscardinals sit at the summit in gilded glory, the monk, in robe of sergeand girdle of rope, is busied at the bottom; and, to support theirindividual and united action, the priests have two powerful institutionsat Rome, like foot soldiers advancing under cover of artillery, --theConfessional and the Inquisition. 

But emphatically _the_ order at Rome is the Jesuits. They are the primemovers in all that is done there, as well as the keenest supporters ofthe Papacy in all parts of the world. They are the most indefatigableconfessors, as well as the most eloquent preachers. Their regularity islike that of nature itself. Every hour of the day has its duty; andtheir motions are as punctual as that of the heavenly bodies. Duly everymorning as the clock strikes five, they are at the altar or in theconfessional. Their head-quarters are at the Gesu. I shall suppose thatthe reader is passing through the long corridor of that magnificentchurch. Every three or four paces is a door, leading to a smallapartment, which is occupied by a father. Outside each door hangs asheet of paper, on which the father puts a list of the employments forthe day. When he goes out, he sticks a pin opposite the piece ofbusiness which has called him away, so that, should any one call andfind him not within, he can know at once, by consulting the card, howthe father is occupied, and whether he is accessible at that particulartime. Among the items of business which usually appear on the card, "conference" is now one of very frequent occurrence, which indicates noinconsiderable amount of business, having reference to foreign parts, atpresent on the hands of the order. 

I shall suppose that the reader is passing along the Corso. Has hemarked that tall thin man who has just passed him, "Walking in beauty like the night?"

There is an air of tidiness in his dress, and of comparative cleanlinesson his person. He wears a small round cap, with three corners; or, if ahat, one of large brim. Neither cowl nor scapular fetters his motions; aplain black gown, not unlike a frock-coat, envelopes his person. Howsoftly his footsteps fall! You scarce hear their sound as he glides pastyou. His face, how unruffled! As the lake, when the winds are asleep, hides under a moveless surface, resplendent as a sheet of gold, the darkcaverns at its bottom, so does this calm, impassable face the workingsof the heart beneath. This man holds in his hands the threads of aconspiracy which is exploding at that moment, mayhap in China, or in thePacific, or in Peru, or in London. 

He is at Rome at present, and appears in his proper form and dress as aJesuit. But that man can change his country, he can change his tongue, and, Proteus-like, multiply his shapes among mankind. Next year that manwhom you now meet on the streets of Rome may be in Scotland in thehumble guise of a pedlar, vending at once his earthly and his spiritualwares. Or he may be in England, acting as tutor in some noble family, orin the humbler capacity of body-servant to a gentleman, or, it may be, filling a pulpit in the Church of England. He may be a Protestantschoolmaster in America, a dictator in Paraguay, a travelling companionin France and Switzerland, a Liberal or a Conservative--as best suitshis purpose--in Germany, a Brahmin in India, a Mandarin in China. He canbe anything and everything, --a believer in every creed, and a worshipperof every god, --to serve his Church. Rome has hundreds of thousands ofsuch men spread over all the countries of the world. With the ring ofGyges, they walk to and fro over the earth, seeing all, yet themselvesunseen. They can unlock the cabinets of statesmen, and enter unobservedthe closets of princes. They can take their seat in synods andassemblies, and dive into the secrets of families. Their grand work isto sow the seeds of heresies in Churches and of dissensions in States, that, when the harvest of strife and division is fully matured, Rome maycome in and reap the fruits. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC CUSTOMS OF THE ROMANS. [10]

 A Roman House--Wretched Dwellings of Working-Classes--How Working Men spend their Leisure Hours--Roman mode of reckoning Time--Handicrafts and Trades in Rome--Meals--Breakfast, Dinner, &c. --Games--Amusements--Marriages--Deaths and Funerals--Wills tampered with--Popular regard to Omens--Superstitions connected with the Pope's Name--Terrors of the Priesthood--Weather, and Journey Homeward. 

I shall now endeavour to bring before my readers, in a short chapter, the daily inner life of Rome. First of all, let us take a peep into aRoman dwelling. The mansions of the nobility and the houses of thewealthier classes are built on the plan of the ancient Romans. There isa portal in front, a paved court in the middle, a quadrangle enclosingit, with suites of apartments running all round, tier on tier, toperhaps four or five stories. The palaces want nothing but cleanlinessto make them sumptuous. They are of marble, lofty in style, and chastethough ornate in design. The pictures of the great masters that onceadorned them are now scattered over northern Europe, and the frames arefilled with copies. For this the poverty or extravagance of their ownersis to blame. The best pictures in Rome are those in the churches, andthese are sadly dimmed and obscured by the smoke of the incense. Afire-place in a Roman house is a sort of phenomenon; and yet the climateof Rome, unless at certain times, is not that balmy, intoxicatingelement which we imagine it to be. During my stay there, I had toencounter alternate deluges of rain, with lightning, and cutting blastsof the Tramontana. The comfort of an Italian house, especially inwinter, depends more on its exposure to the sun than on any arrangementfor heating it. Some few, however, have fire-places in the rooms. Thekitchen is placed on the top of the house, --the very reverse of itsposition with us. The ends sought hereby are safety, and the convenienceof discharging the culinary effluvia into the atmosphere. The fire-placeis unique, and not unlike that of a smithy. There is a cap for sparks;and about three feet above the floor stands a stone sole, in which holesare cut for the _fornelli_, which are square cast-iron grated boxes forholding the wood char, upon which the culinary utensils are placed. These are but ill adapted for preparing a roast. John Bull would lookwith sovereign contempt, or downright despair, according to the state ofhis stomach, on the thing called a roast in Rome. There it is seldomseen beyond the size of a beef-steak. Much small fry is roasted with aratchet-wheel and spit. This is wound up with a weight, and revolvesover the fire, which is strewed upon the hearth. 

The working classes generally purchase their meals cooked in the_Osteria Cucinante_, where food and wine are to be had. These arenumerous in Rome. They may be fairly called the homes of the workingclasses, for there they lounge so long as their baiocchi last. Thehouses of the working classes are comfortless in the extreme. They areof stone, and roomy, but unfurnished. A couple of straw-bottomed chairsand a bed make up generally the entire furnishings of a Roman house. Indeed, the latter article appears to be the only reason for having ahouse at all. So soon as the day's labour is over, the working menresort to the wine and eating shops and coffeehouses, where they remaintill the time of shutting, which is two and three hours of the night. The Roman reckoning of the day begins at Ave Maria, which is a quarterof an hour after sunset. The first hour of the night is consequently anhour after Ave Maria, from which the Romans reckon consecutively tillthe twenty-fourth hour. As the sun sets earlier or later, according tothe season of the year, the hours vary of course, and the same period ofthe day that is indicated by the twelfth hour at the time of equinox, isindicated by the eleventh hour in midsummer, and the thirteenth hour inmidwinter. This is very annoying to travellers from the north of Europe. "What o'clock is it?" you ask; and are told in reply, "It is theeighteenth hour and three quarters. " To find the time of day from thisanswer, you must calculate from Ave Maria, with reference to the time ofsunset at that particular season of the year. Mid-day is announced inRome by the firing of a cannon from the castle of St Angelo. The Frenchreckon time as we do, and may possibly, before they leave Rome, teachthe Romans to adopt the same mode of reckoning. 

When I stated in a former chapter that trade there is not in Rome, myreaders, of course, understood me to mean that it was comparativelyannihilated, not totally extinguished. The Romans must have houses, however poor; clothes, however homely; and food, however plain; and thesupply of these wants necessitates the existence, to a certain extent, of the various trades and handicrafts. But in Rome these exist in anembryotic state, and are carried on after the most antiquatedmodes, --much as in Britain five hundred years ago. The principal publicworks, --for by this name must we dignify the little quiet concerns inthe Eternal City, --are situated in the neighbourhood of Trastevere, thedecidedly plebeian quarter of Rome, although it would not do to say soto a Trasteverian. There are woollen manufactories and candlemanufactories. The chief customer of the latter is the Church. Thearmoury and mint are contiguously situated to St Peter's. The tanning ofhides is extensively carried on along the banks of the Tiber, whoseclassic "gold" is not unfrequently streaked with oozy streams of a dirtywhite. Flour-mills are numerous. Amid the brawls which disturb theTrastevere, the ear can catch the ring of the shuttle, for there a fewhand-loom weavers pursue their calling. There is a tobacco manufactoryin the same quarter; and I must state, for truth compels me, that mostof the Roman women take snuff. From the windows of the Vatican Museumone can see the tile and brick maker busy at his trade behind thepalace. Extensive potteries exist near to Ripa Grande, where the most ofthe kitchen and chamber utensils for city and country are made. I mayhere note, that most of the cooking utensils of the working man are ofearthenware, and stand the fire remarkably well. 

There are about a score of soap-works in Rome, but the soap manufacturedin these establishments is abominable. My friend Mr Stewart informed methat he brought a soap-boiler from Glasgow, who understood his businessthoroughly, and had soap made in Rome as we have it in this country, butwithout the palm-oil. This ingredient was not used, because, not beingin the tariff, it was thought that, should it be imported, it would inall probability be classed under "perfumeries, " and charged anexorbitant duty. The soap being a new thing in Rome, and unlike thenauseous stuff there in use, a clamour was raised against it, to theeffect that it produced sickness, and caused headache and vomiting. TheRoman ladies, in certain circumstances, are most fastidious aboutsmells, though why they should in Rome, of all places in Europe, is mostunaccountable. The Government, compassionating their sufferings, seizeda parcel of the soap, and caused it to be analyzed by a chemist. Thechemist's report was not unfavourable; nevertheless, owing to the strongprejudice against the article, the sale was so limited, that itsmanufacture had to be discontinued as unremunerative. Besides the tradesalready enumerated, there are in the Eternal City marble-cutters, mosaics and cameo workers, sculptors and painters, vine-dressers, olive-dressers, vegetable cultivators, silk-worm rearers, and a fewmanufacturers of silk scarfs. There are, too, in a feeble state, thetrades connected with the making and mending of clothes, the buildingand repairing of houses. And to feel how feeble these trades are, it isonly necessary to see the garments of the Romans, how coarse in materialand how uncourtly in cut. The peasant throws a sheep's skin over him, and is clad; the lower classes of the towns look as if they fabricatedtheir own garments, from the spinning upwards. To the best of myknowledge, there was only one house being built in all Rome when I wasthere; and that was rising on an old foundation near the Capitol. Themakers of votive offerings and wax-candles for the saints are a morenumerous class than the masons in Rome. Washer-women form a numerousbody, as do lodging-house keepers, --a class that includes many of thenobles. The clerks are numberless, and very ill paid, having in manycases to attend two or three employers to eke out a living. Men areinvariably employed as house-servants in Rome. They cook, clean thechambers, make up the beds, in short, do everything that is necessary tobe done in a house. 

The workman begins his day's labour at six or seven, as the season ofthe year may be. He breakfasts on coffee, or on coffee and milk in equalproportions, or on warm milk alone. Bread is used, which he soaks in histumbler of coffee. Few take butter; fewer still eggs or ham, forpecuniary reasons. Many of the working classes take soup of bread paste;others take salad and olive-oil with bread. The peasantry cut up theircoarse bread, saturate it with olive-oil, dust it over with pepper, andeat it along with _finocchio_ (fennel), the vegetable being unboiled. Roasted or boiled chestnuts are extensively used at all times of theday. They are to be had on the streets; many making a living by roastingand selling these fruits. 

Mid-day is the common dining hour. The meal generally consists of soupof bread, herbs, paste, or macaroni, butcher-meat, fowls, snails (white, fed on grass), frogs, entrails of fowls and young birds, omelettes, sausages, salad with olive-oil, dried olives, fruit, and wine, accordingto the circumstances of the person. The country people during harvestmake their dinner of coarse bread, to which they add a few cloves ofgarlic, a little goat's-milk cheese, and sour wine diluted with water. Many live on bread alone, with wine. Supper is generally a substantialmeal, consisting more or less of the same materials as are used fordinner, salad and wine never failing. Tomatoes are extensively used, atealone, or serving for all kinds of dinner and supper stews. Green figsare much used. Polenda is a universal article of food amongst thepeasantry. It is Indian corn ground and boiled, and made to take theplace that _porridge_ does in Scotland, with this difference, that it isboiled in pork fat. 

The amusements of the working classes are not numerous. Moro and thebowls are their two principal games. The first is generally played at intwos, and is not unlike our schoolboy game of _odds_ or _evens_. TheRomans, at this game, however, put themselves into the attitude ofgladiators, --each naming a number, and extending at the same time somany fingers; and the party that names the number corresponding with thenumber of fingers extended by both is the victor. So many _guesses_constitute the game. The attitude and airs of the combatants in thissimple game, --which seems fitter for children than for men, --are veryridiculous. The other chief amusement of the Romans is bowls. These aremade of wood. So many hands are ranged on this side, and an equal numberon that; and the game proceeds more or less after the fashion ofcurling. The feast days, --which are numerous in Rome, --on which labouris interdicted under a heavy penalty, are mostly passed at bowls; as theSabbaths, on which labour is also forbidden, though under a much smallerpenalty, are generally with the drawing of the lottery. All places ofrendezvous beyond the walls have the sign of the balls, along with theaccompanying intimation, _Vino, Bianco e Rosso_. Encircling thecourtyard adjoining the house is a broad straw-shed or canopy, beneathwhich the crowd assembles, young and old, male and female, gatheringround small tables, and discussing the _fiasci_ of Orvieto and toast. The game is proceeding all the while in their neighbourhood, the stakesbeing so many more flasks of the choice wine of Orvieto. This continuestill Ave Maria, when the crowd break up, withdraw to the city, and, after a visit to the wine-shops within the walls, go home, and (as Iwas naïvely told by a Scotch lady resident in Rome) beat their wives asmuch as they do in England. 

In the coffeehouses the grand sources of amusement are dice and drafts, along with backgammon and billiards. The latter two games are confinedto the upper and middle classes. Most of the upper classes, I believe, have billiard-rooms at home, for family use and conversazione-partyamusement. In the absence of newspapers, journals, and books, it wouldbe impossible, without these expedients, to get through the evening. Allwho can afford to attend the theatre (more properly opera), do so asregularly as the night comes; and the scenes and acts which they therewitness form the basis of Italian conversation. It is at least a safesubject. No Roman who has the fear of a prison before him would discusspolitics in a mixed company. In Rome there is an utter dearth ofemployment for young men. They dare not travel; they cannot visit aneighbouring town without the permission of Government, which is onlysometimes to be had; they have nothing to read; and one can imagine, inthese circumstances, the utter waste of mental and moral energies whichmust ensue among this class in Rome. These young men have a sore battleto keep up appearances. They do their utmost absolutely for a cigar andcane; but their success is not always such as so great ingenuity andpatience deserve. You may see them in half-dozens, lounging for hoursabout the coffeehouses, without, in many cases, spending more than asingle baiocchi on coffee, and sometimes not even that. 

Marriage is negotiated, not by the young persons, but by the parents. The mother charges herself with everything appertaining to the making ofthe match, conducting even the correspondence. Of course, to address abillet doux to the young lady would be to infringe upon the prerogativesof mamma, which must ever be held inviolate if success is seriouslyaimed at. The mother receives all such epistles, and answers them in thedaughter's behalf. The young lady is closely watched, and is never lefta moment in the society of her intended partner previous to marriage, unless in the presence of a third party. The Romans thus marry by sight, and have no means, so far at least as regards personal intercourse, ofascertaining the dispositions, tastes, intelligence, and habits of eachother. After marriage the lady is free. She may visit and receivevisitors; and has now an opportunity for like and dislike; and may betempted possibly to use it all the more that she had no such opportunitybefore. 

From marriages I pass to deaths and funerals. The usages customary onthe last illness of a Roman I cannot better describe than by referringto a case which my friend Mr Stewart had occasion to witness. It wasthat of a clerk in the Roman savings bank, an acquaintance of his, and ayoung man of some means. In 1846 he caught fever, and, after lingeringfor three weeks, died. Relatives he had none; and my friend never metany one with the patient save the priest, whose duty it was toadminister the last sacrament, and to do so in time. The sick man'schamber was curiously arranged. On the bed-cover were laid threecrucifixes: one was four feet in length; the other two were of smallersize. This safeguard against the demons was further reinforced by theaddition of a palm-branch, and a few trifling pictures of the Virgin andsaints. On the wall, above the bed, hung a frame, containing a pictureof the Virgin Mary, executed in the ordinary style, with lighted candlesbeside it. Two were placed on each side, and to these was added _unamazza di fiori_. Notwithstanding all this he died. The body was thencarried to church for the last services, preparatory to consignment tothe burying-ground of Saint Lorenzo. A single word pointing to thatblood that cleanseth from all sin would have been of more avail than allthis idle array; but that word was not spoken. 

Towards the close of life, especially if the person be wealthy, thepriests and monks grow very assiduous in their attentions, and therelatives become in proportion uneasy. I was introduced at Rome to aSignor Bondini, who had a wealthy relative in the _Regno di Napoli_, onthe verge of eighty, and very infirm. There was a monastery in hisimmediate neighbourhood, and the monks of that establishment were indaily attendance upon him. His friends in Rome felt much anxietyregarding the disposal of his property. How the matter ended I know not;but I trust, for the sake of my acquaintance, that all went well. Nor dofriends feel quite safe even after the "will" has been ratified by thetestator's death. There is a tribunal, as I have formerly stated, forrevising wills, --the S. Visita, --which assumes large powers. Of this acurious instance occurred recently. A Signor Galli, cousin of theminister of that name already mentioned, died in the July of 1854, andleft his whole property, amounting to about fifty thousand pounds, toneither relatives nor priests, but to works of benevolence for therelief of the poor. The trustee under the deed was proceeding to plan aworkhouse or an asylum for infirm old men, when the Chapter of StPeter's claimed the money, on the ground that, as the works ofbenevolence were not specified in the will, the funds were the propertyof St Peter's. Some hundreds of old men are employed in the repairscontinually going on about that church, and the Chapter meant to spendthe money in that way. Meanwhile the S. Visita put in its claim inopposition to the Chapter, and awarded the property for masses for thesoul of the departed; deeming, doubtless, that the whole would be littleenough to expiate the well-known liberal opinions of the deceased. Sostands the matter at present. It is impossible to say whether the moneywill be spent in paving the Piazza San Pietro, or in masses; as to therelief of the poor, that is now out of the question. 

It is customary for Roman families to desert the dead, that is, to leavethe body in the hands of the priests and monks, who perform thenecessary offices to the corpse, conduct the funeral, and sing massesfor the soul of the departed. The pomp and display of the one, and thelength and number of the other, are regulated entirely by thecircumstances of the deceased's family. A more ghastly procession thanthe funeral one cannot imagine. Instead of a company of grave men, carrying with decorous sorrow to its final resting-place the body oftheir departed brother, you meet what you take to be a procession ofghouls. The coffin, borne shoulder-high, comes along the street, followed by a long line of figures, enveloped from head to foot in blackserge gowns, with holes for the eyes. They march along, carrying largeblack crosses and tallow candles, and using their voices in somethingwhich is betwixt a chant and a howl. The sight suggests only the mostdismal associations. But it has its uses, and that is, to move theliving to be liberal in masses to rescue the soul from the power of thedemons, of which no feeble representation is exhibited in this ghostlyand unearthly procession. 

The modern Italians pay great regard to omens; and, in the importantaffairs of life, are guided rather by considerations of lucky andunlucky than the maxims of wisdom. The name of the present Pope theRomans hold to be decidedly of evil omen; so much so, that to affix itanywhere is to make the person or thing a mark for calamity. And I wastold a curious list of instances corroborative of this opinion. Thefirst year of the reign of Pius was marked by an unprecedented anddisastrous flood. The Tiber rose so high in Rome, that it drowned thestone lions in the Piazza del Popolo, flooded the city, and filled theCorso to a depth that compelled the citizens to have recourse to boats. The Government had a great cannon named after the Pope, which was usedin the war of independence sanctioned by Pius in 1848. The cannon Piowas taken by the Austrians, although it was afterwards restored. Therewas a famous steamer, the property of the Papal Government, named "Pia, "which plied on the Adriatic. That steamer shared the fate of all thatbears the Pope's name. It was taken, too, by the Austrians, but notreturned; though, for a reason I shall afterwards state, better it hadbeen sent back. I was wandering one afternoon amid the desolate moundsoutside the walls on the east, when I saw a cloud of frightful blacknessgather over Rome, and several intensely vivid bolts shoot downward. WhenI entered the city, I found that the "Porta Pia" had been laid in ruins, and that the occurrence had revived all the former impressions of theRomans regarding the evil significancy of the Pope's name. All who cameto his aid in his reforming times, they say, were smitten with disasteror sudden death. He never raises his hands to bless but down there comesa curse. I was not a little struck, in the winter following my returnfrom Rome, to read in the newspapers, that this same steamer Pia, ofwhich I had heard mention made in Rome as having about it a magnet ofevil in the Pope's name, had gone down in the Adriatic, with all onboard. It was one of the two vessels which carried the suite of theRussian Grand Dukes when they visited Venice in the winter of 1852, and, encountering a tempest on its return, perished, with some two hundredpersons, consisting of crew and soldiers. 

As regards the affection which the Romans bear to Pope and Papacy, Iwas assured by Mr Freeborn, our consul in Rome, that there is not apriest in that city who had two hours to live when the last Frenchsoldier shall have marched out at the gate. All who had resided for sometime in Rome, and knew the state of feeling in the population, shudderedto think of what would certainly happen should the French be withdrawn. I have been told by those who visited Rome more recently, that theRomans now do not ask for so much as two hours. "Give us but half anhour, " say they, "and we undertake that the Papacy shall never againtrouble the world. " No true Protestant can wish, or even hope, to putdown the system in this way; nevertheless it is a fact, that the Romanshave been goaded to this pitch of exasperation, and the slightest changein the political relations of Europe might precipitate on Rome and thePapal States an avalanche of vengeance. The November of 1851 was a timeof almost unendurable apprehension to the priests. With reference toFrance, then on the eve of the _coup d'etat_, though not known to be sosave in Rome, --where I am satisfied it was well known, --the priests, Iwas told by those who had access to know, said, "We tremble, we tremble, for we know not how we shall finish!" They were said to have theirpantaloons, et cetera, all ready, to escape in a laic dress. Assuredlythe curse has taken effect upon the occupants of the Vatican not lessthan on the inhabitants of the Ghetto. "Thy life shall hang in doubtbefore thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have noneassurance of thy life. "

Among other things that did not realize my expectations in Italy was theweather. During my stay in Rome there were dull and dispiriting days, with the Alban hills white to their bottom. Others were clear, with thepiercingly cold Tramontana sweeping the streets; but more frequentlythe sirocco was blowing, accompanied with deluges of rain, and flashesof lightning that made the night luminous as the day, and peals thatrocked the city on its foundations. One Sabbath evening we had a slightshock of earthquake; and I began to think that I had come to see thevolcanic covering of the Campagna crack, and the old hulk which has beenstranded on it so long sink into the abyss. My homeward journey wasaccomplished so far in the most dismal weather I have ever seen. Istarted from Rome on a Monday afternoon, in a Veturino carriage, withtwo Roman gentlemen as my companions. It was the Civita Vecchia road, for my purpose was to go by sea to France. We reached the half-way housesome hours after dark; and, having supped, we were required to conformto the rule of the house, which was to retire, not to bed, but to ourvehicle, which stood drawn up on the highway, and pass the night as bestwe could. I awoke at day-break, and found the postilion yoking thehorses in a perfect hurricane of wind and rain. We reached CivitaVecchia at breakfast-time, and found the Mediterranean one roughenedexpanse of breakers, with the white waves leaping over the mole, andviolently rocking the vessels in the harbour. The steamers from Naplesto Marseilles were a week over due, and the agents could not say whenone might arrive. Time pressed; and after wandering all day about thetown, --one of the most wretched on earth, --and seeing the fiery sun findhis bed in the weltering ocean, I took my seat in the _diligence_ forRome. 

This was the third time I had passed through that land of death theCampagna; and that night in especial I shall never forget. My companionsin the _interieur_ were two Dutch gentlemen, and a lady, the wife of oneof them. The rain fell in deluges; the frequent gleams showed us eachother's faces; and the bellowing thunder completely drowned the rattleof our vehicle. The long weary night wore through, and about four of themorning we came to the old gate. My passport had been viséd withreference to a sea-voyage; and to explain my change of route to theofficials in Civita Vecchia and at the gate of Rome, and persuade themto make the corresponding alterations, cost me some little trouble, anda good many paulos into the bargain. I succeeded, fortunately, forotherwise I should have had to submit to a detention of several days. How to make the homeward journey had now become a serious question. Theweather had made the sea unnavigable; and the Alps, now covered to agreat depth with ice and snow, could be crossed only on sledges. Iresolved on going by land to Leghorn, --a wearisome and expensive route, but one that would show me the old Etruria, with several cities of notein Italian history. The _diligence_ for Florence was to start in anhour. I hurried to the office, and engaged the only seat that remainedunbespoke, in the coupé happily, with a Russian and Italian gentleman ascompanions. I made my final exit by the Flaminian gate; and as I crossedthe swollen Tiber, and began to climb the height beyond, the first raysof the morning sun were slanting across the Campagna, and tinging withangry light the troubled masses of cloud that hung above the many-domedcity. 

For a few hours the ride was pleasant. All around lay the neglectedland, thinly besprinkled with forlorn olives, but without signs of man, save where a crumbling village might be seen crowning the summit of thelittle conical hills that form so striking a feature in the Etrurianlandscape. When we had reached the spurs of the Apennines the stormfell. The air was thickened with alternate showers of sleet and snow. Wehad to encounter torrents in the valleys, and drifted wreaths on theheights; in short, the journey was to the full as dreary as one throughthe Grampians would have been at the same season. There was little totempt us to leave our vehicle at the few villages and towns where wehalted, for they seemed half-drowned in rain and mud. Late in theafternoon we reached Viterbo, and stopped to eat a wretched dinner. Wefound in the hotel but little of that abundance of which the magnificentvine-stocks in the adjoining fields gave so goodly promise. Startingagain at dusk, the ladies of the party inquired where the patrol wasthat used to accompany travellers through the brigand-haunted country ofRadicofani, on which we were about to enter; but could get nosatisfactory answer. We skirted the lake of Bolsena, with its rich butdeserted shores, and its fine mountains of oak. Soon thereafter darknesshid from us the country; but the frequent gleams of lightning showedthat it was wild and desolate as ever traveller passed through. It wasnaked, and torn, and scathed, as if fire had acted upon it, which, indeed, it had, for our way now lay amidst extinct volcanoes. Towardsmidnight the _diligence_ suddenly stopped. "Here are the brigands atlast, " said I to myself. I jumped out; and, stretched on the road, pallid and motionless, lay the foremost postilion. Had he been shot, orwhat had happened? He was a raw-boned lad of some eighteen, wretchedlyclad, and worse fed; and he had swooned through fatigue and cold. Webrought him round with a little brandy; and, setting him again on hisnags, we continued our journey. 

I recollect of awaking at times from troubled sleep, to find that wewere zig-zagging up the sides of mountains tall and precipitous as asugar-loaf, and entering beneath the portals of towns old and crumbling, perched upon their very summit. A more desolate sight than that whichmet the eye when day broke I never saw. Every particle of soil seemedtorn from the face of the country; and, as far as the eye could reach, plain and hill-side lay under a covering of marl, which was grooved andfurrowed by torrents. "Is this Italy?" I asked myself in astonishment. As the day rose, both weather and scenery improved. Towards mid-day, thegreen beauteous mount on which Sienna, with its white buildings and itscathedral towers, is situated, rose in the far distance; and, after manyhours winding and climbing, we entered its walls. 

At Sienna we exchanged the _diligence_ for the railway, the course ofwhich lay through a series of ravines and valleys of the mostmagnificent description, and thoroughly Tuscan in their character. Wehad torrents below, crags crowned with castles above, vines, chestnuts, and noble oaks clothing the steep, and purple shadows, such as Italyonly can show, enrobing all. I reached Pisa late in the evening; andthere a substantial supper, followed by yet more grateful sleep, madeamends for the four previous days' fasting, sleeplessness, andendurance. I passed the Sabbath at Leghorn; and, starting again onMonday _via_ Marseilles, and prosecuting my journey day and nightwithout intermission, save for an hour at a time, came on Saturdayevening to the capital of happy England, where I rested on the morrow, "according to the commandment. "

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM THE WHOLE, OR, ROME HER OWN WITNESS. 

When one goes to Rome, it is not unreasonable that he should there lookfor some proofs of the vaunted excellence of the Roman faith. Rome isthe seat of Christ's Vicar, and the centre of Christianity, as Romanistsmaintain; and there surely, if anywhere, may he expect to find thosepersonal and social virtues which have ever flourished in the wake ofChristianity. To what region has she gone where barbarism and vice havenot disappeared? and in what age has she flourished in which she has notmoulded the hearts of men and the institutions of society intoconformity with the purity of her own precepts, and the benevolence ofher own spirit? She has been no teacher of villany and cruelty, --nopatron of lust, --no champion of oppression. She has known only"whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoeverthings are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are ofgood report. " Her great Founder demanded that she should be tried by herfruits; and why should Rome be unwilling to submit to this test? If thePope be Christ's Vicar, his deeds cannot be evil. If Romanism beChristianity, or rather, if it alone be Christianity, as its championsmaintain, Rome must be the most Christian city on the earth, and theRomans examples to the whole human race, of industry, of sobriety, ofthe love of truth, and, in short, of whatever tends to dignify and exalthuman character. On the assumption that the Christianity of the SevenHills is the Christianity of the New Testament, Rome ought to be theseat of just laws, of inflexibly upright and impartial tribunals, and ofwise, paternal, and incorruptible rulers. Is it so? Is Christ's Vicar amodel to all governors? and is the region over which he bears swayrenowned throughout the earth as the most virtuous, the most happy, andthe most prosperous region in it? Alas! the very opposite of all this isthe fact. There is not on the face of the earth a region more barren ofeverything Christian, and of everything that ought to spring fromChristianity, than is the region of the Seven Hills. And not only do wethere find the absence of all that reminds us of Christianity, or thatcould indicate her presence; but we find there the presence, on a mostgigantic scale, and in most intense activity, of all the elements andforms of evil. When the infidel would select the very strongest proofsthat Christianity cannot possibly be Divine, and that its influence onindividual and national character is most disastrous, he goes to thebanks of the Tiber. The weapons which Voltaire and his compeers wieldedwith such terrible effect in the end of last century were borrowed fromRome. Now, why is this? Either Christianity is to a most extraordinarydegree destructive of all the temporal interests of man, or Romanism isnot Christianity. 

The first part of the alternative cannot in reason be maintained. Christianity, like man, was made in the image of Him who created her;and, like her great Maker, is essentially and supremely benevolent. Sheis as much the fountain of good as the sun is the fountain of light; andthe good that is in the minor institutions which exist around her comesfrom her, just as the mild effulgence of the planets radiates from thegreat orb of day. She cherishes man in all the extent of his diversifiedfaculties, and throughout the vast range of his interests, temporal andeternal. But Romanism is as universal in her evil as Christianity is inher good. She is as omnipotent to overthrow as Christianity is to buildup. Man, in his intellectual powers and his moral affections, --in hissocial relations and his national interests, --she converts into a wreck;and where Christianity creates an angel, Romanism produces a fiend. Accordingly, the region where Romanism has fixed its seat is a mightyand appalling ruin. Like some Indian divinity seated amidst the blood, and skulls, and mangled limbs of its victims, Romanism is grimly seatedamidst the mangled remains of liberty, and civilization, and humanity. Her throne is a graveyard, --a graveyard that covers, not the mortalbodies of men, but the fruits and acquisitions, alas! of man's immortalgenius. Thither have gone down the labours, the achievements, the hopes, of innumerable ages; and in this gulph they have all perished. Italy, glorious once with the light of intelligence and of liberty on her brow, and crowned with the laurel of conquest, is now naked and manacled. Whoconverted Italy into a barbarian and a slave? The Papacy. The growth ofthat foul superstition and the decay of the country have gone on byequal stages. In the territory blessed with the pontifical governmentthere is--as the previous chapters show--no trade, no industry, nojustice, no patriotism; there is neither personal worth nor publicvirtue; there is nothing but corruption and ruin. In fine, the PapalStates are a physical, social, political, and moral wreck; and fromwhatever quarter that _religion_ has come which has created this wreck, it is undeniable that it has not come from the New Testament. If it betrue that "a tree is known by its fruits, " the tree of Romanism wasnever planted by the Saviour. 

With such evidence before him as Italy furnishes, can any man doubt whatthe consequence would be of admitting this system into Britain? If therebe any truth in the maxim, that like causes produce like effects, theconsequences are as manifest as they are inevitable. There is a force ofgenius, a versatility and buoyancy, about the Italians, which fit thembetter than most to resist longer and surmount sooner the influence of asystem like the Papacy; and yet, if that system has wrought suchterrible havoc among them, --if it has put them down and keeps themdown, --where is the nation or people who may think to embrace Romanism, and yet escape being destroyed by it? Assuredly, should it ever gain theascendancy in this country, it will inflict, and in far shorter time, the same dire ruin upon us which it has inflicted on Italy. 

Let no man delude himself with the idea that it is simply a _religion_which he is admitting, and that the only change that would ensue wouldbe merely the substitution of a Romanist for a Protestant creed. It is a_scheme of Government_; and its introduction would be followed by acomplete and universal change in the political constitution andgovernment of the country. The Romanists themselves have put this matterbeyond dispute. Why did the Papists divide _territorially_ the country?Why did they assume _territorial_ titles? and why do they sopertinaciously cling to these titles? Why, because their chief aim is toerect a territorial and political system, and they wish to secure, byfair means or foul, a pretest or basis on which they may afterwardsenforce that system by political and physical means. Have we forgottenthe famous declaration of Wiseman, that his grand end in the papalaggression was to introduce canon law? And what is canon law? Theprevious chapters show what canon law is. It is a code which, thoughfounded on a religious dogma, namely, that the Pope is God's Vicar, isnevertheless mainly temporal in its character. It claims a temporaljurisdiction; it employs temporal power in its support, --the _sbirri_, Swiss guards, and French troops at Rome, for instance; and it visitsoffences with temporal punishment, --banishment, the galleys, thecarabine, and guillotine. In its most modified form, and as viewed underthe glosses of the most dexterous of its modern commentators andapologists, it vests the Pope in a DIRECTING POWER, according to whichhe can declare _null_ all constitutions, laws, tribunals, decisions, oaths, and causes contrary to good morals, in other words, contrary tothe interests of the Church, of which he is the sole and infalliblejudge; and all resistance is punishable by deprivation of civil rights, by confiscation of goods, by imprisonment, and, in the last resort, bydeath. In short, it vests in the Pope's hands all power on earth, whether spiritual or temporal, and puts all persons, ecclesiastical andsecular, under his foot. A more overwhelming tyranny it is impossible toimagine; for it is a tyranny that unites the voice with the arm ofDeity. We challenge the Romanist to show how he can inaugurate hissystem in Britain, --set up canon law, as he proposes, --without changingthe constitution of the country. We affirm, on the grounds we havestated, that he cannot. This, then, is no battle merely of churches andcreeds; it is a battle between two kingdoms and two kings, --the Pope onone side, and Queen Victoria on the other; and no one can become anabettor of the pontiff without being thereby a traitor to the sovereign. 

And with the fall of our religion and liberty will come all thedemoralizing and pauperizing effects which have followed the Papacy inItaly. Mind will be systematically cramped and crushed; and everythingthat could stimulate thought, or inspire a love for independence, orrecall the memory of a former liberty, will be proscribed. We cannothave the Papacy and open tribunals. We cannot have the Papacy and freetrade: our factories will be closed, as well as our schools andchurches; our forges silenced, as well as our printing presses. Motioneven will be forbidden; or, should our railways be spared, they willconvey, in lack of merchandise, bulls, palls, dead men's bones, andother such precious stuff. Our electric telegraph will be used for thepious purpose of transmitting absolutions and pardons, and our expresstrains for carrying the host to some dying penitent. The passport systemwill very speedily cure our people of their propensity to travel; and, instead of gadding about, and learning things which they ought not, theywill be told to stay at home and count their beads. The _Index_ willeffectually purge our libraries, and give us but tens where we have nowthousands. Alas for the great masters of British literature and song!The censorship will make fine work with our periodic literature, pruningthe exuberance and taming the boldness of many a now free pen. Ourclubs, from Parliament downwards, will have their labours diminished, byhaving their sphere contracted to matters only on which the Church hasnot spoken; and our thinkers will be taught to think aright, by beingtaught not to think at all. We must contract a liking for consecratedwafers and holy water; and provide a confessor for ourselves, our wives, and daughters. We must eat only fish on Friday, and keep the Church'sholidays, however we may spend the Sabbath. We must vote at the biddingof the priest; and, above all, take ghostly direction as regards ourlast will and testament. The Papacy will overhaul all our politicalrights, all our social privileges, all our domestic and private affairs;and will alter or abrogate as it may find it for our and the Church'sgood. In short, it will dig a grave, in which to bury all our privilegesand rights together, rolling to that grave's mouth the great stone ofInfallibility. 

Nor let us commit the error of under-estimating the foe, or of thinking, in an age when intelligence and liberty are so diffused, that it isimpossible that we can be overcome by such a system as the Papacy. Wehave not, like the early Christians, to oppose a rude, unwieldy, andgross paganism; we are called to confront an idolatry, subtle, refined, perfected. We encounter error wielding the artillery of truth. Wewrestle with the powers of darkness clothed in the armour of light. Weare called to combat the instincts of the wolf and tiger in the form ofthe messenger of peace, --the Satanic principle in the angelic costume. Have we considered the infinite degradation of defeat? Have we thoughtof the prison-house where we will be compelled to grind for ourconqueror's sport, --the chains and stakes which await ourselves and ourposterity? And, even should our lives be spared, they will be spared towhat?--to see freedom banished, knowledge extinguished, science putunder anathema, the world rolled backwards, and the universe become avast whispering gallery, to re-echo only the accents of papal blasphemy. 

This atrocious and perfidious system is at this hour triumphant on theContinent of Europe. Britain only stands erect. How long she may do sois known only to God; but of this I am assured, that if we shall be ableto keep our own, it will be, not by entering into any compromise, but byassuming an attitude of determined defiance to the papal system. Theremust be no truckling to foreign despots and foreign priests: the boldProtestant policy of the country must be maintained. In this way alonecan we escape the immense hazards which at present threaten us. Andwhat a warning do the nations of the Continent hold out to us! Theyteach how easily liberty may be lost, but how infinite the sacrifices ittakes to recover it. A moment's weakness may cost an age of suffering. If we let go the liberty we at present enjoy, none of us will live tosee it regained. Look at the past history of the Papacy, and mark how ithas retained its vulpine instincts in every age, and transmitted fromfather to son, and from generation to generation, its inextinguishablehatred of man and of man's liberties. Look at it in the Low Countries, and see it overwhelming them under an inundation of armies andscaffolds. Look at it in Spain, and see it extinguishing, amid the firesof innumerable _autos da fe_, the genius, the chivalry, and the power ofthat great nation. Look at it in France, whose history it has convertedinto an ever-recurring cycle of revolutions, massacres, and tyrannies. Look at it in the blood-written annals of the Waldensian valleys, against which it launched crusade after crusade, ravaging their soilwith fire and sword, and ceasing its rage only when nothing remained butthe crimson stains of its fearful cruelty. And now, after creating thiswide wreck, --after glutting the axe, --after flooding the scaffold, anddeluging the earth itself with human blood, --it turns to you, ye men ofEngland and Scotland! It menaces you across the narrow channel thatdivides your country from the Continent, and dares to set its foul printon your free shore! Will you permit it? Will you tamely sit still tillit has put its foot on your neck, and its fetter on your arm? Oh! if youdo, the Bruce who conquered at Bannockburn will disown you! The Knox whoachieved a yet more glorious victory will disown you! Cranmer, and allthe martyrs whose blood cries to heaven against it, while their happyspirits look down from their thrones of light to watch the part you areprepared to play in this great struggle, will disown you! Your childrenyet unborn, whose faith you will thus surrender, and whose liberty youwill thus betray, will curse your very names. But I know you will not. You are men, and will die as men, if die you must, nobly fighting foryour faith and your liberties. You will not wait till you are drawn outand slaughtered as sheep, as you assuredly will be if you permit thissystem to become dominant. But if you are prepared to die, rather thanto live the slaves of a detestable and ferocious tyranny like this, Iknow that you shall not die; for I firmly believe, from the aspects ofProvidence, and the revelations of the Divine Word, that, menacing asthe Papacy at present looks, its grave is dug, and that even now ittotters on the brink of that burning abyss into which it is destined tobe cast; and if we do but unite, and strike a blow worthy of our cause, we shall achieve our liberties, and not only these, but the liberties ofnations that stretch their arms in chains to us, under God their lasthope, and the liberties of generations unborn, who shall arise and callus blessed. 

 THE END. 

 EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY MILLER AND FAIRLY. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the Antiquity of the Waldenses treated of at length in Leger's"Histoire de l'Eglise Vaudoise;" and Dr Gilly's "Waldensian Researches. "

[2] The author would soften his strictures on this head by a referenceto the truly interesting volume on the "Ladies of the Reformation, " byhis talented friend the Rev. James Anderson. 

[3] I have before me a list of prices current (Prezzo Corrente Legale degeneri venduti nella piazza di Roma dal di 28 Febbraro al di 5 Marzo1852), from which it appears, that sculpture, paintings, tallow, bones, skins, rags, and pozzolano, comprise all the exports from the PapalStates. What a beggarly list, compared with the natural riches of thecountry! In fact, vessels return oftener _without_ than _with_ ladingfrom that shore. 

[4] It was so when the author was in Rome. The enterprising company ofFox & Henderson have since succeeded in overcoming the pontificalscruples, and bringing gas into the Eternal City; Cardinal Antonelliremarking, that he would accept of _their_ light in return for the light_he_ had sent to England. 

[5] As illustrative of our subject, we may here quote what Mr Whiteside, M. P. , in his interesting volumes, "Italy in the Nineteenth Century, "says of the estimation in which all concerned with the administration ofjustice are held at Rome:--

"The profession of the law is considered by the higher classes to be abase pursuit: no man of family would degrade himself by engaging in it. A younger son of the poorest noble would famish rather than earn hislivelihood in an employment considered vile. The advocate is seldom ifever admitted into high society in Rome; nor can the princes (so called)or nobles comprehend the position of a barrister in England. They wouldas soon permit a _facchino_ as an advocate to enter their palaces; andthey have been known to ask with disdain (when accidentally apprisedthat a younger son of an English nobleman had embraced the profession ofthe law), what could induce his family to suffer the degradation?Priests, bishops, and cardinals, the poor nobles or their impoverisheddescendants, will become, --advocates or judges, never. The solution ofthis apparent inconsistency is to be found in the fact, that in mostdespotic countries the profession of the law is contemptible. In Rome itis particularly so, because no person places confidence in theadministration of the law, the salaries of the judges are small, theremuneration of the advocate miserable, and all the great officesgrasped by the ecclesiastics. Pure justice not existing, everybodyconcerned in the administration of what is substituted for it isdespised, often most unjustly, as being a participator in theimposture. "

[6] See book vii. , chap. X. 

[7] Monsignor Marini, who was head of the police under Gregory XVI. , andthe infamous tool in all the arrests and cruelties of Lambruschini, wasmade a cardinal by the present Pope. All Rome said, let the nextcardinal be the public executioner. Talent, certainly, has fair play atRome, when a policeman, and even the hangman, may aspire to the chair ofPeter. 

[8] WHAT THE ROMAN RELIGION COSTS. 

The following statistics of the wealth of the clergy in the Roman Statesare taken from the American _Crusader_:--

"The clergy in the Roman States realize from the funds a clear income oftwo millions two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. From the cattlethey have another income of one hundred thousand dollars; from thecanons, three hundred thousand dollars; from the public debt anotherincome of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from thepriests' individual estates, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars;from the portions assigned by law to nuns, five hundred thousanddollars; from the celebration of masses, two millions one hundred andfifty thousand dollars; from taxes on baptisms, forty-five thousanddollars; from the tax on the Sacrament of Confirmation, eighteenthousand dollars; from the celebration of marriages, twenty-fivethousand dollars; from the attestations of births, nine thousanddollars; from other attestations, such as births, marriages, deaths, &c. &c. , nine thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars; from funerals, sixhundred thousand dollars; from the gifts to begging-orders, one millioneight hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; from the gifts formotives of benevolence or festivities, or maintenance of altars andlights, or for celebrating mass for the souls in purgatory, two hundredthousand dollars; from the tithes exacted in several parts of the RomanStates according to the ancient rigour, one hundred and fifty thousanddollars; from preaching and panegyrics, according to the regular taxes, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from seminaries for entrancetaxes and other rights belonging to the students, besides the boarding, fifteen thousand dollars; from the chancery for ecclesiasticalprovisions, for matrimonial licenses, for sanatives, &c. &c. , fiftythousand dollars; from benedictions during Easter, thirty thousanddollars; from offerings to the miraculous images of Virgin Marys andSaints, seventy-five thousand dollars; from _triduums_ for the sick, orfor prayers, five hundred thousand dollars; from benedictions to fields, cattle, nuptial-beds, &c. &c. , nine thousand dollars. 

"All these incomes, which amount to _ten million five hundred and tenthousand seven hundred and fifty dollars_, are realized and enjoyed bythe secular and regular clergy, composed in all of sixty thousandindividuals, including nuns, without mentioning the incomes allowed themfrom foreign countries, for the chancery and other cosmopolitecongregations. 

"It is further to be observed, that in this calculation are notcomprised the portions which the Romans call _passatore_, which thelaity pay to the clergy; such as purchase, permutation, resignation, andordination taxes; patents for confessions, preaching, holy oils, privileged altars, professors' chairs, and the like, which will make upanother amount of a million of dollars; nor those other taxes called_pretatico_, which are paid by the Jews to the parish priest forpermission to dwell without the Jews' quarter; nor those for the ringingof bells for dying persons, or those who are in agony; nor those whichcripples pay for receiving in Rome the visit of the wooden child of the_celestial altar_, who must always go out in a carriage, accompanied byfriars called _minori observanti_, Franciscan friars, whose incomes theycollect and govern. The value of charitable edifices (which are notregistered, being exempt from all dative) is not comprised either; andthe same exemption is extended to churches; although all these buildingscost the inhabitants of the State several millions of expense forprovisional possession, and displays of ceremonies and feasts which arecelebrated in them. "

WHAT THE ROMAN RELIGION YIELDS. 

A distinguished English gentleman, who has spent many years as aresident or in travelling in various papal countries in Europe, in arecent speech in London has presented some deeply interesting factsconcerning vice and crime in Papal and Protestant countries. Hepossessed himself of the Government returns of every Romanist Governmenton the Continent. We have condensed and will state its results. 

In England, four persons for a million, on the average, are committedfor murder per year. In Ireland there are nineteen to the million. InBelgium, a Catholic country, there are eighteen murders to the million. In France there are thirty-one. Passing into Austria, we findthirty-six. In Bavaria, also Catholic, sixty-eight to the million; or, if homicides are struck out, there will be thirty. Going into Italy, where Catholic influence is the strongest of any country on earth, andtaking first the kingdom of Sardinia, we find twenty murders to themillion. In the Venetian and Milanese provinces there is the enormousresult of forty-five to the million. In Tuscany, forty-two, though thatland is claimed as a kind of earthly paradise; and in the Papal Statesnot less than one hundred murders for the million of people. There areninety in Sicily; and in Naples the result is more appalling still, where public documents show there are _two hundred_ murders per year tothe million of people!

The above facts are all drawn from the civil and criminal records of therespective countries named. Now, taking the whole of these countriestogether, we have seventy-five cases of murder for every million ofpeople. In Protestant countries, --England, for example, --we have butfour for every million. Aside from various other demoralizing influencesof Popery, the fact now to be named beyond doubt operates with greatpower in cheapening human life in Catholic countries. The Protestantcriminal believes he is sending his victim, if not a Christian, at onceto a miserable eternity; and this awful consideration gives a terribleaspect to the crime of murder. But the Papist only sends his victim topurgatory, whence he can be rescued by the masses the priest can behired to say for his soul; or his own bloody hand and heart will nothinder him from doing that office himself. We think the above facts inregard to vice and crime in the two great departments of Christendomworthy the most serious pondering of every friend of morality andvirtue. 

[9] Martinus Scriblerus says, that "the Pope's band, though the finestin the world, would not divert the English from burning his Holiness ineffigy on the streets of London on a Guy Fawkes' day;" nor, I may add, the Romans from burning him in person on the streets of Rome any day, were the French away. 

[10] For much of the information contained in this chapter I am indebtedto my intelligent friend Mr Stewart.