The right of private judgment in religious matters was unknown, and heretics were tortured and burned as the worst and most dangerous of criminals. In the nineteenth century, on the other hand, heretics-whatever may be their fate in the other world— have often the best of it in this; and have only to dread the editors of the Univers and the Tablet, or perhaps the perversion of a wife or daughter by a female Jesuit in the disguise of a lady's maid, or the abduction of a child by some proselytizing priest. Hutten, driven from place to place, and at last dying in the flower of early manhood, worn out with persecution, and enfeebled by disease, is a type of the reformer of the sixteenth century; while M. About, obliged to discontinue his articles in the Moniteur Unersel, by the complaints of the Pontifical government, and to seek a publisher in Brussels instead of Paris, is a type of the reformer of the nineteenth; and these different circumstances may well account for the unsparing invective, the concentrated bitterness of the one, and for the playful wit, the epigrammatic smartness, the measured indignation of the other. But, in spite of these differences of sentiment and style, it is astonishing how much resemblance there is in the substance of the complaints of both against the Pontifical government. It was the worst government of Europe in the early part of the sixteenth century, and it asserts the same bad pre-eminence in 1859; while almost the same elements of evil now fall under the lash of M. About, that then received the strokes of Hutten. The latter denounced the profligacy, venality, luxury, and pride of the Romish priesthoodtheir forgetfulness and wilful violation of the precepts of the Gospel; and the former still finds the same vices debasing the character of the priestly caste who reign with absolute power over modern Rome. Both the German and the Frenchman consider a complete and radical change to be absolutely necessary. Hutten proposed a revolution of the whole system, and M. About sees no other effectual remedy for the present state of things than the abolition, or at least the restriction, of the temporal power of the Pope.

*

We shall now endeavour to place before our readers the facts which have induced M. About to come to such a conclusion, requesting them to keep in mind that the present work is no party sketch-no crude collection of ill-digested observations and hurried notes of travel. M. About's first articles appeared in the Moniteur Universel, and were stopped on the reclamation of the Papal government; upon which, the author threw his sketches into the

* Hutten's words are: "superstitionum postergationem, officiorum abolit'cnem, universi ibidem status conversionem."

VOL. II.

B

fire, and, after a year of reflection, assisted by an attentive study of the best Italian authorities, and by the conversation and correspondence of several illustrious Italians, produced the present volume. He tells us that he has studied the Roman Question in the Pontifical States, which he has traversed throughout, examining everything with the utmost attention: he does not pretend to have judged the enemies of Italy without indignation, but he denies having ever uttered a single calumny against them. His book contains twenty-one chapters, in which the Roman Question is considered in all its bearings; and we cannot help thinking that he completely succeeds in demonstrating that the radical evil is the possession of absolute political and temporal as well as spiritual power by the Pope and the priestly caste; and that, so long as this continues, it will be vain to hope for any amelioration of that despotism which for a thousand years has been the scourge of the Roman States and the plague-spot of Europe. The vices and oppression of the Pontifical system are the logical and necessary results of the degradation of the laic and the exaltation of the clerical class; and as long as political as well as spiritual supremacy belongs to the latter, there can be no improvement. All attempts to apply a remedy, under such conditions, have been, and must ever be, utterly useless. "Must our diplomatists," says M. About, "renew in 1859 this trade of dupes? A French engineer has shown that embankments raised along the course of rivers are costly, unprofitable, and always requiring repair; whilst a simple dam at the source prevents the most terrible inundations. To the source, then, diplomatists! Ascend, if you please, up to the temporal power of the Popes."*

The Roman Catholic Church, M. About tells us, consists of 139,000,000 of individuals, without counting the little Mortara. It is governed by 70 cardinals, in memory of the twelve apostles. The Cardinal Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, or the Pope, is invested with absolute authority over the consciences of the 139,000,000 Catholics. The Cardinals are named by the Pope, the Pope by the Cardinals, and, from the day of his election,

* Such also was the opinion of the Roman Republicans in 1848, as lately recorded by one of themselves. "In common with many patriots," says Luigi Bianchi," "I saw no means left to us of storming the tide of evils about to overwhelm the country, but this of depriving the Pope of his kingly office; and we resolutely set our hands to the work. In the resolution to effect this object, the ultra-democrats consented to unite with the moderate party. The different factions held secret meetings to consult on the measures to be adopted, and, after much discussion, all agreed that the temporal power of the Pope must cease, and all faithful Italians were summoned to lend a hand to effect this great end." (See Incidents in the Life of an Italian Priest: by Luigi Bianchi. London: James Nisbet and Co., 21, Berners-street. 1859.)

in the opinion of the most orthodox Catholics, he becomes invested with infallibility. The Pope has obtained, from the devotion and folly of princes of the middle ages, and by subsequent intrigue and violence, the position of a temporal as well as of a spiritual prince, so that, in 1859, Pius IX. is the temporal sovereign of some 10,000,000 of acres, and of 3,184,608 subjects, who complained loudly of the evils of his government. They complain that the authority to which they are subjected is the most thoroughly absolute that has ever been defined by Aristotle, that the legislative, executive, and judicial functions are combined, confounded, and embroiled in the same hand, contrary to the custom of civilized states; that they cheerfully recognize the infallibility of the Pope in all religious questions, but that it is difficult to submit to it in civil matters; that they do not refuse to obey, since no man has a right, in this world, to follow the dictates of his own caprice, but that they would wish to have laws to obey, and that the pleasure of even the best individuals is not worth so much as the Code Napoléon; that, though the reigning Pope is not a bad man, the arbitrary government even of an infallible priest will never be anything but a bad government. They say, besides, that, in virtue of an ancient custom, which nothing can uproot, the Pope joins with himself, in the temporal administration of his realm, the chiefs, sub-chiefs, and spiritual employés of his church; that the cardinals, bishops, canons, priests, plunder right and left; that one and the same caste administer the sacrament to the provincials, confirm little children and decide law suits, regulate sub-deacons and arrestments, minister to the dying and draw up captains' commissions. That this confusion of the spiritual and the temporal, places in all the principal positions a number of men-excellent, doubtless, in the eyes of God, but unsupportable in the sight of the people; often strangers to the country and to the management of business, and always ignorant of domestic life, which is the basis of society; without children, which makes them indifferent to the future of the nation; without wives, which renders them dangerous for the present; finally, without any inclination to listen to good counsel, because they believe themselves to be sharers in the Pontifical infallibility. They further complain that these men pardon more easily an assassin than him who complains of an abuse of power; that they mismanage the finances of the State-wasting on basilicas, churches, and convents, what should be spent on railways, roads, canals, and embankments; that faith, hope, and charity receive more encouragement than agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; that public simplicity is developed at the expense of public instruction. Again, they say that justice and the police occupy

themselves too much with the care of souls, and too little with the care of bodies; that they hinder good citizens from the sin of blasphemy in reading improper books, or in frequenting the society of those who entertain liberal opinions, while they do not hinder scoundrels from assassinating good citizens; that properties are as badly protected as persons, and that it is hard not to be able to reckon upon anything except a seat in paradise. They are compelled to pay more than 10,000,000 francs a year for the support of an army without virtue or discipline, of doubtful honour and courage, and destined never to make war except against the citizens; and it is humiliating, when one must submit to be beaten, to have to pay for the stick. They are forced to accommodate foreign armies, and especially the Austrians, who have a heavy hand. Lastly, they complain, that this is not what the Pope promised in his motu proprio of the 12th September; and that it is very sad to see infallible personages fail in their most solemn engagements.

Such is the heavy indictment against the Pontificial government which M. About puts in the mouth of the Roman people; and we believe that he is near the truth when he says that, except those who have an immediate interest in the conservation of the system, and the very lowest and most imbruted dregs of the populace, the whole Roman people are malcontent. And well may they be so. The Papacy has been a greater curse to Italy even than the Austrians. Dante, Petrarch, Campanella, Sarmarola, Quicciardini, and many other illustrious men, have united in denouncing it as the ruin of their country; and that acute Junius, Machiavelli, somewhere says "that the destinies of Italy are unhappy because they depend upon the Papacy."

While examining the question of the necessity of the temporal power of the Pope, M. About points out that the greatest triumphs of the Catholic religion have been achieved before the Pope became a temporal prince, and that from the time when the spiritual and temporal powers were linked together, like Siamese twins, the more august of the two necessarily lost independence. The sovereign pontiff is constantly compelled to choose between the general interests of the Church and the particular interests of his own kingdom, and it is scarcely to be expected that he shall always be so disengaged from terrestrial affairs, as to sacrifice the earth which is close to him, for the heaven which is at a distance; and history shows us that the Popes have again and again, since their acquisition of temporal power, allowed the attractions of earth to eclipse the glories of heaven. The confusion of the two powers, which would gain by being separated, compromises not only the independence, but the dignity of the Pope. Bailiffs

eject in the name of the Pope; judges condemn an assassin, and the executioner beheads him in the name of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Nay, there is even the Pontifical Lottery; and what must the 139,000,000 of Roman Catholics think when they hear their spiritual sovereign, by the mouth of his Minister of Finance, congratulating himself that vice is on the increase, and that the lottery has yielded a good return?

In his chapter on the patrimony of the Papacy, M. About says, "I have never cast my eyes over that poor map of Italy, rent capriciously in unequal fractions, without making a consoling reflection. Nature, which has done all for the Italians, has taken care to enclose their nation by magnificent barriers: the Alps and the sea protect her on all sides and isolate her, while they seem to unite her into a distinct body, and destine her to a separate and personal existence. To crown the bounties of nature, no internal barrier condemns the Italians to form various nationalities. The Appennines themselves, an obstacle easy to vanquish, permit them to unite. All the existing divisions are arbitrary, traced by the brutality of the middle ages, or by the trembling hand of diplomacy which defaces each day the work of the previous evening. Only one race occupies the soil; the same language is spoken from north to south; all the inhabitants are united by the glory of their ancestors, and the remembrances of the Roman conquests fresher and more lively than the party hatreds of the fourteenth century. That spectacle has induced me to believe that the Italians will one day be independent of others and united among themselves by the force of geography and of history, two powers more invincible than Austria.'

The author afterwards proceeds to give a sort of statistical account of the Papal States, showing what they might be were the bounties of nature taken advantage of, and what they are, owing to misgovernments and neglect. He points out the prodigious fertility of the plains, the variety of crops suitable to the soil and climate, the excellence of the buffaloes and cattle, the aptitudes of the country for producing everything necessary for the clothing and food of man, and concludes by asserting that, if the inhabitants want bread or shirts, nature cannot be reproached for their indigence. He aftewards computes the real capital value of the agricultural domains subject to the Pope, at 2,610,000,000 of francs-certainly a very large sum, considering the limited extent of the country. But then he also shows how the magnificent resources of the country are neglected. From Rome to Civita Vecchia, a distance of fifty miles, the country is almost a desert, and the environs of Rome are no better. The roads and means of communication are few and detestably bad, especially on the Mediterranean side