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ra. The Italian, as long as he has macaroni, troubles himself but little about the deeds of Cardinal Vicars. A cloak that will keep out the rain, and a cigar that will smoke away the day, advance him still farther in the road to happiness. But give him a new punchinello for the streets, and a new maestro for the stage, and let dungeons frown, friends disappear, executioners flog, and Vicars and Vicegerents ride over the necks of mankind, the Italian enjoys the supreme of felicity. Revolutions in Italy There may be a few disbanded French bravos, longing for plunder and full pay again; or a few broken commissaries, thinking of the glorious times of robbery; but the people have as little sympathy with them, as they have with Julius Cæsar and the Tenth Legion. There will be no more revolution in Italy than in the bottoms of their own coffee-cups. The priests are the masters there, and even if the Pope should be untemporalized, which he will not, by Austria, nor by Europe, until the final change of all European institutions is at hand, the priests will twist the chain round the hands, the feet, and the throat of the Italian. awo niedt deku_y

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The Cardinal Vicar, the third great officer of state, possesses very high and very active functions. In his court, constituted of himself, an au ditor, a prelate entitled the Vicegest rent, and a prelate entitled the civil Luogotenente, he exercises an authos rity in civil and ecclesiastical cases within ten miles of Rome. Under other modifications he exercisessa similar jurisdiction in criminal cases: But he possesses one function, personally and exclusively, which alone gives a very formidable power. As Cardinal Vicar, or Vicar General to the Pope, he is censor of the public morals. By this single authority, he commands the liberty of every man and woman in the state. Espionage is, of course, one of the shortsighted arts of all the continental governments. But Roman espionage is perpetual and universal, and, with the restless ness and meanness that belongs to the unemployed life of monkery, it makes mischief out of every things The Cardinal Vicar has the power of a arrest and conveyance to the dungeon, in all instances of his own caso price, or the caprice of others. The husband who wishes to get rid of his wife, the wife, who plots against her husband-and in the miserable sys-nity of legislation, Independently of tem of Italian matrimony, and the habitual profligacy of both sexes,it those bitter intrigues and fierce separations are frequent has only to influence the Cardinal, or perhaps the Cardinal's valet, or the valet's valet, or a clerk in his, office and the accused is privately seized, privately consigned to a prison, and privately kept there for years, or for life.

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T

Of all states, the Roman is the most plagued with law. Every functionary, from the Pope to the lowest prelate, is vested with judicial rights of some kind or other; and nothing but actual experience can conceive the harassings, the expense, and the perpetual misery, of this teasingheter

the Segnatura di Giustizia, a tribu-
nal of Law, strictly so called, and the
Segnatura di Grazia, which decides
by equity, is the Rota a sort of re-
presentative tribunal of the provinces
of Italy consisting of twelve prelates,
of Rome, the Milanese, Tuscany, &c.,
and the Apostolic Chamber, consist-
ing of fourteen members, headed by
the Cardinal Camerlengo, or Great
Chamberlain,
, and the Roman Trea-
surer; the whole equivalent to our
Commissioners of the Treasury, but
still, like all the rest, exercising judi-
cial functionscodi

In England, a single act of this kind would overthrow a Ministry and the existence of such an office would set the kingdom in a flame. But foreigners are satisfied, with. Under a system of government in shrugging their shoulders, thanking which the will of one man is the law, the Virgin that it is not their own-for the Pope's personal decision is ill luck, and wiping out all traces of considered superior to all written the transaction by going to the ope- authorities, and is without appeal;

21

dicious situations, where the south wind might be excluded, and by cultivating the soil, there is full evidence that the infection might be totally extinguished. But the Italians are not that people. They would rather smoke the worst tobacco in the world, sip the worst chocolate, breathe the worst air, and live under the worst government, than take spade or plough in hand, shake off their indolence and rags together, and send the priests and the pedants to legislate for the Esquimaux.9 puben &

I

Politics are much talked of in Italy; for they are like the Athenians in the days of their degeneracy, prodigious lovers of news, and settlers of the affairs of all mankind. But even their lovers of liberty do not understand what they are talking about. They sigh for Jacobinism, and have no more conception of a liberty which could gain its point without plunder, and live without unsettling the whole frame of society, than they have of an eruption of Vesuvius without fire, or a Pope without a nephew. The elections of the Pope are now mere matters of form. France has lost all her weight, or rather has contemptuously abandoned it; Portugal and Spain are still powerful in the conclave; but Austria is the great absorbent, she can make any Pope she pleases. She, however, is wisely satisfied with having the substance of power, without the shew. But day by day she is binding the Popedom more to her interests; she is beco

where law, in even its most judicial form, refuses all oral testimony, all cross-examination, and all confront ing the accuser with the accused; where the chief tribunals receive all anonymous accusations; where the salaries of some of the assessors are not above five pounds English a year; and, to complete the picture, where a lawsuit for half of five pounds may be driven from court to court for half-a-dozen years, our only won der should be, not that one half of the Romans are on the very verge of beggary, but that all Rome is not one aggregates of beggary, one mobi of mendicaney, one huge workhouse. And this it unquestionably would be, but for the influx of foreigners, and especially of the sEnglish, who go there to gaze, be robbed and be laughed at for being robbed. In fact, modern Rome has always lived upon strangers upon Popish strangers before the Reformation, and upon the Protestant English since. By a miracle worth all the miracles of their breviary, the Romans, on the strength of their heretic gains, are beginnings to glaze their windows, whitewash their pestilential cham bers, sweep their streets, and occa sionally wash their own hands and faces. But if a war should check the current of the English, the whole city will tumble into bankruptcy, Romes will be one grand Seccatura, and the habitual Italian physiognomy will be restored, squalid and unblenched as every But it is in the provinces that the misery is most palpable Theming more and more the habitual reStates dying on the Adriatic, Umbria, the Marca, and the Legations, by their great natural fertility, counteract the indolence and the poverty of their people. But their system of farm ing farms of thousands of acres, constant fallows, and interminable copses; for the food of the cattle in winter, and firing leave the cultivas tors in comparative helplessness. I is on the Mediterranean side, the Ma remma, that the system is completely felt. The whole is little better than a desert, though the soil is singularly fertile; but it is infected by vapours which render it unhealthyThis obstacle, however, might be soon overcome by a vigorous people, for the marshes are easily capable of be ing drained; and by planting in jus 39qqa idiw at basifiodios

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fuge of the Popes; and it altogether depends on Prince Metternich whether the next election will or will not see the last Italian privilege that of making an Italian Pope-nullified, and place an Archduke on the Papal throne. 9 10 967 2 Tuiti

f

o Ins these remarks on the Italian
character, it is spoken of only as
borne down by the vices of its go-
vernments59 If men live in a dun-
geon, they must have the habits of a
dungeon. If the Italian is
is eternally
surrounded by spies, he must be
either a spy or a victim. If his go-
vernment will give him nothing to
do, or will not suffer him to do any
thing for himself, he must be either
a thief or an idler, he must either
beg or carry a barrel-organ. By na-

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Quæque ipse miserrima vidi.-VIRG.

CATHERINE of Cleves was a lady of rank,

She had lands, and fine houses, and cash in the bank;
She had jewels and rings,

And a thousand smart things,... རྫ་ཨེངསྐྱེར་རྣལ་

Was lovely and young,

With a rather sharp tongue,

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And she wedded a duke of high degree,

With the star of the order of St Esprit;
But the Duke de Guise
Was by many degrees

Her senior, and not very easy to please;

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He'd a sneer on his lip, and a scowl with his eye,
And a frown on his brow-and he look'd like a GUY-
So she took to intriguing

With Monsieur St Megrin,

A young man of fashion, and figure, and worth,
But with no great pretensions to fortune or birth;
He would sing, fence, and dance

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With any man in France,

And took his rappee with genteel nonchalance;
He smiled, and he flatter'd, and flirted with
And was very superior to Monseigneur de Guise.

ease,

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Could conjure, tell fortunes, and calculate tides,

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Perform tricks on the cards, and heaven knows what besides,
Bring back a stray'd cow, silver ladle, or spoon,

And was thought to be thick with the man-in-the-moon.

The sage took his stand

With his wand in his hand,

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Drew a circle, then gave the dread word of command,
Saying solemnly-"Presto!-Hey, quick-Cock-a-lorum !"
When the Duchess immediately popp'd up before 'em.

Just then a conjunction of Venus and Mars,
Or something peculiar above in the stars,
Attracted the notice of Signor Ruggieri,
Who bolted, and left him alone with his deary.—
Monsieur St Megrin went down on his knees,

And the Duchess shed tears large as marrowfat peas,

When-fancy the shock!-

A loud double-knock

Made the lady cry, "Get up, you fool!-there's De Guise!" 'Twas his grace sure enough;

So Monsieur, looking bluff,

Strutted by, with his hat on, and fingering his ruff:
While, unseen by either, away flew the dame
Through the opposite keyhole, the same way she came;
But alack! and alas!

A mishap came to pass,

In her hurry she somehow or other let fall
A new silk bandana she'd worn as a shawl;
She had used it for drying

Her bright eyes while crying,

And blowing her nose as her beau talk'd of " dying!"

Now the Duke, who had seen it so lately adorn her,
And knew the great C with the Crown in the corner,
The instant he spied it smoked something amiss,
And said, with some energy,
D-n
-n it! what's this ?"

He went home in a fume,

And bounced into her room,

Crying, "So, ma'am, I find I've some cause to feel jealous.
Look here!-here's a proof you run after the fellows!--
Now take up that pen-if it's bad, choose a better-
And write as I dictate this moment a letter

To Monsieur-you know who !".

The lady look'd blue;

But replied, with much firmness, " Curse me if I do !”— Then De Guise grasp'd her wrist

With his great mutton fist,

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And pinch'd it, and gave it so painful a twist,

That his hard iron gauntlet the flesh went an inch in:
She didn't mind death, but she could not bear pinching;
So she sat down and wrote

This polite little note;

"Dear Mister St Megrin,

The Chiefs of the League in

Our house come to dine

This evening at nine;

I shall soon after ten,

Slip away from the ment,

And you'll find me up stairs in the drawing-room then.
Come up the back way, or those impudent thieves,

The servants will see you;

Yours,

Catherine of Cleves."
She directed, and sealed it, all pale as a ghost,
And De Guise put it into the twopenny post.

St Megrin had almost jump'd out of his skin
For joy, that day when the post came in :
He read the note through,

Then began it anew,

And thought it almost too good news to be true.
He clapp'd on his hat,

And a hood over that,

With a cloak to disguise him and make him look fat;
So great his impatience, from half after four

He was waiting till ten at De Guise's back-door.

When he heard the great clock of St Genevieve chime,
He ran up the back-staircase six steps at a time,

But had scarce made his bow

He hardly knew how,
When, alas and alack!

There was no getting back,

For the drawing-room door was bang'd to with a whack.—
In vain he applied

To the handle, and tried,

Somebody or other had lock'd it outside!

And the Duchess in agony sobb'd, “My poor chap,
We are cotch like a couple of rats in a trap!"

Now the Duchess's Page,
About twelve years of age,

For so little a boy was uncommonly sage;
And, just in the nick, to their joy and amazement,
Popp'd the gas-lighter's ladder close under the casement;
But all would not do-

Though St Megrin got through

The window,-below stood De Guise and his crew,
And though never man was more brave than St Megrin,
Yet fighting a score is extremely fatiguing;

He thrust carte and tierce

Remarkably fierce,

But not Beelzebub's self could their cuirasses pierce,

While his doublet and hose,

Being holiday clothes,

Were soon cut through and through from his knees to his nose;
Still an old crooked sixpence the Conjurer gave him,
From "pistol and sword" was sufficient to save him,

But, when beat on his knees,

That confounded De Guise

Came behind with the fogle that caused all this breeze,

Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backwards he'd jerk'd him,
The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burk'd him.
The poor little Page too himself got no quarter, but
Was served the same way,

And was found, the next day,

With his heels in the air and his head in the water-butt.
Catherine of Cleves

Roar'd" Murder!" and "Thieves!!"

From the window above

While they murder'd her love,

Till finding the rogues had accomplish'd his slaughter,
She drank Prussic acid without any water,
And died like a Duke-and-a-Duchess's daughter!

MORAL.

Take warning, ye fair, from this play of the Bard's,
And don't go
where fortunes are told on the cards!
But steer clear of conjurers !-never put query
To" wise Mrs Williams," or folks like Ruggieri:
When alone in your room shut your door to, and lock it;
Above all, KEEP YOUR HANDKERCHIEF SAFE IN YOUR POCKET ↑
Lest you too should stumble, and Lord Leveson Gower, he
Be call'd on,-sad poet!-to tell your sad story!

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