Holy See the towns of Bologna and Perugia, in the year 1506. Ravenna was restored to the popes in 1509. Ferrara was similarly annexed on the extinction of the reigning family of Este in 1597. Urbino, which had been for some time an independent duchy, followed the example of Ferrara, on the death of the last duke without issue, in the year 1632. One principality only remained to complete the present papal dominions, and this had been a creation of the popes themselves. In the year 1534, Alessandro Farnese, whose name as pope was Paul III., detached nearly one-half of the "Patrimony of St. Peter," and erecting it into a "duchy of Castro," bestowed it, with the towns of Ronciglione and Nepi, on his natural son, Pier Luigi, and his descendants as a fief of the Holy See. The successors of Paul reluctantly acquiesced in this arrangement, until at length, in the year 1656, the grant was resumed; and so the benefactions of Pepin and Mathilda were realised and extended, and the south-western provinces were consolidated into a compact temporality.

Two hundred years have elapsed since the ambitious hopes of the pontiffs received their fulfilment in the extinction of the last independent authority within the territories which they claimed; and now again Christian Europe is called upon to review the manner in which they have executed their sacred trust, and to pass judgment on the wisdom and necessity of papal temporalities. The verdict of the population of the three northern Legations has been given; first, by the representatives of the upper classes, and next, by a nearly unanimous vote of the whole people, against the papal government, and in favour of annexation to the dominions of King Victor Emmanuel. While we write the news is fresh that the governor of the revolted provinces, Farini, the historian of Rome during the first years of Pius IX, has formally presented the record of the wishes of his fellow-citizens to the chosen king of the Italians. Sunday the 18th of March 1860 will always be memorable in the annals of the Papal States as that on which the King of Piedmont replied to the application of the Romagnoles: "I accept their solemn vote, and henceforth shall be proud to call them my people." The first step has, then, been actually taken towards the demolition of the pile raised with such prolonged toil by the Roman pontiffs as a memorial of their temporal pretensions; and we conclude our imperfect sketch of the past history of the Italian subjects of the pope with what promises to be the first chapter in a narrative of the "decline and fall" of the Papal Principality.

In estimating the character of the government of any people, its general result in the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the

governed forms no unimportant element either with the historical judge or the practical statesman. If this alone be taken as a test, the condemnation of the administration of the popes is certain and absolute. There are, however, other ways in which the subject may be discussed, from which some variety of opinion may arise. Are the grievances by which the disaffected subjects of the pope profess to be goaded to rebellion real and serious? Are they practically irremediable under any papal administration, and inherent in such a form of government? Is the papal government bona fide willing and ready to make the attempt at remedying them, and has the time gone by or not for such an effort to be practically successful? Lastly, Is the maintenance of the papal temporal dominion essential to the independence of the papal ecclesiastical authority? We pass by without further reference the affected juste-milieu of the Paris pamphlet, which, if seriously put forward, carries with it its own refutation in the necessity which it involves of a continued occupation of the city of the Cæsars by the forces of a foreign sovereign.

On the first point diplomacy may be allowed to speak with authority where the popular voice is disallowed. On the 10th of May 1831, "the foreign ministers, who were eager to bring the Pontifical States to a condition of durable tranquillity, combined in recommending and proposing to the court of Rome such measures of adjustment as they thought suitable," and presented a memorandum, which runs as follows:

"I. It is the opinion of the representatives of the Five Powers that, for the general advantage of Europe, two fundamental principles ought to be established in the States of the Church :

1. That the government of these states should be placed upon a solid basis, by means of timely amelioration, as his holiness himself intended and announced at the outset of his reign.

2. That such ameliorations, which, according to the expression of the edict of H. E. Monsignor Cardinal Bernetti, will found a new era for the subjects of his holiness, should, by means of internal guarantees, be placed beyond reach of the variations inherent in the nature of an elective government.

II. In order to obtain this salutary end, which is of great consequence to Europe on account both of the geographical position and of the social condition of the Pontifical States, it appears indispensable that the organic declaration of his holiness should set out from two fundamental principles :

1. That the improvements should take effect, not only in those provinces where the revolution burst out, but also in those which remained faithful, and in the capital.

2. That the laity should be generally admitted to administrative and judicial functions.

III. It would appear that the improvements ought in the first place to have respect to the judicial system, and to the municipal and provincial administration.

As regards the judicial system, it is believed that the full execution and the development of the promises and the principles of the motu proprio of 1816 would afford the most safe and effectual method of putting an end to the very general complaints respecting this most important part of the social organisation.

As regards the municipal administration, it appears that the following should be viewed as the necessary basis of every practical improvement the general reëstablishment and appointment of municipalities elected by the people; and the institution of municipal privileges, which shall govern the action of the bodies corporate, according to the local interests of the communities.

In the second place, it appears that the organisation of provincial councils-whether by means of the permanent executive council appointed to assist the governor of the province in the fulfilment of his duties, and endowed with suitable powers, or by any more numerous assembly, especially if chosen from within the range of the new municipalities, and meant to be consulted upon the most important affairs of the province-would be signally useful for introducing improvement and simplicity into the provincial administration, for superintending the municipal administration, for allotting the taxes, and for informing the government respecting the real wants of the province.

IV. The high importance of good order in the finances, and of such a management of the public debt as may give the security so desirable for financial credit, and may effectually contribute to augment its resources and secure its stability, appear to render indispensable a central establishment in the capital, namely, a supreme board charged with the audit of the public accounts for the service of each year, in each branch of the administration, both civil and military, and likewise charged with the care of the public debt, and having powers proportionate to its great and salutary purposes. The more independent such an institution shall be in its nature, and the more it shall present the marks of an intimate union between the government and the people, the more it will conform to the beneficent intention of the sovereign, and to the general anticipations. On this account we think that it ought to include persons chosen by the municipal councils, who, in union with the advisers of the sovereign, should form an administrative giunta or consulta. This body might or might not form a part of a council of state, to be chosen by the sovereign from among the persons most distinguished in birth, property, or talent.

Unless there were one or more central institutions of such a kind, intimately allied with the influential classes of a country so rich in aristocratic and conservative elements, the very nature of an elective government would naturally deprive the improvements, which will form the lasting glory of the reigning pope, of those guarantees of endurance, the need of which is generally and strongly felt, and will be felt so much the more in proportion as the benefits conferred by the pontiff shall be great and valuable."

Again and again, both before and after the events of 1848-9, the representatives of the European powers, acting on the best information which they could obtain as to the actual state of affairs, have reiterated their complaints and their recommendations as to the redress of grievances. Again and again the existence of such grievances has been admitted by the Holy See, and their redress apologetically deferred to "a more convenient season." This acknowledgment of the existence of evil, and this dogged persistence in the denial of its redress, are a sufficient answer in themselves to some of the points which we have just suggested. A strong à-priori argument might be also deduced from them as to the incompatibility of the government of ecclesiastics with the well-being of a state. An historian, distinguished by his almost frigid impartiality in estimating the great events of the past, has thus summed up the effects of the temporal sovereignty of the popes during the latter part of the middle ages, when their vast spiritual pretensions abroad had been curbed by the spirit and sagacity of European nations: "As the popes found their ambition thwarted beyond the Alps, it was diverted more and more towards schemes of temporal Sovereignty. In these we do not perceive that consistent policy which remarkably actuated their conduct as supreme heads of the church. Men generally advanced in years, and born of noble Italian families, made the papacy subservient to the elevation of their kindred, or to the interests of a local faction. For such ends they mingled in the dark conspiracies of that bad age, distinguished only by the more scandalous turpitude of their vices from the petty tyrants and intriguers with whom they were engaged. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, when all favourable prejudices were worn away, those who occupied the most conspicuous station in Europe disgraced their name by more notorious profligacy than could be paralleled in the darkest age that had preceded." We have no intention of drawing any parallel between the Borgias and recent occupants of the papal chair,-between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries; but the mass of corruption so long superincumbent on the body-politic of Rome could not but have infected the general spirit of the administration, and the effects of the earlier demoralisation of the popes has survived to obscure and render ineffectual the personal morality and good intentions of the weak pietist who is now the nominal head of the papal government. If we accept the vigorous periods of an eloquent pamphleteer, whose denunciation has had bestowed upon it the stamp of truth implied in an official suppression, the morality immediately below the chair of St. Peter by no means corresponds to the virtues of the holy father himself. The ac

cusations against the cardinal-secretary Antonelli may be true, or they may be exaggerated, but it is a very serious thing that such charges should be boldly brought against the chief minister of the representative of the apostles; and more than a doubt may be suggested by it whether a government which exposes itself to such imputations in its highest offices is likely to have conduced to the morality and happiness of the population subjected more immediately to its subordinate jurisdictions. If we are to believe the representation of the papal administration and of the papal administrators given by the author of the book which we have placed at the head of our remarks, a very decided corroboration will be afforded to our previous impressions. "I do not conceal from myself," says the ex-member of the Roman Constituent, "that the words of a proscrit, branding those who proscribed him, are open to suspicion; no doubt the pains of exile may mislead the mind and excite the soul, so as to produce a sort of mental vertigo, and passion may sometimes obscure the truth. But when the proscrit, without dwelling upon his own misfortunes, his own feelings, his own convictions, comes to tell of facts,-when he mentions dates, places, men, so as to afford to any one the means of verifying or criticising his assertions,-when circumstances and the general relation of facts afford a striking confirmation to these special facts,-when their character is such as to render it impossible to assign to them another origin,-when they are not controverted but simply denied, without any proof,—and when, lastly, no serious argument can be adduced to invalidate their moral significance,-it is impossible for any conscientious man to refuse his confidence to the writer. I shall not dwell at length on the particular circumstances in which I am placed; but what I am about to relate, and the just expectations of the reader, render some brief statement necessary. My family is well known both at Rome and throughout the Papal States; its position and its extensive connections have brought me from my childhood into intercourse with all the influential members of the papal government. I have heard all the high dignitaries of the church and of the government converse in my presencenot with that language of reserve which they affect in their official relations, but in the undisguised language of private intimacy. When I was scarcely seven years old, I began to be an attentive listener to these persons, and from that time my mind has received a strong impression from the strange things which I perceived-which instinctively astonished me when I could not yet interpret them, and which, on subsequent reflection, have filled me with horror. These impressions have not since been given the lie to. I might, indeed, have been deceived in my