hastened after him, and pressed a most fervent kiss on his benefactor's hand. The mother and daughter were standing in the garden above the house, to watch the departure of their respected guest; they continued to follow him with their eyes until the neighbouring hill hid him from their sight. The clouds had broken, and their thin remains surrounded the azure space round the sun as with a silver wall. The rocky peaks of the mountains, with their varied shapes and sizes, looked like a row of giants, who, sitting, standing, leaning, basked in the sun after their stormy bath; from between the granite palaces and towers in the background sparkled the Glaciers, those mysterious labyrinths of ice and snow. The dark foliage of the forest wore a more cheerful green after the rain of the past night; the fading verdure of the Alpine meadows smiled as if at the return of spring; the rushing torrents alone, swollen and angry, revealed the recent war of the elements. Columns of smoke rose perpendicularly from the scattered farmhouses around and from the hamlets below; they seemed to tell of Sabbath rest and ease, enjoyed by the inhabitants of the valley; and our wanderer felt soothed in the midst of all his privations. Here and there he would stand still and look around him; rocks and woods, fields and hamlets-yes, the whole of the beloved valley of his birth, he impressed again upon his memory, that he might carry away the recollections of them as precious possessions to console him in his exile. They had advanced up the valley a considerable way; through fields and pastures, over brooks and chasms. Now emerging from a pine-clad hollow, they ascended a rocky projection overgrown with hawthorn, from whence, as they well knew, extended a beautiful view over the valley as far as the church. Platzer hastened eagerly forward. His first glance was directed towards his beloved home. He saw the cottage; he distinguished the window at which his brother usually sat; he represented to himself his mother and sister, as he had seen them the day before. No one came in or went out; all was solitary and motionless. Then turning his eyes towards the church, he exclaimed: "Ha! the soldiers! Do you see them? There, near the sun!" "I thought I saw something dark," said his companion; "but I could not tell if it was men, or a drove of cattle, or what." "I see the muskets and bayonets. The peasants are collected round. God grant there may be no bloody encounter! Now they are drawing off-do you not see? All! all! Cannot you see? They are going round that hill; they are already hidden behind it. I hope they are at last leaving the valley. Thank God!" "You have eyes like an eagle. Peter, too, can see people from one mountain to another, but I have been shortsighted ever since I was a child." Platzer now bid a last and fervent farewell to his home and friends, and then he and his companion continued their journey in the direction of the mountains, their path leading them over barren chalk rocks. 66 Anthony, what is it you wanted to say to me? Forgive me, but I had nearly forgotten." "Why, I have heard a good deal, and now seen something, of how our priests are persecuted; but I have no clear notion why they are so, or how matters really stand. No one could tell me better than you, if it would not be too much trouble." "Not at all, dear Anthony; on the contrary, your desire for information gives me great pleasure. But where shall I begin? what shall I tell, and what leave out? for to give you a full account of the whole would be too much both for my time and your patience." "Arrange that as you think best." "You know, then," began Platzer, "that the good king of Bavaria had promised solemnly to respect and protect all the existing rights of the Tyrolese, and particularly their religion. But alas, the protection that the Church received from those charged with the government was like that which the thorny bramble gives the poor sheep that seeks shelter beneath it." "Ah, I understand you. We heard about the bramble and the sheep in the sermon to-day, but Herr Frühmesser gave it a different meaning; the bramble was the world, and the sheep the soul. But I have interrupted you." "For the first year after the Tyrol was taken possession of, the Church was little troubled; but under cover of this seeming peace they were preparing to attack us. Suddenly decree after decree began to issue from the cabinet; they fell like destroying thunderbolts in the midst of all ecclesiastical discipline. The first decree was: 'All bulls of the Pope, and all episcopal acts, are for the future to be considered invalid and null, unless they have the royal confirmation.' "Then the king at the very first tried to get the pastoral staff into his own hands. He wished to be both Bishop and Pope." "Our opponents do not admit that. They, too, talk of the spiritual power in priests, which neither king nor emperor can possess; but they say that, as the clergy are but men, and misusing their high power, might make regulations prejudicial to the state; so the temporal prince, who is answerable for the weal of all his subjects, ought to have the right of overlooking them, and of preventing all that he considers hurtful." "But according to that, a Bishop, before he consecrates a priest, must ask leave of his temporal superiors." "In fact, the government has strictly forbidden the Bishops to consecrate any one priest who has not a testimonial from the head of one of the government colleges." "Then they place more confidence in the professors than in the Bishops.' "So it seems, indeed. The government even arrogated to itself the pastoral right of appointing curates and parish priests; the Bishops were to propose three priests, and the king was to name the one he preferred, or if none of the three suited him, he might choose whom he pleased from the whole ecclesiastical body." "But how can the king give spiritual jurisdiction, when he has not got it himself?" "Why, they say this: "That holy orders give to all priests power for every ecclesiastical function, and the king only marks out his post of action.' But the teaching of the Church is against this view. The Bishop does not only confer order, but also jurisdiction; and the priest can only become pastor of a flock by the authority of his Bishop." "But, Herr Simon, with this new arrangement we shall get royal governors in the place of spiritual pastors." 66 Exactly so; the Bishops themselves will be only looked upon as higher officials or state servants in matters of religion, as others in the affairs of war, learning, law, &c.; and as these latter receive their commands from the king, so, continues the decree, the Bishops are subject to the royal commands in spiritual affairs;' nay, they are even required to swear a blind unconditional obedience to the royal government, whatever it may command.'" "Ha! ha! why, a common subject may not do that, to say nothing of a prince of the Church. I for one would not do it." "The Bishops were willing to swear due obedience in all lawful things, but no conditions were accepted. The subject was to obey in every case, without exception." "Yes, if one knew one would be told to do nothing but what was right." "The Bishops emphatically protested, and appealed to the Pope. The Holy Father approved and commended their resistance, and exhorted them to stand firm. When the government found this, they forbade the Bishops to make any further appeals to Rome." "That is just what I said before; the king is now both Bishop and Pope." "At any rate, he will only tolerate the papal and episcopal power in his dominions so long as it will minister to the will of those who dare, with profane hand, to guide the bark of St. Peter." (To be continued,) Reviews. THE ROMAN REVOLUTION. La Rivoluzione Romana al giudizio degl' Imparziali. Firenze, 1851. (The Roman Revolution according to the judgment of the Impartial. Florence, 1851.) A TRUE and faithful history of all the events which have happened in Rome since the accession to the pontifical throne of our holy Father Pius IX., written ably and impartially, yet at the same time not without a definite political and theological creed in the mind of the writer, would be a most valuable and interesting volume; and such a one we had hoped to have found in the work now lying before us. We must con fess, however, to having risen from its perusal with a certain degree of disappointment. It is not that we have to complain of any want of impartiality in the narration of facts, nor yet the absence of any definite political and theological creed in the mind of the writer; on the contrary, our own personal knowledge enables us to vouch for the accuracy with which he has recorded by far the largest portion of the events which he describes, and we have every reason therefore to receive with confidence his account of events during the very short period that we were ourselves absent from the scene of action; whilst as to his religious and political creeds, he is evidently a most devout Catholic, and, we think we may safely add, a very staunch Conservative. But what we desiderate is, a clear and philosophical view of the rise and progress of the Roman Revolution considered as a whole, as one great chapter in the history of Central Italy; we want some insight not only into the motives of the principal agents, but also into the means whereby they managed to overcome the difficulties which stood in their way, and to enlist in their service the great mass of the people, who at one time were undoubtedly opposed to them, and whose opposition, had it continued, would have proved fatal to the accomplishment of their purpose. And here the writer of this "Impartial View of the Roman Revolution" seems to us to be singularly deficient. We give him credit for a conscientious adherence to fact as an historian; he certainly is not wanting in literary ability as a writer; but he scarcely seems equal to the task he has undertaken as a philosopher. He gives us the material rather than the moral connexion of the several facts which he relates; and thinks he has done his duty when he has shewn us their chronological sequence, without taking any pains to point out to us what is of equal, or rather of far greater import, their logical sequence. Perhaps, however, we ought rather to say that he has failed in this part of his subject than that he has not attempted it; for there are frequent references, in the course of his work, both to the celebrated Mazzinian programme of 1846, and also to other later manifestoes of that arch-revolutionist and of some few of his collaborators. In all cases, however, they seem to us to fall short of the purpose for which they are adduced; they are clear proofs both of the talent and of the wickedness of the leaders, but they furnish no account of the motives of the subordinate instruments, who yet were all-important to the success of the undertaking in hand. For instance, to give the most obvious example of what we mean, we can nowhere gather from this writer's pages whether he considers the Roman people to have lent themselves eventually to the designs of the revolutionary party because they were corrupted, or because they were deceived; yet this is surely a most important item, and one which should be clearly understood, if we would make either a right estimate of what is past, or a probable conjecture on what is yet to come. Again, we do not remember that he has any where referred-certainly he has not given sufficient prominence-to the disgraceful and almost incredible cowardice and want of spirit on the part of the Roman nobility, as one of the most powerful auxiliaries to the rapid development and success of the Mazzinian conspiracy. And so on with many other details; there is a general oversight, we should say, throughout the whole book, of all those numerous and most essential links which must necessarily intervene between the mind that originally plans, and the hands which eventually bring about, a great national change. The writer does not seem to us duly to appreciate the difficulties of a revolution; certainly he has omitted to explain to us how, in this particular instance, they were overcome. And yet it is precisely this very point upon which we should most desire to have accurate information. We may be interested as politicians in knowing something of the principles and projects of such men as Mazzini, Garibaldi, Armellini, and the rest, who enjoy an European reputation, such as it is, |