YOUTH'S YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER AND GUARDIAN. MAY, 1853. LEOPOLD II., ARCHDUKE OF TUSCANY. "LEOPOLD OF TUSCANY" is regarded by the readers of Italian history, as a very honourable personage. But this more honourable Leopold is first of the name, who reigned from 1765 to 1790, and grandfather of him whose notoriety just now engages our pen. The first Leopold, by that better use of power which absolute rulers are sometimes known to make, reformed the laws and judicial administration of Tuscany. When he came to the ducal chair, he found the laws partial, intricate, inconvenient, and unequal to the objects of legislation. Some were of the old republic, and by their contrariety resembled and represented the alternation of the domestic factions under which that republic fell. Some laws were for Florence, some for Pisa, some for Siena. Few of them were in force throughout the state. Law-suits were inevitably numerous; and no less inevitable were briberies, delays, ruin, of families, and feuds continued from generation to generation. Justice, agriculture, property, commerce, all things lay prostrate under the burden of iniquity and confusion. The first Leopold conceived a plan of reformation. He abolished several offices that every one condemned as being superfluous, if not manifestly mischievous. He suppressed privileges of persons and corporations that were inconsistent with the public right. He reformed the practice of criminal courts, abolishing torture, confiscation, secret trial, the Inquisition, and even capital punishment. And, in order to VOL. XVII. Second Series. K carry out his plan, he did not refuse to make a concession of some small part of his own prerogative. These things being settled, he employed two lawyers to draw up a new code of law for Tuscany. But when such persons pursue a course of this kind, two consequences are sure to follow. First, they will have great praise. Secondly, their improvements will turn out to be defective and impracticable, because they spring from impulse, rather than from the collective and gradually-acquired wisdom of a Legislature instructed by experience, and moved by the exigencies of a country. Of the Leopoldine code, however, we notice here one grave defect; and that defect is fatal,-—it is contrary to the law of God. The following Sixtieth Article is alone sufficient to confirm this accusation : "Whosoever, with impious designs, dares to profane the Divine mysteries, disturbing the sacred functions with violence, or otherwise commits public impiety; and whosoever publicly teaches maxims contrary to our holy Catholic religion, towards which we have always nourished, and will always maintain constant, our love and zeal; it is our pleasure, that, as a disturber of the order upon which society is maintained in tranquillity, and as an enemy to society itself, he be punished with the greatest and most exemplary rigour, nor ever with less penalty than public forced labour, for a time or for life, according to the circumstances of the case." A permission to foreigners to worship God according to their conscience, in Leghorn, was but a slight palliation of the wickedness of this law; and such a permission would often be a snare, rather than a protection, to the stranger: for how can a man, in any country, whose heart is full of the love of Christ, and his lips burning for utterance, how can he keep silence? But no sooner does he exhort a sinner, or endeavour to instruct one who is ignorant, or to reclaim one who is in error, than such a law condemns him as a disturber of the public peace. To this famous Leopold, after his brother, who survived him for a very short time, succeeded the Grand Duke Ferdinand III., who saw the general European war which ended in 1814. The present Grand Duke, Leopold II., is the son of Ferdinand, who was a man of some dignity and energy. But this Leopold was a common-place lad, of scanty intellect, and a very small heart. Perhaps he was amiable, or his education taught him to appear amiable, but he was heartless; and high notions of prerogative in relation to his inferiors, accompanied with a profound servility towards those who are higher or stronger than himself, now mark his character in its full development. The portrait that accompanies this article shows him at about the age of twenty; and, in comparison with that of his father, which lies before the writer, exhibits considerable degeneracy. If it were the purpose of the present paper to trace his career as Grand Duke of Tuscany, we should have much to say in confirmation of this judgment. At one time he would appear in the character of an absolute master, a complete regulus, cold and inexorable. Then again as a domestic man, kindly, loving, hospitable. Then he comes forth on the side of what is called liberal government, and endeavours to copy Pio Nono in the simulation of liberalism. At one moment he smiles on revolutionists, and at another he runs away from them. Now he courts popular applause; now comes home wretched because the people do not cheer him; now asks refuge on board a British ship of war; now implores counsel of the Pope, before he ventures to treat with his own subjects. His garb changes with season and occasion,-a tri-coloured cockade or sackcloth, according to the part he must perform. Some years ago, he seemed to be advancing towards a wiser mode of government. He formed the University of Pisa of what are called liberal men. What are called, we say; for in the chaotic state of Italy it has long been difficult to estimate character, or to ascertain the value of terms that have no certain meaning. But in the year 1846 he suddenly changed his policy, prevented everything like liberal study, and, after having repelled the Jesuits, at request of the University, scowled on the University, permitted the Jesuits to set up a seminary in competition, and banished every one who dared to murmur. Foreigners, according to the Leopoldine code, had been allowed the exercise of their religion, |