and, by a strange distortion of meaning, cited as a proof of the majesty of their ancestors.* The inscription was once in the Lateran, and is now in the Capitoline Museum. The horse was called the horse of Constantine, by mistake, in the time of Theodosius II. In the regionary of the eighth or ninth century, the Caballus Constantini is near the Temple of Concord, and was removed from the Forum to the Lateran in 1187, by Clement III. It was so much neglected when Sixtus IV. put it in a more conspicuous situation before the Lateran, that Flaminius Vacca, writing of it, says it was found in a vineyard near the Scala Santa, which has been mistaken for a disinterment, but it was never underground. Paul III., in 1538, transferred it to the Capitol. But what Winkelmann says‡ of a nosegay given annually by the senator to the chapter of the Lateran, as an acknowledgment of right, is not true. Winkelmann was also mistaken in saying that the man was not on the horse in Rienzi's time. Michael Angelo made the * Rienzi was not quite so ignorant as Gibbon has made him : he did not use the word liberty, but majesty. 'Signori tanta era la majestate de lo popolo de Roma, che a lo imperatore dare l'autoritate."-Ibid. cap. iii. Gibbon calls the table "still extant in the choir of the church of St. John Lateran." He evidently forgot, or did not know, that both this table and the horse were in the Capitol when he wrote. The author of the Fragments says that Rienzi was the only man in Rome who could read or interpret the table. + Vacca relates that, in his time, the Chapter of the Lateran claimed it, and had annual lawsuits with the S. P. Q. R. on the subject. Storia delle Arti, tom. ii. p. 395. * pedestal out of a piece of the architrave of the arch of Trajan. When Falconet was in Rome, he found many faults with this horse, but added, "Nevertheless, my horse at St. Petersburg is dead, but this is alive." ROMAN GOVERNMENT. The papal government is the jest and the riddle, but is certainly not the glory, of the world. The existence of such a system, even in a country where the welfare of the community seems never to have been considered, is a standing miracle. From the foot of the Alps to the extremities of Calabria despotism has assumed various shapes, more or less hideous, more or less offensive in the eyes of those accustomed to the enjoyment of liberal institutions. But there is something absurd and fantastic in the forms and the very external appearance of the papal sovereignty, which is not to be met with beyond the pontifical state, and the full ridicule of which can be felt only at Rome. A priest may become a throne no less than a woman, and Sixtus Quintus, in his way, was a monarch no less respectable at home and formidable abroad than our own Elizabeth. A perpetual succession of women would not, however, be tolerated by any nation; and since the popes have lost that influence in other countries which gave dignity and importance to their character, it seems unaccountable that some of the fairest * See Dissert. sulle Ruine, p. 410. portions of the Italian peninsula should be subject to the dominion of a priest, chosen by priests, administering his power by priests, and coming into contact with his subjects only when in the performance of his clerical functions. Even when at the height of their power, the popes (with few exceptions) maintained but a questionable authority at Rome either as men or as sovereigns. The Romans, fond, as has been said before, of their religion, have seldom been distinguished for attachment to the head of their church and state; and although there was a generous sympathy for the sufferings of the two last who bore the name of Pius, and a very natural aversion for foreign dominion, yet the salutary changes introduced by the French, and the present insignificance of the popedom in the eyes of Europe, must, it may be thought, have fully awakened the Romans to the humiliation as well as the misfortune of being subject to an authority different in its very nature and outward show from that of any portion of the civilized world. If, under this theocracy, there were a tolerably impartial administration of justice-if the lives, the persons, and the properties of the citizens were secured by any contrivance-it would be no great hardship to submit to the anomaly of receiving laws from the altar instead of the throne. But the reverse is notoriously the case; and there is scarcely a single principle of wise regulation acted upon or recognised in the papal states. Leo XII. visited hospitals and convents, and all eccle siastical establishments, at any and at all hours of night or day. He punished a baker who supplied bad bread to the poor of the Spirito Santo. This personal superintendence of the monarch was extolled to the skies by some worthy Romans, who did not see in such conduct an unequivocal sign of bad government, and who thought it quite a proof of generosity that the same pontiff should send a present of 200 crowns to the judge who presided at the condemnation of the Carbonari! The first principles of criminal jurisprudence seem as much forgotten or unknown as if the French code had never been the law of the land: a secret process-a trial by one judge and a sentence by another-protracted imprisonment-disproportioned judgments-deferred and disgusting punishments-all tend to defeat the ends of justice, and to create a sympathy with the culprit rather than a reverence for the law. Useless rigour or pernicious lenity-at one time a whole town razed to the ground for having sheltered robbers-at another a gang of the same banditti conciliated by a treaty with the Cardinal Secretary of State in person-suspected Carbonari hanged at Ravenna-convicted murderers pardoned at Rome— such were some of the consequences of the restoration. But this is not all. The revenue of the state, raised by a thousand independent, conflicting, and almost arbitrary authorities, impoverishes and vexes the people more than * Cardinal Wiseman gives an amusing picture of the surprise and awe created by one of these visits, 'Four Popes,' p. 262. it enriches the government. All taxation, all commercial regulation, seems to be the effect of some momentary whim or caprice, instead of such as can be anticipated by prudence, or made tolerable by skill and industry. Not long ago (in the reign of Leo XII.) an ingenious attempt was made to improve upon the prohibitory system by forbidding the importation of certain articles of the first necessity, which no home manufacture could possibly produce; a second edict exposed and remedied the blunder. The lottery is a fruitful source of revenue. The Roman and Tuscan governments entered into partnership for this pious purpose: the lowest stake was three baiocchi and a half; and, as if to make some amends for the immorality, a "povera zitella" has sometimes a dower given to her of 200 or 300 crowns. Efforts have been made to reform the judicial character by adding to the salary of the lawyers on the bench. The usual pay of the judges was about eighteen crowns a month: it was made two hundred, "senza le incerte," that is to say, with no allowance of those bribes and presents which were formerly not only connived at, but openly permitted to be given by the suitors in the courts. Of the criminal justice some notion may be formed by the fact before mentioned, of the sovereign transmitting a reward to the president of one of his tribunals for condemning the Carbonari who attempted a revolution at Ravenna. One of these was condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment, without prejudice, i. e. in addition, to a previous sentence of ten years of the galleys. The man was accused of |