but their present business was not to expatiate on generalities or speculate in abstractions, it was to descend to particulars, and to look at facts. When, at the opening of the century, the French had founded the Republic, they were 300,000 soldiers strong: now, said Mamiani, we have neither arms nor money: in France, at that time, the masses had risen to beat down the remains of the feudal institutions, and to better the social economy: here no honourable or early gains could be promised, with honesty, to the people, as an incentive to a desperate struggle. The republican flag would not work the miracles that were anticipated: Tuscany might perhaps singly imitate the example of Rome: but it would be more easy there to get rid of the old Government, than to consolidate the new: even in Tuscany, civil strife was likely on the most favourable supposition, no aid in men or money could be hoped from her. They should reflect, if the hopes of the Young Republic rested on the north of Italy, that in Piedmont the House of Savoy and the royalists were strong; they might with difficulty just succeed in disturbing that part of Italy under the very eye of the stranger, who would turn our squabbles to his own account, but never in subduing it for the Republic. What was to be hoped from France? The revolution was on the wane there just as elsewhere. Since, then, in Rome they could have no other Government than either the Pope's, or a Republic, and since the latter entailed certain jeopardy and mischief, it would be right, so Mamiani intimated, not to trespass upon the sove

reignty of the Pontiff, but yet, unquestionably, to refer the decision on the readjustment of the Constitution to the Federative Italian Constituent when assembled.

Masi then mounted the Tribune, charged with democratic heat. He was Canino's secretary and confidant, a youth with a fancy apt at versifying extempore; and he inverted the dilemma of the Pope or Cola da Rienzo, stated by Mamiani. He enlarged its scope, and said that, as the Popes were the scourge of Italy, they ought not any longer to wield temporal power again, that as the Popes were not to reign, and there was no dynasty of kings in Rome, nothing but a republic could take root there. The fortunes of democracy he said were certain: the Italian Constituent could have no better right than the Roman to settle the constitution: they ought to seize the occasion God had sent them, and to establish a democratic government. Mamiani's reasonings remained untouched, I mean the only reasonings really good and solid, such as the unfitness of our habits for republicanism, the instability of a raw constitution, the dangers of Italy, the decline of the popular cause throughout Europe. But Masi drew louder applause by his declamation, than Mamiani by his arguments. Loud plaudits, too, fell to Filopanti of Bologna, a mathematical professor famous for his crotchets. He said, that the fortunes not merely of three, but of twenty-four millions of Italians hung on the decision. of the Assembly; that these fortunes must be entrusted to "audacity," which this dwarfed ape of Danton thrice over invoked; then he moved for a bill

to declare the Popedom deposed from its temporal power; the guarantees necessary for the free exercise of the spiritual power they would give to the Pontiff, in concert with the other Catholic Powers: the form of the new Government was to be pure democracy, and the name "the Republic of Rome;" it would have for its direct purpose the moral and economical improvement of all classes of society; upon its relations with the other Italian States, the Constituent for Italy would supremely arbitrate. He then went on to enlarge upon the heads of the bill he was introducing. Jesus Christ had desired Peter to feed his sheep, and the Church of early times had obeyed the commandment, but had afterwards been contaminated by temporal domination; if the Pope sought to be independent, he should be neither sovereign nor subject; when the theocracy was overthrown, sovereignty returned to the people its fountainhead; the Republic alone would put the sovereignty into practice; the Republic would give a model, and an impulse, to Italy at large.

Cesare Agostini, who followed in debate, was a studious youth from Foligno, who edited the Contemporaneo newspaper. A few months back he had been anxious for a public appointment humble enough, but his ambition subsequently soared as the times darkened, and as Sterbini, who had named him deputy in his own department, rose. He, like others, undertook to criticise the speech of Mamiani, and was perhaps more happy in his efforts to dispose of it. If Rome, he said, had not the 300,000 soldiers of the first French

Republic, neither were the absolute monarchs of Europe so strong as half a century ago, while democracy was vigorous everywhere: if the other Italian States could not, or would not, follow the example of Rome, neither were they in a condition to attack or encounter her; should any danger impend, a word would bring the French Republic to the rescue. Carlo Rusconi of Bologna followed, on the republican side. He was a votary of Italian literature but of small mark: a journalist and writer of romance, as mild in temper as he was occasionally extravagant in his notions. The aim of his speech was to show that, if we trace the history of the Popes, it must be plain that their temporal power is incompatible with the welfare of their subjects, and with nationality; while the reference of so grave a question to the Italian Constituent must beget in the meantime an uncertainty highly detrimental. Sterbini, who seemed not yet to have made up his mind, then moved that the debate be adjourned, and resumed on the following day. After some discussion, it was determined to renew it the same evening.

At eight o'clock the Assembly was re-opened to the public, and the first speaker was Rodolfo Audinot, who after giving his interpretation of the sovereignty of the people, and pointing out the mischiefs and disorders of a theocratic government, sought to gain time, and to give the go-by to the difficulty, by recommending that they should declare any form of government out of the question, except such as should found its own authority on the basis of the sovereignty of

the people. He showed how dangerous it would be to follow any other course, and with much justice he enlarged in argument to prove that the question of the Popedom was neither Roman nor Italian, but interested the whole of Catholic Europe, whose armies they were in danger of bringing down upon them. He referred to the discord which a Republic would probably harbinger: and ended by moving, that the assembly should create a temporary Executive organ, should convoke the Constituent for Italy, and should place in its hands the decision on the form of government. After Audinot, Sterbini read his speech: he abused the Popes and the Bourbon of Naples, with plenty of big words about democracy and the power of the multitude; but when he drew near a close he hesitated, and proposed nothing. Then a certain Sisto Vinciguerra, a club-orator, lifted his stentorian voice, and repeated the repetitions of others: that Italy had ever been afflicted and lacerated by the Popes, that they had ever called in the stranger and been the worse for it, that the time was come to put a full end to their domination, to pursue a resolute course, to get out of their uncertainty: if risk there were in deciding against the Popes, the Constituent for Italy, to which some desired to make over the decision, would have that same risk to encounter. When Vinciguerra had done, Gabussi of Bologna took his turn. He was at one time a State prisoner, and was but little esteemed by his companions in misfortune, just as he had been previously in his native city, and as he was afterwards during his exile, and after