the departure and the journey of His Holiness, and with his arrival at Gaeta.

It will appear natural enough to all whose judg ment is not clouded by partiality, that Pius IX. should determine upon quitting Rome. Those who laid such a determination to the account of evil counsellors, either in their simplicity forgot, or in their hypocrisy pretended to forget, the blood-stained dagger of the 15th of November, the deadly violences of the 16th, and the vaunted triumph of the people. Could the worsted Pontiff bow in humiliation to such a loss of authority and dignity? Could he entrust himself, and his freedom as the Apostle and the Head of Catholicism, to the good faith of the men who stormed the Quirinal? When, on the evening of the 16th of November, he had addressed to the Foreign Ministers who surrounded him the words which I recited in the last Book, it is plain that he meant to invite them to aid him both by advice and action. The Duc d'Harcourt was the French ambassador, Martinez de la Rosa the Spanish, the Count de Spaur the Bavarian ; and the last, in the absence of the Austrian Minister, discharged the duties which belonged to that Legation. The Duc d'Harcourt, as a gentleman of a nature frank, generous and lively, with perhaps a dash of levity, as is common with the French, and of opinions sincerely liberal, besides his profound indignation at the outrages committed, felt a reverential commiseration for the Pope, and devoted himself to him accordingly, that is to say, both to encouraging him, and to procuring him encouragement from the French republic. Martinez de

la Rosa, as an upright and liberal-minded man, and a poet of vigorous fancy, was disturbed in mind, and heated in imagination, by that dismal sight of the Vicar of Christ chained to the car of a popular triumph. His Castilian pride, his poetical enthusiasm, his Catholic zeal, kindled into flame; and if amidst that redundancy of emotions he could listen at all to the dictates of political expediency, perhaps there may have shot across his excited mind the hope of deserving so well at the Pontiff's hands, as to incline him to those accommodations with his own

country which he had in view. Spaur, almost a Roman through long residence, fixed habits, and his Roman marriage, loathed the Italian revolution even before it had run into such excess; while as a German, an agent for Austria, and an anti-liberal politician, which he was, he had at all times caballed against it, as far as circumstances, together with cunning and practice in intrigue, which served him instead of knowledge and ability, would permit. His wife lent him the effective assistance of an ardent susceptibility; which, on the decline of her much-courted beauty, had betaken itself to the poetry of a fashionable and ostentatious devotion, and to the interests of the party which affects the name of Catholic. These foreign ministers were ready and devoted counsellors and allies: those of Italy were less acceptable and less available; Pareto, because now for some time the Court of Rome had borne no good will to the King of Sardinia, and because Pareto himself had pleaded with great force for the war of independence; Bargagli, the Tus

can, because the policy of Tuscany too was in disgrace, while he himself was taxed among the courtiers with being over accessible to the impulses of innovation. Ludolf, the Neapolitan minister, was absent; nor is it known to me what share the Legation of Naples took in the councils of the diplomatists. This, however, I can affirm, that if Pareto and Bargagli took but little part, yet they neither were less attached to the Pontiff than the foreigners, nor did they less commiserate his lot; but they were more alive to, and more afflicted by, the evils which impended over his dominions and over Italy. Padre Ventura, who acted as the representative of Sicily, sympathised with the Pope's calamities; and, warm as was his democratic and Italian temperament, he prognosticated evil from the violent subversion of the government. Castellani, a young man of a disposition as fine as his talents, which he had ripened with solid acquirements, was Envoy for Venice. And here I ought to say of him, and of his high-minded country, that in all the negotiations conducted at Rome they gave proof of rare prudence and virtue. Castellani had been dispatched into Central Italy near the end of March. Repairing to Bologna, he there obtained a grant of arms, and accelerated the setting out of General Ferrari for Venezia. In Florence he had assured Ridolfi, Capponi, and the other distinguished men who reflect honour on Tuscany, that Venice was prepared to make every kind of sacrifice for the common welfare. He then went to Rome, to promote an Italian Federation under the auspices of the Pontiff. Happening

to arrive there on the 29th of April, he prompted the Sardinian and Tuscan Ministers to recommend to Pius IX. the interests of Italy. Admitted, on the 7th of May, to an audience, he addressed the Pope in respectful and appropriate language on the gravity of the juncture, and was most graciously received and heard.

The provisional Government of the Venetian Republic had, on the 6th, framed the following address.

"Most Blessed Father,

"We trust that the afflictions recently heaped on the head of your Holiness may by this time be in some measure alleviated, and the conformity of the generous desires of your Holiness to the interests of Italy placed beyond dispute. When your Holiness shall be aware of the straits in which we stand, and how the arms, that have received Your benediction, are resisted by an enemy full of threats and cruelty, who makes religion to-day his tool, and to-morrow his victim, all hesitation will assuredly be at an end, and the voice of Pius will be raised in our aid with a compassionate boldness. War is already declared, nay, it already rages; to draw back would derogate from the dignity of that principle, so dear to your Holiness, which is the salvation of the world; while it would in no degree abate existing evils. We commend to the heart of your Holiness the thousands, yea, the millions of the guiltless who are in peril, who will be plundered, ravished, murdered, burned, by the impious foe: we commend the Priests, who, with the cross upon their breasts, have hazarded their lives in the name of Pius, and who would fall by the sword or beneath the axe: we commend the temples, whose desecration already has begun; and this land of Italy, itself one splendid temple of the living God, the residence wherein of the insulting stranger is but a standing blasphemy. Holy Father! we intreat your benediction.

"MANIN, President."

Venice was dear to Pius IX.; and Castellani had acquired his favour to such a degree that, when taking leave of him on the 27th of June, he obtained a rare proof of it, namely, that the Pontiff, on being requested, addressed the following words in his own handwriting to the Venetian government:

"MAY GOD GIVE HIS BLESSING TO VENICE, AND DELIVER HER FROM THE EVILS THAT SHE APPREHENDS'

(what she apprehended was, falling again under Austrian domination—)

IN SUCH MODE AS, IN THE INFINITE RESOURCES OF HIS PROVIDENCE, SHALL TO HIM SEEM GOOD.

27 June, 1848.

"PIUS PP. IX.”

Castellani returned to Rome in July; but when the union of Venice with Piedmont took effect, his diplomatic functions determined. He resumed them on the 11th of August, when, after the disasters of Custoza and Milan, Venice anew vindicated her independence and again he conducted himself officially with consummate prudence. After the events of the 15th. and 16th of November, he wrote as follows to the Holy Father:

"Most Blessed Father,

"Amidst the majestic sorrows which encircle the sacred Person of your Holiness, I am come, a sharer in their bitterness, to place at Your disposal my whole strength, whether for counsel or for action. As the organ of a people which has ever blessed Your name, and of a Government which amidst the bewilderment of these times has not forgotten to combine the development of the rights of the Church with that of