their effects. A yellow glass allows light to pass through it most freely, but it obstructs actinism almost entirely; a deep-blue glass, on the contrary, prevents the permeation of light, but it offers no interruption to the actinic, or chemical rays; a red glass, again, cuts off most of the rays, except those which have peculiarly a calorific, or heat-giving power.

With this knowledge we proceed in our experiments, and learn some of the mysteries of nature's chemistry. If, above the soil in which the seed is placed, we fix a deep pure yellow glass, the chemical change which marks germination is prevented; if, on the contrary, we employ a blue one, it is greatly accelerated; seeds, indeed, placed beneath the soil, covered with a cobalt blue finger-glass, will germinate many days sooner than such as may be exposed to the ordinary influences of sunshine; this proves the necessity of the principle actinism to this first stage of vegetable life. Plants, however, made to grow under the influences of such blue media present much the same conditions as those which are reared in the dark; they are succulent instead of woody, and have yellow leaves and white stalks,indeed, the formation of leaves is prevented, and all the vital energy of the plant is exerted in the production of stalk. The chemical principle of the sun's rays, alone, is not therefore sufficient; remove the plant to the influence of light, as separated from actinism, by the action of yellow media, and wood is formed abundantly, the plant grows most healthfully, and the leaves assume that dark green which belongs to tropical climes or to our most brilliant summers. Light is thus proved to be the exciting agent in effecting those chemical decompositions which have already been described; but under the influence of isolated light it is found that plants will not flower. When, however, the subject of our experiment is brought under the influence of a red glass, particularly of that variety in which a beautifully pure red is produced by oxide of gold, the whole process of floriation and the perfection of the seed is accomplished.

Careful and long-continued observations have proved that in the spring, when the process of germination is most active, the chemical rays are the most abundant in the sunbeam. As

the summer advances, light, relatively to the other forces, is largely increased at this season the trees of the forest, the herb of the valley, and the cultivated plants which adorn our dwellings, are all alike adding to their wood. Autumn comes on, and then heat, so necessary for ripening grain, is found to exist in considerable excess. It is curious, too, that the autumnal heat has properties peculiarly its own,—so decidedly distinguished from the ordinary heat, that Sir John Herschel and Mrs. Somerville have adopted a term to distinguish it. The peculiar browning or scorching rays of autumn are called the parathermic rays: they possess a remarkable chemical action added to their calorific one; and to this is due those complicated phenomena already briefly described.

In these experiments carefully tried, we are enabled to imitate the conditions of nature, and supply, at any time, those states of solar radiation which belong to the varying seasons of the year.

Such is a rapid sketch of the mysteries of a flower; "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

Under the influence of the sunbeam, vegctable life is awakened, continued, and completed; a wondrous alchemy is effected; the change in the condition of the solar radiations determines the varying conditions of vegetable vitality; and in its progress those transmutations occur, which at once give beauty to the exterior world, and provide for the animal races the necessary food by which their existence is maintained. The contemplation of influences such as these realizes in the human soul that sweet feeling which, with Keats, finds that

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Its loveliness increasing, it will never Pass into nothingness, but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

"Such the sun and moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils, With the green world they live in."

IN our preceding remarks on Italy, and on the men who are likely, from their abilities or position in society, to exercise an important influence upon her destiny, happy or sinister, according to the principles by which that influence may be directed, we have endeavoured to account for the apathy which England in general has shown towards Italian affairs, by presuming that she is in reality little acquainted with them in their true aspect; and that in proportion as she shall be enabled to form an impartial judgment of them, she will extend to the Italians that generous sympathy which she never long withholds from any cause that she sees to be based upon justice and honour. Indeed, to be utterly indifferent to the welfare of Italy, to the physical comforts and moral happiness of her gifted children, would be to evince ingratitude for all the refinements, social and intellectual, for which Europe is indebted chiefly to her, who has been to modern ages all that Greece was, to surrounding countries, in the days of paganism.

Before, then, we resume our biographical sketches of Italy's "Foremost Men," we will give a brief statement of the circumstances that have called forth the energies of those men; what they are in search of, what they require, what they wish for; whether they have a right to demand it, and, if refused, to endeavour to obtain it; leaving the delicate question of "how?" the modus operandi, for discussions more purely political than we pretend to enter into.

All historical evidence, as well as the daily experience of civilized society, will bear us out in the assertion that a country can only be happy and prosperous, intellectually, morally, and physically, in proportion as it is justly, wisely, and virtuously governed. Under a tyrannical government, the national character, however happily it may have been endowed by nature, must deteriorate, physically or morally; almost invariably it does so in both respects. An oppressed people, forbidden to give utterance to their complaints, to assert their rights as rational beings, gradually succumb to brute force, and take refuge in sensuality and the vices invariably attendant upon it. Under this sort of régime, however, whole nations would finally disappear from the face of the earth, did not the wisdom of Him who rules over the whole of it decree, that even

among the most degraded and abject there should always be found, when most needed, some master spirits, who, rising above the trammels that surround them, not only shake off their own fetters, but turn all their energies to the relieving of others also from them. They look around-they call on their more fortunately situated fellow-creatures for aid-and shall not the call be responded to? Yes, surely; as long as that sacred bond of sympathy exists by which the human race is held together. But they must show their claim to this sympathy. They complain-they must show their complaint to be well founded.

"Thrice is he arm'd who hath his quarrel just." and in England, at any rate, none but a just quarrel will find champions. Let us then ascertain, if we can, how far the quarrel of the Italians with their rulers is just. They complain of their government-is their complaint just? Let us inquire. We will not go back century after century, through the annals of oppression and misrule: where is the country that could not show the same, at one period or other? No: "let by-gones be by-gones;" excepting as far as occasional reference to them may be useful, from the prudential consideration that what has been may be again, if not guarded against in good time. So for the present we will confine ourselves to the present, and limit our inquiries into the actual estate and administration of "Imperial Rome;" for if absolutism be any claim to that proud title which she once assumed, she has as good a right to it now as Imperial Paris may have, under the fiat of her wonder-working dictator.

In considering modern Rome, however, we cannot help referring to ancient times; for this very good reason, that, with respect to her constitution, she has nothing modern in her whole composition.

The Roman government is at this moment, as it has ever been, a government entirely sur generis, and therefore difficult to be comprehended by any one unacquainted with its internal principles. All other governments in the world are changeable, according to times and circumstances, and are reformed or modified, according to the different conditions of different generations; for, as reasonable governments, governing rational beings, they aim at benefiting civilisation, by keeping pace with

civil progress. The Papal government alone maintains other principles: pretending to derive its existence, and its consequent claims to implicit deference and passive obedience, from the divinity of the Word of God, and the sanctity of Christian revelation, it professes to be immoveable, immutable, and infallible; and hence it of necessity abhors all change-at least all change from bad to better; though from bad to worse it by no means sets itself so obstinately against.

Many governments, aiming at absolutism, have promulgated the doctrine that the right of ruling is conferred by God; but none of them have ever carried this divine right so far as to attest that the laws framed by themselves were unalterable, as descending from on high. To the Papal government alone, belongs this monstrous and absurd falsehood. Its civil legislation consists in a heterogeneous mixture of sundry ancient Roman laws, such as are contained in the digest of the Justinian code and the Pandects. How is it to be expected that decrees and regulations promulgated centuries ago, under totally different forms of government and states of society, can be equally applicable to the manners and requirements of the present generation? These laws, moreover, are subjected to all the modifications of the Canon law, which is declared to be of so far more noble a character than any other, as to be held supreme in the Roman states. Let us then see what this redoubtable law is, and in what its excellence may consist.

In remote ages, times of barbarism and ignorance, the Church, and especially the Roman Curia, undertook to decide and decree in lay affairs—a right which properly belongs solely to the civil government; these decisions and decrees were put forth sometimes by the Roman Pontiff, sometimes merely by individual bishops: they were first formed into serial order by the monk, Gratian, in 1050; they were thus continued by Raimondo di Pennaforte, in 1230; by Clement V., and John XXII. in 1317; these were respectively termed Decretali, Clementine, and others more recently, and we may add more appropriately, Stravaganti.

It is these united decrees that form the Canon law, through which the popes, in the middle ages, ventured upon every kind of usurpation; even so far as to declare themselves supreme judges, and absolute masters of ali monarchies, and the rightful sovereigns and lawful distributors of all newly discovered territories. This law, according to the assertion of the Church of Rome, is sacred, immutable and unalienable because it is not derived

from human reason, and the contingencies of the age, like other human legislative systems, but from an anterior divine right, from the very source of religious authority and faith, from Christianity itself. It is the unjust pretensions founded upon it that have kept the Papacy in a continual struggle with the whole of civilized Europe for the last five centuries. Science, reason, and progress have constantly resisted it, as an obstinate and inveterate enemy; and civilization has so far overthrown it, everywhere else, that we have been obliged to enter into this account of it, as it yet exists, in its last stronghold, Rome, in order to make the influence it still maintains there, and its effects upon the unfortunate people still subject to its rule, evident to our readers.

In all civilized countries, it is a grand and fundamental axiom, that in the eye of the law all men are equal. But, according to the Canon law, a priest is held to be so far elevated above his fellow-creatures, as not to be subject to the common judgment of an ordinary tribunal. A priest or clerk, therefore, only depends on his bishop, or on the ecclesiastical authorities. This privilege extends not merely to his personal safety, but to his property and interests also; not only his ecclesiastical benefices, but likewise his private fortune, hereditary or acquired. Hence, a layman, who is unfortunate enough to have a clerk or priest for his debtor, cannot summon him before a civil tribunal, but only before that of the bishop, or some other ecclesiastical authority: these worthies, again, being ignorant themselves of the law, are obliged to keep an auditor, who is nominally paid with a pittance miserable enough, but who generally manages to make himself amends for its deficiencies by his power over the fortunes and properties of the citizens, thus submitted to him, instead of, as they ought to be, to the collegial tribunals which were introduced into the Papal States, under the government of the regno Italico, or kingdom of Italy.

This absurd and much abused privilege of the Canon law, carries its claims so high as to assert a retrospective influence on such individuals as may formerly have been clerks, and have afterwards assumed the secular garb; and if any public company or society should be found to contain one single clerk or ecclesiastic, any lawsuits connected with that company or society, either as plaintiffs or defendants, even if entirely of a commercial nature, must be submitted to the ecclesiastical tribunal, which has the absolute power of decision on the case; although, by the Canon law itself, priests are forbidden to interfere in commercial matters, in

any way, directly or indirectly. By a still more extravagant regulation, neophytes and Jews are also required to plead before the ecclesiastical tribunals, in purely lay and civil suits.

In order to understand the full importance of this abuse, which continually gives rise to contrary decisions between the civil courts and the episcopal tribunals, it is necessary to recollect the enormous extent of ecclesiastical property in the Roman States, and the great number of young men who assume the clerical garb, in order that they may enjoy the privileges annexed to it: and if even the humblest grade of the ecclesiastical order thus derive advantage to themselves, individually, over their fellow-citizens, it may easily be imagined that the higher the grade, the more offensively unjust these advantages become. A cardinal, for instance, can never be summoned, even before an ecclesiastical tribunal, for any debt, contract, or obligation whatsoever; unless, like the Irishman, in the more pleasing case of matrimony, he "gives his own consent;" and this consent is only to be obtained by sending a petition for it to the office of the secretary of state. Would such proceedings be tolerated in England? would they be tolerated in France, even under the paralysing effects of the late coup d'état? would they, in short, be tolerated in any civilized country in the world? What then are we to think of the restoration of such a system of law, under the force of French arms! Nor let it be thought that we are speaking of things obsolete, or abandoned-the forgotten abuses of former ages-we can bring forward too many instances of their present actual existence, in all their original force. Cardinal Cesari, for example, Bishop of Jesi, was, according to a very emphatic phrase of common parlance, "over head and ears in debt," but it was only after many and repeated petitions on the part of his unfortunate creditors, that he could be summoned; nor did they even then derive any benefit from the success of their perseverance; for though his "Eminence" acknowledged his debts, he declined to liquidate them; and as his person was sacred, in virtue of his rank, his creditors had no other remedy open to them but that of seizing his property: and even this was somewhat in the predicament of that proposed by the rats in council, in the fable, that a bell should be hung round the neck of the cat that worried them, to give notice of his approach : but "who was to bell the cat?" and who was to serve the warrant? Not a single bailiff throughout the whole territory of Jesi could be

found sufficiently courageous to carry it into execution; for every one was aware that the Bishop could reply to it by immediately ordering the arrest, under any pretext whatsoever, of the individual who might have the hardihood so to do. At length a bailiff in a neighbouring diocese undertook the office, and presenting himself before the Cardinal, courteously begged leave to know on what part of his property his Eminence would prefer the execution to be made. The Cardinal ironically offered him his episcopal crozier, which the prudent bailiff declined, as being a sacred object; his Eminence then, not to be behind-hand in courtesy, politely advised him to lose no time in getting out of the diocese of Jesi, as quickly as he could; as he might otherwise find himself provided with lodgings in it, longer than he had either anticipated, or might desire, even though rentfree,-in gaol.

To avoid, however, any appearance of invidiousness in selecting a single example of this kind, we will lay one more before our readers, from the number that we could cite, if called upon.

Cardinal de Gregori, Penitentiary of Holy Church, hired the Palazzo Mignanelli from its proprietors of the same name. They were wards, in straitened circumstances. Nevertheless, the Cardinal only paid them four hundred scudi, for a palace which now produces four or five times that sum; but, his Eminence, on entering, took the precautionary measure of obtaining a rescript from the pope, that the rent should not be increased during his natural life; nor could he ever be summoned for the arrears of it, even at that inadequate rate; partly through fear of incurring his displeasure, and partly through the privileges he enjoyed in virtue of his rank. It was still worse at his death, for a body of priests belonging to the Penitentiary Office had interest enough to get it established in the palace, and as the institution was one of the very many "declared to be dependent only on God, and as such not subject to the summons of any human tribunal," they persisted in retaining possession of the premises, despite the remonstrances of the proprietors, who at last drove them out by the ingenious device of planting a body of bricklayers and whitewashers upon the common staircase, not to "repair and beautify," but to bespatter the ascendants and descendants with mortar, and whitewash them, as they passed.

It may be difficult, in our fortunate land of justice and equity, to believe in the existence of such disorderly proceedings in any country pretending to the administration of a civil

government; but we have yet more arbitrary measures to relate.

We have just shown how the Canon legislation sanctions all these acts of injustice, which are declared to be sacred, unalienable privileges, derived from the very essence of Christianity itself. Sometimes, however, it happens that these very arbitrary and exorbitant laws are not respected by the executive power. One of the means resorted to for the alteration of them is the issuing of declaratorie, or declarations assuming the force of laws, from the office of the secretary of state. If, for instance, a legal question be in discussion between two litigants, the secretary of state, by a declaration of the law, obliges the tribunal to decide in favour of the party who may have the strongest interest at court; and this power, again, gives rise to a world of arbitrary and unjust decisions. A single example will suffice to exhibit its effects; and this example we will select from the time of Gregory XVI., when ministerial despotism was at its zenith. A declaration was obtained upon a petition of a litigant party, from the secretary of state, cutting the matter short in favour of the applicant, in direct opposition to the opinion of the Rota Tribunal. The tribunal, however, stuck to its decision, maintaining that in this instance the good faith of His Holiness and the secretary of state had been abused. On this, a new declaratoria appeared, in the name of His Holiness, stating that he had not been deceived at all; and this, again, was followed by another decision of the Rota Tribunal, confirming its first sentence, on the supposition that His Holiness would not decide upon a question reserved for the sacred tribunal. This courageous conduct was finally sanctioned; but for one such instance of independent justice there are hundreds to the contrary, especially in the inferior tribunals, which would never dare to enter into a contest of the kind.

Another mode of exercising arbitrary decision is by papal rescripts. By a papal or most holy rescript, as it is termed, though in most instances the epithet unholy would be much more appropriately applied, Count Menaldo Leopardi, a man of extremely bad conduct, and of a character altogether opposite to that of his estimable son Giacomo, the celebrated letterato, was authorized not to pay his debts, for a certain number of years, during which term his creditors were forbidden to commence or prosecute any suit or action against him: the consequence of which was that many of these unfortunate creditors were put to the greatest inconvenience, embarrass

ment, and loss; one of them, indeed, was utterly ruined, and finally thrown into prison, in consequence of being thus long deprived of the sums due to him from his noble debtor.

Much about the same period, Cardinal Lambruschini, then secretary of state, by virtue of one of these same most holy papal rescripts, cancelled and erased from the sacred mortgage register a mortgage on the Caffarelli Palace, made over to the Hereditary Prince of Prussia, as security for the sum of twenty thousand scudi, advanced by his Royal Highness, and of which he was thus wronged upon some frivolous accusation of Protestant propagandism.

We cite these two instances in order to show the height to which ministerial despotism may be carried in matters of civil justice in Rome. We do not mean to say that such very flagrant ones are of frequent occurrence; but examples daily present themselves of rescripts, termed interdictions of administration, which, at the good pleasure of the most holy auditor, deprive honest citizens of their civil rights, frequently without any ground or motive whatsoever being alleged for so doing, and often honourable advocates and solicitors are suspended from the exercise of their professional functions by the police, solely for having defended the rights of persons thus aggrieved.

But if civil justice be thus arbitrarily interfered with by the ecclesiastical authorities in the Roman States, what shall we say of the administration of the criminal courts, which, at this most calamitous period more especially, are stained with cruelties and atrocities fully equalling those dragged forth from the dungeons of Naples, by the manly feeling of Mr. Gladstone, and by him held up to the just indignation of all who lay claim to humanity, or possess one spark of feeling for the sufferings of their fellow-creatures.

Every citizen of the Roman States is liable to be imprisoned at any moment, and without any charge against him being specified, by one or all of five different authorities. First, by the legate or delegate of the province in which he may reside; secondly, by the director of the police; thirdly, by the commander of the political force, or gendarmarie; fourthly, by the bishop or cardinal-vicar; fifthly, by the father inquisitor. We do not speak of civil or criminal tribunals, because they, when the arrest of an individnal is agreed upon, at any rate follow the regular course of justice, by serving a warrant in due form, and alleging some reason for it; whether that reason be really a true one, or only a pretext suited to the occasion.

The length of these arbitrary detentions is