appropriately surnamed himself, has long threatened to make these islands the theatre of the same dreadful drama with which he stained the soil of Venice. A British parliament, indeed, unlike her pale, panic-stricken senate, will certainly Lot long debate, Which of the two to chuse, slavery or death,' nor will the hardy and courageous people of these realms suffer, without resistance, one blade of grass to be bent by the foot of an enemy. It is nevertheless useful that we should be well acquainted with the character of the foe who threatens us; it is useful that we should be informed of the conduct which that foe has adopted in countries where he entered as a friend, that we may form some faint and feeble conception of the basting atrocities that he would perpe tate here, if our dear native country were to be profaned by his hostile pre

Lace.

Disgusted and indignant as the reader this narrative must necessarily be at the treachery and tyrannous conduct f the French, he must, if he has the commonest feelings, merely the ordinary spirit of a man about him, feel equally disgusted and indignant at the base, the trackling, cowardly conduct of the Venetian government. In spite of his better judgment, he will be ready to exclaim, that such a government deserved such a fate: Bonaparte trampled upon it with ignominy, and the worm had not spirit to curl against the foot that crush

ed it.

The GREAT Council had the insufferabe meanness to sacrifice to the ambition Bonaparte their brave commandant of the castle of Lido, and the three inquistors of state, by an official note, which serves as a memorial of their baseness. They were arrested and sent to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, and to complete this iniquitous climax, immediately afterwards the gates of the Biombi prison and of the castles were thrown open to the prisoners confined for high treason!

The French had contrived to gain a very powerful party; in short, as the government was contemptible to the last degree, it could afford no security, and

could inspire no confidence. When the Venetian government had first begun to suspect the faith of France, among its measures for the defence of the capital, it had garrisoned the different ports with 12,000 Slavonians. The French had now contrived, by the publication of hand-bills, &c. in the Slavonian language, to spread among these troops a belief that their leaders intended to abandon them, and to deliver them into the hands of the French, against whom they harboured an implacable hatred. The furious excesses into which these deluded savages were urged, and which they threatened to perpetrate, produced a resolution that they should be sent back to their own country. An opinion that they were to be disarmed by their own officers, and delivered into the hands of the French, was the origin of this commotion among the Slavonians: from the removal of them, however, it resulted, that there were no longer any forces to man the flotilla, or to defend the capital, which was consequently exposed to the attack of the French from without, and of the supposed conspirators within.

Such was the panic of the Conferenza, a body of citizens who had filled the chief offices of state, and after the abdication of the senate, had assumed all the powers of sovereignty; such was their panic, that, with the exception of seven recusants, they signed away, the inde pendence of the republic to the insolent threats of the French secretary Villetard, notwithstanding that the Venetian deputies had obtained an enlargement of the armistice, and were at that very time in negotiation with Bonaparte at Milan, for the conclusion of an lionourable treaty! Among the many disgraceful conditions to which these reptile patricians acceded, were the following: "That the prisons called the Piombi and Pozzi be left open to the inspection of the people. That all prisoners, detained for any crimes whatsoever, be allowed new trials, and the punishment of death in all cases abo

shed. That the Slavonians be disbanded; that the city guards should depend on a provisory committee, the mem

The game of the valiant commandant of Lido was Dominic Pizzamano: the three inquisitors were Augustin Barbarigo, Angelo Maria Gabrielli, and Catterin Cornaro. We are informed in a note, that the government having abdicated its sovereignty, the trial of these victims was conducted by the patriots, who, in spite of the calumnies of Bonaparte, declared the inquisitors of state innocent. This however did not save them from an imprisonment of several months, and a heavy pecuniary fine. What the fate of Pizzamane was we are not

taformed.

bers of which were nominated by Villetard. That a manifesto be circulated announcing democracy, &c.; that the insignia of the old government be burnt under the tree of liberty. That four thousand French be invited to enter the city to guard the arsenal, castle, &c.; and that the Venetian fleet be recalled, after the entry of the French, on whom it shall depend, with the privity of the municipality, for the command and disposal thereof."

Such, among others, were the ignominious terms acceded to; and Condulmar, captain of the navy, having solicited from the Conferenza decisive instructions, in case the French should act hostilely against Venice, was, in writing, ordered, to avoid any opposition to their advances, and even to surrender the capital, only endeavouring to obtain such conditions as might somewhat mitigate the severity of so enormous a sacrifice.

throw off their gowns, lest they shoul be insulted by the rebels, others curse and trampled under foot their hereditary patrician insignia." The people of Ve nice, however, whilst the revolters wer shouting Viva la Libertà, joined not the outery, but opposed to it the shout whic had been consecrated by so many centu ries of prosperity, Viva san Marco, vin, Patriotism and rebellion now became c posed to each other, the passions of th people became excessively inflamed, and thiry thousand betrayed patriots wer anxiously and unavailingly seeking f one solitary patrician to give his influenc and direction; not a patrician was to be found; the doge had slunk from his p lace; and, after the fury of the populace was abated, the French took possession of the capital.

The concluding chapter of this melan choly memoir describes, in a tone of very animated and indignant eloquence, the infamous conduct of the directory to wards this subjugated, this dismembere republic. We have read the narrative before us with great interest, but cer tainly with emotions very different from. those which we experienced in readin the accounts which have been given v of the invasion of Swisserland by the French. The Venetians had no ALOY: REDING, to march at their head: they were betrayed and sacrificed by a d tardly government, which merited by its cowardice the ignominious fate it me with. Such a government could eliz no confidence, no respect: patriotism was discouraged, and the uplifted arm of the hero repeatedly palsied in the very act of striking.

The Conferenza, who, on the dissolution of the senate, were so eager to seize the reins of sovereignty, were in the moment of peril equally anxious to free themselves from the responsibility of their situation. They accordingly summoned-it was for the last time-the great council, on whose supreme will depended the dissolution of the aristocracy, and the sanction of the proposed articles. On the 12th of May 1797, this synod ratified the decree which annihiited the Venetian republic: the doge opened the assembly with a picture of the wretched and defenceless situation to which the capital was reduced, and conjured the members rather to remove the sovereignty, than expose them selves or their subjects to the danger of bloodshed! The moment that this act of abandonment was passed, the gates of the great council were thrown open, and the renegade members rushed out in the utmost confusion. "Some hastened to readers.

The narrative is uniformly animated; the historian feels warmly, and his sty though oftentimes too oratorically l boured, is certainly calculated to excre sympathetic feeling in a majority of

ART. I. Historical Outlines of the Rise and Establishment of the Papal Power, addresse to the Roman Catholic Priests of Ireland. Oxford. 8vo. pp. 140.

FROM the introduction prefixed to this little volume, it appears to have been composed for the purpose of detaching the Irish multitude from that excessive and dangerous reverence for the papal see, which has contributed repeatedly to disturb their allegiance, and which, how that the pope will always be under French influence, is become ad

By HENRY CARD, of Pembroke Colleges

ditionally dangerous among British sub jects. Dr. Geddes has indicated the line of argument, in which the catholic clergy can found, consistently with their essen tial principles, a strictly patriotic sect We huch doubt whether any one, not educated in the catholic schools, could have detected where the collar way best be unbuckled; or have suppl

the masterly bolstering of the apobgv.

The chief fault of the historical outline before us, is its extreme abbreviation. It professes to instruct the catholic priests of Ireland; yet it omits to detail the very gradual ascent to influence of the pastors of the principal Christian congregation at Rome: it neglects to detain attention on the pristine impotence of the successor of St. Peter, and to enumerate, With affected detail, the instances of disobedience to his authority, and of resistance to his supremacy. The greatest care ought to have been taken to mark the commencement of every assumption; because that alone can be resumed by a Christian public, which does not derive from apostolic institution.

The word pope is originally Greek, and sigaifies father: it was in early times apphed to all the elderly clergy, and especrally to bishops. St. Augustin, writing to his sister, says, "I think you possess the works of the holy pope Ambrose." St. Jerome, writing to St. Augustin, calls him the blessed pope Augustin. In the eighth ecumenical council held at Constantinopie in 569, all the patriarchs were called A. Gregory VII. in a council held at Rome, first ordained, at the close of the eleventh century, that the title of pe should be given to the bishop of Rome only. In the Greek church the ancient usage remains, and every village has still its own pope.

among ourselves, Pepin and Bonaparte among the French, sought and found, in the alliance of the church, an adequate prop for an intruded dynasty. Where usurpations are frequent, the church naturally becomes a stronger authority than that represented by the sovereign. In those perturbed times, when the mili tary chieftain of the district was continually varying or removing, the quiet multitude wisely sought for the fixed shelter of the church. Priestly power at that era was more subservient to peace, to judicial equity, to the definition of property, to domesticity, to plenty, and to public amusement, than the eternal feuds and wars of the barons and the kings. When not a nobleman could write or cypher, every village needed its notary public, and found one in the priest.

The conquests of the Goths, and next of the Lombards, in Italy, taught the Romans experimentally, how important it was to place the registers of marriage and the titles of property, rather under the ecclesiastical than the civil magistrate; under the party which retained the respect of every fresh conqueror, than under that which he plundered and superseded. Boethius might wish to revive the authority of the senate, and to trammel the gothic sovereigns with a parliament of civil lawyers; but it is probable that no force feebler than that of superstition could have given any laws at all to the barbarian invaders. The tacit consent of the wise went with the progress of ecclesiastical authority. Not the virtues of the popes, not the confidence of the instructed in the domineer ing persuasion, were the causes of that power; but its real and felt expediency then and there. After a third part of the lands of Lombardy had been distri buted among Gothic captains, who acknowledged no laws but these of their native pastures, what force was to call them to account for deeds of violence and rapine? It was only by giving to in terdict and excommunication, the wea, Ecclesiastical allegiance is always con- pons of the priesthood, an artificial va ditional: it is to be had at the price of lue, that these ignorant men of might professing and patronizing the doctrines could in any degree be subjected to the of the church, and at no other. As it public opinion of the wise. Such expe provides a numerous party of ready. riments were first tried with success on made subjects, it is of immense impor- the small scale in Italy, and were afters fance to upstarts and usurpers, who have wards applied with a prodigious bold, asually owed their stability to becomingness to whole empires, when the Italian benefactors of the clergy. Thus Con- missionaries had established concatenatstantine among the ancients, Henry IV. ed churches throughout the barbarous

The original cathedral of Rome was not St. Peter's, but St. John's church: it was this which Constantine endowed with some lands in Calabria, and on hose pastor he settled, out of the pubEc treasury, an income of a thousand marks of gold. In the fourth century there were already rival claimants of the episcopal see, antipopes, as cach called his adversary; and the income was so considerable and so splendidly employed, that the consul Pretexta, a heathen, declared in 466, that, if they would make him bishop of Rome, he would turn Christian.