again Nero, send us Domitian; their persecution will be more open; a secret poison consumes us, yet attacks less our lives than our courage. We have not the power either to live a virtuous life, or to die a glorious death. In short, all the fables you have read relating to Assyria, Babylon, the forest of Tartary, are in effect but a fable compared to our hell. Here we see another Nimroth with superb towers, another Semiramis, inexorable Minos, all-devouring Cerberus, the infamous Pasiphaë, and the Minotaurs; in a word, every horror imagination can paint. After this description can you believe the city the same that you have seen it? it is at once the most wicked and most miserable of cities; the resort of devils, the sink of debauchery, and (according to the prophet) a hell upon earth.”

If this celebrated author in his figurative terms flew too high, he was however right as to the affairs of Rome at that time; all writers agree, that that great city was reduced to a most deplorable situation. Justice was administered no more with freedom, the laws were no more put in execution; impunity rendered the guilty more hardened, and their outrages more clamorous. The great ones, always divided among themselves, agreed only in one point, that of deceiving the people, who fell always victims to their dissensions. Commerce languished at home; foreigners feared to go to Rome, lest on their arrival they should be hurt either in their lives or effects; the public roads were infested by robbers, and the city itself was the retreat of thieves; churches and palaces, destroyed by fire or misfortunes, lay, for want of money, in ruins. But the greatest proof of the misery of Rome will be found in our history.

Among the Roman nobility who had reduced the people to slavery, the two most powerful families were those of Colonna and Ursini. The ancient feuds between them would not suffer them to live in tranquillity in that city. The Colonnas were Gibelines, and the Ursini Guelphs. Their animosities were often stifled and stirred up after the absence of the popes, who had as much difficulty to pacify as to put an entire stop to them. The legate Bertram, archbishop of Embrun, could find no better expedient to bring. them to a truce, than nominating Peter Colonna and Mathew Ursini governors of Rome. Some years after, in the fourth

of the pontificate of Clement VI., in which Rienza was deputed for Avignon, their flames broke out again.

Clement VI. appeared to have no great regard for the Romans; they were not often the objects of his thoughts. If Mathew Villani is to be credited:" This pope was very liberal in bestowing benefices; he kept a palace truly royal, a grand table, a great number of knights and esquires, and a fine stud of horses. He loved to aggrandise his family, and he purchased great estates in France for his relations. He filled the vacancies in the sacred college with those who were young and scarce regular. He advanced to the purple others still younger, at the solicitations of his friend the king of France. He regarded neither learning nor virtue; ambition was sufficient. He was himself very well learned, but his behaviour was too free and gay. When he was archbishop he frequently passed his time away in gallantry among the ladies, and when he afterwards came to be pope he could not conceal his inclinations. The ladies of distinction entered his apartment as freely as the prelates; the Countess de Turenne particularly knew so well how to manage him, that in a great measure she disposed of his favours. He squandered away the treasures of the church, while the divisions in Italy gave him no concern."

I have quoted this character merely to show the ill-will the Italians bore Clement VI. I have found no other author accusing him upon account of the ladies; they all agree in his profuseness; his passion for raising his family, and promoting minors to the dignity of cardinals. All extol his popularity and clemency. There are no less than six ancient histories of his life, in which more mention is made of his virtues than his vices. "The peace of his subjects," says the author of the first, "was his principal study, to procure which he endeavoured at nothing more than a good correspondence with the sovereign princes of Europe, as is evident by the number of legates he sent to their respective courts. He interfered not in the wars of his neighbours, unless the rights of the church compelled him. His prudence in avoiding broils afforded him the more leisure to employ himself in the duties of the pontificate; he was very exact in holding consistories at their appointed time; his name seemed to have added to his natural clemency; so

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humane he never sought revenge on his most inveterate enemies. His goodness extended to all who applied to him it was very rare he sent any away without granting their petitions. He was exceeding bountiful to the poor, especially those whose modesty added to their necessities; he bore constantly in his mind the beatitude, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.""

To these excellent qualities others add learning, and a memory so prodigious, that whenever he thought fit, he could recollect every author that he had read. This singular talent, they pretend, was occasioned by a wound on the head.

It is to be observed, that at the commencement of his pontificate the Romans demanded of him three articles. First, that he seould accept for life, not as Pope Clement VI. but as Seigneur Peter Roger, the offices of Senator, Governor, &c. of the city of Rome. Secondly, that he should come and fix at the Lateran Church, the mother of all churches, and his proper see, so long deprived of the presence of its sovereign pontiffs. Thirdly, that he should. consider how few persons could enjoy the indulgence, granted an hundred years since by Bonifice VIII. and reduce it therefore to every fiftieth year. The pope at two months end answered their first demand, that he accepted of the govornment of Rome, by nominating persons to govern in his name, upon condition of their acting no way prejudicial to his sovereignty. His journey to Rome and fixing there, he put off under several specious pretences; that he wished it with all his heart, but could not at that time undertake it; the Romans took this as a flat denial, and were bitterly chagrined at it. Their third demand he agreed to, and published the Bull Unigenitus, dated January 27, 1343, in which he granted indulgence to the faithful who visited the churches of the holy apostles, and St. John the Lateran in the year 1350, and for the future every fiftieth year to all perpetuity. The comparison which Boniface VIII. made in his bull with the Jews' jubilee, gave this indulgence ever afterwards the name of jubilee.

We must observe further, that it was under this Pope, that the schism of Germany on the election of emperors was prosecuted with great ardour, and brought at length

great troubles both in the empire and the church. Lewis of Bavaria was elected in 1314 by five electors, and Frederic Duke of Austria by the other two. The Gibelines were for the former, and the Guelphs for the latter. Pope John XXII. issued out many processes against Lewis of Bavaria, who on his part penetrated into Rome, deposed the pontiff, negociated to no purpose with Benedict XII. and continued his hostilities to the time of Clement VI. The difference between him and the Popes, who looked upon the throne of the empire as vacant since Henry of Luxembourg, occasioned many pretensions on both sides. Clement VI. pursued the processes of John XXII. against the emperor, and pronounced a definite sentence against him by a bull dated April 13, 1346. He then caused Charles of Luxembourg to be chosen King of the Romans by three electors, having the same year signed some compacts with that prince at Avignon.

These troubles, without relating those of Nayles and Sicily, agitated Italy to such a degree, that the governors of Rome particularly seemed to possess rather an empty title than a power of making themselves obeyed. The discontent at the Pope's absence, and their reiterated denials to quit Avignon, caused perhaps a remissness. Stephen Colonna the elder, at that time governor of Rome, notwithstanding his birth, his credit, and the interest of his numerous family, of which he was chief, winked at an infinite number of enormities, either through an inability of suppressing them, or a fear of adding to the spirits of those, who were already too much irritated.

Raymond, Bishop of Orvieto, Vicar of Clement VI. at Rome for spiritual affairs, carried himself in much the same manner for the same reasons. He was a good prelate, a great canonist, strongly attached to the Pope's interest both spiritual and temporal; of an impartiality and integrity that on some occasions proved too delicate; but of a genius unfit for government, incapable of deceit, and liable, therefore, to be deceived by the artifices of every one who pretended the public good, which he had alone in view.

In regard to Rienzi, he was of a genius too difficult to define; his character will be much better drawn from his actions, than from any portrait we can find of him. He

had a singular mixture of virtues and vices, of good and bad qualities, of abilities and incapacity, which seemingly contradicting each other, he reconciled to a great degree. He was crafty and weak, bold and fearful, haughty and humble. A show of wisdom and gravity made him at first regarded as a profound politician; but his extravagant flights soon made him pass among men of sense for a madman, capable of the most rash enterprises. He had a natu ral timidity, which hindered him from pushing them on. His fierceness on a sudden was changed to baseness, and the most fortunate acts of his policy often degenerated to the most extravagant meanness. He was ambitious enough to conceive a design of a kind of universal monarchy. Eloquent by nature and art, he made impressions on the minds of those he spoke to, without distinguishing, or pretending to distinguish between their applauses and railleries: capable of bringing about a revolution, and setting up a tyrannic government, but incapable of supporting tyranny upon a lasting foundation. In short, he was one of those geniuses of a superior degree, which Providence at diverse times sends to be either a scourge or blessing to a nation.

Such was the man deputed to go to Avignon, and repeat the petitions of the Romans to Clement VI. to return to Rome. At his first audience he charmed the coum of Avignon with his eloquence and the sprightliness of his conversation; encouraged by success he one day took the liberty to tell the Pope, that the grandees of Rome were avowed robbers, public thieves, infamous adulterers, and illustrious profligates, who by their example authorised the most horrid crimes. To them he attributed the desolation of Rome, of which he drew so lively a picture, that the holy father was moved and exceedingly incensed against the Roman nobility.

Cardinal John Colonna at that time shone at the court of Avignon. He was a lover of real merit, as he possessed a large share himself. He was the Mecenas of Petrarch, and of every man of letters. Rienzi apparently began with particulars that displeased the cardinal; it is certain that that prelate was sensibly nettled at his invectives, which reflected, among the rest, on some of his family.

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