Switzerland from this Bishopric was not prevented.

"Prostrate at the consecrated feet of your Holiness, with a fixed, and most devoted kiss, we most humbly supplicate your Apostolical Benediction.

"Your Holiness's most humble and

Feb. 1, 1815.

"most obedient servants, "The Senior and the Capitular Canons of the Catholic Church of Constance."

This spirited remonstrance appears to have embarrassed the Pope and his Council not a little.

A

year and half elapsed before any notice was taken of it. At length, determined not to retract, a haughty and imperious Papal Brief was sent to them, Sept. 7, 1816, thus censuring their conduct:

"With great grief, we perused your Letter, full of complaints, in which you mentioned not only a mandate against that separation, transmitted by your order, to the said Cantons and their Clergy, but even a solemn act, by which you appealed to us, as ill informed, and requiring to be better informed."

"Truly, we shuddered in perusing these acts, and inwardly grieved that you were so miserably carried away, that, forgetting the reverence due to us and to our prescriptions, you did not blush to

combat them publicly, and to declare null, void, and of no effect, the measures that were taken to carry them into execution. - In consequence of such great contempt of the Apostolic See, we are compelled to apply the power granted to us by God; lest we should be accused of acting contrary to the rule of the paternal sanctions of St. Peter, and of forsaking the cause of his See:– we therefore consigned to the consideration of some of our venerable brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Empire, the Mandate of the ProVicar Reininger, dated Jan. 31, 1815;—and also the Act of Appeal, framed by him the same day, in your name. When, therefore, after mature examination, they were found to contain propositions, both in their obvious sense and in their tendency respectively false, pernicious, hurtful to the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and at least erroneous; by the advice of these our venerable brethren, We do, of our certain knowledge and Apostolical power, condemn and reprobate them, and declare that they shall be for ever held as condemned and reprobated; and both them, and whatever thence shall in any way be appointed or done against our decrees, either at present, or in future, we decree to be absolutely null, void, invalid, unjust, vain, and void of force and effect; and as far as may be necessary, we do, by the same authority, rescind and annul all the aforesaid acts, and will them to be of no force.

"Moreover, to remove and punish the scandal by which you have done so great an injury to the Apostolic See, we should have recourse to the remedies proposed by the Sacred Canons, especially by the two constitutions of John xxii. the one beginning with Salvator Noster, the other with Nuper; but that paternal charity with which we incessantly embrace you, restrains us from applying the same; and at the same time inspires hope, that when you have seriously weighed the heinousness of your misdeeds, ye may repent, and by a prompt, ingenuous, salutary reformation, retract your mandate and appeal."

This brutum fulmen having no effect on the hardened minds of the Chapter, His Holiness, as a last effort, endeavoured to prevail on the Duke of Baden to sanction the separation, in his forementioned Letter of May 21, 1817, complaining of Wessenberg; which he sent by the Archbishop of Chalcedon, Apostolic Nuncio in Switzerland.

But his Serene Highness, in answer, June 16, 1817, objected to the separation, on the ground of the New Arrangements of Germany, settled by deputation, Feb. 25, 1803; alleging that the Swiss Commissioners had claimed, and actually obtained from those of Baden, Feb. 6, 1804, the sum of 300,000 florins, from the Revenue of the See of Constance, for endowing a Bishopric and Cathedral in the Swiss territories; but still subject to Constance as the Mother Church.

Such are the ill-judged and unavailing efforts of the present bigoted and pertinacious Pontiff to establish the pretended rights and ancient usurpations of the See of Rome. Though "fallen from her high estate," the Court of Rome still seems incapable of moderation; and, as judiciously remarked by the Bavarian Attorney-General, Rudhart, in an Introduction prefixed to the English Translation of the Correspondence, dated Aug. 1, 1818, "The spirit of the Papacy remains unaltered through a series of ages, in spite of the change manifested in the spirit of the times. It has, on the one hand, no longer the darkness of earlier centuries for ally; while, on the other, opponents of a different mettle are to be faced. Formerly the Popes, supported by the People and the Clergy, entered the list against Sovereigns only; now the People themselves, joined with their Princes and Clergy, form fearful odds; and these three, assailed by the Papal See, will, through the obstinacy of their opponents, in the end, feel induced and compelled to settle their Ecclesiastical concerns among themselves without Roman interference."-Introduction, p. 18.

SUIS ROMA IPSA VIRIBUS RUIT.

"Rome herself, by her own efforts,
Is falling to ruin.”

In Germany, at least, the Reformation begun by Luther, is likely to be completed by Wessen

berg.-All Germany is in expectation, awaiting in anxious suspense the issue of this contest."The fate of Rome, as an Ecclesiastical Power, is now suspended in the balance; perhaps at this moment, it is already determined, or secretly understood at least among the august members of the HOLY ALLIANCE, composed of the three leading Christian persuasions. They have, with the aid of Divine Providence, succeeded in hurling the Political Tyrant from his throne, and restoring the Civil Liberties of Europe. By crushing the arbitrary power of Ecclesiastical usurpation, likewise, and thereby effecting a re-union of the whole Family of CHRIST, they would raise to themselves the noblest and most durable monuments in the hearts of their subjects, and secure the blessings of grateful ages to come."-Introduction, p. 11.

ITALY.

THE MILANESE, AND AUSTRIAN LOMBARDY.

The Archbishop of Milan is in the sole appointment of the Crown. The Pope's nomination of the Emperor's subjects only, to the four Bishoprics of Pavia, Cremona, Lodi, and Como, has hitherto been attended to, in their presentation by the Crown; but the Bishops were required,