how will you rebuke him of negligence? if it be not of duty, what need you care on which side he come unto you who comes to do you worship?" But such was either the humility or the fear of Frederic, that the next time he met the pontiff he took care to profit by the lesson he had been so rudely taught.

An anecdote very similar to this is related of Alexander the Third, who, having subdued the emperor's son Otho, and held him prisoner in Venice, compelled the former to appear before him in the cathedral of that city, and there to fall prostrate before him, and in that posture supplicate his forgiveness. The humbled monarch did as he was commanded, and the pontiff placed his foot on his neck, repeating, at the same time, the passage from scripture, "Thou shalt tread upon," &c.

The emperor at this raised his head and said, "It was not said to thee, but to Saint Peter." The pontiff then again stamping on his neck, exclaimed, "Both to me and to Peter!"

In Urban the Sixth we again meet with those traits of barbarous and revengeful cruelty which stained the characters of so many pontiffs. His conduct to the clergy was so severe that he is said, by a contemporary historian (Theodoricus, lib. i. ch. ii.), to have been left almost entirely alone at the commencement of a change in his fortunes. Six cardinals, whom he had thrown into a dungeon for some supposed offence, were, says the same author, tortured in so deplorable a manner, that every spectator was melted with pity at their sufferings. But the more he was besought to have mercy, the more wrathful he was, so that his eyes would sparkle, his face

"After

burn and glow, his throat turn dry for anger. sundry examinations," continues he, "the Cardinal of Sanger was first brought unto us, with a pair of iron shackles on his feet, and a short mantle about him, because it was a cold and windy prison; who, when he came to the end of the cellar, and saw above him ropes hanging, where he should be racked, and was by waiters stripped out of his apparel, leaving him scarcely his shirt on, and bound very hard to the rack, Francis, the pope's nephew, stood by and laughed at this miserable spectacle without all measure; but I, that loved this cardinal of old, was sore grieved thereat, but I could not depart the place. But, to be short, the said cardinal was an aged man, of a corpulent body, comely and tall of stature, and being bound, he was thence lifted up from the ground by the strong pulling of those that racked him; so that he waxed very feeble, which, when I beheld, when he was let go to the ground again, I said to him softly, 'O dear father, do you not see how your blood is sought for? I beseech you, for God's sake, confess something to deliver yourself from these tormentors.' He answered,' I cannot tell what I shall say;' and when they would have racked him again I bad them cease, 'for he hath satisfied me,' said I,' as I will certify the pope in writing;' and so they loosed him, and carried him out to take air." The persecution of these churchmen by the father of Christendom did not end till they fell martyrs to his vengeance; and the anecdote is valuable, as showing in how fearless a manner the heads of the Romish church indulged their private feelings, even on those who formed the prime support of their state.

We might multiply stories of this kind till they would fill a volume; but the above are amply sufficient to illustrate the too general character of pontifical history, and of Rome in the zenith of her latter glory. There were, it is true, bright exceptions to the constant recurrence of evil men and evil deeds in the course of her rise and fall, for so her state may now almost be termed; and the memory rests with delight on the names of such men as Ganganelli and others of the same class, who strove, in a corrupt court and nation, to preserve the ancient simplicity of christian virtue. But it was not by the actions of these men that Rome became a second time the dictator of the world: the founders of her empire were the dark but powerful spirits whose vices astonish and dismay the imagination, and, could we forget how they corrupted truth and violated the sanctity of their name, whose splendid policy and daring would inspire us with admiration.

The spirits of the Brutuses, the Cæsars, the Alexanders, and Leos are still, to the imagination, hovering over the seven hills;-from the spot where we fancy ourselves standing, the mingled monuments of their fame and ambition rise upon the view-the Colosseum and St. Peter's-the crumbling temples of Mars and Venus—the magnificent shrine of our Saviour-the tombs of emperors by the wayside-the mausoleums of popes, surmounted by splendid churches, are before us! And on what other spot on the globe can we stand and contemplate such a scene?