old discovery! men can govern without theirs, an older still! LEOPOLD. I am influenced but little by opinions: they vary the most where they are strongest and loudest. Here they breathe softly, and not against me; for I excite the hopes of many by extinguishing those of few. What I have begun I will continue, but I see clearly where I ought to stop, and know to a certainty, which few reformers do, where I can. Exempt from all intemperance of persecution, as from all taint of bigotry, I am disposed to see Christianity neither in diamonds nor in tatters: I would take down her toupee and sell her rouge-box, to procure her a clean shift and inoffensive stockings. I must persuade both clergy and laity that God understands Italian. Ricci, the bishop of Pistoja, is convinced of this important truth: but many of his diocesans, not disputing his authority, argue that, although God indeed may understand it, yet the saints, to whom they offer up incense, and in whom they have greater confidence, may not; and that being, for the greater part, old men, it might incommode them in the regions of bliss to alter pristine habits... Warmly and heartily do I thank you, M. Du Paty, for your observations. You have treated me really as your equal. PRESIDENT. I should rather thank your Imperial Highness for your patience and confidence. If I have presented one rarity to the Palazzo Pitti, I have been richly remunerated with another. There are only two things which authorise a man out of office to speak his sentiments freely in the courts of princes; very small stature and very small probity. You have abolished this most ancient statute, in favour of a middle-sized man, who can reproach himself with no perversion or neglect of justice in a magistrature of twenty years. Italy has been reinstated in all her privileges and enjoyments; and the beneficent hands by which they have been rescued and restored are preparing the same for the rest of Europe. In the following verses may be found something like the sentiments attributed to the interlocutors in this Conversation. Italia! omnigenis salve ditissima divis ! Scirem, utinam, quando sis genitura viros. The same poet, five years ago, wrote these iambics. Fugit Tyrannis exulatque; vicimus Eia! unde triste vos tenet silentium ? Eridane! vultum cur paternum averteris? "O Servitutis execranda hæreditas, "Vel hâc vel illâ (quàm parum refert!) manu "Impertienda es! heu neque immerentibus! "Promissa, sed promissa regibus novis, "Lux liberorum ubi occidit! mortalium "Non es, futura semper es, Felicitas ! "Tu verò amice hos qui locos deveneris, "Poeta, faustam gratulaturus vicem, "Abi... idque crede, ne nimis serò scias, Culpa est fuisse conscium nostri statûs.” |