. Peter's, and admire most that which I see last.
They are certainly 'magis pares quam similes,' but worth
everything else in Italy put together, except Paestum.

[Page Head: EXCOMMUNICATION OF A THIEF]

To-day the spiritual arms of the Church are to be fulminated
against a sinner in a case which is rather curious. There are two
brothers who live at a place called Genezzano, in two adjoining
houses, which formerly formed but one, belonging to the Colonna
family, of whom the progenitors of these men bought it. A short
time ago a man came to the brothers, and told them that in a
particular spot on the premises there was a treasure concealed,
the particulars of which he had learned from a memorandum in the
papers of the Colonna family, to which he had got access, and he
proposed to discover the same to them, if they would give him a
part of it. They agreed, when he told them that under a little
column built against a wall they would find a flat brick,
covering a hole, in which was an earthen pot containing 2,000
ducats in gold. The column was there, so at night the brothers
set to work to take it down, and beneath it they found the flat
stone as described. When one of them (an apothecary) said to the
other that, after all, it was probably an invention, that they
should be laughed at for their pains, and he thought they had
better give up the search, the other (who must be a great flat)
said, 'Very well,' and they retired to bed. In the morning the
apothecary told the other that in the night he could not help
thinking of this business, and that his curiosity had induced him
to get up and dig on, and that he had actually found the pot, but
nothing in it. The other, flat as he was, could not stand this,
and, on examining the pot, he found marks which, on further
investigation, turned out to be indications of coin having been
in it. The thief stuck to his story, so the dupe complained, and,
as the presumption is considered to be strongly against him, they
are going to try what excommunication will do. It is remarkable
that they asked this man if he would swear upon the Host that he
had not found any money, and this he refused to do, though he
continued to deny it and to decline restitution. He was accounted
a very religious man, and these were religious scruples, which,
however, were not incompatible with robbery and fraud. His
refusal to swear was taken as a moral evidence of guilt, and he
was to be excommunicated to-day.