ute of moral
courage. He is not resolute either on the wrong or right side. First,
he abandoned the liberal party; then, yielding to the will of the
people, and uniting, in appearance, with a liberal ministry, he let
the cardinals betray it, and defeat the hopes of Italy. He cried
peace, peace! but had not a word of blame for the sanguinary acts of
the King of Naples, a word of sympathy for the victims of Lombardy.
Seizing the moment of dejection in the nation, he put in this
retrograde ministry; sanctioned their acts, daily more impudent: let
them neutralize the constitution he himself had given; and when the
people slew his minister, and assaulted him in his own palace, he
yielded anew; he dared not die, or even run the slight risk,--for
only by accident could he have perished. His person as a Pope is still
respected, though his character as a man is despised. All the people
compare him with Pius VII. saying to the French, "Slay me if you will;
I _cannot_ yield," and feel the difference.

I was on Monte Cavallo yesterday. The common people were staring at
the broken windows and burnt door of the palace where they have so
often gone to receive a blessing, the children playing, "_Sedia
Papale. Morte ai Cardinali, e morte al Papa!_"

The men of straw are going down in Italy everywhere; the real men
rising into power. Montanelli, Guerazzi, Mazzini, are real men; their
influence is of character. Had we only been born a little later!
Mazzini has returned from his seventeen years' exile, "to see what he
foresaw." He has a mind far in advance of his times, and yet Mazzini
sees not all.

* * * * *

_Rome, May_ 7, 1848.--Good and loving hearts will be unprepared, and
for a time must suffer much from the final dereliction of Pius IX.
to the cause of freedom. After the revolution opened in Lombardy,
the troops of the line were sent thither; the volunteers rushed to
accompany them, the priests preached the war as a crusade, the Pope
blessed the banners. The report that the Austrians had taken and
hung as a brigand one of the Roman Civic Guard,--a well-known artist
engaged in the war of Lombardy,--roused the people; and they went to
the Pope, to demand that he should declare war against the Austrians.
The Pope summoned a consistory, and then declared in his speech that
he had only intended local reforms; that he regretted the misuse
that had been made of his name; and wound up by lamenting the wa