“The crown passed to the head of a German monarch; but he wore it not to the benefit, but the injury, of Christianity,—­of the world.  The Emperor Henry was a tyrant who wearied out the patience of God.  God said to Rome, ‘I give you the Emperor Henry’; and from these hills that surround us, Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., raised his austere and potent voice to say to the Emperor, ’God did not give you Italy that you might destroy her,’ and Italy, Germany, Europe, saw her butcher prostrated at the feet of Gregory in penitence.  Italy, Germany, Europe, had then kindled in the heart the first spark of liberty.”

The narrative of the dinner passed the censor, and was published:  the Ambassador of Austria read it, and found, with a modesty and candor truly admirable, that this passage was meant to allude to his Emperor.  He must take his passports, if such home thrusts are to be made.  And so the paper was seized, and the account of the dinner only told from, mouth to mouth, from those who had already read it.  Also the idea of a dinner for the Pope’s fete-day is abandoned, lest something too frank should again be said; and they tell me here, with a laugh, “I fancy you have assisted at the first and last popular dinner.”  Thus we may see that the liberty of Rome does not yet advance with seven-leagued boots; and the new Romulus will need to be prepared for deeds at least as bold as his predecessor, if he is to open a new order of things.

I cannot well wind up my gossip on this subject better than by translating a passage from the programme of the Contemporaneo, which represents the hope of Rome at this moment.  It is conducted by men of well-known talent.

“The Contemporaneo (Contemporary) is a journal of progress, but tempered, as the good and wise think best, in conformity with the will of our best of princes, and the wants and expectations of the public....

“Through discussion it desires to prepare minds to receive reforms so soon and far as they are favored by the law of opportunity.

“Every attempt which is made contrary to this social law must fail.  It is vain to hope fruits from a tree out of season, and equally in vain to introduce the best measures into a country not prepared to receive them.”

And so on.  I intended to have translated in full the programme, but time fails, and the law of opportunity does not favor, as my “opportunity” leaves for London this afternoon.  I have given enough to mark the purport of the whole.  It will easily be seen that it was not from the platform assumed by the Contemporaneo that Lycurgus legislated, or Socrates taught,—­that the Christian religion was propagated, or the Church, was reformed by Luther.  The opportunity that the martyrs found here in the Colosseum, from whose blood grew up this great tree of Papacy, was not of the kind waited for by these moderate progressists.  Nevertheless, they may be good schoolmasters for Italy, and are not to be disdained in these piping times of peace.