The Archbishop of Thebes, I rejoice to learn, excited the pupils of the Academy to imitate the virtues manifested in the “Magi,” by an appropriate homily, drawing a striking parallel between the simplicity, the faith and honesty of the three kings, and the disbelief and hypocrisy of the wicked king Herod.  I wonder if I have ever heard of Herod under a more modern name, and pass on to a passage, written in italics, in order to attract my special attention.  The “Propaganda” meeting is, I am informed, “a noble spectacle, which Rome alone can offer to the world; that Rome, which God has made the capital of His everlasting kingdom.”  This concludes the whole of my domestic intelligence; all that I know, or am to know, about the state of my own country.

Then follows the foreign intelligence, under the heading of “Varieties.”  Seventy pro-papal works have, I read, been published in France; indeed, the zeal in behalf of the Pontifical cause gains, day by day, so rapidly in that country, that “every one,” so some provincial paper says, “who can hold a pen in hand uses it in favour of justice and religion, upon the question of the Papacy.”  So much for France.  All I learn about Italy is that all writings in defence of the Pope are eagerly sought after and perused.  Spanish affairs meet with more attention.  An English vessel has been captured, it seems, freighted with 14,000 bayonets for Tangiers; and the shipwrecked crew of a French brig were all but massacred by the Moors, or rather, if they were not massacred, it was from no want of malignity on the part of the infidels.  I have next an account of the opening of the Victoria Bridge, Canada, interesting certainly, though I confess that some account, when the sewers in the Piazza di Spagna are likely to be closed, would possess more practical interest for myself.  This paragraph is followed by two columns long of the American President’s letter to Congress; a subject on which, as a Roman citizen, I do not feel keenly excited.

The next heading is the “Morning’s News.”  This news is made up of small short extracts from, or more correctly speaking, small paragraphs about—­extracts from—­the foreign newspapers.  If I have not heard any rumours at my cafe, these paragraphs are commonly unintelligible; if I have heard any such reports of agitation or excitement abroad in reference to the Papacy I always find from the paragraphs, that these reports were utterly erroneous.  There is a good deal about the new French free-trade tariff, and the pacific intentions of the emperor.  There are grave discussions, it appears, in the cabinets of London and Turin; and the return of the conservative Count Walewski to office is confidently expected in Paris.  Lord Cowley’s journey to London is now known to have no political signification, and the idea that any accord between France and England betokened a desertion of the Villa-Franca stipulations, is asserted, on the best authority, to be an entire delusion.