In fact, paradoxical as the assertion may appear, you learn more about Rome from foreigners than from natives.  Unfortunately, such information as you may acquire in this way is almost always of a suspicious character.  Almost every one in Rome judges of what he sees or hears according, in German phrase, to some stand-point of his own, either political or artistic or theological, as the case may be.  As to the foreign converts, it is only natural that, as in most cases they have sacrificed everything for the Papal faith, they should therefore look at everything from the Papal point of view.  If, however, they abuse and despise the Romans on every occasion, it is some satisfaction to reflect that the Romans lose no opportunity of despising or abusing them in turn.  English Liberals who see a good deal of Roman society, see it, I think, under too favourable circumstances, and also attach undue importance to the wonderful habit all Italians have of saying as their own opinion whatever they think will be pleasing to their listener.  On the other hand, the persons who are best qualified to judge of Rome, the ordinary residents of long standing, who care little about Italy and less about the Pope, are, I fancy, unduly influenced by the advantages of their exceptional position.  There are few places in the world where a stranger, especially an English stranger, is better off than in Rome.  As a rule, he has perfect liberty to do and say and write what he likes, and almost inevitably he gets to think that a government which is so lenient a one for him cannot be a very bad one for its own subjects.  The cause, however, of this exceptional lenity is not hard to discover.  Much as we laugh at home about the Civis Romanus doctrine, abroad it is a very powerful reality.  Whether rightly or wrongly, foreign governments are afraid of meddling with English subjects, and act accordingly.  Then, too, Englishmen as a body care very little about foreign politics, and are known to live almost entirely among themselves abroad, and seldom to interfere in the concerns of foreigners; and lastly, I am afraid that the moral influence of England, of which our papers are so fond of boasting, is very small indeed on the continent generally, and especially in Italy.  All the articles the Times ever wrote on Italian affairs did not produce half the effect of About’s pamphlet or Cavour’s speeches.  I am convinced that the influence of English newspapers in Italy is most limited.  The very scanty knowledge of the English language, and the utter want of comprehension of our English modes of thought and feeling, render an English journal even more uninteresting to the bulk of Italians than an Italian one is to an Englishman; and the Roman rulers are well aware of this important fact.  Hard words break no bones, and the Vatican cares little for what English papers say of it, and looks upon the introduction of English Anti-Papal journals as part of the necessary price to be paid for the