and its harmless curses, too long and too closely to be duped.
They stood behind the scenes on which others were gazing with
childish awe and interest. They witnessed the arrangement of the
pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the
natural faces and heard the natural voices of the actors. Distant
nations looked on the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty, the
oracle of the All-wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the
disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to
appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his
youth, and with all the dishonest arts by which he had attained
power. They knew how often he had employed the keys of the Church
to release himself from the most sacred engagements, and its
wealth to pamper his mistresses and nephews. The doctrines and
rites of the established religion they treated with decent
reverence. But though they still called themselves Catholics,
they had ceased to be Papists. Those spiritual arms which carried
terror into the palaces and camps of the proudest sovereigns
excited only contempt in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Vatican. Alexander, when he commanded our Henry the Second to
submit to the lash before the tomb of a rebellious subject, was
himself an exile. The Romans apprehending that he entertained
designs against their liberties, had driven him from their city;
and though he solemnly promised to confine himself for the future
to his spiritual functions, they still refused to readmit him.

In every other part of Europe, a large and powerful privileged
class trampled on the people and defied the Government. But in
the most flourishing parts of Italy, the feudal nobles were
reduced to comparative insignificance. In some districts they
took shelter under the protection of the powerful commonwealths