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in the army they devotedly and skilfully served in the late war, and that nothing can be more absurdly invidious than this arbitrary discrimination between diplomatic and consular deserts.

The advocates of the paramount influence of the selfish principle will be surprised to learn that several witnesses express a belief that the amount of the fees will be considerably larger when collected on the Government account, than when, as at present, received by the consul in part payment of his own salary. Trustworthy persons attest that the exaction of small fees from indigent individuals is so disagreeable to their feelings, that they frequently remit them altogether; whereas, if the fees were levied as a tax, they would have no scruple in enforcing the demand. This process would be simpler under the continental system, where a Chancellor is attached to each consulate, who has the exclusive management of all money matters. We will not however deny that, without such an officer, the fees may be honestly collected by our consuls; we only doubt whether there will be any such increase as will at all make up for the additional outlay of the new arrangement. It is worth remark that some representatives of the shipping interest incline to a restoration of the old tonnage-fees, which were abolished as a heavy burden on our mercantile marine. This question had been carefully considered by the former committee, which reported against their re-imposition; and it would require a very strong demonstration of a change in public opinion to authorize Parliament to adopt such a proceeding, however tempting to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. The real advantage of the alterations at present proposed is the relief of the present consuls from the suspicion of unfair dealing. Instances have occurred in which, in the language of the Report, the consul seemed to have a private interest in the mercantile disasters and difficulties of his countrymen, instead of being regarded as their protector from fraud and injustice and their natural counsellor in circumstances of danger and perplexity.' The charges, as far as they came before the Committee, were eminently unjust, but the suspicions remained and rankled. It was a mere hazard that Mr. Cowper, our consul at Pernambuco, found a tribunal before which he could clear himself of the accusation that he had done all in his power to detain a large vessel, the Mermaid, on her way from Melbourne to England, and put her owners to the serious expense of transshipment, that he might levy an enormous commission for taking care of the gold with which she was freighted. A one-sided judicial inquiry at Liverpool had covered with honour the foolhardy though successful captain who insisted on continuing his course, after three surveys had declared the vessel unseaworthy,

unseaworthy, and in the teeth of the remonstrance of the majority of his passengers. The consul, on the contrary, was loaded with obloquy. Fortunately he has at last had the opportunity of showing that the gold could only have been consigned to him by the choice of the captain himself, who, in all probability, would have entrusted it to Lloyd's agent, or to any one rather than to the consul who was opposing and annoying him.

In adopting the foreign system of first and second class consulates, the Committee appears to us to have ingeniously obviated a difficulty which will occur to any one who has experience in these affairs. A gentleman holding a second-class consulship may be admirably fitted for the post by his familiarity with the language, the customs, and the resources of the place, and yet may justly desire to be promoted to a first-class consulship after a certain term of years' service. Similar embarrassment has lately occurred in the French administration in their distribution of first and second class prefectures; and the newly-adopted practice of conferring the rank and emoluments of a first-class préfet on a person holding a second-class préfecture, if his public service had been long and meritorious, instead of transferring bim to a new and strange sphere of power, has, according to the last Budget,' been resorted to with the best effect. We hope that no official punctilio will prevent the analogous proposal of the Committee respecting our consuls from being at once accepted and acted on. One strong case in favour of some such scheme will strike any careful reader of this evidence.

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Such are the main conclusions of the Committee which will be brought before Parliament in due course in the coming session. A complete solution of the question can scarcely be expected to result from a Report founded on such accidental and hap-hazard evidence as was produced. As we before stated, no first-rate statesman tendered his testimony, and the one on the Committee never attended after the first two sittings. The Chinese and Levantine portions of the service were by chance as well represented as they could have been after any procrastination; but there were several others which were feebly exhibited, and some not at all. The South American section deserved far more attention and a far more distinct report respecting its future organization than it bas obtained. The consul-generalships of South America have hitherto been regarded, not exactly as diplomatic refugia peccatorum,' but as asylums for those who are hopeless of success on a more important and more conspicuous theatre. A weak protest is all the reproach that this abuse obtains in the Report, and the Foreign Office will hardly abandon so convenient a practice with so little pressure: and yet it surely ought not to continue.

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envoy looks on himself as shelved, and thus enters on his new duties in the worst possible state of mind, and the whole consular service think they are deprived of their just rights: if these posts are to be purely diplomatic, they should not retain their consular designation a single day. This point and others would have been well investigated if the Committee had thought fit to postpone their Report till the present year. The Foreign Office would have been just as capable of dealing with cases of palpable grievance, and which could not brook delay, as it is now; and a little additional responsibility must have been a cheap price to pay for a thorough exposition and final settlement of the subject. As it is, we anticipate some good results, attained with difficulty, but hardly the sound and permanent organization-the true economy which justly remunerates efficient service-and the contentment of the officers engaged, and of the country that employs them,' which the sanguine Chairman foreshadows in the concluding paragraph of the Report.

ART. IV. Recollections of the last Four Popes, and of Rome in their Times. By H. E. Cardinal Wiseman. London. 1858.

HOUGH the work of Cardinal Wiseman is of slight import

THO

ance, the subject of which it treats is of extensive interest. Every year we can trace more clearly the influence of the Papacy on the politics and religious institutions of Europe; and having passed in review the history of the two first Popes of his series, we now complete the task by a sketch of the reigns and characters of the two which remain.

In the conclave which assembled on the death of Leo XII. Cardinal Castiglioni was, in sporting phrase, the favourite 'the slang of the turf naturally suggests itself on the occasion, for scarcely the Derby in this country is the subject of more bets and lotteries than the succession to the Chair of St. Peter in the Roman States. At the preceding election his cause had been warmly espoused by the leading powers of the Continent, and he was known to have obtained more suffrages than any but the successful candidate. Although a stanch churchman, he stood high in public esteem as the advocate of a moderate policy, and indeed it was this character for moderation, backed by the support of Austria and the friendship of Consalvi, that on that occasion had caused his rejection by the party of the Zelanti.' But now a great change had taken place. At the close of each Pope's reign a reaction may generally be observed in favour of an antagonist system.

Leo

Leo had in no respect belied the reputation which raised him to the throne as a reformer, as a disciplinarian, as the champion of ecclesiastical supremacy he had been uncompromising. But the result was blank disappointment. The Sacred College had discovered that a despotic Pope was as little to their taste as a too powerful minister. As a ruler he had governed without success, as a reformer he had toiled in vain; he had lived unbeloved, and he died unlamented. His hostility to Austria had been so marked, that for a considerable portion of his reign no ambassador from that court had resided at Rome. But the cabinet whose domineering spirit was then the object of jealousy was now regarded with hope and confidence as the bulwark of social order. Cardinal Albani, the representative of Austria, was believed to be absolute master of the conclave of 1829. But whether his influence would have extended to the elevation of one who was wholly unacceptable to the Sacred College cannot be known. Cardinal Castiglioni was of spotless character, and was generally designated by the wishes of the assembly, and if he had any secret enemies their opposition was stifled by the reflection that his health was arretrievably broken and his days were numbered.

On the 23rd of February the Cardinals assembled for the election of the future Head of the Church. It was not till the 3rd of March that Cardinal Albani joined his colleagues, and the conclave was thought to be unusually short when it terminated before the close of the month. How under the circumstances it was protracted so long is the wonder of the uninitiated. But perhaps greater haste would have looked like precipitation, and would have shocked the prejudices and the vanity of many who wished at all events to be treated as if they had pretensions to the vacant throne. On the morning of the 30th, which it was generally felt would be the decisive day, Cardinal Vidoni, whose portly figure and sonorous voice may be still remembered by many English travellers-the wit, the bon vivant of the Sacred College--stopped as he left his cell to attend the scrutiny in the chapel, and eyed with compassion the Guardia Nobile on duty at the door. The officers of this corps are so far interested in the election that he whose good fortune it is to wait on the future pope obtains promotion and a donative. The cardinal, who was under no illusion as to his own claims, and probably thought with honest Sancho that if it rained tiaras from heaven none would fit his massive head-exclaimed in a tone of comic pity, Povero sventurato, io ti compatisco!' (Luckless youth, I pity thee!'). The cardinal's prognostic was verified: in the course of a few hours the window was broken through, and Albani as senior deacon

deacon proclaimed Pius VIII., not to the usual crowd, but to vacant space. A sudden and violent thunderstorm had dispersed the most intrepid and curious of the inquirers after news. The style adopted by the new Pope doubtless indicated his feelings of gratitude towards his early patron; but it was also dictated by circumstances which hardly left him the liberty of choice. Pius VII., who highly esteemed him and looked to him with hope as his successor, used jokingly to refer matters of future consideration to 'your holiness Pius VIII.;' and Leo had excused his preference of a title to which other associations were attached with a graceful compliment to Cardinal Castiglioni, for whom he said the title of Pius VIII. ought to be reserved. On this occasion Cardinal Wiseman observes: To say the truth, one does not see why, if a Jewish high priest had the gift of prophecy for his year of office, one of a much higher order and dignity should not occasionally be allowed to possess it.' It is too common in the present day for Christians of all denominations to suppose that if they do not see why' any fanciful hypothesis of their own should be false, they are justified in assuming it to be true, and in tacking it on as 'a rider' to their creed. But without pausing to discuss the relative importance of the place appointed by God to the Jewish high priest in the old dispensation, and that assumed by the Pope for himself in the new, we beg to suggest to our English ultramontanists that it is too late to invent fresh papal pretensions in the present day, and that if it had been advantageous to the Holy See to assert the power of vaticination, the claim would have been made at least a thousand years ago.

Francesco Saverio Castiglioni was born in the year 1761 at Cingoli near Ancona, of an honourable and ancient family. In his person he was tall and thin, his features were strongly marked, and might have been pronounced handsome, but for a cast in the eye which gave them a harsh and sinister expression. He was distinguished early in life by his application to the study of canon law. He was a pupil of Devoti, then one of its most eminent professors, and assisted largely, it is said, in the compilation of his great work on that subject. He was named to the see of Montalto by Pius VII. in the year 1800, and was constantly consulted by him in all ecclesiastical matters of difficulty. To the Bishop of Montalto was referred the examination of the documents relating to the marriage of Jerome Buonaparte, then under age, with Miss Paterson, an American Protestant-an union which the First Consul vehemently desired to annul, and the absolute invalidity of which he asserted with a confidence and impetuosity well calculated to take the dependent Pope by storm. It is to the honour of Pius and his adviser that in

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