THE INSURRECTION AT ROME. (From the Times, November 27.)

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 310, 19 May 1849, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE INSURRECTION AT ROME. (From the Times, November 27. )

! After the exact interval of five hundred years, the recollections of the elder republic again visit and madden unfortunate Rome. She dreams of decromancy and power. A pontiff, whose chief crime hai bren his excessive anxiety to give her the blessings of constitutional government and social liberty, after a rapid succession of disappointments, has just seen his Prime Minister, patron, and friend, murdered one day,— his private secretary the next,— his palace taken by a savage mob, chiefly consisting of the Civic Guard he had himself granted to the city,— his own guards dissrmed, —every friend and adviser expelled, and a government established with which he can have nothiug to do except to protest against the use of his name. At the date of the latest intelligence Rome was in the hands of a sanguinary rabble, organized and directed by auassins. There was no lesistance, therefore no fighting, except with tho bravo's dagger and pistol. The Civic Guard did as they have done in every city of Europe. The head of the Roman Catholic communion, the benevolent " Pope Pius," lately the object of furious idolatry, is now more hated and despised than the most woithless of his predecessors. He is only allowed to live because he is not worth assassination. The patrimony of St. Peter is offered in the streets to any set of demagogues who may choose to risk their necks for a fortnight's taste of power. In the yeaii.l347 the Pope was a protege of France, residing at Avignon, Rome was without laws, order, commerce or security. The people wtre in vile subjection to a few noble families who filled the city and country, with their castles, and supported their retainers by plunder. The same disorders raged throughout Europe, and, as a natural consequence of this social chaos, there prevailed an extraordinary expectation of scmegieat and glorious change for the better, some re-const ruction of society on ancient principles; some reign of the Holy Spirit, as it presented itself to the hopes of the religious. At such a time Rienzi, a Roman plebeian, tent with some others upon a deputation to the Pope, made such an impression oy his eloquence, that, with the assistance of his friend Petrarch, he returned to Rome with office and emoluments, and an indefinite political commission. He conceived

himself charged to emancipate the people and reduce the aristocracy to order. By a combination of dexterity and boldness he procured himself to be proclaimed Tribune of the People, and in that capacity disarmed the nobles, dismantled their fortresses, restored the administration of justice, cleared the communicationi, reformed the finances, and revived trade. Europe looked on with admiration. In a few months the vision vanished as it came. Rienzi— so lay his enemies—was ambitions, Tain, arrogant, licentious, and cruel. He assumed the name of a Tribune, but the office of Dictator, and the pomp of an Emperor. The people alio found that a Republic could not exist without taxes. The nobles plucked up courage and combined. The Pope found that his own creature had j gone too far, and had even dared to cite the Pontiff before the chair of the Tribune. When, therefore, sentence of excommunication was pronounced against , Rienzi, and his enemies roie againit him, the people quietly looked on, and saw their idol overthrown. Rienzi fled. For seven years he was firit a wanderer, then a prisoner. In 1354 a new Pope, having the lame purposes to answer, sent him to govern Rome under the title of Senator. A somewhat less brilliant repetition of his former reign ended in his aisassination by the cowardly mob. The Tribune grew into a Csesar, and came to a Caesar's end. Some of his reformi survived, and lubsequcnt »ges did justice to his memory. What we have just witnessed presents some features of similarity to that glorious yet melancholy tale. It was chiefly through the influence oF Rossi, at that time French ambassador at Rome, that Piu» IX. was elected on the French and Liberal interest. The newly elected Pontiff" immediately appealed to the sympathies of the people against aristocratical and imperial influences. Tribunes rose up to hit call. Cicerovacchio was one on the more primitive model. Democracy, however, as five hundred years since— as two thousand years since— has rapidly grown beyond the control of the magician whose spell had evoked it. The people, rebellious against the Pope, destroy the only possible instrument! of their political regeneration. The fate of Rossi and Palma proves the unfitness of such a race for constitutional government. They crouch to a tyrant, and rise against an enlightened and benevolent ruler. Ihey justify Lambruschini's rod of iron when the first danger of his protracted political career is that which he experiences as a private citizen, under a benevolent pope, a representative system, and a constitutional minister. It is not for us to condemn any political anticipations, founded on generous sentiments and glorious tradition!. We only deplore the destiny by which they are so often sullied and impeded by crime, and rendered ridiculous by imposiible combinations. The dream of Rienzi'a ambition associated in one lasting fabric the passing feature! of successive states. He desired a Republic, but then it was to be the head of an Italian federation. The self-chosen Tribune was not content with protesting against patrician excesses ; he claimed Imperial power. His titles, his retainers, his luxury, and everything but the name of Tribune was borrowed from the Empire. The " good estate which he preached with the enthusiasm of a prophet, wai a political supremacy, of which Rome should be the head, and other nations the subjecti. That such a dream should perpetually haunt the sacred Latin soil i$ natural enough. It is now revived. Democracy and federation are the twin demands of the Roman populace. It will attain neither the one nor the other by mobs and aisassins. There is at preient only one actual principle of unity in Italy, and that il religious. The outrages and insults just perpetrated on the Ministers and very person of the Pontiff will only strengthen the baud of every Sovereign in the Peninsula, and drive them all to concert measures of mutual protection. Republics are founded on the graves^ of tyrants, but the blood of constitutional rulen has invariably been avenged by a lasting despotiim.