Italy.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 840, 20 August 1853, Page 4

Italy.

A private letter from Rome of the 21st April says that the Pope has sent a " special blessing " to Dr. Newman in his own handwriting, which is not usually done. " I had the document in my hands," adds the writer, and I give you the translation as well as my memory serves me ": — " May the Almighty and Merciful God bless him, and give him grace and strength to withstand the attacks of his enemies, and to resist the assaults of the evil one ; and may he remember that, being acceptable to God, he most be well proved by temptation." The Papal Government continues to exhibit the total and irretrievable decay of its temporal anthority in direct connection with unlimited and unprecedented claims to spiritual supremacy. A French brigade is its only defence in Rome ; but, in France, it prohibits books, impugns the ecclesiastical law, suspends the clergy from their functions, and publishes edicts, which are received by French Bishops "on their knees," with the fulsome ejaculation, " Peter has spoken by the lips of the immortal Pius IX. !*' In Piedmont, the Government struggles manfully in defence of the rights of the House' of Savoy, the independence of the State, and the constitutional franchises of the people. But with all its ability and zeal, it is the Government of an intelligent minority, detested by a large portion of the upper classes, and of the clergy, ill-sup-ported in some parts of the King's dominions, and liable to be betrayed in an emergency by the Italian people. Between Austria and Piedmont, as well as between Austria and Switzerland, the seeds of hostility and ill-neighbourhood have been sown by Mazzini's mischievous insurrection, and the Cabinet of Turin has once more been | led to expose itself to peril by a spirited defence of men who have done nothing to win the respect of the country. The Messaggere ofModena states from Rome, 19th April, that the Papal Government has -concluded the new loan, at 8 per cent., for a sum of 26 millions of francs, to be paid in fifteen monthly instalments, commencing from the Ist of May. Copper money in large quantities continues to be struck both at Rome and Bologna, so that the total amount prescribed (about sixteen millions of francs) will soon be completed. The Austrian Commandant of the port and city of Leghorn has, according to a letter of the 25th of April, in the Barlamente of Turin, sentenced an advocate, named Richard Franzi, to 5 months' imprisonment in irons, for having held subversive language calculated to cast hatred upon the Imperial troops, and having shown himself disaffected towards the legitimate Government of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. A number of English, French, and Italian works have been forbidden to be read by Catholics, by the Sant' Ufficio at Rome, including Macaulay's History of England.