VII. The emperor's absence from his own in a passage quoted by Dr. Papencordt, he quarters for ten days could not but be known, declares that his meditations on the religious and must have excited great anxiety; his subjects of 'providence, foreknowledge, will, wonderful escape must have been a subject of and fate,' were not derived from the profound marked rejoicing. It is even more singular wisdom of Gregory or Augustine, but were that, with the exception of a vague rumour droppings from the less deep but transparent which might have some connection with the springs of the Roman patricians Boetus and story, and which was gleaned, we know not Symmachus, Livy, Cicero, and Seneca. He from what quarter, by De Sade, there is no was handsome, and a peculiar smile gave a vestige of it in any of the contemporary chroni- remarkable expression to his countenance: he cles; more particularly in the Roman life of married early the daughter of a burgher, Rienzi. The question then arises, was it al- named Francesco, and had three children, one together an audacious fiction of Rienzi's du son and two daughters. His wife's dowry ring his residence in Germany? or did he find was only 150 golden florins. or set afloat this rumour during the earlier years of his ambition, and encourage or suppress it as it suited his circumstances? On these questions we can scarcely hope to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion; but in either case the use which he attempted to make of it, when it was his manifest purpose to connect himself as closely as possible with the German and imperial interests-when, as appears throughout these latter documents, he was offering himself as an instrument to reinstate the imperial power in Italy-is a singular illustration of the tenacity of his hopes, the fertility of his resources, and the versatility of his ambition. It is clear that his spirit was unbroken by the total failure of his republican schemes for the independence and aggrandisement of Rome; but that whether, by an intimate alliance with the strong religious enthusiasm of the day, he hoped to come forth again as a deliverer foreshone by prophecy and vision, among the fantastic dreamers in the Franciscan hermitages-or as the champion of the imperial power-or as the representative of the temporal sovereignty of the pope-he was fettered by no scruples, and resolved by any means to regain his lost ascendency.

His classical studies had led Rienzi to contrast the miserable and servile state of his countrymen with that of their free and glorious ancestors. Where are these old Romans ?where their justice? Would that I had lived in their times! The sense of personal wrong mingled with these more lofty and patriotic feelings-his younger brother was murdered, and unable to obtain redress from the partial and disdainful justice of the nobles, he vowed vengeance for the innocent blood. He seems likewise to have assumed the office of champion of the poor. As the heads of the mercantile guilds called themselves consuls, so he took the title of Consul of the orphans, the widows, and the poor.

Rienzi's first public function was his mission to Pope Clement VI., at Avignon. He ap pears to have been one of the representatives of the people in this embassy, which consisted of delegates from the three orders; and he is said to have so charmed the pope with his eloquence that he desired to hear him every day. Petrarch was not one of the delegates, but ac companied the mission, and in Avignon made that personal acquaintance with the future tribune which has connected their names together; and there that admiration of his character commenced, which ripened into that noble canzone, 'Spirto gentil. That this canzone was addressed to Rienzi we have never doubted, and are glad to find our opinion confirmed by Dr. Papencordt's conclusive arguments.

It appears from his own statement, that after the death of his mother, Rienzi lived at Anagni till his twentieth year; he then returned to Rome, and, embracing the profession of a notary, he devoted himself to those classical studies which exercised so powerful an influence on his mind. The old historian Rienzi's joyful letter from Avignon to the Fortifiocca gives, as his favourite authors, people of Rome on the apparently favourable Livy, Cicero, Seneca, and Valerius Maxi- termination of his mission, was first published mus; but the magnificent deeds (le magnifi- by Sir John Hobhouse from the Turin MS., centie) of Julius Cæsar were his chief delight. in his 'Illustrations of Childe Harold.' The He translated these authors into the vulgar pope had conceded the jubilee on the fiftieth tongue, deciphered inscriptions, and explained year: he had promised, when the affairs of the marbles of antiquity. He was evidently France should permit, to revisit Rome. fully impregnated with the biblical language Rienzi calls on the mountains around, and on and religious imagery of the times; though, the hills and plains, and the whole city of Rome, to break out into joy :

De Sade had picked up what might be a loose reminiscence of this story, According to him, Madelena, the mother of Rienzi, was reported to be the daughter of a bastard of Henry VII

May the Roman city arise from her long prostration, ascend the throne of her majesty, cast off the mourning garb of her widowhood, and

put on the bridal purple. Let the crown of li- than this, he nurses, cherishes, and favours those berty adorn her head, and rings of gold her neck: very wolves, the fear of which, as he pretends, let her re-assume the sceptre of justice, and, re-keeps him away from Rome, that their teeth and generate in every virtue, go forth in her bridal attire to meet her bridegroom. . . . Behold the most merciful Lamb of God, that confoundeth sia. The most holy Roman pontiff, the Father of the city, the Bridegroom of the Lord, moved by the cries and complaints and wailings of his bride, compassionating her sufferings, her calamities, and her ruin, astonished at the regeneration of the city, the glory of the people, the joy and salvation of the world, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, opening the bosom of his clemency, has pledged himself to have mercy upon us, and promises grace and redemption to the whole world, and to the nations remission of sins.' ...

'What Scipio,' he demands, what Cæsar, or Metellus, or Marcellus, or Fabius, can be so fairly deemed the deliverers of their country,or so justly honoured with a statue? They won hard victories by the calamities of war, by the bloodshed of citizens; he, unsolicited, by one holy and triumphant word, has achieved a victory over the present and future calamities of his country, re-established the Roman commonwealth, and rescued the despairing people from death."

Whether the pope was conscious that he was deluding the ardent mind of Rienzi with false hopes, or whether Rienzi betrayed his suspicions of the pope's sincerity, or the Cardinal Colonna became jealous of his influence with the pope, Rienzi soon fell into disfavour. At Avignon he was reduced to great poverty, and, according to the old Roman biographer, probably from illness, was glad to take refuge in an hospital. The cardinal, however, perhaps from contemptuous compassion, reconciled him again with the pope, and Rienzi returned to Rome with the appointment of notary in the papal court, and a flattering testimonial to his character, as a man zealous for the welfare of the city.

their talons may be stronger to devour his sheep. On the Orsini, and the Colonnas, and on the other nobles, whom he knows to be infamous as public robbers, the destroyers, both spiritual and temporal, of his holy episcopal city, and the devourers of his own peculiar flock, he confers dignities and honours; he even bestows on them rich prelacies, in order that they may wage those wars, which they have not wealth enough themselves to support, from the treasures of the church. And when he has been perpetually entreated by the people, that, as a compassionate father, he would at least appoint some good man, a foreigner, as ruler over his episcopal city, he would never consent; but in contempt of the petitions of the people, he placed the sword in the hands of some madman, and invested the tyrants of the people with the authority of senators, for the sole purpose, as it is credibly known and proved, that the Roman flock, thus preyed upon by ravening wolves, should not have strength or courage to demand the residence of their pastor in his episcopal seat.'-Urkunde, p. XLIV.

Rienzi, thus despairing of all alleviation of the calamities of the people from the ecclesiastical power, sat brooding over his hopes of reawakening the old Roman spirit of liberty. In this high design he proceeded with wonderful courage,

address, and resolution. He submitted to every kind of indignity, and assumed every disguise which might advance his end. Once in the assembly of the people he was betrayed by his indignation at some atrocious act of tyranny into a premature appeal to their yet unawakened sympathies. He reproached his fellow representatives with their disregard of the miseries of the people, and ventured to let loose his eloquence on the blessings of good order. The only answer was a blow from a Norman relative of the Colonnas; in the simple language of the historian, a box on the ear that rang again, un sonante gotata.

Allegorical picture was the language of the times. The church had long employed it to teach or to enforce Christian truth or Christian At Rome Rienzi executed his office of no- obedience among the rude and unlettered peotary by deputy, and confined himself to his ple. Dr. Papencordt has indicated other ocstudies, and to his profound and rankling casions on which it had been used for political meditations on the miseries and oppressions of purposes. The reader of Dante will underthe city. The tyranny of the nobles was with-stand how completely the Italian mind must 'out check; the lives of the men, and the hon- have been familiarised with this suggestive our of the women, seerned to be abandoned to imagery. Many of the great names of the their caprice and their lust; and all this, at time, the Orsini, the Mastini, the Cani, the least so he wrote at a later period to the Arch-Lucchi, either lent themselves to, or grew out bishop of Prague, Rienzi attributed in a great of this bestial symbolism; and Rienzi seized degree to the criminal abandonment of his flock by the supreme pontiff :

on the yet unrestricted freedom of painting, as a modern patriot might on the freedom of the press, to instil his own feelings of burning shame at their degradation and oppression. All his historians have dwelt on the master

piece of his pictorial eloquence. On a sink-mask of folly and the character of a buffoon,' ing ship, without mast or sail, sat a noble and thus was often suffered in the Colonna lady, in widow's weeds, with dishevelled hair, palace to amuse the company with his tricks and her hands crossed over her breast. Above and predictions. Rienzi describes his own was written 'This is Rome.' She was conduct in this respect, but justifies it (he surrounded by four other ships, in which sat was writing to an archbishop) with different women, who personated Babylon, Carthage, precedents:

before us.

Tyre, Jerusalem. Through unrighteousness,' ran the legend, 'these fell to ruin.' An in- I confess that, having become drunk after the scription hung above.-Thou, oh Rome! parching fever of my soul, in order to put down wert exalted above all; we await thy down- the prevailing injustice, and to persuade the peofall!' Three islands appeared beside the ple to union, I often feigned and dissembled; ship; in one was Italy, in another four of the made myself a simpleton, and an actor; was by turns serious, or silly, cunning, earnest, and timid, Cardinal Virtues, in the third Christian Faith. as occasion required, to promote my work of Each had its appropriate inscription. Over love. David danced before the ark, and apFaith was written, 'Oh, highest Father, Ruler, peared as a madman before the king; Judith and Lord, when Rome sinks, where find I a stood before Holofernes, bland, and crafty, and refuge!' Bitter satire was not wanting to the dissembling; and Jacob obtained his blessing by piece. Four rows of winged beasts stood cunning. So I, when I took up the cause of the above, who blew their horns, and directed the people against their greatest tyrants, had to deal pitiless storm against the sinking vessel. The with no frank and open antagonists, but with men of shifts and wiles, the craftiest and the most lions, wolves, and bears, denoted, as the le- deceitful.' gend explained, the mighty barons and traitorous senators; the dogs, the swine, and the We shall not think it necessary to pursue bulls, were the counsellors, the base partisans the glorious history of Rienzi's rise to pow. of the nobles; the sheep, the serpents, and foxes, were the officials, the false judges and er; it may be read in De Cerceau, in Gib. notaries; the hares, cats, goats, and apes, bon, in Sismondi, or more fully in the work were the robbers, murderers, adulterers, and Glorious it unquestionably was; thieves among the people. Above was God, it was the triumph of liberty, of order, of in his majesty, come down to judgment, justice--even of religion---over the wildest with two swords, as in the Apocalypse, out of anarchy, and the most cruel of tyrannies, his mouth. St. Peter and St. Paul knelt on that of an armed and unprincipled oligarchy; either side in the attitude of supplication. it was the establishment, for a time at least, Rienzi's own account of another of his well- of law and justice, of peace at home, and resknown attempts to work upon the populace, pect and even awe throughout Italy, almost and to impress them with the sense of the throughout Europe. Let us, however, hear former greatness of Rome, is contained in his Rienzi's own account of the rapidity with letter to the Archbishop of Prague. The which he achieved his wonderful victory:-great bronze tablet containing the lex regia, the decree by which the senate conferred the By the divine grace, no king, or duke, or imperium upon Vespasian (now in the Capi- prince, or marquis of Italy ever surpassed me in toline Museum) had been employed by Boni- the shortness of the time by which I rose to leface VIII. (out of jealousy to the emperor, ed even to the Saracens. It was achieved in gitimate power, and earned a fame which reachRienzi asserts, at this period when it was his seven months, a period which would hardly object to obtain favour with the emperor at the suffice for a king to subdue one of the Roman expense of the pope) to form part of an altar nobles. I (for God was with me) on the first in the Lateran church, with the inscription day of my tribunate (an office which, from the turned inwards, so that it could not be read. time that the empire had sunk into decrepitude, Rienzi brought forth this tablet, placed it on a had been vacant under tyrannical rule for more kind of high scaffold in the church, and sumthan five hundred years,) I scattered with my moned the people to a lecture on its meaning, fore the face of God, all these nobles, these hatconsuming breath before my face, or rather be in which he enlarged on the former power and ers of God and justice. And thus in truth on the dominion of Rome. It was in this speech day of Pentecost was that word fulfilled which that he made the singular antiquarian blunder is chanted on that day in honour of the Holy which Gibbon takes credit for detecting, his Ghost: Let God arise, and let his enemies be rendering pomarium (of which he did not know scattered." And again-" Send forth thy Holy the sense) pomarium, and making Italy the Ghost, and thou shalt renew the face of the garden of Rome. Certainly hitherto no pontiff or empe Gibbon has also spoken of Rienzi as city, who had in general rather triumphed than ror had been able to expel the nobles from the modern Brutus' (the expression, indeed, is submitted to the popes and the emperors; and Petrarch's), who was concealed under the yet these nobles, thus terribly expelled and ex

the

earth."

66

iled, when I cited them to appear again in fif- the People to remind them of the days of teen days, I had prostrate at my feet, swearing their liberty. He called himself Augustus, obedience to my decrees.' and chose to be crowned in the month of

in his own words :

This was the scene which the old Roman August, because that month was called afbiographer described so graphically--deh che ter the great emperor, the conqueror of stavano paurosi ! Cleopatra. He called himself Severe, not The magic effect of the Tribune's sudden the stern terrors of his justice, but in respect merely to awe the noble malcontents with apparition at the head of a new Roman re-to the philosopher, the last of the Romans, public, which seemed to aspire to the sway Severinus Boethius. He was knighted acof ancient Rome over Italy, and indeed over all the world, must be described, as before, cording to the full ceremonial of chivalry ;being bathed in the porphyry vessel, in which, according to the legend, Pope Sylvester had Did I not restore real peace among the cities cleansed Constantine the Great of his leprosy. which were distracted by factions? Did I not decree that all the citizens who were banished Among the banners which he bestowed on by party violence, with their wretched wives and the cities of Italy, which did him a kind of children, should be re-admitted? Had I not be- homage, that of Perugia was inscribed with gun to extinguish the party names of Guelf and Long live the citizens of Perugia and the Ghibelline, for which innumerable victims had memory of Constantine:' Sienna received perished body and soul; and to reduce the city the arms of the Tribune and those of Rome, of Rome and all Italy into one harmonious, peace- the Wolf and her twin Founders; Florence ful, holy, and single confederacy; the sacred had the banner of Italy, in which Rome was standards and banners of all the cities having been gathered together, and, as a testimony to represented between two other females, deour holy association and perfect union, conse-signated Italy and the Christian faith. crated and offered with their golden rings on the day of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady?'

In another passage to the emperor—

Rienzi professed the most profound respect for religion: throughout he endeavoured to sanction and hallow his proceedings by the ceremonial of the church. He profess'I received the homage and submission of the ed the most submissive reverence for the counts and barons, and almost all the people of Italy. I was honoured by solemn embassies and pope; and--though some of his measures apletters from the emperor of Constantinople and peared to encroach on the prerogatives of the king of England; the queen of Naples sub- the pontiff, and when his vicar protested mitted herself and her kingdom to the protection against them he drowned his voice with the of the Tribune; the king of Hungary by two sound of his trumpets-he was inclined, as solemn embassies with great urgency brought far as possible, to encourage the notion, that his cause against his queen and against his no- his rise and his power were, if not authorised, bles before my tribunal; and I venture to say

and Jews celebrated the event with unusual festivities. When the soldan inquired the cause of these rejoicings, and received this intelligence about Rome, he ordered all the havens and cities on the coast to be fortified and put in a state of defence.'

further, that the fame of the Tribune alarmed the approved by his holiness. He asserts insoldan of Babylon. When the Christian pil- deed in one place that he was the greatest grims to the sepulchre of our Lord related all bulwark of the church-'Who, in the memthe wonderful and unheard-of circumstances of ory of man, among all the sovereigns of Rome the reformation of Rome to the Christian and and Italy, ever showed greater love for eccleJewish inhabitants of Jerusalem, both Christians siastical persons, or so strictly protected ecclesiastical rights? Did I not, before all things, respect all monasteries, hospitals, and other temples of God: and whenever complaint was made, enforce the peaceful restitution of all their estates and properties, of It is difficult to decide whether, as he him- which they had been despoiled by the nobles? self admits in one place, it was mere vanity, or This restitution they never could obtain by a vague and not impolitic desire to gather all the bulls and charters of the supreme ponround his own name all the glorious remin- tiff; and now that I am deposed they deplore iscences of every period of history, and so to all their former losses. I wish that the surivet his power on the minds of men, which preme pontiff would condescend to promote induced Rienzi to accumulate on himself so me, or put me to death, according to the many lofty but discordant appellations. The judgment of all religious persons, of the Roman Republic-the Roman Empire, in monks, and the whole clergy. The Triits periods of grandeur and of declension-bune's language asserting himself to be under the Church-and the chivalry of the middle the special influence of the Holy Ghost, which ages were blended together in the strange already awoke the jealousy of the pontiff, and pomp of his ceremonies and the splendid array of his titles. He was the Tribune of

• Urkunde, xi and LXV.

thus early cast a suspicion of heresy around and most irrational democracy of opinion, his name, he explains away, with more inge- who will suppose that the magic name of nuity perhaps, than ingenuousness. 'No freedom, or even the sudden consciousness of power but that of the Spirit of God could relief from the burthen of tyranny, and have united the turbulent and dissolute Ro- strongly stimulated sense of independence, man people in his favour. It was their unity, could have wrought such a transmutation, not his words and actions, which manifestly not merely in face Romuli, but in the displayed the presence of the Holy Ghost.' burghers and in the lower orders of a BabyAt all events, in the proudest days of his cere- lon such as Rome had been for centuries. It monial, especially that of his coronation with was impossible but that the malaria of that the seven crowns, all the most distinguished long servitude should have depressed and clergy of Rome did not scruple to officiate. degraded their whole moral constitution. Of This was the day of his highest magnificence: the old vigorous plebeian Roman they could though the seizure, imprisonment, and dis- have nothing but the turbulence; the frudainful pardon of the nobles, their insurrec- gality, the fortitude, the discipline, the love tion and their defeat took place after this, ne- of order, the respect for law, were virtues ver, as Rienzi confesses in his humiliation, which they certainly could not have acquired was he environed with such pomp or elated by any species of training or practice. If with so much pride. It was on this occa- they were too often the victims of the prosion that he made the profane comparison fligacy of the nobles, submission to such outbetween himself and our Lord; and the strik-rages, however reluctant, is no good school ing circumstance took place which he relates in his letter to the archbishop of Prague. In the midst of all the wild and joyous exultation of the people, one of his most zealous supporters, a monk, Fra Gulielmo, who was in high repute for his sanctity, stood apart in a corner of the church and wept bitterly! A domestic chaplain of Rienzi's inquired the cause of his grief. 'Now,' replied the man of God, 'is thy master cast down from heaven-never saw I man so proud. By the aid of the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants from the city without drawing a sword; the cities and the sovereigns of Italy have submitted to his power. Why is he so arrogant and ungrateful towards the Most High? Why is now no person in the city who dares to does he seek earthly and transitory rewards for his labours, and in his wanton speech liken himself to the Creator? Tell thy master that he can only atone for this offence by tears of penitence. In the evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuke to the Tribune: it appalled him for the time, but was soon forgotten in the tumult and hurry of business.

On the causes of the rapid and sudden fall of the Tribune, these documents furnish less information. One month after his triumph, and the death of the Colonnas under the walls of Rome, Rienzi was an exile. In fact, the lofty and imposing edifice of his power was built upon a quicksand. It would indeed have been the most extraordinary moral and political miracle, if the Roman people, after centuries of misrule, of degradation, of slavery, and of superstition, had suddenly appear ed worthy of liberty; able to maintain, and wisely and moderately to employ, the blessings of a just and equal constitution.

That man must be far gone in the wildest

of morals; and the long dominion of the Roman clergy, by the admission of all the indignant writers of the times, was little favourable to those social and domestic virtues, which are the only safeguard of free popular institutions. Rienzi himself appears fondly to have supposed that he had wrought a permanent moral as well as political revolution :-" -'It was hardly to be believed that the Roman people, till now full of dissension, and corrupted by every kind of vice, should be so soon reduced to a state of unanimity, to so great a love of justice, virtue, and peace; and that hatred, assaults, murder, and rapine should be subdued and put an end to. There

play at forbidden games, or to provoke God or his saints with blasphemy; there is no layman who keeps his concubine; all enemies are reconciled; even wives who had been long cast off return to their husbands." This passion of virtue-we speak from no ungenerous mistrust of human nature or of her principles-was too sudden and violent to last. Nor was the example of Rienzi, though his morals were by all accounts blameless, adapted for the enforcement of the sterner republican virtues. He wanted simplicity, solidity, and self-command. His ostentation, though in some respects perhaps politic, became puerile. His luxury was costly, burthensome to the people, as well as offensive to their jealousy. The advancement of his family (the rock upon which almost all demagogues split) unwise. Even his religion, one of the indispensable dominant

Letter to a friend in Avignon. From the Turin MS., in Hobhouse, page 537.