was his threats and predictions; and the modern Brutus * concealed under the mask of folly and the character of a buffoon. While they indulged their contempt, the restoration of the good estate, his favourite expression, was entertained among the people as a desirable, a possible, and at length as an approaching, event; and while all had the disposition to applaud, some had the courage to assist their promised deliverer. A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the churchdoor of St. George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a nocturnal assembly of a hundred citizens on mount Aventine, the first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of their enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources, were strong only in the fear of their imaginary strength; that all power, as well as right, was in the hands of the people; that the revenues of the apostolical chamber might relieve the public distress; and that the pope himself would approve their victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After securing a faithful band to protect his first delaration, he proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the evening of the following day all persons should assemble without arms before the church of St. Angelo, to provide for the re-establishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed in the celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost; and in the morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armour, issued from the church, encompassed by the hundred conspirators. The pope's vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems of their design. In the first the banner of liberty, Rome was seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the other; St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner of justice; and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of concord and peace. Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and applause of an innumerable crowd, who * Priori (Bruto) tamen similior, juvenis uterque, longe ingenio quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc obtentu liberator ille P. R. aperiretur tempore suo . . . Ille regibus, hic tyrannis contemptus. (Opp. p. 536.) understood little, and hoped much; and the procession slowly rolled forwards from the castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. His triumph was disturbed by some secret emotion which he laboured to suppress; he ascended without opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of the republic; harangued the people from the balcony; and received the most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The nobles, as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent consternation this strange revolution; and the mo ment had been prudently chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from the city. On the first rumour, he returned to his palace, affected to despise this plebeian tumult, and declared to the messenger of Rienzi, that at his leisure he would cast the madman from the windows of the Capitol. The great bell instantly rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, and so urgent was the danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of St. Laurence; from thence, after a moment's refreshment, he continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his castle of Palestrina; lamenting his own impru dence, which had not trampled the spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order was issued from the Capitol to all the nobles, that they should peace. ably retire to their estates; they obeyed, and their depar ture secured the tranquillity of the free and obedient citizens of Rome. But such voluntary obedience evaporates with the first transports of zeal; and Rienzi felt the importance of jus tifying his usurpation by a regular form and a legal title. At his own choice, the Roman people would have displayed their attachment and authority, by lavishing on his head the names of senator or consul, of king or emperor; he preferred the ancient and modest appellation of tribune; the protection of the commons was the essence of that sacred office; and they were ignorant, that it had never been invested with any share in the legislative or executive powers of the republic. In this character, and with the consent of the Romans, the tribune enacted the most salutary laws for the restoration and maintenance of the good estate. By the first, he fulfils the wish of honesty and inexperience, that no civil suit should be protracted beyond the term of fifteen days. The danger of frequent perjury might justify the pronouncing against a false accuser the same penalty which his evidence would have inflicted; the disorders of the times might compel the legislator to punish every homicide with death, and every injury with equal retaliation; but the execution of justice was hopeless till he had previously abolished the tyranny of the nobles. It was formally provided, that none, except the supreme magistrate, should possess or command the gates, bridges, or towers of the state; that no private garrisons should be introduced into the towns or castles of the Roman territory; that none should bear arms, or presume to fortify their houses in the city or country; that the barons should be responsible for the safety of the highways and the free passage for provisions; and that the protection of malefactors and robbers should be expiated by a fine of a thousand marks of silver. But these regulations would have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious nobles been awed by the sword of the civil power. A sudden alarm from the bell of the Capitol could still summon to the standard above twenty thousand volunteers; the support of the tribune and the laws required a more regular and permanent force. In each harbour of the coast, a vessel was stationed for the assurance of commerce; a standing militia of three hundred and sixty horse and thirteen hundred foot was levied, clothed, and paid, in the thirteen quarters of the city; and the spirit of a commonwealth may be traced in the grateful allowance of one hundred florins or pounds to the heirs of every soldier who lost his life in the service of his country. For the maintenance of the public defence, for the establishment of granaries, for the relief of widows, orphans, and indigent convents, Rienzi applied, without fear of sacrilege, the revenues of the apostolic chamber; the three branches of hearthmoney, the salt-duty, and the customs, were each of the annual produce of one hundred thousand florins;* and scandalous were the abuses, if in four or five months the amount of the salt duty could be trebled by his judicious economy. * In one MS. I read (1. 2, c. 4, p. 409) perfumante quatro solli, in another quatro florini, an important variety, since the florin was worth ten Roman solidi. (Muratori, dissert. 28.) The former reading would give us a population of twenty-five thousand, the latter of two hundred and fifty thousand families; and I much fear that the former is more consistent with the decay of Rome and her territory. 2 D VOL. VII. After thus restoring the forces and finances of the republic, the tribune recalled the nobles from their solitary inde pendence; required their personal appearance in the Capitol; and imposed an oath of allegiance to the new_government, and of submission to the laws of the good estate. Apprehensive for their safety, but still more apprehensive of the danger of a refusal, the princes and barons returned to their houses at Rome in the garb of simple and peaceful citizens; the Colonna and Ursini, the Savelli and Frangi pani, were confounded before the tribunal of a plebeian, of the vile buffoon whom they had so often derided; and their disgrace was aggravated by the indignation which they vainly struggled to disguise. The same oath was successively pronounced by the several orders of society, the clergy and gentlemen, the judges and notaries, the mer chants and artizans; and the gradual descent was marked by the increase of sincerity and zeal. They swore to live and die with the republic and the Church, whose interest was artfully united by the nominal association of the bishop of Orvieto, the pope's vicar, to the office of tribune. It was the boast of Rienzi, that he had delivered the throne and patrimony of St. Peter from a rebellious aristocracy; and Clement the Sixth, who rejoiced in its fall, affected to believe the professions, to applaud the merits, and to confirm the title, of his trusty servant. The speech, perhaps the mind, of the tribune, was inspired with a lively regard for the purity of the faith; he insinuated his claim to a supernatural mission from the Holy Ghost; enforced, by a heavy forfeiture, the annual duty of confession and communion; and strictly guarded the spiritual as well as temporal welfare of his faithful people.* Never, perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformation of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent; patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and stranger; nor could birth, or dignity, or the immunities of the Church, protect the offender or his accomplices. The *Hocsemius, p. 398, apud Du Cerceau, Hist. de Rienzi, p. 194. The fifteen tribunitian laws may be found in the Roman historian (whom for brevity I shall name) Fortifiocca, 1. 2, c. 4. privileged houses, the private sanctuaries, in Rome, on which no officer of justice would presume to trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron of their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The venerable father of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to the double shame of being desirous, and of being unable, to protect a criminal. A mule, with a jar of oil, had been stolen near Capranica; and the lord of the Ursini family was condemned to restore the damage, and to discharge a fine of four hundred florins for his negligence in guarding the highways. Nor were the persons of the barons more inviolate than their lands or houses; and, either from accident or design, the same impartial rigour was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions. Peter Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested in the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardy execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence and rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the mouth of the Tiber.* His name, the purple, * Fortifiocca, 1. 2, c. 11. From the account of this shipwreck we learn some circumstances of the trade and navigation of the age. 1. The ship was built and freighted at Naples for the ports of Marseilles and Avignon. 2. The sailors, were of Naples and the isle of Enaria, less skilful than those of Sicily and Genoa. 3. The navigation from Marseilles was a coasting voyage to the mouth of the Tiber, where they took shelter in a storm; but, instead of finding the current, unfortunately ran on a shoal; the vessel was stranded, the mariners escaped. 4. The cargo, which was pillaged, consisted of the revenue of Provence for the royal treasury, many bags of pepper and cinnamon, and bales of French cloth, to the value of twenty thousand florins: a rich prize. [There is much confusion in this note, and the original narrative is also somewhat obscure. It does not appear that the ship was built and freighted at Naples. Some Neapolitan merchants, returning from the West, engaged and loaded it with cloths and spices at Marseilles and Avignon. (Mercatanti de lo Renno benivano da Ponente e haveano caricato in Marsilia e in Avignone una galera.) The same vessel was to convey to Joanna, queen of Naples, the revenues of Provence, part of the hereditary dominions of her family. (In quella galera venne la moneta e la rennita de Proenza, la quale beniva a la reina Joanna de soa contrata.) Whether these were invested in the purchase of the cargo is not very clear, nor is it material. The ship was wrecked and plundered on its way towards Naples. While Rienzi so severely punished the offenders, it would have been satisfactory to know that the property, or its value, was restored to those who had been despoiled. Among the passengers was a young military knight, who, in consequence of the loss which he |