it was a treatise on style, iu a 
very bad style, abounding in 
false ornaments and epigrammatic 
gallicism. Another observed, he 
wished that fashionable writer, who 
had been commented on by Voltaire, 
an, author still more fashionable and 
Pernicious than himself, would con- 
fine himself to such barmless topics 
as rhetoric and style; for his book 
on Crimes and Punishments was 
calculated to do much serious mis- 
chief, at least to prevent much 
positive good: because in that po- 
pular work he had declaimed very 
persuasively against capital punish- 
ments, in a country long disgraced 
by capital crimes, which were 
scarcely ever capitally punished. 
The love of letters which distin- 
guishes the people of St. Marino 
makes them regret that they are sel- 
dom visited by literary travellers. 
Of our own countrymen, belonging 
to this description, they mentioned 
with much respect Mr. Addison 
and Ii Signor Giovanni Symonds, 
now professor of history in the 
university of Cambridge. We 
were proud of being classed with 
such men by the bonest simplicity of 
_ these virtuous mountaineers, whom 
we left with regret, most heartily 
wishing to them the continuance of 
their liberties, which, to men of 
their character, and theirs only, are 
real and solid blessings. 
Account of the celebrated Conspiracy 
| of the Pazz at Florence ; from 
Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de’ Me- 
dict. 
A Transaction, in which a pope, 
a cardinal, an archbishop, and 
several other ecclesiastics, associ- 
ated themselves with a band of ruf- 
flans, to destroy two men who were 
CHARACTERS, _«ftar 
2 honour to their age and country; 
ad purposed to perpetrate their 
crime, at a season of hospitality, in 
the sanctuary of a Christian church, 
and at the very moment of the ele- 
vation of the host, when the audi- 
ence bowed down before it, and the 
assassins were presumed to be in the 
immediate presence of their God. 
At the bead of this conspiracy 
were Sixtus 1V. and his nephew 
Girolamo Riario. Raffaelle Riario, 
the nephew of this Girolamo, who, 
although a young man then pursuing 
his studies, had lately been raised to 
the dignity of cardinal, was rather 
ap instrument than an accomplice in 
the scheme. The enmity of Sixtus 
to Lorenzo had for some time been 
apparent, and if not occasioned by 
the assistance which Lorenzo had at- 
forded to Nicolo Vitelli, and other 
independent nobles, whose domini- 
ons Sixtus had either threatened or 
attacked, was certainly increased by 
it. The destruction of the Medici 
appeared therefore to Sixtus as the 
removal of an obstacle that thwarted 
all his views ; and by the accomplishe 
ment of which the small surrounding 
states would become an easy prey, 
There is, however, great reason jo 
believe that the pope did not con- 
fine his ambition to these subordi- 
pate governments, but that, if the 
conspiracy had succeeded to his 
wish, he meant to have grasped at 
the dominion of Florence itself. The 
alliance lately formed between the 
Florentines, the Venetians, and the 
duke of Milan, which was princi- 
pally effected by Lorenzo de’ Medi- 
ci, and by which the pope found 
himself prevented from disturbing 
the peace of Ltaly, was an additional 
and powerful motive of resentment. 
One of the first proofs of the displea- 
sure of the pope was his depriving 
Lorenze 
