416 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES -III 



as a noble character and valuable critic, though with no 

 permanent place in Italian literature. He excused the 

 tardiness of Italians in putting up statues to Giordano 

 Bruno and Fra Paolo Sarpi, since they had so many other 

 recent statues to put up. As I look back upon this con 

 versation, it is a pleasure to remember that I have lived 

 to see both these statues that of Bruno, on the place in 

 Rome where he was burned alive, and that of Sarpi, on the 

 place in Venice where the assassins sent by Pope Paul V 

 left him for dead. 



Early in March we arrived in Naples, going piously 

 through the old sights we had seen several times before. 

 Eevisiting Amalfi, I saw the archbishop pontificating at 

 the cathedral: he was the finest-looking prelate I ever 

 saw, reminding me amazingly of my old professor, Silli- 

 man of Yale. Then, during the stay of some weeks in 

 Sorrento, I took as an Italian teacher a charming old 

 padre, who read his mass every morning in one of the 

 churches and devoted the rest of the day to literature. 

 He was at heart liberal, and it was from him that I re 

 ceived a copy of the famous &quot;Politico-Philosophical Cate 

 chism,&quot; adopted by Archbishop Apuzzo of Sorrento, 

 than which, probably, nothing more defiant of moral prin 

 ciples was ever written. The archbishop had been made 

 by &quot;King Bomba&quot; tutor to his son, and no wonder that 

 the young man was finally kicked ignominiously off his 

 throne, and his country annexed to the Italian kingdom. 

 This catechism, written years before by the elder Leo- 

 pardi, but adopted and promoted by the archbishop, was 

 devoted to maintaining the righteousness of all that sys 

 tem of extreme despotism, oath-breaking, defiance of na 

 tional sentiment, and violations of ordinary decency, 

 which had made the kingdom of Naples a byword during 

 so many generations. Therein patriotism was proved to 

 be a delusion; popular education an absurdity; obser 

 vance of the monarch s sworn word opposition to divine 

 law; a constitution a mere plaything in the monarch s 

 hands; the Bible is steadily quoted in behalf of &quot;the 



