568 ITALY. 



your arrival) boiled to rags, without any the least kind of sauce or 

 herbage ; another fowl, just killed, stewed as they call it ; then two 

 more fowls, or a turkey, roasted to rags. All over Italy, on the roads, 

 the chickens and fo»vls are so stringy, you may divide the breast into 

 as many filaments as you can a halfpenny-worth of thread. Now and 

 then we get a little piece of mutton or veal ; and generally speaking, 

 it is the only eatable morsel that talis in our way. The bread all the 

 way is exceedingly bad ; and the butter so rancid, that it cannot be 

 touciied, or even borne within the reach of your smell. But what 

 is a greater evil to travellers than any of the above recited, are the 

 infinite numbers of gnats, bugs, fleas, and lice, which infest us by day 

 and nigbt." 



Religion. ...The religion of the Italians is the Roman-catholic. 

 The inquisition here is little more than a name ; and persons of all 

 religions live unmolested in Italy, provided no gross insult is offered 

 to their worship. In the Introduction, we have given an account of 

 the rise and establishment of popery in Italy, from whence it spread 

 over all Europe ; likewise of the causes and symptoms of its decline. 

 The ecclesiastical government of the papacy has employed many 

 volumes in describing it. The cardinals, who are next in dignity to 

 his holiness, are seventy ; but that number is seldom or never com- 

 plete : they are appointed by the pope, who takes care to have a 

 majority ot Italian cardinals, that the chair may not be removed from 

 Rome, as it was once to Avignon in France, the then pope being a 

 Frenchman. In promoting foreign prelates to the cardinalship, the 

 pope regulates himself according to the nomination of the princes 

 who profess that religion. His chief minister is the cardinal patron, 

 generally his nephew, or near relation, who improves the time of the 

 pope's reign by amassing what he can. When met in a consistory, 

 the cardinals pretend to controul the pope, in matters both spiritual 

 and temporal, and have been sometimes known to prevail. The reign 

 of a pope is seldom of long duration, being generally old men at the 

 time of their election. The conclave is a scene where the cardinals 

 principally endeavour to display their abilities, and where many trans- 

 actions pass very inconsistent with their pretended inspiration by the 

 Holy Ghost. During the election of a pope, in 1721, the animosities 

 ran so high, that they came to blows with both their hands and feet, 

 and threw the ink-standishes at each other. We shall here give an 

 extract from the creed of pope Pius IV, (1560) before his elevation to 

 the chair, which contains the principal points wherein the church of 

 Rome differs from the protestant churches. After declaring his 

 belief in one God, and other heads wherein Christians in general are 

 agreed, he proceeds as follows : 



" i most firmly admit and embrace the apostolical and ecclesiasti- 

 cal traditions, and all other constitutions of the church of Rome. 



" I do admit the Holy Scriptures in the same sense that holy 

 mother-church doth, whose business it is to judge of the true sense 

 and interpretation of them ; and I will interpret them according to 

 the unanimous consent of the fathers. 



" I do profess and believe that there are seven sacraments of the 

 law, truly and properly so called, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, 

 and necessary to the salvation of mankind, though not all of them t© 

 every one ; namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, ex- 

 treme unction, orders, and marriage, and that they do confer grace; 

 and that of these, baptism, confirmation, and orders, may not be 



