418 
was already (if we are rightly informed) on 
the point of detaching the Spanifh domi- 
nions from the dependance on the Holy 
See, and appointing a national patriarch. 
Pedantic canonifts and hiftorians repeated 
en this occafion the fuperannuated com- 
mon topics of the ambition and rapacity 
of the clergy: among them, Miilot did 
not fcruple to notice the event, in the laft 
parasraph of his Elements of Univerfal 
Hiftory, and cell it progrés dela #aifon; 
and a Neapolitan judge, of the name of 
Spiriti, a petulant and prefumptuous {erib- 
bler, publifhed a work on the “* Purpofe,” 
which contained little elfe than violent 
farcafms againft the church, becaufe His 
Holinefs had, in his Bull, ufed the impe- 
rious words—In ducaiu nofiro Parmenfi et 
Placentino. ‘Thefe fa&ts will prove that 
the Church cannot poffels any thing, only 
becaufe it is called Church ; and that the 
Pope is always in the wrong, becaufe he 
is called a Pope! This was the refult of 
what Mr. Burke juftly fyled the zarrow 
mind of the philofophical age! 
His Royal Highnefs has ever fince lived 
in the gréateft tranquillity. In the year 
176g, he married the Archduchefs Mary 
fimalia, the eldeft of the Auttrian Prin- 
ceffes, and four years older than himéfelf, 
by which marriage he has a promifing 
young Prince, Don Luigi, born in the year 
1773- He has, like his father, attended to 
theliterary improvements inhis {mall fiate; 
he founded, about the year 1770, an aca- 
demy tor arts, the firft Prefident of which 
From the Port-Folioof a Man of Letters, 
[June t, 
was the celebrated Count Rezzonico; 
about the year 1772, he eftablifhed ano- 
ther academy for the improvement of dra- 
matic compofitions, with yearly premiums 
to fuch who prefented the beft play, the 
firft of which was granted (if we recolleét 
rightly) to Count Magnocavalio, for his 
tragedy of Crefo; and the fecond to Count 
Galini, author of thetragedy of Zelinda. 
The eftablifhment, however, which re- 
fleéts an immortal honour on his reign, is 
the Royal Printing-houfe in Parma, di= 
rected by the celebrated Bodoni, who has, » 
undoubtedly, furpafled all his predeceffors 
in the typographic annals, and has, moft 
likely, precluded the way to all his fuc- 
ceflors for any confiderable improvement 
in the fame line. 
His Royal Highnefs, has, indeed, a de- 
votion rather fuitable to a Capuchin than 
toa Prince. He fpends the greateft part 
of his time in the churches, and very of- 
ten he choofes to affift at divine fervice, 
and chaunt in the choir of the Dominical 
Fathers in Parma. This has rendered 
him obnoxious to fome criticifms from 
his fubjeéts as well as the reft of the 
Italians. He has,’ however, evinced 
throughout his life, that fuperftition is, at 
the worft, the religion of weak minds. 
For no-body can deny that he carefully 
fulfils every domeftic and public duty, and 
he is of courfe beloved by his family and 
fubjects, and highly efteemed by his neigh- 
bours. 
Extras from the Port-folio of a Man of Letiers. 
QUEEN ELIZABETH. 
FA HE following anecdote-is a very cu- 
it rious illuftration both of the charac- 
ter of this great Princefs, and of the bad 
tafte of the pulpit eloquence, and courtly 
fhifting of the bithops of her age. It is 
related by a contemporary; and that the 
aaiveté of the ftyle may not be Joft in the 
narrative, it fhall be tranfcribed as it ap- 
pears in the original writer : 
- «© There is almoft none that waited in 
Queen Elifabeth’s court, and obferved 
any thing, bft can tell it~ pleafed her 
very much fo feeme to be thought, 
and to be told, that fhe looked younge. 
The majefty and gravity of a fcepter born 
44 yeeres could not alter that nature of a 
woman in her. When Bifhop Rudd was 
appointed to preach before her, he wifhing, 
in a godly zeale, as well became him, that 
fhe fhould think fometime of mortality, 
being then 63 yeeres of age, he tooke this 
text, fit for that purpofe, out of the 
Pfalms. Pflalm 90. v. 12.—O teach us 
to NUMBER our dayes, that ewe may incline 
our hearts unto wifdome, which text he 
handled malt learnedly. But when he 
{poke of fome facred and myftical num- 
bers, as three for the trinity, three times 
three for the heavenly hierarchy, feven for 
the fabbath, and feven times feven fora 
jubile;and laftly fever times nimetor thegrand 
climaéterical yeere(her age), fhe, perceiving 
whereto it tended, began to be troubled 
withit.—TheBifhop difcovering all was not 
well, for the pulpit food oppofite to her 
majeftie, he feil to treat of fome more 
plaufible zumbers, as of the number 666, 
making Latimus, with which he faid he 
could prove the Pope to be Antichrilt, 
&c. He interlarded his fermon with 
{cripture paflages, touching the sciiatag 
Q 
