The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-11 00:00:00

strN, LONDON' MONDAY Ev MNING, FEBRUARY 11, 1861.

have been brigaded by the Lord Lieutenant into a
battalion, and Captain Bellairs, Captain of the liry-
niondham Corps, has been appointed adjutant.
This appointment renders the command of the
AiTymondhain Company vacant.
The accounts of the Harwich Artillery Corps
just presented show a satisfactory balance in hand.
Prizes for the best shots, both with carbines and
artillery, are promised by Mr. E. Garland, and it
is proposed to provide a target for carbine practice.
The Colchester town council has granted the use
of the town-hall to the Volunteers of that town for
evening drill, and the Government authorities have
also granted the corps a piece of ground near the
camp for drill purposes. _ _

A .ROMAN.

The Howdenshire Rifle Volunteers had a shoot-
ing contest a few days ago at Saltmarshe, for the
sum of £5, raised by subscriptions, and offered in
prizes of £2 10s., £1 10s., and £1 to the three
marksmen who obtained the greatest number of
points. The target was erected in a large field,
belonging to Major Saltmarshe, adjoining the river
Ouse, the bank of which served as a butt. T wenty-
one riflemen competed, each of whom fired five
rounds, at 150 yards, and five at 200 yards. The
three highest scorers were Messrs. Clayburn,
Young, and Clayton, who tied. On shooting off,
Clayburn stood first, Clayton second, and Young
third..

parties would give a certain merit to your impar-
tiality? You will rather have to defend yourselves
against the instinctive sympathy inspired by the
cause of a female—a forgotten idol—a son and a
grandson without reproach, who demand not an
inheritance in presence of a mute will, but the
honour of their blood and of their name."

The Court adjourned its judgment for eight
days.

CARDINAL ANTONELLI,PAINTBD BY

The Nazione of Florence has published some
striking articles by an eminent Roman on Cardinal
Antonelli. The following is the first of the series,
to which we shall probably recur :
_ _

For twelve years there has been much talk in
Europe, and out of Europe, of a man who directed
the policy of Rome, and who was called Cardinal
Antonelli. Various judgments have been formed
of him, some exalting ,him as a great statesman,
some running him down as an immoral and foolish
man. At the present moment it will not be with-
out use if we present our readers with the portrait
of this singular Minister, who without meriting
reputation by any title has managed to gain it,
though little resembling that of Erostratus.
Who was James Antonelli, and by what merits
has he come to wear the Cardinal's purple, and sit
in the seat not only of first Minister, but of a
Minister despotic and omnipotent ? It is needless
to say that if the Antonelli family of Sonnino had
any trees, they were not genealogical ones, but such
as bandits use to hang honest travellers who_display
a repugnance to be robbed on the highway. How-
ever, the father of the present cardinal, considering
that in Rome an ecclesiastic might attain even the
papacy, resolved to make little James a priest, and
launch him in the eternal city. At Sonnino they
do not talk much of stars, for there the inspirations
of the poets are little known ; still the father
trusted that in Rome some star would shine on his
son, and he was right. How, indeed, could any
star guide him to a glorious destiny in Sonnino,
where the highest step in the hierarchy was parish
priest, and where also were the head-quarters of a
celebrated highwayman, too closely connected with
his family by consanguinity.* The abbe, then,
rolled himself from Sonnino to Rome, and began
his career, with or without the help of God. The
humility of his birth had accustomed him to make
profound reverences—and these never do harm.
An anatomical leanness, a pallid, emaciated coun-
tenance, in which nature had displayed little
bounty, t gained a certain compassion, and made
the impression that as a priest he might serve for a
model of penitence—a scrt of saint clothed in sack-
cloth, and fed with fasting.
Having won the good will and patronage of cer-
tain cardinals and prelates, little by little he
managed to obtain the government of a province.
He had studied little, indeed, very little. He was
advised to trust in the Lord for success, and he
started for Viterbo with or without God's blessing.
But it seems that he had a programme in his
pocket, in which was written that any Roman
prelate could win the purple by persecuting real
liberals, imagining liberals when the supply failed,
having a certain number condemned to death, and
finding out or inventing conspiracies and conspira-
tors. Monsignore said to himself, Spero bene ; and
his fortune seemed made. He did find that in
Viterbo some young men occasionally met in secret
to talk of politics and liberty; his countenance
smiled with ferocious joy at this grand discovery ; he
had them watched, surprised them in conversation,
handed them over to the political tribunal, and ob-
tained a sentence of death against five of them. On
the instant Monsignore Antonelli's fame became
prodigious, and his prospects wero placed beyond
doubt ; the Court of Rome said, " Behold one of
my pillars !"
He kept advancing higher and higher until be
reached the most important grade in the Roman
court, that of treasurer, being the successor of
Cardinal Tosti, whose administration was immoral
and prodigal. The treasurer is prelate of flocchetto,
which is a technical word of the monsignorial
court, and whidh " materially" means that he and
his horses may wear green tassels, but " juridically"
that he has a right to the dignity of a cardinal.
When, upon having attained such an elevation, he
received the usual official and non-official visits, a
Roman prince, whom we' cannot for good reasons
name here, wished to pay him a congratulatory
visit. We shall merely say that the Antonelli
family had conferred upon that of the visitor rural
administrative offices in the vast possessions pos-
sessed by th© princely houses of Rome. This
prince having been questioned after the visit (per-
fectly spontaneous on his part), as to what bearing
had been assumed by the new treasurer, replied :
—"Ile oppearq to ho more astounded than myself
at the rank to which they have raised him; it
seems to me that he does not yet believe it him-
self!'

The secular abuses and the disorder reigning in
all the Pontifical States are the cause, more than
anything else, why the person holding the office
of treasurer gathers golden fruits for himself.
Hence the reason why Cardinal Tosti wished and
obtained leave to retain that office, which he did
for many years after being made a cardinal; hence
every Minister of Papal finance tries to obtain what
Cardinal Tosti obtained so diametrically for the
public. Pius IX. found the prelate Antonelli a
treasurer. The necessity and custom of renewals
among other things were the reason why the
governor of Rome and the treasurer were invested
with red hats in the first batch of promotions made
by the Pope ; but Antonelli, now a cardinal, did
not retain the management of the finances.
The new cardinal was young, had become bold
and enterprising. A master in dissimulation, he
knew how to put the best face on whatever hap-
pened, and in view of the new times be set up for
a liberal, applauding the Pope and ail his acts ; he
began to frequent great society, to converse with
patriots, and make believe that he hated the
Austrians more than an Italian democrat did. The
acts committed by the prelate in the provinces were
not remembered, and the people had hopes in this
man ! Elected president of the Council of State
his name was not received with repugnance ; and
when after the statute was enlarged he was ap-
pointed President of the Council of Ministers, with
ltecchi. Pasolini, Minghetti, and others, the hopes
of the Romans increased ; so much so that, whether
rightly or wrongly, he obtained the reputation of
being a good administrator.
Shortly before this period he had come to an un-
derstanding with the Austrian minister to labour
with united forces at the ruin of the Italian move-
ment. For the moment he was unable to control
events ; it was requisite to guide them dexterously,
to create and give birth to opportunities. It was
a hard and laborious task, but there was no uncer-
tainty about his future conduct. Therefore the
cardinal, with a cynicism worthy of the time of
Sejanus and Tiberius, presided at the councils of
the deceived ministers; in the discussions he made
no difficulties in agreeing with the most liberal pro-
positions; ho contended for the inviolability of the
statute. . . Then a little later, dexterously,
and with a malice eclipsing that of the Cardinal
Caesar Borgia himself, he terrified the conscience
of the Pope, and caused threats to be held out to
him of a speedily approaching religious schism, thus
paralyzing the efforts of all the good, who would
fain have led the Pope into a very different path
from the one traced out by the Cardinal of Sonnino.
When the war with Austria broke out he wrote the
encyclical letter of April '29 against Italy, and to
Farini that celebrated letter in which he protested

his Italian sentiments ; he contrived to get the en-
cyclical letter itself publishedin the official journal,
thus treating with contempt the Minister of the
Interior, in whose province that journal lay ; he
concealed from the Pope the secret meaning
of that act, and =Bed him to declare to the
ministers that he should have the encyclical
letter toned down and corrected to the form
desired by the public, and he rendered it impos-
sible for the Pope himself to show to the ministers,
who demanded it, the text of the supposed cor-
rection while still in proof. Having thus made
himself the secret author of a treason that pro-
duced a commotion, he assumed the garb of a St.
Louis, and presented himself to the Council of
Ministers, deplored the fatuity of the Pope, pro-
tested about the inviolability of the statute, and as
constitutional Prime Minister first ratified the act
with which he and his colleagues tendered their
resignations.
But the bargain struilt with Austria would have
come to nought if the Pope, so weak in mind, so
changeable, could have fallen into other hands ;
nor could the names of Mamiani and Fabri, who
'were rising into notice, reassure the workers of such
iniquities. Cardinal Antonelli called into existence
an office wholly new to the Roman Court, that of
" governor of the sacred palaces," with which he
felt sure of remaining for ever by the side of the
Pope, and of virtually governing him. There was
not a suite of apartments in the Quirinal good
enough for a cardinal! A mere trifle that ! The
cardinal was satisfied with certain rude chambers,
barely habitable; then he suddenly procured for
himself (naturally enough) more comfortable quar-
ters. From that day to this the real pope has been
the Cardinal of Sonnino. The patriots who directed
public affairs at Rome after the Minister Antonelli,
did all in their power to keep the pontiff to the
mark, to gain him over to the Italian cause.
Mamiani and Fabbri fell, despairing of success.