Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/262

 as corrupt and odious; it subsists now as it did then—only things are worse—partly, because all that does not improve must deteriorate; partly, that the uses and end of government are better understood, and abuses become more torturing and intolerable; and partly, because the checks and restraints which time and custom opposed to their tyranny are now all swept away.

The Pope and his prelates, alone, are invested with political, legislative, and administrative authority, and constitute the State. From education and from system they are despotic, and repel every liberal notion, every social progress. The people pay and obey: all the offices, all the employments, great and small, are in the hands of the clergy. From the Pope to the lowest priestly magistrate, all live on the public revenues, whence springs a system of clients, which existing principally in Rome, yet extends over the whole of the papal dominions, and creates a crowd of dependants devoted to the clergy. Corruption is the mainspring of the State, which rests on the cupidity which the absence of all incentive to, or compensation for, honest labour inspires: yet nearly all are poor, and poorest is the Head of the whole; who, shrinking from all improvement, fearful if the closed valves were opened, he should admit in one rushing stream, with industry