d which, as the
principal cause of the subsequent rebellion, demands a somewhat
circumstantial notice. This it was that first brought arbitrary power
into the innermost sanctuary of the constitution; taught it to give a
dreadful specimen of its might; and, in a measure, legalized it, while
it placed republican spirit on a dangerous eminence. And as the latter
sank into anarchy and rebellion monarchical power rose to the height of
despotism.

Nothing is more natural than the transition from civil liberty to
religious freedom. Individuals, as well as communities, who, favored by
a happy political constitution, have become acquainted with the rights
of man, and accustomed to examine, if not also to create, the law which
is to govern them; whose minds have been enlightened by activity, and
feelings expanded by the enjoyments of life; whose natural courage has
been exalted by internal security and prosperity; such men will not
easily surrender themselves to the blind domination of a dull arbitrary
creed, and will be the first to emancipate themselves from its yoke.
Another circumstance, however, must have greatly tended to diffuse the
new religion in these countries. Italy, it might be objected, the seat
of the greatest intellectual culture, formerly the scene of the most
violent political factions, where a burning climate kindles the blood
with the wildest passions--Italy, among all the European countries,
remained the freest from this change. But to a romantic people, whom a
warm and lovely sky, a luxurious, ever young and ever smiling nature,
and the multifarious witcheries of art, rendered keenly susceptible of
sensuous enjoyment, that form of religion must naturally have been
better adapted, which by its splendid pomp captivates the senses, by its
mysterious enigmas opens an unbounded range to the fancy; and which,
through the most picturesque forms, labors to insinuate important
doctrines into the soul. On the contrary, to a people whom the ordinary
employments of civil life have drawn down to an unpoetical reality, who
live more in plain notions than in images, and who cultivate their
common sense at the expense of their imagination--to such a people that
creed will best recommend itself which dreads not investigation, which
lays less stress on mysticism than on morals, and which is rather to be
understood then to be dwelt upon in meditation. In few words, the Roman
Catholic religion will, on the whole, be found more