gregation for itself, and not the least dignified and important of
them; for, besides eight cardinals and four prelates, it commands the
official services of the Auditor of the Apostolic Chamber, the
Treasurer, a judge of the _Rota_, a comptroller, an attorney-general, a
secretary, and several counsellors-at-law. Not St. Peter's only, but all
the churches of Rome, come in for a share of their attention; and what
is more important, they form a court of probate, with exclusive
jurisdiction over all wills containing charitable bequests, or bequests
to heretics and strangers, fugitives, exiles, or the dead. Even a doubt
as to the probability of being able to execute the bequest according to
the wishes of the testator, or an apparent contradiction in the devises
themselves, brings the will within the jurisdiction of this tribunal;
and should the legatee, after full experience of the law's delay,
succeed in obtaining a favorable decree, the income of his legacy, from
the death of the testator to the publication of the decision, is
sequestrated to the treasury of the church of St. Peter's. Few
congregations are more assiduous in the performance of their duties.

A criminal court of appeals, with the appellation of _Sacra
Consulta_,--how this _sacred_ meets you at every turn!--a council called
_Buon Governo_, for the superintendence of municipal
administration,--one for roads, fountains, and water-courses, called the
General Prefecture of Waters and Roads,--a Council of "Economy," a
Council of Studies, a Council for the Examination of Accounts, in which
four laymen sit side by side with four prelates, under the presidency of
a cardinal, and the Congregation of the Census for the apportionment of
taxes on real estate in the country, form the seven civil congregations
by which the Pope is assisted in his labors, and the cardinals and
prelates brought in to a share of the administration. Add to these
sixteen tribunals, or courts, civil and ecclesiastical, two Secretaries
of State, a Secretary of Briefs and one of Memorials, a _Camerlengo_, a
Treasurer, and a Governor of Rome, and you have an outline of the Roman
Government under Gregory XVI.

The Secretaries of State are always cardinals; the _Camerlengo_, who is
the official head of government during the vacancies of the Holy See, a
cardinal; the Treasurer and Governor of Rome, prelates, who, on leaving
office, become cardinals by right. The only part of this complex
machinery w