The
laws respecting the censorship of the press were much relaxed, and
numerous political journals were established at Rome, which before had
nothing that deserved the name of a newspaper. "Our infant journalism,"
says Farini, "had its infant passions and caprices; instead of
meditating, it gambolled, and every day it smashed its toys of the day
before, as children do; it instituted a school of declamation, not of
political knowledge; it ran and plunged about, blindfold; it made boast
of an independent spirit, and was a mean slave to out-of-doors
influence."
These measures of reform, and the enthusiasm which they created, were
not without effect on surrounding nations. Considering the place whence
they came, and the sovereign who conducted them, they were adapted to
have a vast influence. Rome, the "Eternal City," was regenerated, and a
new life bounded through her old limbs; and the August head of the
Catholic Church, the greatest religious potentate of the civilized
world, the infallible, the object of veneration to half Christendom, and
hitherto the most despotic and conservative sovereign in Europe, was now
the daring innovator, the radical, the idol of the populace.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270