whereas by this Bull such a proceeding was directly incited; while the proposed power of proxy is quite without precedent. In the end of August, Cardinal Antonelli had arrived in Venice, and was congratulating himself on this act, the final promulgation of which he thought that he had secured. But the hesitation of old age reverted on Pius VI., when in his lonely cell he saw brought to him for ratification the instrument wherein, by a stroke of his pen, he was so gravely to modify ancient constitutions. The Bull of the previous year had been promulgated in concert with his Cardinals; but this one, involving far more
the Papacy. In the spirit of an ecclesiastical Cato, every proceeding flavouring of this nature is savagely stigmatized as a crime, and subjected to all the severities of ecclesiastical punishment. Amongst the many cases repudiated, that of canvassing for a Pope, without the knowledge of the living one, is considered so heinous as to have a whole clause specially devoted to its absolute condemnation. The object of the Bull is laudable; it was inspired by a just indignation at the interests of a manifestly secular nature which had decided, elections in more than one recent Conclave; but its tone and fierce denunciations are signally characteristic of that intemperate zeal which has made the name of Paul IV. survive only as the ill-sounding synonym of cruel and precipitate passions; whereas once it was hopefully expected to express the fearless uprightness of a genuine man of God.
