It will probably be admitted, that the foregoing extracts from Vittoria Colonna's poetry, if they do not suffice to give the outline of the entire fabric of her religious faith, yet abundantly prove, that she must be classed among the Protestant and reforming party of her age and country, rather than among the orthodox Catholics, their opponents. The passages quoted all bear, more or less directly, on a few special points of doctrine, as do also the great bulk of her religious poems. But these points are precisely those on which the reforming movement was based, the cardinal points of difference between the parties. They involve exactly those doctrines which Rome, on mature examination and reflection, rightly found to be fatally incompatible with her system. For the dominant party at Trent were assuredly wiser in their generation than such children of light, as the good Contarini, who dreamed that a purified Papacy was possible, and that Rome might still be Rome, after its creed had been thus modified. Caraffa and Ghislieri, Popes Paul IV. and Pius V., and their inquisitors knew very clearly better. It is, of course, natural enough, that the points of doctrine then new and disputed, the points respecting which the poetess differed from the majority of the world around her, and which must have been the subject of her special meditation, should occupy also the most prominent position in her writings. Yet it is remarkable, that in so large a mass of poetry on exclusively religious themes, there should be found hardly a thought or sentiment on topics of practical morality. The title of "_Rime sacre e morali_," prefixed by Visconti to this portion of Vittoria's writings, is wholly a misnomer. If these sonnets furnish the materials for forming a tolerably accurate notion of her scheme of theology, our estimate of her views of morality must be sought elsewhere. [Sidenote: BAD MORALITY.]