intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless to correct the disorders of a distant and almost unknown province. Theological disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the attention of the successors of the martial Constantine, whose authority, disputed at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in their insular possessions. The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided perhaps by a knowledge of the impoverished condition of the country, may have deterred the victorious barbarians from any prolonged occupation of Sicily. While they overran the country at different times, they left no traces of their sojourn,--neither colonies, institutions, racial impressions, nor physical peculiarities. But this comparative exemption from the common ruin seems to have been productive of no substantial benefit. The spirit of the people was not adapted either to the requirements of self-government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They were at once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the Sicilian of the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern times, every evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of the peasantry, aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the principal causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan power. From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome, the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was situated the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman hierarchy. There were matured political measures which were destined to exercise for generations the talents of the ablest statesmen of Europe. At an early period the popes acquired an important following among the peasantry of the island. The ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with which it received impressions of the supernatural; the associations derived from the legends of antiquity, many of which, with political foresight, had been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church; the absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous offences, had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the gorgeous altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the vast number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone possessed nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with beautiful gardens and supplied with all the requirements of luxury arose on every side. The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The miracles performed by holy men and women surpassed in wonder and mystery the achievements of mythological heroes,--the conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of dragons.