Yours, &c., &c., A. PANIZZI. ------- “B. M., Nov. 29th, 1855. “My dear Haywood, And so you are not afraid of the influence of the Church because Scepticism and Infidelity prevail? It is because they prevail that I fear the Concordat. If the Protestants were animated by religious fanaticism, as they were some centuries ago, they would resist and prefer martyrdom to submitting to Rome; but Philosophy, and Scepticism, and Infidelity, and all that, are all negative qualities. They do not give strength and courage. Do you think all the Sceptics and Infidels in the world would fight like the Waldenses, the Hussites, and the Germans under the King of Sweden? Moreover, the number of Infidels and Sceptics is limited to the upper classes generally. What hold can they have on the ignorant masses, who have only in view the gallows in this world and hell in the next? There were Infidels and Sceptics enough in Spain and Italy in the sixteenth century, and the united tyranny of the temporal and spiritual power kept Italy obedient to Rome. It was towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV. that the French Protestants were obliged to submit. Yours, &c., &c., A. PANIZZI.” Having now completed this ecclesiastical episode of Panizzi’s life, it behoves us to return to our interrupted narrative and to the relation of the results of his expedition to Italy, as well as his further action in the liberation of his suffering friends and countrymen. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XX _Devising Means for Escape of Settembrini; Mode of Carrying on Correspondence; Senesi Collection; Mazza Affair; Loss of the ‘Isle of Thanet.’_ No sooner had Panizzi arrived in London than he began devising means of escape from the dungeons of the Neapolitan Government for his unhappy friends. His first efforts were for the deliverance of Settembrini, in captivity at San Stefano, the relief of Poerio, more closely watched in an inland prison, being of secondary consideration. That the work was both arduous and hazardous may be conceived, and that as yet no very palpable improvement in the state of Naples had resulted, notwithstanding Panizzi’s exertions during his visit, may be gathered from a letter by Sir William Temple: ‘There is no appearance of any change in the police here, as the trial for the affair of the 15th May is conducted in a more illegal way than that of Poerio. The judge puts words into the witnesses’ mouths, or, at least, reads them their former depositions, and threatens them with punishment if they do not adhere to them.’