Milan, though such heavy complaints
are daily made there of encroachments on church power and depredations
on church opulence, still swarms with ecclesiastics; and in an assembly
of thirty people, there are never fewer than ten or twelve at the very
least. But here it should seem as if the political cry of _fuori i
preti_[Footnote: Out with the clergy.], which is said loudly in the
council-chamber before any vote is suffered to pass into a law, were
carried in the conversation rooms too, for a priest is here less
frequent than a clergyman at London; and those one sees about, are
almost all ordinary men, decent and humble in their appearance, of a
bashful distant carriage, like the parson of the parish in North Wales,
or _le cure du village_ in the South of France; and seems no way related
to an _Abate of Milan or Turin_ still less to _Monsieur l' Abbe at
Paris_.
Though this Republic has long maintained a sort of independency from the
court of Rome, having shewn themselves weary of the Jesuits two hundred
years before any other potentate dismissed them; while many of the
Venetian populace followed them about, crying _Andate, andate, niente
pigliate, emai ritornate_[Footnote: Begone, begone; nothing take, nor
turn anon.
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