ANCESTORS OF THE AUTHOR.

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interesting family relic, a pair of doe skin pantaloons whichshe had worn on many a tour of inspection, or of coursingfestivity. Many will, perhaps, laugh at me for mentioningsuch particulars. I have however done it with brevity.

A custom has prevailed with many European governmentsof the old, and, unhappily for the governed, of the newschool also, to let out certain branches of the revenue, suchas the duties on salt, tobacco, &c., to individuals, who, payingto the finance minister a fixed sum per year, take uponthemselves the collecting of the duties. In France , suchspeculators, were called “ Farmers General, ” and numerouswere the abuses, the peculations, the discontent whichresulted from the working of the system. The Theocratic government of the Popes could not fail to adopt any badfeature in the management of its neighbours. Consequentlythe farming out to individuals of the public revenues wastoo obnoxious to good government not to become thefinancial rule of the priestly despots. The duties on tobacco,on salt, on wine, oil, &c., the odious tax on flour, leviedat the mills, in fine, every impost was farmed out to specu-lators for a certain sum per year, on the principle of thehighest bidder, the farmer being at all the cost, and trouble,and risk, too—for there was risk—in the collection. Aboutfifteen miles from the port of Civitavecchia , being aboutsixty miles north west of Rome , is the village of La Tolfa,which principally consists of the habitations of the workmenemployed in the celebrated alum mines and works that bearits name. These works, together with 2,500 acres of ad-joining arable land, were the property of the Papal govern-ment, aggregately called La Camera. My grandfather,Francis Philip, Marquis Maceroni, was one of the richest“noblemen” of Rome ; and having received an excellenteducation, travelled into foreign parts, and imbibed a tastefor the practical sciences, he was induced to become the