FERDINAND OF NAPLES.

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ascendancy over the weak and uncultivated mind of herhusband, Tanucci was compelled to resign. He retired intothe country, where he died, after having governed withmore than regal power and free from regal iniquity, for thespace of forty-three years. He died in 1784, without chil-dren and scarcely left his widow any other earthly good,but that of his fair fame.

The intelligent reader will, I think, allow that the wantsof society, and the basis of public prosperity, were under-stood by my father’s friend Bernardo Tanucci , much beyondthe spirit of the times in which he lived, and that hisplans and thoughts would have done great honour to anystatesman of the present day.

To reformers and to anti-reformers, to establishedchurchites and anti-churchites, to the “no-popery” bawl-ers, and to those liberal-minded men who would wish tostifle that idiot cry, I most earnestly recommend attentionto the above sketch of the political life, and the reformseffected by Tanucci — by a Papist in a Popish country andPopish institutions, under the very nose of his holiness thePope, and in defiance of his authority, spiritual and tem-poral.

On the death of Ferdinand the sixth, king of Spain , hisbrother Charles, who then reigned at Naples , was called tothe Spanish throne in the year 1750. His son Ferdinand,then only eight years of age, succeeded to the crown ofNaples . A regency was named to govern pending this pro-mised long minority, consisting of eight members includingBernardo Tanucci , as I have already stated. To DominicoCattaneo, prince of St. Nicandro, another of the regency, theeducation of the young Ferdinand was especially confided.The intellect of the joint regency was chiefly concentrated inTanucci; St. Nicandro possessed but barely his average