270

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

LXIX.

ment escape the censure and control of the re-former; and the inferior clergy were taught, byhis lessons, to resist the cardinals, who hadusurped a despotic command over the twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome . 11 The revo-lution was not accomplished without rapine andviolence, the effusion of blood, and the demoli-tion of houses; the victorious faction was en-riched with the spoils of the clergy and the ad-verse nobles. Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or de-plored, the effects of his mission: his reign con-tinued above ten years, while two popes, Inno-cent the second and Anastasius the fourth, eithertrembled in the Vatican , or wandered as exilesin the adjacent cities. They were succeeded bya more vigorous and fortunate pontiff, Adrian the fourth,* the only Englishman who has ascend-ed the throne of St. Peter; and whose meritemerged from the mean condition of a monk,and almost a beggar, in the monastery of St. Al-bans. On the first provocation, of a cardinalkilled or wounded in the streets, he cast an in-terdict on the guilty people; and, from Christ-mas to Easter, Rome was deprived of the realor imaginary comforts of religious worship. TheRomans had despised their temporal prince:they submitted, with grief and terror, to the cen-sures of their spiritual father: their guilt was ex-piated by penance, and the banishment of the

* See Baronius(As d. 1148, No. 38, 39) from the Vatican MSS. Heloudly condemns Arnold (a. d. 1141, No. 3) as the father of the poli-tical heretics, whose influence then hurt him in France .

* The English reader may consult the Biographia Britannica, Ad-rian IV *, but our own writers have added nothing to the fame or me-rits of their countryman.