Editorial note — VICTIMS OF DOUBT.

[Footnote 169: We have used this expression, also aware of the letter of Father Scarpa published first in the journal Scienza e Fede, and afterward in the eighth addition of Father Curci's Fatti ed Argomenti in risposta alle molte parole di V. Gioberti, in which he gives an account of Leopardi's recourse to his ministry and reconciliation by his means to the church in 1836; not, of course because we agree with Gioberti that this simple and modest letter is "a tissue of lies and deliberate inventions and a sheer romance from beginning to end;" but because Leopardi's letters in the beginning of 1837 and his continuance in the composition of his last poem the Paralipomeni, the conclusion of which was dictated a few days before his death, seems to suggest the melancholy alternative either of a feigned conversion or of a relapse into skepticism. He told Father Scarpa when he offered himself to be prepared for confession that he had been banished from his Father's house; and that he was now penitent, and was about to publish papers which would show his alterated sentiments. It is amusing to notice that to the staid and decorus Quarterly Review, as well as to Gioberti, this was to great an opportunity to be lost of reviling the Jesuits. Accordingly, on no other ground than that Father Scarpa repeated as told him by Leopardi what his letters contradict, and that he was not quite correct in guessing at his age and described his appearance ten years after his interview with him, the reviewer indorses Gioberti's description, and calls the letter "an instance of audacity beyond all common efforts in that kind." The habitual mendacity in Leopardi's letters, and his offer, while an unbeliever, to be ordained in order to hold a benefice which he intended after saying a few Masses to have served by another, make it unfortunately not improbable that his conversion was only pretended.]