[7] This pretence of being a prisoner is so plainly a device to excite public sympathy, that it is exaggerated in the most absurd manner. A lady, just returned from the Rhine, tells me that in Germany the Catholics circulate pictures of the Pope behind the bars of a prison, and even sell straws of his bed, to show that he is compelled to sleep on a pallet of straw, like a convict! The same thing is done in Ireland.
[8] I give his age as put down in the books, where the date of his birth is given as May 13, 1792; although our English priest tells me that the Pope himself says that he is eighty-five, adding playfully that "his enemies have deprived him of his dominions, and his friends of two years of his life." My informant says that, notwithstanding his great age, he is in perfect health, with not a sign of weakness or decay about him, physically or intellectually. He is a tough old oak, that may stand all the storms that rage about him for years to come.
[9] This is not a jest. The King said with perfect truth that the chief revenue of Greece was derived from the plum-puddings of England and America, the fact being that the currants of Corinth (which indeed gives the name to that delicious fruit) form the chief article of export from the Kingdom of Greece—the amount in one year exported to England alone, being of the value of £1,200,000. The next article of export is olive oil.
[10] Italy, it will be remembered, joined the Allies against Russia in the latter part of the Crimean war.