I have endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the char-
acters as they probably were, and have sought to avoid the
error of making them actuated by my own conceptions of right
or wrong, false or true : thus under a thin veil converting names
and actions of the sixteenth century into cold impersonations
of my own mind. They are represented as Catholics, and as
Catholics deeply tinged with religion. To a Protestant apprehen-
sion there will appear something unnatural in the earnest and
perpetual sentiment of the relations between God and men which
pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. It will especially be startled
at the combination of an undoubting persuasion of the truth of
the popular religion with a cool and determined perseverance in
enormous guilt. But religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant
countries, a cloak to be worn on particular days; or a passport
which those who do not wish to be railed at carry with them to
exhibit; or a gloomy passion for penetrating the impenetrable
mysteries of our being, which terrifies its possessor at the dark-
ness of the abyss to the brink of which it has conducted him.
