HUMOURS OF THE HOLY SEE.
By the account of the Roman correspondent of the Morning Post, the paternal heart which has been represented as oppressed with so much heaviness, is, on the contrary, particularly light and jolly. We are informed that-
“On the 2nd instant a deputation of Jews waited upon his Holiness for the purpose of congratulating him upon the New Year. His Holiness is stated to have been peculiarly jocular with the members of the deputation, inquiring after the health of Signor “Mommolo,” the father of Mortara, and asking the astounded Israelites whether they thought the Congress would oblige him, the Pope, to give up the boy.”
“Mommolo” is plainly an Italian diminutive of Moses; the same playful species of appelation as our English “Mo,” or as the familiar and affectionate name of Ikey, substituted for Isaacs. Mortara is, as evidently, one of those euphemisms for Moses which correspond to Moss and Morris. It is incredible that the Pope, who is personally a decent kind of man, should have spontaneously and impertinently bantered the Jews who came to pay their respects to him on such a subject as that of the bereavement which he has considered it his duty to inflict on Mr. Mortara. Gentlemen of the Hebrew persuasion are generally rather prone, in conversation, to adopt a style of facetious personality, with small regard to the dignity of the personage to whom their observations are addressed. If his Holiness said anything about “Mommolo,”the probability, is that it was only a retort, provoked by the Jews in offering the Sovereign Pontiff some of their chaff. “What will you take for your temporal crown?” or “Want any clo’ for your foreign troops?” or some other such pleasant colloquial inquiry on their part, may be presumed to have elicited the allocution respecting Signor “Mommolo’s” health, and their opinion of the probable action of Congress in that sufferer’s behalf. One thing no doubt led to another; we can conceive that gibes were respectively exchanged about Saturday and Sunday, or that raillery was bandied in like relation to celibacy and abstinence from black-puddings; the Holy Father finally dismissing his visitors by poking gun at them with the corner of his mantle folded into the shape of a pig’s ear.
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