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the yellow, thick river, for retaining it in its channel. Of delightful villas in this taste, the traveller will find a much more delightful assortment on the banks of the canal from Amsterdam to Utrecht. Some poet celebrates "the song of the nightingale on the banks of the Brenta ;" but the croaking in the ditch drowns the melody of the bush.

From Padua, the traveller passes through Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, on his way to Milan. These are all large towns, shrunk, indeed, from their original girth of wall; but still towns of from 30,000 to 60,000 inhabitants, situated at short distances from each other, and with no particular manufacture or branch of industry established in them. How do these citymasses of population live? The country is fertile. Its products are among the most valuable of the earth-corn, rice, wine, oil, silk, fruits. The rents of the land, whether paid in money or in portions of the products of the soil, are spent in the cities, and also all the public revenues. If we look at the country, we see what supports the towns. The people are in poverty in the country, notwithstanding the fertility of the soil. It is impressive to see those who raise silk-the most costly material of human clothing going about their work barefoot, and in rags. The inhabitants of Lombardy, and the other Austrian possessions in Italy, are far from being in so good a condition as the people of Tuscany; but are in a much better condition than the people of the Papal and Neapolitan States. The houses are good, although scantily furnished and displaying no such quantity of plenishing as in the dwellings of the Swiss or French peasantry- no stocks of bedding, household linen, earthenware, pewter, copper, and iron utensils.

The homeless out-of-door way of living of the labouring class all over Italy, is a cause as well as an effect of poverty. It blunts the feeling for domestic comfort, which is a powerful stimulus to steady industry. People

cup of coffee, or something equivalent, at a stall, or coffee room. It is only in large towns with us, that the workman or labourer does not take his meals at home, or from his home; and the traveller is surprised to see trattoria and coffee rooms in Italy, not merely in towns, but in lonely country situations where there are only a few houses of the labouring people. This is not an indication, as it would be considered with us, that the people of the neighbourhood are well off, and have something to spend in such gratifications as public places of resort for their class afford; but it is an indication of their poverty. Those who with us would have their own little housekeepings and cooking, have not the means, nor perhaps the taste for such domestic comfort, and take their victuals at the trattoria, or cook-shop. The number of such places of entertainment for the lower class in little villages and hamlets which could support no such trade in our country, puzzles the traveller at first, because this apparent surplus of expenditure is inconsistent with the visible poverty of the inhabitants. But it is in reality the economy of poverty, not the expenditure of surplus means of gratification, which supports these places. It is a more economical way of living in this climate, in which firing is little required for comfort, than if each family of the labouring class had a housekeeping for itself. But the domestic habits and virtues suffer under this homeless, thoughtless, careless way of living, and the time saved by it is not employed. The women are sauntering about all day on the gossip, with their distaff and spindle, the men, according to the weather, basking in the sun, or slumbering in the shade.

The effects of climate, soil, fertility, and other natural circumstances of a country, upon the habits, morals, and civilisation of the people, would be a curious subject of speculation, and one which would explain many apparent difficulties in accounting for the very different progress of different nations. The difference, for example, in the condition and civilisation of the Italian and British

people is very remarkable, and may be traced to natural causes of climate, soil, and situation. The climate and soil of Italy are incomparably more productive than those of Great Britain. The population of the two countries is about equal—the island of Great Britain in 1831, having 16,262,301 inhabitants, and the peninsula of Italy 15,549,393. Both countries are inhabited in much the same way, that is, in a great number of very large cities and towns, as well as in hamlets and single rural habitations. But the Italian population is unquestionably far behind the British in the enjoyments of civilised life, in the useful arts, in civil and political liberty, in wealth, intelligence, industry, and in their moral condition. To what can this difference be ascribed? Italy was far advanced as far in many points as she is at this day - before England had started in the course of civilisation; and when Scotland * was in a state of gross barbarism. The Englishman ascribes this to the want of constitutional government; the Scotchman to the want of pure religious doctrine. The government and religion of a foreign country are two very convenient pack-horses for the traveller. They trot along the road with him, carrying all that he cannot otherwise conveniently dispose of, and the prejudices of his readers prevent any doubt of the burden being laid

* "Quid loquar," says Saint Jerome in his epistles, "de cæteris nationibus, quum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus, et quum per silvas porcorum greges pecudumque reperiant, tamen pastorum nates et foeminarum papillas solere abscindere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari." Evidence may sometimes prove too much as well as too little for establishing facts. What St. Jerome says he himself saw, is either entitled to credit, or not entitled to credit. If not, what becomes of the history of the first ages of the church as gathered from such authority as this father's? The addition to what he states he himself saw of those Scotch cannibals; viz. that when they found herds of swine and cattle in the woods, they preferred a slice of the hips of the keepers, or the breasts of the female attendants on the herds, to the beef and pork, proves too much. People who keep flocks and herds of cattle and swine, and tend them in the woods, are not in the social condition to eat each

upon the right beast. But, in reality, no government of the present day, whatever be its form, is so ignorant of sound principle, so blind to its own interests, and so impregnable to public opinion, as wilfully to keep back, discourage, or attempt to put down industry and civilisation. It is in the means they use, not in the end they propose, that modern governments, whether despotically or liberally constituted, differ from each other; and for many objects, even the means of the despotically governed states are, in themselves, better - are a more effective machinery, than those of the constitutional states. The despotic countries of Europe Austria, Prussia, Denmark, for instance, are actually in advance of the constitutionally governed Britain, France, Belgium, in the means or machinery for diffusing education among the people. Where they err, is in doing too much for the promotion of education, manufactures, and commerce, and not leaving the plants to their natural growth, and not leaving the people to themselves -to their own social management to their own natural tendency to extend the cultivation of them in exact proportion to their wants; but are incessantly applying the hand of government to foster the crop to a sickly maturity. As to religion, the Popish practically interferes less with the time and industry of the people, than the Presbyterian. One half of Sunday only is kept as a time of rest in Popish lands, and that not very strictly in agricultural labour; and in seedtime, harvest, vintage, and hay-making, people in Catholic countries generally labour in the fields after mass, that is, after twelve at noon, nor is it considered indecorous to do so. Holydays, or Saints' days, are also practically observed only until the forenoon mass is Of these, before the French Revolution, there were sixteen days in Paris yearly; but twenty-four days, on an average of all France, observed for half the day, viz. until noon, as church holydays. If we reckon the days at Christmas observed in England, the Good Friday, Easter Monday, Gunpowder plot, Charles's

over.

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martyrdom, King's birthday, and other idle customary festivals, we would probably find little difference.

In

Scotland, if we reckon the occasional fast-days proclaimed by the church; the preparation-days for the sacrament; and the many half-days devoted to religious meetings, prayer meetings, church meetings, missionary society meetings, Bible society meetings, and all the other social duties connected with the religious position and sentiments of the individual, it will be found, as it ought to be found, that out of the 365 days, the pious well-conducted Presbyterian tradesman, workman, or respectable middle-class man in Scotland, bestows, in the present times, many more working hours in the year upon religious concerns than the Papist in Italy. It is an inconsistency to ascribe to the loss of time by their religious observances, the poverty and idleness of the populations of the south of Europe, when we see the time abstracted among ourselves from the pursuits of industry for religious purposes, although little, if at all, less in amount, producing no such impoverishing or prejudicial effects; but, on the contrary, evidently invigorating the industry of the people, and contributing essentially to their morality and civilisation.

It is, in truth, neither the bad government, nor the bad religion of Italy, which keep her behind the other countries of Europe. The blessings of Italy are her curse. Fine soil and climate, and an almost equal abundance of production over all the land, render each man too independent of the industry of his fellow-men. Italy has not, like all other countries which have attained to any considerable and permanent state of general civilisation and industry, one portion of her population depending, from natural causes, upon another portion for necessary articles-no highland and lowland, no inland and seacoast populations producing different necessaries of life, and exchanging with each other, industry for industry -no wine growing population, and corn-growing population, as in France, depending upon each other's

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