persecuting spirit of her husband, addressed a letter of remonstrance to his sovereign, in which he takes occasion to improve on the Elizabethean pedagogue, in the following style:

"Effeminate in their manners, sensual from the cradle; crafty, venal and officious; naturalized to crime; outcasts of credulity; the Italians have, from their infancy, seen their court a bagnio, their very churches scenes of daily assassination, their faith a form, their marriage ceremony a mere mask for the most incestuous intercourse. Gold is the god before which they prostrate every impulse of their nature." And, as if prose was not energetic enough in its poignancy, he concludes with a couplet:

"No nice extreme your true Italian knows
But bid him go to hell-to hell he goes!"

Let us see whether these "epitomizing epithets" have done justice to Italy. We laugh at the Chinese for calling all the world, "outside barbarians," or "red haired devils;" let us discover whether we are less bitter or bigoted than the Celestial tea-dealers.

Italy has been called the "garden of the world," and, in truth, it has been the garden, not only of the physical, but of the intellectual world. The bright sun, the genial sky, the balmy air tempered by the surrounding seas, seem, not only to have exerted their happiest influences upon material creation, but to have peculiarly nourished the genius of her men. The history of Italy is the history of human greatness. Military glory-the triumphs of timethe memorials of the great and good, seem piled on her slender peninsula; and these records of her fame make her children emulous of the fate and fortunes of their noble ancestry. Thus, in all times, we have beheld, in Italy, a prodigality of intellectual power, unequalled perhaps among other nations; yet the men who laid the foundation of that Empire in "severe virtues and stern morality," passed through all the grades of refinement and splendor, and ended the vicious circle of human, as well as of natural fortune, in the blandishments of enervating luxury. Art gratified the eye and ear; voluptuousness exhausted the soul and body; and the strong man, shorn of his locks in the hour of dalliance, has at last, yielded to a power mightier than his own.

From the wholesale censure which, as we have seen, has been thrown upon Italy, it might perhaps be supposed, by a person who was not familiar with history and geography, that "Italy" comprised within its limits one vast empire, and that the "Italians" were an undistinguishable mass of people, amenable to the same laws and ruled by the same government. But, since the overthrow of the Roman power, Italy has never formed an entirely independent realm. In different ages she has been parcelled out and apportioned under various sways. On 127,000 square miles of territory, including Sicily and Sardinia, she possesses no less than ten governments,-the Ecclesiastical States, Tuscany, Lombardy or the Austrian States, the States of the King of Sardinia, the Two Sicilies, Modena, Lucca, Parma, Monaco and San Marino; being two Kingdoms, a Vice Royalty, the Popedom, three Duchies, a Grand Duchy, a Principality and a Republic. Although a vein of nationality runs through the whole peninsula, yet, in the different States, not only are the habits of the people extremely various, but, according to Baretti-"a Bergamasco may speak to a Bergamasco at Naples, or a Genoese to a Genoese at Venice, and be as little understood by a Venetian or Neapolitan, as if they conversed in Arabic; and Tasso's Gerusalemme has been translated into no less than five dialects, in order to suit sectional necessities." At Naples, the Italian language has been corrupted by Oriental and African intercourse, whilst, in the north, the German gutterals have produced a mongrel tongue, that can scarcely be endured by civilized ears.

The Piedmontese are distinguished among the Italians for a want of cheerfulness. They may be characterized as a melancholy people; and, although their country is full of beautiful scenery, yet they have seldom produced a poet, whilst the livelier Southerners are devoted to metrical compositions, "often speak in poetry, and are constantly singing it." The fine arts, too, have been but sparingly cultivated in Piedmont; yet, as if to compensate for the want of these embellishments of life, its inhabitants are renowned as heroic soldiers. When the French swept down from the snowy passes of St. Bernard into the plains of Italy, it was ratherby surprise than forcible victory that the Austrian General was forced to surrender in a country so full of powerful fortifications. Until that moment, there was not a child who was

not familiar with the adage that "Piedmont is the grave of Frenchmen."

Among the nobles of this section of the peninsula, the French language is much affected; they are proud of their lineage and nationality, and disdain familiar intercourse with the rest of their fellow subjects. It is even declared by a celebrated Turinese defender* of Italy, that they are so fond of war and yet so averse from scientific acquirements, that "very few of them know the Italian language in its purity, fewer still the Latin, and that he never was acquainted with one who had learned the Greek alphabet." In the middle class, this ignorance prevails, of course, as it does in the highest; and, instead of warfare, with an undercurrent of politics, the conversation dwindles into scandal and frivolity. French romances form the chief materials of the literature of the women, who, consequently, are very proper associates for the men.

In Piedmout, however, there lives one man whose life and remarkable book,† are sufficient almost to leaven the loaf of Turinese trifling. It is there that Silvio Pellico resides, as the librarian of a certain Marchesa. "We wrote him a note," says Miss Sedgwick, "and asked the privilege of paying our respects to him, on the ground of being able to give him news of his friends, the exiles who were his companions at Spielberg. He came immediately to us. He is of low stature and slightly made, a sort of etching of a man, with delicate and symmetrical features-just body enough to gravitate, and keep the spirit from its natural upward flight, a more shadowy Dr. Channing. His manners have a sweetness, a gentleness, and his voice a low tone, that correspond well with his spiritual appearance."

"Dieu m'a fait la grâce," said he, "de me laisser revoir mes parents en sortant de la prison. Dieu fait tout pour notre mieux; c'est cette conviction qui má soutenu et qui me soutient encore." In reply to his remark, that he lived a life of retirement, and had few acquaintances at Turin, we told him that he had friends all over the world. "That proves," he said, "that there are, every where, belles âmes." His looks, manner, voice, and every word he spoke, were in harmony with his book,-certainly one of the most remarkable productions of the day. His phase of the Christian charac+ Le Mie Prigioni.

* Baretti.

ter has always been that of sufferance. He is the gentle Melancthon, not the bold and valiant Luther; the loving John, not the fearless Paul."

Genoa has passed under the dominion of the Sardinian house since the downfall of the Emperor Napoleon, and, although within a short distance of Piedmont proper, the character of her people is entirely different. It is the variance between a race of mongrel mountaineers or people bred at the foot of the mountains, and a nation of bold and fearless mariners. Her nobles are affable, amiable, polite and cultivated gentlemen, whose wives are better acquainted with books than any other Italian females. Literary subjects are, therefore, discussed in their presence with pleasure and advantage. The ancient commercial freedom and intercourse of Genoa has left its lees even among the present fallen population, and we may easily believe that the time was when the Genoese nobility were her accomplished merchants. "In Genoa," says Mr. Headly, in his letters from Italy, "there is a great deal of nerve and stern republicanism remaining, which may yet recall the days of Spinola. Let the police over her be as lax as that of Tuscany, and it would not be long before she would be a republic again."

Lombardy has always been renowned for the gaiety of its people, and, even now, when given up to the Austrians with the Venetian Provinces, it still preserves its character of refinement, urbanity and courage. Milan is the Paris of Italy, and, no where do you behold so much modern eloquence. Miss Sedgwick writes from Milan :

"We found Madame T. at our hotel, full of cordiality, animation, and kindness. She had come in from her villa at Desio to keep her appointment with us. She first took us to her town-house, which has recently undergone a remodelling and refurnishing, and a most luxurious establishment it is. The perfection of Parisian taste, the masterly workmanship of England, and the beautiful art of her own country, have all been made subservient to wealth almost unlimited. It seemed to me like the realization of an Arabian tale. I have seen luxurious furniture elsewhere, but nothing, not even at Windsor Castle, so beautiful as Madame T.'s painted ceilings, her mosaic floors, and a window painted by Palaggio, in the exquisite colors which modern art has revived, illustrating Ivanhoe. How Scott has chained the arts to his triumphal car! There was a screen, too, exquisitely painted by the same artist. We went through the whole suite of apartments, dining-room, coffee-room, drawing-room, musicroom, billiard-room, &c., Madame T. pointing out the details to us

with the undisguised naive pleasure of a child. "Je vous assure," she said, "que lorsqu'il y a les rideaux en velours et satin blanc avec les derriere-rideaux en tulle brodé, c'a fait un bel effet. * *

*

"Madame T.'s villa is near the little town of Desio. After arriving at Desio we had an hour of rich twilight before dinner to see her grounds, which have given us new ideas of an Italian villa, and would lead us to think it was not so much a want of taste for rural life as a want of means to carry out their ideas of art and beauty, that drives the Italian gentry from their country places. Madame T. lacks nothing to produce the results she wills. Her conservatories, extending many hundred feet on each side her mansion, indicate princely wealth They are filled with exotic fruits and flowers; one is filled with pines in great perfection and positive abundance-some five or six thousand well-grown plants of the camelia japonica intimate the magnificent scale of things here.

On one side of the estate there is an old abbey which serves the purpose of stables and other offices, and, which, last year, must have looked rather ruinous and Italianish; this has been recently ingeniously masked under the direction of the artist Palaggio, and now appears to be fragments of an aqueduct and an old abbey church with a tower, from which you have a view over half the rich plains of Lombardy, of an amphitheatre of Alps, of Como in the distance, and-I could fill my sheet with names that would make your heart beat if you had been here. Within the edifice there is a theatre and a salle d'armes, which is to be also a museum, and is already well begun with a collection of antiques.

There are noble avenues of old trees that might make an Englishman look up and around him. Through one of these we went to a pretty toy of a labyrinth, where one might get "a little lost." We were soon extricated by our lady, who held the clew, and who led us around the winding, bosky margin of a lake so extensive that I did not dream nature had not set it there and filled its generous basin, till Madame T. told me it was fed by a stream of water brought from Lake Como; and this stream flows through the grounds; now leaping over a precipice, and now dancing over a rocky channel, and singing on its way as if it chose its own pleasant path. There are many artificial elevations; we passed over one half as high as our Laurel Hill, with full-grown trees upon it; and between this and another is a wild dell, with a cascade, an aerial bridge, and tangled shrubbery: a cabinet picture of some passages in Switzerland; and on my saying this, Madame T. replied, she called it her "Suisse." At one end of the lake, near a fisherman's hut, is a monument to Tasso, half hidden with bays. There was a fishing-boat near the hut, so I took it for a true story; but, on Madame T. throwing open the door, we entered an apartment fitted up with musical instruments, which she modestly called her sewing-room. How fit it is for that sedative employment you may judge: there is a lovely statue in the middle of the room; the walls and ceiling are covered with illustrations of Tasso in fresco, and from each window is a different and most enchanting view." Vol. ii. p. 56.