governed despotically, but even in portions of the Sardinian dominions, happily enjoying true constitutional freedom. The most discouraging of all the symptoms of this fever is the aversion with which the extreme partisans of "Unity and Independence" regard the Sardinian Government-which, however, it must be confessed, is the main obstacle to the establishment of the purely democratic confederation of the Italian States; for so long as the example of the advantages of a mixed form of government, on the English model, is before their eyes, and attains daily greater strength and influence, purely republican principles, advocated by men made desperate by oppression and misfortune, can make but little way with the Italians.

I had an opportunity, in the spring of 1854, of seeing something of the working of the Sardinian constitution, and of forming an acquaintance with the excellent man then and now (1858) at the head of the Government.

*This fact may be inferred from Orsini's 'Memoirs,' which may be presumed to be generally authentic, although it is to be hoped that a letter ascribed to Mazzini, contained in these 'Memoirs' (p. 131), dated in September, 1854, is a forgery. That letter recommends the organisation of a "Company of Death, like our fathers of the Lombard League, composed of eighty young men robust and devoted," to undertake the simultaneous murder of the principal officers of the Austrian army in Lombardy!

The Lombard League is calumniated by this reference. The true prototype of the notable scheme is alluded to in other parts of the letter, although the arrangements by which each Austrian officer was to be watched and dogged and disposed of by three assassins is somewhat of an improvement on the Sicilian Vespers.

No one can fully appreciate the merits of the Cavour Ministry without being acquainted with the difficulties with which they have to contend. One of the cabinet observed to me that they had three Irelands-Genoa, which is always discontented, and elects for deputies either partisans of Mazzini or friends of the Pope; Savoy, which sends to the Chamber eight or ten representatives zealous adherents of the Papal interest; and Sardinia, which is in a half-barbarous state of feudalism. But the great majority of the Representative Chamber is in favour of the Government, and it is in the other House that the principal difficulty occurs, for the majority is decidedly unfavourable to the new Constitution, and, as they sit for life, it will be only by a large addition of new senators that any material change in this body can be made. How Charles Albert in 1847 came to select such men I could not learn; perhaps as a balance against the ultra-democratic party in the Chamber of Deputies.

In 1854 there were 30,000 refugees in Turin and the immediate neighbourhood, and of these not a few were known emissaries of Mazzini, introduced into Piedmont by Austrian passports. The press was totally unfettered so far as the expression of political opinion was concerned, and was used most freely by the enemies of the present constitutional system. The journals which represent the most decided republican principles were more than suspected of being supported essentially by the Austrian and Neapolitan Governments; and when a Genoese newspaper indulged in abuse of the Prince of

Carignan so violent that the editor was alarmed for the personal consequences of it, he escaped on board a Neapolitan man of war.

So long as the system happily established in Piedmont is supported by the virtue and energy of such men as Cavour, it may, in all probability, continue to exhibit a living example of the value of free institutions; but that existence is precarious which depends on individual character; and should any material change take place in the Sardinian Cabinet before the nation itself has become much more united and stronger than it is at present, the fairest hopes of the Italian peninsula might be blasted at once. I say of the Italian peninsula, for the only chance of constitutional freedom being established throughout that fair land seems to me to depend upon the permanence of the present Sardinian system.

In estimating the value of that system we should never forget the trials through which, independently of its present difficulties, it has been its misfortune to pass. The ambitious enthusiasm, to use no harder term, of Gioberti, and similar advisers, was fatal to Charles Albert; and I am afraid, from all I have heard, that the 'Glance at Revolutionized Italy' gives too faithful a picture of the mischiefs produced by the club speeches and circulars of that short-lived popular leader and minister. Those who look at the proceedings of the

* See 'A Glance at Revolutionized Italy,' vol. ii. chap. 23; and particularly the Address of 'Le Comité Central de la Société pour la Confédération Italienne,' at p. 264.

regenerators of Italy in that period from an English point of view may pronounce them half crazy and absurd; but how could the Italians look at them from an English point of view? They were persuaded that their projects of unity and independence would receive the active support and interference of England—a grievous mistake certainly; but how could they know that the English generally, and the great majority of their talkers and writers, know nothing, and care nothing, about foreign politics; and that, whatever attention they can devote to such subjects is absorbed by their too spiritual, too restless, and too powerful neighbours?-How could they know that, even of those who have some knowledge and love of Italy, the most prudent and trustworthy regard her Unity and Independence as little better than a pleasing dream, the reality of which has never been, nor is likely to be, actually attained?