Bill relating to municipalities, of which I will summarily recite the heads, because it was afterwards promulgated, with a few variations, by the Provisional Government. The Communes were to continue unchanged, until the Legislative Power should re-arrange their limits; and the indefeasible right of each to self-government, and to the arrangement and disposal of its administrative business, subject to the general laws of the State, was acknowledged. The municipalities were to exercise their privileges through a representative body popularly elected, and composed of a council and a magistrate; the former for legislative, and the latter for executive purposes. The number of the councillors was retained such as it had been fixed by a law of June, 1831. The electors were to name for each municipality the quota of councillors appointed by law; and the elected were to choose the magistrate from among themselves. All inhabitants of full age were to be electors for the district where they held possessions or resided, except insolvents, persons under suspension, journeymen, salaried officers, vagrants, cultivator son metairie not being proprietors, and persons condemned or under process for infamous crime. All citizens were eligible at twenty-five, excepting contractors, paid municipal officers, political officers empowered to put the military in requisition, and of course all those not on the electoral list. After laying down in a convenient form the rules for conducting elections, the Bill went on to provide, with wise discrimination, for the exercise of the legislative power by the Councils, and of the

executive by the magistrates. The sittings of these Councils were to be public, unless one-fifth of the councillors, or the magistrate, should demand a meeting in secret committee. The bounds of the communal jurisdiction were determinable by the rights of other Communes and of the Provinces, by the provisions of the Fundamental Statute, by the public law of the country, and by the decisions of the Legislative bodies. One-fifth part of the members might appeal, from a vote of the Council to the administrative Commission for the Province, by a written memorial stating the grounds of the proceeding. The Presidents of Provinces were empowered to cancel any vote of the Councils, if in contravention of the Fundamental Statute, of the public law of the country, or of the Municipal Constitution Act itself; reserving to the Municipality a right of appeal to the Council of State, whose judgment should be final. The Presidents were further empowered to suspend for three months the operation of such resolutions as they might consider seriously detrimental to the Municipality; giving their reasons in writing, and advising repeal or modification. After the three months, the Council might re-enact any measure thus impeached, and, if then carried anew, it was to be subject, at the end of a second like period, to a fresh vote, after which there should be no further bar to its taking effect, unless the Government should, within a fortnight, announce its determination to submit the measure to the final judgment of the Legislative Councils of the State. Such were the leading provisions of a Bill which, if not

perfect in all its parts, yet, from the importance of the subject, from its comprehensive spirit, and from its just allotment of powers, deserves the attention of all who are seeking for a good and liberal plan of municipal constitutions.

Zucchini, the Senator of Bologna, a man of high probity, had steadily refused to take his seat in the Giunta of State; in his place Galletti had been nominated, who never refused any appointment. A new Ministry was formed, with Monsignor Muzzarelli for the department of Public Instruction, and provisionally for Foreign Affairs; Armellini, an advocate, for the Interior; Federico Galeotti, also an advocate, for Grace and Justice; Livio Mariani for Finance; Pietro Sterbini for Commerce and Public Works; Campello for War. It is needless to give any account here of the characters of Corsini, Galletti, Muzzarelli, Sterbini, or Campello, as I have already had in these volumes occasion to describe them. I will speak only of those who were new to power. Camerata of Ancona, connected on the female side with the Buonaparte family, was more conspicuous for his wealth, integrity, and pliability of temper, than for talent or acquirements. As Mayor of Ancona, at a period of general excitement, he had comported himself according to its humours. Not being hot, perhaps not even warm, in his love of liberty, he had accepted the supreme power, in order to shun the risks that refusal might have entailed at Ancona: being of a character not to control men and events, but to be controlled by events, by his colleagues, and by his apprehensions. Armellini

was a septuagenarian, of tolerable abilities and cultivation, distinguished as a lawyer, void of political or economical science, strong in sophistry, and practised in the quirks of his profession; he had a reputation for ambition rather than for liberal politics. It is said that in private conversation he had constantly declared himself hostile to clerical government; but, on the other hand, he had always strutted in the garb of the Prelature as a Consistorial advocate; nor had he at any time, under the constitutional system, been put forward by public opinion as a genuine or tried friend of freedom. The advocate Federico Galeotti was a retiring person of moderate opinions, who accepted the offer of political power solely to meet the wishes of others, and because he believed that he was therein discharging his duty as a good citizen. Who Mariani was, it is hard to tell: obscure originally, obscure while in power, obscure when out. He came from Subiaco; as a Roman mountaineer, he was simple, cloddish, and credulous, while he had the pedantry of a village oracle just come up to town. Now for Pius, now for the constitution, now royalist, now republican; he was anything, because nothing. To conclude: Sterbini was the brains of the Government; Armellini its tongue; Galletti its showman.

CHAPTER V.

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NOTICES OF THE POSITION OF THE OTHER ITALIAN STATES. NAPLES; THE BOZZELLI MINISTRY; ITS PROCEEDINGS. TUSCANY; PROMISES AND MEASURES OF THE GUERRAZZI MINISTRY. DISORDERS DURING THE ELECTIONS. SICILY; RUGGIERO SETTIMO AND THE MINISTERS. PLANS OF THE NEAPOLITAN ENGAGEMENTS AND BOMBARDINTERPOSITION OF THE

GOVERNMENT.

MENT OF MESSINA.

ARMAMENT.

RAVAGES THERE.

BLOCKADE.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH ADMIRALS. NOTE OF SIR W. TEMPLE. VENICE; ATTEMPT BEFORE MARGHERA. CAVALLINO CARRIED ON OCTOBER 22. ACTION AT MESTRE ON OCTOBER 26.- SACRIFICES OF THE VENETIANS; THEIR NOBLE CHARACTERS AND ACTS. LOMBARDY; THE LOMBARD CONSUlta. PIEDMONT; OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANGRY HUMOURS THERE. DECLARATION BY THE OPPOSITION DEPUTIES. RESIGNATION OF THE PINELLI ADMINISTRATION; HIS SPEECH. FORMATION OF THE GIOBERTI MINISTRY. ITS PROGRAMME SET OUT. -ITS FIRST ACTS.

Ir will now be well to turn our eyes afresh towards the other States of Italy.

The Parliament of Naples was prorogued, on the 5th of September, until the close of November; and it became plain that the King was revolving the idea of some contrivance to destroy, either by craft or by force, institutions which fear had conceded, and fear now sought to betray. The Ministry of Bozzelli gave out, that they remained in power to save endangered freedom; but the Deputies were insulted all the time by bullies, the police was under no discipline, the press uncurbed by superintendence, troops were pa