home; and there is but one power in the
country which is strong enough to accomplish
that removal—the Horse Guards.

THE ISLAND OF SARDINIA.

Two Italian sovereigns derive their title from
the minor portion of their dominions. The
King of the Two Sicilies leaves Naples in the
background; and the King of Sardinia relies on
Piedmont rather for a local habitation than for
a name. It is as if our royal mistress were to
style herself Queen of Wight and Man; or like
the Scotch minister who prayed for the twa
Cambraes and the adjacent islands of Great
Britain and Ireland.

It is a great advantage to be the possessor of
a small garden, of a moderate-sized farm, of a
compact estate. They are so much more easily
kept in a high state of cultivation than more
extensive properties. We should expect the
same to be the case with kingdoms of limited
territory. It is so in Holland and Belgium;
although the ruler of the latter country has
considerable difficulty in making his violent Catholic
and his violent anti-Catholic subjects work
quietly together in the same government team.
The Swiss Confederation, again, is easily overseen
by its respective authorities. The results,
in all these cases, are a considerable amount of
material prosperity, a numerous and thriving
population, and cheerful prospects for the future.
Of the other small states in Europe, several of
the little German sovereignties have no great
reason to complain of their lot; while Sicily and
Naples, the States of the Church, Tuscany,
Modena, and Parma, belong to the unhappy and
unsatisfactory class of the Might-Bes.

When we observe the magnificent position
which the island of Sardinia occupies in the
midst of the Mediterranean; when we remark
its respectable area; when we call to mind
that it was a valued and productive possession
first of the Carthaginians and then of
the Romans, who drew from it never-failing
stores—that the Spaniards liked it well, and left
their language (at Alghero, almost identical
with Spanish) to testify to their former presence
—we naturally ask in what condition it is now?
whether the ease with which it may be governed
(it is torn by no religious party struggles, like
Belgium, and comprises no race amongst its
population who call their governors aliens and
usurpers, as in Ireland) has produced a
corresponding degree of welfare. To enlighten us,
we will take up an unpretending book* written
by a photographic artist, who visited the island
for the sake of filling his portfolio with views of
the antiquities of the place. Were any other
country than Sardinia in question, it might be a
serious drawback from the value of our authority
that his trip was made five years ago.
But, in Sardinia, five years do not bring the
same amount of change as five days often do
elsewhere.
* Six Semaines dans l'Ile de Sardaigne. Par
Edouard Delessert.

Sardinia may be roughly likened to an
irregular parallelogram, whose length extends from
north to south. It is separated from Corsica,
to the north, by the Strait of St. Bonifaccio.
From its southern extremity, in favourable
weather, the coast of Africa is visible. What
nature has done, in the way of climate, may be
judged from a few horticultural facts. The
prickly pear forms impenetrable hedges,
attaining a height of twenty feet, overhanging
the paths, and assuming the stature of small
trees. Their plantation is effected in the simplest
manner; the racket-like branches are stuck into
the ground, close together, in double rows, in
spring. Next year, they form an effectual
fence. Magnificent specimens of cork-oak are
met with; in sheltered spots, the date-palm
rears its graceful stem; certain gardens can
boast of colossal myrtles. To see glorious
olive-trees, you must go to Sardinia, where they
have grown for centuries. They spread
themselves out in all directions, especially courting
the mid-day sun. They recklessly stretch their
strangely-contorted arms, so that you see at once
they are at their ease and breathe a genial
atmosphere. They seem perfectly happy in their home;
and if the wind (which is no joke in Sardinia)
begins to blow, they scarcely deign to notice it.
They shake their topmost and slenderest twigs for
a minute or two (just for the sake of doing as
other trees do) and then resume their former
dignity. There are handsome olive-trees in the
garden of Gethsemane, at the gate of Jerusalem;
but those secular veterans, who have witnessed
such stirring events in their time, seem to have
lost all consciousness of personal beauty, like
people who, arrived at a certain age, think
themselves privileged to neglect their outward
appearance. Around Sassari, on the contrary,
the olive-tree seems to be full of self-esteem, and
even to be not a little vain of its rich branches
and its handsome fruit.

The orange-grove of Milis has few rivals in
Europe. Milis is a tract of country overgrown
with nothing else but orange-trees; and the fruit
on the trees is not distributed throughout the
branches, interspersed amongst the verdure, with
a certain sparse and economical regularity; it
hangs in multitudinous bunches, dragging to the
ground the unhappy branch which is too weak
to support its weight. Neither are you to
imagine a mere clump of orange-trees whose
perfume you stop and sniff as a roadside treat before
you proceed on your way, but you must fancy a
wood, a veritable forest. As far as the eye can
penetrate the balmy region, it meets with oranges
in every direction: oranges in the foreground,
oranges in the middle distance, and oranges upon
the horizon. There is an abuse of vegetable
treasure. Your foot meets with an obstacle; it
is a fruit, which you kick aside as if it were a
stone. You want to indicate some distant
object; you pick up an orange and throw it in the
given direction, without the slightest scruple.
You gather one, to taste; good as it is, you eat