act of hospitality—if it may be so termed—
is; that it is a compliment often paid even to
strangers, and they will be able to appreciate at
its worth the payment of the few halfpence.
This constitutes the whole of the bribery that is
said to have seduced the army of Leopold the
Second from its allegiance.

These were the preparations for revolution.

                  II. THE TOMBOLA.

THINGS were in this state in Florence when
the telegraph brought news that Austria had
declared war against Sardinia. The tidings
told plainly enough that, if Tuscany intended
not to stand a quiescent spectator while
Sardinia fought the battle, which was quite as much
in Tuscany's cause as her own, now was the
time to act. Up to this time it was thought not
impossible that the Grand-Duke might yield to
the wishes of his people and army, and consent
to espouse the cause of Italy. And, had he done
so any time before the close of the day—the
26th of April, namely—he might doubtless
have preserved his crown.

The Grand-Duke and his ministers relied on
the army, as a means of crushing the sentiments
and aspirations of his people. But the utter
failure of this reliance, and the result of the
policy of keeping up a force monstrously out of
proportion to the size of the country (some
twelve thousand men drawn from a population
of under two millions), might read a lesson to
monarchs worthy of their attention. The army
had been sedulously Austrianised, as well to
prepare it to act with the Austrian troops,
as to separate it from the people. The
general-in-chief was an Austrian; the drill and
discipline were Austrian. An amusing
indication of the degree to which all this was
loathsome to the Tuscans may be cited. Some
special form of words, taken from the
laboriously minute regulations on every smallest
point of the soldier's conduct and manners in
the Austrian service, had been ordered to be
invariably used by every inferior to his superior,
when he had occasion to address him on any
point. This pipeclay oratory; which, in its
original German, may possibly be very effective,
was absurd enough when literally translated into
Italian. And, one of the earliest uses of its
emancipation from Austrian rule made by the
army authorities was to abolish the detested
form of address, by a general order, which
declared (truly enough) that the Tuscan soldier
did not require to be taught a courtesy, which
was natural to him, by Austrian drill-masters.
The Government and its adherents alone were
deceived in their expectations of the effects to
be produced by this denationalising of the
Tuscan troops. For some years past Florentine
liberals have comforted themselves under
the pressure of the taxation caused by keeping
up this large army, with the reflection that
it consisted of soldiers drilled for the good
cause, when the proper moment should arrive.

On the 26th of April last, the long-awaited
moment arrived. On the Sunday previous
there had been what Florentines call a
"Tombola." Like the lottery, the tombola is an
invention by means of which a paternal government
turns its subjects' passion for gambling
to its own profit. It is not necessary to describe
the mechanism of the thing. Certain combinations
of numbers are publicly drawn. Every
player is furnished with a card bearing a variety
of these numbers; and he who first finds on his
card a number drawn, is bound, on pain of forfeit
ing the prize thereby accruing to him, to shout
"Tombola!" The Florentines are extremely fond
of this amusement. Whenever cash is wanted
for any special object by the rulers, recourse is
had to a tombola, and the erection of the huge
white board with its rows of holes for the reception
of the numbers drawn, invariably attracts a
large concourse of people into the Piazza.

It had been ordered that the troops should be
kept within their barracks upon this occasion.
But they were not so kept. It was stated
afterwards, that the order had been departed from
"because the men remonstrated strongly against
it!" And, although this may not sound so
strange to the ears of a Tuscan as it would to
those of an English disciplinarian, yet that such
"remonstrances" should have been yielded to
may be accepted as an intimation of the direction
military opinion was taking among the officers as
well as among the men. The men were let out.
The uniforms mingled with the crowds of townsmen
in great numbers. Many a soldier was
deep in talk that day with some artisan of the
better class; and, while the numbers in the
game were shifted, and the thick crowd which
thronged the old Piazza (which has witnessed in
its day more popular action than any other spot
of this earth) were shouting their "tombolas,"
and laughing and jesting in true Tuscan fashion
and orderly good-humour, our civilised Tuscan
revolution made one long step towards its
consummation.

                III. OR' SAN MICHELE.

OR' SAN MICHELE, which is Tuscan short for
Orto San Michele (St. Michael in the Garden),
is one of the most remarkable churches in
Florence. The traveller in Italy will hardly
have forgotten it. It is close to the great
Piazza, in the large street leading thence
to the Cathedral. The upper part of the
walls is adorned by large medallions in the
brightly coloured workmanship of Luca della
Robbia. And, around the lower story of the
building, are a series of statues and groups, by
the great sculptors of the best period of Italian
Art. For all the Florentine guilds vied with
each other in providing a work of art for the
decoration of this favoured building; and each
employed its own sculptors. It was here that
Michael Angelo apostrophised the life-like figure
of the apostle by his great predecessor, with the
often quoted, and well known, "Why dost thou
not speak to me, Mark?" It was beneath that
same all-but-speaking-marble that, at about two
o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th, an
individual might have been observed surrounded by