with spinning and weaving, to a great extent
rises in successful opposition to the tall, hot
noisome factory; and the happy peasant, with his
whole family circle, alternates his work at the
loom with the more wholesome labour in the
field. Geneva and Neufchâtel have pursued for
centuries some branches of finer industry, in
which they have obtained a decided advantage
over French and English competitors. Now
nothing is done in any part of Switzerland that
may not with the same, and even greater chance
of success, be attempted in the mountains of
Piedmont and all over Lombardy.

It is a misfortune that, property being greatly
subdivided, capital is very scarce. Every
suggestion for work requiring great exertion, but
sure to yield the largest returns, is invariably
met by the Italian by his chilling wet blanket—
"There is no money." Good strength of will
and energy, and the habit of thrift and labour,
are also wanting, nevertheless. Not much can
be expected, when we behold the cafés of a
dingy, dirty, poverty-stricken, dilapidated old
town, crowded with a tall, hale, and muscular,
but listless, languid, lazy youth, busy doing
nothing, or at most playing cards and discussing
Wallachia or the Danubian Principalities.
Perhaps a more healthy tone of body and mind may
come from the lessons of hard necessity; the
present war may prove a bloody baptism, which
will work out the redemption of the people, at
the same time that it inflicts a severe punishment
for the neglect of all pacific preparation
by the means of physical education, which would
have established something like harmony and
equilibrium between the over-wrought nerves
and the prostrate muscles of the Italian youth.
For, even as a sportsman, the Italian is true to
his sedentary habits. And yet, though inert and
sluggish, he is not even patient: a Piedmontese
angler is scarcely ever heard of. The boors of
the neighbourhood, and probably all over the
Alps and Apennines, have a barbarous way of
catching the fine trout with which their torrents
abound: they throw lime into the water at the
fountain-head, by which the choked and
asphyxiated fish are brought senseless and
helpless to the surface, and are caught in shoals as
they come down the stream.

The male population of Piedmont look upon
the Alpine feats of English, German, or Russian
tourists, just as they listen to the recital of
noble yachtsmen sailing to the North Pole for
a "lark," or of young Indian officers bearding
the lion at the Cape or the tiger in Bengal;
they look and listen with wonder and curiosity,
but at the same time with awe and humility, as
if those were the exploits of a different race of
beings, belonging to heroic, half-fabulous times.
Is there no good spirit of emulation left among
the long-depressed, leisure-loving Italians? The
late Duke of Genoa, a generous soul in a
frail body, was the only man of the nation who
ever attempted Mont Blanc, and he was beaten
back by stormy weather. His brother, the
king, is as intrepid a mountaineer as ever was.
Indeed, the whole dynasty of these Savoy
princes inherit the bold spirit of the iron-
headed Emmanuel Philibert, and of the sledge-
hammer-fisted Victor Amadeus II., men born
with a rickety constitution, but who, by "strong
meats and strong wines," and constant exercise,
so inured their frames to the greatest hardships,
as to become the keenest sportsmen, no less
than the noblest warriors of their times. Victor
Emmanuel, however, never climbs the hills unless
it be in pursuit of game. On one occasion he
pitched his tent above Ceresole, at the very head
of the valley of the Orco, near Our Lady of the
Snow. Hence he made daily excursions on foot
over rocks and precipices, by the side of which
the vaunted horrors of an ascent of Mont Blanc
are mere child's-play. He was rewarded for his
pains by killing a stambecco, a gigantic chamois,
or wild-goat, of a species now extinct throughout
all the rest of the Alpine region, and which
is rarely found, and not without infinite toil and
danger, even amidst the highest mountains.

We repeat it, Mr. Gallenga's book is most
noteworthy by all whom it may concern, at the
present turning-point of Italian fortune.

THE FUTURE.

THE drop that falls unnoted in the stream,
Prattling in childhood on its native hill;
The stream that must leave home and travel far
Over rough ways, with torn feet and no rest,
Changing its voice, and then, in calmer flow,
Sobered by dreams of the eternal sea,
Pass with wide water, trembling in its depths,
To the great ocean, like a soul to Heaven,
And bear the drop to rest, and roam no more.

For me, a life that only late set out,
In weakness, as a swallow from the nest,
On its long journey to the land unknown,
That, gaining strength, must pass through stony ways,
Be lashed of storms, and ofttimes, in thick gloom,
Lose sight of what it prized, yet with the hope
That all its blighted loves and treasures lost
Are taken of the wind like wingèd seeds,
And sown by angels in the better land,
Where this tired life shall rest, and find them grown.

The beam that, distant yet, but on its way
Intent, past systems, over comet-tracks,
Comes like a pilgrim with an offering,
And through the pure space to the misty world
Brings the faint greeting of a star unknown.

For me, the light feet, not yet heard on earth,
That move toward me from the better land,
And, though unheeded, shall complete their work,
And, like the morning sunburst breaking nigh,
When my heart faints, and all my life is dark,
Step from the cloud bearing the gift of Heaven,
Sweet face and tender hands to comfort me.

The poet that shall come in the world's need
And lead men to the light, and teach them truth,
And win them by the wonder of his words,
Till true be known for true, and false for false,
And build the many-coloured bow of thought
In sight above their heads, and, in the end,
From his gold cup shall so enrich the world
That men shall lavish blessings on his grave.