because it was as well that the merits of the cards
should not rest solely between you and me.
Come into the dark room here, and let us have
one final word alone."

FRUIT RIPENING IN TUSCANY.

A LIBERAL Englishman long resident in
Florence, with wit to observe, and knowledge
to bring to bear upon, and skill to record
what passes, has watched with interest the
political efforts of the Tuscans. He now tells us in
a book, which compares the Tuscany of 'forty-
nine with the Tuscany of 'fifty-nine, the true
sequence of national events in that state during
the last dozen years. By help of such a book
we understand more thoroughly the meaning of
what now passes in the country to which all Europe
is looking with deep interest and active curiosity,
for the writer—Mr. THOMAS ADOLPHUS
TROLLOPE—speaks of the affairs of Tuscany in as
far as they were the affairs of Italy, and are the affair
of every man who would see thought and honest
action set free everywhere to help in the
advancement of society.

That the world does not grow wise by royal
edicts, but by the free, wholesome, individual
working of each man among his fellows, is the
truth lying at the heart of Mr. Trollope's history.
In the bonds of despotism, whether they be
leading-strings or fetters, men can only totter
forward painfully. The bonds of the Austrian
were leading-strings for Tuscany, when Leopold
the First, grandfather of the last duke, governed
the country. He was wiser than his cousins in
the purple.' With a liberal hand he restrained the
tyrannical encroachments of the Church, and he
himself ruled generously. Some trace also of
the old republican vigour still held by the life
of the people; who were then, as always,
prosperous, cheerful, quick-witted, and easily
content. There is no true man with a temper easy
enough to bear the stranger's foot upon his neck.
The paternal spirit of authority will sanctify
to the heart of a brave people, no man's claim to
regard a whole community as part of his own
private and personal estate. The Emperor of
Austria was counting in the roll of his estate so
many flocks and herds of men in Italy. His
army was the dog to set upon them and collect
them when they strayed beyond his bounds.
But thunders of applause was heard in the theatres
of Italy when Niccolini exclaims, through
his noble tragedy on Arnold of Brescia, " The
human race is a-weary of being termed a herd."
"How well satisfied your people look," said
somebody, in compliment to the Grand-Duke of
Tuscany, a little while before the great outbreak
of 'forty-eight. " They are tranquil," was the
reply. But through that tranquillity the
patriotic verse of Giusti passed quietly from hand
to hand and mouth to mouth. Men spoke his
scorn upon themselves for their vassalage; it
was the tranquillity of his "Land of the Dead,"
in which the dead whispered together underneath the

             Lovely graveyard, that might make
                The living covet death.

             In fine then, brother corpses,
                 Let men sing out their stave!
             Wait we, and see what ending
                 This living death may have.

             There is a Day of Anger
                 In the service for the tomb!
             Shall there not be, however far,
                  A Judgment-day to come?

While this pointed against Austria, the
Italians were patriots, not knowing what should
be the issue of their hopes.  They were uneasy
in the present, and looked through a vague
sentiment of patriotism to a better future.
Upon this sentiment they could allow the very
Austrian himself to trade.  "Italians," said the
Archduke John to them, half a century ago, "is
it the wish of your hearts to become again
Italians?"  If so, the condition of their enjoyment
of this wish was that they should fight
upon the side of Austria.  "Italians, it is
needed only to will it, for you to be again
Italians."    So they were told how the will was
to be taken for the deed.  "Italians,"
proclaimed an Austrian commander, three years
later, " you are to become, all of you, an
independent nation."  The independence won
through Austria was defined by Bellegarde for
the people of Lombardy to be that their
provinces "were definitively incorporated with the
Austrian empire."  "Italy," said Metternich,
at last, in a despatch of the second of August,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, "Italy is but
a geographical denomination."  Francis of
Austria, when he heard that in sundry states of
Europe, constitutions were being established,
exclaimed that "the world was going mad!"
And when he received compliments from the body
of Professors of the University of Pavia, he said
to them, " Remember always, gentlemen, that
your duty is to form, not learned men, but
obedient subjects."  Italy, however, angered by
the Austrian in Lombardy, had not fully recognised
the indispensible condition of her independence
to be a complete freedom from Austrian
domination.

The predecessor of Pius the Ninth had been a
helpless old man, personally harmless, but
officially the maintainer, by grace of foreign
bayonets, of the true Papal system of espials,
confiscations, banishments, imprisonments, and
executions. He died in the year 'forty-six,
when roses were in blossom. The Roman
Church had, of course, as a political state, its
Liberals and Tories. Lambruschini, at the
head of the Tories, strove to shut the gate
against reforms, and fasten it with the old
Austrian military padlock. Since reform is the
drop of poison that will some day shatter the
charmed glass of the popedom, since the
decrepid Papal government must sicken and die
if it be much exposed to the sharp, bracing air
of human progress, there can be no doubt that,
in the interests of the tiara, Lambruschini was
the truest counsellor. On the other side there
was a large body trusting in the beautiful dream