and disappointments over a people who accepted
slavery for their indolence, and would never
resent any tyranny that did not encroach upon
their idleness. In fact, with an occasional
contemptuous remark on some possible capability
— some half-dubious hope of what Italy might
become under a better and more enlightened
government— the general tone in speaking of
the Italians was severely condemnatory and
rebukeful.

Late events in the peninsula— the great efforts
made to throw off the yoke of Austria and to win
an independence— have presented the people in
a new light; and whether reviewing their conduct
in the field, or their maintenance of order
under immense difficulties, men have been forced
to own that the nation has been unfairly dealt
with, and that, for every fault or short-coming
ascribed to it, it would not be hard to find
some compensating good quality. Had the
recognition gone so far, much good might have
resulted. Unfortunately, however, the
acknowledgment was a reaction, and, like all reactions,
unmeasured and exaggerated. Our writers—
especially newspaper correspondents— next took to
praising and extolling everything Italian. They
discovered in the people not only all the great
qualities of their glorious ancestors, but a host
of gifts to which their forefathers could lay no
claim. It was not only that they were heroes
in the field and sages in council, but they
were models of home affection and domestic
virtues. Our lady writers took the lead in these
panegyrics: never very chary in strong epithets,
here they were splendidly profuse. Such
husbands, sons, wives, daughters and sisters as
Italy presented were nowhere to be found. The
whole tableau was Godfrey de Bouillon, with
a dash of Paul and Virginia. It is needless to
say that these were about as far from truth as
the others, and that the fact about Italy lay in
the interval between them.

The Italians have many great and good qualities;
they have some most brilliant qualities: they
are eminently adapted for a very high civilisation;
but, with all this, it maybe doubted whether
they are yet exactly suited to the forms of
constitutional government, or whether, from the
character of their intellects, their traditions, and
natures, they would not thrive better under the
rule of a wise and temperate monarchy. The
question is too wide and too far-reaching to be
discussed here, and the writer will simply adduce
one, only one, characteristic of this people, which
he regards as totally incompatible with the safe
working of all constitutional government.

The bane and poison of Italian nature— and
this, be it understood, not limited to class or rank,
but extending throughout all conditions, and
permeating all gradations— the bane of Italy is
Distrust. No man believes his neighbour, nor
does any man expect implicit credit to himself.
Every assertion, every statement— no matter
from how high the quarter they may have
proceeded, no matter how many hostages to honour
the speaker may have given, no matter how
unsullied the fame, how pure the life, how responsible
the station of him who uttered them— is
received as something that may be, but not that
of necessity must be, true. Thus, Cavour may
speak, and some ignoble demagogue reply to
him, and the Italian world will accord no
more faith to the statement of the one than the
other, though they will readily concede more
importance to the words of the minister than to
those of the penny-a-liner. What share the
Church of Rome may have had in implanting
this baneful trait in the Italian heart, how far
the casuistic doctrines of Jesuitry may have
contributed towards it, how much its growth may
have been aided by the natural craft and subtlety
of a people who feel no greater shame than that
of being duped, is not the purpose here to inquire.
The writer would simply limit himself to the assertion,
that, of all the people of Europe, the Italian
is the most distrustful, and that this same
distrust is fatal to everything like the working of
free institutions.

We, in England, do not for a moment
pretend that our own Parliament is above
many and grave suspicions; the very papers of
the day are filled with accounts of bribery the
most barefaced and disgraceful; the history of
party is not exactly a record of unsullied honour
and uncompromising fidelity; but there is still
amongst us such a thing as public honour and
good faith. There are men on each side of the
House, on whose word, once spoken, the nation
would as implicitly rely as upon any law of the
land; rely upon it, too, in its plain and ordinary
significance, not deeming it a thing to admit of
this meaning, or that explanation, not to be
accepted in a half sense, or with a certain
qualification, but as the assertion of a fact about
which no two honest men could ever dispute.
With a somewhat lengthy experience of Italy
and its people, the writer does not believe
this to be possible there. He cannot imagine
any statement to be so clear as to be accepted
without reservation, nor any pledge to be so
literal as to be regarded as infallibly binding.

What Macaulay uttered as an illustration, it
has occurred to him to witness as a fact. "Let
Othello," said Macaulay, "be represented before
an Italian audience, and the whole sympathy of the
public will be with Iago; and all they will
accord his dupe will be a sort of contemptuous
pity." This the writer has seen— seen, too,
when Othello was represented by the first actor
of Europe— Salvini. Yet even Salvini's genius,
aided by all that the greatest dramatist of the
world placed in his hands, could not depict the
noble Moor as anything higher than the poor
weak victim of an easily detected fraud— a
common-place vulgar intelligence, in conflict
with one of masterly skill and power. As to
the moral elements of the struggle, they were
never thought of. There was before the audience,
a man who lied, and a man who believed him.
The man who lied, was the type of all that
intellect could boast as subtle, deep, and designing;
the other was a poor, weak, confiding fool,
and he got his deserts.

"Remember, dear John," said Lord Byron,