lasts for three hours at most; few attend more
than two classes on one evening; and there are
no lectures at all on Saturday. All information
goes, therefore, only to the satisfying of a healthy
appetite, and there is ample time for each meal
of study to be digested properly, before the
next is taken. The eight or ten lectures a week
thus actually give more of sound training to
those who attend them, than they would have
had from attendance upon eight or ten lectures
a day.

  CITY OF FLOWERS, AND FLOWER
                     OF CITIES.

OUR readers have recently had daguerreotyped
for them a portrait of "Rome the Eternal" by a
pen skilled to reproduce every outline of form,
and each light and shade of character visible
there to an observant eye. The present writer
can, from his own personal knowledge, offer an
independent testimony to the accuracy of the
picture drawn by his unknown fellow-contributor
to these columns. It was the perusal of
that truthful description which suggested the
desirability of placing before the English public
an equally truthful, and, as far as his powers
will permit, an equally accurate presentation of
another Italian city; not being induced thereto
by any pretension of producing a "pendant" to
the former canvas, but by the consideration that
a comparative estimate of the leading Italian
cities, and especially of the two to which we are
here referring, is, at the present moment, and
under the circumstances which are on the eve
of being completed, a matter of urgent and
important interest.

The kingdom of Italy will shortly take its
place among the members of the European
family of nations. There is still room for the
speculations of politicians as to the more or less
of difficulty and struggle which may precede
and attend the birth of the new kingdom, and
for dissertations on the greater or less amount
of ill will and jealousy with which the new
comer will be regarded by several of its elder
sisters. But, doubts as to the safe delivery of
this new birth of time are already out of date.
Like it or dislike it who may—few or many
lives, and little or much sacrifice and suffering
as the achievement may cost—Italy will shortly
be an independent and united nation under the
constitutional sceptre of Victor Emmanuel, first
King of Italy. And this kingdom of Italy will
have a capital. And the choice of this capital
is a matter of infinite importance to Italy, and
of no small interest to Europe. Absolutists
and friends native and foreign of the fallen and
falling tyrannies which divided the peninsula
among them, are already speculating eagerly on
the consequences of discord on this point, which
they deem must needs arise from the selfishness
and want of patriotism of the different cities,
each wont to lead the life of a capital, and each
worthy of being the capital of a nation. They
will be disappointed. They may dismiss all hope
of seeing Italy risk the loss of all she has gained,
and all she so dearly prizes, by suicidal quarrels
on any such subject. There will doubtless be
differences of opinion on the point, and there
will be need of mature consideration (though
much has already, it may be observed in passing,
been given to the subject by several of
the leading minds in Italy); but there will be
no quarrelling.

It may be considered that, numerous as are
the cities which might, from their former rank
and importance, fairly make pretension to
supremacy, the choice, in fact, lies between Rome
and Florence. Turin would prefer to be itself
the capital of Italy. But if this cannot be (and
even the Torinese themselves feel that it cannot
be), then Turin would prefer that Florence
should be raised to the vacant throne.
Precisely similar sentiments prevail at Milan. The
question, in short, may be assumed to be narrowed
to a choice between the Eternal City and the
City of Flowers. Let us examine a little, their
comparative claims.

Those of Rome appeal irresistibly to the
sympathies of imaginative minds nourished on
classical associations and reminiscences. There
is also, of course, a class of persons to whom
the ecclesiastical supremacy of papal Rome will
seem to constitute a claim to civil pre-eminence.
But, sentiment of this kind is very much more
common northward of the Alps than in Italy;
and it is assuredly not on such grounds that
the Italians will choose their new capital. The
Rome which exercises a potent spell by the
greatness of its name on the imaginations of
many Italians, is not papal, but imperial and
pagan Rome: the Rome which once boasted
itself the capital of the civilised world. And it
is hardly necessary to expend a word in pointing
out how little papal Rome, especially the papal
Rome of the nineteenth century, has in common
with the mighty "nominis umbra" which
exercises this fascination; or to insist on the
absurdity of proceeding to the eminently practical
business of selecting a capital for the young
nation under the influence of a sentimental
enthusiasm not only so empty, but so utterly
delusive. The practical and insuperable objections
which exist to making Rome the capital
of the new constitutional monarchy may be
briefly stated.

It is, and, as far as can be at present foreseen,
it is likely for some time further to remain, the
residence of the Pope. And this fact alone is
felt by the great majority of Italians to be an
absolutely fatal objection. Those who bear in
mind the nature of papal influence, its modus
operaudi, and the impossibility of suddenly
ejecting it from the old paths, will comprehend at
once the insuperable nature of the difficulty,
which would alone be sufficient to decide the
question, if it were seconded by no others.

But in the next place the climate of Rome
is a fatal objection to it. What would be
said of the wisdom of wittingly selecting for
the capital city of a great nation, a spot in
which, during six months ot the year, none save
natives acclimatised from their infancy can