tears and blood by wooden Madonnas, and to all
the rest of the modern miracles necessary to
good government. Self-government, representative
government, constitutional government,
education, are things unseen, and not wished to be
seen, from the pontifical point of view. Highways
and railroads would increase communication,
communication would be sure to introduce
inconvenient untoward insubordinate ideas.
Commerce might raise up a laity of shipowners
and merchant princes; improved agriculture
might found a landed lay aristocracy, and a middle
class of farmers, with views diametrically opposed
to those of their clerical governors. Therefore
the governments of the cardinals and the Bourbon
want neither highways, nor railroads, nor
shipping, nor intercourse with foreign ports,
nor the draining of the Pontine Marshes, nor
the cultivation of the desert Campagna.

The reasons put forth to prove that Italy can
never become a national unity, are amusing;
because they are equally valid to prove that France,
in her present state, is a paradox, and the United
Kingdom an impossibility. For the same reasons
the kings of Navarre and the dukes of Burgundy
ought now to be holding divided sway with the
hero of the second Empire; and even if the
heptarchy be regarded as obsolete, at least Scotland
ought to retain a reigning dynasty, and Wales to
be governed by a prince bound by no duty to Queen
Victoria. Italy cannot be one, we are told,
because the Sicilies are jealous of Piedmont, because
Florence and Genoa are ancient rivals, because
Tuscans will never give the hand of fellowship
to Lombards, Romans, and Modenese. Ergo,
the strife between Highlander and Lowlander,
the sneers at Taffy and his cheeses, at Caledonia
and her cremona, at Irish bulls and Irish brogue,
are imaginary episodes of British history.

Again: Italy can never become a whole, we are
told, because distinct dialects are spoken in her
different provinces. The Italian of Piedmont is
far from pure, so is the Italian of Naples; moreover,
the two impurities are unintelligible the
one to the other. Then, Venice liquefies everything
into vowels, substituting " Siora mare" and
"Fia mia" for "Signora madre" and "Figlia
mia." Tuscany delights to roughen with
guttural aspirates, changing "acqua calda" into
"achcqua halda." Genoa chooses to call her
self " Zenna" (as English babies prefer Totsy and
Mopsy to the names given by their godfathers
and godmothers), and alters the village Cocoletto
(the birthplace of Columbus) into the more
mellifluous " Coco-oio." All the principal streets of
Milan are " Corsi," the second-rate " Contrade;"
the word " Strada" is nowhere to be heard or
seen. For—further reason for disunion—the
Italians introduce the peculiarities of their dialect
into the orthography of their language; the Italian
dialects are not reckoned vulgar; they have their
glossaries and their literature; they are perpetu-
ated in print and recognised in good society.

But what are the discrepancies of the Italian
dialects, compared with the distinctness of the
English and the Gaelic languages: including
in the latter its branches, Irish, Cornish,
and Welsh? Or of the Breton, Alsacian, and
French? Drop a Northumberland peasant, with
his "burr" in his throat, into the lanes of Norfolk
or Suffolk, and he will be as unintelligible to his
fellow-subjects there, as a Venetian suddenly
transferred to a Tuscan village. Introduce a
Marseillois to a native Picard, and they will
mutually deride each other's patois with a
contempt equal to that which a Milanese would
bestow on a Sicilian. But the proverb, " Lingua
Toscana nella bocca Romana,'' "Tuscan language
with the Roman pronunciation," proves the existence
of a strong connecting link; and it is
neither domestic internal jealousy, nor the
differences of dialects, which will prevent Italian
unity, any more than exactly like facts were able
to prevent British unity or Gallic unity. If Italy
can set about her unification with the same
energy, scorn of superstition, and self-respect,
which made France a grande nation and Great
Britain rather far from a little one, she may
achieve the same result.

Also, there is a unity of faults and failings that
must be got rid of—idleness, ignorance,
religious bigotry, mean importunity, discontent with
fair remuneration for small services rendered to
strangers. In most of these points, Italy may
learn a good lesson from her neighbour Switzerland.
Whenever anything like a Reformation
can be prepared in Italy, it will be a day of bright
promise for the whole peninsula. The general
instruction of the people is a matter of primary
necessity, rivalling in its importance the material
improvement of the country. Prizes might be
advantageously offered for the importation, or
rearing, of a race of schoolmasters. Lay teachers
endowed with common sense, are the beings
whose acclimatation would render an enormous
service. For, in the words of her great champion,
"Had Italy been better instructed, she would,
long before this, have known that her boundary
was not the wall of a town or the hedge of a
garden, but the high Alps and the broad sea."

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S NEW READINGS.
On Friday Evening, June 6th, at ST. JAMES'S HALL,
Piccadilly, at 8 o'clock precisely,
Mr. CHARLES DICKENS will read his
DAVID COPPERFIELD
(In Six Chapters),
AND
MR. BOB SAWYER'S PARTY,
FROM PICKWICK.
FOR THE LAST TIME THIS SEASON.