daily showed an increasing disposition to cut | Italians themselves, owning his spiritual suthe knots of diplomacy with the sword. The premacy, denounce as the plague-spot in the first programme was shelved, and a second system of their country, is to be the Head of issued, which declared, in that big, dramatic a Confederation which it is pretended is to phraseology of which Napoleon understands nationalize and regenerate Italy. Those who so well the manufacture, that Italy should be are anxious to justify the conduct of Napoleon, nationalized, and that from the Alps to the and to explain away its singularity, lay much Adriatic her soil should be freed from the stress upon the fact that the Presidency is to tread of the stranger. An unbroken success be honorary. We see no force in that condiin a series of battles which rank among the tion, nor do we find in it any alleviation of greatest the world ever saw, placed in a sin- the difficulties which must be created by the gularly short space of time the power to real- conference of this new dignity and power ize the second programme apparently within upon the Pontiff. Power, and very real the grasp of Napoleon. Confederated Ger- power, too, it will be. It will give reality to many, with Prussia at her head, rose up in a temporal prerogative which the occupants haste and buckled on her armor, while Eu- of the Papal Chair filched from the weak rope stood by anxious and alarmed at the hands of former Emperors. In those days gigantic dimensions which the war of the when the Emperors of Germany summoned Second Pogramme was threatening to as- Ecumenical Councils, they were wont to sume. At this juncture the victor in the con- grant certain temporal powers to the patritest suddenly stays his hand, tenders first an archs of the Church, the badge of which was armistice and then a peace which gives the their investiture with the Pallium. The Popes go-by to both Programmes, sets the Pontiff have long since arrogated to themselves the on a pinnacle at which he and his predeces- right of conferring this investiture in virtue of sors have been hopelessly gazing for cen- an imperial power in matters temporal which turies, and confers upon Austria a recognized they have too often abused. Can it be that the position in Italy as an Italian Power, and as a Powers of the Continent are so weak as to lend Member of an Italian Confederation of which themselves to reviving, under favor of this new the Pope, in whose favor she concluded the position of this temporal presidency, a recogniConcordat, is to be the declared Head. That tion of that Imperial Power which outrageous is a singular Peace surely for Napoleon III., abuse has reduced to a dark shadow of the past, the cosmopolitan Don Quixote, and the Ally and of calling into life again those buried times and prime instigator of Constitutional and when Sovereigns held the stirrup of a Pope? anti-Papal Sardinia, to have made. But what This is no impossibility. With Austria a member will the Parties to the Treaties of 1815 say to of the Italian Confederation, it may well come this proposed new state of things? Hitherto to pass, and Italy may become a nut between Austria has been in Italy a German Power the jaws of the Papal and Austrian cracker. holding an Italian Province by right of con- And what part, let us ask, is France or her quest, confirmed by European Treaties, but Emperor prepared to play in this pleasant without legal power to intervene in any way game? Are the French troops to be within the affairs of her neighbors. By the con- drawn, or are they to remain in order to inditions of this Peace she is to be placed in a stall the Pontiff in his Presidency, and to reposition in the Italian Confederation, of which press those struggles for independence which she will be the most powerful member; which were roused in Northern Italy, and were to be will enable her legally, legitimately, and upon preached into existence in Hungary by the grounds which nobody can gainsay, to do unquiet and eloquent Kossuth? From the those very acts which she has been engaged singular expressions which we find in the adin hitherto surreptitiously and illegally, which dress of the Emperor to his army, we are dishave led to the late war, and for the commis- posed to infer that such, or something very sion of which she has professedly been driven like it, is to be the course adopted. Poor back by main force to the banks of the Adige. Italy will again have been a pretext instead Not a whit less objectionable is the position of an object, and betrayed without remorse. which it is proposed under this most curious She sits like Constance, sad, passionate, and treaty to give to the Pontiff. He is to be the desolate in the tent of France, full of fears, Honorary Head of the Italian Confederation. oppressed with wrongs, and throned with He, the hero of Perugia, whose Government Sorrow.

From The Press, 16 July.
BLIGHTED PROSPECTS.

had been too soon removed, and that their replacement would be for the advantage of their respective hives. "As they were," is the order of the day, and the desponding ducal and royal fugitives of June are the happy re-occupants of thrones not yet cold in July.

pected. Nobody assisted at it. No Privy Council, no responsible Ministry, no red-tape forWHAT are we to make of the sudden ces-malities were suffered to prolong or impede the sation of the Italian tempest? A few days Imperial tête-à-tête. Italy is reviewed from ago, wars, and rumors of wars-fields covered the Alps to the Adriatic. The old and frowsy with soldiers and the sea swarming with sailors Dukes and Duchesses are replaced. The Im-the Quadrangle devoured in anticipation perial bee-master discovers that these supers by the one-and the Queen of the Adriatic almost in the embraces of the other-absorbed the anxious thoughts of Europe. Italy was to be swept from the snowy Alps to the beautiful Adriatic of every personation of tyranny from the small Grand Dukes that perpetrate little persecutions, to the great It seems those venomous wasps of the Kaiser that covered their august heads from Univers have been feeding on Louis Nathe indignant retaliations of exasperated sub-poleon's popularity in France. They were jects. Not a blight was to lie longer on Ital- alarmed at the prospective desolation of that ian fields. Not a cloud must any more inter- paragon of wise government which has been cept its gorgeous sunshine. The venerable presented for ages in the temporal estates gentleman whose normal treatment of his of the Church. They fancied they saw the flock has been for ages a mixture of ferocity Pope at Savona a second time-the Carand fun, wax tapers and Perugian cruelties, dinals without maintenance, and a secular was to be muzzled, and Rome was to be what King in the holy slippers of Pio Nono. True for ages it had not been-the centre of order to their principles, they began to work the and love; and the vermin that swarm all worst" infernal machine" that France ever about it, and the filth that has grown holy, felt-the Confessional. By and by signs of and begging that is inveterately honorable, discontent and symptoms of feverish restlesswere all to be swept away by this glorious ness set in among the ouvriers of Paris. To French besom, that no cobweb or spider, no purpose did Napoleon protest he did not priest, prelate, or prince, must refuse to kiss mean to touch a hair of the Pope's head, and reverently as he disappeared before it. Count that, instead of doing so, he was busy knitting Cavor indulged millennial hopes. Mazzini a new nightcap for that venerable head which saw in the perspective brightening glories- was the fountain of wisdom, and working Kossuth smelt his prey from afar-soldiers as new slippers for his sacred feet. The Jesuits their last life-tide ebbed away were cheered were incredulous. Louis Napoleon did not in their dying moments by the consolatory re- see his way out of the difficulty which thickflection that they fell in the defence of free- ened the longer it lasted. All of a sudden dom and in punishing the tyrant. Our able he resolves to bring the Italian question to a contemporary the Morning Post was eloquent stand-still for the present; and by way of re-daily eloquent-on the blessings conducted turning to Paris not only the conqueror of down to Italy by the Imperial sword. New Austria and the liberator of Italy, but the Dantes were beginning to sing, another Tasso dutiful son of Rome, he consecrates the Pope was chanting Italy restored, and orators "Honorary President of the Italian Confeder kindling their eloquence at the victories of ation." What this new dignity, bestowed on Magenta and Solferino set fire to patriotism the Infallible Pontiff already laden with the in cold hearts to which it had been long a sounding titles of an exhausted vocabulary, stranger. A new genesis was emerging from may imply or constitute we know not. Perchaos-war was about to cease to the ends of haps the Emperor laughs heartily over his the earth-the spear was to be turned into champaigne at the fun-perhaps he thinks it the pruning-hook-and L'Empire c'est la will stop troublesome tongues till he and his paix was to be translated into the experience army recover their strength-or perhaps he and enjoyment of Christendom. In the thinks it will pacify the Jesuits and save himtwinkling of an eye every calculation, expec- self from the conspiracy of the Confessional. tation, and hope of Christendom was turned But this kiss to the Pope where Italy expected upside down. Precisely the reverse of ordi- a kick, will not make Sardinia over delighted nary expectations suddenly appears. The French Emperor takes it into his head that he has supped full of glory, and that the Emperor of Austria has had enough of beating, and one fine summer morning he has a meeting with his Imperial foe, now his Imperial brother. The interview is all that nobody ex

with her ally, or lay those revolutionary elements which the war let loose and peace and pontifical presidency will not recall.

The truth is that a good many friends of Italy begin to think they have been done, and that if they had quietly waited longer they had achieved much better things.

638

FIRST FRUITS OF THE WAR.

tor of Italy, he can attain that place in history only by the sacrifice of all ambition, personal as well as national, and by an honest devotion to the cause of Constitutional Government. agreement in its present form which can be As it is, there is not a clause of the worked out except through the medium of French bayonets. That even under such circumstances some improvement might be effected upon the present state of anarchy and misgovernment we do not deny, but they would be unlikely to be either permanent or popular. To crown all, a golden opportunity will have been missed, and one, moreover, which can hardly be expected to recur in the present generation.

But of all impossible consummations, the an armistice patched up to suit the temporary concentration of the Central Italian provinces convenience of the high contracting parties under the honorary presidency of Pio Nono than of negotiations which are likely to form is about the most ridiculous. The fierce and the basis of a lasting peace. Such being the lawless population of the Romagna will laugh case, we shall await with impatience the opto scorn the idea of such a renewal of their portunity of scrutinizing those minor touches allegiance to a master whom they have so that are destined to complete a picture which contemptuously discarded. The massacre of is as yet but in the faintest outline, for upon Perugia has inflamed the minds of the inhabi- the breadth and boldness of these will depend tants of the surrounding districts to madness, all its chances of being preserved to posterity. and nothing but the presence of foreign bayonets could preserve for a day the authority with the innumerable difficulties which beset If there be a bonâ-fide desire to grapple of the weak and revengeful old man who is the question of Italian unity, the present mothe present occupant of the Papal Chair. An ment undoubtedly offers peculiar facilities for honorary presidency involves, too, the sec- its solution. But to thread successfully the ularization of the Government,— which, however desirable, would strike a singleness of purpose as well as an experi-a measure mazes of so intricate a labyrinth requires death-blow at the hopes of every confidential enced eye. If it he really the wish of Louis adviser of the present Pontiff. His consent Napoleon to be remembered as the benefacto such an arrangement is evidently as yet unasked, and, judging from past experiences, we are sceptical as to its being easily obtained. Whatever may be the wishes of the more moderate party in the States of the Church, the mass of the inhabitants desire either annexation to Sardinia or a Republic, and unless they obtain substantially one or the other alternative are most unlikely to rest contented with the shadow of a quasi independence. Were the design feasible, it could only be carried out under the auspices of a far abler man than he who now presides at the Vatican. As for the King of Naples, he seems far too much inclined to tread in the steps of his father to brook any interference with that irresponsible system of government which turns every other individual in his kingdom into a spy or a malcontent. It is a fact, ominous of future complications, that while the two Emperors have, in the language of the turf, "made all the running" at Villafranca, the King of Sardinia was literally " nowhere." His opinion seems never to have been consulted; he was not present at the Conference; and, for all we know to the contrary, may have been unaware that it was about to take place. Were the Imperial negotiators versed in English law, we might point to the "Swinfen case as a warning of the troublesome responsibilities entailed by arrangements which, however desirable, have been unsanctioned by the party principally interested. The Ego et rex meus of Count Cavour will be as potent an element as before for mischief, if that astute diplomatist so wills it, while additional prestige will have been added to his machinations by the possession of Lombardy. Unless Sardinia is satisfied, peace will hang by a thread in the Peninsula. At present we have no evidence that she has even been consulted. The whole proceedings bear far too much the aspect of

From The Press, 16 July. FIRST FRUITS OF THE WAR. blood some ripe ears of good are already FROM the fields of Lombardy watered with gathered.

senting Victor Emmanuel, has proclaimed The Governor of Milan, repreliberty of worship, reading, and printing. This is no ordinary privilege. It will do more to prevent the reflux of Austrian domination and sacerdotal intolerance than treaty or army or battlements. It will give the people a taste of enjoyment which it will be almost impossible entirely to eradicate at any future time, because the longer it lasts, the more extensively and firmly it will interlace and incorporate itself with the very life of the people.

is the fact that this is not a Protestant insurWhat is worthy of remark in this instance rection against a Roman Catholic institution resting its rights on sacred Scripture and deriving its growth from the overthrow of Roman dogmas, but a purely civil right exacted by Roman Catholics for the use of Roman Catholics. These have demanded and vindicated it as a political necessity of national existence. They cannot breathe the air of the

Austrian dungeon after the gaoler's expulsion. not in vain that they have fought and fallen. That baptism of blood may be the regeneration of Italy, and in its reaction it may be the restoration to France of those privileges which in her case are only held in abeyance, not crushed or forgotten.

It may be inconsistent with the dogmas of the Pope-the articles of the Concordat-the opinions of the priests. They cannot help the contrariety, and they do not care to discuss it. The deepest instincts of human nature-long overlaid but never crushed-into We do not estimate the importance of this whose silent recesses neither the crozier of Milan decree by its action on the gross superthe priest nor the sceptre of the autocrat has stition that darkens that fair land and con-. ever penetrated-demand the boon with irre- founds under its pall good and evil, or the sistible eloquence; and the representative of certainty of its ultimately hastening on what Victor Emmanuel, with a mind that can ap- must come sooner or later, the secularization preciate his position, and a courage that dares of the patrimony of the Pope. We see its to do what he discerns as right, has launched more immediate results at present-a people on the now free air of Lombardy the seeds of rising from its grave-clothed with rights privileges that will show themselves every-long withheld, and exercising functions long where, and grow into imperishable rights and superseded, and organizing Freedom's strongcover the land with no common harvest. We est bulwark and Order's surest guarantee-a are truly thankful to see the early fruit or Constitutional Government. earnest of fruit of this sanguinary war. A heavy price has been paid. Wide and deep and frequent are the graves of the fallen. Every hillock is a soldier's sepulchre. Many are the homesteads of France and Italy into which rivers of sorrow will pour from the plains of Lombardy. Rachels weeping for their sons will not be comforted. But it is

Most earnestly do we pray that moderate councils may prevail-that wise and judicious spirits may take the management of what many enemies in the garb of friends will try to dilute or utterly destroy, and that nothing may be done which the Jesuit may display as proof of the people being unripe for freedom.

Practical Guide for Italy.

Practical Rhine Guide. Third Edition. Practical Paris Guide. Third Edition. Longman and Co.

LORD LYNDHURST has added to his political services by calling for an inquiry into the method of taking evidence in our Equity Courts. Whereas in our Law Courts the evidence is

THE purpose of these guides is to supply in taken vivâ voce, before Judge and Jury, who the most condensed form the essence of the in- can see the behavior of the witness under exformation wanted by the traveller. Maps, amination and cross-examination upon every routes, charges of all kinds, convenient foreign detail, with opportunity for testing his veracity money-tables, steamers, trains with their fares at each turn: in the Courts of Equity the eviand time-bills, hotels and their charges, brief dence is originally embodied in an affidavit, prepractical vocabularies, summaries of the chief pared by counsel, and sworn to in the lump: sights in each place, with note of the convenient and even cross-examination is taken, not before way of seeing them, customs' duties upon arti- the Court, but by a separate officer called an cles commonly brought home by the traveller, Examiner, who is, we are told on high authorThe Judge in and other matter, will be found compressed ity, little better than a cipher. into the fewest pages. The Paris Guide is Equity, therefore, adjudicates upon the strength twenty pages long, the Rhine Guide sixty. Yet of prepared, and even "doctored" evidence; there is room found even for recommendations his studies in arriving at the truth becoming of particular tradesmen in the chief towns. No actually little better than a literary effort. AÏÏ profession of impartiality, and even no attempt the Law Lords agreed, and a commission is apto be impartial, can make this part of the Guide pointed, not, we trust, only to give us another perfectly reliable or just. The Practical Guides blue-book, but to terminate the anomaly forever. are on the whole, however, well devised to sat--Spectator, 16 July. isfy the wants, and no more than the wants, of rapid tourists who desire, according to the definition of them on the cover of these books, "to see all that ought to be seen in the shortest period, and at the least expense."-Examiner.

A CURIOUS little volume, entitled "Histoire Anecdotique et Critique de la Presse Parisi enne," has lately appeared. The author is M. Firmin Maillard.