he that sovereign, he is innocent. Will a man that has been guilty of the darkest crimes that stain our nature, in order to get a throne, advance measures to overturn it ?”

Events have since shown this statement to be true; for after having "fraternized" with the popular movement, and marched against Austria, he now openly declares that he will not allow a republic to be established in the north of Italy. He has not left the cold hills of Piedmont, and led his armies into the smiling plains of Lombardy, to make them free, but a part of his kingdom. Not by him, but over him, will the northern Italians be compelled to win their freedom. He will prove himself as hard a master as Austria, if once allowed to gain the ascendency.

In the address from which the above is quoted, I stated also that there was nothing in the popular movement in Italy, which, of itself, promised success-that, if she ever gained her liberty, it must be after the overthrow of the strong monarchies of the continent, not by rising against them, for she was too weak to do this. No one could, then, have anticipated so sudden an outbreak as has since followed. But what I said at that time is equally true now. After speaking of the difficulties in the way of a free constitutional government, I said :

"But is tyranny always to exist? No; it will yet come to an end in Italy, but only as it comes to an end in Europe. Then it will be the result, rather than a cause-the product of convulsions and revolutions in more powerful States. If there be one thing fixed in destiny, it is the steady, resistless progress of the republican principle. Struggle as despots may-surround themselves as they will with all the checks and restraints on popular feeling-bind and torture, and exile and slay, the terrible day of reckoning is slowly advancing. Before this single principle Europe is incessantly pushed forward to the brink

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of a frightful gulf. On that brink despotism will make its last stand and final struggle. The statesmen of Europe see it and know it, and hope only to defer the day of evil. Come, they know it will. As Guizot lately said in the Chamber of Deputies, All Germany is on fire. I might, if I had time, prove this, to the full conviction of every mind; but I will only point to Europe now and Europe sixty years ago, as fearful corroboration of what I say. Europe is yet to be set afloat on the turbulent sea of democracy. The French Revolution is but one act in the great tragedy yet to be enacted. That, with Bonaparte at its head, whelmed the continent in blood, and made the knees of every monarch smite together, like Belshazzar's of old. The next shall open under their very thrones, as the French Revolution did under the throne of the Bourbons. The people are yet to have the power, and woe then to those who have maddened them. It needs not the ear of prophecy, it requires only the ear of reason, to hear the sound of falling thrones in the future. Fugitive kings are to flit through the realms they have ruined. Now, barrier after barrier is erected, check after check applied, promise after promise made and broken, to arrest the waves of popular feeling; yet they keep swelling higher and higher. Soon the last barrier shall be raised, the last check exhausted, and then the increasing flood will burst over. What is to come of it, I cannot tell. Through the blackness of that approaching storm no eye but God's can pierce. Whether anarchy or constitutional liberty is to spring out of it, He only knows; but the experiment of self-government the people of Europe are yet to try. No power can prevent it. Around the ruins of Italy, and the feudal castles of England and Germany, amid the forests of Russia, the struggle of the people with their rulers is to take place. Every man who will sit down to the study of history with this

single question before him, will turn pale at the conclusions he cannot escape."

When this was uttered I had no idea it would so soon prove true. The immediate results in Italy and Europe no man can foretell; but that there will be a reaction against the panic that has paralyzed monarchs, I have but little doubt. This will probably be followed by a struggle and a long war. That Italy may gain from the conflict and collision at hand, is my most ardent wish. The spirit the Italian people have shown thus far, proves that many of my views respecting them were incorrect; that they possess far more greatness and stability of character than travellers have given them credit for. I rejoice that it is so, and hope that the Italian Republics of a former age may be more than renewed in the present century. At all events, the people have shown themselves worthy of a noble destiny.

PREFACE.

THE accompanying Letters were not originally written with the intention of being published in a book, and, very probably, would have been worse written if they had been. In passing through Italy, one is constantly subjected to sudden and great transitions of feeling. The "classic land" and the "home of the Cæsars," have so long been a portion of the scholar's dreams, and so brightly colored with his own feelings, that the very matter-of-fact objects that stare him in the face, when he is expecting some hallowed monument of the past, will often quite upset his gravity, and compel him to laugh, where he thought to have been serious and reflective. It has been my effort, in these Letters, to give a faithful transcript of my feelings, in all these sudden transitions. To some there may often appear too much lightness and frivolity; yet most men like to have one give himself in his travels; they wish to hear him soliloquizing. We read his book not to learn that he can be, or is, a very serious and profound man, but to know how things struck him—that is, travel with him. Amid the new and exciting scenes that constantly meet travellers, in perhaps a hurried passage over a country, they cannot, and do not, have the views and feelings so often given, for appearance's sake, as their honest ones.

My purpose has been to let others, if possible, look through my eyes; and whether I have succeeded or not, or whether they would have obtained a very interesting view if they did, I leave the reader to judge. Descriptions of galleries of art, paintings, etc., have been avoided, as possessing interest to those only who have travelled over the same ground, and become familiar with the details necessary to make those descriptions clear. I have attempted, also, to give some idea of the condition of the inhabitants, especially of the lower classes, as they are topics. seldom referred to in passing over the most classic land on the globe.

It was designed at first to publish these Letters in numbers, and the first number was issued, but the plan was immediately abandoned, and the publication of the remainder deferred till the whole could be issued in a volume. The first number em

braced only Genoa and a portion of Naples-the least interest

ing part of Italy. Rome, Florence, Milan, the provinces, etc., are included in the remainder.