seriously desire. The army in the transitional state of Italy is not, however, without an important use. General Della Marmora recently declared in his place in the Chamber, that it was not only the best school of civilisation which the country afforded, but the most intelligible symbol of Italian unity. Drawn from the various provinces, and animated by a sentiment of military honour and by a zeal for the Italian flag, the amalgamation of its ranks is now so complete that provincial dialects are rapidly disappearing in the use of a language common to all. On the other hand, Austria, it is well known, maintains that the Quadrilateral is essential to her defence; and while neither party chooses to renounce its rights or its pretensions, both must go on ruining themselves by military expenditure.

Italy has had no independent political existence since the fall of the Roman Empire, excepting perhaps during the brief domination of its Gothic kings. The victim,' says the historian of the Middle Ages, by turns of selfish and sanguinary factions, Italy fell like a star from its place in heaven: she saw her harvests trodden down by the hoofs of the stranger, and the blood of her children wasted in quarrels not their own-a long and not unmerited retribution for the tyranny of Rome.' Notwithstanding the long political abasement of Italy the hope of its revival seems never to have been abandoned. Sismondi, in commenting upon certain popular demonstrations of his time, says that the internal dissensions by which Italy had been desolated in the Middle Ages would certainly revive whenever an attempt should be made to form a nation and to constitute a single government, and would make its political unity an impossibility. The prediction of the brilliant historian has not as yet been realised, perhaps, because the modern agencies for combination and union are stronger than any that he was accustomed to. To the attentive observer of the present state of Italy, the circumstance that is perhaps most deserving of notice and admiration is the complete abandonment of those local or provincial jealousies, which were considered as insuperable obstacles to the existence of an united Italy. From one extremity to the other of the peninsula the great, the paramount feeling is well expressed in the three words, "Siamo tutti Italiani." One of the most pleasing traits connected with the reorganisation of Italy has been the restoration by the municipality of

The reasons which seem to justify Austria in clinging so tenaciously to Venetia were ably stated in a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution in 1863, by Bonamy Price, Esq. It has since been published. The recent conduct of Austria goes far to deprive her of the benefit of any argument drawn from treaty right or from public law.

Genoa

Genoa to Pisa of the massive chains which once protected the entrance of that port, and which were carried off in triumph and long displayed by the Genoese as the symbol of their rival's humiliation. The moderation which has marked the political transformation of Italy, and the entire absence of all revolutionary excesses, has been in the highest degree creditable to the Italian people. The success of constitutional government has hitherto been complete, although the impulsive nature of the Italians was not calculated to render the task of ruling an easy one, or to make the transition from despotism to free institutions other than hazardous. The mass of the population may perhaps be scarcely conscious of the political dignity which their country has acquired, but they can comprehend the importance of a change which has produced a marked improvement in their material condition, and a sensible increase in the money-value of their labour. Every class and interest has in effect benefited by the transformation of Italy. The shopkeeper recognises it in the increase of his business, the agriculturist in an advance of prices, and the landed proprietor in the rise of his rents. Increased intercourse has sprung up between the provinces. The natives of the north have flocked in numbers to the south, carrying with them those habits of industry and self-reliance for which they are distinguished. Nor have the southern Italians been slow to transfer their labour to markets in which they believed they could obtain for it a higher remuneration. Turin numbered among its population at the last census twenty thousand labourers and artisans who had emigrated to it from the Neapolitan province. The municipalities and communes are everywhere bestirring themselves in the work of local improvement; schools of mining and agriculture are awakening enterprise; the universities are once more crowded with students; great ecclesiastical reforms have already been effected, and the general spirit of inquiry which has been aroused renders the position of the Papacy more precarious in the land of its origin than in any country which still bows to its authority or acquiesces in its spiritual pretensions.

The people of Italy, we believe, rejoice in the failure of the recent negociations between the Italian Government and the Vatican, because terms were insisted upon by the Papacy which would have been quite incompatible with the independence of the Italian kingdom. And yet one might have expected that the hierarchy would have seen the expediency of making some arrangement with the Italian Government, if only with a view to its own protection, when the French shall have quitted Rome. Be this as it may, the late Ministerial Address promises to

adopt

adopt measures for the abolition of monastic establishments, and the application of their property to purposes of education, charity, and local improvement, while it expresses a resolution to abstain from all overtures to Rome.

The result of the municipal elections in Florence, the new capital, is favourable to peace and order, and to the moderate party-the members returned being chosen from the principal aristocratic families, the better class of tradesmen, &c., and the Garibaldian element being excluded.

The difficulties to which the Italian kingdom is now exposed are much greater from within than from without. It is in a great degree the master of its own destinies. Nothing but its own imprudence, or a most improbable combination against its nationality, can now affect its position; but as an individual who makes undue haste to be rich often finds himself suddenly insolvent, so a nation which overtaxes its strength in an endeavour to be prematurely powerful exposes itself to the imminent danger of collapse. To consolidate what has been acquired, perfect its interior economy, and impose a prudent restraint on even its legitimate desires, is the true mode of increasing the respect and confidence of Europe. Nor, it must be acknowledged, have the statesmen of Italy hitherto failed to recognise the nature of the task before them. They have, considering the difficulties of their position, been successful in guiding their country through a dangerous crisis. They have baffled all attempts to drag it into a rash and reckless war, and to bring about a crisis pregnant with the most fatal consequences. By persevering in a policy thus successfully commenced, Italy may acquire a prosperity not unworthy of its ancient commercial importance, and a dignity suitable to the great part which it has acted in the history and civilisation of the world.

ART. IV.-1. The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed; with a Memoir. By the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Second edition. London, 1864.

2. Selections from the Poetical Works of Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton. London, 1863.

WE

E wish in the following pages to give some notice of two recent English poets. Whatever rank in their art may be ultimately assigned to them, they will hold a place of their own in our literature; and, meantime, they appear to us well worthy of attention, not only on account of their individual

genius,

genius, but of the special direction in which the genius of each has been exercised. Both Praed and Lord Houghton have given us poems of merit which refer to past times; but it is those portions of their verse which touch on contemporary life, manners, and feelings from different points of view, that are likely to retain their names in the remembrance of Englishmen. This has been sometimes expressed by speaking of the poets as authors of vers de société. We shall presently attempt to find what meaning lies beneath this phrase, which is more convenient than definite. But what we have now said may form our excuse for bringing under one notice men of such marked diversities, both in gift and in temperament.

Praed's life, (to begin with the poet no longer among us), has been sketched by Mr. Derwent Coleridge. His elegant (if not very powerful) memoir accompanies the first English edition of Praed's collected poems, or rather of that portion which it has been hitherto deemed expedient to collect. The sketch and the collection have the peculiar merits, and naturally exhibit some of the defects, which mark a labour of love performed by friends and relations for the honoured dead. But to these points we shall return :-adding only that it is to be remembered that the years of Praed's life which were most marked by literary activity lie already far behind us, and that a sentiment which we regret, but can only regret, has prevented the use of his own letters as illustrations of the biography. We think, however, that the recollections of Praed preserved by those yet living, (which on some points appear not altogether in harmony with Mr. Coleridge's sketch), should have been more freely appealed to. The account of his political career would also have received greater point by the insertion of a little more detail on Praed's work in the House of Commons, and by a judicious selection from the party squibs to which it will, probably, be useless now to invite public attention, if printed in

extenso.

Of Praed's political promise or performance we do not intend to speak here at length. He had attained, at the time of his early death, a position which might naturally have been expected to lead to great eminence and distinction in his vocation of politics. For Praed, like Canning, was tempted from poetry by law and the House of Commons. Literature to him, we read, was but an occasional diversion, which called him away from more serious pursuits.' Such a man, one feels, is not a born poet,' a poet by the deliberate choice of his heart. Praed's gifts, in fact, as is shown by his own preference

for

for politics, were, on the whole, of what is commonly called the 'practical' order. Even his verses bear this character strongly marked; consisting largely of charades, poems written for prizes or on sportively-suggested themes, political banter, and the like. In a word, they are what in the last century were known as 'occasional verses,' and it must be frankly owned that too many of those printed by the profuse-we had almost said the impious-piety of the biographer, (who has made himself partly responsible for this impression by admitting much that weakens the sense of Praed's genuine poetical power), do not rise above the level of the occasion. We may be reminded that Goethe, in one of those conversations with his youthful friend Eckermann, which, on the whole, exhibit the great poet in the most human and pleasing light, condemned the ambition of originality and epic writing, and bade the younger generation of German singers back to 'occasional poetry.' But by Goethe's phrase we must understand, not the verses which make a facile rhymer one of the valuable men of his time in rendering society pleasant, real as is the merit of one who does so; but rather those verses which, based on real incidents in his own life, and not drawn from nature at secondhand, flow from the soul of some genuine poet, until what were trifles light as air become joys for ever. Catullus, Burns, Goethe himself when he is most delightfully Goethe, Heine when he touches our hearts as well as our intellects, Shelley wherever he is intelligible, Wordsworth when we wish for more of him, -all are examples. But it is impossible to class with 'occasional poetry' in this sense Praed's two prize poems, which, (pace Mr. Coleridge), if indeed they 'rise far above the ordinary level,' can only be held as additional proofs that the world is right in assigning no place whatever in poetry to such compositions, although the production of them may have its own value as an academical exercise. And under this sentence we would include some fifty pages of charades in verse, -a horrible perversion of poetry ranking with the wings and altars which found favour in the bad days of literature. It is inconceivable that a man of Praed's sense, and of his sense of humour, would have allowed these metrical exercises, with his boyish lines, college translations, and valentines, to be reprinted during his lifetime; and, although an author's own judgment on such matters may sometimes err in excess of modesty or sensitiveness, yet the posthumous editor can hardly be too careful in subordinating the interest which he naturally feels in his friend, to the more impartial estimate of those who never saw Virgil.' Happy the ancient poets, we say, with those of modern days who left no manuscripts behind, to be thumbed by the relic-hunter, or, (worse

fate),