shade peep out from verdant nooks; the honey-decimation of the young colony. It is but a dismal suckle and the eglantine send forth their fragrance; and in dells and glades, on banks and hedge-sides, the stately foxglove rears its pyramids of bells. tall The leafing of the forest trees is now completed; even the oak has dressed his angular limbs in a bright green garb, and stands among his compeers conspicuous from the lighter hue of his vesture. The horse chestnut is not only in full leaf, but also in full flower, and disperses a tide of richest odours far and wide, from ten thousand upright cones of blossoms, showing like constellations in the dense green firmament of the forest background. The ash, though less conspicuous, flowers no less abundantly, and from every branch droop those clustering bunches of keys which are such a treasure and a mystery to childhood: the maple and the sycamore open their yellow florets, and among the twigs of the latter the cockchafer sleeps by day and drones with musical wing at eventide and night; the lime offers its treasures of honey to the working bees, and from dawn to dusk whole colonies of them are buzzing and humming over their incessant labours. The interior of the wood has now a rather monotonous appearance; for, with the exception of the light yellow foliage of the oak, and the dark black hues of the firs and pines, themselves tipped at the extremities of their branches with light green sprouts, all the trees of the forest are of one uniform shade of colour, and it is not easy at a distance to distinguish their several varieties. On the other hand, the surface of the soil is infinitely variegated with flowers of all hues and plants of all forms, and the busiest botanist has more work on his hands than he can hope to accomplish. The corn is now bursting into ear, the peas are in full bloom, and from the bean-field there is wafted an odour which justifies the assertion of the poet, that "Arabia cannot boast A fuller gale of joy than, liberal, thence Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished soul." To add to all the charms of beautiful scenery, there comes in June the most delicious and exhilarating weather. The summer heats have not set in, and the clouds, which have not yet begun brewing their storms, send down soft and refreshing showers at intervals, filling the air with aromatic scents and a delicious balmy freshness. All nature is at this season a glorious pageant decked by a Divine hand, scattering bounty and beauty with equal abundance, and filling the world with evidence of His paternal care. If the birds are for the most part in song in the beginning of the month-and that will generally be found to be the case-they will yet lapse into silence ere June is many days old. As for our friends the rooks, they have by this time, in most of their settlements, undergone their annual persecution, which so woefully thins their ranks and swells their rates of mortality. For, no sooner are the young rooks big enough to hop out of their nests and flutter from spray to spray, than a tribe of summer sportsmen, hungering for rook-pie, come down upon them some fine morning with their guns, and begin the spectacle to witness this battue among a race who have not yet the right use of their limbs, or, therefore, a fair chance of escape; it is a sort of massacre to which, notwithstanding the savour of rook-pie, (and we confess a weakness in that direction,) we cannot accord our sympathies. The sight is too painful; the little fledglings, all unconscious of what is doing, hop about pertly and saucily, and seem to care nothing for the smell of powder or the whistling shot, and submit to their fate indifferently enough: but the agony of the old birds is distressing; they will not leave their young so long as the firing continues, but flutter and scream in circles above, testifying by their cries the bitter anguish they feel. Even if the young rooks are not shot down by the gun, they will get thinned by the village lads and schoolboys, who, first pelting them from the trees, will run them down and capture them by hand, while they are yet too feeble for a long flight. The rookery is now silent and deserted all the day long, both old and young birds being absent on foraging expeditions in all directions; their food is not now so plentiful as it was in early spring and during the time of incubation, and they have to wander far in search of it. About sundown you see them, like dim specks, near the horizon, making towards their home; soon the specks grow into a long sinuous train, then the dreamy caw-caw steals from far upon the ear, and grows and swells, as they approach, into a formidable din, which only subsides into silence when the last comer has settled himself for the night. The silence of the song-birds at this season may be referred to the amount of business they have now upon their hands. Nearly all have young families to attend to, and whose wants must be supplied. With so many mouths to feed, they have no leisure for singing; they are grubbing about for larvæ, rummaging for caterpillars, or on the watch for worms, or in hot chase after insects, all the day long, and it taxes the utmost industry both of male and female to fill the everyawning throats of their little ones. True, there is one bird who pipes as lustily in June as at any other time-indeed, his note is then clearer and fuller than ever; but that is the rascal cuckoo, who, like a vagabond that leaves his children chargeable to the parish, has delegated his paternal duties to some unfortunate sparrow or finch, and, having no household to provide for, can sing while others are at work for him. The cuckoo is the nearest approach to a do-nothing "gentleman," to be found among the feathered tribes. Perhaps the silence of the song-birds may also be referred to another cause: it is at this season that they are specially the victims of bird-fanciers, bird-dealers, fowlers, and mischievous boys and lads. Myriads of their nests are plundered and stolen from them every June, by these tribes of marauders, and the poor birds may well be silent while anxiously watching and tending their precious broods, with the consciousness that at any moment they may see them ruthlessly borne away. That they are thus conscious is pretty clear, from the pains which most birds are at to deceive and delude their spoilers. Some will feign to be wounded or crippled, and will flutter away on one wing, until they have led the pursuer sufficiently wide of the object of his search. Others will carry food ostentatiously into a bush where there is no nest, and creep out silently on the other side. Others, again, when the spoiler is near, will affect ignorance of his approach, and delude him to the wrong place by the cunning of simplicity; while some will feign to be dead when taken. We look upon all these devices as so many rebuking protests against the wanton cruelty of mankind. The plundering of birds' nests is an act of gratuitous barbarism, which, resulting in no kind of benefit to any one, wants even the semblance of an apology. When the children of our land shall have received the benefit of sound moral training, they will recoil from the cruelty of such a pastime. Down at Tangley all hands are busy enough just now, and the homestead is full to overflowing. The work of the dairy goes on assiduously; out of doors the field hands are weeding the rising crops; turnips are being sown; and David the shepherd, busy among the sheep, who are threatened by the fly, is preparing for the washing, which comes off directly, and for the shearing, which will follow, if the weather is favourably warm, a few days later. This sheep-washing business is one of considerable bustle and merriment, especially among the boys and lads, who are eager to have a hand in it. As Dobbs prides himself on the quality of his wool, he takes care that it shall appear in good condition in the market. This would not be the case were it washed in a slovenly manner, according to the custom of too many of our midland county farmers. In order that it may be done well, Dobbs has it done with care and deliberation. The washing place is a pool of rapidly-running water, formed by a branch of the trout-brook, where the stream cascades over a pebbly dam into the hollow below, the bottom being of clear gravel and sand, without a particle of mud. On either side of the stream a space has been inclosed with hurdles; in one of these inclosures the sheep are driven to await their turn to be washed, and into the other they are suffered to escape as soon as the ceremony is over. Instead of one man to wash the sheep, as is sometimes the case, Dobbs stations three in the water. The first stands in the deepest part, up to his arm-pits; the second a few yards higher up, and submerged to the middle; while the third stands in the shallows under the fall. As the sheep are thrown in, they plunge first into the deep water, and get well sodden and tumbled about, with all but their heads under the flood, by the first washer; when they have parted with most of their impurities, they are passed on to the man in the middle, who repeats the process in cleaner water, and again passes them on to the third man, who, in this case, happens to be David himself, who gives them a final rubbing under the clear water which rushes over the fall, and then allows them to escape up the grassy bank on the other side, into the fold prepared for them. The muttons do not well know what to make of it, and ap pear sometimes to have barely strength to stagger out of the bath when the process is over; in fact, some of them with heavy fleeces have to be helped up the bank, and it is not until they have shaken out some gallons of water from their saturated coats that they are able to walk with freedom. The fun of the business is all on the side of the unwashed party, who generally manifest decided objections to the ablution; and it takes a sturdy boy to force a stout sheep over the bank into the flood. The trial of strength that sometimes ensues is not always in favour of the biped, and many a confident youngster is laid sprawling on his back in the struggle; and then it is that peals of laughter ring out on all sides, and the hills around echo to the boisterous merriment. The shearing of sheep does not take place immediately after the washing. If it did, the wool would not be in a fit state for the purposes of the manufacturer, but would be hard and thready instead of soft and elastic. The sheep are kept in a dry clean spot for some days, until the natural oil of the skin again assimilates with the fleece: from five to seven days are sufficient for this purpose. At Tangley, the shearing always takes place in the big barn, which is cleared out for the purpose. As the shearers have to kneel at their work, Dobbs has compassion on their knees; first littering down the floor with clean straw, and then nailing tight over that, one of the canvas awnings used to shelter the hayricks. This makes a sort of cushion of the entire floor, upon which the men can work at their ease. The shearers are ranged round the sides, and each man, as he is supplied with a subject, commences operations by laying it on its back, and clipping away the short wool from the under part of the body. The shears used have sharp points, and are kept open with a spring, closing and cutting by pressure of the shearer's hand. They are dangerous-looking weapons, and in unskilful hands often inflict sad wounds on the poor sheep. When the under part of the animal is shorn, it is laid on its side, and the shears are worked rapidly bencath the wool, in repeated parallel traverses, beginning at the head and finishing at the tail, the operator holding the sheep in position with his left hand. One side being done, it is turned over, and the process repeated on the other, when the sheep is allowed to scramble clear of the fleece, which it will generally do without entangling or disturbing the wool, from which it has now been completely severed. The sheep submits to this operation with perfect quietness, rarely uttering even a plaintive bleat the whole time: when wounded by the shears it will wince, and shudder in every limb, but utters no sound. Such wounds do not arise so often from the unskilfulness of the shearer as from other causes; such as sudden and explosive noises, the report of guns, or the barking of dogs, which cause the timid animals to start, and thus render a wound almost inevitable. Dobbs, who is always present at the shearing himself, takes precautions against alarms of this kind, and will get his whole flock shorn, year after year, with nothing more serious than a scratch. It is an odd sight to witness the meeting of the shorn ewes with their wondering lambs, when they rejoin them in the barn-yard. For a time, the recognition is solely on the side of the mothers, the young ones not seeming at all disposed to acknowledge even an acquaintance with the grotesque figures that come limping and tottering towards them. The ba-a-ing, bleating, and odd growling noises that ensue before any satisfactory explanation is come to, is not easily described, but forms a most amusing scene. As fast as the sheep are shorn, the fleeces are examined, and freed, as far as possible, from all foreign matter, and then stored away for the buyer when he comes round, or for the public market, if Dobbs should like that better. On the last day of the shearing, Dobbs gives a sheepshearing supper in the big barn, when every hand on the farm gets his fill of good cheer. And if a stranger should come to Tangley on that day-or a dozen or a score of strangers-they will meet no Nabal there to refuse them the hospitalities of the season, but a right-hearted, cheery English farmer, ready and proud to do the honours of his home stead in a generous spirit. on the water during nearly the whole of the month, and you cannot go near the bank without hearing the fish plunging after them twenty times in a minute. The extent to which master trout will indulge himself in this dainty fare is not generally suspected. Some years ago we took a pound trout out of this identical stream, and, to gratify our curiosity on this score, we took the liberty, ere introducing him to the gridiron, of submitting his very elastic stomach to a close examination. We found within that well-stored magazine upwards of four hundred caddis, or May-flies, almost entire, together with a semi-digested mass of the same material, equal to at least a thousand more. The unavoidable inference was, that this plump and sportive trout had eaten, at the lowest calculation, some fifteen hundred of the May-flies before it came to his turn to be eaten himself. Just now, there are a good many quiet anglers stealthily at work in the shady nooks and close coverts of the bank. These are Dobbs's personal friends, to whom he has granted the right of fishing, and who come and go at the farm as they please, taking pot-luck if they happen to look in at dinner-time, or pic-nicking it at the brook side on the cold provisions stowed away in their wallets. Cousin Brown has been there for a good part of the month, off and on, now running off per train to London for despatch of business, and now back again to Tangley for despatch of trout. He has not invited Podgers, not being favourably im pressed with that gentleman's notions of sport. and doubting his patience and prudence in the delicate business of fly-fishing. Dobbs has hardly gathered his wool harvest before he begins to prepare for his grass crops and the hay harvest, which is now almost ready for the scythe. In the meantime, however, there is another harvest, which is specially that of the poor man, and to which we must turn our attention for a moment. This is the peat harvest, which, on the moors and highlands in the neighbourhood of Tangley, will be gathered by all and sundry who stand in need of it. What are the regulations under which the peat is dug in the district we do not know; but this we know, that if you cross Tangley Moor in June, you will come not only on peat-cutters scooping it out of the soil in strips half a yard deep, but on interminable rows of peat ready cut, and left to dry in the summer's sun. Dwellers in cities, and in neighbourhoods well supplied either with wood or coal, can form no idea of the value of peat as an article of fuel to those who cannot afford to purchase better. In the wild districts of Cornwall, in the secluded parts of Devonshire, in several of the midland counties, in many parts of Cumberland, of Yorkshire, and in Scotland, and in more places than we care to mention, peat, or turf, is the sole article of fuel to a large class of the population. In some districts it is supplemented with dried seaweed, and in others it is mixed with gorse and herbage, but in many it is burned alone, not only for purposes of warmth, but for cooking the meals of the family. The turf cutter, as may be readily conceived, is obliged to be content with small gains: though there is a ready market for his staple among the poor, he must sell it cheap to sell it at all, as the consumer may go and cut it for himself. We have often seen women at this work, delving the sods with the turf-spade, spreading them to dry, and after-advert to the fact that this year Whitsuntide occurs wards hawking them in baskets among the villagers; their gains, as we happen to know, are scarcely above the average of sixpence a-day. Down at Tangley brook, the trouts are feeding ravenously at this jovial season. The caddis-fly is Throughout the month of June, the May-fly is the favourite bait for the trout; there is, however, one fly which has for them still more attractions: this is the oak-fly, better known among westcountry rustics under the name of the up-and-down. This is one of the most beautiful and curious insects of the season, and must be sought for on the trunks of old oaks or elm trees, not in the deep gloom of the woods, but in the outskirts, as it loves the sun. It is of graceful shapo, about two-thirds of an inch long, with transparent wings of the same length, and has a plump yellow body striped laterally with black bars. It flies round the trunks of old oaks or elms, at the height of four to seven feet from the ground, and settles every few minutes. In settling, it alights on the bark invariably with its head upwards, and as invariably, after resting thus for about two seconds, swings round on one leg and hangs with its head downwards for several minutes. In this position it is easily taken with the fore-finger and thumb, as one would take a pinch of snuff; but it will certainly escape if any attempt be made to catch it before it swings round on its heel. It is this singular mode of settling itself which has given it its country name. In concluding our notice of this month, we may in the middle of it, and that then, as usual, the country clubs and benefit societies have their annual meetings and processions. There is no great dif ference between such anniversaries in the country and in the city. The chief points of dissimilarity are the processions of women, who in rural districts have their clubs as well as the men, and who walk in white dresses and bare-headed, being followed by the men, the flags, banners, and bands of music separating the two parties; and the fact that the country processions move on to church instead of the public-house, and listen to a sermon before they sit down to dinner; at least such was the good old custom. The subsequent convivialities are pretty much the same, though in the country they will close at an earlier hour. We may add, that the Whitsuntide festival is in many districts also a kind of spontaneous flower-show, in which the growers of flowers, and especially of ten-week stocks, make extraordinary efforts to outrival each other. The stocks are worn in the button-hole; and we can safely aver that we have in times past seen such colossal and monster specimens of these majestic flowers in the breast of many a rustic, as we have looked for in vain in the proudest horticultural shows of horticultural London. And now let the glorious month of Juno fade out, amidst the odour of the rich clover and the fragrance of ten thousand flowers; while the soft shadows of evening come over the scene, and the brook babbles at our feet, the rooks caw in the distance, the droning beetle hums in our ear, and high up in the north-west, where the hills and woods blend together in one deep purple hue, suddenly the weary day-god flashes out from the crimson clouds that curtain his rest, and for a moment "The glory of sunset opens The highway by angels trod, And seems to unbar the city Whose builder and maker is God." RECENT BOOKS ON ITALY. Ar a time when so melancholy an interest is universally felt in the destinies of Italy, it may be useful to notice some books which have recently been given to the world, presenting the observations of intelligent witnesses unbiassed by political animosities, and written amidst the scenes which they describe.* These works have the advantage, not only of being the most recent, but also of being written in an impartial spirit, and with much acuteness of observation and vivacity of style. We will present a selection of extracts from them, tending to show the present condition of the States to which they refer, and thus distinguished from those numerous works which heretofore have chiefly dwelt on their historical antiquities, and the classical associations which cluster about every region of the Italian peninsula. We find in one of the volumes named, the following suggestive intimation of the state of things under the Neapolitan government. "Happy indeed is ignorance in this land; happy he who knows not how to read, or who is known not to use the knowledge. He may sleep in peace, he need not A Summer and Winter in the Two Sicilies. By Julia Kayanagh. Hurst & Blackett. Life in Tuscany. By Mabel Sharman Crawford. Smith, Elder & Co. Country Life in Piedmont. By Antonio Gallonga, Chapman & Hall. fear being wakened up at dead of night to answer the call of a police inspector, come to see what are the books he reads, what secret thoughts he has written down in his papers. He will not have to excuse himself for not having opened his door fast enough, and he need not explain that sleep alone caused the delay. He need not sit for hours praying to heaven and all its saints for patience, whilst with the insolence of office, and the impunity of power, the man of the police frowns and ominously says:— "Signore, what is this? a book with the portrait of a man with a beard? do you not know that beards are republican and forbidden?' The victim does his best to keep down his hot Italian blood, and remembering under what government he lives, he replies quietly :- Signore, I am not answerable for either beard or portrait; this is a historical romance, and the man has been represented in the costume of the times: every man then wore a beard.' "Vain excuse, which only further rouses police wrath. The inspector indeed does not stand upon ceremony; he tears the portrait out of the book and turns his attention to another volume, where, as misfortune will have it, he finds another portrait with a beard longer than the first. Dire is his fury, but in the main it ends with another execution: a second portrait is destroyed. And now the police inspector is ignorant, the examination of the mapapers must be examined. The victim is learned, the nuscripts, the explanations of all that the inspector cannot understand, proves an endless, a sickening task, and thus the whole night was spent, for we speak of real not imaginary facts. And it was dawn before the victim, a gentleman, a man of learning, and a priest, was left in peace. This took place in Naples." With relation to tho condition of Tuscany, before its recent revolution, and the influence it may exert in the impending struggle, the following observations are not uninstructive. "Tuscany, it is true, with barely 2,000,000 of inhabitauts, constitutes but a small section of Italy, which counts a population of 25,000,000; but the part which this petty state may enact, in the event of an insurrectionary movement throughout the land, will certainly exerciso a powerful influence over the destinies of the Italian peninsula. For Tuscany, small though it be, is far from an insignificant province of Italy, embracing as it does several cities and towns of considerable importance-Florence, Pisa, Sienna, Lucca, Leghorn, Pistoia, and Arezzo, and thus it derive from its limited population and extent of territory. possesses a power and influence far beyond what it would For cities, important and influential in every country, are especially so in Italy; in them are concentrated the entire wealth, intelligence, commercial enterprise, and intellectual activity of the provinces. Were it not for Milan and Venice, Lombardy would lie supine beneath the iron heel of Austria; the destiny of the states of the church depends on the will of Rome, and Naples gives the law to that kingdom of which it is the metropolis. Everywhere in Italy cities dominate; it is only by their power that tyranny, domestic or foreign, can or will be overthrown. "Judging from the past as well as from present indications, Tuscany will not remain inert if a struggle for freedom should begin in Northern Italy. The people, united by a common band of grievances proceeding from the same source, will join in the cry of Down with the Austrians,' and the first cannon shot from the fortress of Milan will be echoed from the ramparts of Florence." Public interest, however, is at this time directed in a great degree towards Piedmont, and the following observations of Signor Gallenga convey the latest intelligence, and, excepting on the fortune of war, the safest criteria of its future destiny. "No doubt there is very perceptible improvement in Piedmont. Our youth at Turin, if they walk slowly, at least have a tolerable straight manly bearing; and although the number of dwarfs and cripples is still something appalling, yet the young men seem to shoot up taller, and the young women to bloom forth lovelier, since the air of freedom is swelling the lungs of the former, and fanning the cheeks of the latter. It may be mere fancy; but I really believe I see better features, healthier colours, rounder forms, better blood,' as the Italians say, among the rising generation, than I can conjure up from my reminiscences of Piedmont a quarter of a century ago. What a contrast, my friend, between this bustling, thinking, out-speaking, self-conscious people of Turin-with all the faults I have been finding-and the heavy population of that dreary Milan, which the Austrians are stupifying, brutifying, by main force! No doubt the contrast assures me that there is in Piedmont astonishing progress, and if we go on at this rate with faith and courage, we cannot fail to work out our thorough regeneration." The more promising social prospects of Piedmont are thus foreshadowed by the same author : : "Industry in Piedmont is yet in its infancy; no man can say to what results capital and intelligence aided by freedom may lead it. The mountains are rich, besides, in mineral wealth, of which, I believe, no living man can tell the amount; with the single exception of the allimportant coals, I think there is hardly any of the precious metals that may not be found in large quantities in the bosom of the subalpine valleys. To say nothing of gold, which was so plentiful in the time of the ancient Salapi and the Romans, in the lands of Aosta and Ivrea, and some veins of which are still open in the Val Auzasca, in the Val d'Orco, and in Savoy, iron, copper, and other more useful metals abound, though but a small portion is now brought to light. The old counts and dukes of Savoy pursued mining industry with an eagerness which slackened under their less enterprising royal successors. Many people are now turning their attention to the subject, and search is only impeded by that great evil which delays the development of all industry in Piedmont, the lack of capital. Very excellent quarries of granite and other rock and stone are in full activity at Pont, at Andorno, and all over the mountain region. This trade will be multiplied a hundred fold, in proportion as railway and other communication enables the miner to send his material to the capital and to other towns, where streets and houses alike need it." M. Gallenga continues: "Truly the middle ages would seem to cling to this poor Italian land with perverse tenacity. I met, not many months ago, at Genoa, an American skipper, who had sailed with his fine clipper in six-and-thirty days from New Orleans, and had been above forty days landing his cargo, such being the condition of the harbour of that famous Queen of the Mediterranean,' owing to the want of docks, wharves, and jetties, that every bale of merchandise has to be hauled from the ship into a boat and rowed to shore, thrown upon the beach, then carried on the shoulders of the caniaili facchini or porters, to the custom-house. What Genoa was in the palmy days of the Anac of Chiogga or of the Crusades, that she is at the present day, and the shocking condition of her harbour is not so much the consequence of the universal neglect and decline into which everything Italian is suffered to fall-for Genoa is still young and fresh, and full of life and spirits-as of some narrowminded considerations for the interests of the carriers, (who would deem themselves ruined if any human contrivance were to supersede their usefulness as the merest beasts of burden); and of jealousy on the part of the owners and masters of some of the lesser craft of the country, who would dread competition with the large shipping of other nations, were the port ever so secured against wind and wave, and ever so well furnished with conveniences for loading or unloading, as to give a fair choice between it and any other civilized harbour. I know my friend the Yankee captain protested that, for the future, he would take his wares to Marseilles, to Trieste, to any place rather than to a country in which naval matters are hardly more advanced than among the South Sea Islanders. "The matter of the great Ligurian seaport, however, like so many other evils which had been suffered to attain gigantic dimensions in Piedmont, is attracting the attention of the present Sardinian government, and bills are in readiness for the prolongation of the moles of Genoa, so as to render the port completely land-locked, for the removal of the royal navy to the Gulf of Spezzia, and for the construction of suitable commercial docks in the Darsena, or wet docks and other places left vacant by the men-of-war and arsenals. The rivalry of Trieste on one side, and of Marseilles on the other, is of so great moment at the present emergency, that either Genoa must cease to exist, or she must rise to a far greater importance than she ever attained in the epochs when she triumphed over Pisa, and brought Venice herself to the greatest straits. The whole Eastern trade-so materially increased since the opening of an overland route to India, and destined perhaps to attain a far wider scope if the scheme for a canal through the Isthmus of Suez is ever realized-must needs find its way either from Trieste, over the Sömmering, or from Marseilles, through France, or else from Genoa, over Mont Cenis, the St. Gothard, or the Luckmanier, to the Atlantic and the German Ocean. The tunnel of the Alps, between Moderne and Bardounèches, across Mont Cenis, is already in contemplation; and a bill to that effect is going through both Houses of Parliament at Turin at the present moment; whilst intelligent persons are weighing the respective advantages of the Luckmanier and the St. Gothard, to decide upon the route which is to unite the Mediterranean with the Rhine. For the good success of all these undertakings, it is chiefly important that the harbour of Genoa, naturally one of the most spacious, most deep, and most accessible in the Mediterranean, should be in proper trim; and Heaven grant that the efforts of a provident free government may be crowned with success, and that the remedy to so inveterate an evil may not come too late! "Most assuredly, in the future prospects of Genoa, not merely Liguria and Piedmont, but the whole of Northern Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, and more especially England, are vitally concerned. It would certainly not, so far as I can see, be for the good of Great Britain that all the Eastern trade should be engrossed by either of the great powers of France or Austria. The time has come, I believe, in which England should strain every nerve to establish a line of communication, which, beginning at Genoa, should come up to the Lago Maggiore at Arona, from Arona should cross the Alps, either above Caira into the upper valley of the Rhine, or above Altdorf into the Lake of the Four Cantons to Lucerne ; then should come down to the Rhine at Basle, and follow the course of the stream as far as Cologne to the Dutch ports and the Belgian railways. It might then be easy to form a commercial league, in which Piedmont, Switzerland, the minor German states of Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau, and Bavaria and Prussia, no less than Belgium and Holland, should be invited to enter, and of which Great Britain should take upon herself the leadership and protectorate." Since these paragraphs were penned, every social and commercial prospect of Piedmont has assumed an altered phase. All are overshadowed by the gathering cloud of war, and no mortal eye can foresee the results of what threatens to be a universal and protracted storm. Amidst the portentous scenes which are shifting with the critical events of every week, the hope of the civilized and christian world can only repose on that benignant Providence, through whom alone there can arise from the darkness which now overspreads the Continent of Europe, the dawn of an assured liberty, a progressivo civilization, and a pure and earnest faith. |