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    ^ .,» .»,„,»,-gfi. 1853.1 THE LEiDEB. 40...

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    Govermnent. To such an extent is the l'u...

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    Arose From The Fact That She Was Known T...

    unintelligible , to the vulgar mind you migLt as SSll tell of progress without motion , of heat without Warmth , as of - amelioration without alteration . We accept the dictum in silence , and ponder over ft reverentially . Then follows the most marvellous piece of logical induction which it ^ veiventered Into the brain of man to conceive . Mr . _ Hope is an equal foe to Americanising or Galhcising our institutions . He cannot fail to remark that the Constitutions both of France and America are the offspring of the ballot and umversnl . suffrage . -Me ,, therefore , cannot consent to any measure which smooths the way to . the introduction of these institutions , and therefore voted consistently , against what ? Against Locke King ' s bill ? No . Against

    Berkeley's Ballot motion ? Guess again—against the removal of the Gqvemtticnt . of India to the Crown What the connexion between the India House and tho ballot , between Cannon-row and universal suffrage , was , or is , or ever can be , Mr . Hope alone can tell . .-The . only vestige of an explanation is to be found ; , in the following statement : that if you onee establish' the precedent of interfering- with corporations , no one can tell where you mayitop . Horrible to relate , you may eventually come to tampering with the corporations of Oxford and Cambridge . Why , actually ; in time , Cambridge may cease to " return a member ! Let us turn in dread from the awful prospect .

    On continental politics the Hope oracle \ s equally -mysterious . He desires to maintain religiously the faith of treaties . He objects to interference ¦ with ; the internal condition of other countries ; but ( the language here becomes too beautiful to be abridged ) " wherever the . greed of a great Power ., or the acquisitiveness of a small one , seeks to cloak its own selfishness under any simulated or plausible zeal on behalf of suffering nationalities , " . " , . ' ¦ -.. ' .- then his " earnest exertions will be given to the maintenance of British influence by the majesty and extent-of British resources . " We have only to call the attention of our readers to a small manifest

    misto the " auspices of the Established Church , " which is somewhat suggestive . The address concludes by a process analogous to what Mr . Wig & n , hi the " First Night , " terms " tickling . " his seven ' contributing constituents . No small , amount of our . national prosperity is attributed * xihder Providence , to the existence oi our seminaries of sound learning and -religious education . Well , there is " nothing like

    leather , after all ;" , and if college dons , anu fellows , and tutors have , at times , an uncomfortable suspicion whether their lives and careers are strictly in accordance , either with apostolic precedent or the spirit of the age , it . must be a comfort to them to learn , on the authority of the founder of the Church of England Missionary College , that insome mysterious way they are foundation stones of oin-national screatness .

    in plain English , we ask what is the real meaning of this confession of faith ? The articles of the creed have a familiar jingle in our ears ; an unreasoning horror of democracy , an uniform resistance to all reform , a blind support of continental despotism , a bigoted adherence to all vested abuses and ecclesiastical privileges , read to us like a political manifesto not unknown before . The only novelty about the creed is a kind of . . dilletaiite _ pseudo-liberalism , and an arrogant assertion of exclusive wisdom , with which the old worn-out tenets of the Tory .-party are bedecked and veiled . Of Mr . Hope * . personally , we have little to say , is

    because there is little to be said . He a very respectable man , and also a very wealthy one . II e gained two or three . college prizes in his youth , and in later life . got hold of the Saturday Review He is a shallow tliinker , a poor speaker , and a poorer writer . The worst fate , indeed , we could wish the Saturday Review would be for Mr . Hope to take a fancy to write his own articles . Let JVlr . Hope remain at Maidstone , or he may go farther and fare worsen Of late years , the members for the University of Cambridge hay £ not been a distinguished body , but the standard has not yet been lowered to the intellectual calibre of Mr . Beresfbrd Hope .

    print in this magnificent peroration , and the sentence becomes intelligible as well as eloquent . For the first word " British , ' \ read " Austrian , ? ' and you have a key to the whole foreign policy of Mi \ Hope and the Saturday lleoiew . It is , however , on his view of religious questions that Mr . Hope rises to the seventh heaven of involved unintelligibility , After having studied his statement witlr deep consideration , and having carefully dissected , every sentence , and weighed every word , we have only been able to arrive at

    the following ' positive rosults , viz ., that Mr . Hope is a sincere but moderate member of the Church of England- —equally , opposed to extreme opinions on one side or the other—and that the system of the Established Church " literally but reasonably " ( whatever that may mean ) interpreted is at once conformable to apostolic precedent , and suitable to the wants of our restless and progressive age . There is owe step from the sublime to the ridiculous—and whether this is all deep wisdom or sheer nonsense we will not venture to decide . If ,

    however , the tree is to be judged by the fruits , we incline to the latter opinion ; for the only tangible result of these brilliant ideas on Mr . Hope ' s part appears to have consisted in a steadfast opposition to the bills for legalising marriage with a deceased wife ' s sister and for abolishing church-rates . Mr . Hope has been teller in five divisions on these subjects ; and we arc glad to learn has boon rewarded for hirt services on behalf of the Establishment by being entrusted with petitions from the chapters of Canterbury , Westminster , Ely , and Lichneld . Truly in thin instance the lure has been worthy of this labourer . Small as this positive result may nppcar , it was

    a comfort to . us to arrive nt any definite profession of faith ; but ,. ulas ! in the very next paragraph this small rcstin ^ -placo of fnet is' cut nwny ' fj'om us , nnd wo iu'o loft wallowing again in tho < juiolo sands pf uncertainty . Though Mr . Hope , is a steadfast opponent of the abolition of , churchrates , yet ho is quite read y to exempt Pisflonters from the necessity of paying them ; « nd thoiigh Mr , Xiopo assures us that on tho topic of education hie convictions tiro fixed , ho only ypluntcors tho information that ho proposes to foster tho exertions of communities and individuals . Ho unfortunatoly forgot to add from what funds , or in . what proportions , or subject £ o what regulations , ho proposes to foster iheso educational movements . There is a vogue allusion , however , shortly after ,

    ^ .,» .»,„,»,-Gfi. 1853.1 The Leideb. 40...

    ^ ., » . » , „ , » ,-gfi . 1853 . 1 THE LEiDEB . 403

    Govermnent. To Such An Extent Is The L'U...

    Govermnent . To such an extent is the l'ule enforced , that we have heard of a midshipman ' s dirk being taken , from him and locked up till his departure . Even bribery , which will do almost everything in Italy , will not avail in this instance . On leaving the town , however—which is a free portyou are submitted to a second inspection , where you may bribe to your heart ' s content . Everybody wants to be bribed ; the Government officials avowedly live by bribes ; it is the rule alL over Italyi We have se , ' . ourselves , an Austrian commissioned office ]* , with the epaulettes upon Ins shoulders , accept five . shillings" with' the utmost complacency , as the reward for liis acquiescence in our assertion that our luggage contained nothing contraband .

    Passing through the city of Pisa , and travelling through- that wondrous burying-ground of the " Campo Santo , " where the sacred soil of the Holy Land moulders away beneath the cypress branches , and the fresco-covered walls arc studded with the tomb ' s of Pisa ' s-worthies , we were struck most of all with two recent inscriptions . Since we last had passed through those fretted cloisters there had been one slab raised , over which hung the chains of Pisa ' s ancient gateways . Centuries had passed away since the Florentines had carried them off in triumph from the walls of the captured city , but in that short and sweet period of Italian national oi

    independence , which succeeded the revolutions .. ' 48 , the fittest gift which Florence could find to make to Pisa , was the gift . of her ancient chains ; yet it seemed to us that the very fact that such a gift should be welcome , showed how little the memory of old divisions had passed 'away ; how far the old states of Italy were yet distant froni the time that they could be fused into one homogeneous country . Here too , we found another slab , also new to us , and in our eyes more hopeful of- 'the .: future .- ' It was a monument erected soon after ? , to the memory of those who fell in the great struggle between Austria and Italy . AH honour be to those who , even if mistaken , fought

    STREET YIEW OF ITALY . —No . HI . LEGHORN PISA—FLOKESCE . " Wis suppose that in every civilised country the condition of its periodical press-is ,-more or less , a fair test of its intellectual development . Judging by this standard , we should assign a low place indeed to the moral oxilture of Italy . In Sardi n the press , of late years , has grown into active existence , though , like all the liberal institutions of that go-ahead-country ,, it lias , somewhat of a lath and plaster character , and commands' but small influence . Throughout Tuscany , the Papal States , and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies , the press can hardly be said to exist . We have seen an old English country newspaper of some hundred and twenty years iigo , in which , though published at the time of the rebellion of forty-five , the only item of political news is comprised in the paragraph that at Genoa , a town in Italy , two deserters from the State forces had- been captured and executed by military law . Such a piece of intelligence , bald us it is , would bo almost a startling novelty in a South Italian newspaper . In fhet , those journals are little more than Slate advertisement sheets , filled up with the most meagre scraps yf intelligence , and

    every now nnd then a column of what , in country newspapers , are termed " Varieties . " Heaven help the unlucky editors , and the still more unfortunate readers ! Throughout the south of Italy , in all places of public resort * in cafes and barbers' shops , and steam-boats mid hotels , you never , by any chance , come across an Italian paper . 1 lie songs of Zion never Hounded so sweetly as when sung in a strange liuid , and you must huve resided long iu Italy to know the value of au English newspaper . Leghorn is tlio Liverpool of Italy , and yet even there there exists no newspaper which can be termed political .

    Indeed , > is you entor L eg horn , coming from the Sardinian dominions , you become aware at onco of a change of Government . It would take tho allswallowing fiuth of Mr . George Bowyor to boliovp that the change is for tho bettor . On lauding , you are stopped , and all your luggage opened , to guard ngainst the most distant possibility oi' your bringing in fire-arms with you , which , by some moans or other , might find their wuy unauthorised into tho hands oi the loving subjects of this paternal

    and fell manfully for a noble cause . The whole railway between Leghorn . and Florence is a dead flat , and lies in the wide Arho plain , celebrated for its system . of agriculture and irrigation . You cannot travel through it without being struck by the richness of the pasture land , and the extreme care with vvhieh every plot of ground is watered and tended . This very fact recalls to us an observation , which , we believe , explains , in a great measure , the divided state of Italy , and which is generally overlooked by enthusiastic travellers . The Governments of Home ,

    and Naples , and Tuscany , are . all bad Governments , according to our notions . They are all despotic , all intolerant , and nil ¦ oppressive ; yet there is all the difference in the world between them , as far as their subjects are concerned . The Government of Tuscany , however faulty , is still a Government . Life ^ and property , and enterprise , are erticiently protected under it . There is , therefore , a fair opening . for material progress and development ; and , in eons . equen . , the agricultural nnd uneducated classes' in Tuscany are well enough content . Now what all classes in Home and Naples require , is not « < j ; ood Government , in our sense of tho word , but a Government at all .

    The old story about the two sides of the shield its especially applicable to travellers ; so much , ' in a traveller ' s impression , depends on the side from which ho enters a place , or the aspect from which he views it . When we last entered Florence , we enmc from the dead stagnation an d squalid torpor of the Papal States . On tlio present occasion wo wore fresh from the l . jlo nnd bustle of the Sardinian cities . But whatever may have been the cause , it seemed to uh tlint Florence had fallen oft * in activity nnd energy 'tflncu tlio days of the revolution . r JLMio ¦ rdioiis looked Ivm bi-iUiuufc , the than

    streets less crowded , thy pnliii-w moro umgy of old . At the time , too , that wo happened to be there , the capital was in mourning for tho death oi tho young Saxon IVineiw , who luul V oeU but lately married to tho Crown IVinoo of luscany . A few months before wo had boon at Dresden , when tho news came , that ono of tho royal Princesses , tho bride of ll > d Archduke of Austria , had died suddenly— -another was now dead , and a third was dying whan wo loft Itoty . ' Tho Ducal family are dotostcd at Florence , which ih of course the head-quarters of tho Liberal party in Tuscany , and by a reversion of feolim , not unknown oven in our own country , tho poor Crown Princess , whom

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 26, 1859, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26031859/page/19/