tions.

"The prison of Clichy is not in itself mournful or terrifying in its aspect, and its situation, commanding a view of Paris and overlooking the gardens of the neighborhood, is far from disagreeable; but there is something oppressive in the very thought of a prison; and the appearance of the locks, the bolts, the turnkeys, immediately recalls a captive to the dismal reality of his position. In the life of a malefactor the prison occupies a regular place; he enters it as a matter of course, and quits it with little satisfaction. He had attacked society knowingly, and society has avenged itself and shut him up like

a dangerous animal. That is all fair. But imprisonment for debt is the true torture. Whether poverty or imprudence have brought a man to it, it has almost always fallen on him quite unexpectedly; and most prisoners of this class have wives and children dependent on them for support, to whom their imprisonment is almost a sentence of death. It is a legacy of barbarous times. With a few exceptions, it reduces itself to this to demand money from a man, and at the same time to place him in a situation in which it is impossible for him to get it. On first entering my new domicile, I was terri

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working classes. These make the great bulk of the inhabitants of the prison-these and the small tradesmen and minor industrial classes of Paris. We are too much accustomed to regard Clichy as the purgatory of spendthrifts and prodigal sons; these form in reality the smallest part of its population.

Our friend Jérome is released by the exertions of his Malvina-who, notwithstanding her little wanderings in "Vanity Fair," has remained sound at heart.

Her diamonds

Jé

and cachemires and all the appurtenances of the pomp and state of the great house of Paturot in its days of glory, are swept off to the Mont de Piété a philanthropic institution where persons in distress may obtain money at the interest of 60 per cent. per annum. rome finally obtains a small place under Government, and retires to the enjoyment of domestic happiness in a cottage in the country. Oscar continues to execute portraits of His Majesty; and Rumor says that the Princess Flibustoffskoi is keeping a café on the banks of the Neva,-and that a magnificent nobleman who accompanied her, the Field-Marshal Tapanowitch, rinses the glasses of the establishment.-Athenæum.

their unheeded voices against that ancient abuse of force, which alone seemed dictating the new arrangements. Napoleon could scarcely have done worse. In vain was it urged that every principle of justice and policy required the restoration of an inde pendent Polish nation-that language, race, religion, character, rendered it impossible for the Belgians ever to amalgamate with the Dutch, or the Italians with the Austrians— that Spain and Sicily had merited, at our hands particularly, to be preserved from the selfish cruelty of the Bourbons that the elder branch of that family, with its traditions, its bigotry, and its sure reactions, would never be permanently accepted by the French, on whom it was forced by conquerors. All this was urged in vain. pacificators of the world relied on their bayonets, on their police, and on the support which they expected from each other in virtue of the Holy Alliance. Germany required a little management; and the fathers of their

The

"Lunga promessa con l' attender corto
Trionfar ci fara nell' alto seggio;"

and they acted accordingly. Constitutions and free governments were lavishly promised; but when the fulfilment of these promises was claimed, the sovereigns met their subjects with an altered countenance. At one time popular claims were parried with the dexterity of low attorneys and the coolness of swindlers; at another, put down with the fierceness of banditti. An assembly of despots at Frankfort reduced the weak sovereigns of Germany to the condition of vassals; and the detestable tribunals of Mayence proved themselves the worthy successors of the imperial torturers of Ratisbon.

As often as those, who had foreseen and foretold the consequences of this conduct, have reminded its advocates of their blindness, the latter have deemed it a sufficient answer to say that Europe has enjoyed fourand-thirty years of peace. "Peace has lasted thirty-three or thirty-four years. We may be allowed to ask, what are the signs and fruits of peace? Has it been peace in France, where, since 1814, the country has witnessed only a succession of revolutions the flight of Louis XVIII., his second restoration by foreign powers, the dethronement of his successor, the expulsion of his line, the transfer of the crown to an elected dynasty, the fall of that dynasty, and the proclamation of a republic? Has it been peace in Spain, where, in spite of the ferocious proceedings of Ferdinand VII., a wild democratic constitution had to be overthrown by that very French nation, which, when most unable to maintain its own freedom, allowed itself to be made the oppressor of that of others and where, after all, the order of succession to the throne has been changed, and a constitutional monarchy, or at least what is meant to be such, established? Has it been peace in the Netherlands, where Holland and Belgium have been separated?-in Poland, where the last vestiges of its nationality have been drowned in the blood of her children?-in Italy, where their attempted revolutions have outnumbered their years of peace, and where for every boasted month of peace there has been more, far more, than one illustrious victim?

In the mean time what was done or doing from one end of the Continent to the other, towards the improvement of the condition of the people? Were they won over to loyalty by the blessings of paternal governments?

even

numerous, or the police less active? Was the press more free, and men of letters and liberal opinions more encouraged, or more safe from persecution, than before? Were judges made independent? Was education, in any proper sense of the word, forwarded, and the necessary steps taken to secure to future generations the blessings of civil and religious liberty?

These are questions to which the present state of Europe is an all-sufficient answer. In too many places the benefits of peace have not got beyond the mere absence of dangers from without, by fire, and sword, and hostile armies. Yet surely the name of peace would not be so blessed were its natural fruits negations only. And, when nations were said to be emancipated, something more than a feeling of national independence should have marked the difference in their conditions under the two systems, - honorably distinguishing their condition, such as it had become under their new or native princes, from what it had been under the French. Unhappily, in some cases, there was not even the pride of national independence to fall back on. Those who originated these evils by their political arrangements, have not the virtue to confess their error: "it is, forsooth, the whole of civilized Europe which is to blame, not they: Europe ought to have been loyal, peaceful, happy, and satisfied; if she is not, it is her own fault.' That there have been great faults somewhere, either mismanagement or misconduct, is now self-evident. And, in this alternative, we always prefer, with Burke, to presume in favor of the people against their governments; the one is changed so much more easily than the other. In the present instance, it is true that even those who had some knowledge of the feelings of discontent prevailing on the Continent, have been surprised at its extent and intensity. They were not prepared for hearing, not only that France and Prussia, with most of the minor German States, and Italy, were in a state of revolution, but that Vienna itself had determined on Austria being no longer the model of oppressive and tyrannical governments. It was not surely for want of precautions that Metternich and Sedlenytski were obliged to fly from the capital of the country which they had governed without control for so many years. They had never modified, or held out the slightest hope that they would ever modify, their system under any circumstances. We see the consequence; and trust that gov ernments to the end of time may profit by the example. The weight of public indignation

others ought to have done before him. Accordingly, with great prudence, with great caution, and with great singleness of purpose, he endeavored to carry out the suggestions made to his predecessors by the five powers, in May, 1831, and to clear the tiara, if he could not clear his predecessor, from the charge, but too well proven, of having wilfully broken faith with the people. The present Pope did neither more nor less. He neither deserves blame as a rash innovator, a radical reformer, a firebrand, and so forth, nor the extravagant praises which have been lavished on him as having been of himself the regenerator and liberator of Italy: he is a plain honest man, who most probably did not see the consequences of his honesty, or, if he did, said to himself "fiat justitia ruat coelum."

There are Italians in this country who had an opportunity of expressing, in 1831, a deliberate opinion on the consequences likely to flow from the execution of the reforms recommended in the note of May. Their opinion was, that by joining in the recommendation Austria either was blind, or meant to pursue and urge a very different line of policy from what she had hitherto pursued and urged, since it was very easy to foresee, that such improvements at Rome could not fail to produce a most salutary effect on the rest of Italy. Austria, on her part, lost little time in removing whatever doubt Italian politicians might be feeling on the course of her future policy. She aided and abetted the late Pope in breaking his word: and by so doing she proclaimed to Italy and the world, that she would neither improve her own administration, nor allow other Italian powers to improve theirs. What was foreseen in 1831, took place as a matter of course in 1847. The sovereigns of two of the best administered Italian states, Piedmont and Tuscany, determined on following the steps of Pius IX. They wisely resolved that there should be no room for invidious comparison, when the condition of their subjects and that of their neighbors should come to be considered side by side. Austria put herself, as of old, at the head of the stationary faction which would hear of no change; and which was as ready now, as in former times, to stir up all passions, lay hold of all instruments, and go all lengths, at whatever risk to their own honor or the public good.

The imbecile and cruel Bourbon who still sits on the throne of Naples-the Duke of Modena, Francis V., the worthy son of Francis IV.,—and the libertine crackedbrained Duke of Parma, took the Austrian side. From that moment, and for the first

time after some hundred years, there was in Italy, not only a nation oppressed on the one side and her foreign oppressors on the other, but there were princes on the side of the nation. It was a gigantic stride towards the deliverance of Italy, and the country is indebted to Pius IX. for it. He it was who broke up the petty holy alliance of Italian signors.

No part of the Italian people was more keenly alive to the difference between a national and improving government and a foreign despotic oppression, than the Lombards and the inhabitants of the other provinces immediately subject to Austria. Whilst they themselves were left under the harrow, under the galling and insulting rule of the steady and unswerving Viennese bureaucracy, they had now only to look over their borderand they would see the subjects of the Pope, of the King of Sardinia, and of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, governed by Italians and rapidly advancing their political condition. It does not follow because the Papal States had been worse governed before than Lombardy and Venice, that Lombardy and Venice were governed well. They who felt where the shoe pinched were of a totally different opinion; and we hope our readers will agree with us in thinking that four or five millions of dissatisfied people are more likely to be correct in the appreciation of a government which they have detested for years and against which they have repeatedly risen, than our travelling gentry; who, without knowing much of the language, very little of the manners and feelings, and nothing at all of the parochial, municipal, and customary laws of a country, offer themselves, nevertheless, as witnesses on the merits of its institutions and its administrative system.

There is no nation more disposed than ourselves to treat with contempt the opinions that foreigners venture to express on our government and social policy: while there is none more disposed to pass judgment on those of foreign states. A foreigner paying us a flying visit and judging only from appearances, might have been inclined to think that Great Britain was wantonly and wilfully risking her happiness and liberties by the Reform Bill; or putting her landed as well as her commercial interests in needless jeopardy, when she repealed her corn laws, threw open her ports, and with all the zeal of a recent convert denounced restrictions upon trade. Where abroad could we hope to find a person competent to sit in judgment upon the actual state of Ireland-on the degree to which the present generation is responsible for it-on the nature of the evil and the nature of the cure? M. von Raumur did not find a few days in

To make the grievances of the Lombards known, we cannot do better than translate a part of their recent manifesto to the European nations after the expulsion of the Austrians from Milan.

"The Austrian government levied immoderate taxes on our property, on our persons, and on necessary articles; it extorted from us the means by which alone it was saved from that bankruptcy, to the brink of which it was brought by its bad and dishonestly administered financial system; it forced on us shoals of foreigners, avowed functionaries, and secret spies, eating our bread, and administering our affairs, judging our rights without knowing either our language or our customs; it imposed on us foreign laws, inextricable from their multiplicity, and an intricate endless system of proceeding in criminal cases, in which there was nothing either true or solemn, except the prison and the pillory, the executioner and the gallows; it spread round us ensnaring nets of civil and ecclesiastical, military and judicial regulations, all converging to Vienna, which alone engrossed the monopoly of thought, of will, and of judgment; it for bade the development of our commerce and our industry, to favor the interest of other provinces and of government manufactures the speculations of Viennese oligarchs; it submitted our municipal institutions, the boast of our country and the proof of national good sense, to a petty, harrassing control, conceived for fiscal purposes, and tending only to fetter us; it enslaved religion, and used her as the instrument of its ignoble fears; it deprived even public benevolence of its free course, making it subject to administrative interference, and turning it into an engine of government. It was after endless difficulties, and only after having recourse to the lowest precautions, that private individuals were permitted to help the public wants, and preserve from contagion and corruption the poor, abandoned to themselves in the streets, in their hovels, or in prison. It seized the property of minors, by forcing guardians to invest it in public securities, which were to be dealt with arbitrarily and mysteriously by secret agents of the government; it subjected the liberal arts to the most vexatious restraints; it persecuted native knowledge; it raised the most ridiculous objections, and the most odious dif

:

foreign books'; it persecuted and entrapped our most distinguished men, and raised to honor slavish understandings; it systematized the sale of conscience, and organized an army of spies; it encouraged secret informations, and made suspicion the rule of its proceedings; it gave the police full power over liberty, life, and property; and threw the patriot into the same prison with the forger and the assassin." A nation which can prefer such a bill of indictment against a government has, surely, abundant reason to get rid of it; and there can be no doubt, but that the millions of inhabitants who bear witness to the truth of these charges, and are putting every thing in peril in support of them, are worthy of belief, spite of a few witnesses to character. Among Englishmen, those most capable of forming an opinion, are not backward in coming forward in justification of the Lombards. We find the following testimony in a pamphlet which has just reached us, the last among those enumerated at the head of our article. The writer is Mr. Bowyer, a gentleman who has lived twenty years in Italy, and who, by education, by birth, and by social position, is eminently entitled to a hearing: It is, indeed, the fashion," he observes, "with some people, to say, that Lombardy was well governed by Austria. What would those persons say to being governed in the same way, by the brutal force of foreign military despotism? Austria might, indeed, without difficulty, have governed Lombardy well. The Lombards are a remarkably peaceable, well-conducted people, and of an easy disposition. But they were ruled at the point of the bayonet. Civil rights they had none; and every man held his personal liberty and his property at the discretion of an inquisitorial political police, and subservient or corrupt magistrates. Even the amusements and daily habits of the Italians were subject to a strict and pedantic discipline. But it is not necessary to dwell on specific grievances. Are the Italian feelings of nationality entitled to no respect? True, the Italians have never, in modern times, been united into one state. But what then? Is community of language and literature nothing? Is community of traditions and history nothing? And is community of race no bond of union? The Italians feel as one nation; and there are few Fnglishmen who do not sympathize with them, and cordially desire their deliverance by their own valor from their foreign masters. (pp. 21, 22.)

The first public symptoms of the unanimous feelings of the Lombards, subsequent to the declared division of the rulers of Italy into