And again, after alluding to events in the past history of Great Britain

"And why should that which was lawful for Scotchmen once, and which would be lawful for Britons now, be unlawful for Italians? "Oh," we hear it sometimes said, "there is a difference; the

the German race is alınost unbounded; but we protest that among the Austrians of diplomatic history we cannot, by any species of investigation, detect evidence of a governing faculty a whit more respectable than that of the Turks.

governing in its interest and according to its maxims. | Our admiration for the deep and great qualities of In Piedmont alone, in consequence of the recent revolutions, is there any real degree of independence, or any approach to political freedom; and even now there hangs over that country the threat of Austrian invasion, unless it shall retrograde and be as it was. In the Kingdom of Naples, counting nearly six "But, if all these moral considerations should be millions of inhabitants, a sovereign, appointed, as insufficient to convince us that we, as Englishmen, the theory is, to be the shepherd of these millions, are bound in charity and in rectitude to take an inprowls among them like a human wolf. In the terest in Italian affairs, there may be a blast from Papal states, with two millions and a half of in- another trumpet. If England does not see that labitants, the special misery of ecclesiastic rule, she has anything to do with Italy, Italy sees that lacerating the very heart and demoralising the very she has a great deal to do with England. We conscience of the people, is superadded to the horror allude not to her interest in us as one of the great of secular despotism. In Tuscany and the smaller powers of Europe, we allude not to her interest in states, it is no better. Nowhere in all Italy, save us as buyers of her goods and contractors for her now partly among the Piedmontese, can a man railways; we allude to this new and very warm inthink, speak, or act, as a being made in the image terest she is taking in us as perverse wanderers from of God. From one end of that noble peninsula to the true Christian fold, as heretics who have been the other, a continuous network of foreign domina-going down into the pit generation after generation tion, native official tyranny in the service of the since the days of Cranmer, Knox, and Luther." foreigner, and priestly bigotry co-operating for ends of its own, is nailed down over a prostrate and And now we come near the pith of a matter that struggling people." cannot be approached without reverence and caution. Yet do the English people sufficiently remember that the Italians are struggling foramong the natural rights they claim-the liberty of the press, and freedom of thought and opinion; and that there is positively a strong under-current of Protestantism busily at work, which papistical Austria is trying with its brute Italians are not fit for freedom." Who told you "hoof" to stay? More than one of the Italian that? How do you know who is fit and who is not fit for freedom? By what marks do you, a mere governments deny that the BIBLE is withheld mortal like the rest of us, consider yourself entitled from the people-and mark you by what jesuitito judge whether your neighbour is fit to be free or cal sophistries the letter of the avowal is kept not? Is it by looking at his face? Look, then, at but the spirit broken. The Bible generally in the faces of such Italians as you meet; or turn over latin-but sometimes in Italian-is sold at an the leaves of a collection of European portraits, enormous price in detached portions, the same noting the faces of the Italian poets, statesmen, bookseller rarely having all the parts, and if he artists, and philosophers, included so numerously in have, only at so high a cost that it is placed out the list, the faces of Dante, Columbus, Michael of the reach of all ordinary customers. Then Angelo, Tasso, and Bonaparte-and say, Are these O very evidently the features given to slaves? Is the list of prohibited books, includes nearly all it by inference from his past history? Where is there those which we are accustomed to think the a nation in the world that has a history like that of most valuable-sterling works, on history, phithe Italians, stretching back in an unbroken line of losophy, and logic; while the mental food that Roman greatness through three thousand years, and is provided and offered to the people at a cheap identical through more than half of that time with rate consists of tales of frightful superstition, the general history and government of the world? legends of the saints, penny dream-books, and Is it by regarding the present state of his mind, and that whole class of vitiating productions which considering how he will fight for liberty, and how a respectable scullion-maid in England would much he will endure in order to obtain it? Cast feel shame in acknowledging she had read. Nor your eye back, then, over the last thirty years; is this all; Mr. Gladstone gives us the heads of count the martyrs, count the exiles for Italian Independence, from 1815 to 1848; see how Italy fought a new Catechism which has been concocted and but the other day, and observe the unabated enthu- promulgated by the government, and which siasm of her down-trodden populations at this hour. makes one shudder to read as we contemplate What proof remains yet unoffered, that the Italians such teaching-a teaching in which falsehood is Can we are fit to be free, but this last and decisive one that avowedly acknowledged and excused! they should succeed in becoming so? For this last wonder when we find the helpless "people" base proof, therefore, they have a right to demand a fair and degraded, as may sometimes be?-yet Mr. opportunity; and meanwhile, it is surely competent Gladstone bears the noblest evidence to their to put the question on the other side," Are the general high character, and freedom from vice Austrians their masters fit to govern?" If there of a deep dye. The noble patriots they have are marks by which it may be known whether a man is fit to enjoy liberty, there are, doubt-produced and are producing throughout the less, marks also by which it may be known length and breadth of the land are the best whether a man is fit to exercise despotism. Face proof of the true elements of the great Italian and physiognomy? Look at the portraits of the nation: the heroes of a people always more or Austrian Emperors? Past History? Read the less reflecting that people in their own character. Austrian annals! Present intentions? Find them It may be asked, what Englishwomen can do in the instructions of Viennese ministers of state! in the cause of Italian independence? they

as pure and fair, was tried with Poerio and forty more, and was capitally convicted in February, though through an humane provision of the law the sentence was not executed; but he has, I fear, been reserved for a fate much harder: double irons for life, upon a remote and sea-girt rock: nay, there jected to physical torture. The mode of it, which may even be reason to fear that he is directly subwas specified to me upon respectable though not certain authority, was the thrusting of sharp instruments under the finger-nails.

cannot apparently turn aside one French bayonet | some degrees narrower, but with a character quite that upholds the papal chair; or liberate one patriot from his galling fetters and Neapolitan dungeon; or sweep from the land one company of those Austrian troops that prey, like locusts, upon it? This is true to some extent, but the openly-avowed "Friends of Italy" are not so powerless, and it is something for the lady of means and of leisure to know that her sympathy is nobly directed. Women too, cultivated women, have always influence in society and in the domestic circle; and the cleverest of men are the readiest to acknowledge that when a woman has mastered a subject, particularly one in which her heart bears a part, her intuitions are sometimes as just as his reasoning, while her suggestions are often as felicitous as rapid. The description of the cruelties perpetrated on Carlo Poerio may perhaps be familiar to many of our readers; yet as we have the ambition to render our pages worthy of a permanence beyond the ephemeral periodicals of the day, we are tempted to make a few extracts from Mr. Gladstone's pages, so that such important events as those referred to, may not be omitted from the chronicle of this eventful year. After describing the horrors of the Neapolitan dungeons, Mr. Gladstone says:

"Carlo Pocrio was one of the Ministers of the Crown under the Constitution, and had also one of the most prominent positions in the Neapolitau Parliament. He was, as regarded the Sicilian queskingdom. He was also friendly to the War of indetion, friendly to the maintenance of the unity of the pendence, as it was termed; but I have never heard

that he manifested greater zeal in that matter than the King of Naples; it is a question, of course, wholly irrespective of what we have now to consider. Poerio appeared to enjoy the King's full confidence; his resignation, when offered, was at first declined, and his advice asked even after its acceptance.

"The history of his arrest, as detailed by himself, in his address of February 8, 1850, to his judges, deserves attention. The evening before it (July 18, 1849), a letter was left at his house by a person un"And now, perhaps, I cannot do better than to known, conceived in these terms:-" "Fly; and fly furnish a thread to my statement by dealing parti- with speed. You are betrayed! the Government is cularly with the case of Carlo Poerio. It has every already in possession of your correspondence with recommendation for the purpose. His father was a the Marquis Dragonetti.-From one who loves you distinguished lawyer. He is himself a refined and much." Had he fled it would have been proof of accomplished gentleman, a copious and eloquent guilt, ample for those of whom we are now speaking. speaker, a respected and blameless character. I But he was aware of this, and did not fly. Morehave had the means of ascertaining in some degree over, no such correspondence existed. On the 19th, his political position. He is strictly a Constitu- about four in the afternoon, two persons, presenting tionalist; and while I refrain from examining into themselves at the door under a false title, obtained the shameful chapter of Neapolitan history which entry, and announced to him that he was arrested in that word might open, I must beg you to remember virtue of a verbal order of Peccheneda, the Prefect that its strict meaning there is just the same as here, of Police. He protested in vain: the house was that it signifies a person jopposed in heart to all ransacked: he was carried into solitary confinement. violent measures from whatever quarter, and having He demanded to be examined, and to know the for his political creed the maintenance of the mo- cause of his arrest within twenty-four hours, acnarchy on its legal basis, by legal means, and with cording to law, but in vain. So early, however, as all the civilizing improvements of laws and esta- on the sixth day, he was brought before the Comblishments which may tend to the welfare and hap-missary Maddaloni; and a letter, with the scal unpiness of the community. His pattern is England, broken, was put into his hands. It was addressed rather than America or France. I have never heard to him, and he was told that it had come under him charged with error in politics, other than such cover to a friend of the Marquis Dragonetti, but as can generally be alleged with truth against the that the cover had been opened in mistake by an most high-minded and loyal, the most intelligent officer of the police, who happened to have the same and constitutional, of our own statesmen. I must name, though a different surname, and who, on say, after a pretty full examination of his case, that perceiving what was within, handed both to the the condemnation of such a man for treason is a authorities. Poerio was desired to open it, and did proceeding just as much conformable to the laws of open it in the presence of the Commissary. Thus truth, justice, decency and fair play, and to the far, nothing could be more elaborate and careful common sense of the community, in fact just as than the arrangement of the proceeding. But mark great and gross an outrage on them all, as would be the sequel. The matter of the letter of course was a like condemnation in this country of any of our highly treasonable; it announced, an invasion by best known public men, Lord John Russell, or Lord Garibaldi, fixed a conference with Mazzini, and reLansdowne, or Sir James Graham, or yourself. I ferred to a correspondence with Lord Palmerston, will not say it is precisely the same as respects his whose name was miserably mangled, who promised rank and position, but they have scarcely any public to aid a proximate revolution. "I perceived at man who stands higher, nor is there any one of the once," says Poerio, "that the handwriting of Dranames I have mentioned dearer to the English na-gonetti was vilely imitated, and I said so, remarking tion-perhaps none so dear-as is that of Poerio to that the internal evidence of sheer forgery was his Neapolitan fellow-countrymen. higher than any amount of material proof whatever." Dragonetti was one of the most accomplished of Italians; whereas this letter was full of

"I pass by other mournful and remarkable cases, such as that of Settembrini, who, in a sphere by

blunders, both of grammar and of spelling. It is scarcely worth while to notice other absurdities; such as the signature of name, surname, and title in fall, and the transmission of such a letter by the ordinary post of Naples. Poerio had among his papers certain genuine letters of Dragonetti's; they were produced and compared with this; and the forgery stood confessed. Upon the detection of this monstrous iniquity, what steps were taken by the Government to avenge not Poerio, but public justice? None whatever: the papers were simply laid

aside.

"I have spoken of Settembrini and his reputed d too credible torture; I come now to what I have either seen, or heard on the most direct and unquestionable authority.

by the late cabinet-minister of King Ferdinand of Naples, is composed of a rough and coarse red jacket, with trowsers of the same material-very like the cloth made in this country from what is called devil's dust; the trowsers are nearly black in colour. On his head he had a small cap which makes up the suit; it is of the same material.”

We should reprint half the letter were we to extract the account of the mockery of judicial proceedings-the domestic tragedies-the death and madness which are detailed; though we do not forget that Mr. Macfarlane has published a pamphlet intended to be a contradiction of several of Mr. Gladstone's statements. So mistaken are his facts, however, so lame his arguments, and so impotent his conclusions, that we think the King of Naples may well exclaim, "Defend me from my Friends;" if his defence is the best that can be set up for the government of Naples, why he has done more for the cause of Italian independence than most of its warm advocates. Speaking of this pamphlet, the Examiner says, "it is thoroughly worthy of the cause it advocates;" and the same searching, pungent, witty writer, ridiculing Mr. Macfarlane's pompous pretensions, compares him, in his attack on Mr. Gladstone, to a gentleman with a sixpenny tin sword mounting a rocking-horse, and shouting to Sir Godfrey de Bouillon to get out of the way unless he wants to be run over."

66

"In February last, Poerio and sixteen of the cocensed (with few of whom, however, he had had any previous acquaintance) were confined in the Bagno of Nisida near the Lazaretto. For one half hour in the week, a little prolonged by the leniency of the superintendent, they were allowed to see their friends outside the prison. This was their sole view of the natural beauties with which they were surrounded. At other times they were exclusively within the walls. The whole number of them, except I think one, then in the infirmary, were confined, night and day, in a single room of about sixteen palms in length by ten or twelve in breadth, and about ten in height; I think with some small yard for exercise. Something like a fifth must be taken off these numbers to convert palms into feet. When the beds were let down at night, there was no space whatever between them; they could only get out at the foot, and being chained two and two, only in pairs. In this room they had to cook or prepare what was sent them by the kindness of their friends. On one side, the level of the ground is over the top of the room; it therefore reeked with damp, and from this, tried with long confinement, they declared they suffered greatly. There was one window-ofness, superstition, and Popish Idolatry; and course unglazed-and let not an Englishman sup- that in all struggles for National Independence pose that this constant access of the air in the and Constitutional Government there must ever Neapolitan climate is agreeable or innocuous; on be involved the best interests of Protestant the contrary, it is even more important to health Christianity! C. C—─D. there than here to have the means of excluding the open air, for example, before and at sunset. Vicissitude of climate, again, is quite as much felt there as here, and the early morning is sometimes bitterly

We have nearly done; and our object has been gained if we have succeeded in drawing the attention of a few of our readers to the great struggle which is going on in the Italian Peninsula. If we have made them understand that the modern Italians are now asking for such liberties as were won for Us by-the Barons at Runnymede; by the Martyrs at the stake; by the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century; and by those later Reformers who, too often misunderstood and maligned, still bravely endured and nobly acted, having faith in the Future, even when they scarcely saw the dawn of a Better Day. Above all shall we be well content if we have made a few readers observe that the cause of Absolutism is the cause of ignorance, wicked

cold.

"Their chains were as follows. Each man wears a strong leather girth round him above the hips. To this are secured the upper ends of two chains. One chain of four long and heavy links descends to a kind of double ring fixed round the ancle. The second chain consists of eight links, cach of the same weight and length with the four, and this unites the two prisoners together, so that they can stand about six feet apart. Neither of these chains is ever undone, day or night. The dress of common felons, which, as well as the felon's cap, was there worn

[Since the above article was in type, we have received new intelligence of horrors which have been perpetrated at Rome; intelligence which may be relied on, and which in due time will be published through other channels. We have but space to translate a single paragraph, and will not shrink from our task, though the description is one of physical torment. It is necessary that the Romish

Church should be known for what it is the same in heart and spirit that established and approved the Inquisition, and decreed the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Even now-now the murder of infants in arms is being defended, lest they-the children of liberals-might live to avenge their parents' wrongs.

At Bologna, on the 8th of August, 1849, Ugo

A CHAPTER ON ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS AND FEATHERS,

BY MRS. WHITE.

The crafts of "Plumassier and Fleuriste" are so generally combined, that it seems only natural, when on the subject of artificial flowers, to introduce that of feathers also; our researches for the one bring us into frequent contact with the other, and though the manufacturing of them are things apart, yet in a finished state, fashion and commerce have created an affinity between them.

The priority, however, in treating of them belongs of course to Flowers, those ornaments so natural_to_woman, that we could fancy the wearing of them a primeval vanity, and Eve herself the foundress of the fashion.

Milton bears us out in this idea, and with an exquisite refinement suggests them to have been the adornments of her innocent days, and (like Ophelia's flowers when her father died) makes them wither instinctively upon her fall :

"From his slack hand the garland wreathed for

Eve*

Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed." And though we have found no mention of it elsewhere, it is certain from Solomon's Anacreontic ejaculation

through each shade of colour that suited his complexion; the wit (for each wreath was supposed to impregnate the wearer's brain with the qualities of the plant that composed it) might quicken his with bays; the scholarly gentleman be content, like the bachelor Horace, with myrtle; and the gay bind rosy fillets on his brow. Some, of a melancholy cast (so Pliny tells us), affected wormwood, which, though it would not suffer a man to be merry, was a great hinderer of witchcraft and other evils; while those individuals who feared the juice of the grape stronger than their own resolutions to resist it, strengthened their heads after the fashion of other ruined structures with wreaths of ivy, which in those days was supposed to exercise such an antipathy to the vine as to counteract the effects of its spirit. The bride had her crown, and the corpse its garland; neither of which customs are yet extinct in all the districts of those classic regions. In Italy we read that mothers still twine chaplets of the blue flowering periwinkle (Vinca) on the foreheads of their dead infants; and at the wedding ceremony of modern Greeks the priest is supplied with a garland of lilies, and another of ears of corn, which he places on the heads of the bride and

"Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before bridegroom, as emblems of purity and abunthey be withered,t

that the ancient Hebrews, like the Persians and other Eastern nations, from whom in later days the Greeks and Romans borrowed the sweet usage, were even at this period in the habit of binding their brows with flowers on festive occasions; for the preceding verse, with its talk of costly wine and precious ointment, has evidently reference to the accessories of a feast.

dance. Tavernier and other oriental travellers
inform us that flowers have been and are still
used as natural ornaments in the dark tresses of
Indian maids; and Moore tells us that the ap-
pearance of the blossoms of the gold-coloured
campac on their black hair has supplied the
Sanscrit poets with many elegant allusions.
Even the forest children of America are not
without an instinct of their beauty, and con-
siderable skill in imitating them; some of the
most perfect feather-flowers are made by the
savages of South America from the brilliant
plumage of their birds, the colours of which
have all the vivacity of floral dyes; and, as they
manufactured by the nuns in Spain and Por-
never fade, they in this particular excel those
tugal, who tint the feathers artificially.

In the palmy days of Athenian refinement and Roman luxury, flowers were used not only as personal adornments, and necessary signs and accompaniments of festivity and merry; making; but they were essential to religion, and decked the altars, crowned her priests, and filleted the heads of the victims to be sacrificed, from the Bacchanalian goat to the milk-white bull, that bled in honour of Jupiter. They dedicated them to their Gods, and crowned their statues with them. Hence Venus sometimes represented wearing roses, while Juno holds a lily in her hand; and the antique Ceres, in the gallery of the Louvre, has her hair Nothing could be more natural, in the probraided with corn-poppies and bearded wheat.gress of imitative art, than the desire to perpe

With the people themselves wreaths were in daily requisition, and persons made a livelihood by manufacturing them; every occasion had its characteristic chaplet, and every diner-out one of a different design. The exquisite could run

*Book ix. Paradise Lost.
+ Wisdom of Solomon.

The Italians are said to have been the first

people in Europe who excelled in this imitation of nature, and from them the craft overspread the Continent, and eventually found its way to ourselves.

and garden, and to save the continuous trouble tuate those charming productions of the field and expense which the quickly perishing nature of real blossoms entailed on the wearers, except that the copies of them should have first appeared in that land where the use of flowers in antique times had been carried to such excess.

We find the use of artificial flowers introduced into this country during the reign of

L