banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails
and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors,
sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, and
suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its beauty, uprooting its
repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and converting the very gem
of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp--a vast amphitheatre, where
liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal pumps,
and tertian fevers, fight all day for the mastery. And for what?--for
what? To fill the pockets of knavish ministers and thieving
officials--to make an arsenal that will never be finished, for a fleet
that will never be built." My companion, it is needless to say, was no
optimist; but the strange point was, that while he was unsparing of his
censure on Cavour and the "Piedmontese party," he was no apologist for
the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he launched out
freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and corruption, and
freely corroborated our own Premier's assertions, by calling the Pope's
the "worst government in Europe." In fact, he showed very clearly that
the smaller states of Italy were well or ill administered in the direct
ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal interference,--Modena being
the worst, and Tuscany the best of them.

Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went--for he not
merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the
characters and tempers of the leading Italians--yet, with all this, I
could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy,
and yet did not like the new, what he did wish for?

"I have my theory on that subject, sir," said he; "nor am I the less
enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt
it."

"It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose," said I;
"Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers."

"Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you
did."

I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial
concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy.

"I'd unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a
small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I'd bring
them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with
craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it,