is not an inhabitant, though the
country is an earthly paradise. The extensive and pleasant village of
Faki, with its houses deserted, its gardens overrun with weeds and
grass, its lands waste and uncultivated, and now the resort of robbers,
affects the traveller with the most painful sensations."[55] Even in
Wallachia and Moldavia the population has been gradually decreasing,
while of that rich country not more than a fortieth part is under
tillage. In a word, the average population in the whole Empire is not a
fifth of what it was in ancient times.

7.

Here I am tempted to exclaim (though the very juxtaposition of two
countries so different from each other in their condition needs an
apology), I cannot help exclaiming, how different is the condition of
that other peninsula in the centre of which is placed the See of Peter!
I am ashamed of comparing, or even contrasting, Italy with Asia
Minor--the seat of Christian governments with the seat of a barbarian
rule--except that, since I have been speaking of the tenderness which
the Popes have shown, according to their means, for the earth and its
cultivators, there is a sort of fitness in pointing out that the result
is in their case conformable to our just anticipation. Besides, so much
is uttered among us in disparagement of the governments of that
beautiful country, that there is a reason for pressing the contrast on
the attention of those, who in their hearts acknowledge little
difference between the rulers of Italy and of Turkey. I think it will be
instructive, then, to dwell upon the account given us of Italy by an
intelligent and popular writer of this day; nor need we, in doing so,
concern ourselves with questions which he elsewhere discusses, such as
whether Italy has received the last improvements in agriculture, or in
civil economy, or in finance, or in politics, or in mechanical
contrivances; in short, whether the art of life is carried there to its
perfection. Systems and codes are to be tested by their results; let us
put aside theories and disputable points; let us survey a broad,
undeniable, important fact; let us look simply at the state both of the
land and of the population in Italy; let us take it as our gauge and
estimate of political institutions; let us, by way of contrast, put it
side by side of the state of land and population, as reported to us by
travellers in Turkey.

Mr. Alison, then, in his most diligent and interesting history of
Euro