the king's whole
pleasure and business, as before our _Magna Charta_ times, have been
to lower their importance. In that year a revolt was the consequence
of an income-tax even of two per cent, for they were yet unbroken to
the yoke; but now that he has saddled property with a deduction,
_said_ to be eventually equal to fifteen per cent, if not more; now
that he doubles the impost on the native sulphur, which is therefore
checked in its sale; now that he keeps an army of 80,000 men to play
at soldiers with; now that he constitutes himself the only referee
even in questions of commercial expediency, and _a fortiori_ in all
other cases, which he settles _arbitrarily_, or does not settle at
all; now that he sees so little the signs of the times, that he will
not let a professor go to a science-congress at Florence or Bologna
without an express permission, and so ignorant as to have _refused_
that permission for fear of a political bias; now that he diverts a
nation's wealth from works of charity or usefulness, to keep a set of
foreigners in his pay--they no doubt here remember in their prayers,
with becoming gratitude, "the holy alliance," or, as we would call
it, the _mutual insurance company of the kings of Europe_, of which
Castlereagh and Metternich were the honorary secretaries.

In the midst of all the gloomy despotism, beautiful even as
imagination can paint it, is Palermo beautiful! One eminent advantage
it possesses over Naples itself--its vicinity presents more "drives;"
and all the drives here might contest the name given to one of them,
which is called "_Giro delle Grazie_," (the Ring or Mall of the
Graces.) It has a _Marina_ of unrivaled beauty, to which the noblesse
and the citizens repair and form a promenade of elegant equipages. A
fine pavement for foot passengers is considerately raised three or
four feet above the carriage road; so that the walking population
have nothing to annoy them. The sea is immediately below both, and
you see the little rock-encircled bays animated with groups of those
sturdy fishermen with bare legs; which you admire in Claude and
Salvator, throwing before them, with admirable precision, their
_epervier_ net, whose fine wrought meshes sometimes hang, veil-like,
between you and the ruddy sunset, or plashing, as they fall nightly
into the smooth sea, contribute the pleasure of an agreeable sound to
the magic of the scenery. Some take the air on donkeys, which go at a
great rate; s