with grass nourished
by abundant rains, and are spotted with daisies in blossom. Crops of flax
and various kinds of pulse are showing themselves above the ground, a
circumstance sufficient to show that the cultivators expect nothing like
what we call winter.

Letter V.

Practices of the Italian Courts.

Florence, _May_ 12, 1835.

Night before last, a man-child was born to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
yesterday was a day of great rejoicing in consequence. The five hundred
bells of Florence kept up a horrid ringing through the day, and in the
evening the public edifices and many private houses were illuminated.
To-day and to-morrow the rejoicings continue, and in the mean time the
galleries and museums are closed, lest idle people should amuse themselves
rationally. The Tuscans are pleased with the birth of an heir to the
Dukedom, first because the succession is likely to be kept in a good sort
of a family, and secondly because for want of male children it would have
reverted to the House of Austria, and the province would have been
governed by a foreigner. I am glad of it, also, for the sake of the poor
Tuscans, who are a mild people, and if they must be under a despotism,
deserve to live under a good-natured one.

An Austrian Prince, if he were to govern Tuscany as the Emperor governs
the Lombardo-Venetian territory, would introduce a more just and efficient
system of administering the laws between man and man, but at the same
time a more barbarous severity to political offenders. I saw at Volterra,
last spring, four persons who were condemned at Florence for an alleged
conspiracy against the state. They were walking with instruments of music
in their hands, on the top of the fortress, which commands an extensive
view of mountain, vale, and sea, including the lower Val d'Arno, and
reaching to Leghorn, and even to Corsica. They were well-dressed, and I
was assured their personal comfort was attended to. A different treatment
is the fate of the state prisoners who languish in the dungeons of
Austria. In Tuscany no man's life is taken for any offense whatever, and
banishment is a common sentence against those who are deemed dangerous or
intractable subjects. In all the other provinces a harsher system
prevails. In Sardinia capital executions for political causes are
frequent, and long and mysterious detentions are resorted to, as in
Lombardy, with a view to strike terror into the minds of a discontented