TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE CRUSADE OF TODAY.

.Nsaions like individuals are commonly great and happy in pro- portion to the nobleness of the motives that mainly actuate them. A simple and distinct purpose'. conducive to national independence is a great motive, and that country which is moved by it thoroughly is not a nation to be lightly transferred from one slavery to another. A mean suspicion a readiness to impute low motives where great motives are obvious and sufficient, is a tendency calculated to weaken a nation in its influence over others, and what is worse in its influence over itself,—to make its actions petty, its power even of resolving small. If England is incapable ncapable of understanding the great enterprise of the pre- sent day, it is more to the detriment of England herself than of those from whom she withholds her aid. It is a common notion in this country, especially amongst those who move in the upper circles of society, thatthe alliance which Sardinia has formed with France and Russia has for its purpose to aggrandize the three princes, and that it will have for its result to make France the arbiter reruns in Europe,—to realize the dream of the first Napo- leon by establishing an empire of Charlemagne, and thus to trans- fer Italy from a hated slavery under Austria to one as bad under France. If there is any Prince, any statesman, or any Government that has deserved the repute for a tried and a tested sincerity we may point to the King and. Ministers of Sardinia, and those who know them best stand as witnesses of their faith.

"Setting aside my private opinion, which would be of no worth what- ever, I must assure you that nothing more grieves and offends the honest and earnest Italian patriots, whom I everywhere meet, than the slightest hint of a doubt as to the purity and sincerity of Napoleon's intentions. No -reference to past transactions or presentappearances avails with them. Na- poleon, they think, is p perfectly honourable, utterly disinterested in his views. He wishes to drive the Austrians out of all Italy, and join Lom- bardy and Venice with Piedmont in one great Northern kingdom. He has no designs on Central Italy for his cousin, no afterthought as to Naples in behalf of the heirs of Murat. He wishes for no land for himself, no crowns for his dynasty. The liberation of Italy is too noble a task to be sullied by sordid selfish considerations.

"Such perfect faith, you will allow, is beautiful to witness, and may work wonders."

Yes, and it ennobles the ally who is the companion of so sin- cere a state. The writer from whom we have extracted this pas- sage is a gentleman who has just traversed Mont Collis and tt

whose leers from Susa and Term a.re not only published Coals, the Times, but have convinced that important journal. It is not ,simply by their faith that the Italians test their own sincerity and that of their rulers ; they do it by their actions. "If the Italians trust the French and their leader, there is no doubt but they also rely. on themselves. The whole Italian youth is rushing to arms, and if Sardinia do not within three months number 200,000 of her own com- batants it will rather be from her want of means or capacity for organization than from any lack of materials to work upon. The volunteers are found among the people above rather than below the middle rank, as the abstract idea of nationality has of course struck deeper roots among the thinking and feeling part of the community. The army finds its recruits among the scions of the Lombard and other Italian nobility. Nothing can well be more touching than to see the young and almost boyish, fine-featured, delicately framed riflemen or lancers, clad in the coarse cloth of mere privates, walk- ing arm-in-arm with their richly dressed mothers, or driving by their side in their coroneted chariots, longing for the day which is to rid them of the tedious routine duties of the drilling depfit, and send them forth as full- grown soldiers ready for active service."

- Now the people which is acting in this spirit, and gives such daily working earnest of its purpose, must be a great people, must be prepared-for actions to be admired, even in a region so civilized as Europe, and so illustrious as Europe has become by the achievements of the past. Italy is manifestly on the threshold of her third great epoch. How is it then that she has been enslaved hitherto ? Because those who have, year after year, century after century, profited by the aid which the unceasing inextinguishable life of Italy has lent to industry, science, and art, and all that makes social life, have established it as a settled article of political creed, that the Italians are degenerate, defunct ; and in that be- lief they have connived at the most monstrous and incredible conspiracy of princes and official statesmen to bring against the single subject state the combined armies, finances, and whole resources of all the other nations of Europe put together. The 'Governments represented in the mean-spirited Congress of 1815, settled it that Italy was dead and not worth redeeming ; in the interval it has proved so impossible to keep the dead country quiet in her grave, that the nations which pronounced the verdict of "found dead," have constantly been helping Austria to hold her down. This is why, and it is the only reason why, Italy has not thrown off her oppressor before. Gradually, indeed, and most espe- cially since 1848, when the struggles of the sleeper made the first

-break in the nightmare of Europe, Italy has been showing that there is life in her yet. She appealed first, and it was an bonen' for us, to England, and -we " sympathized "—with our hands in our pockets! For reasons of their own, France and Russia showed themselves not unwilling to help ; and there are reasons, quite consistent with noble motives, why a Napoleon and an Alexander might like to identify themselves with so great a !fork as emancipating an oppressed immortality and being the joint liberators of the most illustrious country in Europe. Napo- leon might well like to turn round to Paris and say, "Such from the first have been my intentions, and yon see what I desire to do when I have the opportunity." An Alexander, who has begun by emancipating his serfs, and desires to emancipate his nobles from themselves, might well be pleased to say, " I am not a bats. barb Czar, but I am an Emperor of' such mould and mettle eta I am fitted to be the king of men, even of nien emulating the Ital. liens of twenty centuries." It is always safer like the Italians to impute to your coadjutor while he works with you the better mo- tives ; for your confidence, especially if you are self-reliant, is in itself a great pledge and reward in advance of his fidelity. A. policy equal to the most refined that could have entered the head of Machiavelli would n3w dictate the obstinate pertinacity with which the Italians will not listen to doubts of Napoleon's sin- cerity.

In consideration for doubters let us for an instant imagine that Napoleon might be insincere, and let us then ask, supposing him te entertain an idea • so idle and futile as the transfer of Italy from Austrian slavery to his own, how he could accomplish that enter- prise ? Italy, we have already seen, has been kept down only because the other powers of Europe have assisted, Austria never for one instant relaxing her hold. Even in '48 Austria had help from independent nations that now owe to Italy compensation for a tremendous ingratitude. But let us ask where and at what time the French people have shown either the disposition or the capacity to retain under their oppressive mastery any civi- lized nation of Europe ? It is not a capacity to be envied, and the French do not stand convicted of it. On the other hand, there is scarcely- a dynasty that has not, by its blood or statesmen, shown that Italy has exercised an influence in Franco—an in- fluence which France herself may be proud to acknowledge ; for it is an evidence of nobility in ourselves if we are amenable, even irresistably, to noble influences. And at the present moment above all others dots the ruling dynasty in France show that a common destiny may well develop the power and greatness of France and Italy at the same time. Suffer Italy for one instant in a century—one single month, to cast off her oppressor, and no- practicable combination could again lay her supine : France may release her, but cannot reenslave her. It needs a lower nation,. with an authority beginning in a lower age to do that. Austria's authority, from the beginning to the end of her rule, is unchanged. We have already shown the reasons "why Italy hates Austria"; they arc reasons why England also should hate Austria ; and even while we write the base achievements of the- oppressor continue to exemplify what appears to be a permanent law. Take one of the last cases-

" A Turin letter in the Debars, from M. Allied& Aehard, states that the wife of a well-known Piedmontese Deputy, a young woman who was in the fourth month of her pregnancy, fell a victim to the brutality of a band of Miens, and has died from the consequences of the outrage."

Let us in London imagine such a ease ; let us, if we may ven- ture upon the outrage, individualize the fancy, and in our own minds name some one Member of Parliament—let us remember his wife whom we have met perhaps in society—let us fancy our- selves hearing that such an event had happened • and let us ask whether we should not, one and all, resolve that such a thing should never be again ?

And this we believe verily to be the resolve of France and Rus- sia; yes, and of England. The present enterprise to expel Ana- tria from Italy revives the spirit whioh animated the Crusades, only in a more enlightened form, with a more specific object,— with a greater good to be done ; and those who are joining in the enterprise are evidently animated by this spirit. We may con- trast with the Austrian outrages the chivalrous tenderness just now shown by the brave Italians of every rank. Look to those young noblemen who are private soldiers in the Italian army. took to that Count Gabrio Casati, President of the Lombard Pro- visional Government in 1848, who leaves his palace, enrols him- self as overseer of the Central Infirmary, and is found by a corre- spondent of the Daily iVezes nursing a poor old peasant, bastina- deed by an Austrian general to extort information from him which he would not or could not give. But the spirit of ehivalry is not limited to the Italians. See what that new correspondent of the Times says of the French volunteers who are " rushing" over the Alps. Some doubted whether Napoleon would be gene- rous enough to accept the services of a prince of the house of Orleans ; it was distinctly reported that the Duo de Chartres had been recalled by his family ; and what are the facts ? We find the youth, scarcely sixteen years old, active under Napoleon • and Napoleon expressing his own wishes that he may be able to give the royal knig'hterrant the gold medal of military valour.

Are we English really incapable of understanding events, acts, and sentiments like these ? Are we linable to contrast the con- duct of an Austrian soldiery, amongst the peaceful peasantry of Piedmont, with the discipline and forbearance of our own Lrig- lish soldiers, entering Delhi with the burning memory of outrges committed by a black skinned and black hearted enemy ? Is it possible that we, after ten times " sympathizing " with Italy in her forty years' struggle, can now say that she has no right to make the struggle, because Princes help her? No right to choose her help, though it may come with opportune results for Princes, for Hungarian Governors and Hungarian Generals ? No! we

English have not so entirely drifted from our own traditions and opinions. By degrees a more natural English sentiment is be- ginning to show itself in every. direction. You meet it in society. You find the very journals which were not long since anxiously

insisting on the status quo, now beginning to admit both the feet

and the right of Italy's truly national movement. The manifesta- tions of this sounder feeling reach us from all sides and

from every rank in society. It is avowed tons by the merchant at the sea-port, by the county magistrate in his country residence;

.it stands outspoken in the unmistakeable words of a statesman who is at once among the astutest of diplomatists and the heartiest of English gentlemen.