The death of Lord Vivian, the British Ambassador at Rome,
on the 21st inst., is not of political importance. He held an important post, and must therefore have been trusted by the Foreign Office?) but he was unknown to the public, and not a man of first-rate force. " His death, however, enabled the Italians, who had intended to give the British Fleet in the Mediterranean the warmest of welcomes, to express their feel- ing for England in a different way. Lord Vivian's funeral, therefore, was accompanied with almost Royal honours, the whole population of Rome exhibiting signs of mourning. The feeling, too, is in a way genuine. The English, who are always favourable to Italy, are liked there ; and the Italians feel their present position very keenly. With France and Russia allied in the Mediterranean, they think themselves directly menaced, yet their financial troubles compel them to reduce their Army below the point of perfect safety. There is some source of weakness in the actual administration of Italian affairs which is almost unintelligible, though we believe it to spring from the national habit of tolerating the intolerable. At least fifty persons, implicated in the recent exposures of financial frauds and bribe-takings, ought to have been sent to Pantellaria ; but the Italians think it better to hush up scandals, and bang nobody. They will have to pay a grist-tax for their misplaced pity.
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