LORD BROUGHTON'S ITALY.*

Jr may be broadly said of these volumes, that the anecdotes and remarks on men and opinions are for the most part new ; while the descriptions of antiquities, and the literary, historical, and antiquarian disquisitions, are for the most part old. Of this latter division, however, a large portion is new to the present generation ; for we believe the Illustrations to Childe Harold is as good as out of print ; and the principal notes to that poem—as those on the Bridge of Sighs, and Lake Thrasimene, will bear re- perusal, and deserve reprinting in a separate form. It is moreover to be observed, that much of the old in form and subject has new matter, the result of researches and discoveries during the last forty years. And this new matter, though drawn from the works of antiquarians, has nothing of a bookish air ; because not only has the author made the results his own, but has examined them on the spot in his different visits to Italy.

The form of the more personal section is pretty much that of a tour, following the route which the author and Lord Byron took in their journe3rings in 1816-17. The regular occurrences of travel, however, do not appear. The reader is carried from place to place with no descriptions of the road, unless it be of some- thing very striking; the common troubles of tourists as regards vehicles, lodging, and accommodation are altogether sunk. Social appearances, the symptoms and growth of opinion, the traits and character of eminent personages are the topics that occupy Lord Broughton's pen, and impart living attraction to the earlier part of the first volume, the remarks of latter days being ineorporated with the original observations. Here, with a nice appreciation of Madame de Steel, is an equally nice indication of Schlegel.

"In the artificial existence of Paris and London some foibles were forced into life which were dormant hi her native Switzerland. In the society of cities she was not always satisfied with waiting for the approaches of the

• Italy ; Remarks made in several visits front the year 1816 to 1854. By the Right Hon. Lord Broughton, G.C.B. In two volumes. Published by Murray.

'little people called the great,' but was impatient and rather too persevering in her advances. Not so at Coppet--there she was impartially attentive to all, or if her civilities were directed to one more than to another, they were pointed to the guest whose inferior pretensions made them the more ac- ceptable to him. In the exercise of her polite hospitalities, she forgot former injuries ; and one of the company whom we met at her table was the wife of a French marshal, who, in the days of Napoleon, would not wil- lingly be seen in the same room with Madame de Sta81. In contrast, some- what with this behaviour, was her reception of another guest, a serene highness, to whom she was sufficiently polite, as others thought, but not submissive enough to suit the taste and habits of a German friend, who thus reproved her indifference, Ne commis/les-veils pas, Madame,' said he,

qua c'est un Prince de Meeklenburgh Schwerin ? ' Those who remember the most learned and very eccentric person who gave her this admonition will admit that Mr. Schlegel afforded her many opportunities for the exer- cise of her social qualities. With him she was engaged in a perpetual con- troversy, playful and good-humoured on her aide' but conducted by him in terms which gave veil- little grace to opinions in themselves far from popu- lar. According to him Canova knew nothing of sculpture, and had no merit of any kind as an :artist. 'Have you seen his group of Filial Piety?' asked Lodovieo di Breme. Have you seen my bust by Tuck ? ' was the reply. He contended that the Italian was a dialect of the German lan- guage ; and, on another occasion, having asserted that Locke was unsatis- factory because he did not account for the phenomena of the human mind, and a person present having remarked • that Locke had accounted for the phenomena as well as human reason would allow,' Mr. Schlegel exclaimed,

La raison ! je me moque de la raison.' "

The following amount of the public feeling at Milan in 1822 has a present application, not merely as showing the steadily:growing hatred of the Lombards to the Austrian domination. It ons up a wide and curious question : how far that hatred whioh Na- poleon deemed the strongest of all, national hatred, can be over- come by material advantages, or quelled otherwise than by ab- sorption, which is in much a softer phrase for extermination.

As the case stands m Lord Broughton's pages the Lombard dislike to the Austrian rule, -like that of the Hindoos to the English, seems limited to those classes who had not remunerative employ- ment. Since then it is said the disburbanoes in the country and the financial pressure upon Austria, have reached the working classes through heavy taxation and the conscription, and have now rendered them as disatisfied as the rest of the community.

"The fate of Italy was then [1821] in the hands of the Prince of Carig- nan, the unfortunate Charles Albert of later days. It should be told, how- ever, that neither Count Strasoldo nor Count B '

ilbna the civil and military governors of Milan, were accused of remembering their dangers with the rancour which such recollections usually inspire ; indeed their administra- tion generally could not be called tyrannical or unjust. The severe pun- ishment of insurrection or political conspiracy, is an inevitable condition of foreign subjection ; but the ordinary tribunals were impartial and just. The interference of the priesthood in civil and social matters was much checked ; several church ceremonies, the encouragement of idleness or vice, had been suppressed ; the employment of many labourers and artisans in public works, and the cheapness of provisions, which enabled the labour of three days to provide food for a week, had satisfied those classes to whom such advantages are the test of good government. The discontented be- longed to another portion of the community, who were aggrieved by the employment of Germans in all the higher, and many of the inferior de- partments of administration. The head of the Milanese church was ac- knowledged to be a liberal and a highly honourable man, but he was dis- agreeable to the nobility as a foreigner. The same dislike, and no little ridicule, attached to the Austrian principal of the university of Padua; and what made this preference of foreigners still more distasteful was, that, al- though the higher classes were excluded from employment at home they were almost prohibited from seeking amusement or instruction abroad.' Fo- reign travel was discouraged as much as possible, and, when a licence for that purpose was obtained, the term of absence was specified, and a positive promise exacted that the traveller would not hold intercourse with the di- plomatic members of any court that he might frequent. "But even those Italians who were in public employment of an inferior grade partook in some degree of the discontent of the upper classes. Their salaries were extremely small; a police agent, a customhouse-officer, an at- tendant on the court, had no more than a franc a day ; hence not only their discontent, but their importunity with strangers. But it should not be for- gotten that the pay of clerks in the public offices, of higher mechanics, such as engineers and superintendents in manufactories, was proportionably small. Three Austrian livres, about two shillings a day, were considered good wages—four were never given ; yet on that pittance this class Milanese citizens contrive to frequent the restaurateurs and the theatres—it' is true their wives lived at home on soup. Except in England, there is no city in Europe where so many well-dressed cleanly-looking people are to be seen as in Milan. In some subsequent visits I found very little if any change in the appearance or manners of the inhabitants. The glol les of the Corso, the two-miled string of carriages, had survived, in 184.5, the ruin of all their governments ; the Scala opera-house was equally flourishing."

The author was at Verona during the celebrated congress, and saw all the sovereigns there assembled at a musical and poetical entertainment, where the poetry was of course for the occasion. *With some of the feeling of "Sohn Cam" Lord Broughton de- scribes the panegyrical part as a failure ; and thus comments on the royal and imperial physiognomies. "Whilst looking at the cluster of crowned heads it was impossible not to remark that the absolute lords of so many millions of men had not only no- thing to distinguish them from the common race of mankind, but were, in appearance, inferior to what might be expected from the same number of gentlemen taken at hazard from any society in Europe. Nor was there to be seen a trait expressive of any great or attractive quality in till those who were to be the sources of so much happiness or misery to so large a portion of the civilized world. Yet some of those were notori usly good men in their private capacity., and scarcely one of them has been distinguished for vices eminently pbrincious to society, or any other than the venial failings of humanity : or, as a writer of no *democratic tendency says of them all excellent persons i private life, all scourges of the countries submitted to their sway.'

"Of the Sovereigns at Verona the Emperor Alexander took the most pains to ingratiate himself with the Veronese, by rambling about in pre-

tended incognito, and seizing the hands of the ladies whom he happened to encounter in the streets, or giving sequins to the boys at play. He one day amused himself with carrying up the coffee to his brother of Austria, and it was some time before Francis disoovered that he was waited upon by an Emperor in disguise. A strange but innocent frolic, but vellem his ratios

"To prepare for the Congress two hundred policemen were despatched from Venice to Verona, and two hundred from Milan. The number of troops in the city and round it amounted to 10,000. The principal employ- ment of the police was to watch the proceedings of those to whom it was not desirable the Italians should have promiscuous access. The Emperor Alexander and the Duke of Wellington were the especial objects of their care. The latter peculiarly so ; for he had been much cheered in St. Mark's Square at Venice, and had become, unwittingly no doubt, very popular by appearing in the pit at the opera-house there in plain clothes."

As a politician we all know that Lord Broughton has not sup- ported the expectations of his youth ; and a change of opinion from the radicalism of Burdett's day to conservative whiggism cannot altogether be pleaded as the reason. Besides being Secre- tary-at-War and Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, he was twice President of the Board of Control—that is Minister for India ; and for periods extending altogether over something like a dozen years. Yet he did nothing memorable but plunge us into the Affghan war ; though late events have shown how much of reform was needed in the government and administration of that country ; while the Woods and Forests might really be made a Ministry of Public Works. A similar remark may be hazarded upon him as an author. His Travels, and Notes and Illustrations to Chide Harold, promised more in his early manhood, than his riper age performed. We are not quite sure indeed, whether he has had full justice done to him for his literary works. Looking over the volumes before us we cannot avoid seeing that they con- trast, and favourably, with similar:publications of late years. There is distinct purpose, be the subject in hand large or small. The author brings to his task the preliminary preparation of general scholarship, which guides and animates his special studies. He applies himself conscientiously to his task, like the writers of an older day : and unlike many scholars and antiquarians, he knows what to reject—which is more important than the "art to blot" ; so that although his subject is sometimes seemingly dry, it is not dryly treated. Lastly his style is easy and attractive. He tells you enough, and rarely more than enough, in this respect re- sembling the great classics of the last century, and the gentlemen- writers who were trained in their school, rather than the brilliant breadth and over-wrought details of the present day with its staring traits of professional authorship.