Lazzaroni of the present day-would have been too much even for the mind of Romulus. Others besides Remus might have leaped in derision across his incipient fortifications, and he himself might have been forced to find a refuge a second time among the wolves and the shepherds of the Apennines. But his mind grasped the idea that to make his people respectable he should give them a position commanding respect; and in order to make them obey the laws, he should give those that were competent among them an interest in framing those laws. Accordingly we find the infant state governed by the king, the senate, and the assembly of the people; and, with modifications as to the title of the chief magistrate, king, consul, dictator, emperor, this was, in the main, the constitution of Rome during the days of her ancient glory. Under this, Italy became a united empire; by the armies of this, proud Carthage was subdued, and Scipio's victories spread over western Europe; under this, Julius Cæsar penetrated to Britain, and was a conqueror on the banks of the Nile; and under this, the emperor Constantine raised the standard of the cross, "in hoc vince," and protected and cherished the church of Christ, in the wide-spread empire of Rome.

But other days came. A despotic rule superseded the constitutional-sometimes milder, sometimes sterner,-till, as years rolled on, the Roman empire declined and fell; and in this, our nineteenth century, we find one of its fairest portions-the seat of government in days of yore-the peninsula of Italy, under the despotic sway of a pope, and of the houses of Hapsburg, Bourbon, and Lorraine.

If that pope, and if those houses, had granted "the constitution "mildly requested, in the first instance, by their people, and often promised by themselves, central and southern Italy, at least, might still be under their rule. But their eyes were blinded; another principle was at work; and the good providence of God was preparing the way for Italy to be "free from the Alps to the Adriatic;" and that civil and religious liberty should be established on a solid basis, from Capes Passaro and Spartivento to the summit of the Splugen and the Julian Alps.

In looking at the Italian question, we intend, in the first place, to review the state of things at the beginning of 1860; then to glance at the occurrences of that eventful year; and, thirdly, to give some report of the religious state of the country, and its probable future as regards the gospel of Christ.

When the sun rose on the 1st January, 1860, many clouds were obscuring the expected future of Italy. It is true the Austrians were driven beyond the Mincio, and men breathed freely in Lombardy. Farini was established as lieutenant of the king of Sardinia over Parma, Modena, and the Romagna; the army of central Italy was well organized under general Fanti; and the provisional government of Tuscany, as well as

No. 60.-Vol. 278.

the people, were crying out "Viva Italia! Viva Vittorio Emmanuel!" though a transalpine influence, for reasons known only to itself, prevented the Prince of Carignano from presiding, in the king's name, over the affairs of that state. But a powerful army was in Naples and Sicily, ready, at a moment's warning, to take the field; and Francis II. seemed at least as unyielding in reality, and as arrogant, as Ferdinand, when, in reply to good advice from Louis-Philippe of France, he said, "the Bourbons are too ancient a race to consent to innovations.' Strange rumours, too, were afloat about Austrian interference in the south, and respecting the carrying out of the plan proposed in high quarters for the federation of the Italian states. Then the papal army was to be greatly increased-Germans, Swiss, and other foreign mercenaries were to be enrolled, and an Irish contingent was promised by Cardinal Wiseman. The Perugian massacre, too, was fresh in the memory of more than widows and orphans, and the population of whole towns and villages were in dread of the worse than heathen barbarism of "his holiness the pope." And besides all this, the French emperor, just returned from his triumphs at Magenta, Palestro, and Solferino, the emperor who fought "for an idea," had not only suddenly and rashly concluded the peace of Villafranca, with clauses in the treaty disastrous to the rising prospects of Italy, but had also demanded Nice and Savoy as payment for his services, till then considered disinterested and free.

But further changes were to take place, and brighter days were to come. Early in the year a strange man appeared on the scene-Giuseppe Garibaldi-who had commanded some irregular troops in the Lombardo-Venetian campaign of 1859, and who had recently been returned by his native county, Nice, as deputy to the parliament at Turin. Garibaldi was born in 1807, in the city of Nice. He was the son, and the grandson of sailors; and was educated as well as the slender means of his parents would allow. From early years he was practical in all he did. "I learned gymnastics," he said, "by climbing among the shrouds, and in stepping along the ropes; the use of the sword I learnt in defending my own head and equitation by following the example of the best horsemen in the world, the Gauches." His life up to this time has been one of the most remarkable on record-a life of daring adventures, of hairbreadth escapes, and of singular disinterestedness in all that he has done. We find him at one time a sailor, then a voluntary assistant in the cholera hospital at Marseilles, then a private tutor, a corsair in the La Plata, a bullock drover, a commercial agent, a soldier! Two illustrations will serve to show his character as a soldier, even before he displayed the talents of a general on his loved Italian soil. He was in the service of one of the small, and then undefined, South American

republics, of which Montevideo was the chief town. *He had raised, equipped, and then commanded an Italian legion. In one of the many battles-the passage of the Bayada-the legionaries had shown great steadiness and bravery, and the officer who made the report to the Montevidean general Paz, remarked, "They fought like tigers." "That is not to be wondered at," replied the general," they are commanded by a lion." On another occasion the affair of the Salto Sant'Antonio, a brave trooper of the enemy's cavalry, seeing Garibaldi and his men grouped around a shed with a straw roof, which, though no defence against balls, was yet a shelter from the scorching sun, took a firebrand in his hand, clapped spurs to his horse, and, regardless of danger, galloped through the midst of the Italian legion, and cast his firebrand at the roof of the shed, thinking to dislodge the entire group. The Italians were about to fire-one moment more and he would have been dead-but Garibaldi cried out, "Spare brave fellows like him, they belong to our race;" and no one fired.

In the beginning of 1847 there appeared something like the dawn of constitutional liberty in Italy. But like the beautiful aurora borealis, the accompaniment of the magnetic storm, which lights up the heavens, and often flatters the traveller with the hope that day is near, and then recedes, and leaves him in darkness again; so this apparent dawn was but the accompaniment of that rising political storm which in the few succeeding years swept through the mountains and valleys of the peninsula, sometimes from one quarter, sometimes from another, and ended by snapping in the midst, at Novara, the tree of liberty planted by Charles Albert of Savoy. Garibaldi left Montevideo to take his part in the struggle, and reached his native land; and as he neared the coast he hoisted the tri-coloured flag of Italy, improvised, as he says, "with half a bed sheet, a red scarf, and the remains of the green facings of our uniforms."

Simple and guileless as Garibaldi ever was, and we hope ever will be, he imagined that the liberal antecedents of Cardinal Ferreti formed a guarantee for liberal institutions, when he, as Pio Nono, put on the triple crown; but he did not know the pope, or popery. He wrote to Pio Nono explaining his views; of course, he never received a reply.

Discouraged, but not cast down, he volunteered his services to Charles Albert. Afterwards he joined the Milanese army, then accepted an invitation to go and help the Sicilians, but gave up his designs in that quarter, and arrived in Rome just as the triumvirs had resolved to repel the advance of the French army of occupation, sent by the French republic, and its dictator, general Cavaignac, "to protect the material interests and the morals of the Romish population." We must here be allowed to insert a description of Garibaldi, given by an eye

witness during the siege of Rome:-" He is a man of middle height, his countenance scorched by the sun, but marked with lines of antique purity. He sat his horse as calmly and firmly as if he had been born there; beneath his hat, broad-brimmed, with a narrow, loop, and ornamented with a black ostrich feather, was spread a forest of hair. A red beard covered the whole of the lower part of his face; over his red shirt was thrown an American poncho, white, lined with red, like his shirt. His staff wore the red blouse, and afterwards the whole Italian legion adopted that colour."

Garibaldi appeared again as the captain of guerilla troops→ the "Cacciatori" of the Alps-in north Italy in 1859, and again as the liberator of southern Italy in 1860. At the request of the authorities, the society called "La Nazione Armata " was dissolved by Garibaldi early in January, when he issued a proclamation calling for contributions to purchase a million of muskets, saying, "If, with a million of muskets, Italy should not be able to arm a million of soldiers in the face of the stranger, it would make one despair of humanity. Let Italy arm and she will be free!" In January also Count Cavour returned to office-the zealous and indefatigable statesman, who loves his king and his country, and whose prudent management came in at the right moment, in the providence of God, to save Italy from a worse tyranny than that of pope or petty princes-the tyranny of red republicanism, whose type was seen in Robespierre, and Danton, and Marat in the last century, and whose advocates might be found, in the last year, searching among the débris of fallen Italian dynasties, for a trap to catch Giuseppe Garibaldi! Cavour returned to office, and though active and energetic as ever in the cause of constitutional liberty, he gave grave offence in Italy, as well as to honest out-spoken men in England, by his conduct regarding the cession of Nice and Savoy.

Garibaldi spoke out too, and resigned, of course, his post as deputy for Nice.

The night was fine on the 8th of May; the moon was at the full, and the almost tideless waters of the Mediterranean were still and clear, as a large party assembled at a villa on the seashore, a few leagues distant from Genoa. The villa filled; the various alleys of the spacious garden were speedily filled also. Nearly 2,000 men were there,-volunteers. Garibaldi himself at their head; and as they marched to the beach, carrying their muskets and cases of ammunition, low whispers might be heard of "Italia Unita e Vittorio Emmanuele." An eye-witness writes: "Every one was serious; there were no cries, none of the enthusiasm of parade; but on every countenance the expression of strong energy and deep conviction. It is only when at sea that Garibaldi will issue his orders; he must have some

brilliant plan in his head, for his countenance was radiant." The boats put off; two steamers were seized, the Lombardo and the Piemonte. We do not at all excuse this act of piracy, but we may quote the words of the leading journal: "The man, the cause, and the circumstances are so extraordinary, that they must be judged by themselves."

The spirit which animated the volunteers may be guessed from "the order of the day" which was written by Garibaldi on board the Piemonte: "No rank, no honour, no recompense is held out to these braves (the Cacciatori of the Alps). When the danger is past they will return to domestic life; but when the hour of battle strikes, Italy sees them again in the front ranks, cheerfully volunteering to shed their blood for her. The war cry of the Cacciatori is the same that resounded a year since on the banks of the Ticino-Italy and Victor Emmanuel! This cry will strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Italy." Count Cavour had not been informed of this expedition. Garibaldi had not forgotten the cession of Nice and Savoy.

The Piemonte and Lombardo slipped from their moorings and steered for the riva di Levante, the eastern coast of the Gulf of Genoa. The moon was still bright as "the Cacciatóri” looked back at the snows of the maritime Alps, and doubtless many a thought wandered across those snows to home with all its fond endearments; but patriotism was the dominant feeling, and the fire burned in their bosoms till their fatherland was free! And now the little squadron coasts the riva di Levante, "the shore of the rising sun;" and as the tints of morning appear behind the distant Apennines, some minds on board might perhaps have thought of that light of religion and of liberty which is now dawning o'er the land. The volunteers from other places were ready at appointed spots along the coast, and were picked up by the squadron as it passed. The next day an order from Turin, was received at Genoa to prevent the embarcation, and to seize all arms which might be found.

On the 11th of May the volunteers landed at Marsala, and demonstrations took place there, and at Palermo. In vain the viceroy, Prince Castelcicala, issued proclamations. Garibaldi had gone to the relief of Sicily-the fire was kindled and could not be quenched. It was determined by Him to whom all honour belongs, that Sicily should be free. On the 18th the telegram announced: "The provinces are in full insurrection, 3,000 insurgents have joined the Garibaldians."

It is not our intention to write a history of the war, nor to follow the victorious volunteers in all the details of their success. Marsala was taken-Melazzo followed-Palermo yielded-Messina capitulated, all except the citadel. At the end of July Sicily was free; a provisional government was formed, with Garibaldi as "dictator:" and a convention was