every gesture and look of which the impassioned Italian frame is capable, signified their enthusiastic concurrence in the sentiments, to the utterance of which they lent every power with which nature had gifted them. The choir and orchestra, inspired by the fervent action of their excellent conductor, who, with his national colours tastefully displayed upon his breast, threw himself with all the ardour of a loving compatriot into his work, seconded their efforts nobly; and thus a chorus was produced, such as can never be forgotten by the least susceptible individual who was privileged to hear the strain, and see under what circumstances it was sung. At the first line of the refrain, "O Garibaldi nostro, salvatore," the audience, moved by one impulse, rose up, and remained standing, turned towards the Italian hero, during the remainder of the piece. When all was ended, the voice of the multitude found scope; and men and women, artists and conductor, laid down their respective functions to join in one overpowering demonstration of enthusiastic devotion to the serene-looking and noble man, who looked down in a sort of glad, yet quiet wonder, too great to be confused by this tumultuous homage; and replied better by his sympathetic eyes, moved lips, and very simple gestures, than by any amount of actions, such as are associated with heroes of a similar kind. The chorus of Ernani was made to do homage to the general by the words "A Garibaldi gloria" being substituted for the name of Charles the Fifth; and this was followed by the English national anthem, the solo verse of which was finely sung by Mademoiselle Fricci. Then followed a well-merited cheer for Arditi, and many more for Garibaldi and Menotti, whose departure from their gallery terminated the concert.

At the close of the proceedings swords were presented to Garibaldi and his son, by the Italians resident in London. Garibaldi received his sword with the words"I thank you, Italians, for this beautiful present. I promise you I will never unsheathe it in the cause of tyrants, and will draw it only in support of oppressed nationalities. I hope yet to carry it with me to Rome and to Venice." Other presentations were made, and other addresses offered; after which the general and his party returned to London. On his way back from the Crystal Palace, the general paid a visit to the Duke of Somerset, at his official residence at the Admiralty. In the evening he dined with Lord and Lady Palmerston, at Cambridge House.

In the midst of all this popularity, the public were thunderstruck by hearing Garibaldi was suddenly to leave England. The explanation, believed in many places, was, that he was sent away in consequence of an intimation from high quarters that his presence here was a cause of embarrassment between England and France. The public said Garibaldi never was in better health; that Mr. Gladstone was deputed to give Garibaldi the hint; and that the whole affair was a disgraceful truckling to the French emperor. The official statement of the Premier, of course, denied this; but more than one smile was seen on many an M.P.'s face while Lord Palmerston gravely assured the House of Commons, that, so far from the French emperor's being hurt by the reception afforded to Garibaldi, on the contrary, he had expressed to the Earl of Clarendon his delight at it. The writer of this may be excused for being sceptical on this point, as the last time he was at Paris, the orders were that no portraits of Garibaldi were to be exposed for sale. But the real truth is, Garibaldi's health was suffering. The excitement and the change of living were too much for him. On Monday night, after the general's return from the Crystal Palace, he was so confused that he could not recollect whether he had been to the Crystal Palace once or twice. Rest, therefore, he required; but why not rest in England? And then he might have visited the great towns which had such strong claims on his presence. In the meanwhile, let it be said that every one was delighted with him, and that, in his foreign English, he has pretty well made a clean breast of it politically. He was understood to prefer Mr. Russell (as he calls him) to Mr. Palmerston; the latter aged statesman he considered to be far too friendly with the French emperor; and we need not add that Louis Napoleon, many

as are his admirers, cannot class Garibaldi amongst the number. Indeed, we may go so far as to say, if the loving and tender-hearted Garibaldi hates any one on the face of the earth, it is the French emperor. And no wonder. It is owing to him Garibaldi was driven from Rome, that he was struck down at Aspromonte, and that even his Italian nationality has been taken from him. No wonder Garibaldi cordially dislikes the French emperor. The simple soldier and the wily intriguer have nothing, and can have nothing, in common. What fellowship hath light with darkness? was asked in old time.

For years to come the Italian question will occupy men's minds. In our days we have seen it presented in a wonderfully changed aspect to the world. For ages the fairest portion of the surface of Europe was trodden under foot by the despot and the priest. In vain were revolutions attempted-in vain did patriots diethe hour of the regeneration of Italy had not yet come. In our day we have seen the first grand movement in that direction. Italy, aided by France, resolved to shake off the Austrian yoke. Undoubtedly she has gone further and faster than France intended; and the result is that, with the exception of Rome, Italy is free. The question now is, is she worthy of this freedom-can she maintain it? The Italian revolution, mixed as it is, like all human things, with elements base and ignoble, and somewhat barren in the production of those great men whom lesser convulsions have rarely failed to draw forth, is yet assuredly, judged in all soberness, one of the grandest events in modern history. It is no sudden gust of national passion impetuously overturning the thrones of the past, but a slowly elaborated achievement, wrought out with immense sacrifice-sacrifice not only of lives and gold such as every revolution claims, but of provincial and national interests and prejudices, which are the last things usually abjured in such convulsions. It is not an outbreak of fanaticism either religious or political, the work of men disgusted by the falsehood of one system, and blindly rushing at its opposite. Rather with regret do we see the Italian Catholic caring so little to cast down the idols of his church, and rejoice to find the Italian citizen content to replace political despotism by a constitutional monarchy, and not by any more democratic system, for whose enjoyment he is yet untrained. Lastly, it is not a revolution of a single class of the population-a cabal of nobles, or a rebellion of the middle ranks, or a riot of the mob-nor yet is it the work of a great capital city deciding by itself the cause of the whole country, as Paris has so often presumed to do for France. Never, perhaps, in any history has a revolution been so completely the reverse of all this. Italy is being very rapidly regenerated. Railways have been developed, and the common roads of the country have been vastly improved, especially in Naples and Sicily. Before the annexation of the other provinces, Piedmont was vastly in advance of the rest of Italy in education. One in ten out of the entire population attended the schools; while, in Naples, not one in ninety did so; and, in Sicily, out of the female population, even at present, not one in two hundred. The first care of the government has been to reform the system of education, to open schools both for boys and girls in every commune, and to train fitting teachers. The army of Italy now consists of 400,000-a terrible, but at present a necessary, expense. Important changes are taking place in the administration of justice. Nor is this a small matter when we remember, as Miss Cobbe tells us, that in the provinces which formerly owned the sway of the successor of St. Peter, or of Bomba and Bombalino, no safeguard of persons or property, no trial by jury, no habeas corpus, no coroners' inquests existed. Every judge almost had bought his office by a bribe, and used it with every venal trick. Another good sign is to be found in the fact that Italy is beginning to read. Of anything to be called a national literature, there is, says Miss Cobbe, as yet no sign; but newspapers are increasing; and, in time, the people will read. Of course, there is a reactionary party, consisting of the old nobility and the priests; but the former are losing their temporal influence, and the latter are now mainly recruited from the lower strata of society.

CHAPTER XIV.

PALMERSTON AGAIN PREMIER.

IN 1859, the Tories have appealed to the country: the verdict has been against them-they resign.

Lord Palmerston is again at the head of affairs. In a work published this year-Chiefs of Parties-we find the following sketch of his lordship-a sketch which, at the time, represented pretty fairly the opinion of the sensible and wellinformed:

"In his system of managing the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel was called a great parliamentary middle-man. Irish society also supplies the illustration most apt for Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. He was the Captain Rock of Europe. The desultory fierceness and wordy arrogance of Lord Palmerston's diplomacy, imitated, on a vast scale, the minacious lawlessness of agrarian outrage in Ireland.

"His rage for meddling with the affairs of small communities was of the most singular kind. A petty territory-whose name is probably omitted by some of the gazetteers, and whose frontiers have the same proportions to European demarcations as the borders of a Kidderminster carpet to the boundaries of England-could not go right unless its internal affairs were supervised and regulated from our too famous 'F. O.' in Downing Street. We had to conquer Brobdignag, and we had also to dwarf our minds to the backstairs intrigue of each atom of the Liliputian confederation. Our diplomacy, under Lord Palmerston's auspices, was becoming ludicrous. Its machinery was applied to the arrangement of trifles beneath contempt. Village scandals were exaggerated into diplomatic questions of momentous importance. Somebody in some place pulled another by the nose, and their respective nations had recourse to protocols. The most contemptible squabbles were brought before the cabinet of the British empire. Under no other Prime Minister was there so much personal acrimony, such envenomed bitterness, such constant spleen about trifles, as under Lord Palmerston.

"There was scarcely a country in the world where we were not involved in a diplomatic entanglement about some ridiculous trifle entirely beneath the statesmanship of a great empire. In Greece a minister insisted on introducing to the Court a lady of doubtful reputation. The queen resisted. Then came a ministerial crisis, and all our diplomacy was set to work. Could anything be more ridiculous than our interference in such petty Court scandals at the other end of Europe? If Mayfair was gossiping for a week about the tattle of the Orkneys and the Hebrides, or if the Secretary of State for the Home Department were called on to aid in a case of female small-talk about what Mrs. Honour said about Mrs. Abigail, we should all laugh.

"At Tuscany, a squabble about an attaché of the Sardinian legation was magnified into a mighty affair, as if it were as serious as some of the causes of quarrel between Charles V. and Francis I. And then, crossing the Atlantic, our foreign office busybodies were all in a hurry, on account of some despicable filibustering expedition. The steam had to be got up to an armada panic temperature. Immense events were looming in the distance: when, lo! two or three suspicious-looking crafts are seen, hull down, on the horizon; our West Indian fleet gives chase. England expects that every'-little middy should have a laugh at the big-wigs; and the farce ends-not in another Trafalgar, but after the plan of battle in the Critic:-'The Yankee fleet I cannot see, because 'tis not in sight.'

"Lord Palmerston, in his mode of treating foreign affairs, had a strange talent