th working
for.

If I wonder at anything, it is that under the present system such
artists are to be found at Home as Tenerani and Podesti, in statuary
and painting; Castellani, in gold-working; Calamatta and Mercuri, in
engraving, with some others. It is a melancholy truth, however, that
the majority of Roman artists are doomed, by the absence of
encouragement, to a monotonous and humiliating round of taskwork and
trade; occupied half their time in re-copying copies, and the
remainder in recommending their goods to the foreign purchaser.

In truth, I had myself quitted Rome with no very favourable idea of
the middle class. A few distinguished artists, a few advocates of
talent and courage, some able medical men, some wealthy and skilful
farmers, were insufficient, in my opinion, to constitute a middle
class. I regarded them as so many exceptions to a rule. And as it is
certain that there can be no nation without a middle class, I dreaded
lest I should be forced to admit that there is no Italian nation.

The middle class appeared to me to thrive no better in the
Mediterranean provinces than at Rome. Half citizen, half clown, the
people representing it are plunged in a crass ignorance. Having just
sufficient means to live without working, they lounge away their time
in homes comfortless and half-furnished, the very walls of which seem
to reek with _ennui_. Rumours of what is passing in Europe, which
might possibly rouse them from their torpor, are stopped at the
frontier. New ideas, which might somewhat fertilize their minds, are
intercepted by the Custom House. If they read anything, it is the
Almanack, or by way of a higher order of literature, the _Giornale di
Roma_, wherein the daily rides of the Pope are pompously chronicled.
The existence of these people consists, in short, of a round of
eating, drinking, sleeping, and reproducing their kind, until death
arrive.

But beyond the Apennines matters are far otherwise. There, instead of
the citizen descending to the level of the peasant, it is the peasant
who rises to that of the citizen. Unremitting labour is continually
improving both the soil and man. A smuggling of ideas which daily
becomes more active, sets custom-houses and customs officers at
defiance. Patriotism is stimulated and kept alive by the presence of
the Austrians. Common sense is outraged by the weight of taxation. The
different fractions of the middle class--advocates, physicians,
merchants, far