eem to announce that some important
change is inevitable here, but what? Neither Radicals nor Moderates
dare predict with confidence, and I am yet too much a stranger
to speak with assurance of impressions I have received. But it is
impossible not to hope.

LETTER XVI.

REVIEW OF PAST AND PRESENT.--THE MERITS OF ITALIAN
LITERATURE.--MANZONI.--ITALIAN DIALECTS.--MILAN, THE MILANESE, AND
THE SIMPLICITY OF THEIR LANGUAGE.--THE NORTH OF ITALY, AND A TOUR TO
SWITZERLAND.--ITALIAN LAKES.--MAGGIORE, COMO, AND LUGANO.--LAGO DI
GARDA.--THE BOATMEN OF THE LAKES AND THE GONDOLIERS.--LADY FRANKLIN,
WIDOW OF THE NAVIGATOR.--RETURN TO AND FESTIVALS AT MILAN.--THE
ARCHBISHOP.--AUSTRIAN RULE AND AUSTRIAN POLICY.--THE FUTURE HOPES OF
ITALY.--A GLANCE AT PAVIA, FLORENCE, PARMA, AND BOLOGNA, AND THE WORKS
OF THE MASTERS.

Rome, October, 1847.

I think my last letter was from Milan, and written after I had seen
Manzoni. This was to me a great pleasure. I have now seen the most
important representatives who survive of the last epoch in thought.
Our age has still its demonstrations to make, its heroes and poets to
crown.

Although the modern Italian literature is not poor, as many persons at
a distance suppose, but, on the contrary, surprisingly rich in tokens
of talent, if we consider the circumstances under which it struggles
to exist, yet very few writers have or deserve a European or American
reputation. Where a whole country is so kept down, her best minds
cannot take the lead in the progress of the age; they have too much to
suffer, too much to explain. But among the few who, through depth of
spiritual experience and the beauty of form in which it is expressed,
belong not only to Italy, but to the world, Manzoni takes a high
rank. The passive virtues he teaches are no longer what is wanted; the
manners he paints with so delicate a fidelity are beginning to change;
but the spirit of his works,--the tender piety, the sensibility to the
meaning of every humblest form of life, the delicate humor and satire
so free from disdain,--these are immortal.

Young Italy rejects Manzoni, though not irreverently; Young Italy
prizes his works, but feels that the doctrine of "Pray and wait" is
not for her at this moment,--that she needs a more fervent hope, a
more active faith. She is right.

It is well known that the traveller, if he knows the Italian language
as written in books, the standard Tuscan, still finds himself a
stranger