for independent existence, and a government representing the people.
Crawford here in Rome has had the just feeling to join the Guard, and
it is a real sacrifice for an artist to spend time on the exercises;
but it well becomes the sculptor of Orpheus,--of him who had such
faith, such music of divine thought, that he made the stones move,
turned the beasts from their accustomed haunts, and shamed hell itself
into sympathy with the grief of love. I do not deny that such a spirit
is wanted here in Italy; it is everywhere, if anything great, anything
permanent, is to be done. In reference to what I have said of many
Americans in Italy, I will only add, that they talk about the corrupt
and degenerate state of Italy as they do about that of our slaves at
home. They come ready trained to that mode of reasoning which affirms
that, because men are degraded by bad institutions, they are not fit
for better.

As to the English, some of them are full of generous, intelligent
sympathy;--indeed what is more solidly, more wisely good than the
right sort of Englishmen!--but others are like a gentleman I travelled
with the other day, a man of intelligence and refinement too as to the
details of life and outside culture, who observed, that he did not
see what the Italians wanted of a National Guard, unless to wear these
little caps. He was a man who had passed five years in Italy, but
always covered with that non-conductor called by a witty French writer
"the Britannic fluid."

Very sweet to my ear was the continual hymn in the streets of
Florence, in honor of Pius IX. It is the Roman hymn, and none of the
new ones written in Tuscany have been able to take its place. The
people thank the Grand Duke when he does them good, but they know well
from whose mind that good originates, and all their love is for the
Pope. Time presses, or I would fain describe in detail the troupe of
laborers of the lower class, marching home at night, keeping step as
if they were in the National Guard, filling the air, and cheering the
melancholy moon, by the patriotic hymns sung with the mellow tone and
in the perfect time which belong to Italians. I would describe the
extempore concerts in the streets, the rejoicings at the theatres,
where the addresses of liberal souls to the people, through that best
vehicle, the drama, may now be heard. But I am tired; what I have to
write would fill volumes, and my letter must go. I will only add
some words upon the hap