approach, so real a
presence in the path of mere etiquette; I am quite content to see
him standing amid the crowd, while the band plays the music he has
inspired.

"Sons of Rome, awake!"

Yes, awake, and let no police-officer put you again to sleep in
prison, as has happened to those who were called by the Marseillaise.

Affairs look well. The king of Sardinia has at last, though with
evident distrust and heartlessness, entered the upward path in a
way that makes it difficult to return. The Duke of Modena, the
most senseless of all these ancient gentlemen, after publishing a
declaration, which made him more ridiculous than would the bitterest
pasquinade penned by another, that he would fight to the death against
reform, finds himself obliged to lend an ear as to the league for
the customs; and if he joins that, other measures follow of course.
Austria trembles; and, in fine, cannot sustain the point of Ferrara.
The king of Naples, after having shed much blood, for which he has a
terrible account to render, (ah! how many sad, fair romances are to
tell already about the Calabrian difficulties!) still finds the spirit
fomenting in his people; he cannot put it down. The dragon's teeth are
sown, and the Lazzaroni may be men yet! The Swiss affairs have taken
the right direction, and good will ensue, if other powers act with
decent honesty, and think of healing the wounds of Switzerland, rather
than merely of tying her down, so that she cannot annoy them.

In Rome, here, the new Council is inaugurated, and elections have
given tolerable satisfaction. Already, struggles ended in other places
begin to be renewed here, as to gas-lights, introduction of machinery,
&c. We shall see at the end of the winter how they have gone on. At
any rate, the wants of the people are in some measure represented; and
already the conduct of those who have taken to themselves so large a
portion of the loaves and fishes on the very platform supposed to be
selected by Jesus for a general feeding of his sheep, begins to be
the subject of spoken as well as whispered animadversion. Torlonia is
assailed in his bank, Campana amid his urns or his Monte di Picti; but
these assaults have yet to be verified.

On the day when the Council was to be inaugurated, great preparations
were made by representatives of other parts of Italy, and also of
foreign nations friendly to the cause of progress. It was considered
to represent the same fact as the feast of