s a cruel,
atheistical, treacherous policy, there needs not at least continual
evasion to avoid declaring in words what is so glaringly manifest in
fact.

There is news that the revolution has now broken out in Naples; that
neither Sicilians nor Neapolitans will trust the king, but demand
his abdication; and that his bad demon, Coclo, has fled, carrying two
hundred thousand ducats of gold. But in particulars this news is not
yet sure, though, no doubt, there is truth, at the bottom.

Aggressions on the part of the Austrians continue in the North. The
advocates Tommaso and Manin (a light thus reflected on the name of the
last Doge), having dared to declare formally the necessity of reform,
are thrown into prison. Every day the cloud swells, and the next
fortnight is likely to bring important tidings.

LETTER XXIII.

UNPLEASANTNESS OF A ROMAN WINTER.--PROGRESS OF EVENTS IN EUROPE,
AND THEIR EFFECT UPON ITALY.--THE CARNIVAL.--RAIN INTERRUPTS
THE GAYETY.--REJOICINGS FOR THE REVOLUTIONS OF FRANCE AND
AUSTRIA.--TRANSPORTS OF THE PEOPLE.--OBLATIONS TO THE CAUSE OF
LIBERTY.--CASTLE FUSANO.--THE WEATHER, GLADSOMENESS OF NATURE, AND THE
PLEASURE OF THOUGHT.

Rome, March 29, 1848.

It is long since I have written. My health entirely gave way beneath
the Roman winter. The rain was constant, commonly falling in torrents
from the 16th of December to the 19th of March. Nothing could surpass
the dirt, the gloom, the desolation, of Rome. Let no one fancy he has
seen her who comes here only in the winter. It is an immense mistake
to do so. I cannot sufficiently rejoice that I did not first see Italy
in the winter.

The climate of Rome at this time of extreme damp I have found equally
exasperating and weakening. I have had constant nervous headache
without strength to bear it, nightly fever, want of appetite. Some
constitutions bear it better, but the complaint of weakness and
extreme dejection of spirits is general among foreigners in the wet
season. The English say they become acclimated in two or three years,
and cease to suffer, though never so strong as at home.

Now this long dark dream--to me the most idle and most suffering
season of my life--seems past. The Italian heavens wear again their
deep blue; the sun shines gloriously; the melancholy lustres are
stealing again over the Campagna, and hundreds of larks sing unwearied
above its ruins.

Nature seems in sympathy with the great events that are
transpiring,