Y.--AMERICAN ARTISTS.--BROWN, TERRY, AND FREEMAN.--HICKS AND
HIS PICTURES.--CROPSEY AND CRANCH CONTRASTED.--AMERICAN
LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS.--SCULPTORS.--STORY'S "FISHER BOY."--MOZIER'S
"POCAHONTAS."--GREENOUGH'S GROUP.--POWERS'S "SLAVE."--THE
EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF WASHINGTON.--CRAWFORD'S DESIGN.--TRIALS OF THE
ARTIST.--AMERICAN PATRONS OF ART.--EXPENSES OF ARTIST LIFE.--A GERMAN
SCULPTOR.--OVERBECK AND HIS PAINTINGS.--FESTIVAL OF FRIED RICE.--AN
AVE MARIA.

Rome, March 20, 1849.

The Roman Republic moves on better than could have been expected.
There are great difficulties about money, necessarily, as the
government, so beset with trials and dangers, cannot command
confidence in that respect. The solid coin has crept out of
the country or lies hid, and in the use of paper there are the
corresponding inconveniences. But the poor, always the chief sufferers
from such a state of things, are wonderfully patient, and I doubt not
that the new form, if Italy could be left to itself, would be settled
for the advantage of all. Tuscany would soon be united with Rome, and
to the Republic of Central Italy, no longer broken asunder by petty
restrictions and sacrificed to the interests of a few persons, would
come that prosperity natural to a region so favored by nature.

Could Italy be left alone! But treacherous, selfish men at home strive
to betray, and foes threaten her from without on every side. Even
France, her natural ally, promises to prove foolishly and basely
faithless. The dereliction from principle of her government seems
certain, and thus far the nation, despite the remonstrance of a few
worthy men, gives no sign of effective protest. There would be little
hope for Italy, were not the thrones of her foes in a tottering state,
their action liable at every moment to be distracted by domestic
difficulties. The Austrian government seems as destitute of support
from the nation as is possible for a government to be, and the army is
no longer what it was, being made up so largely of new recruits. The
Croats are uncertain in their adhesion, the war in Hungary likely to
give them much to do; and if the Russian is called in, the rest of
Europe becomes hostile. All these circumstances give Italy a chance
she otherwise could not have; she is in great measure unfurnished with
arms and money; her king in the South is a bloody, angry, well-armed
foe; her king in the North, a proved traitor. Charles Albert has now
declared, war beca