Perhaps the failure
of 1849 may then turn out to have been a dark blessing; and the blood of
those who fell on the Roman walls, and the tears of those who have wept in
Roman prisons, may not have been shed in vain.
The cause of Italy deserves the heartiest sympathy, and, if need be, a
personal sacrifice on the part of every lover of liberty and of justice in
the world. The question of Italian unity and independence is the most
important that has been presented in Europe in our time. The issue involved
in it is that of the advance or the degradation of a nation so noble that
none can be called nobler,--of the rights of the many, as against the power
of the few,--of the rights of thought, as against those of the sword,--of
the establishment of those principles which do most to make life precious,
as against those by which it is made vile and wretched. The last year has
seen a part of the great work of freeing Italy accomplished. If Sardinia
can but have time allowed her in which to knit her forces, if she can for a
time escape from foreign attacks and from internal divisions, Italy is
secure. Venice, Rome, and Naples will not long languish under the tyranny
of Austrian, of priest, and of Bourbon.
We return for a few words to "Mademoiselle Mori." The readers of
Mr. Hawthorne's imaginative Italian romance will be pleased to find in this
book further illustrations of the Rome he has so admirably pictured. The
author has not the genius of Mr.
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