Whether purposely or not, everything has been done to check free
communication between the Papal and Neapolitan States, and in this
respect the Government has been eminently successful. The two countries
are totally distinct. A Neapolitan is a _forestiere_ in Rome, and _vice
versa_. The _divide et impera_ has been the motto of all the petty
Italian despots and of the Papacy in particular, and hitherto has proved
successful. Even now, as far as I could see and learn, the desire for
Italian unity does not penetrate very low down. It is the desire, I
freely grant, of all the best and wisest Italians, but scarcely, I
suspect, the wish of the Italian people. In truth, Italy at this moment
is very much what Great Britain would be, if Scotland, Ireland, Wales and
the States of the Saxon Heptarchy had remained to this day separate petty
kingdoms, ruled by governments who fostered and developed every local and
sectional jealousy. The broad fact, that for some weeks at Rome we were
in utter ignorance whether there had been a revolution or not in the
capital of the frontier kingdom, not thirty miles away, and should have
been quite surprised if we had learnt anything about the matter, is a
sufficient commentary on our state of isolation.
This artificial isolation too is increased by a sort of general apathy
and almost universal ignorance, which are characteristic of all classes
in Rome.
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