members of its vast domain on either side the Alps, by a general
character of paternal mildness and forbearance in all that great
circle of good government which lies without the one principle of
constitutional liberty. It asks but of its subjects to submit to be well
governed--without agitating the question "how and by what means that
government is carried on." For every man, except the politician, the
innovator, Austria is no harsh stepmother. But it is obviously clear
that the better in other respects the administration of a state it does
but foster the more the desire for that political security, which is
only found in constitutional freedom: the reverence paid to personal
rights, but begets the passion for political; and under a mild despotism
are already half matured the germs of a popular constitution. But it is
still a grave question whether Italy is ripe for self-government--and
whether, were it possible that the Austrian domination could be shaken
off--the very passions so excited, the very bloodshed so poured forth,
would not ultimately place the larger portion of Italy under auspices
less favourable to the sure growth of freedom, than those which silently
brighten under the sway of the German Caesar.

The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, to which
circumstance and nature seem to assign the main ascendancy, are Naples
and Sardinia. Looking to the former, it is impossible to discover on
the face of the earth a country more adapted for commercial prosperity.
Nature formed it as the garden of Europe, and the mart of the
Mediterranean. Its soil and climate could unite the products of the East
with those of the Western hemisphere. The rich island of Sicily should
be the great corn granary of the modern nations as it was of the
ancient; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of both the Sicilies, under
skilful cultivation, should equal the produce of Spain and the Orient,
and the harbours of the kingdom (the keys to three-quarters of the