would be her servant, if she would only shelter me-only for a few weeks.

"I had no right," she said, "to seek shelter there; I was a heretic; I could go to Naples-there were plenty of my countryfolk at Naples! Why should I come to her? their convent was too poor to give charity to strangers." Then she repeated, "it was not built to shelter heretics." She turned away. I followed her on my knees-I could not speak; and when she withdrew, and her black robe passed from my hands, I fell on the stones. She paused, and her eyes rested on my torn shoes and bleeding feet(I had gone to the river in my dressing-slippers, and they could not protect me in mountain climbing)—she rang a bell; the clapper screaked, and the cracked metal sent out a despairing sound that I shall never forget. I arose, weeping; an old lay sister, all wrinkles and black serge, entered with a profound reverence, to whom the Lady said a few words in a low tone, and passed slowly and sternly through the door.

:

The expression of disgust and contempt on the old lay sister's face roused me to something like resentment. Supposing she waited to turn me out, I resolved to save her the trouble, and was more than half way down the arched grey-stone passage by which I had entered before I was arrested by her shrill voice. She motioned me to follow-I did so; she had the fleetness of a roe, with the footfalls of a cat, though she wore the thick shoes of the mountain: the passage was very dark long lance-shaped unglazed apertures, only permitting the light to slant in as it were edgeways: it wound so tortuously that I was quite unprepared for the sudden opening of a door, which led to the refectory. The nuns had just finished their repast, and some were passing out from the opposite side into the garden, which was also their burial-ground-others were clearing away the scanty remains of a maigre dinner. But the arrival of a stranger was too exciting an incident to permit anything to go on in its usual course; those who had gone into the garden returned, and all paused in their labours, collecting round me, as country children gather round a bear on a village green. But if there was curiosity, there was also pity in their eyes; one moved a rude seat towards me, another took hold of my hands-but the lay sister drove them away, and placed before me a slice of bread and some dried fruit. I grasped a cup half full of water to save me from fainting, for when I sat down nature seemed thoroughly exhausted; the nuns congregated together, looking at me and whispering-and then I observed several novices and more than one young girl, pupils, placed there for education. I tried to swallow the bread, but could not, and again asked for water. The lay sister went grumblingly to fetch it; but before she returned, one of the nuns brought me a horn drinking-cup nearly full of wine-it was sour, but it refreshed me, and I thanked her. I could not swallow the coarse bread: one young girl brought me an apple-I thought it delicious, but I could not eat of it more than twice. I trembled all over, and heard them

whisper that I was ill-very ill; I felt so. But this only increased the bitterness of the lay sister, whose orders were that I should be fed and refreshed, and then put out of the gate ;—I had been fed and refreshed, and now I must depart. This command caused much chattering; and I observed that the young lady who had given me the apple remonstrated vehemently, and repeated frequently that "the good Madré could not intend it; it was all sister Seraphina's fault”—such a Seraphina; “she could not endure that anything young and beautiful should enter the walls of Santa Clara." How sister Seraphina scowled at her, and "made mouths," and cruelly forced me to rise! upon which the girl rushed forward, and pressed me into a stone seat that was near the door; and perceiving my poor feet, she knelt down, taking off her own shoes and removing mine-declaring, with unmistakable haughtiness, that if I left the convent within the next twenty-four hours she would leave it also. Some of the nuns patted her on the shoulders, lovingly; others looked terror and astonishment at her boldness. It was evident, that though dressed like the others and bearing no semblance of wealth, except its wilfulness, she was the most powerful there-perhaps that marvellous convent prize, a heiress! who, in a religious house, where all are declared equal, is ever treated with distinction. Her superb face was flushed; she heeded neither caresses nor the carressors, but, in answer to the lay sister's bitter looks, declared her determination to go herself to the good Madré. Such a scene of excitement succeeded this bold declaration! Some approved, others disapproved; but all talked together-while she, nothing heeding, rushed impetuously out of the refectory. Then the lay sister again attempted to carry out what she said were the commands she had received. But I was no longer able to obey her; all power of movement had forsaken my limbs; the grey cold walls kept moving round me in a circle; the roof pressed down upon my throbbing and distracted head ; the fearful struggle of the past three days had reached its climax, and all my strength was overwhelmed-a poor storm-tossed creature, among strangers whose language it perplexed me to understand. I remember repeating "Lay me down anywhere-anywhere!" I was stricken at once; I thought I was dying; and Pope's hymn floated on my memory :

"Cease, fond nature, cease your strife,

And let me languish into life."

Then I heard what I believed to be the church clock of my native village strike, and I started up, crying wildly on my father. I remember that, and the terror of the nuns, as they withdrew like frightened deer, gazing at me with their large dark eyes. After that my senses became exhausted -the room whirled round, and there was singing and moaning in my ears. I had no consciousness of the return of the brave girl who had so generously thrown herself into the breach for my sake. I do not know what they did to me, or where I was taken. I had only a sensation of utter misery and despair.

We have all heard much of the discovery made by statesmen, within the last few years, that the condition of Italy is a standing and permanent menace to the peace of Europe. But it may be asked, how and why it came to pass that the Italians, in the years from eighteen hundred and twenty to eighteen hundred and sixty, began to refuse to endure any longer what they had so long endured patiently?

Because increased communication with other nations inoculated them with new thoughts;-because, despite every effort to do so, ideas cannot be stopped at custom-houses. Of course, the French Revolution gets the credit of having accomplished this awakening of a Nation from their secular lethargy; of course, the new ideas were said to be all the ideas of that "Eighty-nine," which our neighbours never fail to quote as the startingpoint of all modern progress. Now, it may be just observed, in passing, that more than its due is always claimed for Eighty-nine on this score. Eighty-nine did not spring Minerva-like from any French Jove's head, but had a line of legitimate forefathers; and all those forefathers lived on this side of the Channel, and were British citizens, every generation of them.. But the French Revolution was a great preacher and "proselytizer it was a great carrier of ideas. Every French soldier's knapsack imported a packet of them; "notions," as our Yankee cousins call the assorted contents of a trading venture, evidently from a recognition of the fact, that not a bale of goods is moved from one country to another that does not carry with it a cargo of ideas not mentioned in the invoice.

Then, again, Napoleon, amid all his evil greatness, was great in one thing that was wholly good-he was a great road-maker. To him Italy chiefly owes it that her Alpine barrier serves no longer as a Chinese wall. His object, of course, was to open a way for his armies. But he at the same time prepared a path for a far more powerful agent of social change the Mail. The Mail is the most revolutionary institution on the face of the earth!

If the assertion should seem an exaggerated one, I appeal to the opinion and experience of all the discrowned sovereigns who lately held rule in Italy, and to the triply-crowned Pope, still King-by Imperial grace in Rome. Ah! if excommunication, or any conceivable amount of cursing with candle, book and bell, could but stop that daily ebbing and flowing tide of theories, heresies, and thoughts, the Postal service

* The substance of this paper was delivered in the form of a Lecture at the General Post-Office, on the 10th May, 1861.

would be very nearly a sinecure in the patrimony of St. Peter, and Pio Nono would go to his bed o' nights a far happier man!

All the Governments recently upset, or about to be upset, in Italy, have ever manifested extreme anxiety upon this all-important point. "All communications corrupt good manners!"—that seemed to be their reading of the old saw. And violently did they struggle to the utmost of their power to prevent their subjects from holding communication with strangers.

In vain, of course! Why, even in the bad old times, when the Mail-bags-especially those coming from England-were examined at the frontier as minutely as if every cover concealed a traitor-even in those days the Austrian officials for a length of time continued to admit unsuspiciously into the guarded sheepfold of despotism no less terrible a wolf than Cobbett's Register! Many of our readers can no doubt remember the outward appearance of that celebrated periodical, with its gridiron imprinted on the cover. Well! it was the gridiron that procured it admission across the guarded frontier line of the Alps! "Oh!” said the Austrian literary examiners, "it's only a cookery-book! the latest discoveries of perfidious Albion in the science of preparing a beefsteak!-that won't do any harm!” So a dose of old Cobbett's cookery, rather highly peppered, as it was apt to be, went in every week to assist in the preparation of that tough morsel over which Austria is now breaking her teeth.

But this is only one instance in a thousand of the utter inefficiency of all attempts to prevent intercommunication of thought, and to counteract the revolutionary tendencies of the Mail-bag! Even among despotic sovereigns themselves, the wiser of them have known this truth; and in times when they have thought themselves safe, have ventured to jest with the mighty power which was implacably bent on their destruction. Peter Leopold was one of these despotic rulers of the wiser sort; and did as much good as a despot could do. Once on a time, one of his courtiers wished to dedicate a book to him. The book was trash; and the Duke declined the dedication. The disappointed author found an opportunity of humbly representing to his sovereign the sad mischief that would be done to his reputation by such a refusal; and entreated the Duke to reconsider his decision. "No!" said Peter Leopold, "I can't let you dedicate your book to me; but I'll tell you what I'll do for you, which will be fifty times more useful to your work-in fact, the only thing on earthı that can make people read it-I'll prohibit it!"

Even Popes have been wise enough, in days when they were not blinded by fear, to recognize the absurdity and futility of attempts to raise a barrier against the invasion of free thought. Benedict the Fourteenth, who ruled the Church from 1740 to 1758, and who was the friend and correspondent of Voltaire, was upon one occasion requested by a young man, a relative of his own, to draw up for his use a list of the best books

in various branches of study. "My dear boy!" replied the venerable Pontiff, "it is already done to your hand-we keep such a list always ready made out—it is called the Index Expurgatorius!" All which was very pleasant clerical jesting for the middle of the eighteenth century; but it was playing with edge-tools, which have most desperately cut the fingers of his sportive Holiness's successors.

No! the attempt to bar out ideas by physical obstructions never has succeeded, and never will succeed. And this is why the state of Italy became "menacing" in the first quarter of this century, and has continued to grow ever more and more menacing to the present day. Increased communication, Roads, Commerce, Newspapers, the Post, these have been the moving causes that set, as has been said, this great stone rolling. And, let France boast as she mayand as to a great extent she is well entitled to do of the successful operations of her armies, of the spread of French thought, and of the general awakening due to the ideas of Eighty-nine; still, we may assert that it has not been French soil that has produced the plant, nor a French social system that has fostered the crop and stored up the inestimable harvest of free thought. No! it is not France that has planted, cherished, grown, and ripened for mankind the right and practice of free thought. Here! in this island, its birthplace and original home, that sacred possession has been fostered and guarded through all the centuries, and through all the vicissitudes of modern history! and from these shores it has gone forth to work out the redemption and regeneration of other nations.

But all this our readers know; and if we have written these few words of the influence which English thought and English example has exercised on the awakening and uprising of Italy, we have done so only for the sake of pointing out that Italy feels strongly that such has been the case. More noisy expression of gratitude may indeed be heard in Italy for the more noisy services she has received from France. Of course, this must be the case. Those services have been of a nature visible to the popular eye, and comprehensible by the most ordinary intelligence. And to these considerations must be added the necessity under which Italy has found herself of striving to propitiate the formidable friend of whose real goodwill towards her she has never been able fully to assure herself. Notwithstanding all this, we may rest persuaded, that all the best minds in Italy, not only appreciate fully the services which have been rendered to their cause by the influences of British opinion, British liberty, and British example; but thoroughly understand that it is to these sources they must mainly look for guidance and support in the career on which they are entering, and for a model on which to fashion the spirit of their new institutions.

The Italians know quite well, that we wish them to be an united, free, and independent people. They understand too, perfectly well, why the