need for that same city of Rome for their own especial purposes. Rome is wanted for the Capital of the new Kingdom of Italy; and is, say the Italians, the only city that will serve the turn. Our own impression is, that the Italians will make a great and deplorable mistake if they finally select Rome as their capital. We think, as Massimo Azeglio, one of the best thinkers in Italy, has recently argued at length, in a pamphlet on the subject, that Florence would on many grounds be the better choice. Cavour, however, has declared that Italy requires Rome for her capital. There may perhaps be reason to think that the statesmen at Turin put forward this plea only as an additional ground for insisting on the liberation of Rome; and the most important part of this bold and authoritative declaration is, that Italy requires and demands the possession of Rome, whether to use it as a capital or for any other purpose.
And here the great Italian statesman finds himself face to face with the most thorny part of the whole business of Italian regeneration.* It is so, for several reasons belonging to quite different classes of consideration. In the first place, the religious part of the question is, as will be perceived at a glance, a very difficult one. In the short but weighty speech which Cavour made in the Chamber on the occasion alluded to, he stated that the object of the Government was to secure full liberty to the Church, in perfect independence of the State. Of course this programme, if really acted on in the full sense of the words, would be all that the most ardent reformer could desire.
The effects of such a change, in the present state of things in Italy, would be very wide-spread, very striking, and very instructive to mere lookers on at the great game. But we will conclude this paper by making one statement only with reference to this part of the subject, which may be an unpleasant one perhaps to a large portion of the English public, but which, as it may help to correct a very widely-spread delusion, and as we can make it with the very strongest persuasion of its complete truth, it would be wrong to omit.
It is shortly this: that to whatever degree the Italian people are disposed to cease to be Roman Catholics, they are in nowise prepared--for the present at all events-to become Protestants, according to our English acceptation of the meaning of that term. This may be to be regrettedit may be a transient phase of the national mind, or it may not be so; may indicate a want of spiritual depth in the character of the race; or may result only from the mental reaction from ages of corrupt priestcraft; but, be all this as it may, our readers may fully depend upon it that the fact is as it is here stated.
* It may be well to note, that this paper was written prior to the death of the great statesman of Italy.
ELLEN DEAN-A PASTORAL STORY.
WHEN Ellen Dean was tall enough to touch
A tall man's bosom with her golden curls,
She strewed field-flowers upon her mother's grave;
And, quite deprived of those whom nature gave
Her little heart a visible right to love,
Sat in the sunshine, underneath the porch,
Weak as a new-yeaned lamb. Then God, who sows
Bright hearts among the dark ones here and there,
Guided the heart of Farmer Morrison
To little Ellen. For the Farmer saw
Old memories in the sorrow of the child,-
Bethinking gently how himself had grieved.
When, left the keeper's orphan, he had sat
Alone among the hounds, before he owned
His short-horn'd oxen. So the Farmer said:
"The child, I take it, is a goodly child,
One well worth loving, and of pretty parts,
And truly, there is that about her face
Which likes me. I will take the little child,
And love her well, and rear her with my boy;
And she shall have the little empty room
Where slept our daughter Mary ere she died,
And Wife shall love her as she loved her own."
So Ellen dwelt with Farmer Morrison,
Weeping no longer, for the Farmer loved
His foster-child and reared her with his boy;
And every night within the little room
Where slept his daughter Mary ere she died
Small Ellen knelt and prayed a pretty prayer
Her mother taught her; and the Farmer's dame
Soon loved her much as she had loved her own.
The pleasant pattering of her tiny feet,
Her voice, the music of her young delights,
Had memories for Farmer Morrison,
Who taught the little eyes to look a love
Which stirred along the blood like summer warmth
And made him young again. Then Ellen nurst
An eloquently silent happiness.
But looking on the Farmer's only boy,
She found him hard, and heard him shape hard thoughts
In bitter words; for Edward envied her
The gentle words and thoughts that were her due.
So Ellen, when her yellow hair had shone
Three springs and summers at the Farmer's knee,
Had not yet learnt to love or like his boy,
Nor sought to love him. But the children lived
Together still, and Edward flung dark looks
Upon the little maiden, night and morn.
When Ellen Dean grew nearer woman's state
She carried more and more, yet unaware,
Into the house of Farmer Morrison
Those thoughts of womanhood which take delight
In household things, and bustled through the farm
With such an air of business in her mien
As partly hid her lowly gentleness.
Then Edward, older by a spring then she,
Saw all at once, but idly, and with thoughts
So far from pleasant that his speech was hard,
That Ellen Dean was pretty in her place,
A winning maid beyond the wont of maids,
Healthily handsome. But the Farmer stretched
His resting limbs at ease in good old age
By his fireside, and dreamed a father's dream
Of Ellen brief, he longed before he died
To see her loved of Edward, and to dance
The blood of three-and-twenty to his face
Among the reapers, on their wedding-day.
A neighbour's son, young Walter Watson, cast
Kind looks on Ellen. Walter was a youth
Reared in the tumult of the winds and rains,
Tough arm'd and breasted like a boulder-stone,
Red-cheeked and roughly hewn, but yet at heart
Tender as girlish fancies. So he nurst
(Acting and hoping in his honest way)
A passionate pleasurable sympathy
Half instinct and half love, a sympathy
Betrayed by his own blushing eagerness
To keep it hidden. Simple Ellen Dean,
Thinking but little then and knowing less,
And he so seeming worthy of her love,
Knew hardly if she loved the man or not.
Meantime the idle Edward Morrison
Busied his brain with books, befooled by hopes
Too lofty for enjoyment. For the youth
Had nursed an idle passion for the words
Dead dreamers wedded to the nation's fame;
And even when a little black-eyed boy
Sitting with Ellen in the village school,
He loved his books and surely proved he held
A head upon his shoulders. So he dwelt
Apart from Ellen, seeing her enough
To know that she was fair; and Ellen Dean,
Graceful and gentle as a summer cloud,
Was mirror'd day by day and hour by hour
In that calm household, ‚—as a summer cloud
Is sweetly imaged in a sleeping lake.
Then, reading in her foster-father's eyes
The wishes of his age, the maiden looked
Into her heart's clear mirror unaware,
And saw the eyes of Edward Morrison
Looking hard thoughts; and all at once she felt
The music of his name
And partly loved him.
along her blood,
But she weighed the love
And found it wanting, and her heart felt weak,
And chafing down her soul with serious thoughts,
She said within herself, "He loves me not,
His heart is cold, his heart is otherwhere,
He loves me not." When, at the thought, her blood
Blushed like a full-blown rose with woman's pride,
And with a woman's pride she asked herself
If he were worthy. Thus she shrank away
From her own bosom, shuddering to behold
An image that had scarcely touched her dreams;
And so at last, surprised and weak of will,
Went doubting if she loved the man or not.
And Edward, dwelling in his world of books,
Thought of young Ellen in his easy way,-
Just as a man might think about his horse,
Proud of its paces. He was coldly kind
And smiled upon that pretty dwelling-place
For Innocence; but often while he sat
Apart, she seemed so worthy in his sight,
He started, doubtful of his heart and eyes,
And ever after could not choose but watch
The sweet contented language of her looks,
And seek her side, and listen for her steps,
And think her face looked winning when she smiled:
And so at last, half angry and half pleased,
Went doubting if he loved the girl or not.
I wonder whether it had been as wise
If Edward Morrison and Ellen Dean
Had lifted up their passion to the stars,
And thrown it starward on the face and eyes,
In lieu of feeding one unnatural growth
Of shapeless feeling. Walter in the nonce
Sang at the plough, and fostered thoughts that paid
Tributes to hope, doting upon his love
As sweet girl-mothers dote upon and bless
Their new-born babes. So Ellen Dean became
The very heart and hinge of Walter's days.
It came to pass that Farmer Morrison,
A thriving and a moneyed man by this,
Weighed Edward's wishes for a college-life;
And after many days it came to pass
That Edward left the farm to invocate
Tough speculations meant for cooler heads.
But somehow, ere he left, the stripling thought
New thoughts of Ellen, and his heart began
To throng thro' all its pulses, restlessly.
So one blue evening when the yellow star
Rose on the ledge of sunset, and the owl
Moaned in the belfry with his double voice,
He cried within his bosom, "I will tell
Ellen I love her; for
my father's eyes
Are in her heart. When I shall face the world
A fairer maid and purer blood may buy
My passion; but I love her well enough
To swear I love her. Meantime I shall do
My father's will, and make the old man glad,
And Ellen Dean will wait because she loves
My father. If I choose no higher flight,
Then will I take the girl and marry her."
Then Edward sought for Ellen, and they walked
Together underneath the stars and moon;
But Edward, when he looked upon the girl,
And saw her face was very calm and cold,
And heard cold thoughts take motion in her voice
As frosty winds amid the sorrel stir,
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