THE AWAKENING OF ITALY.' THE unexpected accession of a patriotic Pope, has done wonders for Italy. The spirit of regeneration which has been growing and extending for many years, breaking out ever and anon, in partial and premature insurrections, has acquired immense vigour, and universality from these circumstances, and from the Alps to the Sicilian fields, there appears one enthusiastic resolve in the heart of the People, to win back their liberties, to drive out the foreigner, to curb their princes, and raise their beautiful and classic land once more into a great nation. Our illustration represents the hopes and the faith that are kindled in the bosoms of all classes, by the discovery that they have at length in the head of their church, a father and a champion. Austrian, the fire glows ready for outbreak. The eyes of Europe are fixed on the wily Metternich, and the Austrian armaments. A crisis approaches, and in every corner of Europe millions of restless spirits await the event. Not only Italy, but the world is awaking-and Liberty meditates one of its grand marches. POETS OF THE PEOPLE. By Poets of the People we mean poets belonging to Poets who have risen out of the people in every sense. the mass of the people, and who devote their genius to the people's benefit. We have long intended to give some collective notices of this class of poets, and we Consummatum est!" exclaims one of Italy's exiles, feel that in executing our task we shall be rendering a Mariotti. "The Italians have achieved a great victory real service to the popular cause, and to our common They have conquered their princes. It is a victory nei- humanity. We cannot too much impress upon the ther very difficult nor unprecedented. Naples and working classes a true idea of the place which they ocTurin equally dictated the law to their sovereigns cupy in society, and in the great system of God's creain 1820. Princes were equally at a discount in central tion. We want them to feel that they are part and parItaly in 1831. Twice and thrice did the day of free- cel of the human family, intimate and inalienable memdom dawn upon Italy. Revolutions in that country bers of it; rightful possessors of its privileges; heirs to were sudden, unanimous, bloodless; but as invariably, all its claims, promises, and glories. It is the duty of also, short-lived and unavailing. In every instance every man who can exert tongue or pen, to preach nowAustria stepped forward to the rescue. The fugitive a-days the doctrine which Christ preached. That there princes came back at the head of thousands of Austrian is no serfdom in God's house. That we are all not only bayonets. Italy, it was evident had only one ruler, only of one flesh and blood, but of one spirit. That the one enemy. Little did it avail it to turn against those great All-father who knows nothing of respect of persceptred lieutenants of an ever-present, though invisi-sons, has stamped in every human soul his own image; ble power. Their native princes were but the lash that rich in every gift and faculty that can enable it to grasp smote them. Their wrath should be turned against the wonders of eternity, to develope itself in the prothe hand that wielded it." gress of ages into all which makes bards, sages, philo"But lo! a new Pope sits in the Vatican; a benevo- sophers, angels, and archangels. If the idea of ranks lent Pope, as Madame Tussaud has it. Greater and classes, of aristocracies and diversities of blood had harmony between a monarch and his people never ex- crept in and laid waste the unity of our nature in early isted; nor did an innovater on the throne ever meet and savage ages, Christ took care at his coming to shatwith more unqualified, universal, applause. All the ter the delusion. He was born, bred, and walked efforts of Austria, all her intrigues have failed to create amongst the poor. From the poor he chose his associone moment's alarm or disturbance. Old and new ates and apostles, to them he declared that he was spepatriots, Monks and Jacobins, Carbonari and Young cially sent; and by their hands and voices he made his Italy, men of all creeds and parties proceed hand in wisdom known through the whole earth. To them he hand. Greater mutual faith and reliance, compactness showed how clearly the most novel and abstruse truths and unanimity, moderation and wisdom, the world never may be enunciated. Unlike a herd of self-seeking phiwitnessed. Credit is given to the government to an un-losophers of our later times who clothe their ideas in limited amount. No shade of doubt as to the honesty mists, and render their meanings difficult to be come of its intentions. A prince and state acting on such at, that men may imagine them so vast and profound, principles ought, in the nineteenth century to be that no ordinary terms can express them, the great invincible. Christian philosopher, uttered the most wonderful ideas, the most new and extraordinary truths, in language so simple and yet so perfect, that he who ran could read, and the way-faring man, though a fool, could not err in his conception of them. * * # * "They are a brave, mettlesome race, those Feretti, continues the same writer. "Firm even to stubbornness, bold even to rashness. They have also much of that inveteracy against Austria, which an all-wise Providence seems to have implanted in Italian bosoms. One of them, the Commander of Malta, stood alone against a whole Hungarian regiment; every officer of which he challenged to single combat, in 1815 in Bologna. He killed three of his adversaries; the surviving staff hastened to tender their most ample apologies. Such now are thy rulers, O Italy! The hour and the man are now with thee! What five and twenty years of delusions, of broken hearts, and martyrdoms have been slowly maturing, is now to be reaped in one summer day." Such is the universal faith of the Italian people; and rapidly progressing events would seem to justify the opinion, that Italy is at length really awaking; that she is to be once more a united and great nation. Sicily has risen and shown what a people can do against hireling troops and imbecile tyrants. It has freed all Naples. Rome effervesces with the national enthusiasm. In the north, in the very states trodden under foot by the He Christ re-established the unity of human nature. taught us the principles of eternal justice, and the grand secret of all harmony and happiness, on earth as in heaven-love. Till we arrive to that point of his system, we are unacquainted with Christianity, and are ignorant of our natures and our destinies. The dogmas and the mysteries that even the very highest disciples have wrapped around this glorious sun of the Christian system-this all-embracing sentiment of universal love, have only obscured its light from us, and screened from us its vital warmth. The gospel does not consist in doctrines and ceremonies, but in love. But to love we must know who are worthy of our love, and here again the revelation of Christ embraced the infinite. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."' And then came the question" Who is my neighbour ?" And the answer, expressed in an immortal story was— "Every one who needs thy help." Therefore, far as worlds and systems of worlds can extend themselves— " through all the abodes of sentient beings in the infinitude of space-the chain of love-the spirit of neighbourhood extends itself. There is but one family and one father-one nature and one endowment. We are one flesh and blood-one soul-and in this great and kindred community, the only distinction is the excess of love-the only aristocracy that of divine virtue. Rank, classes, laws, and authority, can be only such as spring out of the will, and for the social and ultimate purposes of collective humanity. There is nothing exclusive in God's law of life. The human soul contains in itself all the powers which are requisite to reach every height of intellectual greatness. It may be oppressed and retarded by circumstances, but it cannot be robbed of its divine dowry. Poverty and ignorance may obscure but cannot extinguish the eternal life within. As circumstances brighten, this great fact becomes every day more manifest. Mind quickens in what was before deemed the common clod; faculties unfold, sentiments warm into wondrous beauty, and what have for ages been termed the common people, demonstrate that they possess all the common properties of the race. The vital principle of grain will survive in the hand of the mummy for thousands of years; but the vital principle of human genius will survive much longer. Were a race to be wrapped in the funereal cerements of ignorance and oppression for ten thousand years, the spark of heaven would survive in the hidden dust, and at the first touch of the light of day would kindle up, and burn with all the intensity of unquenchable genius. But in this world of ours, amid all the oppressions and degradations of the multitudes, the divine element has, from time to time, failed not to proclaim its existence and vindicate its rights. Amongst the greatest names of history, poetry, philosophy, and religion, those of the men of the people stand proudly conspicuous, the more brilliant from often having had to triumph over the sternest difficulties, and even over slavery itself. Poetry, in particular, claims most illustrious votaries of this class, from the shepherd boy of Bethlehem and the blind wanderer of Greece to our own English poacher and Scotch ploughman. Having its seat in the intellect and the emotions, it has not depended so much on education and extensive research as are required by many other means of literary distinction-art, science, or accumulation of knowledge. It has in itself at once the faculty and the material necessary for its work. It deals with the great principles, passions, and sentiments of our universal nature, and startled into activity by circumstances which strongly excite these, it presents them in forms of life and fire to the public gaze with a power and novelty that partake of the character of divination. The school of the poet is the world, his books are men and women; his letters, the feelings, desires, and attachments that are the precious treasures of our souls. Whatever affects the great element of our being, whatever menaces our liberty, our love, our sense of independance or of devotion, calls forth the voice of the poet as the voice of God in the human heart. Hence Burns threw forth songs and sentences as he followed the plough, that no schoolmaster but the Eternal One could have taught him to construct, and which are become watchwords of freedom, guiding lights in dark places, spiriting to greatness and nobility all that come after him. It is not the less true that the poetic faculty can be strengthened and expanded by travels into both books and countries. Neither Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, nor Milton, would have been exactly what they are or became, had they not wandered widely in the earth, and seen much of men and mountains, feeding freely on beauty and sublimity, and laying up store of experiences n their spirits. Men may widen their horizons, and add field to field in the regions of the intellect, but apart from the question of improving and strengthening, it is essential to maintain that poetry lives more or less in every heart, and comes forth in greater or less degree, according to the influencing cause, without regard to rank or exterior distinction. You may call it what you will. People have puzzled themselves immensely to define it-and we have yet no complete definition of it. It defies words. It lives in the essence of things. One man has called it "the flower of the soul." Campbell called it "the eloquence of truth." Wordsworth the vision and the faculty divine." It is that faculty within us which is the spirit of our spirit. It is the electric fire of the heart, pervading it as the electric fluid pervades the earth, and becomes visible only at certain moments, soaring into the heavens, and flashing upon us; a fiery life, a beautiful death, a splendour that lights up the dark bosom of the tempest, a terror that makes the guilty tyrant remember that there is a power beyond his own. Poetry is that part of our nature, which diffused through every other part of it, delights in whatever is great, beautiful, and generous. It was well termed by the ancients the mens divinior-the diviner mind. That perhaps remains to be, after all, its best and only definition. It mingles itself with all our feelings and emotions; it quickens our passions; elevates our sentiments, and becomes of all these not only the life but the language. There is nothing in our life, or in any of its movements, that has not its electric fire running through it. Our rejoicings, our adorations, our woes, our loves, our very crimes and tyrannies, all have their poetry, which retaining its own unchangeable properties, clothes them with their specific characters, giving beauty to the gentle and grandeur to the terrible. It is that which, though so intimately mingled with ourselves, is continually lifting us out of ourselves, and giving us feelings and views as of a heaven from whence it came; revealing its origin by its tendency. Ordinary natures we term prosaic yet, the very commonest and flattest mind at times betrays its presence-ceases to be prosaic, under some peculiar excitement, and we exclaim-" Why you are quite poetical !” Poetry is everywhere. It is the finer spirit which God has breathed over all his creation. Wherever he is, there it is. The angels feel it, and worship. The world rolls on through space with all its lands, its seas, its forests and mountains, its cities and innumerable people, one great mass of poetry before God. The stars have been beautifully termed the poetry of heaven; the flowers the poetry of earth. Where the ocean swells and gleams around the globe, throwing its billows on all shores, from the frozen north to the fair islands of the south, all is full of poetry. The mountain top and all its eternal snows are steeped in it; the deep valley is hushed in its enchantment. The great river rushes along in the might of poetry; the little lowland brook with the flowers dipping into it hears its still small voice. The forest has it in its murmuring boughs, and its silent, shadowy heart. Where the clear blue air sweeps over mountain and moor, and brings to your gladdened heart, the sounds of solitary life, there is poetry. Where summer luxuriates with all her deep grass, her birds, and flowers, and humming bees, there broods the spirit of poetry. And where man dwells, poetry dwells. It dwells with poverty, and calamity, and ruin; these are the materials of great souls for great themes. Where armies strive, and men drop weltering in agonies and death, there is poetry, because man dares destruction, and is sublime even in his sins. Where men strive in solitary places, or in the desperate contests of civilized life, for power, for wealth, for the very lust of conquest, and in the violence of deadly hatred, traverse scenes of misery, and hear around them, the cries there is poetry; for passions and power in their of hungry crowds. Though it be theirs peculiarly "To travel near the tribes greatness have a grandeur however perverted; and out Universal, therefore, as is this divine faculty, it was quite certain that as the multitude began to partake of intellectual life, it would produce its poets, and that these would differ little from the poets of the schools, in the primary elements of their genius; differing amongst themselves only as these differ in the greater or less intensity of their poetic power. "That even these Hearing, they are not downcast or forlorn." A spirit of strong endurance and of undaunted hope animates them. They sing less of the present than of the bright future, and across the sea from France and Germany come kindred strains, like echoes of their noblest hopes. To these foreign Poets of the People we shall give also due attention-they are but few-yet necessary to give a complete coup d'oeil of the class, and of the spirit of the time. We shall commence our series next week with ROBERT NICOLL. WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY? BY W. PICKERSGILL. How many glorious things might have been achieved thusiasm usefully and properly employed-how much good accomplished for ourselves and our fellow-creatures but for one obstacle-one insurmountable barrier one paltry and insignificant consideration-What will people say? Fidgetty, nervous, shy and undecided, Abraham Falter was one of the most generous amiable little fellows in existence. He would not have harmed a fly-trodden upon a worm if he could have helped it. His weakness, indeed, was so great upon this particular point, that he would not keep a cat in his house, lest by any chance it should pounce upon a mouse and destroy it. He could not bear to have anything about him that delighted in taking away life. Many and many a time has he chased little moths round and round his room till he at length chased them out of the window, lest, caught by the glare of the candle, they should rush to their destruction. Pistols, guns, and swords, he hated the sight of. He regarded them, not as protectors of life and property, but as deadly instruments used for the purpose of taking away and destroying life. No country has produced so splendid an array of the Poets of the People as our own. We propose now to give some notices of such as are living, or are but recently deceased; perhaps travelling amongst the latter in one or two instances farther backwards than we propose as a general rule, because we may think that there are facts concerning them which have been too much overlooked, and which it will be well to turn the public eye upon. The class will be found to possess some of-how many noble aspirations realized-how much enthe most illustrious of their whole order-Shakspeare and Burns were of them. But Shakspeare and Burns we need not introduce here. They are too entirely and universally known. We need not concern ourselves about Stephen Duck the thrasher, who, in the days of George II, was deemed such a wonder, that Queen Caroline made a clergyman of him, and converted him into so denaturalized a duck, that stumbling into the water near his house at Byfleet, he got drowned. There had been no Bloomfield then, though there was an Allan Ramsay. Nor need we swell our roll with Hogg, whose name, fame, and history are sufficiently familiar through his long connection with Blackwood's Magazine, and other periodicals. Wonderful shepherd and true poet as Hogg was, he, least of all his class, may be termed a poet of the people. The coterie with which he associated, and the high Toryism of the day, led Hogg to deal more with the imaginative and fanciful, than with the stirring topics of humanity, whilst the latter tendency is a great distinguishing and ennobling feature of almost every son of the multitude. The poets of the people, be it proudly recorded, are and have been, almost to a man, true to their order. Emphatically may it be said of them, that they have "learned in suffering what they teach in song." They have been born in "huts where poor men lie," and they have never been ashamed of their lineage. They have grown up amid true but sorrowing hearts, and their hearts never ceaseless. He was rather plain-looking, about five and to beat with compassionate sympathies. They have felt the iron heel of oppression, and there is a tone in their writings which breathes a bold defiance, and hymns the advent of coming liberty. Their voice is like the voice of the forest which murmurs of the tempest ere it arrives. It is like the sound of the sea whose waves beat perpetually at the feet of the towers of tyranny. They sing of love, and freedom, and of the millennium of knowledge, whose dawn gladdens them, even as they وو Abraham Falter, as before observed, was a little man, much too high to be taken round the country and exhibited as a dwarf, and much too low to be considered a man of middle stature. He was, perhaps, about four feet ten, but we will not pretend to be exact to half an inch, or even an inch. He might be a trifle more or twenty years of age, and particularly backward and unassuming. In fact, his backwardness was the curse of his existence, the barrier that retarded his advancement in the world, the rock (we regret to say it) on which he split. He hated to be quizzed by the world. He dreaded to forfeit people's good opinion. He had, by the way, as much of that as anybody breathing. He did nothing, undertook nothing, till he had put this question to himself-What will people say? 1 ing to her upon the subject. He dressed himself as neatly as he could, and set out for her residence, He got to the door of the house, was just on the point of lifting the knocker, when suddenly, by the aid of an over-excited imagination, he fancied he saw these words rise out of the wood of the door. "What will people say?" He turned upon his heel and hurried off home as fast as he could. On the following day, Miss Mayflower her family were well acquainted, which (not knowing what her cousin's sentiments towards herself were) she accepted. On the death of his father, Abraham Falter succeeded to his business, that of a hosier and haberdasher. The business was not an extensive one, but sufficiently remunerative to enable Abraham to live out of it in a plain and economical way, He had nobody but himself and a middle-aged housekeeper to provide for, his mother having died a few years subsequent to that period, when he first saw the light. He had no brothers nor sisters, bnt fate made him ample compensation; he had a cou-received an eligible offer from a gentleman with whom sin, who was as lovely as she was amiable. Emma Mayflower lived with her parents in the same town as Abraham Falter. They were, indeed, almost the only relations he had, and he was a constant visitor at their A few months after the marriage of his cousin, Abrahouse. Emma was an only child, and her father was ham Falter and his friend Dakins were sitting one evenknown to be exceedingly wealthy. She was younger ing in the house of the former, smoking their cigars and than Abraham by a year or two. They had been play-drinking their grog together. After talking over a vamates, schoolfellows in their early days; indeed, almost riety of subjects, Dakins thus addressed his friend. brought up together. Is it to be wondered at then, that Emma Mayflower should have taken a liking to her cousin? Is it to be wondered at, when her parents and everybody else made such a favourite of him that Abraham liked his cousin, nay, loved her, though he could not make up his mind to tell her so? Although the silly man had nothing to do but stammer out a few unconnected sentences to have at once become her accepted lover, and the son-in-law in perspective of his good uncle and aunt, still he could not muster courage. What it was that had all along prevented him will be seen from the following conversation that occurred one evening in his shop. Why certainly, Dakins, if you mean Emma Mayflower, she is a very nice girl indeed. But as to her becoming my wife, ha, ha, its quite absurd―ridiculous.” "Not at all. I would advise you to lose no time, for with her splendid prospects and other advantages, it is not likely that it will be very long before she receives some offer that she may be tempted to avail herself of." think so?" Do you "Well, Falter, you've missed one excellent chance by your backwardness, I hope that you will not act so foolishly with regard to the one I am now going to tell you of." "Much depends upon its character." "I can speak for its eligibility in every point of view." "What is it?" said Abraham. 'Why it's this. Old Pubbs, who you know as well as I do, has made a handsome fortune, is going to give up his business and retire into private life, in consequence of ill-health and growing infirmities. His shop is to let. Take it, and your fortune is made.” "Consider the rent, my good fellow." "Consider the situation," said Dakins. 'The rent is three times as much as I pay," observed Abraham. "The shop commands ten times the trade that your's does," said Dakins. "That's a "That's very true," replied Abraham. point that should not be overlooked." "I advise you, as a friend not to lose unnecessary time, but take it at once." "I believe I shall," said Abraham, for it really does appear to be a good chance but "Let's have no buts," said Dakins. Why you see, Dakins, you've known me for many years. You know that I have always been a very humble, unassuming individual. You know that my pre"Ha, ha, why you see, Dakins, I believe I should sent shop, though plain in its appearance, is very conhave as good a chance as anybody else, only it does ap- venient, and all that; and that Pubbs's shop is really pear to me so funny that I should offer myself as a can- a splendid, a magnificent place, perhaps too much so for didate for her favours. We are almost like brother and such a fellow as me. If I were going into it, I really sister, and have known each other so long. Besides, I do think it would look rather odd, rather strange, eh? think it would be presuming. She has a fortune-I have It would seem to be going ahead rather too fast-sticknone; she is handsome-I am plain. If I were declar-ing one's self up rather too high, and although I may ing my sentiments to her and aspiring to her hand, I might be considered to be taking an undue advantage of my position, and there is really no knowing what people would say." 66 take the shop (it's not at all unlikely, as I really do think it a good spec), yet if I should, 'pon my soul, I I don't know what people will say.' "The old story over again," said Dakins. "If I were in your place, I would not hesitate a moment." "I'll try and make up my mind in a few days." "In a few days your chance will be gone." "I don't think that," said Abraham. Shortly after the above discussion the two friends "Never mind what people say. Between ourselves, people mind precious little what either you or I say." "Well, I will consider of it." "Do," said Dakins, Give it your mature consideration, but don't brood too long over it." With these words Dakins quitted the shop, and Abra-parted for the night. ham was left alone. Three or four days elapsed, and still Abraham Falter Abraham thought of the subject all that night and all was not decided as to whether he ought to take the the following day, and a thousand times did he deter- shop or not. There were inany temptations on the one mine to go boldly forward and declare his sentiments to hand. The shop was commodious, in a good situation, his cousin, and if need be, throw himself prostrate at commanded a great deal of chance custom; but on the her feet, and a thousand times did he change his inten- other hand, if he ventured to take it, would it not aption, and resolve to do no such thing. For some weeks pear as if he were too aspiring-too ambitious? Would did he remain in this wavering and undecided state of his conduct not be reprehen sible? In short, what would mind, but one evening he "screwed his courage to the people say? On the fifth clay, he resolved to defy the sticking place," and came to the determination of speak-world's opinion, and to take the shop in spite of every |