From The Leisure Hour. ITALY. PART I. to live is a matter that is scarcely realiz able to the English mind. The Italian in those days, and even to-day, thinks himself rich upon what for us would be a bare subsistence, and so engrained in them is the desire to be a "gentleman," that is to say, to do no work, that they will submit to privations of which British Hodge stand about all day on the piazza or in the café, gossiping and sunning themselves, with the happy consciousness that they have no duties either political or social. In this noncuranza (indifference) lies one of the gravest perils for Italy's future, as it is also the cause, direct and indirect, of the present financial and economic difficulties in which the country finds itself. THERE is, perhaps, no modern European country whose condition is more interesting at the present moment than that of Italy; and for the reason that would not dream, in order to be able to Italy, in the modern acceptation of the word, may be said to be a new country, and is therefore able to manage its internal affairs unhampered by those traditions and modes of government which fatally stand in the way of rapid progress in older lands. Then, too, there is a great analogy between the Italian character and our English. Italy, perhaps more than any other Continental country, is the land in which individuals have great influence, and where the government is truly constitutional and liberal, according to our Anglo-Saxon way of understanding those terms. Among these gentlemen, or, to speak more correctly, men at large, there were very few who studied, and since the edu cation of the youth of the richer classes was confined to the clergy, such instruction as they received had for its basis Greek and Latin classicism. Very few were those who occupied themselves with things which may truly be called modern, fewer still those who followed attentively the progress of European knowledge. To comprehend with necessary precision the mechanism of Italian politics, and the men who have hitherto directed its movements, as well as those who aspire to lead them in the future, it is needful to cast a glance to the past, and to sum up A social step below this petty nobility in a few words the character of a people was the bourgeoisie, to whom the numercome forth from a revolution, which, al-ous Italian universities offered easy facilithough it was by no means bloody as compared with those of other lands, nevertheless has had results of almost equal importance, at least in respect to the political mutations produced in consequence in the European concert. ties to study the juridical and medical sciences. But even here the foundation of the instruction was based upon classicism. Finally, to make up the twenty millions of Italians of those times, there remained the population of the cities and of the country. These men had nothing plebeian either in their aspirations or in their features; which latter, indeed, retained a truly noble cast, proving that their ancestors were of good stock - and this was especially the case in central Italy, and is so to this day, the peasant having often a more gentlemanly bearing and more refinement in feeling and manners than his social superior. The Italian revolution found in 1848 a people which already enjoyed the beneFeudalism no longer existed, and if the fits of the French revolution of 1789. aristocracy still maintained territorial importance, they had no political influence whatever. The rich gentlemen of Lombardy, the poor Piedmontese counts, the innumerable titled men of Tuscany, of the states of the Church, of the kingdom of the two Sicilies, as well as of the small states of Emilia, lived without working This class was the backbone of the nafrom the profits which came to them from tion, and from it, assisted by the Piedtheir lands, caring little about to-morrow, montese nobility, was to spring the ultiand taking but the faintest interest in poli-mate regeneration of the nation. It was tics. Upon how little these men managed from the petty bourgeoisie and from the people that the town and country clergy ing at internal politics, and while the were recruited. They had but a very requirements of the administration were superficial education, their morals were limited to making honorable debts to aid often more than doubtful, and they had in the regeneration of the neglected nalittle zeal either in the cause of religion or tion, debts which the country would be the cause of the Church. They feared called upon to pay at a later date, the rulthe petty princes who ruled over the vari-ing classes in Italy had a relatively easy ous States, men who were religious to all outward appearance, but sought above all other things that the clergy should have no political importance, while they made use of them only too frequently as spies and as police officers. These, of course, were not the men who educated the upper classes; the tutors for the wealthier portion of the population were chosen from among the Jesuits and the Scolopi, the latter being considered in the light of Liberals. task. Indeed, in the period which lies between 1859 and 1876 Italy went on light-heartedly accumulating debt upon debt, without thought of the day of reckoning for this indifference with regard to the to-morrow. The cause may be sought first in the Italian character, which is strangely and happily light-hearted, and which at all times takes little care for the morrow, and has almost a superstitious fear with regard to looking forward; but secondly and very largely, in the classical education which the ruling classes had received, and which made them think that the Italy of their time was still the Italy of ancient Rome. They had been accustomed from their babyhood to believe that Italy was a rich country, of inexhaustible resources; and remembering perhaps a little too vividly the glories of imperial Rome and of the Renaissance, they deemed that the Italy of to-day must aim at taking the same stand in Europe, that its ambition should be to hold a leading economic and political place. Whoever in those days would dare to have printed or to have said in Parliament that Italy was, geographically speaking, a poor country, which does not produce enough grain for its inhabitants, which does not know how to make use of what might be its greatest riches, its grapes, because to make its wine it still employs the methods customary in the days of Virgil; that further, its soil produces neither iron nor coal, and therefore that it could never be an industrial country, whoever, we say, would dare to have thought or spoken these things would at best have been regarded as a visionary, and most certainly would have been stigmatized as anti-patriotic and a calumniator of his land. And yet more abuse would have fallen on the head of whatever man had dared to preach that the mission of freed Italy was to occupy herself in setting her house in While it was a question of merely work-order-the house which foreign princes The ten years that intervened between the defeat of 1849 and the political revival of 1859 had brought to the front the educated bourgeoisie of Piedmont and the enlightened Piedmontese spirits who had noble blood in their veins. It was these men who took in hand the direction of the Unitarian movement in order to obtain the long desired independence of Italy – the liberation from the strangers' odious yoke. Among this nucleus of noble patriots it is curious to remark that the majority were lawyers and indeed, to this day the lawyers have a preponderance in the Italian ministry and Parliament, which accounts for the fact that the management of affairs is often a little too doctrinaire and lacks the practical character which would help to make things move with more ultimate advantage to the nation. Cavour, Sella, Minghetti, and Peruzzi were students of social economy, it is true, but there worked beside them a whole crowd of jurists and, curiously enough, of doctors. In military matters the men who were distinguished were Lamarmora, Cialdini, and Menabrea the two latter still alive. Such the germ from which was to spring that most noble revolution which freed Italy from Alps to sea, and which produced finer and more heroic characters than our century has ever been able to show. and clerical rulers had left in a disgrace- | aloof from politics, a matter which is to fully backward condition, so that it would be regretted, for though their vote might need the labor of years to bring the coun- often lean to the side of reaction and antitry up to the standard of its European quated views, they would prove on the neighbors. Then arose further a desire other hand a useful stay to the moderate for colonial enterprise- that will-o'-the- | Liberal party, and would help to hold in wisp which seems to dance before the check the hot-headed Republicans. But eyes of all European States in these days, the Catholics, though rather from political and which leads those who, like Italy, can- indifference than from religious feelings, not afford such luxuries into grave eco- make a point of obeying the pontifical prenomic embarrassments. The cause of cept-"neither electors nor elected even this desire must be sought in the classical education, with its traditions of ancient Latin grandeur. - the pope not choosing to recognize that institution called the Italian Parliament. As for the democratical republicans of Italy they live in a fool's paradise, and still fancy themselves in the heroic period when it was needful to fight Italy's battles under the standard of the condottiere Garibaldi, or to listen to the high-minded but visionary preachings of Mazzini. They have not realized, or will not realize, that a changed state of things requires changed conditions and changed views a matter in which their hot-headed chief When the Italian Parliament was first formed, two political parties governed the State the Right and the Left each contending for power. But these contending parties had in common the same system of government. The Right was by no means a Conservative party, for it was the Right which had led the van for the destruction of the anterior political order; it was that party which, with the aid first | Garibaldi proved himself a wiser mar of France and then of Germany, had brought about the political unity; which, too, had contracted the heavy debts; and which, moreover, fiercely combated the Temporal power of the Church, and in hope of destroying it fatally offended the Spiritual power, by permitting not irreligion but absolute religious tolerance in the schools. than they when he resigned his sword tc Victor Emmanuel, and recognized that Italy was not yet ripe for the ideal republic, which probably will never be outside the pages of Plato and Sir Thomas More. The chiefs of the democratic party still keep all the ardor, all the convictions, all the fidelity to the principles and doctrines of 1848, all the love that those The Left, which called itself the party of men showed for high-sounding phrases Progress, differed little from the Right. phrases calculated to inspire a people that They, too, had always asked in Parliament must rise and throw off its yoke, but not for an increase of expenses for the work- useful to-day when the work is done and ing of the country, but on the other hand the country has entered into the fruits they also voted against new taxes. In obtained for it by its heroes, and when its this way they managed to benefit by these foremost duty is to utilize those fruits taxes and yet to avoid in the face of the quietly and sagaciously to the best advancountry the odium of having voted in their tage. favor. This extraordinary policy on the part of what nowadays have come to be called the Radicals, distinguishes them to this hour, and is the reason why no thinker can possibly take this party seriously, or, if he does, can but see in them one of the perils of contemporary Italy. For these men, when they are not visionwhich is their only excuse, are antiary, patriotic and dangerous to the country. The Catholic party have always kept Now it is a curious fact that, in a Latin country, whatever political party has been in power for some twenty years invariably falls in consequence of its exercising a sort of legal tyranny. It becomes audacious, almost insolent, and believes that everything is permitted to it. It was this which happened to the party of the Right, which in consequence was obliged to resign its power into the hands of the Left in 1876, this party having till then consti tuted the parliamentary opposition. It was a change of men, but not a mutation of ruling principles. The new chiefs had been educated in the same school as the old, they had the same tendencies, as they quickly showed, and, excepting the abolition of one of the taxes-that upon the macinato (grist-tax) they changed nothing in the financial working of the State. Even if they would have done so they could not, because they were subjected to the same wave of political necessities. They, too, were old classical scholars, and dreamed of a rapid primacy for their country. In the same manner, moreover, in which the Right had moulded its politics upon the Cabinet of Napoleon III., the Left took its inspiration from that of Berlin. While during the period anterior to the occupation of Rome the great and glorious events which had freed Italy cast a veil of patriotism over the eyes of every citizen, so that the smile of today did not make them think about the tears of to-morrow, Depretis, during his decade of parliamentary authority, had before him a labor much more arduous than that of his predecessors, who gov. erned a people less under the influence of illusions. Sagacious as he was, he thoroughly comprehended that the Italian people had shown the measure of the weights which they were able to support, but he, too, was pushed on beyond where he desired to go by his classical reminiscences, by his colleagues, by his allies in the Chamber, to do something great and imposing, which would make Italy shine in the eyes of Europe. Now this something great and imposing could not be done except in the domain of foreign policy. Depretis was wont to say, good-humoredly and in perfect good faith, that in foreign policy the less one does the better it is; but on the other hand, the tenacity of this old man in holding to power pushed him against his better judgment into initiating a foreign policy which would please the country and which he was willing to undertake rather than that the guidance of the country's affairs should slip from his hands. For it is a fact too frequently evident that, however patriotic a states. man, personal ambition in the end forms the keystone of his actions and aims. The long habit of obedience to Depretis which Parliament had learned, the faith which he cherished in his own abilities, the passion for commanding, the real affection which he had for the reigning family and above all for King Humbert, whom at the outset of his regal career he held it his duty to assist and protect as a tutor protects a pupil, all these things contributed to keep the statesman of Stradella at the head of the government at whatever cost. And there was thus created in Italy a new form of political magistracy which may be defined as a parliamentary dictatorship. From this, however, it is not to be supposed that the Italian Parliament had become corrupted to a servile and blind obedience to its chief; but it had got into an easy-going way, a way so soon slipt into by Italians, of thinking that it was on the whole best to follow their leader; and thus were sacrificed some of the noblest qualities which a Parliament should have, namely, the qualities of criticism and a just and proper opposition. Taken collectively, too, an Italian Parliament has never shone in the way of producing individual characters, or leaders such as spring up every day in England - a fact largely due to the circumstance that self-government and parliamentary life are new features among a people who for centuries have groaned under foreign and native despotism; for even their vaunted republics of the Middle Ages were but despotisms under a liberal name. But while doing all justice to Depretis it cannot be denied that he was certainly an Italian statesman whose sceptical indif ference to the opinions of his colleagues depressed their political character and independence, and it was thus that he not only created the tendency towards making the chief of the Cabinet a political dictator, but was able in a measure to transmit these traditions to his successor. He had the good qualities and the defects which were the consequence of his early education, and when he died he left behind him a memory neither mourned nor venerated, although it merited more respect and regret than it was to receive. He had been in power too long the country was tired of him, yet it was evident that the only the measure of what he was worth; and had it not been for the fact of his domestic scandals (he had, at the time, one legal and In the parliamentary crisis which hurled one illegal spouse, and lived openly with the Right from power Agostino Depretis his illegal partner), he would not have took under his leadership a number of been ousted from the government, and the chiefs of the Left. It was but right would earlier perchance have occupied the and just that these chiefs should rise to proud position he now holds. Returned to power together with him. Different in the opposition benches he often confuted character, in origin, in political and mili- and bothered old Depretis, until the latter, tary value, these comrades whom he had shortly before his death, led him to join chosen were rather allies of the moment his party, regarded him as an ally, a pillar, than obedient followers. They came to and almost designated him his ministe be known as the Pentarchy, and ultimately rial successor. Yet Crispi is the very anwere the chiefs of five groups hostile to tithesis of Depretis. The latter never the president of the Council. This Pen- lost control of his temper, Crispi loses it tarchy consisted of Crispi, Cairoli, Nico- continually. Unlike his predecessor, too, tera, Zanardelli, and Baccarini; while Crispi is the antithesis of the Italian among other important men whom he took political temperament, a temperament over with him were Taiani, Mancini, formed of calculation, flexibility, and amSeismit-Doda, and Brin. These were biguity. The former always sought to men who, during the decade of Depretis's efface himself, preferring reality to apdictatorship, were alternately his col-pearances, whereas Crispi is fond of pomp leagues and his opponents, many of whom survived him, and one of whom has stepped into his shoes. FRANCESCO CRISPI. and effect. Blunt and rough to a degree unusual in an Italian, he likes to make brusque sallies and striking coups. He is gifted with a strong will, audacity, and what is sometimes a strength in politics, unlimited self-confidence. FRANCESCO CRISPI, a Sicilian, a former conspirator and ardent republican, in the In his temperament certainly Crispi course of years and also in consequence of does not belie the old rhetorical figure that political common sense which calls which attributes to the sons of Etna the itself opportunism, and which Gambetta volcanic nature of their native soil. Abby no means invented, had been an earnest solute, irascible, intolerant of opposition, follower of Mazzini. He abandoned him, even advanced age has not yet softened however, in time-that is to say, when he the fire of his character. To prove the became aware of the complete inutility of truth of this it is only needful to see him the efforts put forward for national inde- in the camera, where the spectators from pendence which had for their basis dark the Tribunes, in the color more or less and illegal conspiracies. Led by the na-intense of the premier's bald head, have a ture of his fiery character he soon entered sure thermometer for estimating his meninto relationship with Garibaldi, and took tal state of excitement. As soon as he a leading part in the condottiere's liberation work in Sicily and on the Continent during the year 1860, as well as during the troubled time of Aspromonte and Mentana. In the great expedition of the Thousand of Melazzo, Crispi was the inspiring and dominating spirit. For a while after this event he had to live in hiding, and was sheltered under the roof of the patriotic baker, Giuseppe Dolfi, of Florence. When the fight was won and the Italian capital was moved to the Tuscan town, Crispi came too. An active, impetuous nature, violent even at times in his energy, he knew how to offer excellent guarantees as a man of order at the time of the death of Victor Emmanuel and of Pope Pio IX. In both these circumstances, in his position as minister of the interior he showed encounters an adversary he shoots forth arrows of speech that always hit their mark. These outbursts of intolerance, these nervous bounds from out his seat, these fisticuffs on the arm of his chair, with which he accompanies his speeches, have become proverbial in the Italian Parliament, and render him an orator who is far from sympathetic to his audience. In moments of political difficulty Depretis entered Parliament with an ingenuous, unconscious face. His spent, weary eye, his tangled grey beard, his gouty feet, his general look of age, caused his adversaries to anticipate an easy defeat of their old enemy, who quietly allowed them to discharge all the ammunition they had stored up against him. But when they had done, when the opportune moment came, he, who so admirably knew his par |