The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

MAY 29, 185 R

Her end is thus narrated by Mr. Fowler :

ltut, ami Ist all her pomp arid glory, conscience could
not he silenced, giving proof that something "lodged
within her bosom to prick Anil sting her." She provided
tor her personal safety, by instituting 'Palace Chamber
Guards,' quite a new institution in Husain, consisting of
sixty men, carefully chosen from smallest old officers,
under the command of a chamberlain that could be well
relied upon. They were always near the imperial apart-
ments.

In the night the Empress would often leave her bed,
and sometimes her room—a striking proof that " uneasy
lies the head that wears a crown." Towards her latter
days, she showed the most pusillanimous fears at the
merest trifling events ; and superstition seems to have
seized her once great mind, which bed shown so much
courage in her varied career. On the faith of a pre.
diction that some great personage was to die in 1796, she
took it to herself, and %RP much affected by it. The phe.
nomenon hich appeared in the heavens, one day that she
wa assisting at a fete of one of her nobles, insuired her
with suet) terror that she could not conceal it, and for
several days after she dwelt on tl:e subject.
The second volume closes with the murder of the
Emperor Paul, which is narrated at great length,
as it deserves to be (for it was an extraordinary
conspiracy), but we have read better narratives
of that terrible episode.
Thiers, for example, in his history of "The
Consulate and Empire," gives an account of that
conspiracy in a style not unworthy of a modern
Sallust, and he makes valuable reflections.
" Let us, after all," says the clever Frenchman,
"be just to the value of institutions. In the
" East of Europe a mighty territory and a great
" people suffered from the despotism of a sove-
reign with alienated reason; while in the West,
"England was conquering the Indies, enlarging
"her colonies, and extending her commerce,
"under George 111., though in aberration. The
"prosperity of England went on, but the action
"of the public will was secured by its institutions.
"Crimes, therefore, like the murder of Paul,
"may partly be attributed to the temptations
"suggested by defective institutions." We give
the substance and gist of the passage front
memory ; and though Thiers often warps facts
in his narratives, his reflections are often pro-
foundly significant. In the particulars, also, of the
plot against Paul, we notice some discrepancies be-
tween the account by Mr. Fowler and the narra-
tive by Thiers. In the first volume the anecdotes
about Peter the Great are interesting and
authentic, but rather trite, and we shall not
therefore quote from them. Many readers will
think that the details about the various lovers of
Catherine 11. are the most curious parts of this
publication, but tastes will differ on these points.
On the whole, the literary pretensions of
this work are not high, but it contains a miss
of matter, and we shall reserve a final opuuou
until the third volume.

Country Life in Piedmmit. By Antonio Gal-
lenga. London : Chapman and Hall.
This volume records the impressions derived by
its author from a short pedestrian tour in the
latter part of autumn through some of the
alleys of Piedmont, and from a residence (Airing
the winter months at Castellarnonte, a small
country town twenty-two miles north of Turin.
Exclusive of politics, it is tolerably complete in its
selection of topics; and the readers of The
Subalpine Kingdom" will Lind that Signor Cal-
lengs las taken up almost all the subjects which
Mr.Bayle St. John has omitted to discuss. The

agriculture, manufactures, climate, society, and
characteristics of. the inhabitants are
successively passed in
interesting
the one work
forms a valuable and interesting supplement to
the other. Those who have been led by
recent political events to place Sardinia
far above the rest of Italy, and to ex-
pect that her political freedom has already
eliminated the characteristics to which the de-
gradation of other Italian countries is usually
ascribed, will be somewhat disappointed by the
very unfavourable picture which Signor Gallenga
lays before them. Of the three classes into
which the inhabitants may be divided--moun-
taineers, lowlanders, and dwellers in towns—the
first appear to be most flourishing. They are
industrious, even to the waste of labour on hope-
lessly sterile spots, but having, perhaps, some
infusion of Teutonic blood, show great aptitude
for business, and often emigrate and make large
fortunes in foreign countries. These they
always return home to enjoy, and though they
may be counts or barons abroad, become in their
native valleys on a democratic equality with the
humblest cottager. The lowlanders seem to
comprise only the poorest labourers, for none
who can avoid it will live away from a town.
These cultivators of the soil are generallymetayers,
and share its produce with their landlord at a
rate proportioned to its fertility—sometimes re-
ceiving half, sometimes only one-third. Mr.
Mill, in his " Political Economy," has said much
in defence of the metayer system in opposition
to Adam Smith, and supports his views by re-
ference, among other countries, to Piedmont.
Perhaps neither his authorities nor Signor
Gallenga are competent to speak universally
on the point, but the evidence of the latter, as
fir as it goes, is most unfivourable to the system.
"It would be an excellent plan," he says, were
men all that they should be," but, from the
absenteeism of owners, the ignorance of the
labourers, and the want of connection and sym-
pathy between the two, the result is exaction on
one side and constant cheating on the other ; so
that the word mezzadro has been altered by a
pun to "mezzo-ladro," to express the dishonest
propensities it usually implies. Farming im-
plements are bought m the towns, either by a
proprietor ignorant of farming, or by a rustic
ignorant of the value of money—if by the latter,
probably with money borrowed from the land-
lord, to whom he gradually becomes almost as
completely a slave as a debtor, in the early
ages of the Roman Republic, was to his
creditor. He lives chiefly on polenta, and
probably does not taste meat above once
a fortnight. In the severe winters he steals
all the fuel he can lay his hands on from
the hedges of his neighbours, and possibly even the
vine-stakes, and when these are consumed, must
betake himself for warmth to the stable, where
he and his family frequently spend all the time
which is not actually employed out of doors.
The facilities for such robberies are greatly in-
creased by the subdivision of land, giving a right
of way through the plot of a neighbour, gnei—
ss Catullus and Landor tell us—" the blackest of
grapes, with a footpath hard by," are hardly
likely to escape during the transit. The popula-
tion, however, is scanty, for all who can do so
crowd into the towns, partly for convenience of
miPPlies, partly as a habit originating in anxiety
for protection from banditti. The Italians have
no real love for the country. What Horace says
to his bailiff,

—fornis tibi et uncta popina
Incutiunt urbis desiderintn,
seems to apply to them still :
Leery man owns a vineyard, and every vineyard has a
hut; but that hut is no man's abode, or only the luckless
111144, who ditrs and prunes it : for the rest, no men
deems it a pleasure to live in the country, unless there be
herreta or vintage to be gathered iii. I remember a lady
sith luxuriously fair, rich complexion, melting blue eyes,
and a greet display of tender sentiment, whom I had one
.14) tossed into a walk even beyond the Piece d'Arrnes,
the world's end for the little world of Turin. It was in the
Witching month of Mar, and I asked her if she would not
at that season rather be in the country. " In the country! "
ejaculated the fair one, with a half-astonished, half-
Ivrritied look. " Whitt on earth should one go to the
country for now ? surely there is no fruit to est.' In
their ding, provincial towns they huddle together, land-
owners, farmers, and most of the labourers; and every
town gives itself the airs, and revels in the light gossip of
the capita ; every town has a café, or a score of cafes, to
Mlle away time in, all with their tawdry, smoky, gilt and
inimred rooms. Even Castellamonte, with i:s four
tti
nsand souls, if so many, rejoices in its six miles and a
1.84111,-"411 Nails wily a bat ear,