The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-16 00:00:00

titnina
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LOND4 ►N. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 16, 1818

Whenever a nation emerges from a state of politi•
cal bondage to one of comparative independence,
those who sympathise in the movement are acting
only with judicious circumspection if they abstain at
first from regarding the change as altogether effica-
cious and permanent. Especially is this feeling of
doubt essential when the innovations are remarkable
for their suddenness. Thanks be to GOD our obser-
vations have no application whatever to the constitu-
tional Reforms which have been recently effected in
Italy ! The liberation of the inhabitants of that
peninsula has been accomplished with a precision
which augurs admirably for its continuance. Italian
emancipation has been eminently progressive—it
has proceeded slowly (and on that very account se-
curely) along the pathway of legislative im-
provement. This fact has been the more
conspicuous from the circumstance that Italy
is a country portioned out into separate
dominions. It has consequently been by no
means difficult to observe the gradual spread of
liberal ideas from one territory to another, from one
city to another, from one Government to another.
From Rome to Florence, from Florence to Turin,
from Turin to Milan, from Milan southwards again
to Palermo, the march of liberative aspirations has
been perceptible. Pro NON°, by his beniticent policy,
has affected with the generous sentiments of patriotism
the mind of LEOPOLDO SECUNDO, and, through the
example of that enlightened Prince, the Sovereign
PONTIFF has likewise inflamed the heart of CARLO
ALBERTO. Such, moreover, has been the contagion
of these ennobling opinions, that even the Milanese
have responded to the cries of freedom,
and a revolutionary frenzy has been germinated
among the Sicilians by the repressive sys-
tem adopted by the Neapolitan Cabinet. Great
as our admiration unquestionably is for the liberal
Princes of Italy, we should be betraying an extra-
ordinary ignorance were we to deny that their pro-
ceedings in the way of constitutional reform had lat-
terly become inevitable. As Lord PALMERSTON beau-
tifully remarked yesterday evening, " in the political
vicissitudes to which that country (Italy) has been
subject, the natural vigour of the mind of the Italian
people, the extent of their intellectual resources, and
the splendour of their genius, has invariably made
way, and even in the darkest periods of their political
history there have shone forth bright examples of
intellectual ability, which have been not only
the ornament of the country, but the admira-
tion of the world." Witness it, in modern
times, ALFIERI, the bard ; SISMONDI, the historian ;
CANOVA, the sculptor; ROSSINI, the musician; the
Abbate MELT, the daintiest of pastoral poets ; VER..
TURA, the Memnon of orators ; and AIEZZOPIIANTI,
the Mastodon of linguists I It is not, however, so
much to individual instances that the intellectual
ripeness of Italy is attributable, brilliant as those
instances indubitably are. The aptitude which the
Italians have evinced of late for the peaceable appli-
cation to their existing institutions of the representa-
tive forms of government, is immediately owing to that
superiority of mind and that singular largeness of heart
which have been from time immemorial their
principal characteristics as a race. It is the exist-
ence of these exalted qualities which sustained them
for so many years in a state of almost miraculous
quiescence; which enabled them to await in patience
the appearance of that opportunity which they knew
must ultimately arise ; which made them conceal
their yearnings for emancipation under an apparently
ignominious obedience, as the elder BRUTUS disguised
his genius and his patriotism under the aspect of
idiotcy ; and which has, above all, at last inspired
them with that sublime confidence in the age which
reduces them to a loyal tranquillity even in the in-
stant when their imaginations are distraught by the
almost incomprehensible realisation of their dearest
hopes, and their wildest visions. :Marvellous as
have been the anterior vicissitudes of Italy, this final
change in its destinies is not by any means the least
remarkable. It is the appropriate sequence of events
of wonderful and imperishable interest—the worthy
consummation of a history perhaps the most striking
of all in the records of the globe. It is because of
the grey magnificence which still glimmers over the
ruined greatness of the Roman peninsula, it is because
of the undying glory which still invests its many august
and venerable associations, that the recent movements
of the Italians have filled the bosom of every intelli-
gent man with a supreme and unutterable sympathy.
Nor is this sympathy solely traceable to the enthu-
siasm inspired by the past. It arises also from the
benignant and enlarged conceptions of the present, as
well as from the sanguine and supernal anticipations
of the future. In the liberation of Sardinia and
Piedmont, of Tuscany and Lucca, of the Papal States
and the Two Sicilies, it is impossible not to recognize
the dawning splendour of an unparalleled epoch—an
epoch which shall witness the diffusion of freedom
and enlightenment among serfs and barbarians. The
beacon of liberty has been lit upon the pinnacle of
the Quirinal—it can never be extinguished.
From the
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respecting Italy, it is satisfactory to hear from the
lips of her Majesty's principal Secretary for Foreign
Affairs the assurance that the English Government,
without interfering in any way with the internal
administration of the different Italian principalities
has afforded them and will continue to afford theLii;
all that support which is compatible with their perfect
independence of action. Experienced as the Noble
-Viscount is in the estimate which should be formed
of such occurrences us those which have latterly
transpired in the Roman peninsula, it is peculiarly
and te pecially gratifying to bear him observe—(after
remarking that " the progress which national liberty
is now making in Italy is a progress brought about
by the harmonious accord of Sovereigns and of
the people,")—" It is upon that circumstance,
more especially, that I venture to ground
my hopes that the improvements which are
now making will be permanent and stable, because
they aro founded upon mutual concord, and are,