The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-02 00:00:00

the part of Italy now so narly free. There is of
course the diplomatic objection that the King is
not yet out of his dominions, though he has fled
fromhis capital. But the PorE was neither out of his
capital nor his dominions, yet the King marched
into the latter, and would have marched into the
former, but for the French. As, therefore, the
great body of the Neapolitan nation invite him to
come and rule over them, he must disregard, in this
case also, mere technicalities, and deal with Gaeta
as he has just done with Ancona. The annexation
of the Two Sicilies and the Marches
will then be accomplished facts, and none
will venture to disturb them. Russia talks of her
mission on behalf of monarchy ; France, pious
France, of her's on behalf of the Papacy and its
uneasy chair ; Sardinia may with far more evident
truth talk of her's on ehalf of a united, free, and
constitutionally governed Italy. We hope the
KING will be advised, even by CAVOUR, to look on
it in this light.
But what then of Rome and Venetia. If GARI-
BALDI give place to the KING nothing more can be
done for these two enslaved provinces of Italy.
VICTOR EMMANUEL will be obliged to conform to
the law of nations, and let Austria and the French
guards of Rome alone. For the present no doubt
he will; and GARIBALDI must now have learned
that he cannot get to the Quirinal by so sudden a
dash as he had hoped. The thought was a brave one,
but he finds there is work that will occupy him a
long time yet before he can venture a dispute with
the French for the possession of Rome, a folly of
which we never believed him capable. It is a
wonderful work which GARIBALDI has already
achieved, and his best friends here think he cannot
do better than consolidate the possession of what he
has already gained by annexing it to Piedmont.
Rome and Venetia may be safely left for the pre-
sent. The course of events will inevitably unite
them with Italy ; and the best way to insure that
is to make all the rest of Italy a power sufficiently
strong, when the time arrives, to take and to keep
them.
At the same time we must repeat our expression
of regret, we might say our indignation, at the dis-
patch by which Lord J .RUSSELL has compromised, as
far as he can, the English people. Austria, Prussia,
and Russia may combine if they please to stop
Louis NAPOLEON; but, it is ominous of evil that
Lord JOHN RUSSELL should back them, just when
Louis NAPOLEON found his best card to be, en-
couraging the nationalities to ask constitutional
and historic rights from their oppressors. This
is the chief present cause of umbrage; and Lord
JOHN RussELL,virtually, threatens GARIBALDI and
VICTOR EMMANUEL if they endeavour to liberate
Venetia ; and Hungary, if she insists on becoming,
what she has every right to be, a constitutional
kingdom. We ought to have an explanation in
some way from Lord JOHN. What does he mean
by our " interests in the Adriatic," in defence of
which we might find ourselves fighting against
GARIBALDI, VICTOR EMMANUEL, and Louis NA-
POLEON to maintain the slavery of Venetia—for that
is the fair inference from his language as it stands.
The country certainly needs some evidence that
the Court at home with that of Vienna have not
beguiled the late bold Parliamentary advocate of
entire Italian liberty.

The spectacle now presented to the contempla
ion of the world by Italy is nothing less than that

of a political resurrection. It is more than a mere
rejuvenesence. As a nation, Italy had fallen away
into a condition something worse than mere de-
crepitude. It was the recognition of this that made
so many despair of her again emerging to life and
independence. Those who understood her best,
however, were more sanguine ; they knew the
latent vitality dormant under that appearance of
dissolution—and worse even than dissolution—of

actual decomposition. These believers in the Future
of Italy proving not altogether unworthy of her
Past, cherished a conviction to the very last that—
" even in her ashes lived her wonted fires"—count-

_ .
ing implicitly upon the inevitable coming of the
time when the occult sparks smouldering there
would break forth at length into the overt confla-
gration. It was this conviction that sustained the
patriotic ardour of PEPE through unnumbered dis-
appointments. It was this that rendered unconquer-
able, even in the apparent crash of the long and
laboriously built-up machinery of his Venetian Go-
vernment, the heroic soul of MANIN. It was this
that imparted such an irresistible charm and cease-
less animation, even in the midst of all the defeats
and discomfitures befalling the cause he loved
to the glorious and noble daydreams of GIOBERTI.
But in spite of countless evil portents—what the
pen of GIOBERTI described, and the sword-point
of PEPE clearly indicated, and the voice of MANIN
may be said to have in a manner formally and
solemnly prophesied—GlOßEßTl from Central
Italy, from the very shadow of the Vatican ! PEPE
from Southern Italy, from the very Palace of the
Neapolitan King ! MANIN from Northern Italy,
from the midst of the fairy streets of Venice, washed
by the waters of the Adriatic !—all that the believers
in Italy have ever believed, all that the aspirants for
Italy have ever hoped for in her regard, GARIBALDI
has already realised in her behalf, or is in the act
of realising. And the achievement, as we have in-
timated, is nothing less remarkable, is nothing less
marvellous in its way, than if GARIBALDI had blown
for Italy, upon the trumpet of war, the signal for
her political resurrection.
Eighty years ago hopes were entertained here in
England among the more generous and enlightened
of our statesmen that Italy might yet, as a nation,
reconquer her independence. Upon this head
BURKE and Fox thought very differently.
At the present moment it is peculiarly
interesting to remember how differently!
BURKE was wont, then, to insist with an air of en-
thusiasm upon the feasibility of Italy again achiev-
ing her independence—adducing in support of his
argument the instance of various nations that had
fallen temporarily under the heel of a military
conqueror, and that had yet won back for them-
selves a tardy emancipation from foreign thraldom.
In opposition to all which Fox would contend that
with Italy at any rate the ruin wrought by cen-
turies was irretrievable—that the very "tardiness
and tranquillity of her decay" made it hopeless
to dream of her restoration. " The man," said
Fox, " who breaks his bones by being flung from a
precipice, may have them mended by his surgeon,
but what hope is there when they have dissolved
away in the grave ?" The figure of speech was, it
must be admitted, sufficiently ingenious. But—
even accepting it as accurately descriptive—we are
only driven to the more ready acceptance of that
other figure'of speech by which we have designated
the present rising of the Italians as an event not
less startling or less astonishing than the political
resurrection of Italy.
However designated, the rising of Italy
is an incident now, as we all know
with profound emotion, more than half accom-
plished. The national tricolour, the banner
of Sardinia, the symbol of Italian unity and inde-
pendence, floats now from unnumbered "coigns of
'vantage," extending in unbroken sequence from
ane extremity of the Roman Peninsula to the
other, from the Carpathians to Cape Spartivento!