IT is not one of the least curious incidents of the times in which we live, that two directly opposite movements should have taken place in the countries on either side of the Alps, and that their results should have been so extremely different from what might have been expected. In one,— the chosen land of freedom, as it has been called, the last home and refuge of Liberty, when she had deserted other and more genial climes, the so-called liberals, the democrats, the radicals, have just undertaken a successful crusade against freedom of conscience, and have subdued the aristocratic defenders of religious liberty, even amidst the strongholds of their mountains. In the other,-long the supposed seat of despotism in its purest and most unmitigated form, where liberty and freedom of opinion had not, except during the storm of the French Revolution, ever shown any signs of existence,-a most decisive and energetic movement in favour of political freedom has taken place, and has been originated by the very chief and organ of what the Transmontane people generally consider as the concentrated expression of all that enslaves and subdues the mind. The facts have certainly been unexpected; they have burst upon European statesmen, or at least upon those of the northern and western courts, unawares; and their ultimate consequences appear to be as much beyond their ken as they are beyond their control. The Swiss Federation, notwithstanding the proffered media tion of the great powers, have settled their own matters among themselves; and the Italians seem inclined to laver leur linge sale en famille, as Napoleon used to recommend people to do when the operation was of a more than usually unpleasant nature, without saying "by your leave, or with your leave," to any of the barbarians that dwell on the northern sides of the Alps. Austria and France are equally balked in their views upon Switzerland and Italy; and the only power that seems likely to gain any thing by these events will

be, in spite of herself, "the perfidious Albion." As usual, however, with English diplomatists, but still more as usual with Whig officials, and with the gaping good-natured multitude of the British Islands, those advantages that may accrue to our country will come, not through any astuteness of the government, or its servants, but through the sheer force of events urging themselves on in their inevitable course, and filling up the series of secondary causes and effects that compose the history of the world.

To any one contemplating the enviable position and the natural advantages of Switzerland, and still more to any one looking at the fundamental character of the Swiss people, it would seem one of the most difficult political problems to find any cause for internal quarrel and disunion, much less for civil war. Blessed as they are with a country that necessitates all the skill and industry of man to bring forth its full powers, but which, when man tills its bosom, and pours the sweat of his brow into its lap, yields him the sweet return of abundant competence and varied riches, the Swiss have long been looked up to with justice as one of the most truly prosperous and thriving people of Europe. They have not been tempted to throw aside the agricultural occupations of their country for the dangerous and transitory fluctuations of commerce; they have remained strong in their national and natural simplicity; rich, and more than rich, in the produce of their lands, raised by the labour of their arms; and, amid the many changes of other states, when once the fever of the revolutionary malady had left them, tranquil and contented, and objects of envy to all surrounding people. Thus national ambition was of necessity limited; external aggrandisement and colonial extension they could know nothing about; their territory was safe from foreign aggression, or was supposed so, and their energies could only expend themselves on the affairs of their own

the outcry against the Jesuits, and the former quarrel with Lucerne, in which, however, that city came the best out of the struggle: hence an infinity of petty jealousies and heartburnings, and acts of oppression, on the part of the Radical majority against the Catholic minority, and hence finally the recent resort to arms. The Radical and the stronger cantons have considered it injurious to their own interests, and derogatory to their own dignity, that the freedom of opinion which they claim for themselves should exist in its full integrity among their Catholic and less powerful brethren. They have insisted on the abolition of certain religious orders of men within the limits of their territories; and, because the others have claimed the liberty guaranteed by the Federal compact, they have envenomed the quarrel so far, as to bring it to the decision of might rather than of right. It is in fact, however, a struggle of the democratic against the aristocratic party, of which the Catholic question is only a particular phase; the real bone of contention was, whether the Democrats or Radicals should be endangered in their predominance in the Diet, by the compact votes of the Aristocrats or Catholics. The expulsion of the Jesuits was only a very subordinate part of the question; and, as it now stands decided, the supremacy of the Radical and Democratic faction is firmly established.

It appears to us that, had the cantons of the Sonderbund been governed by clear-headed men, and their armies led by men of talent, not only the political, but also the military, result of the contest would have been essentially different. The cantons cannot have been united by any very strong tie, or they never would have broken off from each other, and made their separate submission, so speedily after the fall of Lucerne. The forces of the Sonderbund cannot have been very confident in their leaders' abilities, or they never would have given up the fight while all the country on the south and east of the Lake of Lucerne remained in their possession. And yet if they were able only to carry on the war for ten days or a fortnight, they were very blameable

for having allowed things to come so rapidly to a crisis. It was a political mistake of no small gravity to form the Sonderbund, and to talk so largely of their separate existence, unless they intended to make a more stout stand in defence of their liberties. Although the Radicals were, like all democrats, the aggressors, still the aristocrats should not have defied them so loudly, unless they had better grounds for showing such confidence. The little boy who squares his fists even at the bigger one that bullies him, deserves a sound thrashing for his impudence, if he is ready to give up at the end of the first round.

We believe the policy of the French government to have been the true one on this occasion; it coincided, indeed, pretty nearly with that of the Austrian cabinet. In fact, any government, that wishes to stand, should be prepared to take the side of the Conservative party, wherever that party, in the true sense of the term "Conservative," exists. It must be prepared, at all times, to support the cause of order and religion against that of anarchy and infidelity; and, though the French cabinet is not overburdened with feelings of honour and delicacy, it has a sufficiently strong instinct of self-preservation, to induce it to side with its friends rather than with its enemies. The policy of the Austrian government could not be for a moment doubtful. Austria has always been the friend of order and of rational liberty; and it was her duty, no less than her interest, to take a decided step in favour of the Forest Cantons. We can conjecture no other reason for these two great powers not having interfered sooner, than that they must have been in uncertainty as to the intentions of the Whig cabinet on our side of the channel, and that they were checked in their action by the certainty that Prussia must take part in the contest, in virtue of the principality of Neufchatel. And yet we doubt not that both France and Austria will be sufferers from the impulse given to Radicalism, by the recent petty triumph of its principles within a day's journey of their respective frontiers. A French regiment in Geneva, and an Austrian one in the Grisons, would

have restored the balance of parties, and would have brought back the Radicals to their proper dimensions. It may now be confidently expected that Switzerland will become a little focus of agitation for the discontented in both countries; and that it will exist as a political nuisance under the nose of each of its powerful neighbours, loudly calling for abatement.

England, which, as represented by the present tenants of Downing Street, is no doubt inclined to intrigue with the Radicals rather than with the Catholic party in Switzerland, may lay her account to profit by the stagnation which this contest will occasion in Swiss manufacturing and commercial operations; and may calculate on enriching some of our great exporting houses at the expense of the manufacturers of Zurich and Basle. That she intended or foresaw this result, we more than doubt; but it will very probably be a consequence of her tardy offer of mediation.

As it is, the dignity of position lies altogether on the side of the Federal Diet: they have employed force successfully. Whatever be the merits of their pretensions, they have imposed their claims on their opponents both promptly and efficaciously; and, more by the faint-heartedness and disunion of their enemies than by their own valour and concert, they have established their sway in undisputed tyranny over the whole Federation. The president of the Diet predicted this result, and his words have come true. As in the case of the United States and Mexico, it is the unrighteous cause that has triumphed; and the glory, if there be any, is all on one side. But the ultimate consequences of this state of things may be expected to bring about the decay of the national character, and therefore to undermine the last remaining foundations of Swiss nationality. Whenever a European war again occurs, Helvetia will fall as an easy spoil to be partitioned by France and Austria; and what is more, she will fall unregretted. Her mountains, her lakes and valleys, her forests and her glaciers, will still remain grand and beautiful, till time itself shall be no more; but the old Switzers will have become degenerate, and will have

forgotten the glories of their former history. Some of them will be affiliated to the restless family of the Gauls, while the remainder will be learning over again the first rudiments of agricultural and rural prosperity, under the sceptre of the Ostrogoths. Swiss freedom and Swiss commerce will have disappeared from the land; and English manufacturers will be rejoicing at the bankruptcy of one class of their competitors in European or American markets.

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In Italy, it is devoutly believed by all English politicians that the genius of catholicism is destructive of the national spirit; and that the long subjugation of that peninsula to the northern conqueror is to be attributed to a prostration of moral vigour arising from the trammels of superstition. And yet, what has happened? new spiritual chief ascends the throne at Rome, by accident rather than by design; he pronounces a few magic words, and in an instant the sacred fire of liberty, and the desire of resisting foreign oppression, pervade the whole land. Nor are the people only affected by this universal enthusiasm: even monarchs are carried away by the stream of popular opinion. King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany come forward as the promoters and defenders of Italian liberty; the King of Naples advances in the same path, though not so rapidly as the revolutionists of his dominions could wish; and all but Lombardy is thrown into the vortex of political reform. To Pius IX., and to the noble conceptions of his prudent mind, the whole of the recent movements in Italy may be fairly attributed. Not but that the public mind was anxious for change: there have long been evils enough rankling in the Italian breast to make change desirable. Yet had it not been for the circumstance of a potentate, the father of his people, and the head of the Roman Catholic religion, coming forward and proclaiming himself favourable to a political change, the whole impulse that now has been given to the various races of Italy would have been altogether wanting.

It would be, perhaps, idle at the present moment to speculate upon the positive direction which this re

suscitation of Italian freedom may take; the events of a few months are not to be trusted, as affording any very certain or fixed indication of how the current of the national fortunes is destined to run. The Italians may, perhaps, arrive at a gradual and moderate degree of freedom, such as may conduce to the improvement and elevation of their national character, and to the raising of Italy in the scale of European powers; or, on the other hand, they may run wild into the theory and practice of revolutionary wickedness, and may become the pest and the abhorrence of all Europe, while they sink down to a lower and still a lower depth in the abyss of political degradation. We hope for the former of these results, but we know that the latter is by no means improbable; and in order to point out where the danger of tending towards it lies, we append the following remarks :

In the first place, it must be sufficiently obvious to any one, ever so little acquainted with the character of the Italian people, that the different nations and tribes of that peninsula are by no means all in the same degree of preparation and advancement for receiving the boon of constitutional government. There is a very wide difference between the inhabitants of Milan and those of Naples, between the denizens of the Bolognese and the shepherds of the Abruzzi, and generally between the dwellers in Italian cities and the agricultural population in the bosom, or on the skirts, of the Apennines. But to apply the same kind of political institutions to all the inhabitants of a district, without regard to their various degrees of moral preparation for it, is to confer on them a punishment rather than a boon, and to do them evil rather than good. We have too melancholy an example of it at our own doors, where the exaggerated philanthropy of Englishmen has given to the Irish the same political privileges as they enjoy themselves, to wish that such a fruitful source of evil should fall to the lot of any other people. And so it would be with nine-tenths of the people of Italy: however advanced may be the notions of the upper classes, however ripe for

political freedom may be the citizens of Florence or Rome, the peasants of Lombardy and Campania would not know how to use the advantages put within their reach, and they would but change the rule of the few for the more terrible despotism of the many.

Before the Italians can, as a nation, be fit for what we call a free government, they must be better educated, and better fitted by their moral and social organisation to understand its nature and advantages. But in order to this, we must first of all see the education of the people taken up as a national object by the national clergy; and we must further see the morals of the people made a point of all-paramount importance by the same body of men, and brought forward into a place of greater prominence than the mere practices of devotion. Can it be any boon to confer the political rights of election and self-government on men who are still plunged in the depths of complete ignorance? Can it be of any use to call upon a nation for the exercise of public virtues, when social and domestic virtues do not exist among them? Before the Italians can be constituted as a nation of freemen, they ust be formed into families of virtu us citizens, in which decency and the natural exercise of the affections may be firmly established. For if there be one political axiom more fully demonstrated by the voice of history than another, it is this, that public freedom can never exist where private vice preponderates over private virtue; and where the sacred ties of domestic virtue do not prevail, it is in vain to look for the bonds of public good. It was the domestic vices of the ancient Romans that first weakened the empire; and until their degenerate descendants shall have awakened from their moral lethargy, that empire, that national power, shall not rise again. It is, therefore,

a

favourable indication for Italy, that the movement should have commenced with the head of the national religion; for it may be hoped that a proper course will be adopted by the ecclesiastical authorities, and that the amelioration of all ranks and orders of men, clerical as well as lay, will precede and accom→