"le fait accompli;" and this none understood better than Cavour. In eighteen months, therefore, from the defeat at Villafranca, Cavour saw himself master of all Italy except Rome and Venice. The world is too ardent a worshipper of success to be very critical about the means employed to obtain it; and this is essentially the case in politics, whose paths are believed to be of necessity tortuous and crooked. Few crimes, besides, are less reprehended than those which assail the unpopular. To him, therefore, who would arraign the honesty or good faith of Cavour in these negotiations, the reply is always ready Are you going to uphold the Bourbons? What can you say for a rule which has been a standing outrage to all Europe, and whose misdeeds have been the subject of universal complaint? In a word, the plaintiff is to be nonsuited on account of his character. Such is the judgment which grave, and even honourable men have come to pronounce on this issue. This would be a very dangerous doctrine at any time, but still more so if the property of the defaulter was to be ceded to the judge who condemned him.

Not, indeed, that Italians themselves have censured Cavour on this head. Intellectual greatness has a dazzling brilliancy about it that blinds the eyes of the impassioned native of the south. The immensity of the prize has, besides, absorbed all consideration as to the mode in which it has been

won.

It was thus, therefore, that a great Italy has been made: By long persistent intrigues; by craft; by daring; by a careful study of the character, the position, and the requirements of the French empire; by a cautious balancing of the rivalries of the two great states of the West; and, last of all, by an audacious contempt for right, so long as that right was associated in the popular mind with acts of cruelty and oppression, and which

would make its downfall a triumph to the cause of liberty in Europe.

No man less great and gifted than Cavour could have done these things. They were beyond the reach of any who could not combine within himself a range of qualities the most opposite and most varied. He was at once patient and impulsive, a quick reasoner, a reflective thinker-cautious to what seemed timidity at times, and then bold with a courage that scorned danger. With a manner and address the most insinuating, he carried insolence, when it suited his purpose, even into the presence of royalty. He was a statesman by predilection, and a soldier by instinct; but, above all, in his persistent scheming, his unwearied resources of craft, of apparent bonhommie and seeming trustfulness, he was the beau ideal of his nation -a perfect Italian !

Having said thus much on how Italy has done what she has, little remains to be added as to why she has not done more. The answer is in one word-she has lost Cavour. He alone could have guided the country safely through the shoals and quicksands that surround it; and, in seeing the doubts, the indecisions, the impulsive efforts at action, followed by intervals of halting uncertainty, which have marked the latter administrations of Italy, one is forcibly reminded of that passage in Mr Kinglake's history, where he speaks of the English generals as only eager to discuss what would the great Duke have done in an emergency like their own-how would he have met such a crisis as that before them?

No other policy than this has presented itself to M. Ricasoli, M. Ratazzi, or his successors. The defiant tone assumed towards France, the impulse imparted to the rifle clubs throughout the kingdom, the Garibaldian menace at Sarnicowhat were they all but imitations of the policy of him who, had he been alive, would never have menaced save when he meant to strike

-if indeed he did not strike before he menaced?

Assuredly, had Cavour lived, the position of Italy had now been different. Discontent would not, as now, lift its voice in the north, nor brigandage ravage the south. It is possible that the French might be still at Rome; but one thing is certain, there would have been no discredit thrown on the rash enthusiasm of the nation there would never have been an Aspromonte! nor would Garibaldi now lie wounded and dishonoured on his lone island at Caprera!

Since the foregoing remarks on the Italy of Cavour were written, a small volume has been published in Florence, entitled 'Il Conte Camillo di Cavour,' whose author, M. Bianchi, is said to have laid "one more garland on the tomb of the great statesman." Indeed his book is assumed to be the final vindication of Cavour's character against the calumnious attacks of the Republican party. One of the chief charges brought against the Cavour cabinet, was the backward and unwilling way in which Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily was seconded; and here, in the present volume, we have a distinguished member of the moderate party, a politician of note and merit, the personal friend of Ricasoli, distinctly and plainly declaring that, so far from acting in opposition to Garibaldi, so far from any discouragement or coldness, M. Cavour only shrouded his acts within the thin cloak of diplomatic treachery, and, while he was treating with Neapolitan envoys, discussing the conditions and terms of a future alliance, his subordinates were all actively employed in fitting out the expedition, and preparing for its embarkation.

This defence of Cavour, however unsuited to English notions of honour and rectitude, will astonish no one who is conversant with Italy.

It never occurred to M. Bianchi to think when he wrote his book, nor, we venture to say, to any of his Italian readers when they read it,

that he was uttering the most fatal condemnation on the character of that statesman whose fair fame he would vindicate. M. Bianchi tells us "it would not do for the Government to have accorded Garibaldi's demand of arms from the royal arsenal; but Farina was despatched by Cavour to Genoa to assist in procuring arms; and an order given to furnish all the guns of the arsenal at Modena was issued and promptly obeyed." These were despatched towards "La Foce" and "Quarto," while the Government officials, to keep up the semblance of good faith assumed by Cavour, were told to watch the coast attentively, and directed in particular to Polcevera and Cornegliano, two places in a directly opposite position to those named!

Finally, we have the very words of a secret telegraphic despatch from the hands of Count Cavour to Admiral Persano, who had been ostentatiously despatched with the fleet, to prevent, as Cavour alleged, all unauthorised landing on the Neapolitan territory. Here it iswe give it, as M. Bianchi does, in capitals:—

"SIGNOR COUNT,-TAKE CARE TO CRUISE BETWEEN THE NEAPOLITAN FLEET AND GARIBALDI. I HOPE YOU COMPREHEND ME.

The reply was worthy of the order, and is really too characteristic to be omitted:

"SIGNOR COUNT,-I believe I underarise, you will send me to Finestrelle." stand you thoroughly. Should the case

Finestrelle is a fortress in the high Alps, used for the punishment of the highest military derelicts. The Admiral's meaning, therefore, was, "If I get the opportunity, I shall do something so compromising, that only my own disgrace will suffice to rescue you from the difficulty." These great men were really worthy of each other!

M. Bianchi is so ardent an enthusiast of Count Cavour's duplicity— so fearful lest a vestige of doubt might rest on the active treachery

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thing without compromising our flag!" and his postscript is, would be a fine thing if Garibaldi should pass over into Calabria !” and adds, "Diplomacy here is somewhat stormy-Russia in particular Prussia less so our own Parliament is very prudent!"

When such a book can be written as the defence of a great statesman, and can be received as a noble and complete vindication of his memory, an Englishman must lay down the volume with some misgivings as to the future of a people so guided and so advocated.

IF, reader, at any previous period of your life, you have had the good fortune to visit the far city of Baghdad, I pray you to look upon the following opening pages of my story much in the light that young ladies are wont to look upon the metaphysical disquisitions of a novelas pages, in fact, containing matter wholly superfluous and void of interest to you, and which you may, therefore, lawfully and advantageously skip. I take it for granted that your stay there, whether short or long, did indelibly impress upon your mind the general appearance of the town, and the manner of life there at least that of the European. No description of mine is likely to freshen those memories of the old, quaint, Oriental city, such as I hold you must keep stored away somewhere, treasures to the mental vision. But, on the other hand, if you have never made that weary desert ride that has Damascus as a starting-point and Baghdad as a goal-if you have never won your way against the current of the Tigris, rolling its fast rushing waters over countless shifting sand-banks-if you have never entered the city by any of its numerous gates-if, in fact, for non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, you have never seen Bagh

dad except in your childhood, peopled with genii and barbers, cal- · iphs and calenders, I beg you will bear with me while I give you, in as few words as possible, the very roughest sketch of the appearance of the town and of our manner of life there, as we remember it during one sunny month of May. For the prettiest first glimpse of Baghdad that you can get, is when you enter the town from the south by the river. The Tigris, doubling and turning like a hunted hare, takes you for the last few miles through a country perfectly flat and level. But, flat and level as the country is, the eye cannot wander far over it. As you approach Baghdad, dense orange groves, long dark sweeping lines of pomegranate and date trees, shut in the view. The whole country seems a rich cultivated garden. You cannot look over it and come to any other conclusion. Cultivated it is, and fertile beyond all telling, but what you see is merely a fringe of verdure to vast tracts of desert sterile wastes. Looking over this garden, you may observe at work, wells, in number more than you can easily count wells whose construction is identical with the early stories of the Bible. Your boat passes in mid-stream little islands covered in

a

such a way that you can make out nothing but a tall tangled mass of reeds and grass. Should the current swing your boat near to any one of these islands, you may hear a sudden rush and an angry grunt that will probably startle you. The reeds' canes rattle again, and the agitated slender points mark the course of a wild boar roused from his quiet island lair. The last bend of the river arrived at, you gaze at once upon the very heart of the old city, as it lies divided before you by the waters of the noble stream; and at once you are aware that fallen away indeed is Baghdad from her ancient splendour. A bridge of boats spans the current. You can distinguish, swarming across, motley crowd of horsemen and footmen, and beasts of burden laden high with fruit and vegetables of all kinds. If you watch attentively you will see, between you and the clear sunlit sky, the dark form of some Arab Sheik or Bedouin of the desert emerge for a few moments distinct from the crowd, and as the eye is tracing the picturesque outline, crossed at an angle by the long tufted lance, the whole disappears behind a camel, moving slowly along under bales of goods piled high aloft. The waters are at their full height, and bathe in places the walls of the houses, some two or three feet above the usual level. To the right and to the left are the light-coloured sides of the houses, built, many of them, with bricks brought from the ruined Babylon. These walls, for the most part crumbling to pieces with age and neglect, present but a fragile barrier to the turbid current rushing so angrily by them. Tall windowframes of intricate wood-work, into which tiny fragments of painted glass are fastened, pierce the sides of the houses. As you glide under them a casement is run up, and a light floating cloud of white muslin gauze betokens the presence of some carefully barred-in, secluded inmate of a harem. Whether the "sweet soul that breathes beneath" the cloud is passing fair or the contrary,

young or aged, it is impossible for mortal eye to distinguish. But, of course, your innate gallantry inclines you to invest the mysterious apparition with all the bloom and with all the charms of youth and extreme beauty. On the flat terraced roofs a few figures veiled from head to foot, shapeless forms of blue drapery, are moving about, engaged apparently in various domestic occupations. You silently wonder how woman so disguised can make use of either hand or foot

at least to any purpose. In a shady verandah overhanging the waters is a fat Turk, resting his august person on piles of silk cushions, and motionless as a statue. A crowd of white-robed menials stand near; and the only thing moving about the group is a wreath of blue smoke, curling upward from the fragrant latakia, kindling in a pipe-bowl. The domes of mosques and graceful tapering minaretssome ruined, some brilliant with gold-leaf and porcelain-rise from the sea of flat-roofed houses around. Away to the left, appearing from behind the mud-bank of a canal, is a curious-shaped building, small, but in shape something between a pyramid and aspire. It is too far to make anything of it, and as you are giving it up in despair, you are told it is the tomb of Zobeide, the wife of the great Caliph Haroon al Rashid. Whilst your mind is still glowing with the recollections of the various adventures of the fair lady-of the diamond, boldly described big as an ostrich egg, which she found in the desolate city-of her two naughty sisters-of her wonderful escape from their treachery—of her daily beatings of them, when transformed into black dogs-and of her final happy union with the Commander of the Faithful,-you are off the steps of the British Residency. The house, built on the left bank of the stream, looks wonderfully substantial and solid, contrasting with the fragile-looking buildings and crumbling walls in the neighbourhood.

Life at Baghdad during the

summer months, if you are not living under canvass in some shady pleasant garden of the suburbs, leaves its impression on the mind as a game of hide-and-seek with the sun kept up the live-long day, and in which you find you have considerably the worst of it. In the morning, if you go for a ride, and leave the town by one of the eastern gates, you see before you a desert reaching away to a distant horizon line, like a watery waste, from the very spot whereon you are standing immediately beneath the city walls. Your good horse breathes gladly at the fresh free air of the desert, and at that moment not the wealth of a kingdom, not even the behest of your own lady-love, would prevent you from doing what you have in your mind to do. Your hand, by some almost imperceptible movement, causes a slackening of the rein; your knee gently presses the flank that is throbbing beneath you. For the sight of the far-stretching plain has not been lost upon your horse. His heart is thumping against the saddle flap with the bounding beat of a steam-driven piston. In that moment, as if some electric spark had kindled your natures simultaneously, he starts with a bound like a deer; in another you are flying along, urging the high-couraged animal beneath you to the top of his speed, and nothing before you but the wide wide desert, glistening in the morning sun, whose beams meet you pleasantly enough as you rush through the keen cold air of early day. But by the time your gallop is over, and you are home, and long before you have finished your bathing and dressing, the sun's rays, so pleasant in the early morning, are now pouring into the house, and heating it as furnace flames heat an oven. You fly with cracking skin and throbbing temples and hide yourself in the bowels of the earth. Below every house are subterranean chambers, furnished as the rooms above-another house, in fact—a range of fur

VOL. XCIII.-NO. DLXXII.

nished cellars, called a "sirdaub.” Here you breakfast: the morning's gallop, now a thing of the past, has bequeathed to you an appetite before which little hills of young green cucumbers, and of piloff (whose rice is largely mottled with boiled raisins and cinnamon), disappear like misty valley clouds before a midday sun. During the day, if you are a sensible man, you keep quiet, sheltered in these subterranean chambers from the fierce glow of noon by kindly mother earth. If you are otherwise, you roam about seeking a cooler place, but finding none. You are lured perhaps to the banks of the stream, where a reed-built room—the technical name of which I never could pronounce, so will not hazard reputation by writingsprinkled constantly with water, holds out a tempting refuge. There is something pleasant in the sound of the rushing stream close beside you, and in the noise of the constant splashing of water on the reeds-the walls, as it were, of the room; but the thermometer stands considerably higher than in the house, and flies, as of those of the plague of Egypt, beset you, and give you not a moment's peace of body or mind. During these midday hours, should you be unfortunately abroad, wandering with restless spirit, you will find no sympathising Turk about. In the doorways and in the passages you will stumble across the prostrate bodies of cavasses and turbaned menials by the score; but they give no signs of life, and for all the assistance they are likely to give you in your distress, you might as well be among the petrified worshippers of the great Nardoun.

But there is an occasion on which all these apparently lifeless forms start into sudden action. We remember sometimes as the noontide hours were dragging their slow length along, a clattering of horses' hoofs would be heard in the yard. In a few minutes, cavasses and servants, bathmen and Turkish guards, would be hurrying-as much as a Turk

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