Nor is it the least of the advantages which would flow from such a connecting institute, that it would have a tendency to cause improvement to proceed from the top to the bottom of society, instead of being forced, as it too often is, from the bottom to the top. It would thus pronounce a divorce between reform and revolution. The lover of change would be anticipated in his mischievous activity by the wise benevolence of the lover of order; and, in all the various modifications and alterations which might be suggested for bettering the condition of the body politic, it is but reasonable to presume, that when originated by the combined intelligence of

the civilized world, "wisdom would pass from one end unto the other, and sweetly order all things."

And all this might be accomplished with scarcely any expense. The machinery is simple, and at hand; and scarcely any thing but the will is wanting, to combine the intelligence of Europe in one mighty confederacy for the prosecution of the highest and the noblest objects. Let us hope that some such project will yet be realized, and that the best interests of humanity will not much longer be suffered to be a prey either to the turbulence of a drunken democracy, or the recklessness of a profligate ambition.

principles or destroys them; and even more, it determines, in a great degree, what individuals shall exercise the functions of authorship, and what be restrained from doing so. Those who, under the ancient order of things, would have written from spontaneous impulses, and at the call of direct motives, and who would have occupied the arena almost alone, stand now in a position essentially unlike that of their more fortunate predecessors. For not only have they to sustain a dubious comparison with competitors, more likely than themselves to win immediate applause, but the utmost degree of success which they are likely to obtain, consisting in the admiration of a small class in their own and other countries, now appears so mean a thing by the side of vulgar celebrity, that it takes to itself the shame of positive failure. "The peril of this sort of disgrace outweighs (it is probable) in some highly gifted minds, the ambition of distinction, and retains them in obscurity.

"While we are rejoicing in the numerous band of accomplished men who so ably occupy the press, we should pause and ask, whether some of its legitimate masters are not holding back, and refusing to exercise their functions. It may, moreover, fairly be questioned whether the natural order of the intellectual polity is not subverted, when the contact of writers, in the highest departments, with the imperfectly educated classes, is immediate. Heretofore the rule has been, that the slowly matured products of great and tranquil spirits, after passing through minds of the next rate, should be disseminated over the wider surface of society by their means.

"Now it is certain, that what is written and intended for the class of instructors, must be very unlike that which is prepared directly for the instructed. It is, indeed, always well that writers, whatever class of readers they are addressing, should labour to attain perspicuity, simplicity, and vivacity; but can it be well when they feel themselves compelled (as in terror) to avoid whatever supposes in the reader high culture and intelligence?"

I FIORELLI ITALIANI. NO. X.

"ROMA MODERNA."

DI FULVIO TESTI.

THE degrading contrast which "modern Rome"-beautiful and gorgeous though she still be in her decay-presents to Rome of ancient story, when in her strength and splendour and unimpaired maturity, is a painful yet perversely favorite topic with all the modern poets of Italy. A reflection still more painful is unavoidably suggested by the contemplation of that contrast-the reflec tion that the degeneration in the moral character of her children lamentably keeps pace with the decay of her physical greatness. I have, in a former number of these articles, (vol. viii. p. 190,) given a sonnet of Guidini's, in which this double sentiment is exhibited. In the quartines now subjoined, the poet amplifies the picture beyond what the circumscribed frame of a sonnet would permit. Besides a tone of genuine feeling which the contemplation of "THE ETERNAL CITY" never fails to awaken in the breast of an Italian, these quartines are re

plete with spirit, and a sorrowful and indignant reclamation of the effeminacy and sloth of the Romans of the 17th century. Who that has seen the noble forms of the Roman peasants of our own day, with limbs as nervous, and bodies as symmetrical as their own immortal conceptions, sighs not to find that there is scarce one spark of the old Roman spirit, una reliquia di Fabrizzj e Curi,” to be found amongst them?

In the following translation-perhaps I should be more correct in calling it a paraphrase-I have not adhered to the measure of Testi. Though the quartines have a full and sufficiently solemn effect in the original, I fear they would by no means be appropriate to convey the same impressions in our own language.

"ROMA MADERNA."

Ronchi, tu forse a piè dell Aventino
O del Celio or t' aggiri; ivi tra l'erbe
Cercando i grandi avanzi e le superbe
Reliquie vai dello splendor latino, &c.

"MODERN ROME.”

From the Italian of Fulvio Testi.

If haply wandering round the sacred foot,
Or of the Aventine or Celian hill,
My Ronchi, lost in meditation mute,
Amid the voiceless solitudes that still
Evoke a thousand mighty ghosts to fill,
With gorgeous pageantry, each perished dome,
And sculptured palace, and rich fane, until
From lowly huts, the pauper's squalid home,
Rises to fancy's eye-IMPERIAL, PEERLESS ROME !

Seeking, amid the rank profaning grass,
The scattered remnants of that fell repast,
Which gluttonous Time, in very daintiness
Of sated appetite, did spurn at last,
Some relics of those glorious ages past,

When prostrate kings flung down their crowns before
The youthful Giant's feet, and the dread blast

Of her shrill clarions rung from shore to shore,

As her blood-lusting eagles swooped the wide world o'er.

Does not thy Roman heart, swelling with shame,
And scorn, and pity, heave the patriot's sigh,
To see, where erst the Athletes' noble game
Of life was played, or temples rose on high
To fav'ring gods, the dull steers patiently
Drag grating on the desecrating share;

And where of old shrill plaudits rent the sky,
Or pealing hymns of triumph,-now to hear

But the sheep's timid bleat, the plaintive low of steer.

Yet pause and think, that though around thee strown,
In shapeless ashes, her proud structures lie,

'Twas not the work of one dread foe alone

That pulled her from her glorious throne on high,
But cankering years, and the fierce soldiery
Of Goth and Hun. They fought for power and fame,
But we are stained with guilt and treachery-
Base sons, who pangless see our mother's shame,
Nor give her one great child to raise her fallen name.

Look at the Forum still but half untombed-
What goodly arches span its holy ways!
Time, earthquake, war, and fire, leave unconsumed
The sculptured records of Rome's palmiest days,
And frequent shafts their proud memorials raise,
Of ancient Valor still before our eyes,

But not one heart now throbs for Valor's praise-
Rome holds not now one soul of high emprise,
To win a trophied arch, or bid a column rise.

Italia, my lov'd land! in this thy day

Of darkness most beloved-the Syren spells Of sloth and wanton joys have quenched each ray Of thy great generous spirits, and the wells Of thy heart poisoned, till thy weakness tells The pitying world that thou art tottering fast; Yet, luckless one! thy fond delusion veils From thine own eyes that all thy strength is past, And still in doating pride thou'rt smiling to the last.

Pardon the bold words of one whose voice e'en now
Would rouse thee from thy fearful lethargy
To see the laurels that once wreathed thy brow
Now shrunk to myrtle leaves degradingly.

In thy young days to rein the wild horse free,
Thy limbs to strengthen with the wrestlers feat,
To leap, to stem the flood was joy to thee,
Or in fierce war the stubborn foe to meet
Piercing tough shields with lance and arrow fleet.

Now, counselled by thy flattering glass, thy hair
In plenteous tresses 'tis thy dearest pride
To nourish with rich unguents, and with care
Wreath the crisp curls adown thy temples' side;
In costly robes with gold embroidered wide
That wrap thy limbs from the discorteous air,
Oh rare delight! thou dost contrive to hide
The ancient wealth of which thou wert the heir,
Bearing upon thy back thy lands and vineyards fair.

Assyria yields, thy fair breast to perfume,
Odours more rich than those of Araby,
And toilful Holland plies her choicest loom
To trick thy neck with costliest finery :
The foreign juice of Scio's vine for thee
Fumes in gold cups thy pall'd thirst to entice;
Nor summer's fires can mar thy luxury,
For thou hast learned to plunge thy wine in ice
Lest the Falernian's heat should shock thy palate nice.

To furnish forth thy vain and lavish feasts
With princely splendour thy ambition strains,
All sadly aping 'midst thy beggared guests
The pomp that only regal wealth sustains.
With shameless zeal Numidia's trackless plains
For birds of daintiest taste are daily sought,

And the gold vase mid odored sauce contains
Fish on the shores of distant oceans caught
To thy rich groaning board triumphant brought.

Yet such thou wert not once, when on that hill
Where stood thy Capitol thou didst behold
Thy sylvan consuls leave the plough to fill
Thy scat of infant empire, or of old

The sage dictators sway thy children bold,
Seated upon some humble, rude-piled throne-
Stern, simple rustics they, nor gem nor gold
Upon their manly decent vestments shone,
The lictor's rod and axe their regal pomp alone.

And yet it was those rugged hands that oft
Goaded the oxen 'neath the cumbrous wain-
Content to till their poor paternal_croft-

That laid the fast foundations of thy reign,
And all triumphant o'er earth's wide domain
Thy eagle-blazoned standards proudly bore,
And through the solitude of ocean's plain,
Till from remotest Afric's burning shore
To the bleak ice-bound north thy sway spread o'er.

Now, like a legend fading fast away,

Scarce lives within the sunken Roman's breast
The shadowy memory of that mighty day

When, in the spoils of subject nations drest,
Thou sat'st the mistress of the world confest,
Whilst the barbarian that was then thy slave
Insultingly now flings his boastful jest
O'er thy dead glory and thy virtue's grave,
Crushing thee in the dust, thou mother of the brave.

Crush'd, crush'd and fallen! Oh, if she do not rise
And rouse her quickly from the deathful trance
In which degraded now and weak she lies

To grasp again her long unlifted lance,
Oh well believe the bard's prophetic glance
That sees the Thracian hordes tumultuous bound
Adown her Tiber in their fierce advance,

And leaguering her eternal hills around

The silken Persian's camp spread on her holy ground.

BARNEY BRADY'S GOOSE;

OR, DARK DOINGS AT SLATHBEG.

BY WILLIAM CARLETON,

Author of "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," "Jane Sinclair," "Rickard the Rake," &c. "From small beginnings great events arise."

BARNEY Brady was a good-natured, placid man, and never lost his temper, unless, as he said himself, when he got privication; he was also strict in at tending his duty; a fact which Mrs., or rather, as she was called, Ailey Brady, candidly and justly admitted, and to which the priest himself bore ample testimony. Barney, however, had the misfortune to be married at a time when a mystery was abroad among women. Mysteries like the Eluisinian were practised among the married females, in assemblies to which no men could obtain access.

Somebody or Other.

Of the nature of the secret rites it would be premature now to speak; in time the secret will be revealed; suffice it to say, that the mysteries were full of alarm to the husbands, and held by them to be a grievous offence against all morals and virtue. The morals of my beloved countrywomen were certainly in a state of awful and deplorable transition at the time, and many a worthy husband's head ached at a state of things which no vigilance on his part could alter or repress. Many a secret consultation, was held among the good men of the respective

• We need scarcely tell our readers that in Ireland "stag" means a person who becomes king's evidence against his accomplices, or in some indirect way exposes their crimes. If, for instance, a member of a Ribbon or Orange Lodge betrayed the secrets of the body, he would be termed a "stag," and a husband betraying any weakness of his wife; such, for instance, as the fact of her being addicted to liquor, or theft, would be termed a "stag" by his offended partner.