An Address on the Influence of the Federative Republican System of Government Upon Literature and the Development of Character [pp. 261-282]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MlESSENGER.
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other of this monumental land, asks in mournful sadness
i n each town through which he passes,-Where now
is the population which could have required so many
habitations? Where is the commerce which could have
filled so many magazines? Where are those opulent
citizens who could have lived in so many palaces?
Where now are those numerous crowds that bowed in
reverential awe and devotion before the altars of Christ,
of the Virgin and the Saints? Where now are the grandeur and magnificence of the living, which should have
replaced that grandeur and magnificence of the dead,
o f whic h th eir monuments so eloquently tell? All are
gone. While other nations have been growing in importance and multiplying the materials of their history
a s they approach the age in which we live, how different has been the mournful destiny of Italy! The present has well been called the epoch of death in that
lovely land. When we observe, says the historian,
t h e whol e of Italy, whether wve examine the physiognomy of the soil, or the works of man, or man himself,
we always regard ourselves as being in the land of the
dead; every where we are struck by the feebleness
a n d degeneracy of the race'hat now is, compared with
t h a t whic h has been. The sun of Italy now sheds as
warm and vivifying rays over the land as before-the
earth remains as fertile-t-the Appenines present to our
view th e same vari ent smiling aspect-the fields are as
abundantly watered by the genial showers of heaven,
and all the lower animals of nature preserve here their
pristine beauty and habits. Man too, at birth, seems
in this delightful climate, to be endowed still with the
s a m e quic k creative imagination, with the same susceptibility of deep, passionate feeling-with the same
wonderful aptitude of mind-and yet man alone has
changed here! In contrast with his fathers
"As the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home."
It is the change in government-the fatal change in
the political destiny of the Italian, which has wrought
this melancholy change in his whole nature. When
this beautiful land wvas covered with leagues of independent states, inspired with the genius of liberty and
political independence,-the stimulating influence of the
government was felt every where-it animated and
aroused all-it communicated the spirit of activity and
enterprise, the love of home and the ardent love of
country to all the citizens alike-from the proud lord of
Venice, whose stately palace was lashed by the wave
of the Adriatic, to the poor peasant whose thatched and
humble cottage lay in some secluded solitary hollow
of the Alps or the Appenites. Under this system of
government there was no favored spot upon which the
treasures of the nation were expended; there was no
Thebes, no Babylon, no imperial Rome built up, adorned and beautified by the degradation and utter prostration of all the rest. We might almost say of Italy what
has been affirmed of Omnipotence itself-its centre was
every where, its circumference no where. Every little
independent state, no matter how limited its area or
small its population, had its great men, its thriving
cities, its noble monuments. The little Florentine democracy with but eighty thousand souls, had more
great men within its limits than any of the great king
* " The habit of industry," says Sismondi, " was the distinctive characteristic of the Italians even to the middle of the 15th
century. The first rank at Florence, Venice, and Genoa, was
occupied by merchants; and the families who possessed the offices of the state, of the church or the army, did not for that reason give up their business. Philip Strozzi, brother-in-law of
Leo X, the father of Mareschal Strozzi, and the grandfather of
Capua, the friend of several sovereigns, and the first citizen of
Italy, remained even to the end of his life chief of a banking
house. He had seven sons, but in spite of his immense fortune,
he suffered none of them to be brought up in idleness.,
t Whilst Italy was free, there was no country which could repair its losses with so much despatch; the town that was sacked
and burnt to-day, would be built up and stored with wealth on
the morrow, and the losses of one excited the sympathies and
support of all those engaged in the same cause. When the Emperor Frederic carried fire and sword through the Milanese territory, and left the treasury of that state completely exhausted,
we are told that the rich citizens soon replenished it from their
private purses, contenting themselves in the mean time with
coarse bread, and cloaks of black stuff. And at the command of
their consuls they left Milan to join their fellow citizens in rebuilding with their own hands the walls and houses of Tortona,
Rosata, Tricate, Galiate, and other towns, which had suffered
in the contest for the common cause.
I Small states, if truly independent, are very favorable to
the production of great characters, and even great virtues.
"The regeneration of liberty in Italy," says Sismondi, "was
signalized still more, if it were possible, by the development of
the moral, than by that of the intellectual character of the Ital
doms of Europe; and all were animated with the spirit
of patriotism, of industry,* of learning.
No wonder then that the citizens of Italy should have
prospered amid their domestic broils, their factions,
their revolutions-even amid the sanguinary conflicts
of the Guelph and the Ghibeline. If the energy and
elasticity of the mind be not destroyed by the pressure
of despotism, it is curious to contemplate the wonderfully recuperative powers of man, and to behold the
appalling difficulties which he can surmount, undismayed and unscathed. You may prostrate him to day,
but the energy and vitality that is within him will
raise him up on the morrow.t Of all sorts of destruction, of every kind of death, that is the worst, because
the most productive of melancholy consequences, which
reaches the mind itself. That system of government
wvhich slays the mind, is the system which, at the same
time reaches the sanctuary of the heart, overthrows
the purity of morals, and forges the fetters for the slave.
And such a government as this have the Spaniard the
Frenchman and the German rivetted but too fatally
upon Italy. The day that saw those modern Goths
and Vandals pouring their mercenary hordes over the
Alps to rob and plunder, was a black day for Italy,
and well might the friend of that lovely land have then
exclaimed in the language of the poet,
"Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil ofFrance,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
But Tiber shall become a mournful river."
The independence of the little states of Italy is now
gone, and with it all the real greatness of that country.
The power that now sways the Italian, emanates firom
a nation situated afar off on the banks of the Danube.
And can we wonder while the Austrian soldier stands
sentinel in the Italian cities, that their citizens should
"Creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.",,
But enough of a spectacle so sad as this!"t