It may very well be doubted whether any of the Italians, and, indeed, any of their Transmontane admirers, know what is really fitted for them in political institutions--what will really do them good--what is really suited to the genius of the people and the requirements of the country. Political institutions are like plants that cannot always bear transferring from one region to another: they require the process of becoming acclimatised, and, on their first introduction into a new country, demand the fostering shelter of the hot-house and the gardener's constant care. Because a representative constitution is supposed to be the acme of human wisdom in the latitude of Great Britain, it does not therefore follow that it will flourish so far south as Naples; and because a national guard is reckoned the _ne plus ultra_ of national institutions at Paris, we are by no means sure that, it would produce any good results at Rome. It seems, in fact, to us to be one of the monomanias of the present age, that the same Procrustean bed of representative government is laid out for all people that think they require more political liberty than they are at present in possession of; and should the inhabitants of Timbuctoo, of Canton, of Tobolsk, of Alexandria, and of Morocco, take it into their heads, some fine day, to send deputations to the united _quidnuncs_ of London and Paris, requesting the transmission of constitutions for their several states, we have no doubt that a couple of legislative houses, and a corps of national guards, _à pied et à cheval_, would be immediately recommended, as equally applicable to their several wants. It seems to be the privilege of civilised Europeans to think that the right of governing themselves is the essence of civil freedom: far more true, in the vast majority of cases, would it be to say, that it constituted the essence of political thraldom. It is a social truth, most unpalatable to ninety-nine-hundredths of mankind, but not therefore the less true, that ninety-nine men out of a hundred are not fit to govern themselves, even in the relations of social life, and far less in those of political. And so it is with nations: for one nation that has really prospered under the plan of self-government, there are ninety-nine that have brought on themselves evils which, under a less popular system, they would have avoided. If the physical and social condition of a people be taken as a test; if the durability of their institutions, if the dignity and influence of their government, be quoted, as proofs of the advantages of their several forms of political institutions, we really know not any constitutional form to which, _ceteris paribus_, we could appeal as deciding the question against those of a monarchical tendency. If the privilege of taxing themselves to an amount that defies all power of redemption, and cripples the resources of the nation to a point that menaces its existence as an independent power,