But the work of Gioberti was a panegyric on Italy, a universal laudation of the Italian genius, the Italian spirit, the Italian language, every thing that bore the name of Italian! Its very title, "The _Pre-eminence_, Civil and Moral, of the Italians," was irresistible. The monster-folly of all foreigners is a passion for praise; and the unpopularity of the Englishman on the Continent chiefly arises from his tardiness in gorging this rapacious appetite. Gioberti, with evident consciousness of the offence, labours to justify the assumption. "Individuals may be modest, but modesty degrades nations," is his preliminary maxim. "A nation to have claims must have merits; and who is to believe in her merits, unless she believes in them herself?" This curious logic, which would make vanity only the more ridiculous by the openness of its display, is the grand argument of the book. It has made Italy suddenly imagine herself a nation of heroes. "When a nation," says Gioberti, "has fallen into social degradation, the attempt to revive its courage must be by praise; possibly dangerous at other times, but now a generous art." It is admitted, however, "that the facts ought to be true, and the arguments forcible; and that no good can come from adulation." And in consequence of this wise precaution, the patriotic monk proceeds to inaugurate his country with the precedency in the grand procession of all the kingdoms of the earth! But another striking feature of this work was, that all those changes must emanate from a centre, and that centre the Pope, that Pope being a professor of liberalism, and having for his pupils all the princes of Italy. Whether Gioberti saw futurity with the eye of prophet, or only in the conjecture of a charlatan, there can be no doubt that the coincidence between his theory and the facts is sufficiently curious. We are to remember that book was published in the reign of Gregory XVI.--a genuine monk, hardened in all the old habits of the cell, who thought that a railroad would be the overthrow of the tiara, and the expression of a political opinion would call up the shades of all the past Holinesses from their purgatorial thrones.