censure on Cavour and the “Piedmontese party,” he was no apologist for the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he launched out freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and corruption, and freely corroborated our own Premier’s assertions, by calling the Pope’s the “worst government in Europe.” In fact, he showed very clearly that the smaller states of Italy were well or ill administered in the direct ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal interference,--Modena being the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went--for he not merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the characters and tempers of the leading Italians--yet, with all this, I could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, and yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? “I have my theory on that subject, sir,” said he; “nor am I the less enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt it.” “It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose,” said I; “Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers.” “Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you did.” I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. “I’d unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I’d bring them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they’d not cheat the ‘Hellenes’ as they do the French and the English; and as the only true way to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I’d unite them to a race that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What is it, I ask you, makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, the prudent, hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? Simply the fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no longer serves him. The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and Paddy must use his hands instead of his head. The same would happen with the Italian. Give him a Greek master, and you’ll see what he’ll become.” “But the Greeks, after all,” said I, “do not present such a splendid example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands.”