Disraeli’s French was fluent, if insular. In Italian he was naturally proficient. Italian literature was familiar to him, and next to Dante, he was fondest of Alfieri, a fine passage from whom, it will be remembered, he quotes in _Lothair_. He knew German well enough to read it. No sentiment surrounded his favour to Austria. It was her partition that he feared. So early as 1848 he objected, from the sole standpoint of England’s interest, to championing the Magyars and the Italians against Austria, the Sicilians against Naples. We should, he then said, “mind our own business.” And in 1856, when he combated the views of his opponents who sighed for the dismemberment of Russia, he also pointed out the dangers to European peace that must attend the dismemberment of Austria. The complete dismemberment of that empire--partly a few years later to be accomplished--would involve the independence of Hungary and the emancipation of Italy. With Italy herself he nourished, indeed, an innate sympathy, and for her a sentimental attachment. In all his reveries Venice and Rome figure no less frequently than do Athens and Jerusalem; and afterwards none applauded Daniel Manin more than he. Italy is the haunting refrain of _Venetia_, Venice of _Contarini Fleming_, Rome romanticises _Lothair_. Perhaps a leaven of his old enthusiasm for “a cluster of small states” and “federal unions” still mingled with the practical outlook which also made him sacrifice many of his personal emotions to the cold requirements of statesmanship. “Federal unions,” he had sighed in _Contarini_, “would preserve us from the consequences of local jealousy.”--“There would be more genius, and, what is of more importance, much more felicity.”--“_Italy might then revive._” However this may be--and I for one regret his forced attitude towards the first flutter of Italian freedom--or whether his late acquaintance with Metternich had coloured his ideas, there can be no doubt of their constraining cause. His public views always confined themselves to what he believed was for the benefit of Great Britain. And in this instance--“... If we, or any other power,” he urged, “should forcibly interfere in the affairs of Italy with the view of changing the political settlement of that country, the result will be, as in the case of an attempt to dismember Russia, one of those protracted wars that might fatally exhaust this country, and which, even supposing it to be successful, would leave Italy very possibly not in the possession of Austria, but under the dominion of some other power as little national.” It should be recollected that 1858-61 were critical years for Anglo-French relations. After Palmerston’s Orsini imbroglio we were more than once on the verge of war with France. Luckily, England was never forced into interference. Luckily, Italy regained her independence, through two commanding individualities. But it was history that warned Disraeli. Italy had been the battle-field