would, have accepted their condition, and have become loyal subjects of the House of Lorraine. Foreign rule is no new thing to them, nor have they ever been impatient under its existence, when it has existed for their good. The people rarely are hostile to any government that is conducted with ordinary fairness. There is no greater error than that involved in the idea that revolutions or changes of any kind originate from below, that they proceed from the people. Almost invariably they come from above, from governmental action; and it is ever in the power of a government to make itself perpetual. The term of its existence is in its own hands. At the very worst for Austria, she might have accomplished in Italy what was accomplished there three centuries ago by Spain, then ruled by the elder branch of the Hapsburgs. She might have commanded almost everything within its limits, with Sardinia to play some such part as was then played by Venice. This is said on the supposition, first, that her government should have been mild and conciliatory, active only for good, and that all her interference with local rule should have been on the side of humanity; and, second, that no foreign power should have interfered to prevent the full development of her policy. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for other nations, and especially so for Italy, she not only did _not_ govern well, but governed badly; and there was a great power which was deeply, vitally interested--moved by the all-controlling principle of self-preservation--in watching all her movements, and in finding occasion to drive her out of Italy. She was not content with upholding misgovernment in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and elsewhere, but she meant to subvert the constitutional polity established in the Sub-Alpine Kingdom of Sardinia. The enemy of constitutionalism and freedom everywhere, she was especially hostile to their existence in the little state that bordered on a portion of her Italian possessions, whence they always threatened Lombardy with a plague she detests far more heartily than she detests cholera. No natural boundary or _cordon militaire_ could suffice to stay the march of principles. Nothing would answer but the subversion of the Sardinian constitution and the bringing of that nation's government into harmony with the admirable rule that existed, under the double-headed eagle's protection, in Naples and Modena. Unless all Austrian history be false, Austria's object for years has been a revolution in Sardinia, and Rome has aided her. This is the necessity of her moral situation with reference to her little neighbor. The world has smiled at Austria's late complaint that Sardinia menaced her, it seemed so like the wolf's protestation that the lamb was doing him an injury; but it was really well founded, though not entitled to much respect. Sardinia _did_ menace Austria. She menaced her by the force of her example,--as the honest man menaces the rogue, as the