Gladstone, the leading reviews, the daily journals, intercourse with political refugees, and the personal observations of travel, have, more or less definitely, caused the problem called the "Italian Question" to come nearer to our sympathies than any other European exigency apart from practical interests. Moreover, the complicated and dubious aspect of the subject, viewed by transatlantic eyes, has, within the last ten years, been in a great measure dispelled by experimental facts. That Italy needs chiefly to be _let alone_, to achieve independence and realize a noble development, civic, economical, and social, every intelligent traveller who crosses the Austrian frontier and enters the Sardinian state, knows. A greater contrast, as regards productive industry, intellectual enterprise, religious progress, comfort, and happiness, no adjacent countries ever exhibited; constitutional freedom, an unrestricted press, toleration, and public education on the one hand, and foreign bayonets, espionage, and priestcraft on the other, explain the anomaly. In Venice the very trophies of national life are labelled in a foreign tongue, the _caffès_ of Milan resound with Teutonic gutturals, and under the arcades of Bologna every other face wears the yellow beard of the North; yet the family portraits in the vast palace-chambers, the eyes and dialect of the people, the monumental inscriptions, announce an indigenous and superseded race; their industry, civil rights, property, and free expression in art, literature, and even speech, being forcibly and systematically repressed: while in the mountains of Savoy, the streets of Turin, and the harbor of Genoa, the stir and zest, the productiveness, and the felicity of national life greet the senses and gladden the soul. Statistics evidence what observation hints; Cavour wins the respect of Europe; D'Azeglio illustrates the inspiration which liberty yields to genius; journalism ventilates political rancor; debate neutralizes aggressive prejudice; physical resources become available; talent finds scope, character self-assertion; Protestantism builds altars, patriotism shrines; and genuine Italian nationality has a vital existence so palpably reproachful of circumjacent stagnation, ruin, and wrong, that no laws or material force can interpose a permanent obstacle to its indefinite extension and salutary reign.