Rienzi | Page 6

the continuous and stedfast progress of any single line of policy
under a principality so constituted as that of the Papal Church - a
principality in which no race can be perpetuated, in which no objects
can be permanent; in which the successor is chosen by a select
ecclesiastical synod, under a variety of foreign as well as of national
influences; in which the chief usually ascends the throne at an age that

ill adapts his mind to the idea of human progress, and the active
direction of mundane affairs; - a principality in which the peculiar
sanctity that wraps the person of the Sovereign exonerates him from the
healthful liabilities of a power purely temporal, and directly
accountable to Man. A reforming Pope is a lucky accident, and dull
indeed must be the brain which believes in the possibility of a long
succession of reforming Popes, or which can regard as other than
precarious and unstable the discordant combination of a constitutional
government with an infallible head.
It is as true as it is trite that political freedom is not the growth of a day
- it is not a flower without a stalk, and it must gradually develop itself
from amidst the unfolding leaves of kindred institutions.
In one respect, the Austrian domination, fairly considered, has been
beneficial to the States over which it has been directly exercised, and
may be even said to have unconsciously schooled them to the capacity
for freedom. In those States the personal rights which depend on
impartial and incorrupt administration of the law, are infinitely more
secure than in most of the Courts of Italy. Bribery, which shamefully
predominates in the judicature of certain Principalities, is as unknown
in the juridical courts of Austrian Italy as in England. The Emperor
himself is often involved in legal disputes with a subject, and justice is
as free and as firm for the humblest suitor, as if his antagonist were his
equal. Austria, indeed, but holds together the motley and inharmonious
members of its vast domain on either side the Alps, by a general
character of paternal mildness and forbearance in all that great circle of
good government which lies without the one principle of constitutional
liberty. It asks but of its subjects to submit to be well governed -
without agitating the question "how and by what means that
government is carried on." For every man, except the politician, the
innovator, Austria is no harsh stepmother. But it is obviously clear that
the better in other respects the administration of a state it does but
foster the more the desire for that political security, which is only found
in constitutional freedom: the reverence paid to personal rights, but
begets the passion for political; and under a mild despotism are already
half matured the germs of a popular constitution. But it is still a grave

question whether Italy is ripe for self-government - and whether, were
it possible that the Austrian domination could be shaken off - the very
passions so excited, the very bloodshed so poured forth, would not
ultimately place the larger portion of Italy under auspices less
favourable to the sure growth of freedom, than those which silently
brighten under the sway of the German Caesar.
The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, to which
circumstance and nature seem to assign the main ascendancy, are
Naples and Sardinia. Looking to the former, it is impossible to discover
on the face of the earth a country more adapted for commercial
prosperity. Nature formed it as the garden of Europe, and the mart of
the Mediterranean. Its soil and climate could unite the products of the
East with those of the Western hemisphere. The rich island of Sicily
should be the great corn granary of the modern nations as it was of the
ancient; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of both the Sicilies, under
skilful cultivation, should equal the produce of Spain and the Orient,
and the harbours of the kingdom (the keys to three-quarters of the globe)
should be crowded with the sails and busy with the life of commerce.
But, in the character of its population, Naples has been invariably in the
rear of Italian progress; it caught but partial inspiration from the free
Republics, or even the wise Tyrannies, of the Middle Ages; the theatre
of frequent revolutions without fruit; and all rational enthusiasm
created by that insurrection, which has lately bestowed on Naples the
boon of a representative system, cannot but be tempered by the
conviction that of all the States in Italy, this is the one which least
warrants the belief of permanence to political freedom, or of capacity to
retain with vigour what may be seized by passion. (If the Electoral
Chamber in the new Neapolitan Constitution,