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scrirrtions of cottages and fields , roads and pastures , valleys and . village carderis and forest seclusions , justify , it is true , the title of the volume ; but the writer has an intention beyond that of celebrating landscapes and rural manners . His varied and amusing letters , therefore , abounu in -retiocUon upon Piedmontese society , and upon that of Italy m general , though . M . Gallencra does not inform us how far bis personal experience has spread . With excusable partiality he represents the Piednipntese as the type of the Italians , the hardiest and the bravest of the race—a .-statement which Venice Home , and Milan may well deny , and which iSovara will not sanction although the Tchernaya wiped out the stain of that inglorious engageto the of the food
nient—and Tie attributes this superiority , in part , quality eaten upon the sub-Alpine plain , and even by the mountaineers . But he depicts this noble being as morall y degenerate , and , among other philosophical explanations , introduces an . invective against tobacco . - The practice of smoking , in M , Gallenga ' s eyes , is a vice , almost a crime . and we must sav that his argument is somewhat weakened by the obvious violence of his prejudices , lie appears to entertain the strongest possible personal views , and when the name of any public man occurs it is sure to be accompanied by qualifying language of no ambiguous character . Thus , though the preface promises a total absence of political allusion , such allusions " . are not wanting and "the rabid opposition" in the Turin Chambers : 'is' freely , ii
cursorily , denounced . By M . Gallenga ' s inadvertencies , however , we must not be led to treat this book from a political point of view . It is chiefly a picture of Picdmontese provincial life , the author ' s observation radiating generally from CasteUamonte , about twenty-two miles from the capital , though he occasionally digresses to describe the social fashions , of his metropolis .. Gossiping cleverly , and-with little reserve , he catalogues the sins of the people , and sums up to a very heavy total . They have a coarse contempt , in the first place , for the beauties of nature . Their Louses are dingy and tawdry . They waste their land in the formation of broad and bad roads . They smoke and expectorate like New Englanders . They eat trash , though not to such an extent as . the-Lombard or the ^ Neapolitan . Tliey have a poor literature , and appreciate no other . They are a worn-out
nution . And yet , M . Gallengasays , there is no slight poetry in the humbler and more homely life of Piedmont . The inhabitants of the country are hospitable , simple , and modest . " There is harmony , loveliness of affection , such as is utterly unknown in proud England . " Much that is said concerning the immorality of Italian women is false , he affirms , or applies only to tlie countesses and duchesses wlio paint tbe lily and gild the gold of nature a-t the Grand-Ducal Court of Florence' or to" the scarlet adventuresses of Papal Rome . " The middle and lower ranks of [ Northern Italy are pastoral hi" their chastity . But why not be . extern ally clean without as -well as pure ¦ within ? A country hostelry in Piedmont , ^! . Gallenga complains , is the paradise of dirt and disorder , grease , noise , and tobacco . In winter , the land is visited by a . fierce cold season ^ and the people are so improvident that they are burning up all their fuel , hewing tlie forests ' . from their mountains ,
leaving their plains naked ,-and-carrying on that woodman s ravage which lias desolated the central parts of Spain , robbed of their ancient fertility ihe hills of the Peloponesus , reduced " the forest of Oarmel" to a jungle , and rendered M . Laplace anxious for the future of France , and the Marquis -de Custine for that of Russia . M . Gallenga does not exaggerate when lie points to the reckless and . improvident destruction of Piedmontese forests with reprobation and alarm . At the same time , he represents the agriculture of the country to be at a very low ebb , scarcely one-sixth so productive as that of England . Taking the whole territory together it ' produces only two-thirds of the bread requisite for the sustenance of its {[ population , which is in an inverted ratio to the fertility of the soil . For , while the broad arable plains are almost a blank , dotted at wide distances with closelybuilt towns and villages , and rare straggling farm-houses , the hill-sides and the valleys up the bleakest cliff's and crags are crowded with human . habitations . It is in the level lands that agriculture is deficient and clumsy , the population bein < r scanty , ami still clinging to the national habit which
induced the husbandmen generally , and the landowners always , to live away from the plains . M . Gallenga ' s chapters in connexion with this subject , as well as those on labour , on thu Piedmontese proprietary system , on water and irrigation , on woods and woodmen , are of curious interest . From these topics he turns to manufacturing industry , especially to spinning and weaving , processes carried on in almost every Piedmontese valley and village . u Beyond the mere spinning , however , the Italians have made as yet but little progress . " Suggesting an improvement and development of the manufacture , and enumerating the natural facilities enjoyed by Piedmont , M . Gallenga adds , 11 I have heard intelligent manufacturers in Kngland state that tlie advantage which the cheapness of water power has over industry carried on by means of steam-engines is almost counterbalanced by the diiliculty and expense of carriage inseparable from the mountainous districts in which water power abounds ; but in Piedmont this diiliculty is already , to a great extent , and may be eventually altogether , overcome . Kvery valley in Piedmont opens upon a plain as level and smooth as a billiard-table . " \\
~' u are glad to observe that M . Gallengu has much to say in praise of the Avorking classes throughout Italy , for although from a writer so absolutely prejudiced and so addicted to generalize , any statement must , be received with caution , there is enough in Ins volume to show that he has studied to good purpose the character and manners utleast of the Piedmontese . Ln his chapter on their domestic economy many details sue collected which will probably be new to most English readers . Hero again is an excess of vituperation against the smokers , but tliia is M . Ciailhaiga ' s weakness ; and constitutional antipathies are among those human frailties which are very easily pardoned . It is more dilUcult not to question j \ 1 . Gallengu ' s privilege when he admires the condescension of a iuvourite statesman in sitting in the same a //' J \\\ l \\ M . Lorenzo Valeric , or when from an . extreme height he connninKs upon hi . s native literature . With what asperity his criticism on other points is conceived a single passage will show . Referring to the perpetual consumption of "quid and paste , and to the poverty of after-dinner orations in Italy , ho etrys , " The Italians are not only too mercurial , us people assert , but / they
ire too desperately addioted to gormandizing , they are too heavily crammed , too torpid after dinner , to sit out any lengthened display of oratorical powers ; they want . air and exercise after their full and over-hasty meals . It is only by another strange popular fancy , analogous to the hallucination which describes their climate as that of Eden , that they are represented as a sober and abstemious people . " They may not be addicted , he admits , to drin kin r ' , as the English of the best classes were . wont to do in former times ; they may not require five or six meals , a day > such as the Germans indulge in ; " but I appeal to any traveller , who ever happened to take his dinner nt the table tV' / tote of the Hotel Feder at Turin , or-to sup at the Cafe Feder at Milan , to say if anything can well be more appalling than the amount of stuff an Italian—at least , a North Italian—will manage to swalknv at one sittin ™ . " The inference is , that the nation is unfit for real convivial enjoyment . . Whatever may be the controverted points upon which M . Gallen £ > a rashly dogmatizes , Cumitry Life in Piedmont is a most entertaining book , and is very pleasantly written .
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FRENCH FINANCE AND FINANCIERS . French Finance and Financiers wider Louis XV . By James Murray . Longman and Co . There is no preface to this volume , and Mr . Murray does not explain how lonir it has been in completion . We are , therefore , unable-to infer how far it has been , suggested by the actual financial condition of the French Empire , by the workings of the ' Credit Mobilier , or by the other desperate experiments and expedients which seem to revive the latter daysof the Bourbon monarchy . It appears to have been a work of elaboration and research , and yet so numerous and striking are the analogies suggested between the iiscal embarrassments of Louis-Quinze and those .-of Louis Napoleon , that it would almost seem that Mr . ! Murray , has written in direct historical illustra-1
tion of the process by which states are forced by thengovernments into revolution , and of which an example is now presented by the Imperial administrators of France . If it be true that history never repeats itself , i t is equally true that despotism , has been every where and in all ages the same , and that the power which acknowledges no responsibility to public opinion invariably leans upon rotten artifices , and fills up one abyss simply by creating another . The financial annals of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth are marked by more than one series of events dramatic in their origin and development , by the careev of John Law , and of the brothers Paris and Belle Isle , by the tampering of the King ' s jparasites-. and mistresses with the treasures of the state , and by a multitude of scandals which , while intrinsically essential to the clearness and fulness of the general narrative , relieve it . from the
dulness common to financial histories . Such dulness is at all times the characteristic of the writer rather than of the subject . The story of the British . Exchequer might be a very fascinating book . Mr . Murray , following out the connexion between royal and noble influence and private intrigue , and the vicissitudes of the French revenue during the period under review , has produced a volume which is thoroughly " readable and interesting , while it is , at the same time , a large and sound exposition of fiscal doctrine , as exemplified , in one form or another , by the transactions which took place in France from the establishment ol' the regency to the death of Louis the Fifteenth . Durinf * the whole of that period experimentalists were at work sounding the depths of the national coffers , contriving new schemes for converting ideas'into monev , distending credit until it collapsed , and
imposing every conceivable ingenuity of illusion upon the French people . The man who , in the first-instance , dug this bottomless pit of deficit was Louis tlie Fourteenth , whose reputation as a mighty monarch has suffered severely of late years , who forestalled every branch of the public revenue , and under whose administration , " with that brutal stupidity which , in all times , and under all circumstances , is characteristic of revenue collectors , the very instruments of husbandry , the tools without which the artisan could not gain a twu were appropriated . " Money was borrowed at any and every rate of interest , and when the sovereign died no financier in . the country could tell what was the extent of the national obligations . At . all events , "the situation of the Treasury-was beyond measure alarming . " And what were the principles for the application of which France paid in the blood and
tears of the Revolution ? Tlie king lavishly distributed gilts and pensions among his personal favourites , and encouraged magnificent works , as princes do who have at their command vast sums extorted by taxation , nnd who can increase their expenses by avoiding payment of their debts . When a fit of reform seized upon the inheritors of this prodigal system , retrenchments were ordered , and peasants paid for exemptions granted to the rich rottirier . Then new organizations were designed , in order to centralize public business in Paris , upon the pretence that the supremo authorities should take cognizance of all details from the most important to the most minute . In the midst of this incredible jobbery , when every resource added to the Exchequer was seized upon by the Court as an excuse for a new . quarrel abroad or fresh extravagance at home , arose John Law , the incidents of whose surprising life , us related by M . Cochut ., we lately analyzed , Mr . Murray ' s account of this sinuulur man and his operations is lucid and suggestive , and
we think he is among the first of those who have fairly examined and appreciated the Scotchman ' s views . ¦ "It . was to Law ti matter equally important , " he Piiyn , " that , his notes should be convertible , and that they should not . be converted . It was his great difficulty to accomplish this double object , and it was in vain efforts to achieve it that he adopted measures winch , when once distrust was awakened , precipitated the fall of the gigantic fabric which he had reared . " lint , ho continues , it was the error of confounding money and capital that lay nt the root of the theory propounded by Law . lie mistook goh ) and silver for wealth , and treated France as the Spaniards treated IVi'u . 'i . 'lie natural consequences resulted . Persons possessing - notes nominally wort h millions of livre-. s found it dilh ' cult Lo obtain money enough to pay for a dinner . The slate had borrowed their real property , paying them in guaranteed securities , and when these securities proved worthier , only a particular class of crafty men remained rich upon the beggary of thouijund . s .
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jSTo . 4 < 2 t 5 , MAY 22 , J . c > on . j - « - * ± j ^_ __ - * - * - ^ - - ^ ¦ - " - " * . _ ___ . _ . __ rr ^_
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 22, 1858, page 499, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2243/page/19/
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