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    THE DUTIES OF COUNTRY LANDLORDS , . between tho of tho

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    cruel and severe treatment of the people . This was ; truly a period of trial and despair . The police , arid their hired spies liad everything so completely in their own hand s that no one knew A \ hen he retired to rest at night that he should hot be . arrested before morning . .-Ferdinand If . rewarded the Sicilians , who had twice offered him shelter as a fugitive , by taking front them the Constitution which , he had sworn , and -which England had guaranteed to them . The act was . equally . impolitic , and dishonest . In order to render Naples ' and Sicily a single kingdom , and maintain it in a state of tranquillity , the latter should have had , its own constitution , as had been the case during seven centuries under

    thirtyone kings . But the Neapolitan Government , confiding-in foreign arms , and aided by diplomatic arts , reduced the island to the condition of a province , with the exception of a few prerogatives , which it was suffered to retain merely as a deception . Tlie consequence was that Sicily not only lost entirely whatever liberties she had previously enjoyed , but that to ancient contests and recent disputes were added the , most implacable hatred between the two peoples , arising from t ^ ic fidl and j > ainful persuasion on the part of the Sicilians that the King was urged to adopt such measures by the ministers , and Neapolitans from revenge that they would ' not retain him and support his heavy-handed despotism when he took refuge in their island . They thus lived in continual aud mutual suspicion , until 1837 , when the cholera added to the previous horrors of the situation . The medical

    men-were accused of having introduced it intentionally ; political insurrections aiid disturbances ^ and numerous Royal condemnations , were the result . From 18 : 31 to 1847 , Ferdinand Bouubon condemned oiic hundred . and thirty-four of his subjects to death for political offences , without , ever thinking that the love of their country really influenced these brave and generoushearted men , or bestowing a thought of pity on the thousands confined in dungeons and chains by liis direct and explicit orders , or by his tacit consent . When he had slain and imprisoned hundreds , and the country -was . unable from sheer lassitude and exhaustion to protest any longer against his tyranny and falsehood , he . was wont to say exuitiiigly , " Order reigns in ; XapleSj and I reign . " In truth , the order of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies is the order of desolation and death .

    The important revolutionary rising of 1848 seemed to give King Ferdinand the very first faint glimmering notion that his peojile might have some shadow of cause for dissatisfaction . The six previous revolutions of his reign had found him aud left him inflexible and unyielding . He now felt some alarm , agreed to make somo concessions , again promised the Constitution , and once more perjured himself . The present sovereign fully carries out his lather ' s combination of tyranny and bigotry . It is said , that when the troops were about to embark the other day to suppress the present Sicilian outbreak , Francis II . appeared amongst them in person , encouraged them by flattery , and reminded them it was their duty to act as in 1 S 48 , and fight for their king against his enemies and those of Christ . Such language is characteristic of the Neapolitan . Bourbons . They have ever been accustomed to blend things sacred and profane ;

    and , while upholding temporal tyranny , have made themselves the Paladins of the Aktoneixian party , and tho humble followers of its Austrian policy , Every effort is made to drown the present popular Sicilian tumult ' in blood , The royal troops have once more conquered , as superior brute force always must and will . But though the revolution may have been put down for this time , the causes Avlrich led to it still exisfc , and will assuredly , sooner or later , produce their natural fruit . Their own sufferings , and the happier fate of Italians in other parts of the Peninsula have been most vividly presented to the eyes of the Neapolitans since the election of Baron Poeiuo to tho Piedmontosc Parliament . To see one of themselves , whom they justly doem deserving of the highest love and honour , restored to social life ami political activity after years of unrighteous imprisonment , may Well be accepted by them as a presage that brightor dnys await their country .

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    npHEUE is a remarkable difforonco villages poet X and tho villages of reality . Auburn and Tyburn are strangely different places , as different as the aheop-brogcling counties of England and' tho Arcadia of seventeenth-century romances , whore tho happy peasants wear smallclothes of pink und blue aatin , and oarry shepherds' crooks fashioned of polished satin-wood , filleted with fantastic and graceful knots of poach blossom ribands . Tyburn lins w brook , but it is block with t )» e filterings from ft fovov-TDrcediug sower , while Auburn ripples with onsoadoH ot bubbling milk and streamlets that , fretting over golden gruvol , boar a charming resemblance to cold sherry and wntor . It is a pretty life in Auburn , with tho nightly dunce round tho Mayppld gnrlnnded with roses , while tha old people sit under the shade of tho village tree ,

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    and the lover presses his suit under- the hawthorn ,- that perennial head of cauliflower , which remains perpetually in blossom for that useful purpose . That pretty pastille house ,-the village church , the exact colour and texture of an old Stilton ' cheese , forms a picturesque object through the trees . Observe the smooth glossy hair of the village youth , their lavender jerkins , the roses in their shoes , and the scarlet cloaks and unspotted white aprons of Sue and Cicely , whom Mr . Absolon and Mr . Fisk have painted so often for us with that innocent meretriciousness peculiarly their owrt .. Alas ! and a sigh is fitting so poetical a dream . This charming village of Auburn is to be found , now only in stage " drops . " Goldsmith's village is indeed deserted , and a railway station , a lunatic

    asylum , and grand workhouse cover its site . The exquisite old peasant of the Royal Academy who plays with liis grandchildren , and sports such an immaculate blue coat , has become sadly rheumatic , or is now a pauper , who grumbles ungratefully over his cheerful gruel . The " Tytire tu patulae " can neither read nor write , and is more than suspected Of poaching ; . his daughter has been arrested for poisoning her illegitimate child , and his wife drinks harder than any one in . Auburn . The-itinerant soldier of Goldsmith is seized as a vagrant , and the schoolmaster , whose one small head " contained too much , has just been transported for forgery , '' which all comes of yoiii * d— -- — reading and writing " , " as Farmer Olvbxtck severely remarks . To tell the plain truth , village life looks all very , well in the poets , but ih reality ifc is Hot so charming . It is hard to Iceep loyal , and sober , and respectable ., and bring -up seven children on ten

    shillings a week , one of the ten going for rent . It is hard to work iime-hours a day seven , days in the week on ¦ " kettle" ' broth , and no meat but a slice of bacon on Sundays . Ifc is . hard ' ¦ to live worse thanthe squire ' s dogs , and tin times worse than his pheasnnis , or the pampered horses he never uses . It is liai-d to pig in a small stone hut of two rooms till you grow rheumatic and your legs dwindle to the size of pipes , and you are driven off to the workhouse as a woru-oufc hunter is driven to the knacker ' s . Ifc is hard to grow up a mere unreasoning -animal , unable to read or write , unable to assert one ' s rights , doomed to a . slave's woi * k without a slave ' s enjoyments . Join * Jones claiming relief before the hard-hearted , insolent guardians , is about as unlike the Auburn peasant of ' ¦ " merrymaking in the olden time , " as the lion of a second-rate ¦ in . enug ' urie is unlike the rampant lion of the desert printing . proof impressions of his feet on the Arabian sand , as can well be conceived .

    Boorish ignorance , a iriurk . midnight of stupidity , reigns over Auburn now . The maypole is cut down for railway-sleepers— 110 archery meetings or merry wrestlings on the green now—tlie beershop is the only amusement , and wife-beating-the only pastime . A brutal fight is the only event that rouses the Auburn mind , except it is a club procession or a funeral . Except now and then , when a black sheep finds the place gets too hot-for him , and runs to sea or enlists , the Auburn people live and die where their fathers died , bequeathing nothing but tlie besotted intelligence they have -inherited .

    How unlike that dream-village that Goldsmith once wandered , into , and whose name is to be found in noEnglish Guide-book;—its nightly dances , the simple , decent cottages , woodbined and honeysuekled , jire vanished into" , thin air , " like the rattling stage-coach and other interesting 1 fossils . Happily for us tho ballet retains memory of those , dances , and our painters traditions of the Auburn costume . Long may it be before the Apadomy forget that happy village and that happy race . Fallen , indeed , will England be when she is indifferent to the charms of stage villagers .

    We much fear too that about tlie time that some unnoticed earthquake swallowed ' Auburn—the model villnge-r-tlint model landlord and fine country gentleman , Hir Roger pis . CWnkxey must have departed this life , deservedly lamented . Since ho left this transitory scene , the hair of the model peasant , giving up the constant use bf Rowland ' s Macassar and the fat of bears , has g ^ 'own tarry and woolly and ptringy ; mid , generally neglected , bis silvery smock bus grown patched and dirty ; Jio has , losing 1 Jill care for his appearance , given up tlio roses in his shoos to grow cabbages , but

    neglects the woodbine and the honeysuckle , Ho drubs his grandchildren , aud no longer dances them on his knee—hia checks tiro less pink and fat , and his eyes of a lens heavenly blue ; if he has grown a bettor , lie has grown a dirtier man than when the flattering 1 poets and dofcotive-sig hted painters know him . Ho does not slap his thigh as he used to , nor throw back his bead and laugh , and bond his white neck , show bis white teeth , and behave generally in such a serenu and jovial and woH-fud Way . Rheumatism is not a thing- to grow very fufc on , and tho Squiro " don't enro about his ¦

    poor people . ' , „ . ,, ' ., Now tbo moral of all this is toleiably obvious . Wo would remind landlords of their duties . They are not liko ( jlorgymon or officers who , neglecting their duties , are literally obtaining money under false pretences , and obtaining ineomort for duties unperformed , Jsut landlords still liavo duties which , in tho oyes of God and mon arc imperative and binding . They inny not bo down in tbo atone tables , nor entered in Blackfiibno , but still they must bo performed , or nature exorts her awful ' ponnltioH on tho offender .

    Can it bo called happiness to livo limicl l >» n >( - 'tufl 1 misery ^ Onn n man ' s smirking ancestors in tho picture gallery oonsolo him for his tenants' hatred P JTs it a ploaaunt thought from , over tho wino to think of tho poverty and starvation ju' tho Immlol ; putflido tlie piirk gates P Doom it not make a rich roan tromblo sometimes to thiulc what slight links restrain tho Hturdy bondsmen ho cmployn from helping themselves to tlio woalth Fortune bo unequally and often so vmiustly distributes P Js it not justice , h it not pnulcnoo to compensate ns much as possible for that unjust distribution—to qmofc

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    A pkil 28 , I 860 . ] The Leader andSaturday Analyst . 395

    The Duties Of Country Landlords , . Between Tho Of Tho

    between tho of tho THE DUTIES OF COUNTRY LANDLORD . ^ .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 28, 1860, page 395, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2345/page/7/