A GLANCE AT REVOLUTIONIZED ITALY: A Visit to Messina, AND A TOUR THROUGH THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES, TUSCANY, GENOA, PIEDMONT, &c., &c., IN THE SUMMER OF 1848. BY CHARLES MAC FARLANE, AUTHOR OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1828, THE ROMANCE OF ITALIAN HISTORY, SPORTS, PASTIMES, AND RECOLLECTIONS OF THE SOUTH OF ITALY, SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. - 1849. BIBLI PREFACE. ITALY is not a new country to me. I lived in it from the month of January, 1816, to the month of May, 1827, having quitted it only for a few months during that long space of time, to make a visit to England. When I left it for the East, in 1827, its language and literature were nearly as familiar to me as my own. I had travelled through every part of the Peninsula, not excepting the Abruzzi, the Calabrias, Apulia, and other rarely visited provinces and districts. Without being blind to the defects of their varied character (a character so varied, not only in different states, but in different provinces, and in various parts of the same province, that it is impossible to generalize it or to speak of it as a national or one Italian character)— without being insensible to the vices which required and still demand reform-I had, and I still have, not only a passionate admiration for their beautiful country, but a warm affection for the Italian people in general. During my long absence I had maintained some correspondence with old friends in the country, and I had directed my attention to the progress of its literature, to the schemes executed or suggested for the social improvement of the people, and to the various unfortunate, precocious attempts to revolutionize the Peninsula, to expel the Austrians, and to establish constitutional governments. Being at Constantinople in the month of June last, I had to choose my route homewards. I had intended to ascend the Danube, to visit the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, to pass through Transylvania, and to find my way to Vienna through a part of HunBut insurrections and revolutions, or gary. the ill-augured war of races, were raging all along the banks of the Danube; the season was too far advanced; the terrible malaria fevers of the Danube had begun, and the cholera was bad at Galatz and other places through which we must pass. We could not return by the Adriatic Sea, Friuli, and the Tyrol, for the port of Trieste was blockaded by the squadrons PREFACE. of the King of Sardinia, the steamboats of the Austrian Lloyd Company had ceased to run, and the southern mouth of the Tyrolese valley and the country in advance of it were then the theatre of a fierce war. To every other route there were objections, more or less serious. Persons who prized their tranquillity, and who felt a fearful uncertainty as to the course which revolution and war might run, saw no safe way of reaching England except by making the whole voyage by sea. To this I had serious objections. I had, moreover, a strong desire to see Italy under her new aspects, and some friends earnestly advised me to go through that country, flattering me with their belief that the observations of an old resident like myself might, at the present moment, be interesting, and, perhaps, of some public and political utility. Even when Charles Albert was in the field, and hostilities were in full progress, it seemed not difficult to avoid the theatre of actual war, and to traverse without interruption the whole country, from the Bay of Naples to the Alps. If the prospect of difficulty had been much greater than it was, the ardent desire to see |