"
M. de Rayneval will be canonized a hundred years hence (if the present
system continue) for having so nobly defended the oppressed.
It will not be foreign to my purpose to try my own hand at this
picture; for the subjects of the Pope are Italians like the rest, and
there is but one nation in the Italian peninsula. The difference of
climate, the vicinity of foreigners, the traces of invasions, may have
modified the type, altered the accent, and slightly varied the
language; still the Italians are the same everywhere, and the middle
class--the _elite_ of every people--think and speak alike from Turin
to Naples. Handsome, robust, and healthy, when the neglect of
Governments has not delivered them over to the fatal _malaria_, the
Italians are, mentally, the most richly endowed people in Europe. M.
de Rayneval, who is not the man to flatter them, admits that they have
"intelligence, penetration, and aptitude for everything." The
cultivation of the arts is no less natural to them than is the study
of the sciences; their first steps in every path open to human
intellect are singularly rapid, and if but too many of them stop
before the end is attained, it is because their success is generally
barred by deplorable circumstances. In private as well as public
affairs, they possess a quick apprehension and sagacity carried to
suspicion. There is no race more ready at making and discussing laws;
legislation and jurisprudence have been among their chief triumphs.
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