only intermediate step between the aristocracy and the common people of this feudal society. The aristocracy itself, and all English society, is broken up and subdivided into an almost infinite series of groups, which are separated and kept apart by a certain amount of jealousy, and sometimes by even more hostile feelings. But though divided by aristocratic haughtiness, they are nevertheless bound together by strong feelings of emulation and nationality.

"With some exceptions in favour of those who are possessed of unusual abilities, or unusual wealth, the city merchant, the physician, the literary man, and both civil and military officials, neither belong to the same circle in society, nor live in the same quarter of the town, and have different prejudices, vanities, and virtues.

"In Manchester, where the extent of wealth and of poverty which can be attained is evident to all, as well as how much industry and how much vulgarity may be found among its 400,000 inhabitants, I heard two merchants, who were lamenting over the centralization of government, conclude their remarks by saying, 'We are in fact not Englishmen but Manchester-men,'-having the vanity to consider Manchester with its suburbs a world within itself; and this opinion is shared by the Iron and Tobacco aristocracy of Glasgow towards their city, and indeed is a common feeling throughout England. Those who have been at Eton or at Harrow, at Oxford or Cambridge, call themselves Eton men, Oxford men, etc., and are proud of the appellation. On the other hand, it never destroys the sentiment of forming together a still greater world, Great Britain, nor does it destroy in any, the desire and constant effort to ascend the different social ranks step by step, which occasions a feverish activity in this truly extraordinary nation, where in the very midst of such aristocratic pride, exists the only aristocracy which has survived all others, owing to its having been constantly renewed from the blood of the people.

"If we can once succeed in obtaining a correct impression of the different manner in which English society is organised and arranged from that of France, we shall also in a great measure comprehend the diversity of institutions and ideas, and the different aspect of these two nations; above all it will explain why the English find it so difficult to accept new ideas, as well as their prodigious tenacity in retaining them when once accepted, and their attachment, I could almost say religious worship, of precedents, customs, and traditions. If a new idea uttered by Rousseau and Voltaire is listened to by a thousand Frenchmen and accepted without any difficulty, there is no reason why it may not be accepted and freely circulate among the thirty-seven millions who inhabit France. But in England, where a Manchester-man tells you he is not an Englishman; where a Low-Church man abhors a Catholic; where the lawyer does not enter the social circle of the merchant, nor

the latter that of the man of literature; in such a country the idea admitted into one circle, will often find it not so easy to enter another, and this sometimes causes it to be wholly checked. Once however having penetrated the heart of English social life, it becomes an integral portion of it, and the very reasons which rendered it so hard of entrance will render it equally difficult to eliminate. This may also explain what often to us as foreigners, appear to be great contradictions in the institutions and ideas of the English, although they are not so in reality; but modelled and formed between the two great divisions of aristocracy and people, and amidst an infinite number of social subdivisions, it is impossible that they should possess the almost philosophical and systematic uniformity of French ideas and institutions.

"While engaged with my inquiries respecting public instruction, I have often noticed in France that the first answer I received to any of my questions connected with a school or college was a general explanation of the whole system of public instruction, even when I thought that I perfectly understood it already. This proceeded from a desire, perhaps even a sort of necessity, in the mind of the person I addressed, to make me understand those institutions which are so intimately connected together, and which exactly suit the capacity and disposition of the French mind. In a single day you are able to comprehend the whole of their system of public instruction; having seen one elementary school, you have seen all, having seen one Lyceum you know them all, for there is a complete net-work of institutions, whose centre is in Paris, and which extends from thence with mathematical symmetry all over France, to each of the departments. They seem more like abstractions than realities, resembling a geometrical problem or a philosophical system formed in the brain of a philosopher; never appearing to have sprung spontaneously from the demands of the country, with all the imperfections and all the vigour which, characterize the works of nature, but like a stupendous crystallization, to alter which, would require either a coup d'état, or a revolution; displace one portion, and, unless the whole be changed, all will go to pieces.

"Precisely the reverse occurs in England; on one side of the Channel is synthesis, on the other analysis; whenever I asked an Englishman, 'What is your system of public instruction?' it almost made him laugh. 'We have no systems,' was invariably his reply. I was however obliged to discover some general governing principle, round which to gather my ideas, and I have remarked that whenever Italians or Frenchmen have set themselves the task of seriously studying some English institution, they have done the same, and that all have encountered the same difficulty in persuading the English to give a serious answer to this question. It was always, 'This is German philosophy, the world does not advance with theories.' Nevertheless none are better acquainted

with the institutions and laws of their own country than the English, and none are more willing to explain them.

"I was travelling on one occasion by express train from Manchester to Edinburgh; we were constantly meeting trains which passed us like arrows, and crossing innumerable other lines of rail, so that we seemed to be in a dangerous labyrinth. On arriving at Edinburgh, after having been several hours on the road, I heard a Frenchman descending from the carriage say to his companion, 'ça doit être organisé, car ça marche.' And it did indeed seem as if our train had travelled without any guidance, entirely abandoned to itself. In Paris all is settled and established by rules: on the steamboat, in the railroad, in the street-carriage or in the omnibus, the laws tell you how to get in, how to get out, how to stop and how to go on. In London, instead of this, everything is left to itself. Carts, carriages, omnibuses, pedestrians and riders, all move on in five or six rows, and in opposite directions. They jostle, get entangled with each other, abuse one another, and only when there seems an alarm lest the traffic should be interrupted, a policeman as it were rises from the ground, and everybody stands still. You see the same confusion on the hundred boats upon the Thames, or on the railways which lead to the suburbs of London, performing the journey nearly every minute. The same apparent disorder, though substantial order, equally strange and inexplicable to foreigners, exists in the brain of every Englishman and in all their institutions.

"The Schools, Courts of Justice, Prisons, Houses of Lords and Commons, the Laws and Customs, all are subject to change. They develope, they sustain modifications, and expand, each obeying its own law of existence; like a luxuriant forest full of life and vigour, which spreading in all directions and in apparent disorder, becomes a rule and law to itself. In Paris you seem to see the work of man, and each individual may take it into his head to alter it; in England instead of this you behold a work of nature, and you may as soon think of changing it, as of stopping the path of the sun.

"It would be out of place to pause now to consider how different men have produced different institutions, and how the difference of institutions may have in its turn contributed not a little to modify men's ideas. Let it suffice, to note the close relation between the one and the other. Nor do I wish here to side with either the English or the French. England no doubt is the country of liberty, and on this account all her institutions are studied and admired, but it would be a great mistake to believe that she does not need to study the continent, or cannot receive much instruction in so doing. The English and the French are like two halves of one single more perfect and more ideal nation, which united seem to possess every material to form a larger community. The synthesis and analysis will perhaps one

day be united and form a new social syllogism which will reveal the future of modern civilization, where Italy possibly is destined to play an important part in the new drama. For this reason, we ought always to be careful how we advance, and not allow ourselves to be persuaded either from sympathy or from antipathy to espouse blindly the cause or ideas of either of these two civilizations singly, which so long as they are divided will remain incomplete, as so many examples serve to show.

"I have often heard Englishmen make it their boast that they have po Code of Laws, and are the only nation that has never accepted the Roman Law. A code, they say, checks and as it were destroys the free development of legislation; the nation which accepts its jurisprudence from another, confesses to have lost the power to create a national system of jurisprudence; and the judge who always and solely applies a law composed for him, and who neither knows nor refers to his own reason, or natural sense of equity, is reduced to a machine, and is inferior to the English judge, who is likewise a legislator, and therefore substantially resembles a Roman Prætor. These arguments contain a certain amount of truth; but another proposition, which I heard maintained and supported on the authority of a distinguished English author, namely that many portions of the Roman Civil Law conduce more to despotism than to liberty, I could scarcely believe would have any partisans, and would at all events appear absurd to every Italian. Nevertheless what argument can justify such a confused and complicated system of legislation as that of England, which few or none are able to unravel, a confusion repeated in the constitution, in the system of taxation, in everything? What object can be gained by the impossibility of determining with precision the official duties of a magistrate, and being always compelled to trust to his morality, and to public opinion, in order to keep him within proper bounds? The English constitution, according to Mill,* is a machine which could not work four-and-twenty hours without coming to a standstill, were it not daily modified and restrained by the popular element which has created it, and re-creates it constantly. This spirit in the English people is a great benefit, and a national glory, but I do not believe that such confusion is its necessary accompaniment, nor do those English who refuse to be misled by national prejudices believe it either. The proof of this is, that many have begun to study Roman jurisprudence, in order to become more thoroughly acquainted with the laws of their own country; and even in the Acts of Parliament, the Roman Law is gradually more and more introduced. Nor are these isolated facts. Englishmen of enlarged minds are beginning to be convinced that their systematic horror of

* Considerations on Representative Government, chap. v., by J. S. Mill. London, 1861.

systems is exaggerated, that from the Latin nations they may learn the art of introducing more systematic arrangement into their national institutions, without thereby losing the liberty and individuality of action which we on our part ought to admire, and endeavour to imitate in them: and with respect to public instruction they are at length persuaded that they may learn much from continental institutions, which they have begun to study seriously.

"Men of the greatest learning in England, Mr. Grote, Sir Charles Lyell, and others with whom I spoke upon the subject, are using all their influence to assimilate the Universities of England to those of France and Germany. Young Italy wishes to be English and young England wishes to be Latin. These are signs of the times, the future is in the hands of whosoever, is capable of grasping the results of these two agencies. What, however, is most important for us, is to bear in mind the difficulties encountered by the English, the prodigious efforts which they make, and the variety of ways by which they contrive to succeed in their purposes. England is perhaps the only country of Europe, where we can see the hidden working by which institutions are formed and developed.

"It is strange, and well worthy of note, that when we turn our backs on England and enter Scotland, we seem to have taken the road southwards, and to have returned to a continental country, almost to one of the Latin race. I do not speak of the mountains and lakes which we imagine so rugged, yet find so smiling, and amidst which we seem to behold the lively and touching creations of Sir Walter Scott, nor of the impression made upon me on entering Edinburgh after the fogs and smoky buildings of London, almost making me fancy myself again in Florence. The very architecture seems revived; the imitation of the Greek and Roman lines: the Gothic curves, and the towering pinnacles, are altogether to the eye what the echo of music that has been long and vainly desired, is to the ear. The varied and capricious form of the ground, recalls Sienna. The Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat smile upon one like the mountains of home; the sad shade of Mary Stuart seems to wander through Holyrood Palace, speaking of her beautiful France; and it would seem as if the hand of Giotto or Orcagna had designed those chaste lines to be traced in the ruins of the lovely chapel. The national music once more sounds amidst the valleys, and in the towns you hear those popular songs which have been rendered immortal by the poet Burns. Who can describe my sensations when issuing from a cloud of smoke called Manchester, where thousands of wheels are moving with an infernal noise, and over which thousands of chimneys pour forth still blacker and still denser smoke, and transported as it were by the wind, I found myself in the capital of Scotland, by many designated the fairest city of the world?