In a word, the lovely city we may all remember smiling over that blue strait beyond Scylla and Charybdis, was inwardly a very "sepulchre of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." The first symptom of a new order of things after Garibaldi's campaign, the American gentleman observed to be a change in the voices of the people. Men began to talk aloud in the caffés and the streets, and even to talk politics. Then lamps were lighted, and, we believe, gas introduced, and it became possible to walk across the town after dark. Then came schools, multiplied and opened gratuitously for boys and girls. By degreesthough, alas, the dread "omertà" has yet to be conqueredthe Messinians have undergone such a change, even in their commercial honesty, that the American bears witness: "I did not think formerly that honest men could ever be made of them, but I do think so now."

Almost the same has happened in Palermo, though still the country around is so beset by bandits, that a palace ten miles from the city is disused by its owners from the danger of transit. Ninety-five schools have been opened in the town, five having been the number before the annexation.

In Naples the new government has had to grapple with difficulties almost hopeless: a strong reactionary party; brigands regularly sent forth like guerrillas to disturb the country; priests using all their influence to thwart education and amendment; paupers to the number of 70,000 in the city of Naples alone; and finally, a population debased and brutalised below almost any other in Europe. Of this last and worst item in the list, a man must have been a resident in the place to form a conception. Well can we remember going thither fresh from England years ago, under the old Bomba rule, and finding it impossible for a long time to take in the state of public morals: the atmosphere of lies; the habitual dishonesty of every one, from the marchese who cheated about the rent of his palace, to the shopman who sold stained gloves for new, and the lavandaia who ripped a scam off every sheet; women veiled and inoffensive deliberately knocked down in the Toledo, because no gentleman was at hand to guard them; royal head-gardeners and learned arch-priests seeking for buonomanos like footmen; and every where beggars, beggars, beggars beyond all count or measure. It was a horrid spectacle-the beauty of earth and sea contrasted with the hideousness of humanity. Like the mingled fumes of garlic and incense in the churches, the vice was the more abominable for the presence of such natural glory.

We cannot pretend, in our brief remaining space, to give an account of the efforts of the new government to cleanse this Augean stable. The schools for which English aid has been so

nobly granted are doing a great deal. The enforced employment of the able-bodied lazzeroni, men and women, upon the railways, will also do much. But there is herculean work yet in store to stop the brigandage; to purify the drainage, which is poisoning the town; above all, to introduce upright official dealing without too offensively replacing Neapolitans by Piedmontese. If the task remain incomplete for many a day, it is small marvel.

Much easier naturally has been the improvement of towns like Milan and Bologna, with far better-disposed populations, and having no exiled royalty to stir up the regrets of parasites. In Milan a new public park and other improvements have been made. In Bologna the process of widening the old streets has been carried on, as in Florence, with much energy. Ferrara's grass-grown causeways will never need to be widened; for no change ever likely to occur will recall life to that relic of the past. In Padua the reopening of the university (closed in vengeance against the liberalism of the students in 1848) has of course brought back some animation.

Ancona, it is hoped, will ere long become a most important port; and considerable works have been added to the harbour. Direct steam communication with Alexandria has been established; and the cost of passage being nearly 100f. less than from Naples, the whole traffic of Italy, north and south, with Egypt and the East must flow in this channel. Whether the port may not even succeed in replacing Trieste for the rest of Europe may be a question. To English travellers it of course offers the shortest sea-passage, with direct railway communication.

In Spezzia, again, immense works are being carried on. It has been resolved to leave the port of Genoa for the future to the use of merchant vessels, and to place here the great station for the navy of Italy, with a corresponding arsenal, rivalling that of Toulon. A glance at the map will show that the locality is admirably fitted by nature for such a purpose. The gulf, ten miles long by about six miles wide, has through its entire length good anchorage for ships, and shelter under the adjacent hills. At the upper end of the bay, near the town of Spezzia, the works now in progress will form a harbour wherein the largest vessels may ride safely close to the shore. The sand is being removed so as to deepen the water; and at the same time large moles and docks are being formed, and lined with fine cut stone. For all these constructions and clearances 3800 labourers are said to be employed, exclusive of the 2000 navvies on the adjacent railway works, which will unite this great port with Leghorn on one side and Genoa on the other. There are six mud-drags grinding all day in pulling up sand, and twelve

E

small steamers running backwards and forwards to carry it out clear beyond the gulf, besides six pontoons carrying away earth from the arsenal. It is calculated that the cost of the whole, when complete, will be 48,000,000 francs.

Such, in brief, are the most noticeable local improvements which have been made in Italy since the annexation. With the large and conclusive question of the financial condition of Italy we shall not attempt to grapple in this paper. It is of course the point on which the enemies of the new order of things fix for a definite proof of failure. The 40,000,000l. sterling, however, which Italy has sunk since the revolution in inaugurating her new era may not, after all, be proved to have been wasted; Cavour's liberality may have been the truest economy. National independence, representative government, universal education, a free press, and vastly facilitated intercourse and locomotion, are benefits for which a nation may perhaps not ill afford to pay at the rate of 27. a head, or even (as the account may possibly reach ere the work is done) at that of 31. for every man, woman, and child.

The enormous extension of the army, amounting nominally to 300,000 men, is also a matter beyond our discussion. The "Party of Action" vehemently condemn the measure as intended to produce an instrument of despotic power, and actually usurping an exorbitant share of the revenues of the nation. They affirm that the substitution of volunteers for regular troops would save some millions of revenue, while leaving safe the liberty of the people; and they loudly exclaim against the preponderance of Piedmontese among the officers of higher grade in the army as it exists. With these questions we shall not attempt to deal. Whether there could be found in Italy on any political platform such unanimity as to justify a government in substituting volunteers for a regular army, we shall not attempt to decide. The case is beset with difficulties, which descend down to the removal or appointment of every petty official and postmaster throughout the kingdom. To change all the old impiegati would have been to commit (in many cases) injustice, to provoke needless enmity, and to render the practical course of business for a time almost impossible. Yet the maintenance of the old officials in their places, which has been the policy preferred, has often rendered the work of the government doubly difficult, and in more than one instance has notoriously defeated its designs in important crises of events, by intentional delays and misconstructions of orders.

The purpose of this paper having absolved us from any attempt to grapple with these and other political problems now waiting for solution in Italy, we are enabled to conclude with

describing the results of our survey of the consequences of annexation as wholly favourable. A new life has come to the country,—a life which must be seen and felt stirring around us to be perfectly comprehended, but which an Englishman may represent to himself by fancying some such sleepy old city as Bath or Exeter suddenly inspired with the enterprise of Liverpool and the liveliness of Brighton. This life has poured itself into every channel open to it. The Italians have taken to heart the principle, "Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might;" and, without waiting till they can possess Rome and Venice, and do every thing at once, they are working vigorously at every point of progress within their reach. Education on the scale of 21,000 elementary schools, 3000 kilometres of railways, and 12,000 of telegraph, a free press, and an army of 300,000 men, this is what they have to show for their three years of independence and their 40,000,000l. of money.

Sir Boyle Roche, in defending the union with England in the Irish parliament, drew down great ridicule on the cause he advocated by observing, that "when the day of judgment came, it would appear how much good the measure had effected for Ireland!" We trust we have shown that the world need not wait quite so long to see "what annexation has done for Italy."

ART. III.-DR. SMITH'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE. A Dictionary of the Bible, comprising its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History. Edited by W. Smith, LL.D. In 3 volumes. London: Murray, 1860-1863.

A NEW era of Bible Dictionaries was inaugurated by Winer in his Biblisches Realwörterbuch. That indefatigable scholar composed a work full of learning and independent thought, which is still indispensable to the scientific theologian and critical student of Scripture. That it has not been translated into English is probably owing to the liberal views of the writer, which are such as most of the religious sects in this country wish to shut out from their dense atmosphere. We happen to know also that the author himself was indifferent to the proposals occasionally made to him to sanction an English version. Winer's was succeeded by the Cyclopædia bearing the name of the late Dr. Kitto as editor-a production embracing a wider range of topics than the Teutonic one, and composed by many scholars. The two goodly volumes surpassed every thing of the kind that had previously appeared, and created a taste for biblical knowledge in quarters where ignorance had prevailed. They soon threw into ob

scurity the five quartos of Calmet and Taylor, besides helping to thrust aside the dictionaries of Robinson and Watson-compilations more theological than biblical, and of little intrinsic merit. A good theological dictionary is still a desideratum, and likely to be so, from the divided state of religionists in this country, and the bitterness of their disputes on doctrinal matters; as if creeds were more important than the spirit of devotion. Bad passions find full play in the region of dogma, and religion is crucified by her professing friends. After Kitto's had satisfied the public for several years, another appeared under the superintendence of Dr. W. Smith, whose editorial ability is well known. Marshalling under his banner a large number of writers, almost all clergymen, he published the first volume in 1860, to which two more, completing the book, have been recently added. In most respects the work is superior to the original one of Kitto, certainly to that subsequently edited by Burgess. Whether it be equal to the enlarged one edited by Dr. Alexander is a question we must at present leave undecided, because it is unfair to compare an unfinished with a completed performance. Such dictionaries have their disadvantages as well as their excellencies. It cannot be expected that sixty or seventy writers, independently composing articles which must necessarily touch one another at various points, should always harmonise. All that can be expected is a general agreement. No intelligent editor should bind his workmen to uniformity in results; nor could he possibly do so without correcting and revising their articles-a process to which learned men would never submit, as long as they hold themselves accountable for what they write by affixing their names. If the number of contributors be considerable, diversity of opinion will be proportionately greater, and detract so far from the unity of the work. In the dictionary before us the writers are too many: sixty-eight is an excessive number. The editor has crossed the Atlantic, and imported from the new world the literary offspring of four men of no particular note; he has resorted to Paris for one scholar, has applied to Ireland for two, and obtained one from Scotland. Germany, the land of biblical learning preeminently, is excluded, for a reason which it is not difficult to discover,-a reason unfavourable to the courage of the editor, however creditable to his prudence.

It were best if such a work had one author, who could give the whole the impress of his own mind. It would be hard to find a proper equivalent for absolute uniformity-the uniformity of profound and comprehensive learning in union with critical genius. But where shall the one man be found? Even in Germany it would not be easy to discover him. Yet the thing is not beyond the