Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/16

xii envies an Englishman, hereditary or elective legislator. He envies him his pride of country, in which he himself can in no way indulge. He knows, at best, that his sovereign is a weak tool in the hands of a foreign potentate; and that all that is aimed at by the governments that rule him, is to benefit Austria—not Italy. But this forms but a small portion of his wrongs. He sees that we enjoy the privilege of doing and saying whatever we please, so that we infringe no law. If he write a book, it is submitted to the censor, and if it be marked by any boldness of opinion, it is suppressed. If he attempt any plan for the improvement of his countrymen, he is checked; if a tardy permission be given him to proceed, it is clogged with such conditions as nullify the effect. If he limit his endeavours to self-improvement, he is suspected—surrounded by spies; while his friends share in the odium that attaches to him. The result of such persecution is to irritate or discourage. He either sinks into the Circean Stye, in which so many drag out a degraded existence, or he is irresistibly impelled to resist. No way to mitigate the ills he groans under, or to serve his countrymen, is open,