Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/202

 But those days, too, are gone; there has come such life as the flocks lead on the mountain sides—such life as the idle, graceful fallow-deer may spend, from spring-tide to rainy autumn, under the noble trees of some abundant park; but where is the soul of man? In the hands of those who teach him to fast and tell his beads—to bend the neck to the yoke—to obey the church, not God.

Nor is this all; especially among the rich; far—far from it; for men, unless tamed by labour, can never lead the innocent lives of the beasts of the field: if darker crimes are unfrequent, yet vice flourishes, rank and unchecked: the sense of honour is destroyed; the nobler affections are crushed; mental culture is looked on with jealousy, and dies blighted. In the young may be found gleams of inextinguishable genius—a yearning for better things, which terrifies the parents, who see in such the seeds of discontent and ruin: they prefer for their sons the safer course of intrigue, play, idleness—the war of the passions, rather than the aspirations of virtue.

To do nothing has been long the motto of the Tuscan government; had it been strictly observed, still much might be said against it. Leopold I. was a good sovereign, a clever and liberal man; Ferdinand, who succeeded to him, suffered many