University of Virginia Library

CONCLUSION.

To many individuals, perhaps, the imaginative, the
purely intellectual character of the enjoyments which
attention and susceptibility may extract from the
scenes and agencies of Italy, is an objection. These
characteristics are, indeed, at war with the ultra-utilitarian
spirit of the age. Yet there is a vastness in
that source of happiness denominated the ideal, of
which such cavillers are unaware. Notwithstanding
the capacity of suffering involved in a sensibility
to this moral incitement, life would be almost bereft
of interest were the fountains of imaginative enjoyment
sealed to mortals. We know not, nor under
the present condition of being can we know, how
delicately, yet universally, sentiment mingles with
and marks every pleasure of existence. Its commonest
incidents, its familiar routine, not less than
its exalted offices, insensibly imbibe and radiate a
spiritual colouring—an interest not their own, in

which consists the true secret of the delight they
afford.

There are few countries better calculated to
nourish and bring out the latent ideal of existence
than this, although here, as every where, its expansion
must be aided. The great intellectual tendency
of the legitimate influences of Italy is, indeed, to
maintain the supremacy of taste, and to quicken the
action of the sentiments. In younger and more agitated
communities, there is much to excite a vigilant
habit of observation, and develope native intelligence;
and in scenes less environed by associations
of almost universal interest, through a spirit of ambition
or the bustling zeal of general enterprise, the
mental powers are variously and often vigorously
unfolded. But in this, the absence of all occasion
of immediate excitement from the agitation of any
one of the great elements of society, and the comparatively
narrow circle in which the machinery of
commerce and government move, are circumstances
which serve to exhibit in broad relief those more intimate
relations, and less conventional, and therefore
more interesting influences, with which human society
abounds.

One is singularly uninterrupted in the endeavour
to brighten into poetry the pathway of his being.
He is undisturbed, nay, he is not unfrequently encouraged
by the atmosphere in which he lives.
Tranquillity of position—that pre-requisite to the
enjoyment of a poetical temperament—clears the
way, and beautiful forms in nature, glorious productions

of art, a passionate social character, time-hallowed
associations, a melodious language and the
teeming presence of musical influences, are about
him to feed the flame of that enthusiasm which
idealizes, and therefore enriches human nature.

There is, surely, ground for moral satisfaction in
thus scanning, under the excitement of sympathy,
the present scenes and intellectual influences of
Italy. We stand among her ruins, eloquent of
past greatness, and instinctively gaze around for a
lingering ray of existing glory; we contemplate
with impatient sadness, her palsied political being,
and yearn to lose its memory in dwelling upon the
tokens of mental prowess and imaginative expansion;
and these we find in the beauty and perfection
of her literature and art. There is something singularly
consolatory, in thus tracing out a conservative
principle from amid the insignia of decay and
prostration. There is something quickening to the
love of humanity, something which renews our faith
in her progressive tendencies, in beholding the continuance,
and feeling the power of an intellectual
dominion, a heritage of mind, an empire over the
heart, where the more external sway of the political
sceptre has been most sadly subverted.