and an eternal public path, and able to lie down, if he will, and sleep in clover.  In short—­saving, alas! a finer sky and a drier atmosphere—­we have the best part of Italy in books; and this we can enjoy in England.  Give me Tuscany in Middlesex or Berkshire, and the Valley of Ladies between Jack Straw’s Castle and Harrow....  To me, Italy had a certain hard taste in the mouth:  its mountains were too bare, its outlines too sharp, its lanes too stony, its voices too loud, its long summer too dusty.  I longed to bathe myself in the grassy balm of my native fields.”

As a whole these volumes are full of interest and variety.  They introduce us to numerous famous people, and leave us with a most agreeable impression of their author.

* * * * *

The Mormons.

Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, distinguished himself very honorably a year or two ago by the vindication of the Mormons against calumnies to which they had been subjected in the Western States, and by appeals for their relief from the sufferings induced by unlooked-for exposure in their exodus to California.  We are indebted to him for an interesting discourse upon the subject, delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  He concludes this performance with the following observations, which we believe to be altogether just.  Mr. Kane is a man of sagacity and integrity, and his opportunities for the formation of a wise opinion upon this subject were such as very few have possessed: 

“I have gone over the work I assigned myself when I accepted your Committee’s invitation, as fully as I could do without trespassing too largely upon your courteous patience.  But I should do wrong to conclude my lecture without declaring in succinct and definite terms, the opinions I have formed and entertain of the Mormon people.  The libels, of which they have been made the subject, make this a simple act of justice.  Perhaps, too, my opinion, even with those who know me as you do, will better answer its end following after the narrative I have given.

“I have spoken to you of a people; whose industry had made them rich, and gathered around them all the comforts, and not a few of the luxuries of refined life; expelled by lawless force into the wilderness; seeking an untried home far away from the scenes which their previous life had endeared to them; moving onward, destitute, hunger-sickened, and sinking with disease; bearing along with them their wives and children, the aged, and the poor, and the decrepid; renewing daily on their march, the offices of devotion, the ties of family, and friendship, and charity; sharing necessities, and braving dangers together, cheerful in the midst of want and trial, and persevering until they triumphed.  I have told, or tried to tell you, of men, who when menaced by famine, and in the midst of pestilence, with every energy taxed