miracle happen?  Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world reconciled—­how delightful the prospect!  Who can doubt that when the Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of blissful hopes?  ‘Let not your Majesty take offence,’ ran the appeal, ’if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series of calamities.  Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble nor happy if it depend only on the sword.  Thus we trust in the nation itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a sister.’

The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.

The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the 30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera.  Fighting from daybreak to sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200 killed and wounded.  The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material.  It was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.

The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando’s corps in Venetia.  With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent’s advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not even Charles Albert’s ‘masterly inactivity’ could have given Austria the victory.

The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to meet on the 15th of May.  A dispute had been going on for several days between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to them.  It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to irritate the King.  However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield, and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the discussion of Parliament itself.  It seems that, at the same