January 27.

This morning comes the plan of the Address of the Chamber of Deputies to the King:  it contains some passages that are keenest satire upon him, as also some remarks which have been made, some words of truth spoken in the Chamber of Peers, that must have given him some twinges of nervous shame as he read.  M. Guizot’s speech on the affairs of Switzerland shows his usual shabbiness and falsehood.  Surely never prime minister stood in so mean a position as he:  one like Metternich seems noble and manly in comparison; for if there is a cruel, atheistical, treacherous policy, there needs not at least continual evasion to avoid declaring in words what is so glaringly manifest in fact.

There is news that the revolution has now broken out in Naples; that neither Sicilians nor Neapolitans will trust the king, but demand his abdication; and that his bad demon, Coclo, has fled, carrying two hundred thousand ducats of gold.  But in particulars this news is not yet sure, though, no doubt, there is truth, at the bottom.

Aggressions on the part of the Austrians continue in the North.  The advocates Tommaso and Manin (a light thus reflected on the name of the last Doge), having dared to declare formally the necessity of reform, are thrown into prison.  Every day the cloud swells, and the next fortnight is likely to bring important tidings.

LETTER XXIII.

UNPLEASANTNESS OF A ROMAN WINTER.—­PROGRESS OF EVENTS IN EUROPE,
AND THEIR EFFECT UPON ITALY.—­THE CARNIVAL.—­RAIN INTERRUPTS
THE GAYETY.—­REJOICINGS FOR THE REVOLUTIONS OF FRANCE AND
AUSTRIA.—­TRANSPORTS OF THE PEOPLE.—­OBLATIONS TO THE CAUSE OF
LIBERTY.—­CASTLE FUSANO.—­THE WEATHER, GLADSOMENESS OF NATURE, AND THE
PLEASURE OF THOUGHT.

Rome, March 29, 1848.

It is long since I have written.  My health entirely gave way beneath the Roman winter.  The rain was constant, commonly falling in torrents from the 16th of December to the 19th of March.  Nothing could surpass the dirt, the gloom, the desolation, of Rome.  Let no one fancy he has seen her who comes here only in the winter.  It is an immense mistake to do so.  I cannot sufficiently rejoice that I did not first see Italy in the winter.

The climate of Rome at this time of extreme damp I have found equally exasperating and weakening.  I have had constant nervous headache without strength to bear it, nightly fever, want of appetite.  Some constitutions bear it better, but the complaint of weakness and extreme dejection of spirits is general among foreigners in the wet season.  The English say they become acclimated in two or three years, and cease to suffer, though never so strong as at home.

Now this long dark dream—­to me the most idle and most suffering season of my life—­seems past.  The Italian heavens wear again their deep blue; the sun shines gloriously; the melancholy lustres are stealing again over the Campagna, and hundreds of larks sing unwearied above its ruins.