right angles, terminating towards
the north and west by a noble panorama of the snow-capped Alps, on the
east by the verdant Collina, a range of undulating hills studded with
country seats, while southwards stretch the fertile plains of Piedmont;
large, regularly-built squares, handsome, thriving shops; private
carriages, omnibuses, and citadines dashing about in every direction;
soldiers, gay and debonair; and a busy, plain, but honest-looking
population.

According to the last census of 1858, Turin contains one hundred
and eighty thousand inhabitants; an increase of forty thousand since
1848. This one fact serves to give some idea of the country's rapid
development under a liberal Government. The same policy which has
attracted refugees from all parts of Italy to swell the population
of the State, has wrought a corresponding expansion in its material
and intellectual resources. It is scarcely possible to overrate all
that Sardinia has gained in the last ten years. An Englishman, unless
thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the rest of the Peninsula,
cannot appreciate the extent of these improvements. Measuring
everything by the gauge of home perfection, he remarks that there is
still much left to do;—while the Lombard, or Modenese, or any other
subject of the various Italian States, compares all he sees with what
he has left perhaps only a few miles behind him, and is filled with
rapture and astonishment.

Another class of my countrymen, looking on Italy as the special
province of the antiquarian and the tourist, think these changes
are dearly purchased. Piedmont, they declare, thanks to her boasted
reforms, is fast losing all that rendered her worth seeing! Under the
united influences of the constitution, railroads, and a free press,
this consummation may not in truth be very distant. The country has
undeniably degenerated from the characteristics formerly possessed
in common with her Italian sisters. Politics, judicial reforms, vast
public works, schemes more gigantic still of national emancipation,
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