1831.] The State of Europe. 587 



in its devastation. But the cause of patriotism should do all things but 

 despair. The history of all the great trials of national patriotism has 

 teemed with extraordinary changes, and in the moment when the 

 strength of man seems air, and the hope of valour and fidelity seems 

 undone, the arm of a mightier than man interposes, and vindicates the 

 justice of heaven. 



Belgium still exhibits the disasters of an unsettled administration ; and 

 nothing could be easier than to point out the blunders, and detail the 

 miseries which the Belgian insurrection has brought upon the people of 

 Brussels. But let the truth be told : the Belgians have accomplished 

 their chief object, and we must learn our principles of justice in some 

 new school, before we question its justice. They hated the government 

 of a Dutchman. They were given over to it by the allies in the moment 

 of irresistible victory. We have never been told that the will of the 

 nation was consulted in the transfer. If it were, the secret has escaped 

 Europe. The Belgians, whether injured in their actual interests, or 

 offended in their feelings, or simply uneasy under a foreign government 

 which they had not chosen for themselves, threw off the yoke. What 

 man will decide that a Dutchman could be the only legitimate sovereign 

 of Flemings ? We must, at least, hear his reasons, before we can acknow- 

 ledge their validity. 



In the mean time Belgium is consolidating. Trade is returning to the 

 towns : agriculture is prospering in the country. The luxuriance of a 

 soil, which has endured more of the havoc of war, than all Europe be- 

 sides ; and yet has always overpowered its traces almost at the moment, 

 by the extraordinary fertility of the land, and the matchless industry of 

 the people, is already working its effects ; and unless a most unhappy 

 concurrence of misfortunes shall make Belgium a prize to be contested 

 for by France, Prussia, and Holland, another year will see it, as it has 

 been for many an age, the most flourishing portion of Europe. In Italy 

 and its insurrections all has been failure. There was no plan, no sum- 

 mons to the dead spirit of the peninsula. A figure of Italian freedom 

 was dressed up, but it was not in the means of those who displayed it, 

 to breathe life into its nostrils. Insurrection was paraded from city 

 to city with a ragged band of poissardes and profligates dancing round 

 its car. It was punchinello in arms ; the first Austrian drum put the 

 whole political shew to flight, their shewmen were put into irons, and 

 their insurrection hung in effigy. No Italian Revolution will ever be 

 decisive, without the aid of a foreign force. Italy is priest-ridden, and 

 therefore immoral, indolent, and nerveless. The limbs steeped in idle- 

 ness will never bear the weight of armour. The mind clouded by super- 

 stition can never discover those principles of liberty which, like the sun, 

 are always in existence, and always ready to pour life and brightness 

 on nations, when the cloud is taken away. The only hope for the Italian 

 is in some great shock which shall break open the walls of the dungeon 

 built by his own hands, some sweeping invasion which shall first over- 

 whelm his oppressors, and then, by the example and necessity of the time, 

 rouse him to moral courage. It is in no contempt of a people who once 

 led the way in all that was great in arts and arms, and to whom Europe 

 has been twice indebted for its civilization, that we say, the cause of 

 Italy is hopeless, but in some general and mighty change of Europe ; 

 some new and vast subversion of the old habits and policy of the conti- 

 nent, some moral deluge which, after utterly sweeping away and punish- 



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