faults, Dr. Schaff has a comprehensive insight as to our national destiny, and a Christian scholar's appreciation of our national duties. "The general tendency in America," he observes, "is to the widest possible diffusion of education; but depth and thoroughness by no means go hand in hand with extension. A peculiar phenomenon is the great number of female teachers. Among these are particularly distinguished the Yankee girls,' who know how to make their way successfully everywhere as teachers-as in Europe the governesses from French Switzerland. Domestic life in the United States may be described as, on an average, well regulated and happy. The number of illegitimate births is perhaps proportionally less than in any other country. The American family is not characterized by so much deep good nature, and warm, overflowing heartiness, as the German; but the element of mutual respect predominates."

No foreign writer has more clearly perceived or emphatically stated the moral and economical relation of America to Europe than Professor Schaff. His long residence in this country, and his educational and religious labors therein, gave him ample opportunity to know the facts as regards emigration, popular literature, social life, and enterprise; while his European birth and associations made him equally familiar with the wants of the laboring, the theories of the thinking, and the exigencies of the political classes. "America," he writes, "begins with the results of Europe's two thousand years' course of civilization, and has vigor, enterprise, and ambition enough to put out this enormous capital at the most profitable interest for the general good of mankind. America is the grave of all European nationalities; but it is a Phoenix grave, from which they shall rise to new life. Either humanity has no earthly future, and everything is tending to destruction, or this future lies, I say not exclusively, but mainly in America, according to the victorious march of history, with the sun, from east to west."*

America, Political, Social, and Religious," by Dr. Philip Schaff, New York, C. Scribner, 1855.

CHAPTER IX.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS.

NATIONAL RELATIONS: VERRAZZANO; CASTIGLIONE; ADRIANI; GRASSI; BELTRAMI; D'ALLESSANDRO; CAPOBIANCO ;

SALVATORE ABBATE E MIGLIORI; PISANI.

FROM the antiquated French of the missionary Travels, and the inelegant English of the uneducated and flippant writers in our vernacular, it is a vivid and pleasant change to read the same prolific theme discussed in the "soft bastard Latin" that Byron loved. Although no Italian author has discoursed of our country in a manner to add a standard work on the subject to his native literature, America is associated with the historical memorials of that nation, inasmuch as Columbus discovered the continent to which Vespucci gave a name, and Carlo Botta wrote the earliest European history of our Revolution; while the great tragic poet of Italy dedicated his "Bruto Primo," in terms of eloquent appreciation, to Washington; and the leading journal of Turin to-day has a regular and assiduous correspondent in New York, who thus made clear to his countrymen the cause, animus, and history of the war for the Union, and whose able articles on the educational system and political condition

*Botta's "History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America," translated by Otis, 2 vols. 8vo. in 1.

of the United States, which have appeared in the Rivista Contemporenea-the ablest literary periodical in Italy—are a promising foretaste of the complete and well-considered work on our country that he is preparing for his own: a task for which long residence and faithful study, as well as liberal sympathies and culture, eminently fit him.* At the banquet given in New York to the officers of the Italian frigate Re Galantuomo, on the occasion of her visit to bring the equipment for the Re d'Italia, a magnificent ship of war built in this country for the navy of Italy, the same writer, in response to a sentiment in honor of the king, aptly observed: "Con qual animo non pronuzieremo il nome de Vittorio Emmanuele, in questo solenne occasione, quando per la prima volta nella storia d'Italia i rappresentati della marina nazionale, toccano a questi lidi e mettono piede su questo continente che da quasi quattro secoli un marinaio italiano scopriva e dava alla civiltà del mondo!" +

Within a recent period, the despotism of Austria, and the reactionary and cruel vigilance of the local rulers in the peninsula, which succeeded the fall of Napoleon and the conspiracies and emeutes thence resulting among the Italian people, brought many interesting exiles of that nation to our shores. The establishment of the Italian opera created a new interest in the language of Italy-which, with her literature, were auspiciously initiated in New York by Lorenzo Daponte forty years ago; and the popular fictions of Manzoni, Rufini, Mariotti, d'Azeglio, and Guerazzi, have made the story of their country's wrongs and aspirations familiar to our people; while such political victims as Maroncelli, Garibaldi, and Foresti challenged the respect and won the love of those among whom they found a secure and congenial asylum; and thus,

*Professor Vincenzo Botta.

+ "With what emotions shall we not pronounce the name of Victor Emmanuel, on this occasion, when, for the first time in the history of Italy, the representatives of her national navy touch the shores and tread the continent which, nearly four centuries ago, an Italian mariner discovered and gave to the civilized world!"

although the least numerous class of emigrés,* the Italian visitors became among the most prominent from their merits and misfortunes. To the vagabond image venders and organ grinders, musicians and confectioners, were thus added eminent scholars and patriots, and endeared members of society. Nowhere in the civilized world was the national development of Italy more fondly watched than here. The lecture room, the popular assembly, and the press in the United States, responded to and celebrated the reforms in Sardinia, the union of that state with Lombardy, Tuscany, and Naples, the liberal polity of Victor Emmanuel, and the heroic statesmanship of Cavour. Garibaldi has received substantial tokens of American sympathy; and current literature, love of art, and facilities of travel, have made the land of Columbus and the Republic of the West intimately and mutually known and loved. The café, the studio, the lyric drama, letters, art, and society in our cities attest this; and should steam communication be established, as proposed, between Genoa and

* Between 1820 and 1860, about 13,000 Italian emigrants reached this country. At present, in New York, the Italian population is estimated at 2,000-most of them peasants and peddlers, who earn a precarious subsistence as organ players, venders of plaster casts, &c. Colonies of them live in limited quarters in the most squalid part of the city-monkeys, organs, images, and families grotesquely huddled in the same apartment. An evening school for these emigrés has been in successful operation for some years, and with good results.

Scanty as is the record of Italian travel in the United States, the emigration of that people being chiefly directed to South American cities, where, as at Montevideo, they have large communities, the Spanish is still more meagre, and contrasts in this respect with the prominence of that race in the chronicle of maritime enterprise and exploration centuries since. Among the few books of Spanish travel of recent origin, are the following: 1. "Viage a los Estados-Unidos del Norte de America," por Don Lorenzo de Zavala, Paris, 1834, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 374. The author was, at one time, Minister from Mexico to France. His book is a slight affair.-2. "Cinco Meses en los Estados-Unidos de la America del Norte desde el 20 de Abril el 23 Setiembre, 1835, Diario de Viage de D. Ramon de la Sagra, Director del Jardin Botanico de la Habana, ec.," Paris, 1886, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 437. Le Sagra has published an important book about Cuba, been concerned in Spanish politics, and is well considered as a man of science; but his book, says an able critic, is not much better than Zavala's.

New York, the emigration will improve. When the war for the Union commenced, many Italian citizens volunteered, and some have acquired honor in the field; while not a few can find in the following anecdote, which recently appeared in a popular daily journal, a parallel to their own recent experi

ence:

"Ten or twelve years ago an Italian emigrated from Northern Italy, and, after various wanderings, pitched his tent at Jackson, Mississippi. He prospered in business, increased and multiplied. He also managed to build two comfortable little houses, and altogether was getting on quite well in the world. At the time the war broke out he was North on business; and finding, from his well-known Union sentiments, that it would be dangerous to return, he took what money he had with him, and, accompanied by his wife, sailed for Europe, while his sons entered the Union army.

"In the beautiful Val d'Ossola, not far from the town of Domo d'Ossola, on the great thoroughfare where the Simplon road, issuing from the Alps, and but just escaped from the rocky frowns of the gorge of Gondo, passes amid fringes of olive groves to the great white 'Arch of Peace' and the brilliant city of Milan, is located one of those unpretending inns or locandas which abound in Italy— a low, rambling house, half hid in trellised vines, and prefaced as to doorway by several rude stone tables, at which transient guests may sit and sip the country wine.

"A few months ago, two American pedestrians stopped at this place and ordered wine, and, while sipping it, were accosted in tolerable English by the landlord, who wanted to know their views about the war, and particularly when the State of Mississippi would be regained for the Union. The question, coming from such a source, led to a conversation, during which it was revealed that the worthy innkeeper was none other than the Italian emigrant and the houseowner in the town of Jackson.

"At that time there was no early prospect of the taking of the capital of Mississippi; but, now that General Sherman is in that very vicinity, if not in the city itself, there will probably be good news for the innkeeper of the Simplon road. And this is but one instance out of many, in which each of even the minor phases of the war strikes directly at some personal interest or some chord of affection in individuals in the most remote corners of the continent of Europe."

A curious waif that gives us tokens of early exploration, is what remains of the journal of the old Italian navigator