"Giulio Malatesta," on the other hand, opens with distinctive glimpses of an old Italian university town; initiates us into the prolonged and patient political conspiracies of Romagna and the ideal hopes of Gioberti's disciples. Its hero is a student at Pisa, and one of the brave champions of Italy who led the Tuscan volunteers to patriotic martyrdom, in 1848, at Curtone. Nowhere have we read so graceful and graphic a picture of that noble episode in the history of Tuscany, which redeemed her character and proved the latent manliness of her children. There is a touching similarity between the description of the march of the Corpo Universitario from Pisa to the Mincio,--the fight at the mill, and the death of the generous and lovely boy, Enrico Palmieri,--and recent scenes in our own civil war, wherein appeared the same youthful enthusiasm and utter inexperience, the same hardships and fortitude, valor and faith. In striking contrast with, these scenes of battle and self-sacrifice, including the tragic incidents attending the third anniversary of the Tuscan martyrs in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, three years later, are the episodes of fashionable and carnival life in that delightful capital. The Cascine and the Pergola are reproduced with all their gay life and license; the Contessa Zenobia and her _cavalier servente_, so comical, yet true, are but slight exaggerations of what many of us have witnessed and wondered at. Provincial and conventual life in Italy is photographed in this story; fresh forms and phases of the ecclesiastical element are incarnated from careful observation; and the political feeling, faith, and transitions of the period are vividly illustrated. Carlo, the young noble, is a true portrait of the kindly, genial, but shallow and pleasure-seeking Florentine youth of the day, such as we have loitered with on the promenade and chatted beside at the Caffè Doney,--without convictions, playful, always half in love, with a little stock of philosophy and a lesser one of religion, yet alert to do a kindness,--full of tact, charming in manner, tasteful and tolerant, with no higher aim than being agreeable and ignoring care,--impatient of duty, fond of pastime, utterly incapable of giving pain or attempting hard work. His friend Giulio Malatesta, on the other hand, adequately personifies the earnest, thoughtful, and patriotic Italian, to whom _Viva l' Italia!_ means something,--who is ready to suffer for his country, and who knows her poets by heart, believes in her unity, and has boundless faith in her future. Francesca Varini is described with an exactitude which defines her peculiar charms and traits to any reader who has fondly noted the modifications of female beauty and character incident to race and locality in Italy; and old Marta Varini is such a stoical, acute, and persistent woman as signalized the days of the Carbonari; while Stella and Madalina are local heroines with characteristic national traits.