"Europe owes her learning, her accomplishments, to the Italians; and, having turned their own gifts against them, would gladly deny them the only glory left to a people deprived of martial power and public liberty. It is true that governments form the characters of nations; and, in Italy herself, you will find remarkable distinctions between the inhabitants of different states. The Piedmontese, who once formed a small national corps, have a more warlike spirit than the rest. The Florentines, who have mostly possessed either freedom or liberal rulers, are well-educated and well-mannered. The Venetians and the Genoese evince a capacity for politics, because they have a republican aristocracy. The Milanese are more sincere, thanks to their long intercourse with northern nations. The Neapolitans are prompt to rebel, having for ages lived beneath an imperfect government, but still one of their own. The Roman nobles have nothing to do, either diplomatic or military, and may well remain idly ignorant; but the ecclesiastics, whose career is definite, have faculties far more developed; and, as the papal law observes no distinction of birth, but is purely elective in its ordinance of the clergy, the result is, a species of liberality, not in ideas, but in habits, which renders Rome the most agreeable abode for those who have neither power nor emulation for sustaining a part in the world. The people of the South are more easily modified by existing institutions than those of the North. This clime induces a languor favorable to resignation, and nature offers enough to console man for the advantages society denies. Undoubtedly, there is much corruption in Italy: its civilization is far from refinement. There is a savage wilderness beneath Italian cunning; it is that of a hunter lying in wait for his prey. Indolent people easily become sly and shifting; their natural gentleness serves to hide even a fit of rage; for it is by our habitual manner that an accidental change of feeling may be best concealed. Yet Italians have both truth and constancy in their private connections. Interest may sway them, but not pride. Here is no ceremony, no fashion; none of the little everyday tricks for creating a sensation. The usual sources of artifice and of envy exist not here. Foes and rivals are deceived by those who consider themselves at war with them; but, while in peace, they act with honesty and candor. This is the very cause of your complaint. Our women hear of nothing but love; they live in an atmosphere of seduction and dangerous example; yet their frankness lends an innocence to gallantry itself. They have no fear of ridicule: many are so ignorant that they cannot even write, and confess it without scruple. They engage a _Paglietto_ to answer letters for them, which he does on paper large enough for a petition; but among the better classes you see professors from the academies in their black scarfs, giving lessons publicly. If you are inclined to laugh at them, they ask you: 'Is there any harm in understanding Greek, or living by our own exertions? How can you deride so matter-of-course a proceeding?' Dare I, my Lord, touch on a more delicate subject?--the reason why our men so seldom display a military spirit. They readily expose their lives for love or hate: in such causes, the wounds given and received neither astonish nor alarm their witnesses. Fearless of death, when natural passions command them to defy it; they still, I must confess, value life above the political interests which slightly affect those who can scarcely be said to have a country. Chivalrous honor has little influence over a people among whom the opinions that nourish it are dead; naturally enough, in such a disorganization of public affairs, women gain a great ascendency; perhaps too much so for them to respect or admire their lovers, who, nevertheless, treat them with the most delicate devotion. Domestic virtue constitutes the welfare and the pride of Englishwomen; but on no land, where love dispenses with its sacred bonds, is the happiness of women watched over as in Italy. If our men cannot make a moral code for immorality, they are at least just and generous in their participation of cares and duties. They consider themselves more culpable than their mistresses when they break their chains: they know that women make the heaviest sacrifice; and believe that, before the tribunal of the heart, the greatest criminals are those who have done most wrong. Men err from selfishness; women, because they are weak.