THE ENGLISH IN ITALY.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 7, 1 September 1855, Page 22

THE ENGLISH IN ITALY.

By an American Tourist. (Abridged.) The English indeed are the true Romans. They like the Romans are haughty to the proud, and forbearing towards the weak. They force the mood of peace upon Nations that cannot afford to waste their strength in war. They are law makers, road makers, and bridge makers. They are penetrated with the instinct of social order, and have the organ of political constructiveness. The manly genius of the nation disdains the tricks and colours of rhetoric. Their com mou speech is abrupt, and their public discourse, plain, business-like, and conversational. The English travelling on the continent, would, if gathered together, make a large city. They carry England with them wherever they go. In Rome there is an English Church, an English reading room, an English druggist, and an English tailor. As England is an Island so they everywhere form an insula community, upon which the waves of foreign influence beat in vain. This peculiarity penetrates to the! individual. Traveller* of other Nations learn to I conform to the manners and customs of people: about them; avoiding the observation attracted! by singularity. Not so the Englishman ; he; boldly faces the most bristling battery of comment and notice. The English in Italy as on the continent generally, are not liked ; but on the other hand they are not despised. They carry about with them qualities which extort respect, not unmino-led with fear. Too proud to stoop, and too cold to sympathize ; they are too honest to flatter, and too brave to dissemble. Truth, courage, and justice—these lion rirtues that stand round the throne of national greatness—shape their blunt manners and their downright speech. No thoughtful Italian can help honoring the tenacity with which an Englishman clings to his own convictions of what is right and becoming, without regard to the judgment which others may form or express ; nor can he fail to confess that the position and iufluence of Italy would have been far different, had more of that manly element been mingled in the blood of her people.

Every conscientious Catholic must needs respect the fidelity which Englishmen show to the religious institutions of their country ; the regularity with which thoy attend upon public worship, iu the chapels of their own faith ; and their careful abstinence £rom 'fordinary amusements and occupations on Sunday's. This uncompromising hold upon their own interpretation of right, is sometimes pushed to an extreme, and often turns an iinamiable aspect towards them ; but without it there is neither national greatness nor individual worth. The English are proud of their own country, and for that, surely no one can blame them. They are proud of its history, of its literature of its constitution ; and especially of the rank it holds, and the power it holds at the present time. To this national pride they have a fair right. A new sense of the greatness of England is gathered by travelling on the Continent; for, let au Englishman go . where he will, the might and majesty of his country seem to be hanging over him like an unseen shield.