Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843. Various

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      "I said that geography held out one hand to geology and physiology, while she held out the other to history. In fact, geology and physiology themselves are closely connected with history. For instance, what lies at the bottom of that question which is now being discussed every where, the question of the corn-laws, but the geological fact that England is more richly supplied with coal-mines than any other country in the world? what has given a peculiar interest to our relations with China, but the physiological fact, that the tea-plant, which is become so necessary to our daily life, has been cultivated with equal success in no other climate or country? what is it which threatens the permanence of the union between the northern and southern states of the American confederacy, but the physiological fact, that the soil and climate of the southern states render them essentially agricultural, while those of the northern states, combined with their geographical advantages as to sea-ports, dispose them no less naturally to be manufacturing and commercial? The whole character of a nation may be influenced by its geology and physical geography. But for the sake of its mere beauty and liveliness, if there were no other consideration, it would be worth our while to acquire this richer view of geography. Conceive only the difference between a ground-plan and a picture. The mere plan geography of Italy gives us its shape, as I have observed, and the position of its towns; to these it may add a semicircle of mountains round the northern boundary to represent the Alps, and another long line stretching down the middle of the country to represent the Apennines. But let us carry on this a little further, and give life and meaning and harmony to what is at present at once lifeless and confused. Observe, in the first place, how the Apennine line, beginning from the southern extremity of the Alps, runs across Italy to the very edge of the Adriatic, and thus separates naturally the Italy proper of the Romans, from Cisalpine Gaul. Observe again, how the Alps, after running north and south, where they divide Italy from France, turn then away to the eastward, running almost parallel to the Apennines, till they too touch the head of the Adriatic, on the confines of Istria. Thus between these two lines of mountains there is enclosed one great basin or plain; enclosed on three sides by mountains, open only on the east to the sea. Observe how widely it spreads itself out, and then see how well it is watered. One great river flows through it in its whole extent, and this is fed by streams almost unnumbered, descending towards it on either side, from the Alps on the one side, and from the Apennines on the other. Who can wonder that this large and rich and well-watered plain should be filled with flourishing cities, or that it should have been contended for so often by successive invaders? Then descending into Italy proper, we find the complexity of its geography quite in accordance with its manifold political division. It is not one simple central ridge of mountains, leaving a broad belt of level country on either side between it and the sea, nor yet is it a chain rising immediately from the sea on one side, like the Andes in South America, and leaving room, therefore, on the other side for wide plains of table-land, and rivers with a sufficient length of course to become at last great and navigable. It is a back-bone thickly set with spines of unequal length, some of them running out at regular distances parallel to each other, but others twisted so strangely that they often run for a long way parallel to the back-bone, or main ridge, and interlace with one another in a maze almost inextricable. And, as if to complete the disorder, in those spots where the spines of the Apennines, being twisted round, run parallel to the sea and to their own central chain, and thus leave an interval of plain between their bases and the Mediterranean, volcanic agency has broken up the space thus left with other and distinct groups of hills of its own creation, as in the case of Vesuvius, and of the Alban hills near Rome. Speaking generally then, Italy is made up of an infinite multitude of valleys pent in between high and steep hills, each forming a country to itself, and cut off by natural barriers from the others. Its several parts are isolated by nature, and no art of man can thoroughly unite them. Even the various provinces of the same kingdom are strangers to each other; the Abruzzi are like an unknown world to the inhabitants of Naples, insomuch, that when two Neapolitan naturalists, not ten years since, made an excursion to visit the Majella, one of the highest of the central Apennines, they found there many medicinal plants growing in the greatest profusion, which the Neapolitans were regularly in the habit of importing from other countries, as no one suspected their existence within their own kingdom. Hence arises the romantic character of Italian scenery: the constant combination of a mountain outline and all the wild features of a mountain country, with the rich vegetation of a southern climate in the valleys. Hence too the rudeness, the pastoral simplicity, and the occasional robber habits, to be found in the population; so that to this day you may travel in many places for miles together in the plains and valleys without passing through a single town or village; for the towns still cluster on the mountain sides, the houses nestling together on some scanty ledge, with cliffs rising above them and sinking down abruptly below them, the very 'congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis' of Virgil's description, which he even then called 'antique walls,' because they had been the strongholds of the primæval inhabitants of the country, and which are still inhabited after a lapse of so many centuries, nothing of the stir and movement of other parts of Europe having penetrated into these lonely valleys, and tempted the people to quit their mountain fastnesses for a more accessible dwelling in the plain.

      "I have been led on further than I intended, but I wished to give an example of what I meant by a real and lively knowledge of geography, which brings the whole character of a country before our eyes, and enables us to understand its influence upon the social and political condition of its inhabitants. And this knowledge, as I said before, is very important to enable us to follow clearly the external revolutions of different nations, which we want to comprehend before we penetrate to what has been passing within."

      "Ten years afterwards there broke out by far the most alarming danger of universal dominion, which had ever threatened Europe. The most military people in Europe became engaged in a war for their very existence. Invasion on the frontiers, civil war and all imaginable horrors raging within, the ordinary relations of life went to wreck, and every Frenchman became a soldier. It was a multitude numerous as the hosts of Persia, but animated by the courage and skill and energy of the old Romans. One thing alone was wanting, that which Pyrrhus said the Romans wanted, to enable them to conquer the world—a general and a ruler like himself. There was wanted a master hand to restore and maintain peace at home, and to concentrate and direct the immense military resources of France against her foreign enemies. And such an one appeared in Napoleon. Pacifying La Vendée, receiving back the emigrants, restoring the church, remodelling the law, personally absolute, yet carefully preserving and maintaining all the great points which the nation had won at the Revolution, Napoleon united in himself, not only the power, but the whole will of France; and that power and will were guided by a genius for war such as Europe had never seen since Cæsar. The effect was absolutely magical. In November 1799, he was made First Consul; he found France humbled by defeats, his Italian conquests lost, his allies invaded, his own frontier threatened. He took the field in May 1800, and in June the whole fortune of the war was changed, and Austria driven out of Lombardy by the victory of Marengo. СКАЧАТЬ