38

LIFE OF COLONEL MACEEONI.

found by Captain Cook , to regulate the happy, peacefulpopulations of the. South Sea Islands. Better for each manto be the guardian of his own rights, and seek for justiceand defence in his own right arm, than to be half swaddled,half smothered, but not protected at any point, by suchwretched contemptible institutions, miscalled governments,like those which my Lord Castlereagh and his compeers, in1814, thought fit to force upon the unfortunate Italians .

When speaking about all the stabbing that I witnessed in1803, the Roman interlocutors used frequently to assure methat, “ the blood and spirit of the Romans was naturally sohot and fiery, as to make it impossible for them to refrainfrom the instant resentment of an affront.” Thanks, how-ever, to the Code Napoleon : the equality of all before thelaw ; the establishment of a good police ; of the numerouspublic prosecutors, and open courts of justice ; of thecertainty of punishment, and the public working of theguillotine, the French had no sooner re-established theirgovernment at Rome , in 1805, than the alleged “ fieryblood” of the knife wielders became cool as that of theirwater melons; and, as I have just stated, assassinationsceased.

In company with Mr. Greenough I took many excursionsto Tivoli, Albano, Preneste, See. A Bavarian Count Baum-garten was frequently of the party, and I now mention hisname in gratitude for his having caused me the most heartyand longest fit of laughter that I can well remember tohave enjoyed. He had appointed to meet Greenough, histutor Moser, Spinelli Cariati, and myself, at a pic-nic dinnerin the woods of the lake of Albano. Not joining us at theappointed time we began our repast, in the midst of whicha valet arrived with a letter from the Count, written inEnglish , informing us that he had lost his way, but that,on his arrival at Albano “ he had suddenly become an ass,”