in Italy; now, on the contrary, we have the commendatory report of the Manchester Cottou-Supply Association, which says" that the new government are by earnest and judicious means preparing t revive the cotton cultivation on an extensive scale in many parts of Italy, where they have proved that it can be grown profitably. The whole peninsula has been surveyed, and all the land suitable fo cotton culture marked and measured, the population available fo its cultivation counted, the railways and roads required for its con veyance marked out, the obstacles to its cultivation inquired into and means devised for overcoming them, and Commissioners ap pointed to test its cultivation, and to make inquiries into this coun try about the cottons we require, their qualities and quantities This is a summary of the opinions of men well versed, and deepl interested, in the necessities of the cotton trade.

Of the immediate importance of the development of this produ the Italians are well aware, and if we consider the enormous co sumption of the cotton manufacturers throughout Europe, repr senting an annual amount of about four millions of bales, each ba containing four hundred pounds weight, at a total value of mo than fifty millions of pounds sterling, we shall not be astonished their eagerness to enter into the arena of competition. Previous 1780, all the cottons spun in Europe came from the Mediterrane and the West Indies, and it is supposed that the Genoese were t first who brought raw cotton into England. America, China, a the East Indies, have since supplied the great desideratum, but prefer returning to the subject of Italy, that our readers may s the present condition and future capacity of that country for rest ing a lost cultivation.

The growth of Cotton is of very ancient date in Italy, and ev before the year 1,000 it already formed, both in Sicily and in d South Provinces of the Mainland, one of the chief products agriculture. During the wars of Napoleon the cultivation creased greatly. The Italian Cottons were eagerly sought for the markets of Europe, but with the restoration of peace, the cult vation of the plant became restricted to very narrow limits, rath in consequence of the deplorable economical and political conditio of those provinces, than from external competition. During the Napoleonic wars, and the prevalence of the Continental syste attempts were made to produce Cotton in all directions, even the Northern Provinces. But the real zone, not of the me vegetation, but of that where regular and abundant harvests m be obtained, es below the forty third degree of North_latitu and coprises almost all that part of Italy towards the South, cluding, principally, a part of the Tuscan Maremma, Sardinia, Sicily, the Roman Campagna, and all the provinces of Napl containing a population of ten million inhabitants. It is a great go fortune for Italy that the two species, viz., the Gossypium H

baceum, of Linnæus, and the Gossypium Siamense, of Tenore, which for centuries have been cultivated in the Italian soil, are marked by a superior quality, and have been well nurtured in their production. Their quality equals any grown in the United States, with the exception of the well known long-fibred "Sea Island Cotton." In addition to this, the peasantry being of an industrious and frugal race, they are well contented with the moderate earnings of a franc per diem.

The existence of these two important facts suffices to secure for Italy an immense superiority, because they virtually imply the possibility of undertaking at once a very extended cultivation. If about a tenth part of the land included in the zone were employed for the purpose, Italy would produce as much in quantity as the United States sent to Europe before the outbreak of the war. It is certain that no small amount of capital will be required to improve the soil, but under the better ordered system of Piedmontese Finance, and the security arising from the firm Government of Victor Emmanuel, it is not unreasonable to expect that capital will seek this new channel of investment. The Government have done wisely not to overlook the importance of preparing, cleansing, and picking the cotton, since, from the absence of this careful attention, much of the difficulty and prejudice has arisen amongst English artizans in the working of our own Indian productions. A series of experiments are being made on this point, and the results will be widely published for the use of the cultivators. No better means can be devised than are already being adopted in the construction of railways, especially along the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, and prompt attention is at the same time directed to the condition of the present, and re-opening of ancient harbours. With all these enlightened efforts which are now in progress, we may hope that ere long a new day will dawn for Italy; that to her freedom, acquired by the blood of her sons, so valiantly shed upon the many battlefields, may be added wide and extended commercial relations with other countries, and that ultimate, if not immediate relief, may be afforded to the downcast thousands of our own dear native land.

E. T. B.

228

THE BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND LIFE.

BY PETER BAYNE A.M.

ALL thinkers have recognized a correspondence between the material universe and the human mind. Man, the microcosm and the mirror of the world, the highest product among visible things of the world's Maker, is associated, by his physical being, with the whole organic and inorganic creation, and illustrates and reflects, in his spiritual being, those laws in accordance with which the Maker works. It results that the analogy of nature, accurately read, has for him a significance not confined to the imaginativ faculty or the play of poetic fancy, but recognisable by reason, an invested with authority. Trace any great fact, law, or principle in nature, and you may proceed, with vigilant calmness indee and caution, yet with scientific decision, to find its analogue an its application in the world of mind. We shall endeavour to stat one of those grand regulative facts or laws of nature and attemp to discover its authoritative application in the world of humanity.

Nature, we see at a glance, works upon principles of utility an practicality, attaining her ends in the most direct way, and by th means which lie readiest to her hand. She has ribbed the worl with rock, veined it with iron and coal, having regard to strengt and use, and leaving the flowers upon the surface. The black so drenched with rain, the clouds which often roof the landscape fro sunrise to sunset with dismal grey, the opaque, mud-coloured strea sweeping off copse and garden in its straight course to the se show that nature has other purposes besides that of producing prett pictures. In one word, there is a common aspect, and this t prevailing aspect, of nature; and to say that all things are all times indifferently beautiful, is to betray an ignorance of whe beauty is.

But, though the world is not built on beauty, it would be difficu to say from what part or from what phase of nature beauty is totall absent. The day, through all those hours when sweat is droppin from the brow of man, and the stern reality of toil has to be me may be drear and colourless: but in the morning there was sprinkling of rose-leaves on the clouds,—a glimpse of hope and pr mise to begin with; and at eve there is a flushing of the az as in pity, and a joy for eye and soul in the golden gates which hav closed on the sun. Wherever nature has an opportunity to wor leisurely, her finger-touch is beauty. In her most hidden recess you will find her at this, her favourite occupation, as if it were he peculiar and secret delight. She decks her caverns with crystal, she silvers the rock with lichen where bird never fle

gem

she puts marvels of hue and form into the mosses which carpet the sea. She is subtler still. Even with her forces of destruction she associates the Beautiful. The lightning-flash scars the mountain. side, opening a crude and unsightly gash; but as it gleamed along the edges of the clouds, bringing out their jagged or streaming outline in silver flame, was it not beautiful? Look now at the fragments which have been torn from the hill, and lie around like the relics of a rifled tomb. The winter frosts weave over them their delicate tracery, the rain of summer smooths their angles, the minute lichens paint them with heath-brown and pearl-grey, harmonising them again with the hill-side, and if you look into the interstices, you will see the tuft of grass, or the sorel, or the blue bell, making the ruin of a few years ago a new vantage-ground for beauty. Nature is always ready to cover up under a coverlet of beauty the traces of human sorrow or of sin. The grass is greener for the red rain of battle, and the daisy and snowdrop spring above the grave. The smoke of the battle-field and the volcano wreathes in beauty, showing exquisite effects of light and shade, and tender passages of colour; the flames of a burning city, while oppressing the spectator with their destructive power, impose irresistibly upon his imagination by the wild beauty of their form, and the splendour of their colour. It is a fact, to be asserted with all the confidence and all the definiteness of science, that nature rejoices in beauty. Think of the stars: we know not what is transacted in those distant worlds, nothing of the labour, the sorrow, the joy, not even whether an organic creation is there also the concomitant of inorganic existence; we have from them but one message, and it is a message of beauty. They reveal themselves in light. There is nothing but that. Out of immensity, through the shadow, pierce a thousand gleams of such beauty that men have deemed it melodious, and have locked up and listened for the music of the spheres.

This, then, is the counterpart to that practicality, that utilising faculty, which exists in nature. Beauty appears to be a finer essence breathing, in and around the common forms of nature, a spirit which inspires and irradiates the world. This is the second side of one great fact. Let us look into the matter somewhat more closely.

The seed is cast into the black earth. It lies there as in a tomb, giving no sign of beauty. But it dies into new life, and with the first glimpse of green above the ground we have a commencement of beauty in form, in hue, or in both. It grows; leaf after leaf takes graceful station around the stem; and ever, as the plant waxes in size, as it nears its state of perfection, it becomes more beautiful. Its attainment of the highest perfection of which it is capable is signalized by the exhibition of its highest beauty. The human being is born. In early years it has traces of beauty, but in