Note 48 — CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA. (continued 5)

We have made no remark on the nature of this kind-hearted and generous woman's attachment. In Italy it is customary to look on such as formed by friendship only, and to consider that they are rendered respectable by constancy. The Italians lavish the greatest praise on Marianna Bulgarelli for her perception of the poet's merits, her zeal in persuading him to, and assisting him in, his arduous career; and the disinterested affection which caused her at once to make a sacrifice of her own feelings, and to advise his journey to Vienna. Her errors are those of her country. Any one who has visited Italy must at once censure, and deeply deplore, the social system there carried on—a system which blights the affections, degrades the moral feeling, and causes almost universal unhappiness. But it is unjust to heap the censure of a system belonging to a whole country, and carried on for centuries, on the head of an individual, whose virtues, we may presume to say, redeemed an error, the very existence of which is, after all, uncertain.