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    "Feb. 11, 1860.J The Leader mid Saturday...

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    THE VOLCANO IN VENETIA. PLINY , the Elde...

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    Austria Akd The Whigs. We Would Much Rat...

    Sardinia to engage to refrain from sending troops into Central Italy , and at the same time have permitted Austria to have continued her preparations fora sudden and fraudulent attack . It is fortunate for all parties , herself ; excepted , that Austria has declined to accept the doctrine of . non-intervention ,, or "to recognise a state of things in Italy that has arisen from insurrection , " and eminently characteristic that she has coupled this declaration with falsehoods , which Lord Johx Hussell gravely detailed to the House . Austria declares " that she has no intention of interfering in the affairs of Central Italy , " . and " that she is not going to send any troops beyond her

    own frontiers . " In spirit , if not in letter , both these statements are untrue . Itecruiting is going on at Vienna for the Pope and the King of Naples , not only among the vagabonds of the place , but among discharg-cd soldiers who have seen eight years' service and are ready for the field . Additional fortifications are erected in Austrian Itnly , and large reinforcements have recently been sent to Mantua , near which place is stationed the Duke of Modena , with a little army wearing the Austrian uniform , and not to be distinguished from the Imperial troops . It is very difficult to get accurate accounts of the forces which are threatening : Central Italy , but it is reported that the Duke of Modena has with him about 4 , 000 men , who are virtually , and

    in many cases actually , Austrian troops ; and this little army can , at any moment , be surreptitiously increased from the garrison of Mantua , Avhich is out of all j > roportion to the requirements of defence ; The Pope has , probably , 4 , 000 so-called Swiss , as many Austro-Bavarians , and as many Italians . At any rate four regiments have been sent to Ancona , and they are _ considered as much Austrian as before they entered the service of the Church ; ¦ - . ' , ' . ¦ . ¦ - ' In Vienna , as well as in Italy , a renewal of war in some shape or another is confidently expected , and from present appearances it seems likely to . take the form -of a clandestine attack by Aust-ria upon some portion of ' Central Italy . If the Pope moves it will bean Austrian move , whatever the . IIapsburg Government

    may say , and the samei inay be affirmedof the King of . Naples or the Duke of Modena . If Austria is determined to hold Venetia , and not to recognise the independence of Central Italy and her right to annex herself to Sardinia , she is morally at war both . wit . lvthe people and the Government which they have chosen . She is also physically at war with them , by supplying soldiers to their avowed enemies , -and by crowding their open and vidnerable frontier with masses of troops . That this condition of tension can last long without explosion is in the highest degree improbable ; and no one appears able to influence the infatuated sovereign at Vienna with

    a single just , honourable , or prudent idea . We must look to the decay of Home or Byzantium for a parallel to Francis Joseph ' s course . He avoids all means of knowledge , or the society of enlightened men . When not engaged in schemes of violence , or listening to the evil counsels of priests , his time is passed in debauchery ; and what may be the last hours of the last Emperor of Austria are said to be divided between his equestrian mistress and bottles of champagne . The young woman alluded to is nominally engaged to tame the Imperial horses ; but is suspected to be employe ^ by the Jesuits to exert her Rarey powers upon their Imperial master . ¦

    Count JR-EOHBEKG , Count Buol , Count Thuk , and Baron Bach are the men who represent the policy of the decrepit empire . The first is a proud incapable absolutist ; the second i'ligaged at Borne in those intrigues of which the Pope is the focus ; the third got up the Concordat , with the help of Baron Bagn , and is now signalising himself by exciting the alarming Protestant quarrel in Hungary . It is marvellous that the Whigs should still express hopes for the stability of Austria , and under any circumstances assist her in retaining the Venetian territory ; and it is to be remarked that Lord' John ItusspLL has received no encouragement from Russia , for whom he is top liberal ; while Prussia exhibited her usual policy of cowardice , and waited to know what France and Austria would think ...

    What Austria thinks is now definitely made known , and Lord John Russell has received a lesson against foolish speaking , for , in rejpeting his schemes , Count Re cube no reminds him that last April he defended the existence of foreign domination in Italy , by appealing to tlio Treaty of Vienna , which ho deolarcd to bo " the ohartor by wluoji Europe holds its present distribution of territory . " His lordship will have to learn that human rights are above all conventions of potentates , and ho had better tell Austria with frankness that Europe has outgrown the Treaty of 1815 ; and that if it were not so , sho would not bo entitled to its protection after alio had violated it by the absorption of Cracow . If n renewal pf war in Italy is to bo prevented , it will not bo

    by inviting Sardinia to abandon the national cause , but by inducing Austria to sell Venetia , and let the Pope and the King of Naples reckon with their subjects as well as they may . If the Austrian Court will- not bring its mind to this conclusion , it will drift , or willingly move , towards a renewal of hostilities , and for such , a catastrophe the Hungarians wait in confidence , that for them as well as for the Italians the hour of liberty must arrive . . .

    "Feb. 11, 1860.J The Leader Mid Saturday...

    " Feb . 11 , 1860 . J The Leader mid Saturday Analyst . 129

    The Volcano In Venetia. Pliny , The Elde...

    THE VOLCANO IN VENETIA . PLINY , the Elder , when he saw the great eruption of Vesuvius , compared its appearance to a vast tree of fire , whose red boughs rose slowly from the orifice of the crater , and spread luminous , wider and wider , till they overshadowed , with broad crimson shadows , the mountain from which they had emerged . Such a tree of fire as Plixy saw is . uo \ y rising through the soil of the- Austrian territory of Venetia . Already the keener

    sights can distinguish the topmost twigs , piercing through the ground at the foot of the very ramparts of Verona . Oh , for another Dante to cry Woe ! to those Tedeschi who linger too long under its consuming shade , when that volcano tree of revolution shall jet forth again in all the fulness of its destructive majesty : ¦ : . ¦ Dismissing bur simile , let us draw attention to the -unmistakable signs of revolt that every week ' s letters bring us from the : last

    refuge of the Austrians in Italy . To-day it is seven officers who have been poniarded or shot in the streets of Verona— -tor morrow , a popular demonstration in the theatre at Venice ; now some synniathetic' miimmrings at Naples—nqvr a groan from handcuffed Mantua . No one accustomed to study the political baro ' metpr but must feel that there is a storni in the air , as surely as the fanner does when he sees his pigs uneasy or his cat washing her face-with her paws . The straw is a small thing ; but , thrown up , it tells , certainly , how the wind blows . ' . ., ¦¦ ' . ; . ' : ' -. -.

    Every traveller who arrives from Italy informs us that the regions of freedom and slavery are now as easily distinguishable as sun and shadow , \ day aiid night . Happy free faces receive you at the gates of Milan ; you no " longer arc : dragged before a sort of court-martial of insolent and threatening officials . A . cloud seems lifted from the city . The citizens walk with a bolder step , Milan'is no longer the prison fortress that it was in the Austrian time . It is the same , they tell us , all the way to Pescliiera . . As you are swept by the train through oliveyarcl and vineyard , rows of mulberries , and yellow gourd patches , the-people' sing and talk free and -bold , ' and are frank , gentle , happy , and proud of the liberty they helped to win ,

    Pass the Pescliiera frontier , get . out of sight of the blue Lago di Garcia and the enchanted Tyrol mountains , i < mss the beacon tower of Solferino on its scorched hill , and a great darkness falls over the scene . Every third person is a brutal defiant soldier , or a sly , sleek , effeminate priest . Detentions become longer , military ' officials demand your passport as if they were demanding your purse . You are locked in , shouldered about , questioned as if you were a criminal ; your luggage is punctured and rifled , and at last you enter Verona , tired and vexed , through . ' a town ' s length of turfen mounds , and through a gate of enormous strength . It is the same at Venice . Two antagonistic races—races that never can blend—fill the streets . You see the Italian scowl , you see the Austrian officer cuvf his lip , anil you feel that such a ' state .-of things cannot last .

    Everywhere there is a sense of restlessness among the people . Watchwords are invented , 'lampoons written , telegraphic signs arranged to express sympathy with ( x . uuha ldi aiid hatred for the Austrian . The smallest ovent is caught up and used to express popular feeling . For instance , tho other day in Mantua , with true military love-of interference , Baron Ahloz , a great man , no loss than tho Imperial Itoyal . Lieutenant , and tficld Marshal and Governor Commandant of tho city and fortress of Mantua , issued an edict in favour of crinolines , of all things in the world . The very next Sunday nearly all the ladies of

    Mantua appeared without crinolines , just to spite the Baron , and the low who retained them Avc . ro followed by mobs of boys , crying out " Abasso i crinolini ! " Those urq small things , but they show a great hatred . No wo » 4 er tliot the Austrian garrisons begin to lose moral courage , and to feel savage and distruatllil at seeing every Italian face blacken as they approaoh . Tho Oommnndante , as ' ho sips his lemonade in tho cafe , deserted when he enters , knows that the great tree of lire is putting , out its first buds under his very foot . Tho Austrian contain , who at the opera hears the people cheer when there is some ohanco allusion to Freedom , loses heart , because ho feels thai ; the fiory trco of the volcano hns struck its roots under the very playhouse where he is . . Lot diplomatists squabble and Ho over their maps and purcu-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11021860/page/5/