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    892 The Saturday Analyst and Leader. [Oc...

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    THE POLITICAL DRAMA. THE tendency that g...

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    892 The Saturday Analyst And Leader. [Oc...

    892 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Oct . 27 , I 860

    The Political Drama. The Tendency That G...

    THE POLITICAL DRAMA . THE tendency that great historical events evidently have to assume dramatic aspects , must press itself on the attention of the least observant . At important crises more is found to depend on individual characteristics than was expected . Treaties , traditions , prejudices , creeds , rights once deemed sacred , all at once become obsolete before the force of some novel personality . The stage of the world is found to have a herb , who occupies the centre of a new drama , and round him a group of inferior dramatic persons assemble in due course . Then it is that newspapers read like play-books , and the world gape on with excited expectation ; curious concerningthecoming denouement . It is impossible to read our daily journals without feeling that the incidents of public history at this very time bear an eminently dramatic aspect . The Italian peninsula presents a theatre where mighty historians are engaged in evolving a j sublime plot , the issues of which are in a process of gradual unfolding by a superintending Providence . The characters comprehended are such as must , when taken in connection with the story , deeply interest the spectator . It is , indeed , a majestic group , in which the principal roles are f layed by NapoLeon III ., Victor Emmanuel , GARtBALDi , Fraxcis Joseph , Count Cavour , Francis II ., Pio Nono , LordPAL-• mekston , and others , who * however noble , act as subordinates ¦ in the grand epic-drama . Of these , the first interests the spectatorbythe inscrutable nature of his purposes and acts ., We behold in him one of those rare examples of intelligence and power united—a philosopher seated on a throne . Unfortunately , misplaced and aniseducated in youth ; he was thrown upon the world to derive from it those lessons of shrewdness and experience whichl are only to be learned by our coming- into hard _ contact with the trials of necessity . .. * Misprized and depreciated in general estimation because of such adverse circumstances , and the desperate straits to which by them he was reduced , he had patiently to await his time before he was permitted to appear in the primary acts of the great drama not yet ended . When permitted to make his entrance on the scene , We behold a mindpractically educated , made knowing by adversity , apt to think and act for itself , strong by self-discipline , but little regardful of those fine conscientious feelings which act as restraints on those who are more favourably introduced into the world of action . There he was , determined to carve out a fortune for himselfi and when so carved out , to retain it for his own benefit , if also that of others . Self-possessed , taciturn , secretive , initiative , the motive-power abides with him to set the action of the play going ; and the consummation of the same awaits his crowning act , whether for the fulfilment or destruction of his individual purpose . Whether he shall be the Othello or the Iago of the piece remains to be learned . We shall not know , indeed , until the fall of the curtain . Next , we have the Sardinian monarch , a prince similarly taught by adversity , and charged with the responsibility of a sacred cause committed to his trust by a father faithful to it , but who had failed in its advocacy , He has to redeem shortcomings , make up for lost opportunities , and convert defeat into victory . In these motives we find a spring of secret sympathy with the heir of the second French empire , and a profound reason for complicity of purpose—a common object , in fuct , in one pursued from ambition , in the other from a sense of duty . , To them , in the natural course of events , is opposed the young Emperor of Austria .. Inheriting a despotism , the principles of whioh wore absolute , and the objects securedby international treaty , all innovation on such rules of polity , and all examplos of Constitutional Government , necessarily assumed a form of xnenaoe , and provoked him to reaction and intemperate anger . But the hour had come when conventional forms could no longer contain the expanding spirit , and freedom demanded more room for her manifestation at the moment when the inexperienced Monarch was soeking to restrict her sphere of operation . The new and the old mot in dire antagonism in , the conflict between this headstrong youth and the cautious representatives of a newopooh , to ¦ whom that epooh had imparted its ronovatccl spirit , full of hope , activity , and enterprise , in which there was no decay , but only growth and . increasing strength . Wo wonder that , when brought into oontaot , suooess was with the latter . It was the victory of jninoiples , not of persons . And now at Villafranoa the curtain closed on the first aot of the world-drama . The next opened with Gajujuxdi . It is sometimes reckoned n capital point in dramatio economy , to open the second act with tho discovery of the hero . * The monarchical prinoiple in its two opponent phases , hud been

    sufficiently developed in the powerful triad of the first act ; the popular principle was now to be properly impersonated , and Italy to be" represented , in the bold warrior whose strength alone consisted in the assertion of her liberty . To him it is granted to adopt the unfulfilled . formula—of an Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic ; and the Powers stand by while he takes it up , and with the good-will of the Italian peoples , proceeds to carry it practically put . Count Gavoue , also , as it were the Prime Vizier of the Sardinian King , now appears on the field , permitting Garibaldi to act in his Monarch's name , but not ostensibly approving of all his operations . How much of real disagreement is there in the apparent ? How much of diplomatic collusion ? Sicily of all this takes little note ; she hears the hero s call to independence , she responds in good faith , and the day is hers . And so closes the second act of the w-oiid-drama . The third is longer and more intricate . Doubts and difficulties commence the new act . Gayo . ur and NAroLjcoN reveal ulterior purposes and secret untlerstanding-. s , which startle even G-akibal . pi himself . The Soldier and the Diplomat are at strife . We inay suppose some such scone as that of the quarrel scene between Brutus and . Cassius , and dread similar results . But Garh ! . vl ]) i maintains the birthright of honour , and announces all the niOrc boldly his design . The Diplomats are startled in their turn , and fear that the bold Warrior will become the rash one , and , led away by enthusiasm , imperil the cause which ¦ hitherto ¦ he'had so successfully conducted . Will not , too , the Sage of the Tuilerics see ' his opportunity to promote some object of personal ambition , and seek to subdue Italy to his influence' ? Is there not a . secret understandingsbetween Franco and Sardinia that the assent of the former is to be so purchased ? Has not , too , Sardinia . ¦ interfered , so as todivide the laurel with the lieroi and to prevent him from proclaiming the Unity of Italy from the . summit of the ¦ Q / uirinal ? Different factions , moreover , seek to convert ¦ -the Dictator ' s power to tlicir own advantage ; and thus give the appearance of divided counsels to the camp . Is not the mind of the hero deeply ¦ troubled ? But , through all , he trusts in Victor Emmanuel , and , in the face of nil protests , proceeds to expel the base Francis II . from -Naples , which he prepares to " deliver-into the : hands of the monarch in \ vliom he believes , surrendering ,. at the same time , the dictatorship , which is nolion srer needful .

    The fourth and fifth acts have yet to be _ enacted . According to the principles of the Divine drama in its correlation to history and civilization , the fourth period should be one mainly of transition . Something ought to occur that threatens interruption to the work in progress , and throw doubt on its ultimate success . To the fifth act belongs the triumph , over all difficulties whatsoever . That an interval of painful transition will occur—that Home and Vcnetia will furnish pregnant matter for two more acts , is possible , some mi « -ht even assert is certain . There is a reason for such a painful interval in historical and dramatic developments . The critic states it to exist in the fact that the disappointment arising from a wholesome scheme of deliverance is one of the most universal , and , at the same time , distressing features of tb-at severe ordeal of moral discip line which characterizes the providential government of tho world . Such fact has been often repeated in the history of freedom , and may again be , or rather , we should say , will bo , until the moral discipline which it is designed to sxibservo shall be perfected , and man prove himself worthy of the Truth that is to set him free . It is , moreover , as the critic to whom we allude has observed , an indispensable character of all moral touching , ana especially of dramatic teaching , that it should reveal tho agency of a Higher Power that watches over us , and brings us deliverance when hope is lost aftor o \ ir utmost efforts , and that leads the guilty by a path of fancied security into the very catastrophe which ho purposed for others . . Tho part which England has had to play in tlxis woikldrama has been apparently that of chorus- —whereof Lord PAJUtfEitSTON has been the spokesman . The burden of his propheoy is sufficiently ominous of tho end of the guilty . Ho has already pronounced his opinion that the only solution to the Italian perplexity lies in tho removal both of tho offending King and offending Pontiff . Less-than this would not furmsh a grand enough catastrophe to tho , world-drama now in progress . "Wo have no doubt that the concluding scones will bo worthy those whioh wo have already seen onaotod . Uio xesults of the third aot may meet with impediment ; but any such partial failure will only proyo , as in dramatio instances in general , to have been the duo " preparation for man a extremity and God ' s opportunity ; " and the danoucrnQnt , as w invariably the case , will bo " an unexpected result , w wawn

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 27, 1860, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27101860/page/4/