On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    , ^™^V *HE XEAforaR, '675

  • 

    ITALIAN LIBERTY. NO. III. Lokd Boi-ingbr...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Ferdinand Ii., Kinq Of Naples. Wo. I. Th...

    paternal and prorate quality . Those who asenbe to him ignorance , rudeness , pride , contempt * boastfulness , severity or tyranny in private life , have never moved closely with him , never been in the house with , him , andhave neverhadthe opportunity o ? , kna \ ving what he Tjras in i-eality . . TUBWC IIFEOF FBB 3 > IHANI > FROM 1830 TO 1848 Ferdinand 11 . was unique in Europe in every thing relating to his kingly character and the acts ¦ of his government . From the day on which he ascended the throne , November 8 , 1830 , to his last moment , he was the incarnation of the spirit of perfidy and cowardice . Far from remedying

    and he advocated "the attainment of wants by supplication and pacific measures rather than by force . ( To be- continued * J

    the thousand abuses of the reigns , of his father and grandfather , of detestable memory , he , endowed with the most brilliant intelligence , in the midst of counsellors , and ministers of perfect nullity , chose for himself and followed out a path which was that of murder , the extinction of every virtue , and the exaltation of prostitution of every kind . The massacres in the province of Salerno , in 1828 , before he was king , but approved by him ; the horrors of Syracuse , in 1837 ; the choice of Santangelo and Del Carretto as the / executioners of his unbridled and tyrannical will , prove him the

    enemy of all freedom and liberty of every description . But before descending to facts and particulars connected with his feign , it will be necessary to draw a slight sketch of Italy in general at the period to which we are referring . Every political agitation is preceded by a literary movement . Intelligence persuades the will , moves the heart , and causes the arm to act . This _ state of things was now in existence in Italy . Previously to 1830 attention had been turned to natural science , mathematics , and archaeolog ical studies as the only branches of learning not offensive to the governments . It is difficult to treat upon the moral sciences and general literature where liberty has no existence . Italy being subjected to a

    severe censure of the press , talent could ill bow to it , and endeavoured to find subjects to treat upon which might escape its control . Yet in spite of all efforts , the spirit of liberty would force itself a way , and writings the most trivial in appearance contained the holy principle . Giusti and Nicolini were read ^ vith the greatest avidity . The publications of Mazzini made numerous proselytes ; but Gioberti excited public spirit to a more moral and useful end than the Utopian republican agitator . Gioberti a simple priest , in 1833 was arrested and imprisoned for four months in the citadel at Turin for his discourses and sermons to youth , and for the influence he exercised over the people . This imprisonment was exchanged for exile by Charles Albert , and he then began to employ his pen in

    earnest . His works were orthodox , and rather theological than philosophical . In 1843 , being desirous to ameliorate the condition of the peninsula , he saw no other way possible than the establishment of a federation on the model of the ancient Germanic Confederation , formed upon Italian principles , comprehending the Austrian Empire , and under the presidenee of the Pope , then Gregory XVI . But Gioberti . was fur from imagining a government for Italy in consonance with the spirit of the times . IIu recognised only the liberality of

    sovereigns ; subjects were to humbly pray and supplicate . The work in which theso ideas appeared excited the greatest animosity against him on the part of Austria and the Italian princes , and he was virulently attacked . ' Tho consequence was that he miblishod another , in which ho expressed hirasolfwith boldness quite unusual for him ; condemned Eordlnnnd tho second for the execution of the brothers Bandiora , and attacked Austria and the Jesuits , whom he had shortly before defondod and eulogised . The oilbct of this book , the " Prole - of

    gamoni , " wis great , though it is far from being a praoticftl tendency . In 1847 appeared his " Modern Jesuit , " which , with many drawbacks , is far superior to any of his other writings . Balbo , inspired by Gioberti , in 1844 published a work , the " Hopes ot'Italy , " in which ho assumed that every interest should givo place to that of ' ^ Italy , and her liberation ft-om the yoke of tho foreigner ; r—an excellent principle , a holy object , a sublinio conception ; but how to realise it is tho . question , And one treated with the greatest puerility by the author . But Balbo wrote for the Italians ,, and his point of departure , ns woll as that of Gioberti , was the discouragement of all agitation and insurrection , as inimical to tho welfare of the country ;

    , ^™^V *He Xeaforar, '675

    , ^™^ V * HE XEAforaR , ' 675

    Italian Liberty. No. Iii. Lokd Boi-Ingbr...

    ITALIAN LIBERTY . NO . III . Lokd Boi-ingbroke once wrote to Prior , / the poet , when the latter ivas employed in a dip lomatic capacity : " Dear Hut ,. hide the nakedness of thy country , and give the best turn thy fertile brain will ; furnish theewith to the blunders of thy countrymen . " I con & ss I made a note , before M . Kossuth ' s allusion to the same thing in his speech

    in the City , of the remark of Lord Malmesbury ^—that England had a brotherhood with Austria ! We are ° certainly a blundering people ; but . that we shall blunder into paying a _ ten per cent , income tax again to support Austrian tyranny and resist the most sacred rights which God ever conferred upon humanity , I can hardly credit . Lord Malmesbury ' s declaration was no doubt the child of the desire that we should view that mongrel

    empire with more than common indulgence in > . its outrages upon mankind and the rights of nations We liave had foreign secretaries who did not know the position and bre adth of rivers , where they made En g lish ships remain months in peril , / the men Obliged to keep beneath the hatches ; and only two feet water tinder the keel . We have had Chancellors of the Exchequer and corrupt Parliaments that did their bidding , and declared the intrinsic value of a shilling and a pound note to be equal to that of a guinea in gold , the latter being twenty-seven shillings the ounce ; and we had once a Parliament , not so many reigns ago , that

    connubial , jyfet" condemned ; to smgle blessedness , the prineesf of their houses ^ . preferring morganatic marriages < to- ' going on breeding in and : in , ¦ until ( the rational-faculty comes to a stand-stili . vSuchmay be one of Lord Malmesbury ' s explanations of the necessity for showing our fraternal affection to Austria on the ground of what -St . Paul calls " vain genealogies , " writing to Tiis Christian converts . Secondl y * Lord Malmesbury may derive his plea for our confraternity ¦ with

    Austria'from our Anglian Saxonship ; but here , too , the plea is as bad as any referable to genealogical documents , which in twenty generations give every individual a million of ancestors . 'Tf a body of Saxons came here , from Belgium arid the parts : adjacent , we have ¦ no more to thank them for , than we have to thank their successors . tike Normans— -a race much less thievish and unrefined . But -what has . Austria to do with the Saxons , or ,

    indeed , the Germans ? It is a hard shift even-for diplomatists , were they not allowed to " tell lies -for the good of their country , " to crave an affection for the half-civilised Croats * the Dalmatians , Caririthians , Garniolans , Istiians , Stvrians , and Tyroleans , , -which , with the Hungarians and Transylvanians , make up the hodge-podge Austrian territory . The Bohemians and Moravians , ; who and

    speak isnearly as much Sclavonic as German , are in ( that sense a half-breed only , and Austria above and be low the Enns , are all of the Imperial realm that can be called German at all . There is a bit of Silesia i too , and there is Gallicia , thelatter obtained by the felonious division of the spoil of Poland , but these are not German . In fact , . not eight millions 'are German , out . of a population of thirty-six millions !

    Speaking so many tongue * , and having so many pro vinces only half-civilised , the cane is a convenient and universal languages Nothing will better explain the state of civilisation than the product of internal epistolary intercourse . A few years ago , the post - office in Austria produced annually 2 , 400 , 000 florins to thirty-six millions of population ; France , with . thirty-four millions , produced 7 , 63 ' 2 , O 0 O florins ? even Prussia , with a population of 14 , 700 , 000 only , produced 2 , 000 , 000 of florins . We well remember in the last war between England

    and France , the complaints of the horrible crimes of the Austrian soldiery . I once put the question soon afterwards to some people whose houses had teen in the occupation of the allied forces — " How did they treat you ? " " They took what they wanted , the Russians and Prussians o-enerally only provisions and wine . " " They 3 id not ill treat you personally ? " "No , but the Prussians were very insolent . We had no fault to find with the Russians , —they only took what they could consume ; the Prussians were the more wasteful—that is the fortune of war

    everywhere . " " And the Austrians ? " "O , sacre \\ The Austrians were the easiest beaten of anyof the continental armies , according to Napoleon I . The Croats committed horrible and unheard of atrocities in civilised countries , cursed with their presence . With the Croats , rape , murder , ancl plunder , as usual , were let loose to such a degree , that the peasantry resisted them with any weapons if not

    at hnnd , preferring to die , possible , unrovengod . Prussians , considerably exasperated , poured into France on the northreast , and thousands of German troops ; but the visual havock of war oxcoptcd , there was no resemblance , ever so remote , to the orimes of the Austrinns under SohwarWenberg . His semi-civilised bauds pillaged nnd slayed the unresisting people and peasantry without mercy .

    It is a curious circumstance , when that havock was proceeding , that the allied Powers in tho North were willing to negotiate flji < a gonero , it a secure , peace ; and in a note written at I ' rankfort , among other things , Italy was rofarred to , and one of the proposals to which tho allies were ready to agree , was thus worded : — " That in Italy , Austria was to have a frontier , which would bo tho subjoot of noffotintion : that Piedmont presented several line * tWt m . ght ; also afford matter flu- discuHsion , as well as tho slate of Italy , provided that it nhould , like Germany , bo irovornocl iu a manner independent of France , and every other preponderating powor . "

    Tho Karl of Aberdeen , still living , no doubt remembers this communication , whidn was tho fldnsobf whnt the allied powers contemplated at that moment , and oxplaibs that Piedmont was to

    made . it highly penal to give meat or food of any kind , for feeding ; devils , wizards , or witches—we have had all these things , but none of them were more extraordinarythan this , our newly implied relationship-to Austria , which clearly hints at the fraternal hug . I fear in the apj ) ointnient " our officials , we are all aristocrats and democrats alike , given to the doctrine of the primogeniture of talent in the families of our public men , however , fact may falsify the idea . A great military duke of Queen Anne's time , meriting the highest honours , had successors " pitchforked" into military and other high offices , and yet nqt one of them was more than equal to keeping ' a huckster ' s shop , during a hundred and forty years since elapsed . There was a Lord Malmesbury , too , who wrote an

    introduction to the History of the Dutch Republic , himself a diplomatist of distinction during the closing years of the last century . He died in 1820 , Now , as is credited by most of the high and low vulgar , the mantle of the parent fell upon the shoulders of the successor , making the nicest fit ; and we are thus enlightened' into the convenience of the doctrine of hereditary talent with the discovery that we are kith and kin to the Autstrians , and are bound—we infer , in consequence—to give them our best ' wishes at present , and something more when John Bull sees such amiable connexions in pecuniary distress . The . value of the doctrine that hereditary diplomatists—and why not hereditary mathematicians , and professors of divinity ? —are thus produced in the ' way of nature , 6 uits amazingly the public convenience I

    Thus announced from hereditary experience and present authority , it must be supposed that tho fraternal relationship stated by Lord Malmesbury to exist , could only occur two ways : one through thai precious stream of nonsense , genealogy—as our Sovereign is descended straight as an arrow , say thosjo rogues tlio heralds , from Pharamond of the Whelpish lino , born about A . i > , 404 ,, a lady of Swabia having borne twelve sons at one birth , about a . i > . 780 , who wore all wonderfully preserved ,. tUough eleven of them wore condemnod , like blind puppies , to bo drowned . Thence cam q tho Guelphs , or

    Welfs , or Whelps , the Belgio or Saxon term for the cubs of any animal . His lordship therefore must lay claim lor our confraternity with Austria upon this cub-legend , some of tho whelps having , beyond tho time oFlogal memory , got the fee simple of the Archduchy of Austria , and multiplied as Gorman cubs do contrive to multiply , into sovereigns . Perhaps his lordship meant , that out of this common descent of our Sovereign , and other sovereigns on the continent , w that of Austria , tho circumstance entitles tho latter to our , especial regard , more particularly as there are , said to bo i \ ot less than ifty-six German princesses of various ages , all

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28051859/page/19/