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Leader (1850-1860), 30th June 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 14

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      The Story Of Italy.* A T Any Time A Well...

      not sprung from her " quenchless ashes " when she suffered destruction as the imtnediate : reward of her zeal , a powerful impulse would have been wanting to that resistance to the Austrian which has / at last proved successful , and the barrenness of the past'Would have-opposed a serious obstaeleto a present or future fertile life . ' Englishmen should study the conduct of their country during the wars against the First Empire in France , because there are not wanting- influences either in the cabinet or the court that would impel us towards a repetition of the crimes and mistakes of that heroic but unfortunate period . It is only those curious forei ° -jiers . tie Peace at any price p ;> rty . that

      indiscriminately condemn all the opposition made by England to the rapacious ' conquests of Napoleon I . It was rip-lit to restrain the spirit of ravenous aggression , but wrong to attempt to combat it by unitins- physical force to principles that were false . That jealousy of France as a disturbing- power , at a time when Europe did certainly need disturbance , which led our Government to be the tool and partisan of Austria , was a fatal mistake in policy , and a great crime in morals . Constitutional England could not be jn tified in endeavouring- to keep the peace by causing a larc-e part qf Europe to be oppressed by despotic Austria ; nor could Protestant England be justified in assisting to place enormous power in the hands of the most ferocious persecutors of freedom of opinion .

      When the Allies wanted the assistance of the Italians agrainst Buonaparte , they mnde promises which they afterwards deliberately betrayed . English offieers and Austrian g-enerais . like Count Nnsrent . sneaking ofthe Hapsburg armies , declared that they came to bring 1 freedom to Italy . " On ' r armies have come to Italy to free you . You must all become an independent nation . When the victory was gained , and kinsrs began to recover from the terrors of Napoleon ' s name , they sacrificed and betrayed Italy bv ¦ d / estroying , as far as they were able , the qrood which the Coysican adventurer had accomplished , and by a * r < rrandi 7 . in £ r Austria , in spite of all the protests the people could make . The Hapsbursrs were , as usual , legitimate children of the " Father of Lies . " The

      Emperor Francis promised all sorts of blessingrs , arid his Marshal Belleg-arde issued a proclamation to Lombardy . Mantua , Brescia , Bergamo / and Cremona . " thatthe first care ofthe Emperor would be to give their provinces a satisfactory and durableform of govern- ^ ment , arid an administration adapted to secure their future happiness , so that " their minds Wig-lit be full of joy in contemplating : an epoch as happy as it was remarkable , and in their prratitude transroit to remote generations the ndelibleproof of their devotion and their 4 oyalty /'_ This was appropriately followed by the suppression of all local sroverriment and every vestige of freedom . The Emperor told his ministers that the ' ¦ " Lombards must forjre ' t they are Italians , " and Metterni . eh declared that his master " desired to extinfruish the spirit of Italian unity , and to destroy all idea of an Italian constitution . " Popular discontent was the natural result of ¦¦ in

      this abominable conduct , and 'Mr . Butt tells us how it was met . 1814 . In that year a " French nobleman" came to Milan with excellent introductions , s'ffirmins- that he visited Italy by desire of the Prince Regent and Louis XVIII ., who desired to promote the cause of Italian nationality . These pretensions carried the " French . nobleman" into the society of the patriotic party , and when he had learned enough he disappeared , and the police arrested eleven o ~ f ~ the principal persons who had been honoured with his acquaintance . Austria was permitted to " establish her sway over almost " Northern . Italy before i he meeting ofthe Congress of Vienna , " the story just cited sliows her method of rule . When Napoleon escaped from Ell-a , and gave the despots another fright , Francis promised national institutions to the Italians , but of course the promise was never kept .

      Lord Cnstiereagh—whom it ijs now the fashion to whitewashwas fo madly and wickedly Austrian that the Italians could expect no iuRtice at his hnndw . When their deputies reminded him that Generals Wilson , McFarlane , nnd Lord William Bentinck had called " upon them to join the British arms in asserting the independence of Italy , " he told them that "if they were about to be placed tinder a government like that of Napoleon ' s , he would support them in their demnnds for guarantees against oppression , but that under the imperial House of Aiifttria power had never yet been abused . " From this it would appear that his lordnhip did not call the extinction of liberty in every country in which the House of Austria ever ruled an " abuse of power "—at any rnte . he had determined to sacrifice Italy to the fear of France , which was his preletter which

      dominant idea . In the year 1859 Fnrini published a he slates to exist in the " archives of Vienna , and which was written by Metternioh to Cnstlereagh a few days before the , Treaty of Paris . In this extraordinary document a Recret treaty of Prague is alleged to have been made between England and Austria , on the 27 th of June , 1813 , by which the former Power was hound to use all her influence to obtain for Austria a complete dominion over Italy , except in the Sardinian territories . The existence of this letter is positively affirmed by F « rini , whose . integrity no ^ ono enn ^ uubt . ; but he has not stftted how he obtained tjje copy . Mr . Butt judiciously balances the arguments for and agnimt its genuineness , very properly conceding much to the solemn nud deliberate assertion of " the eminent statesman and historian by whom it is made known . We fullv coincide in the reflections made by Mr , Butt upon this

      remarkable question ; nnd whether or not the alleged treaty was ever made we are sorry that wecan feel no doubt that bargains as * objectionable are made by our Governments , and concealed from the people under that mask of neere <\ v that cannot he too soon removed . Mr . Butt observes , " If the alleged treaty of 27 th July , 1813 , did really exist , it may nerhnps supgoht to tho reflective , that with all the

      boasted freedom of the English Constitution there was [_ isj one department of her administration to which popular influence had not found its way , arid that the foreign policy of the country was [ is ] conducted with a secrecy and an independence of national opinion which has no parallel in the proceedings of the Courts in * which the forms ofthe most absolute despotism prevailed . " ^ Our diplomacy is , no doubt , an un-English abomination , and it is secret , because neither the Court nor the very small number of chief actors in it dare bring it before the light of day . We owe the Russian war to secret diplomacy , which had previously g-ot up . Aflkhan war , and we may at this moment be drifting towards another war , through engagements made on behalf of the German powers . There is no question more important , and ministerial responsibility is a farce while so much is done in the dark .

      A very interesting portion of Mr . Butt ' s work relates to Sicily and our unhappy complicity in the betrayal of the people of that island and of Naples to all the horrors of Bourbon cruelty . Mr . Butt discusses the conduct of Nelson in reference to the judicial murder of Carraccioli and the restoration of Ferdinand in a very impartial spirit , and his remarks are the more important as a recent article in Blacicicood has adopted a partisan tone in favour of our naval hero , and cast upon Carraccioli odium he did . not deserve . Whatever blame may rest upon Nelson , who was certainly not quite sane when he-wished his midshipmen to " hate every Frenchman as the devil . " it is an awful blot upon the , history of our country that our power did restore Ferdinand to his throne . The consequence was . that the royalists excited the mob to the most horrible cruelties , in which the Government showed itself as bad as

      the worst of the lazzaroni . Men , women , and children were barbarously cut to pieces ; executions were frequent ; and Sir Thomas Trowbridse stated that upwards of 40 . 000 families had relations confined . " NearlyOne in fifty of the adult rnale population was punished , and one in two hundred and fifty perished upon the gallows . Tory writers are never weary of enlarging on the horrors of the FrenchRevplution ; but in these atrocities , and those committed by Austria in Italy and Hungary , arid by Russia in Poland , we have crimes committed , with all the . ¦ deliberation of which a monarchical Government is capable , and which equal , if they do not exceed , anything ever perpetrated by an infuriated mob . The crimes of despotism are so awful , that England must never repeat the error of having been its accomplice in the bad times of Pitt and Oasflereagh . -Wef shall look with -pleasure for the completion of Mr . Butt's most valuable work . .

      614 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Ju...

      614 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 30 , 1860

      Walt Whitman And His Critics. * Ritefere...

      WALT WHITMAN AND HIS CRITICS . * riTEFERE is «* tendency in the critical mind of Ameiica , nnd , for J- that matter , of other countries too , to create wonders where , in the natural process of tinners , no wonder , or a very small wonder , exists . Arnonar American authors there is one named Walt -Whitman , who , in 1855 , first issued a small quarto volume of ninety-five pages , under the title of " Leaves of Grass . " In appearance and mode of publication , it was an oddity , this same small volume ; which , it appears , the author had printed himself , and then " left to the winds of heaven to publish . " By the booksellers of the United Sfafe ' s geherally ^> envT ^ the persevering applicant . Walt Whitman was then about thirtyborn thhillsabout

      six years of age , a native of Loner Island , on e , thirty miles from the greatest American city , and brought up in Brooklyn and New York . Mr . R . W , Emerson , it seems , recognised the first issue of *' The Leaves , " and hastened to welcome the author , then totally unknown . Among other things , said Emerson to the now avatar , " I greet you at the beginninir of a great career , which yet must havcliacla lotiq foreground somewhere for ttiu-7 * a start . " This last clause was , however , overlooked entirely by the critics , who treated the new author as one self-edupnted , yet in the rough , unpolished , and who owed nothing to instruction . Fudge ! The authority for so treating the author was derived from himself , who thus described , in one of his poems , his person , . diameter , and name , having omitted the last from his title-pago : —

      " ; Wai / t Whitman , an American , one of tho roughs , a Kosmos , Disorderly , fleslily , and sensual ;" and in various other passages confessed to all tho vioos as well as virtues of man . All this , with intentional wrong-headedness , was attributed by the sapient reviewers to tho individual writer , and not to the . subjective hero supposed to bo writing . Notwithstanding tho word " Kosmos , " the writer was taken to be an ignorant mini . Emerson perceived nt once there had been " u long forcgroiind Romewhere , " or somehow : —not so they . Every page teems with knowledge , with infornmtion , —but they saw it not , because it did not answer their purpose to see it .

      The poem in which the word JCosmos appears explains in fact the whole mystery ;—nay , the word itnelf explains it . Tho poem is nominally upon himself , but really includes everybody . It begins- ^ - ,.--...--.-..-. - ... _ ., „ . „ , " I oelobrnte myaelf , And what I usaume you si mil assume , For every atom belonging to mo , aa good belongs to you . " In a word , Wnlfc Whitman represents the ICosmical Mnri- ^ -lio is tho Adatnus of the 10 th century , nofc only an individual , but mankind . As Hiich , in celebrating : hiniHolf , ho proceeds to celebrate universal humanity in its attributes ; and accordingly commence his dithyramb with tho five senses , beginning with that of smell . * I . eavtfi of Oram . Iloaton : Tlmyor & Eldridge . Tear 80 of tho Rtntc * ( 1800—01 ) . London : Triibner & Co .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30061860/page/14/