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Leader (1850-1860), 28th May 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 675, Untitled Article

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      paternal and private quality . ¦ ThGse' who ascribe to him ignorance , rudeness , pride , contempt , boastfulness , severity or 1 ; yranirjr in private life , have never moved closely with him , never been in the house with him , and have neyer . had the opportunity of knowing what he was in reality . PUBLIC LIFE OP FEKDIIfAND FROM 1830 TO 1848 Ferdinand IX . was unique in Europe in everything 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 the thousand abuses of the reigns of his father and grandfatherof detestable memory , he , endowed

      i and he advocated the attainment of wants by « . supplication and pacific measures rather than , by 1 ! force . ' > C To be continued . J i

      , with the most brilliant intelligence , in the midst of counsellors , and ministers of perfect nullity , chose for himself and followed put a path which was that of murder , the extinction of every virtue , and the exaltation of prostitutipn 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 andDelCarretto 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 reign , 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 archaeological 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 ite of all

      which might escape its control . Yet in sp efforts , the spirit of-liberty would force itself a way , and writings the most trivial in appearance contained the holy principle . Qiusti and Nicolini were read with the greatest avidity . The publications of ' Mazzihi 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 Alb ert , and he then began to employ his pen in

      . . _ His works were orthodox , and rather theological than philosophical . In 1843 , being desirous to ameliorate the condition of the peninsula , he saw no . othor 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 presidence of the Pope , then Gregory XVI . But Gioberti wns fiir from imagining a government for Italy in consonance with the spirit of the times . IIu recognised only the liberality of sovereigns ; subjects wci'e to humbly pray and

      supplicate . The work in , which these ideas appeared excited tho greatest animosity against him on . the part of Austria nnd the Italian princes , and ho was virulently at tacked . The consequence was that he published another , in which he expressed himself with boldness quite unusual for him ; condemned Ferdinand the second for the oxecutjon of the brothers Bandiern , and attacked Austria ami the Jesuits , whom he had shortly before defended and eulogised . The effect of this book , the

      "Prolegameni , " was great , though it is far from being of a practical tendency . In 1847 appeared his " Modern Jesuit , " which , with many drawbacks , is far superior to any of his other writings . Balbo , inspired b y Gioborti , in 1844 published a work , the " Hopes ofltaly , " in which ho assumed that every interest should give place to that of Italy , and her liberation from tho yoke of the foreigner } —an excellent principle , a holy object , a sublime conception ; but how to realise it is tho question , and one treated with tho greatest puerility by the author . But Balbo wrote for tho Italians , and his point of departure , as well as that of Gioborti , woa the discouragement of all agitation and insurrection , as inimical to the welfare of the country ;

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      ITALIAN LIBERTY . . - ¦ NO . Ilti ; . ' ¦ ' Lord Bojlingbroke once wrote to Prior , the poet , when the latter was employed in a diplomatic capacity : " Dear Mat , hide the nalcedness of thy country , and give the best turn thy fertile brain will furnish thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen . " I confess I made a note , before M . Kossuth ' s allusion to the same thing in his speech

      in the City , of the remark of Lord Malmes burythat 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 Mahnesbury ' 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 have had foreign secretaries who did not know the position and breadth of rivers * where they made English ships remain months in . peril ,-. men obliged to keep beneath the hatches , and only two feet water under the keel . We have had Chancellors of the Exchequer arid 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 m gold , the latter being twenty-seven shillings the ounce ; and we had oiice ^ a Parliament , not so many reigns ago , that food of

      made it highly penal to give meat -or . any kind v for feeding devils , wizards , or witches—we have had all these things , but none of them were more extraordinary than this , otu- newly implied relationship to Austria , which clearly hints at the fraternal hug .. I fear in the appointment of our officials , we are all aristocrats and democrats alike , given tp the . doctrine of the primogeniture of talent in the families of our public men , however , fa . ct 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 not 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 Mahnesbun ' , 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 Austrians , and are bound—we infer , in consequence—to give them our best wishes at present , and something more when John Bull sees sxich 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 > vay of nature , suits amazingly the public convenience !

      connubial , yet condemned to single blessedness , the princea of theiri houses preferring morganatic marriages to going on breeding , in .: and . in , until the rational faculty comes- to a stand-still , i Such may be one of Lord-Malinesbury ' s explainations of the necessity for showing our fraternal affeelion to Austria on the r ground of what St . Paul calls " vain' genealogies , "' writing to bis Christian converts . Secondly , Lord MalmesbTiry may derive- his plea ¦ for ¦ our confraternity -wirai Austria from , pur 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 . If a body of Saxons came here , from Belgium and the parts ; adjacent , we have no more to thank them , for , than we have to thank their successors the 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 shif t even , fop diplomatists , were they not allowed to " tell lies for the good of their country , " to crave an affection for the half ^ civiKsed Groats , the Dalmatians , Caruvthians , Carniolans , Istrians , Styrians , and Tyroleans , which , with the Hungarians and Transylvaniamj ,. make up the hodge-podge Austrian territory . The Bohemians and Moravians , who Sclavonic

      speak ; -nearly as much as G erman v an < * are in that sense a half-breed only , and Austria above and below the Enns , are all of the Imperial realm that can be called German at all . There is a bit of Silesia ^ too , and there is Gallieia , the latter 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 tongues , and Having so many provinces only hali ' -eivilised , the cane is a convenient and universal language . 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 , 632 , 000 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 been in the occupation of the allied forces took

      —" How did they treat you ? " " They what they wanted , the Russians and Prussians " c-nerally only provisions and wine . " " They did 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 any of the continental armies , according to Napoleon I . The Croats committed horrible and tinheard of atrocities in civilised countries , cursed with then ? presence . With the Croats , rape , murder , and plunder , as usual , were let loose to such a degree , with

      that the peasantry resisted them any weapons at hand , preferring to die , if possible , not unrevenged . Prussians , considerably oxasperated , poured into France on the north-enst , and thousands of German troops ; but the xisual havook of war exceptetl , there was no resemblance , ever so remote , to tho crimes of the Austrians under Schwartzenberg . His semi-civilised bunds pillaged and played the unresisting people and peasantry without mercy . It is a curious circumstance , when that havook was proceeding , that the allied Powers in tUo North were willing to negotiate for it general , it a seoure , peace ; and in a note written at i ' ranlcforC , among othor things , Italy was reform ! to , and ono of the proposals to which tho allies wore ready to

      agree , was thus worded : — ( » That in Ttaly , Austria was to have a frontier , which would bo tho subject of negotiation ? that Piedmont presented several lines that might also attbrd matter fin- discussion , as well as tho state ot Italy , provided that it should , like Germany , bo governed in a manner independent of France , ana every other preponderating power . " Tho Earl of Aberdeen , still living , no doubt remembers this communication , which was tho sense of nvhnt the qllied powers pontemplatett at that m oment , and explains that Piedmont was- to

      ' Thus announced from hereditary experience and present authority , it must bo supposed that the fraternal relationship stated by Lord Malmesbury to exist , could only occur two ways : one through that precious stream of nonsonso , genealogy—as our Sovereign is descended straight as an arrow , say tlioso rogues the heralds , from Pharamond of the Whclpish line , born about a . d . 404 , a lady of Swabia having borne twelve sons at one birth , about a . i > . 780 , who were all wonderfully preserved , though eleven of them wcro condemned , like blind puppies , to bo drowned . Thence came tho Guelphs , or

      Welfs , or Whelps , tho Belg » c or Sa * on town tor tUe cubs of any animal . His lordship therefore must lay claim for oiu' confraternity with Austria upon this cub-legend , some of tho whelps having , beyond the time oflogal memory , got the fee simple of tho Ai ' ohduohy ofAustria , and multiplied as German 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 , as that of Austria , tho circumstance entitles the latter to our especial regard , more particularly as . there are said to bo not lews than lifty-six Gorman princesses of varioiis agee , all

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 675, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2296/page/19/