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appear to think and feel in it with greater ease | hand, to stroll leisurely across the bridge, as if and delight. It is like the diminutive mummy at he had been merely out for a walk, and would an Egyptian feast, bidding us enjoy ourselves return into the town. I watched the operation rapidly, before we depart hence, and are no more with considerable interest. He alighted as we seen. Thoughts like these crowded on my mind approached the river, and, preceding the carriage as I gazed on the rolling waters of the Ticino, a little, moved slowly towards the corps des gardes rendered bright by the setting sun, but a thousand at the end of the bridge. There, instead of times more bright by those glowing classical asso- appearing in a hurry to pass, he leaned upon the ciations which clothe every inanimate object in parapet, and chatted with the German soldiers, Italy, and impart to it the accumulated beauty of whom his loose wit immediately provoked to two thousand years. The breath of the old Ro- laughter. He then wished them a good morning, man republic seemed to breathe softly around us, and proceeding infinitely at his ease, in a few minrebuking Teutonic despotism, and whispering that utes found himself in Piedmont. As we were dea day of deliverance is at hand. tained to have our passports examined, the jolly exile was several miles on his way before we overtook him, when he bounded up to his place with a light spring and a laugh, saying he had felt Prince Metternich's fingers at the nape of his neck till he was fairly over the Po. "But now a fig for the old rascal," said he; "his downfall must be

CHAPTER XV.THE CARBONARO.

may assist in producing it." He was rather young for a conspirator, not, certainly, above five-andtwenty, perhaps much less. But, like Monsieur Flocon, he seemed to have lived nearly all his life in secret societies, and some portion of it, perhaps, in prison. I asked him what the members of the secret societies chiefly aimed at. He replied,

Next morning we were stirring with the dawn, and had already made some way when the sun rose. There is nothing so fleeting as those phenomena of nature which we denominate sunrise and sunset; and yet they sometimes paint themselves so vividly approaching; and my most earnest wish is that I on our memories that the picture never wholly fades away, save with the crumbling of the canvas. The beauty of that morning I still remember distinctly. The sun rose out of an ocean of ruddy and saffron vapor, and shed over all the woods and copses, now moist and glittering with dew, a splendor and a gorgeousness of coloring which no art can imitate. The mystery of creation seems to be renewed every morning in the south, for, as the world emerges from darkness, it appears to put on the robes of a virgin, and to stand smiling in eternal innocence in the presence of its Creator. The deep blue of the overhanging sky completes the mighty picture; and our imagination ascends its luminous arch to the very footstool of the throne of God.

6.

There are two sections, one of which dreams of a kingdom of Upper Italy, while the other thinks of nothing but the establishment of a republic. I belong to the latter class, and have sworn to plot and conspire against kings while I have breath. So here's to you, Prince Metternich!" said he, turning round and spitting at Lombardy.

I had exchanged the interior, notwithstanding that it contained Carlotta, for the outside and the As I and Semler were enjoying, in silence, the fresh air; and now our Milanese exile came luckpleasure of the morning, we heard a rustling ily to dissipate the German phlegm of Semler, and among the bushes at the side of the road, and soon put to flight the bashfulness of a young Dalmatian saw a man spring out, with a large bundle in his who had joined our party at Pavia. By these hand. He came bolt up to the carriage, requested two I was infinitely amused. The Dalmatian the driver to stop a moment, and then boldly asked presented the most complete contrast to the Mius for a place. What he was he would explain, lanese. He was tall, muscular, of a dark olive he said, as we rode along. I was struck with his complexion, with hair and eyes as black as jet. physiognomy, which was that of boundless self- His habits had evidently been studious; although possession and audacious impudence. He had he could not have been more than twenty years of fiery red hair, a highly-flushed complexion, and age, he spoke and reasoned like a man of thirty. light blue eyes. Still, his manners were gentle-In politics he was as red as the Milanese; though, manly, and he soon proved himself to be in pos- at his own home, which was at Trieste, he exsession of large and varied stores of knowledge. pected, he said, to find no sympathy, but, on the He said he had been compromised for some politi- contrary, the most determined opposition and discal offences at Milan, and was now endeavoring to | like. My father," he observed," is a moneffect his escape from the Austrian dominions archist of the old school, full of the prejudices of without a passport. We bade him get up, which bigotry, but otherwise a good man. He is adhe did, and began talking at once. He was, of vancing by a double road towards fortune, being course, a Carbonaro, and proved his fitness to be engaged in commerce and the cultivation of the a member of the secret society by pouring forth a soil. We have a pretty little property near the torrent of words with little or no meaning in them. city, where there is a vineyard descending in terHe must have been of German origin. There races towards the stream; and there, at the foot was nothing Italian in his look, or bearing, or tone of a bitter-almond tree, I have hundreds of times of thought. When we came to the bridge across sat reading Machiavelli and Fra Paolo, and medithe Po, he purposed to leave his bundle on the tating the revolutionizing of Italy.” top of the carriage, and, with his little cane in his

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Semler either took no interest in politics, or

certainly should not like to be condemned to travel all my life in such Cimmerian gloom. A flash of darkness does very well now and then, but if Shakspeare's ideas were always surrounded by a Stygian atmosphere, in all likelihood his admirers would not be quite so numerous as they are.

held opinions different from ours, for he remained a long dark tunnel, which suggests to one the idea silent during our discussion, and only emerged of rushing wildly through infinite space;. but I from his reverie when we spoke of poetry or the fine arts. On these he was eloquent, especially when he could obtain exclusive possession of my ear, and dilate on the praise of Shakspeare. Of late the Germans have cherished the odd opinion that we, the countrymen of Shakspeare, have learned through them properly to appreciate him. It may very well be doubted, however, whether any foreigner, German or not, can be said to understand our great poet, whose very language is often caviare to the bulk, even here in England. To build up dreamy theories about his meaning is not always to understand him; and this is what German critics have generally done. Semler was modest enough to admit that he admired, without always comprehending, Shakspeare; and if he had not understood him at all, he might still, according to his own theory, have admired him, because he was not one of those who think that what Locke calls clear and distinct ideas are necessary to the production of intellectual delight. On the contrary, he believed that mistiness and obscurity are not only a source of the sublime, but powerful ingredients of pleasure, since, according to them, it is far more agreeable to move in partial or total darkness than in the light.

The country between Pavia and Nove is a dead flat, though I could perceive everywhere spots which made pleasant pictures to the eye-copses, thickets, glades, vistas, lofty trees, and sheets of water, all glowing with the warmth of an autumnal sun. Towards evening we arrived at Nove, where I saw a curious illustration of the way in which a man may sometimes get introduced into good Italian society. Of course there is a very great difference between the people you meet with in such cities, and those who inhabit the several capitals; but I dare say the man who travels with an open heart and frank manners through Italy, will often find openness and frankness in return. At any rate, I must speak of the Italians according to my experience; and if they behaved better to me than to others, it is but fair that I should acknowledge it. We often make our own receptions, and receive what we give. The Italians especially like to have faith put in them; and so far as I have seen, they well deserve to be trusted

I certainly experience no small degree of enjoyment from travelling in an express train through-I mean, of course, as a general rule.

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From the Examiner, of 20th Oct. FRANCE AND ITALY.

THE French, who put so much interest into their theatres, are not successful with their political drama. It is wearisome and disgusting to contemplate. And yet it is full of stirring events, startling changes, strange surprises, great fortunes involved, the fates of men and empires hanging on a thread. Yet, with all these materials for tragedy, it turns out to be a most vulgar and common-place drama after all. And the reason we believe to be, that there is no character in the personages. Amid the numbers brought upon the public scene, of all ages, ranks, color, and profession, not one stands forth as truly great, or eminent, or magnanimous in any way; few as even honest. The truth is, we suppose, that a certain degree of simplicity is necessary to greatness; and that there is no simplicity in the men who have served half-a-dozen dynasties, and set up scores of political aims in the course of their tor

tuous career.

In likening French political life to the stage, let us not forget the quick metamorphose of character and costume indulged in by the actors. For example, when the National Assembly last broke up, we left the magnates of the conservative party plotting, or pretending to plot, how they should extend Louis Napoleon's three years' lease of power to ten years. Were they serious and sincere at the time? It is to be doubted. Certain it is, that not only has the idea been abandoned, but another idea now peeps out. The conservative party no longer looks to any consolidation of power under Louis Napoleon, but simply to making the present president a stepping-stone to the restoration of a legitimate monarchy. This is the plain English of the situation.

M. Thiers has divulged it, by holding a language on the Roman question, such as no politician could hold that did not look to a legitimist prince as his future master, and to the priesthood as his main support. The reason is admitted on all hands, is scarcely denied by M. Thiers himself; and it has excited in the breast of Louis Napoleon a burst of honest indignation, such as that prince is capable of feeling and expressing, at least for twenty-four hours. His resolution and sagacity seldom extend beyond that period.

Whilst we write, the breach is wide in Paris between the president and those councillors whom he has hitherto implicitly trusted. Louis Napoleon, however, though a generous steed, has still a curb in his mouth; that curb being the conservative majority in the Assembly, to which he has lent himself altogether, and of which he is the instrument and slave. The aim of this class is to restore their own power, and whatever prince or régime can best serve their purpose. All they clearly see is, that the republic is, of all régimes, that which is most unfavorable to the establishment and permanence of their monopoly.

Foreign policy in France is unfortunately a mere corollary to the internal struggles going forwerd. The French are somewhat like sailors

who have escaped from a foundering vessel, and find themselves at sea in an open raft, without helm or sail, exposed to the tempest and to the mercy of the tide. All they think of is, to reach dry land, the nearest land, and keep alive till then. They are in that state of doubt and danger where intense selfishness is the only feeling and motive. Talk to such a people of philanthropy, of liberty, of humanity, of national pride, or of the sentiments they most prized before their wreck, and they not only do not assent, but they do not comprehend the language. They are embruted by selfishness and fear.

It is hopeless and melancholy to see the fate of Italy, for example, entrusted to such hands. That fate the French have completely in their power. With an army of from 20,000 to 30,000 men in Rome, and the whole of the population ready to follow a liberal call, the French have but to say the word, and it is law. They have but to insist on constitutional government, nay, to install it and convoke it. Naples could not resist. Tuscany could not hold out. A popular government, established in any one corner of Italy, would, by its light, its happiness, its preeminence, alone command and force all others to ruin themselves by imitation, or to perish by the contrast. The French at Rome have in their power to say either, Let there be day, or Let there be night. Such is the alternative.

The

It is upon this alternative that the French Assembly is about to debate and the French government to decide. M. Thiers has drawn up a report in the name of the committee, and this report may be construed and concentrated in the few words of Let there be Night over Rome and Italy-the old night of papal despotism. French republicans, to their honor, held up their hands and voices for Day. Louis Napoleon timidly, but generously, proposes a middle term. He wants at least twilight, the dawn if not the fulness of liberal institutions. The request is modest. But the Pope will not have it. Austria is indignant at it. And the French legitimists are for the supremacy of the priesthood, that great party on which they count to darken the mind of Europe down to the worship of their idols. M. Thiers makes himself the mouth-piece of the high priests; and Louis Napoleon has not the courage to venture more than a temporary pretext.

Thus the doom of Italy is to be sealed, as that of Hungary has been, and the same withering and vindictive spirit hovers over both. The police and the executioner are let loose to select their victims from the population; and all the liberal, the educated, the intelligent, the high-minded, are marked out for their prey. The prisons are gorged, and the few that escape to starve in exile are almost as much to be commiserated. Of this sad state of things France is mainly guilty. Her example it was, ay, and her exhortations, that excited the Italians to rise; and now it is her cruelty, apathy, and Machiavelism, that crush, decimate, and proscribe them. So has France served Spain, so is she treating Italy, and so is she sinking herself

into the depth of sacerdotal and lawless tyranny. Answer the voice of thy great agony It is but just that a country which has made it her In words of fiery hope that shall not die. boast to crush the liberties and mar the fortunes of Thou blood which dost pollute with hideous dew her best allies and most attached neighbors, should The fields, be fruitful in great deeds! Be quick be ruthlessly and degradingly cheated of her own. O'er all the land, ye martyred hosts that strew The valleys and the mountains, making sick The general air with death, and Heaven's clear blue A night of poisonous vapors foul and thick! Be loud within the soul's intensest life, Thou silence dwelling where has been fierce strife. A deadly sleep is on the nations-Might

From the Examiner.

HUNGARY IN OCTOBER, 1849.

As one that should behold, driven up and down
The skiey fields, some weaker bird hold fight
With eagles twain-so, land of old renown,
In dreadful silence Europe saw the light
Of battle hang above thy plains, and crown

Thy hills like a red meteor; till thy right
Yielding to power, swift thoughts and words again
Leap from the unbarred caverns of the brain.
From the Tartarian limits of the world

The northern darkness is rolled over thee, Strangling thy morn, whose feeble star is hurled Beneath the founts of Truth's retiring sea: The Imperial dragons round thy sons are curled, And the air saddens with their dismal glee :— From tongue to tongue gabbles the brutish hiss, Echoed afar from kingly palaces.

Yet, Hungary, thy freedom is not dead;

It does but sleep, and soon itself will rear: Liberty, girt with stars about its head,

Walks in the light of God's unwaning year Secure and calm; while despots, victory-fed,

Still tremble on the brink of some vague fear. Triumphant kings grow pale, though millions greet

Their thrones! but Truth is glorious in defeat.

Rears its crowned head triumphant; but the flame Of thy uprising, Hungary, shall make bright The mourning earth with new-born life and fame,

As the stars fill with ever-flowing light

Their pure, cold, crystal heavens; and thy name Shall hang above our era's dismal story Like dawn on some out-looking eastern promontory. EDMUND OLLIER.

From the Spectator, 20th Oct.

and

AUSTRIA, throwing off the mask, stands confessed in her old tyrannous cruelty, her old inexorable meanness. Count Louis Batthyani has been made to suffer a penal death at Pesth at Arad several military leaders have been slaughtered, for the most part by the rope. The charge was high treason. All were condemned to death by hanging, and the sentence was only commuted to death by fire-arms in the case of a favored few. Count Louis Batthyani differed from some other Hungarian leaders in his strict adherence to the

Storm comes, and noon-day darkness; yet, un-old
shaken,

The blue and quiet heavens sleep behind :
Bleak winter comes; yet dreams of spring awaken
Beneath the murmurings of a warmer wind:
Death comes; but a new birth, like fire unslaken,
Kills with its dawn the night of humankind.
Evil is transient ;-wrong, and force, and fraud,
By the great future still are overawed.
Thrones. Kingdoms, Empires, Dominations, fade:
They are as sand before the blast of Time,
Which, in quick scorn of what itself has made,
Scatters to voidness their frail shapes; they
climb

Through their brief day-then huddle in blank
shade;

Yet earth remains as in its freshest prime :
Good things, and pure, and simple, keep their

bloom

Through the long years; all else is its own tomb. Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece,

Rome, and Arabia, held in turn men's fearsBlack masses in the golden light of Peace,

Casting wide shadows; but the fate-ful spheres Wheeled round, and they were gone. Far longer

lease

Has Truth, which, fed with dew of human tears, Makes music with the winds and tempests rude, Turning to sweetness their ungentle mood. Therefore, high-hearted sorrowing one, look forth; Look forth upon thy heritage awhile! Two comforters, at least, hast thou on earth :The eastern Moon of Mahomet doth smile On thy brave sons, and on thy suffering worth; And all the cities of our western isle

constitution; by the constitution he stood against imperial encroachment; by it he stood He had taken against republican encroachment. no lead in the war; he was first seized while endeavoring to negotiate a reconciliation; he had been tried by a military commission, and acquitted; he sought no refuge in flight, was again seized by order of Haynau, and condemned to be hanged. He had challenged a trial according to the constitution of his country; he now attempted to avoid the illegal penalty, by suicide; but failing, he was led out to perish by military death.

There can be no doubt that this act violates the

letter of the law, as it violates all civilized usage, and all dictates of humanity and sound policy. Count Louis Batthyani was not, strictly speaking, a prisoner of war; even if he had been, he might have pleaded a previous acquittal for his conduct during the war; but the charge against him, that of having infringed the Pragmatic Sanction by exceeding his duty as a minister, was manifestly not one for a military tribunal. The conduct of the Austrian government, therefore, is anarchical; it violates constitutional law and natural justice, and ought to rouse the nations in defence of order and jus

tice. Austria rests on the combination of crowned heads and armies to enforce her will by such instruments as Haynau; her conduct is of a kind to strike despair into the timid, to rouse a fixed hatred in the bold. The Hungarians are not likely to forget it. A fortiori, it shows what would have been done with Kossuth, had he been surrendered ;

it justifies Bem in taking refuge from Austro-perial claims and old national rights: Batthyani is Russian Christianity, as Amurath Pacha, in the condemned to ignominious death. An imperial more generous good faith of Islam.

From the Spectator, 20th Oct.
THE SPIRIT OF EVIL.

government is one that upholds its authority by the flogging of boys and women; revolutionary leaders disdain brutal and degrading weapons, but the imperial statesmen and decorated cavaliers of Austria wield the scourge and the rope, and war MISCHIEF gains the ascendant in the central upon the weak. The scene at Ruskby, where continent of the civilized world, wearing the Madame de Maderspach was scourged by order of crown and wielding the imperial sceptre. The an Austrian officer, was not only brutal in itself, Revolution of 1848 had its ugly traits; but, for but of necessity it rouses throughout Hungaryall their errors, in their brief possession of power throughout Europe-a spirit of vehement revenge the peoples were generous. At Paris, all pro- that longs to slake its thirst in the blood of the scribed members of royalty were suffered to es- oppressor. The last act of leniency, if it is truly cape without injury to a hair of their heads; at reported, only casts a slur on these ferocities; to Berlin, in the very tempest and whirlwind of the the fugitives at Widden the same Haynau has revolt, the king went abroad unharmed-and be granted an amnesty. Thus Kossuth, protected by lieved the beloved Berliners" thought that in the Crescent sword, enjoys the imperial mercy; that hour he was surely in earnest. In Milan, the Goergey, who negotiated at the head of an army, horrors of Spielberg, and the intolerable insolent is freely pardoned; Batthyani, who confided in tyrannies of local officers, were remembered only law and chivalrous faith, is murdered by the disas provocatives to a generous revenge that struck penser of imperial favor-a favor which spares not a single blow except in the fair fighting of the the strong and wars upon the vanquished. open streets. While Manin governed Venice, she tria is fostering the bad passions of the dark ages. had regained the noble sentiments of her prime; Nay, the manly Rudolph, who founded the house while Mazzini held Rome, the Eternal City was of Hapsburg, would blush for the recreant son again governed by a magnanimous spirit that re- who gives the power and dignity of that house in stored a life of glory to the mouldering bones of keeping to the butcher Haynau. her greatness. Loud has been the execration for So in France, the literary adventurer Thiers, the murder of Latour--the assassination of a mil-not having much hope of the republic as a profititary chief who wielded the sword of a prevaricating and treacherous government; of Lamberg, bearer of messages to paralyze the emancipated nationality of Hungary. Those were crimes, and the most has been made of them; but they were not the acts of revolutionary governments-they were the crimes of the mob.

Aus

able investment of his talents, is speculating for the fall, and warning future revolutionists not tʊ trust those who have enjoyed the favor of princes. They are the crowned and accomplished vindicators of "order" who are teaching the world bad faitn, cruelty, and degrading cowardice.

And England? Alas! she looks on and-preThey have been eclipsed by the deeds of legit- varicates. She utters sublime sentiments, piquantly imate authority. It is with the return of her composed in essays by Henry John Viscount Palspiritual and temporal prince that meanness, ser- merston-and suffers the wrong to go on. Does vility, and cowardly oppression return to Rome; she not raise a finger- does she not vindicate the it is victorious Russia who is dictating an un-independence of Turkey? No, that would be christian and cowardly breach of hospitality to the uncourteous" to Russia. Do none of her sons Turk; it is the imperial government of Austria volunteer to avenge the matron whom Austrian which is setting the example of blood to the rebels heroes have beaten with rods in the public marketof Hungary; it is the renewal of "order" in place? No, that would be disagreeable, expenFrance which opens the way for a cruel and jes- sive, and "ridiculous." England cannot help it. nitical treachery. Prussia and Austria are nego- she herself is not unstained by cowardice at Malta, tiating the partition of Germany among them-and and not undisgraced by prevarication anywhere. then, Heaven help patriots or peoples! Her leading men tolerate the trade in cant, perIt is not alone the cruelty of the ascendant pow-haps share in it; and if other politicians compete ers which is to be deplored, but the lamentable with them in the trade, she cannot help herself; moral and material effects that must follow. A bad spirit rules, and its influence is mischief. Austria is teaching the Hungarians, and all nations attempting to change the form or policy of their institutions, that victorious governments give no quarter to chivalrous foes, and that the only safety for nations that rebel is war to extermination. Hungary would now be safer if the rebels of Austria and Bohemia had brought the whole royal family and its adherents to the block-that is the Jesson which Austria has recorded in letters of blood. Batthyani attempted to reconcile new im

she has no rebuke to put down the dangerous quackery of Repeal in Ireland, or more dangerous nationalism that winks at crop-lifting. She, too, is possessed by the spirit of evil-a mean and low spirit of truckling to bolder diabolisms.

This imperial revolution tends to prevent any real settlement in Europe; but that is a truth not without its consolations. Good only is vital. Evil is mortal, in its nature as well as its effects; its works pass away, its institutions crumble. If the honor and dignity of the house of Hapsburg are disgraced by their present guardianship, so like

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