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Bibliography      The Tree of Knowledge

3

Retirement of Sir Henry Ellis; Selection of Principal Librarian; Securities; Mr. Kenyon; Appointment; Proceedings in the House of Commons.

An important phase in the life of Panizzi has now been entered upon; but before detailing the facts, we premise that the high position then within his grasp was not achieved without considerable pain and heartburning, owing to the ungenerous statements of the Press.

Sir Henry Ellis having attained, in 1856, his seventy-ninth year, it was not a matter of surprise that his failing energies became inadequate to the duties entailed upon him as head of the British Museum; indeed, he must himself have felt the necessity of retiring. He was, however, forestalled in this intention by a private request, delicately conveyed to him with liberal terms attached. The understanding was that he should voluntarily resign, and should receive the full amount of his salary and emoluments as a superannuation allowance. Complying with this offer, he accordingly tendered his resignation, and, on 4the 9th of February, 1856, the Trustees passed a resolution thanking him for his long services. No sooner had this decision been made public than a certain newspaper, having received information of his probable successor, was guilty of publishing the annexed ungenerous paragraph, eminently calculated to wound, as it did, the susceptible feelings of Panizzi:—

In accordance with the Act of Parliament 26 Geo. II. cap. 22, the Principal Librarian of the British Museum is selected by the Sovereign from two persons recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, who are (as has already been remarked) the “Principal Trustees.”

Up to the year 1850, it will be remembered that the offices of Principal Librarian and of Secretary were distinct appointments. The Secretary, whose duties and position were at first simply clerical, gradually assumed such importance that, though still nominally 5second to the Principal Librarian, he was practically the Chief Officer of the Museum, not always acting in unison with his superior in rank; it was found, therefore, to be more desirable for the welfare of the Museum, as well as more economical that the two offices should be blended, and they were united in the person of Sir Henry Ellis.

In reference to this subject we invite the attention of our readers to the following letter from that gentleman:—

Four days after the receipt of the above, Panizzi addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Principal Trustees, >mutatis mutandis, as follows:—

From the Lord-Chancellor he received the appended reply, which needs no comment, nor could Panizzi have expected his Lordship to act otherwise:—

The Home Secretary, at that time Sir George Grey, received, without Panizzi’s knowledge, several letters from eminent personages, strongly recommending him for the vacant post; to quote one of these will be sufficient evidence of their tendency:—

This letter was sent, together with others, to Panizzi, on the 26th of February, 1870, by Sir George Grey himself:—

Another letter, from Lord Ellesmere to Dr. Cureton, written whilst the appointment was pending, may be added:—

Dr. Cureton again wrote as follows:—

Other communications followed, amongst which was one from Mr. Richard Ford:—

Before the announcement of the appointment reached Panizzi, he received two epistles, one from Lord Lansdowne, and the other from Sir George Grey:—

Close upon these followed the official letter from the Home Office:—

The actual appointment, under Her Majesty’s sign manual, bears the date of the next day, viz., the 6th of March, 1856.

12Panizzi had been privately informed of the intended resignation of Sir Henry Ellis at least a month before, for, on the 2nd of January, he wrote to Sir George Grey, recommending himself to H.R.H. the Prince Consort, under whose instructions the Hon. C. Grey wrote the following letter:—

However, notwithstanding the tone of this letter, and whilst many others kept pouring in, there were not a few persons who tried their utmost to oppose the promotion which had been so well earned, and which, it may honestly be said, proved afterwards to have been so wise a step in the National interest.

The earliest protest is one which, though insignificant at first sight, is here placed before the reader, because it was sent to Panizzi by Lord Palmerston, who wrote on the 13th of March (1856):—

Can any protest be more short-sighted or ungenerous than this of “Bolton Corney’s?” The concise note of Lord Palmerston speaks volumes to the discerning mind as to his opinion of such vulgar and 14insulting trash. But for his Lordship’s discriminating kindness in forwarding the document for Panizzi’s reflection and information, the matter would be scarcely worth dwelling on for a single instant.

Again reference must be made to Mr. Francis Haywood, who, it will be remembered, was Panizzi’s earliest friend at Liverpool, and who, it can well be imagined, was delighted to see his >quondam Italian and penurious friend of 1824 now at the head of the greatest institution of its kind in the universe. Appended are Panizzi’s letters previous to receiving his appointment as Principal librarian:—

It is incumbent on the gentlemen holding higher appointments in the British Museum to name two securities; these, in Panizzi’s case, were Mr. Francis Haywood and Mr. James Booth, both of whom, of course, were accepted. In order to commemorate the great event, the new Principal Librarian invited some of his intimate friends to dinner at Blackwall, amongst these should be mentioned Mr. John Kenyon, the philanthropist, philosopher, and poet. This gentleman died on the 3rd of December, 1856, and as a practical proof of the esteem in which he held Panizzi, left him a legacy of £500 and all his wines.

Lord Macaulay, who had been a Trustee of the British Museum since February, 1847 (an office which he highly esteemed, and to which he attended with much assiduity and greatly to the public advantage), showed, as we gather from his life by Trevelyan, no small anxiety as to the impending appointment. In writing (February, 1856) to Lord Lansdowne, he said:—“I am glad of this, both on public and private grounds. Yet I fear 16that the appointment will be unpopular both within and without the walls of the Museum. There is a growing jealousy among men of science, which, between ourselves, appears even at the Board of Trustees. There is a notion that the Department of Natural History is neglected, and that the Library and Sculpture Gallery are unduly favoured. This feeling will certainly not be allayed by the appointment of Panizzi, whose great object, during many years, has been to make our Library the best in Europe, and who would at any time give three Mammoths for an Aldus.“

With all due deference to Lord Macaulay’s statement, we do not hesitate to say that the appointment was not unpopular, and shall, therefore, begin first by giving Panizzi’s letters, addressed to the Keepers of the various Departments, some replies to these letters, and afterwards a selection of other correspondence from subordinate officers, summing up with sundry quotations from the numerous letters of congratulation from persons in various positions.

In relinquishing the Keepership of the Department of Printed Books, the new Principal Librarian thus wrote to Mr. Winter Jones, his successor:—

The answer ran thus:—

On the assumption of the office of Principal Librarian, Panizzi wrote a circular letter to the officers of the Museum, to which are appended a few of the answers received, in the order of dates.

Other letters, in the same congratulatory strain, were received from Dr. Birch, Mr. W. H. Carpenter, Mr. E. Hawkins, Mr. Robert Brown, Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, and Mr. J. J. Bennett.

Sir Frederick Madden, as it will be noticed, did not write at the time; but, after some correspondence between Panizzi and the Archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote on the 3rd of April.

Much interest will be attached, also, to the opinions of those not officially connected with the British Museum:—

To the foregoing, other distinguished personages added their congratulatory expressions. Testimonials signed by attendants—even the bookbinder might be adduced—poured in, and might be put forward, did space permit, to prove incontestably that the appointment was thoroughly stamped with public approval.

Our documentary evidence has been copious, in order to establish, beyond doubt, the fact that Panizzi’s succession to the high trust to which he was appointed met with general approval, and once for all to extinguish the croaking of his few detractors and calumniators.

So far everything was satisfactory. We cannot, however, conclude this chapter without referring, briefly, to the proceedings in the House of Commons, on the 21st of April, 1856, when Lord John Russell, in Committee of Supply, moved the vote for the British Museum; confining ourselves to those parts of the proceedings which related to the appointment. Mr. Monckton Milnes (now Lord Houghton) appeared to object on the old ground of foreign birth; yet, this very objector had signed, with others, the Report of 1850, wherein it was stated that Panizzi’s appointment as Keeper of the Printed Books did credit to the Principal 24Trustees of that day; that he had answered all accusations brought against him with a success that they (the Commissioners) could hardly have anticipated; that it was owing to his Report of 1845 that the extensive grants for the purchase of books were procured from Parliament; and that he had managed the affairs of the Library, for a long period, with great ability and with universal approbation.

Those who defended the appointment were there: first of all, the Speaker (the Right Hon. C. Shaw Lefevre, afterwards Lord Eversley), who stated:—

The documents already quoted, are, we trust, sufficient to fulfil the conditions required; but we surely ought to be more enlightened than to coincide with the opinions of the early Romans, who, as Cicero informs us, regarded the words peregrinus and inimicus as synonymous: (off. 1 xii. 38). Hostis enim apud maiores nostros is dicebatur quem nunc ‘peregrinum’ dicimus.

Be this as it may, it is pleasing to record that those who knew Panizzi best did not regard or treat him as inimicus.

This chapter may be fitly concluded with the subjoined copy of a testimonial as satisfactory and as well-merited as any man ever received. It is in the handwriting and signed by Mr. W. R. Hamilton, a Trustee of the British Museum.

27

Sir Wm. Temple; His Collection; Correspondence; Museum Staff; Visit to Brescello; Archduke Maximilian’s Visit to the Museum; Reports of Heads of Departments; Correspondence; Mr Newton’s Expedition to Budrum; Blacas Collection.

Panizzi was called upon, within a few months after his appointment, to give practical proof of that energy which characterized him; indeed, it appears that he lost no time in setting to work to reform the Museum as regarded the want of space and the improvement of the position of his subordinates. The Parliamentary papers of the day will show the amount of correspondence, both private and official, through which he had to wade. Though desirous of maintaining chronological order, we first take up here for a moment what, at the time, was considered a valuable bequest of Sir William Temple, brother of Lord Palmerston, who died in London on the 24th of August, 1856, having for many years resided at Naples as Minister Plenipotentiary.

It was understood, previous to Sir William’s death, that his collection of antiquities would come to the 28British Museum. Although, perhaps, not a collection of the first order, it was of considerable intrinsic value, and looked upon by connoisseurs as a small Museum in itself.

On the 11th of September, 1856, Panizzi received the following private letter from Lord Palmerston:—

Panizzi immediately afterwards sent for Mr. Oldfield, then an Assistant in the Antiquity Department of the British Museum, and directed him to proceed at once to Naples, in order to report on the Collection, and superintend its departure. His instructions ran thus:—

On the 3rd of October, Mr. Oldfield wrote from Naples giving his private opinion of the collection, which he evidently did not consider of very great value. “The glass and the bronzes,” he said, “are of considerable beauty and interest, but the sculpture as a whole unworthy of acceptance.”

A notable incident should be here inserted. When a certain R. Gargiulo was preparing the Catalogue of the Collection, it was discovered that four frescoes, of 32not much importance, had upon them the stamp of the Museo Borbonico. They had, in fact, been purloined from that Museum by an agent, or ally, of the individual from whom Sir William bought them. Sir William resolved to return them to their lawful owners, but died before carrying out his intention. Mr. Fagan, with Lord Palmerston’s sanction, wrote to the Neapolitan authorities immediately afterwards, informing them of the discovery; stating also, of course, how Sir William had unwittingly purchased objects which he afterwards discovered had been abstracted from Pompeii, and returning them in Lord Palmerston’s name. After a few days, Signor d’Aloe called on Mr. Fagan, and, stating that the matter had been reported to the King, Ferdinand II., begged that Lord Palmerston would retain the frescoes. Consequent upon this, and upon the letter which communicated the royal request, the frescoes were accepted.

The collection consists altogether of 1,571 pieces; of these the most interesting portions are the painted vases, the bronzes, and the specimens of Greek and Roman glasses. Special mention should also be made of a magnificent Krater, with a painting of the death of Hippolytus; a very fine and rare globular vase, with an ornamental cover, should be separately mentioned; and a Lekythos representing the judgment of Paris. Amongst the bronzes, a small but fine bust of a faun, and specimens of Greek armour from Ruvo, comprising a breast and back plate, and a very beautiful bronze statue of the youthful Bacchus, deposited in the Museum by Sir William during his life-time.

In the spring of 1857, Panizzi gave his serious attention 33to the cause of the staff of the Museum, and to the increase of their emoluments. Hitherto the servants of the Trustees, as it has been already observed, were not treated or paid in a commensurate manner by the Government, and no superannuation allowance was granted; and it was properly remarked at the time that, to carry out any effectual measure of reform, it would be necessary to increase the value of the appointments—thus holding out an inducement for good men to remain, and giving the service of the Museum the tone of a profession.

It would relieve the Establishment from persons who were worn out or nearly so, and raise the general standard of activity; and by clearing off an arrear of superannuation, would make room for the early introduction of a considerable number of officers and attendants of a superior class.

This step was ultimately carried out by Panizzi two years afterwards, much to the satisfaction of the whole Museum staff, as the following letter which they addressed to him testifies:—

34It will be remembered that in 1845, Panizzi, after having obtained permission to visit his native town, was, when on the eve of reaching it, stopped by the Duke of Modena. Things had somewhat changed, perhaps, for the better; or at any rate the time was fast approaching when the foreign yoke was about, once for all, to disappear from Italy, and tyranny cease to exist in the land which had given birth to so many eminent men. On the 15th of June, 1857, Panizzi wrote to Lord Clarendon to obtain for him, through Count Apponyi, an Austrian passport; his Lordship at once set to work, and on the 17th of June communicated to Panizzi the welcome tidings that his Excellency, although he could not grant him the desired passport because he had never been an Austrian, still would not for an instant hesitate to affix his signature to his English passport. Accordingly he started by the end of August for Brescello, and actually reached that place without molestation. He thus wrote to Mr. Haywood from Milan:—

35Whilst at Brescello, the biographer, who had the satisfaction of visiting that place in November, 1879, was told that Panizzi spent the entire day going from house to house seeing and embracing his relations and friends, making researches in the archives, and taking notes of all he saw; but nothing can be more touching than a letter which he wrote on the 22nd of October, 1857, to Dr. Minzi, and of which we place a translation intact before our readers:—

37To continue the thread of our narrative, a trifling but pleasant incident occurred, two months before Panizzi left London for the Continent, which we cannot do better than narrate in his own words:—

But to return to the Museum. The process of accumulation continued, and the influx of works of art and other antiquities was filling the National Institution to such an extent that it was deemed necessary to decide whether the Natural History Departments should be retained at Bloomsbury.

38The various heads of Departments were invited to send in their reports and opinions on the subject, and a few of their remarks may not appear superfluous:—

Mr. Hawkins, the Keeper of Antiquities, reported that he could find no room for the cases of Assyrian Sculptures which had arrived. Sir Charles Fellows complained that Ionic Trophy Monuments and other works of art found at Xanthus had been placed in an unbefitting position. Dr. Gray, of the Natural History Department, conveyed the pleasing intelligence that if the Zoological Collection in the basement were not speedily removed to a dryer place it would be utterly destroyed. Mr. Brown applied for additional room, as that occupied by the Botanical Department in the basement was quite inadequate to its demands. Professor Owen, in a report to the Trustees on the same subject, January, 1857, approved of all the statements of Dr. Gray, who, eight months later, came forward again with a demand for his gallery and series of glass cases, and the enlargement of the Insect-Room; and two months afterwards he laid before the Trustees a fuller statement. Many more examples might be adduced, but the reader who desires to push his investigations further should consult a lengthy Parliamentary paper on the subject, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1st of July, 1858.

Panizzi also wrote two reports, one dated the 10th of November, 1857, and the other the 10th of June, 1858. In the first of these he fully discussed the means suggested for relieving two Departments, namely, those of Mineralogy and Geology, and then continued:—

It appears that the Natural History Department will soon be removed. As there will, therefore, be more space for a smaller number of collections, we may hope that it will now be found possible to make good certain deficiencies which have long been fully recognised, especially in regard to the Exhibition of Prints and Drawings. Glass and China too, will form a most attractive feature in the new arrangements.

The author himself has had ample opportunities during the last dozen years of visiting some of the most important Cabinets of Prints and Drawings in Europe, and he has no hesitation in saying that no single collection—not even a combination of two or three—could compare with that of which our National Institution can boast. Through the good taste of the present principal Librarian, Mr. Bond, in placing so many screens in the King’s Library, a step has been taken in the right direction, and no Englishman—nay, no Foreigner—visiting London should omit to inspect this wonderful assemblage of works of art.

40It was Panizzi’s own idea that, as well as rarities from the Library, specimens of the handiwork of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Dürer, Rembrandt—and, indeed, his own $1m>—should be framed and exhibited to the public gaze.

Instruction, practicable and visible, is one of the leading features of the age; and it is our duty to meet this increasing want by every means in our power. It is not the feeling that in our hands are the keys of knowledge which will impart instruction; it is the practical and sincere wish to utilize the means within our grasp, to educate the masses, which will alone work a result so eagerly sought for, and so materially tending to the benefit of future generations.

The enormous pile of building which has just been erected at South Kensington may, in a sense, be said to owe its existence to the persistent efforts of Panizzi, to secure more space for the collections he loved so well. The two following letters on the subject are, we consider, of great importance:—

That Panizzi was equally interested in other Departments of the Museum Mr. Newton could testify, if need were, for that of the antiquities, and the writer for his own.

Between Mr. Charles Thomas Newton, C.B., and Panizzi, there subsisted something more than an intimate friendship; a more proper term would be a warm attachment. We need no greater proof of Mr. 46Newton’s devotion to his friend than the fact that when in 1867 the latter was ill, and his life despaired of, the former devoted all his time to the care of his sometime colleague. The great number of letters before us, from the hand of Mr. Newton, would indeed fill a volume of most interesting matter, relating to his discoveries and travels in the Levant; for he was in the habit of communicating to his friend, it appears, all his adventures, whether at Rhodes, Mytilene, Budrum, or Rome. These letters make us wonder, by their freshness, how time and inclination could have been found to write them, and are certainly deserving of publication at some future time. So much important matter, from such a pen, would prove a treasure to future antiquarians and travellers.

Now Mr. Newton, who had been in the Museum since May, 1840, was, in February, 1852, appointed by Lord Granville to the Vice-Consulship of Mytilene.

Whilst there, he carried on various researches and excavations, sending home from time to time to the British Museum the fruit of his labours. In April, 1856, Mr. Newton received directions from the Foreign Office to proceed to Rome, to value the Campana collection then offered to the British Government. On his return from Rome to London he took this opportunity to submit his views as to further operations at Budrum; these he naturally explained to Panizzi, and, through him, it was arranged that the two should one day go to Brocket Hall, Lord Palmerston’s country seat, and there meet Lord Clarendon, to talk over the matter. Lord Palmerston, who was then Premier, with his usual savoir-faire, at once suggested 47that the Principal Librarian being present, and the two Ministers being both ex-officio Trustees of the British Museum, the meeting of this triad might be considered a quorum, for the settlement of a matter of so much consequence to the National Institution. It was then agreed that Mr. Newton should at once proceed to Budrum on special mission. Those were days when operations of this kind could be carried out with that secrecy and despatch which are necessary to insure success. In this particular case, there was the more reason for prompt action, because Ludwig Ross, a distinguished German explorer, had already visited Budrum, and noticed in his travels the Lions from the Mausoleum, then built into the walls of the Castle at Budrum.

Mr. Newton’s demands were surely not exorbitant; he suggested that a firman authorizing the removal of the Lions should be obtained from the Porte, declaring that the sum of £2,000, and the services of a ship-of-war, for at least six months, would be necessary to insure the success of the expedition. These suggestions were, without loss of time, acted upon, and H.M.’s ship “Gorgon,” commanded by Captain Towsey, was chartered, and she arrived at Budrum in the month of November, 1856.

It is unnecessary now to say that the finding of the ever famous tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus (Budrum) was an event of the first importance to Classical Archæology, or, what is better, that the recovery of part of the slabs of the frieze of this monument, along with other sculptures, was for the history of Greek sculpture in the age of Praxiteles 48and Scopas, of the same importance, as the marbles of the Parthenon for the history of sculpture in the time of Pheidias. Several of the slabs of the frieze from the Mausoleum had been obtained for the British Museum, through the late Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, some years previous to Mr. Newton’s expedition; but a comparison of them with the newly-recovered fragments at once shows how admirably the skill of the artist, lost and obliterated in the older slabs, had been preserved in Mr. Newton’s. It was not from the circumstances, perhaps, possible to affirm that this or that portion of the Sculptures was the work of Praxiteles, or of Scopas; but this at any rate could be said, that the Sculptures must be taken as works executed under the eyes of these artists, and, doubtless, greatly influenced by them. Here is what Mr. Newton says of them:—

On the 8th of June, of the same year, again Mr. Newton wrote to Panizzi;—

On the 17th of January, 1861, Mr. Newton was appointed Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities, then organized as a separate Department of the Museum. From that time to now he has been constantly occupied, with a success so well known that it is unnecessary to refer to it. In the enlargement and enriching of his Department, partly by the direction of excavations on classical soil—memorably those at Ephesus, which resulted in the discovery of the Temple of Diana—and partly by the purchase of celebrated collections of antiquities. Chief among his transactions of the latter kind was the purchase of the collection of the Duke de Blacas in 1866, which, as public opinion testified at the time, was a most important gain to the National Museum. The acquisition was not effected without difficulties, as may be seen from the following letter:—

We trust that we shall not be held to have failed in our endeavour to do justice to the services rendered by Mr. Newton to the National Museum. Apart from the high attainments to which testimony should be offered, this gentleman was so intimately connected with the subject of the memoir, that the omission of such a record would have been a serious fault, considering the constant intercommunion which existed between the two, and the mutual assistance they rendered each other.

53As a conclusion to our present chapter, it must be noted that on the 6th of July, 1859, Panizzi was admitted to the Honorary Degree of D.C.L. at the University of Oxford.

54

Desire to Visit Naples; Pius IX; Ferdinand II; Revolution of 1848; Poerio and Settembrini; ‘Giovine Italia;’ Gladstone’s Visit to Naples.

It may be readily conceived that Panizzi did not regard as matters of secondary importance, or affection, the affairs of his native Italy. In the summer of 1846, being desirous of paying, for the first time, a visit to Naples, he applied to the Government of that State for the necessary permission through Lord Palmerston, who addressed the following letter to Sir William Temple on his friend’s behalf:—

After some delay, in consequence, according to Sir William’s account, of difficulties raised by the Minister of Police at Naples, the required permission was granted; but Panizzi did not think fit to avail himself of it upon this occasion. His visit, however, as will be seen, was only postponed. It will also be noticed that his influence was in course of time an important, if not the main instrument whereby the liberation of the unhappy victims of tyranny, then lying in the horrible dungeons of Naples, was effected.

In order to lay clearly before the reader the manner in which such influence was exercised, it is best to give a brief account of the condition of Naples at and about the period of turmoil and revolution in Europe in the years 1847-9, and of the paternal treatment bestowed by the Government of Ferdinand 56II., monarch of the Two Sicilies (justly entitled to the appellation of pater patriæ) on many of his ungrateful and recalcitrant subjects.

On the death (June 1st, 1846) of Gregory XVI., a pontiff with a true and earnest feeling of respect for things as they are, and a righteous aversion to all unnecessary and gratuitous reforms, great expectations were anticipated throughout all Italy of good results from the rule of his successor, Pius IX. The most sanguine hopes were entertained that, through him, the rights of liberty would be secured; and indeed, as Gioberti says, he was regarded as no less than the arbiter of peace in Europe. Without casting the shadow of suspicion on the genuineness of the new Pope’s good intentions, whereof he gave ample proof on his accession to the Papal Chair, it is nevertheless pretty evident that, under the most favourable circumstances, these expectations stood but little chance of fulfilment. Even had Pius IX. not been deceived in the first instance, and by subsequent revolution frightened out of the liberal principles to which he at first gave his adherence, he was scarcely, himself, in a position to carry them into practice. To preach reform and constitutionalism from the Vatican was to subvert the Papal seat. External obstacles, again, would assuredly stand in the way of him who should attempt to promote even moderate reforms in an Italian State of the period. Many men who, in other places, and under other circumstances, would have been regarded as models of enlightenment and moderation, shamed by the miserable history of their country, and exasperated 57by long-continued oppression and misrule, had become somewhat blind to the wholesome doctrine that the art of construction is a chief constituent of political order. To another party, formidable in numbers if not conspicuous for wisdom, it was but labour lost to proffer anything in the shape of reform; these men would be content with nothing short of destruction. Of them and their adherents Panizzi has, as will be observed, expressed his fear and abhorrence in no measured terms. Hence his alienation from Mazzini, who, in his egregious selfishness, would have destroyed the elements of power that existed, but had never displayed the ability to provide a substitute.

Pius IX., whose intellectual powers were far from equal to the largeness of his heart, soon became involved in difficulties. His constant dread of acting prejudicially to the interests of the Church weighed him down; and the influence of Count Ludolf (Neapolitan Minister at Rome, well known for his retrogressive opinions) probably thwarted his good intentions in no small degree. From want of confidence in himself, as well as from despair at the impediments, subjective and objective, which perpetually obtruded themselves upon him, Pius had recourse for protection and direction to the counsel of others. Ill advisers were those whom he chose—Grasselini, Gizzi, and Antonelli. The results 58of vacillation and evil communication were speedily visible. Already, in November, 1846, a few short months after his accession, in his address to the Patriarchs and Archbishops, he roundly condemned everything that bore the name of Progress as seductive, false, deceitful, seditious, foolish, and destructive of ties religious, political, and social.

The first notable act of the reign of Pius IX. had been to grant a general amnesty to all political offenders. This act of clemency, though it gained for him a certain amount of well-deserved popularity, unhappily smothered in the heart of Ferdinand II. all the veneration with which that monarch had been wont to regard the occupants of St. Peter’s chair. The King even went so far, in his indignation, as to stigmatise the Pope as the head of “Young Italy.” With his people it was different. The sensation created at Naples by this amnesty was intense. The inhabitants demanded that it should be placarded throughout the city; the King, however, not only set his face against the proposal, but peremptorily forbade all demonstrations in favour of His Holiness, suppressed the sale of his portraits, and interdicted the admission into the country of Roman newspapers. Indeed, the very mention of the Pope’s name was regarded as bordering on treason, and as calling for the notice of the police.

It might possibly have come to pass, had foreign powers possessed more satisfactory relations with one another at this time, that better order would, under the pressure of external suasion, have been maintained in the Government of more than one Italian State. 59The “Spanish Marriages” had created a coolness between France and England, and M. Guizot’s foreign policy had thrown France, so far as regarded Italy, into the arms of Austria and the reactionary party. The prospect of establishing civil and religious liberty in the Peninsula looked extremely obscure. The clamouring for reform, however, continued, intermittently throughout Italy. In Tuscany there appeared a speck of light in the surrounding darkness: for, urged by his people the Grand Duke had shown himself nothing loth to grant reforms demanded of him. In Rome meetings and demonstrations were frequent. Amidst all this Ferdinand remained unmoved, notwithstanding the importunate entreaties of the emissaries of Louis-Philippe, the Duke D’Aumale, and Prince de Joinville. In fact his Majesty plainly and deliberately gave them to understand that their presence in his kingdom was undesirable.

Liberty of the Press being excluded from the King’s Dominions, its place was filled by the usual substitute, the issue of anonymous pamphlets; amongst many others, was one entitled Protesto del Popolo delle due Sicilie, from the pen of the celebrated Luigi Settembrini. This work, which was immediately seized, contained a long and detailed account of the cruelties inflicted during so many years by the Neapolitan Government on its hapless subjects. A copy of the pamphlet reached the hands of Ferdinand, who determined that no pains should be spared to discover its author. Suspicion fell on many of the leading Liberals, who were consequently imprisoned, amongst them Carlo Poerio, Mariano d’Ayala, Domenico 60Mauro, and others. Banishment was the sentence of those who could not be seizedseized, and amongst them was Settembrini, who escaping to Malta, no sooner found himself on safe ground, than he avowed himself as author of the pamphlet.

Meanwhile Calabria and Sicily were in a state of fermentation, and the King perplexed by the general condition of affairs, was induced to grant a general amnesty.

The North of Italy was at that time in calmer and happier circumstances. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, had consented to measures of Liberal Reform, and certain influential northern Italians, headed by Counts MammianiMammiani and Balbo, Massimo d’Azeglio, Cavour and Silvio Pellico, had petitioned Ferdinand II. to make concessions similar to those they enjoyed in their kingdom, but without avail. Nor was England wanting in sympathy with the suffering, for Lord Minto, by direction of Lord Palmerston, had arrived from the North of Italy, at Naples, on an intercessory mission to the King in behalf of his people.

This interference of England caused much consternation in Austria. Prince Metternich warned Lord Palmerston that the Emperor was firmly resolved to keep his Empire intact. His Lordship’s reply to the warning was characteristic; that, although he respected the rights of Austria, still he entertained a strong opinion that the people of Italy had a perfect right to use all legitimate means for their own amelioration. At Naples, notwithstanding Lord Minto’s mission, troubles increased. The King remained as obdurate as ever, and was supported by the members 61of his family, with the single exception of the Count of Syracuse, who, for the expression of his views, was forthwith expelled from the kingdom.

Earnestly as England desired the promotion of liberty in Italy, she was not unmindful of the safety of Kings; and, consequently, the then British Ambassador at Rome suggested that the English fleet should proceed to Naples to protect the King, and that Count Ludolf should be informed “that the encouragement of popular insurrection formed no part of the hearty support England was disposed to give to the progress of liberal reform in Italy, and at the same time strongly impressing on him the danger to which the King would be exposed, unless he made some advances to satisfy the just expectations of his subjects.”

In December, 1847, a revolution of vast magnitude was impending at Palermo, and in the same month a final appeal was made to the King urging him to recognise the rights of his subjects.

The 12th of January, 1848, was fixed on as the day for the expiration of this ultimatum. As heretofore, the application was treated with contempt, and an armed force was dispatched, headed by the Duke Serra Capriola.

The first shots were fired on the 12th of January, the fête-day of the King, whereupon fresh troops were sent from Naples with orders to Désauget, the General commanding, that, in case of resistance, he should make a garden of Palermo. Désauget accordingly bombarded the town, but happily failed to make a garden or a desert of it, and was forced, after losing many men, to return to Naples. So matters went on 62from bad to worse. No sooner had the King made concessions than he withdrew them, continually fore-swearing himself.

The subjugation of the Sicilians (in support of whom Lord Minto, much disappointed by a pseudo-constitution granted by the King, in which their rights were simply disregarded, had set out for Palermo), still remained as difficult of completion as ever. On the 25th of March, the Sicilian Parliament met at the last-named place, and declared the dethronement of Ferdinand II. Thereupon ensued the bombardment of Messina, whence arose the King’s universally-known nickname of King Bomba. The independence of Sicily was now recognised by France and England. In May the cry of “Religion in Danger!” was raised by the Royalist clique, and the refusal of St. Januarius to work his annual miracle infused much terror into the superstitious minds of the lower orders. Unfortunately, the means successfully employed in times past by a certain French General to induce the Saint to perform his duty were now impracticable.

By this time, a National Guard having been instituted, the King’s position was really imperilled, and he was in the act of preparing with his family to quit Naples by sea, when the troops and the populace came into collision. This, as usual, resulted in street fighting; also, as a natural consequence, the regulars gained the mastery, and a sad massacre ensued; whilst to slaughter, the Lazzaroni, the natural adherents of the King, added the inevitable accompaniment of pillage. Under such circumstances did Naples remain in a state of siege until the 15th of June.

63Meantime the Sicilians had proclaimed the Duke of Genoa their future ruler; a division of 16,000 troops, under Filangieri, was dispatched for active service, and, after an obstinate resistance, landed at Messina.

In November the King proceeded to Gaeta, in order to meet there Pius IX., who, by this time having lost his popularity, had gained an equivalent by securing the friendship of Ferdinand. Whilst there, news of the Austrian victory at Novara reached the ears of the two confederates, and was the cause of great rejoicing to both; notwithstanding that, forced by popular pressure, Ferdinand had despatched 12,000 of his troops (he had promised 40,000) as a contingent to the Sardinian army. This great triumph of absolutism by no means disposed the King to alter, or even to moderate, his style of government. Arrests and acts of violence and brutality became continuous, and the unhappy Liberals were unduly rewarded for their attachment to the cause of freedom—Filippo Agresti, Carlo Poerio, and Luigi Settembrini being arrested and imprisoned in the dungeons of the “Vicaria,” the most loathsome of the invariably loathsome Neapolitan prisons.

Thus much have we written to show the state of Naples at the time to which our biography appertains. Yet this brief sketch of the position would be incomplete did we altogether ignore the two patriots, Poerio and Settembrini, who, not merely on account of their notoriety as chiefs of the Liberal party, but as friends both of Panizzi and Mr. Gladstone, call for some especial notice in these pages.

64Whoever has studied the history of Italy, more especially the history of the country in these latter times, will have learnt that Italian unity—the zeal for which had, during all the centuries between King Arduinus and Victor Emmanuel II., never become extinguished—was not accomplished by the efforts of any one individual. Amongst the number of those in the highest rank who devoted their lives to the achievement of the noble end, stand Poerio and Settembrini.

Their patriotism extended beyond the circumscription of their native town, province, or State; they felt that each subordinate nationality must blend with the others, to enable their common Italy to take her due place in the assembly of nations—to speak with undivided voice on the affairs of Europe; to be, in fact, the one Italy of their aspirations—strong because united. For this, while their individual designations were still Modenese, Neapolitans, Venetians, or what not, they must be, over and above all, Italians.

Poerio was born at Naples in 1803. He afterwards became a lawyer, and for some time during the troubled reign of Ferdinand was, at least when at liberty, the leader of the “Left” in the Neapolitan Parliament. The term “a chequered life” might fairly be used as expressive of such a career; were it not that his undertakings, having all the 65same end in view, in which he was almost incessantly engaged, and the perpetual series of arrests and imprisonments which he suffered, imparted as it were, a melancholy uniformity to his career. In 1831 the crown of Italy was offered by the patriots of the Romagno to Ferdinand II. That monarch, probably feeling an innate disability to govern constitutionally, or otherwise than according to the dictates of his own will, a condition doubtless affixed to the tender, declined the proffered gift. What he might have done had he accepted, must remain in the realm of conjecture; his refusal to lend his aid to the settlement of the country’s deplorably unsettled state caused plot upon plot to spring up on all sides. The name Liberali was now first given to the opponents of the King. These were unceasing in preaching to the people, according to their light, the blessings of Constitutional Government. If their skill in politics, as may reasonably be supposed, was small, their honesty and love of country were large; and assuredly no form which they may have conceived, however crude, could have equalled in weakness and depravity the various petty tyrannies by which their country was distracted. Amongst these Liberali, the most active and beyond doubt the most able, was Carlo Poerio. It is worthy of remark that when, in 1847, Pius IX. had achieved his reputation as the first reformer of Italy, the only two men of note who disbelieved in him were Poerio and King Ferdinand II. After the breaking out of the Sicilian Revolution on the 12th of January, 1848, at the time he was a prisoner, Poerio’s fortunes took a more favourable turn. Freed from his bondage, he 66was made Prime Minister, and subsequently Minister of Public Instruction. His aspirations, however, were too modest to assume such dignity—his aim was to be no more than a simple Member of Parliament, and in two months he had retired from all official life. But his days of freedom were destined to be but of short duration. On the 19th of July, 1849, he was again arrested, and confined in the Castel dell’ Ovo, and from thence removed to the “Vicaria.” From this he was on the 1st of February, 1850, taken in chains to the Arsenal, and with Michele Pironti sent as a common convict to Nisida.

Were we to relate all the adventures of Poerio, interesting and important as they are, it would be properly considered an interpolation in our biography. A great and melancholy portion of the story is best told in his own words. He was asked, on his way to the dungeons, how he was, and he answered Fò questa cura di ferro da parecchi anni, e mi sento più forte (I have now been taking this iron remedy for several years, and feel much stronger). In a future chapter we shall have still more to say respecting this martyr of liberty; but let us pass to those later years of his life, when tardy success hardly requited such loving patriotism, and barely compensated for his great misfortunes. In 1859, when he came out of prison, he was elected member for Arezzo, but steadily refused to accept a place in the Cabinet, although much pressed by Cavour. He died on the 28th of April, 1867.

67

Luigi Settembrini, though standing many rungs of the political ladder lower than Poerio, was nevertheless a hardy and enthusiastic patriot. Mr. Gladstone wrote of him in his letters to Lord Aberdeen (hereafter to be mentioned) as one in a sphere by some degrees narrower, but with a character quite as pure and fair as Poerio’s. Settembrini was born at Naples, the 17th of April, 1813. His father was a lawyer, and, like his son, a patriot, and had fought for his country in the stirring days of 1820-1. Of Luigi’s private life we may say that he was a teacher of Italian literature and an eminent classical scholar. In 1848 he, together with Poerio, was tried on the trumped-up charge of being member of a secret society. This charge was further supported by a letter concocted by the police, so gross and palpable a forgery that the very judges in the case considered it more prudent to reject it as evidence. With Poerio and forty more he was capitally convicted. The sentence was not executed, yet he was reserved for a fate as hard—perpetual imprisonment upon a remote sea-girt rock.

Although Settembrini was in the above case most unjustifiably, nay, iniquitously, convicted, and barbarously punished, it is well known that he was, as a matter of fact, an ardent supporter of the society 68called “Giovine Italia,” an association which, had the sagacity of its directors been more, and the audacity of its purposes less, might have given some trouble to the then rulers of Italy. When the King of Naples, as has been said, charged Pius IX. with being at the head of Young Italy, he probably made use of the most scurrilous phrase, by way of accusation, which occurred to him. The “Giovine Italia,” however, was an established fact, albeit the association numbered not the Pope amongst its members, nor was it under the special protection of the Church. Tyranny has this superiority over luckless poverty that it renders those on whom it presses dangerous as well as ridiculous. This peculiar form of danger, the Secret Society, which tyranny calls into existence, is commonly less formidable to the powers against which it is organised than to the causes which it is intended to protect. Had the modest programme of the “Giovine Italia” been carried into execution, a despotism would have been created more unbearable than the yoke of Austria, the Vatican, and King Bomba united. The prime object of this society was to abolish all Princes then reigning in Italy—including, of course, the Pope—and not only to drive the Austrians out of the country, but the French from Corsica and the English from Malta. When these laudable ends had been accomplished, a great Military Republic was to be established under a supreme Dictator, residing at Rome, with ten consuls to govern the ten divisions into which the whole of Italy was to be parcelled out. Each province or division was to be under a colonel, its Municipal Government being 69administered by a captain. To each division, subject to the officers thereof, was to belong a treasurer, himself also a military man. In addition to these officers an order was to be instituted entitled “Apostoles,” whose duty it should be to act as dictatorial or consular agents, and to settle and arrange matters in general.

The regulations for the internal conduct of the Society show a certain skill of organization, coupled with a good deal of the childishness of bugbear solemnity usually appertaining to such associations. The following will serve as specimens of some of the more important of these regulations:—“No meetings of members to be allowed, and no conversation between members more than two in number at any one time. Oaths to be sworn on a skull and dagger. The Republican flag to be a white skull on a black field, and the motto Unità, Libertà, Indipendenza. The dress to be black, and the arms a musket and bayonet, with a side dagger. Drilling to form a principal and constant duty.”

Although a Secret Society of this description is a standing monument of folly and wickedness, yet it is hardly possible, considering the state of things in Italy at the time of which we write, not to feel some compassion and make some allowance for the conspirators of “Giovine Italia.” Their great idea—the Unity of Italy—had been set forth by Dante according to a poet’s conception. Macchiavelli had planned its execution as a statesman. The love of country was extended by the patriotic subject of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies to every comer of his native land. 70The dream—if dream it may be called—has found its accomplishment in reality within our own time, but happily not by the agency nor after the ideas and programme of “Young Italy.”

In the early part of 1851 Mr. Gladstone made his memorable visit to Naples; Si natura negat facit indignatio 71versum. The great statesman possessed a nature particularly averse to revolutionary sentiments or prejudices, and a more impartial judge betwixt King and People never existed. Shortly after his arrival he had “supped full of horrors,” and he longed to express his inward feelings on the palpable absence of justice in the actions of the Neapolitan Government, and the cruelties practised on the persons of hapless political offenders, many wrongfully condemned—cruelties of which he was an unwilling and shocked witness. His observations resulted in the two celebrated letters to Lord Aberdeen. The general character of the administration is well summed up in a pithy sentence quoted in the first, E la negazione di Dio eretta a sistema di governo. (This is the negation of God erected into a system of government.)

Mr. Gladstone, with his usual moderation and desire of accuracy, declines, in these letters, to decide, and shows himself willing to give Ferdinand the benefit of all doubt on the subject. He even records an instance of “a direct and unceremonious appeal to the King’s humanity, which met with a response on his part evidently sincere.” His account of the prisons of Naples inclines us to refer our readers to this correspondence rather than to transfer his description to our own pages. Suffice it to say, that he calls them “the extreme of filth and horror,” the Vicaria “that charnel-house,” in which, amongst other iniquities, even proper medical assistance was withheld from the sick prisoners.

It was not long ere an answer to these statements was attempted by the Neapolitan Government, under 72the title Rassegna degli Errori e delle Fallacie pubblicate dal Sig. Gladstone, &c, &c. This brochure evinced an ingenuity of sophistical argument, to say the least of it, only worthy of such a cause. Before any authorized reply to it appeared, it had been skilfully and sufficiently answered by an anonymous author in a pamphlet entitled:—A Detailed Exposure of the Apology put forth by the Neapolitan Government, in reply to the Charges of Mr. Gladstone, under the title of Rassegna, &c., &c. (1852). London. Mr. Gladstone’s own answer, entitled, An Examination of The Official Reply of the Neapolitan Government, was published soon afterwards. In this the writer grants the utmost limits of concession to his opponents; whatever rests not on manifestly sufficient evidence, nay, on moral certainty, he retracts: whatever even seems to require modification, he unhesitatingly modifies; but, modification and retraction notwithstanding, it must be acknowledged that the case stands much as it was. To quote the author’s own words:—“I believe that, for my own vindication, I might without any new publication have relied in perfect safety upon the verdict already given by the public opinion and announced by the press of Europe. The arrow has shot deep into the mark, and cannot be dislodged.”

Judging from a letter of Mr. Gladstone’s to Panizzi, it may be concluded that the latter had much to do with the publication of these famous letters:—

74

Cardinal Alberoni; Panizzi and Lord Shrewsbury; Correspondence arising from Gladstone’s Visit to Naples.

There now arose, mainly out of the great subject treated by the Gladstone letters, an important correspondence between Panizzi and Lord Shrewsbury, who died at Naples, Nov. 9th, 1852. In 1850, his Lordship went to reside in quiet retirement at his villa near Palermo, from whence he visited Switzerland, and returned in Oct., 1852, but spent the Autumn at Rome. In politics he was a Whig. In the Catholic Directory we read ‘that the angelic purity of Lord Shrewsbury was the theme of every one’s admiration, and never did he allow a light or indelicate word, or the slightest allusion contrary to modesty to be made before him.’ In order that the reader may rightly understand the first few lines of this chapter, it must be stated en passant, that Panizzi had written in the British and Foreign Review for October, 1844, an article on the Republic of San Marino, in which he attempted a vindication of that brilliant example of a self-made man and dexterous (we may say unscrupulous) politician, Cardinal Alberoni. 75Let it also be said that the dark as well as the bright side of Alberoni’s character is therein treated with perfect impartiality. His intention was to write a full biography of the eminent Cardinal, and had requested Lord Shrewsbury to procure him some documents at Rome, as material for the work.

The commencement of Lord Shrewsbury’s first letter contains the answer to this commission:—

76The following brilliant passage in the same letter commences the controversy between the correspondents on the affairs of the Neapolitan Government—Risum teneatis?

Thus Panizzi replied to the first of these passages:—

78The reader need hardly to be reminded that the last sentence refers to the celebrated “Papal aggression” of 1851. Panizzi’s answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s curious laudation of the Government of Naples is direct and incisive:—

The reply to this contained in the following extract is both in form and substance a wonderful specimen of logical reasoning. We abstain from further comment on it and at once insert it, lest we detract from the enjoyment the reader must derive from its perusal:—

And, at the risk of exceeding our limits of space, Panizzi’s reply must be given in full:—

Nothing daunted by such strong and keen weapons of argument, Lord Shrewsbury returns to the charge 87with a supply of counter-ammunition in the shape of a worthless pamphlet, written by one Mr. Macfarlane, and termed, in unconscious irony, the “Cause of Order.”

The remainder of this letter is hardly worth quoting. Arguments, or assertions, are repeated, and there is much discussion on “the havoc, crime, and plunder” of the “Glorious Revolution,” on the previous fulness of municipal coffers and general prosperity of the country; on the progress of all works of commerce and agriculture, the making of new roads and harbours, the lightness of taxation, &c. There was “no grievance except old Maio’s slack hand over the demagogues. Had there been a Satriano or a Pronio there had been no Revolution, nor even a serious thought of it.”

The statements of the English Blue Books are stigmatised as a mass of error and bad faith.

88The extreme prolixity of Lord Shrewsbury’s letters, and the weariness of the “damnable iteration” in which they abound, render it difficult, and indeed unnecessary, to present them in their entirety. In fact, so much of Panizzi’s portion of the correspondence, as is set out in full, gives all that is wanted of his opponent’s argument and of the answer to it. Lord Shrewsbury harps much on Sicily (out of which he comparatively rarely ventures) in his defence of the Government of King Ferdinand. Slightly oblivious of the fact that it is despotism that has reduced the Southern Italians to the state in which he finds them, he decides that such despotism should be perpetuated as the only form of Government which suits those it has created. To attempt to improve by absurd and iniquitous revolution, to interfere with the well-settled and satisfactory state of things here described by Lord Shrewsbury, and with the benevolent régime which had so ordered matters, would be reprehensible in the last degree. Meanwhile nothing can exceed the contempt with which the writer speaks of the almost too happy people of this too happily governed Kingdom; prefacing his notice by advising those who have rashly maligned the King and his Government to come over, and see and judge for themselves:—

No apology, we feel sure, is needed for the introduction in this correspondence of such letters from Mr. Gladstone as reached Panizzi during its continuance, and bear on the subject matter. A passage in the following epistle will remind the reader of the contrast between revolutions in more than one foreign country, and the manner in which such movements have happily been hitherto dealt with in England:—

To speak of Lord Shrewsbury as an honourable, high-minded man—a gentleman in the strictest sense of the term, who honestly espoused the worse, inasmuch as he conscientiously believed it to be the better cause—would be almost offering an insult to his memory. An English Roman Catholic of the older sort, he was religiously (though perhaps unconsciously) rather than politically biassed in favour of the peculiar manner of Government obtaining in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Many members of that great Church to which he belonged will not hold her disparaged by the assertion that, in her relations to man, there are two great points which she chiefly regards. First, that men shall always be kept in due subjection to the powers that be in both Church and State, and secondly that they shall, while in that state of subjection, be rendered by their rulers as comfortable and contented as possible under the circumstances. A third object, which Christians are apt to look on as of some little importance—that men should be in mind so developed as to deem themselves of some account, both as individuals and as members of the State—she regards but distantly, if at all. Considering Lord Shrewsbury’s 91mental constitution, his view of the matters around him is in no wise surprising; but let the first well-authenticated case of anything approaching to tyranny and oppression reach his ears, and his humanity and indignation are at once apparent. Of this he shall be his own witness. Nor is his feeling of generosity lessened by the fact that, in protesting against the treatment awarded to the unhappy Poerio by the best of all possible governments, he accuses the sufferer of political crimes of the deepest dye, and brings accusations against him, the falsehood of which the most superficial enquiry would have demonstrated. Lord Shrewsbury confined himself not to expressions of sympathy only; he forthwith set himself heartily to bring what personal influence he possessed to bear towards procuring alleviation of the sufferings of the hapless criminal:—

In a letter from Mr. Gladstone to Panizzi a fair estimate is given of Lord Shrewsbury’s letters, and the general line of argument pursued by him.

To Lord Shrewsbury’s advice contained in his letter of the 12th of June, asking Panizzi to come and see, and judge for himself, he replied, at once accepting the invitation:—

To this Lord Shrewsbury replied, giving his opinion and advice as to the most effective way of carrying out the proposed plan, and excusing himself from personal participation:—

The letters of Mr. Gladstone on Panizzi’s proposed journey must be given here:—

Lord Shrewsbury’s application, which he duly made on Panizzi’s behalf to the Marquis del Vasto, unhappily failed of success; the Marquis being represented by his Lordship as a good, honest courtier, and will not meddle.

Respecting the Gladstone Pamphlet, Lord Shrewsbury wrote:

It would have been of much importance to Panizzi to obtain the countenance and influence of Lord Shrewsbury, both for his proposed interview with the King and during the whole of his visit in Naples; but his Lordship’s arrangements were incompatible with those which the traveller was under the necessity of making for his journey. He thus wrote:—

Panizzi now applied, in view of his long proposed visit, for permission to enter the Kingdom of Naples, and received the following answer:—

Early in October Panizzi set forth on his journey.

Previous to his departure, Mr. Gladstone, who, it need hardly be said, took the deepest interest in his self-imposed mission, supplied him with the names of men of influence at Naples who were likely to be of 97the greatest service to him in attaining the object he had in view; these were Mr. Fagan and Signor Lacaita mentioned in the subjoined letters:—

Another letter, also from Mr. Gladstone, may be given, written four days before the last:—

And October 3rd, 1851:—

We shall, in our next chapter, follow Panizzi on his important mission, and give an abstract, as faithful and accurate as possible, of his doings whilst at Naples.

To the many who followed the course and knew the issue of the exertions then made, even this may appear unnecessary; but unless the name of the chief actor is to be passed over in the annals of humanity, our imperfect record will not be useless.

99

Death of Panizzi’s Sister; At Rome; Naples; Mr George Fagan; Interview with Ferdinand II; Spies; The Vicaria.

Panizzi being, as Lord Palmerston stated, a British subject, would have been perfectly safe anywhere on European soil, saving that portion of it occupied by the diminutive but to him important State of Modena, yet with such extensive range he found it impossible to suppress a patriotic yearning for his native town, and determined to visit it on his way southwards. The reader must now bear in mind that we have, in order to avoid confusion, gone back to the year 1851; whereas, in a former chapter, treating of the British Museum and other matters, Panizzi has been described as being at Brescello in 1857.

The fact that Francis V. in 1848, had granted an amnesty to all political offenders, encouraged Panizzi in his resolve. But to be perfectly certain before proceeding he applied to the proper authorities to know if his name was mentioned in this Act of Amnesty, lest it might perchance have been excluded. To this application the answer was in the 100affirmative, but it was penned, not, as in common courtesy it should have been, by the Minister himself, but by his secretary.

This example of official disrespect filled the recipient with “righteous indignation,” and he wrote (18th of August, 1851) to a near relative of his at Modena in these words:—“His Excellency!!! does not condescend to write himself; perhaps he has more to do than Lord Russell or Lord Palmerston, both of whom always find time to write to me on the very same day.” Thus, notwithstanding all the assurances of the Modenese Government he continued his journey, not caring even to pass through his native country, if he were likely to incur the risk of becoming an object of displeasure and suspicion; conscious, too, that either he himself or the authorities must have very much changed if he were not so.

On reaching Genoa he received news of a sad loss that had befallen him in the death of his sister; and how deeply he was affected by the intelligence may be gleaned from the annexed letter:—

At Rome, Dr. Minzi, who was engaged in ascertaining the origin, and devising the remedy for the fever then prevailing there, encountered his friend Panizzi. The latter, during his stay, was perpetually beset by spies. On leaving, he took the precaution of engaging the company of Minzi, and to him he imparted the following directions:—That, were he carried off at the frontier by police agents, he (Minzi) was to write three letters—one to Sir William Temple, at Naples; a second to Lord Holland, also at Naples; and a third to Lord Shrewsbury. As a matter of fact, he was stopped at the Neapolitan frontier; but, after careful examination of the passport, and much unnecessary delay, was allowed to cross. His name, however, appeared in the so-called Libro Nero.

On his arrival at Naples he proceeded to Lord Holland’s house, at the Palazzo Roccella, where he remained during his sojourn in the place; he now brought all his energies to bear on the acquisition of every possible scrap of information which might further him in his mission. Before long he received help, and this was from Mr. Fagan,^[B] who, having 102been Attaché at Naples since June, 1837, was, indeed, the only person who was able to assist Panizzi. The help received from him was in the shape of a letter of introduction to the Signora Parilli, which must be allowed to tell its own story:—

Shortly afterwards, Panizzi’s interview with Ferdinand II. took place, on which occasion he was accompanied by Mr. Fagan. The day fixed was a Sunday, the hour twelve at noon. At ten minutes to twelve they arrived at the palace, “We are before our time,” said Panizzi, “Now the first question the King will ask, will be “Have you been to Church?” So they at once hastened into the Church opposite (San Francesco di Paolo), and remaining but a couple of minutes, came forth prepared to stand before the King and answer, with clear consciences, this expected question, which in fact was the first the King put to them.

It was quite clear that His Majesty was fully aware, through information obtained from spies, of all Panizzi’s movements. He received him, however, with the greatest courtesy, and almost before he himself 103had uttered a word, allowed him to talk on the subject of Poerio and Settembrini, and the prisons of Naples. On this theme Panizzi descanted uninterruptedly for full twenty minutes, when the King rose closing the interview with the remarkable words: Addio, terribile Panizzi.

During his stay at Lord Holland’s, the Neapolitan Government, in order that he should take his walks abroad with greater safety, kindly furnished him with constant attendance, in the shape of a pair of trusty followers or spies. It is painful to relate that Panizzi treated their delicate and unobtrusive attention with extremely bad taste, not to say ingratitude. He was never weary of playing tricks on his faithful attendants, of mischievously imposing on them; ably supported in this evil practice by his friend, and notably by Mr. Fagan, he made them deviate from the path in which it was their combined duty and pleasure to walk. Panizzi and his companions would get in and out of cabs, in the manner of a late well-known actor, though not with the intention of bilking the cab-driver. On one occasion, in trying to walk down their pursuers, they became involved in a cul-de-sac, and turning to come out, met their suite face to face. Pursuers and pursued burst into a hearty reciprocal laugh, the latter passed on, and the former fell to their place in the rear, and continued the chase.

Panizzi himself even allowed others to personate him. For example, in one instance he gave out, for the information of his retinue, that he was going on a shooting excursion in the neighbourhood of 104Naples. The person really bent on this errand was Lord Holland’s physician, Dr. Chepmell, who, in the character of Panizzi, was duly followed about the whole day. Let us hope that these honest members of the Police witnessed, though they had little chance of enjoying, a good day’s sport.

Like all truly great men, and in particular Henry the Great, of France and Navarre, Panizzi, when in the company of his friends, was devoid of all feeling of unofficial personal dignity, and delighted, when not seriously engaged, in little diversions as free, if not as innocent and touching, as those indulged in by that great monarch.

On one occasion—he was by nature so physically sensitive as (to use a common phrase) to be excessively ticklish—Dr. Chepmell, and another intimate friend, Signor Carafa, had got him on the floor and were subjecting him to the titillating operation. They were rolling him in the fire-place—his face was black with charcoal, his clothes white with ashes—when suddenly a servant announced the Duca di X.... who had come to pay his respects to the “Great Pan.” All the astounded Duke could do was to stand in the middle of the room and gaze, speechless, hat in hand, on the unexpected and inexplicable spectacle.

Meantime, leave had been obtained for Panizzi to visit the famous Vicaria. Of this he received information from Lord Feilding, who was to accompany him over the prison:—

Before visiting the “Vicaria,” he was careful to draw up a most elaborate précis of all the questions to be asked of officials, all portions of the prison worthy of note, and all such points of information as should render his inspection as thorough as possible.

To give, in our own words, an account of this visit would be too long for these pages, but Panizzi, on the following day that he inspected the prison, wrote down a few brief observations, in conjunction with Lord Feilding (November 20th, 1851):—

“The general impression on our minds was most unfavourable. The mixing together of criminals of every description (homicides excepted) without distinction, the total want of occupation for the prisoners, with the exception of about thirty shoemakers who worked in two cells apart, and the fact that prisoners before trial and prisoners after trial are huddled indiscriminately together, are facts which speak for themselves, as to the total unfitness of the Neapolitan prison discipline for the reformation of the offender. A criminal, when he has undergone his term of imprisonment here, must come out infinitely more savage and demoralized than when he went in. Humanity, policy, and religion call loudly for a reform in these sinks of horror.”

The following is Panizzi’s report:—“Yesterday, Wednesday, the 19th of November, 1851, I accompanied Lord Feilding to see the prisons of the “Vicaria.” We got permission through Father Costa, 106a Jesuit, who came with us, with another father whose name I never heard; the Chief Gaoler and the Inspector of the Police went with us through the gaol. We entered it at a quarter past two o’clock, and left it at three minutes past four by my watch.

“Near the stairs by which we entered there are prisons looking into the quadrangle of the “Vicaria.” As two of the judges, as we were told they were, came downstairs to get into their carriage, the shutters of the prison nearest the bottom of the stairs were closed, and opened immediately after the carriage had driven off.

“Having got upstairs, we entered a small room in which a person sat keeping some register or other, and were immediately ushered into a smaller room, where an inspector sat. On the table we found three different sorts of bread—i.e., common bread, bread for the sick, and bread which is given to the prisoners in the evening. The whole of this bread was good of its kind; the only objection to the evening bread might be its being heavy.

“We entered the first Camerone dei Nobili, which has only one window at the end of it. It is a long, vaulted, low room, very dull, and the atmosphere of which I should call very bad, had we not experienced worse. Off this room, on the left, are six smaller rooms, communicating with the Camerone by doors, some of them closing with railings, and others with oak shutters. In these rooms are kept such prisoners as can afford to pay for better accommodation—that is a small bed, instead of the common beds of the “Camerone.” The air of these rooms was 107better, because, by leaving the windows open, a thorough draft was created through them. But the air was cold and damp; there was no means of excluding the air and cold. Except in one or two of these rooms there was a paper window instead of glass; in the other there was nothing. So that you must either have the cold from without, or close the enormous oak shutters, and exclude both air and light, not only from each of these rooms themselves, but from the Camerone, which, to a certain extent, receives both, particularly air, from them. The atmosphere at night, when all those windows are closed, must be intolerable; and I am firmly persuaded that, were it not that the shutters are opened to try the soundness of the double row of iron bars by which each window is secured, the inmates would be smothered. These bars are tried five times during the night. Of course, every time this operation takes place, the inmates are roused from their sleep or slumber, and whilst the shutters are open a chilling draft must be created.

“In the Camerone sleep 120 persons.

“We saw no kitchen or infirmary, both being removed to San Francesco; but in the room which was the infirmary, and which is better than the others, we saw a poor fellow lying down asleep, but he seemed to me very ill, and looked like a dead person.”

Of this celebrated prison the writer of these “memoirs” is enabled, from personal observation and knowledge, to give some account.

The Vicaria, or Castel Capuano, was originally situated outside, but is now enclosed within the city 108of Naples. The first building was erected by William, the Norman, for a Royal Palace, and surrounded by fortifications. Here the Kings of Naples successively resided, until Ferdinand of Arragon demolished the fortifications, thereby rendering it useless as a stronghold.

In the year 1540 the Viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, rebuilt it in its present form, and gave it the name of “Vicaria.” The magnificent chambers (stained with many a crime) were converted into Law Courts, the smaller rooms were utilized as dungeons. For 310 years it remained a so-called “Palazzo di Giustizia.” Of the peculiar species of Justice and Law administered it is hardly necessary to speak, except perhaps to call them by their proper names of cruelty, chicanery, and oppression. Nor is it surprising that during these centuries, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny should have had equal sway within the walls of the “Vicaria.”

In 1848 this vast and gloomy edifice, which stands at the end of the Strada dei Tribunali, bore, carved in stone, in bold relief, over its one heavily barred entrance, that badge of Italian servitude, the Austrian double headed eagle. Near the dungeons were stationed Swiss guards. Inside the gate, and arranged around a circular court-yard, were the houses inhabited by the guardians of the courts, and, in addition to these, the residence of the executioner, whose implements, the scaffold and gallows, and all their appurtenances were displayed outside. Three broad staircases led respectively to the Civil and Criminal Courts and to the cells. As regards these, one door afforded access to the prison reserved for nobility, 109another to that set apart for the lower orders. Over the last was a picture of the Virgin and Child.

With the Vicaria Vecchia had disappeared many a secret chamber and loathsome living tomb, the remains of Spanish barbarity. According to Celano, 4,000 human beings were at one time immured in these dens, but in the building as it now stands there would not be room for more than 1,500.

Many famous productions have cheered the solitude of these sombre walls. In one of these cells Antonio Sella wrote his first essay on political economy; in another Mattia Prete, the famous Calabrese painter, 1613-1699, was a prisoner and condemned to death. Him, however, the Viceroy reprieved in these graceful words: Vita excellens in arte non debet mori.

Even so late as 1859 the present writer has himself seen the eleven wire cages, swinging between the windows of the buildings, each containing human heads.

The horrors of the Vicaria have been fully dwelt upon here and elsewhere; but we may mention that, on the 22nd of November, Panizzi paid a second visit to the prison with the view of more fully examining certain matters which had either been omitted or superficially surveyed during his first inspection. We forbear, however, from entering further into the horrible details connected with the place, which deserved no better appellation than the one given to it by Mr. Gladstone—a very hell upon earth.

In December Panizzi took his departure for England. He was accompanied to the last by his never failing followers, the spies, who had comecome to do him the final kind office of seeing him on board. Signor 110Lacaita, who was also present to bid him adieu, took the liberty of asking them what they wanted and whom they were watching? Quel pezzo grosso (that big fellow), replied they, “and to see that he is safely off.”

In conclusion, an extract from a letter of Lord Shrewsbury’s, after Panizzi’s return, may possibly be read with interest:—

112

Legion of Honour; Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; Serjeant Shee’s Bill; Concordat of 1855.

It was remarked of Panizzi, when in Italy as a proof of his general unobtrusiveness and lack of desire for distinction, that his visiting card bore only the simple inscription ‘Mr. Panizzi.’ As in early years his soul had been vexed by the mild constitutionalism of Parma and Modena, so in riper age he showed himself perversely antagonistic, not only to the sway of the King of Naples, but to every Government of Europe which bore in his eyes the slightest tinge of that especial object of his hatred—absolutism. Yet there were some, and amongst them one which would hardly have been accepted by Panizzi as the most disinterested supporter of liberty, that deemed this would-be liberator of the oppressed, this ex-Carbonaro, this revolutionary firebrand, worthy of notice, and even of some outward and visible sign of distinction and esteem. It was a real shock to his modesty when he was presented with the cross of the Legion of Honour by the President of the French Republic.

113Letters to Lord Rutherfurd and to Mr. Haywood, which are subjoined, clearly show how surprised Panizzi was at this unexpected honour:—

A second decoration, the Royal order of “Saint Maurice and Lazarus” of Sardinia, was presented to him a few years later, in December, 1855, in which year Victor Emmanuel visited London with Cavour. Of this last honour, considering by whom it was conferred, Panizzi may possibly have been prouder than of his first, but, with innate modesty, he forbore to ask the requisite permission to accept either, and preferred to remain almost to the end of an honourable life undecorated;—despising medals, orders, and unreal designations which, he well knew, could not add to his reputation.

114In the year 1851, shortly after his return to England, there landed on these shores the bugbear of Popery in its most appalling form, which scared the natives of the island into a state of mind bordering on temporary imbecility. Those who remember the Papal Aggression^[C] will also, with shame, remember the foolish fanaticism that burst forth in every quarter, the undignified terror of many who should have known better than to put so little confidence in their own cause, and the extravagant and senseless rumours with which the air was filled. To this unseemly panic Lord John Russell’s notorious Durham Letter materially contributed; but although there was no ground for alarm, there was, it cannot be denied, abundance of room for indignation. Many men of the most tried judgment and unquestionable moderation (albeit their voices were well nigh drowned in the general clamour), who treated the abrogation of the ancient sees by the Pope, and all other his bruta fulmina with the contempt they deserved, were, nevertheless, not disposed to sit down calmly under an insult to the Church and people of England, aggravated by the studied offensiveness with which it was offered. Such as these were the last, however, to see the necessity for, and did their best to oppose, the 115construction of such a steam-engine to crack a cockchafer as the notorious “Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.” Happily, this clumsy machine has been rarely, if ever, set in motion, and after some years of useless existence has, as all know, been finally broken up. It was impossible that Panizzi, as a moderate Roman Catholic, should have joined in the general outburst, or lent himself to swell the ranks of the crew around him. But he had been brought up in a country where the power of the priesthood has something of reality, and wherein the behests of the Pope are of a little more importance than they ever have been, or ever will be, in this realm. He was thoroughly imbued with that dislike and horror of clericalism which those of the Latin branch of the Church, when once they have broken free, yea, but a little, from the more rigorous bonds of their religion, seldom fail to show. It would be hard, then, to judge Panizzi severely, if he seems to have shared the alarm prevalent at the time, and to have betrayed some dread of the consequences of the Pope’s invasion of England. Let it be remembered, too, that he was an Italian before he was an Englishman; and that nothing could more effectually have roused his ire, than the insensate conduct of Pius IX., “the most foolish man,” as some one has well said of him, “that ever sat in the Papal chair.”

With this apology for any seeming weakness, or extravagance, in Panizzi’s judgment of the Papal Aggression, the following letter on the subject is laid before the reader:—

Probably, Panizzi, before the day of his death, learnt to understand why the events in other countries should not be considered a precedent in this, and how the case of Santa Rosa would be hardly likely to occur in the British Parliament. His underestimate in this letter of the numerical superiority of the Anglican body to the Roman Catholics in England is manifestly due to his mixing up the three kingdoms together; a confusion especially misleading in any consideration 118of the Papal Aggression, inasmuch as that movement was not extended to Scotland (where, however, it has a short time since been carried out peaceably and quietly enough), and in Ireland the titles of the Romish prelates have been always the same with those borne by their rivals of what may be called, without offence, the Colonial Church.

More interesting, perhaps, than this letter, is another document put forth by Panizzi on the same matter; its length, we regret, must prevent us from offering it to our readers; however, he recommends a curious if not altogether original prophylactic against ecclesiastical invasion from abroad. His remarks on the foreign character assumed by an Englishman who takes Roman orders, and of the allegiance (it can hardly be called divided) by which he thereby becomes bound are remarkable. The remedy which he proposes for ecclesiastical defection from patriotism would be, if carried thoroughly into effect, a little too drastic; and, if used short of thoroughly, might work a little more to the disadvantage of those who applied it than of those on whom it should be inflicted.

It has been thought best, at the risk of interrupting the proper sequence in order of time of this history, to continue and finish in this place the account of Panizzi’s connection with and views on the Ecclesiastical questions which sprang up at home and abroad in his time. For this purpose a few years must be skipped, and the reader referred to the year 1854. Perhaps some apology should be offered for the introduction here of a correspondence in that year on Serjeant (afterwards Justice) Shee’s Bill on the 119Temporalities of the Irish Church, inasmuch as that Bill obtained but little notoriety at the time, and the Serjeant’s proposed reforms were never carried into effect by legislation. But the following letters bear witness to the variety of questions on which Panizzi was habitually consulted, and the frequency with which his opinions were sought by his friends and acquaintances, and it may be interesting to some to know what judgment he may have formed upon a point relating to the much vexed question of Irish Church property, a question which even yet remains to be thoroughly solved. Moreover, to those who knew Justice Shee, the tone of the letter first quoted may serve to recall the unaffected modesty and simplicity which distinguished the character of him who may truly be called one of the best of men:—

To this Panizzi answered thus:—

Lord John Russell’s opinion of the Bill was expressed no less decidedly, though a little more curtly than Panizzi’s:—

On the 18th of August, 1855, a Concordat between the Courts of Austria and Rome was signed. This compact, by which a great deal of the liberty of the Austrian Church was given up to the Papacy, caused much dissatisfaction. In 1868, it was virtually abolished by the Legislatures of Austria and Hungary. To none was it more distasteful than to Panizzi, in whom, as will have been already seen, there was a wholesome dread of the Roman Church (a dread not altogether unreasonable, when certain countries and Governments had to be taken into account), and this was strongly expressed in two letters from him to Mr. Gladstone and to Mr. Haywood respectively. In the last of these, it must be granted that Panizzi very accurately estimates the opposition likely 122to be offered by disunited Sceptics and Freethinkers, void of combativeness and enthusiasm, to the disciplined forces of the Pope and the Curia.

Having now completed this ecclesiastical episode of Panizzi’s life, it behoves us to return to our interrupted narrative and to the relation of the results of his expedition to Italy, as well as his further action in the liberation of his suffering friends and countrymen.

126

Devising Means for Escape of Settembrini; Mode of Carrying on Correspondence; Senesi Collection; Mazza Affair; Loss of the ‘Isle of Thanet.’

No sooner had Panizzi arrived in London than he began devising means of escape from the dungeons of the Neapolitan Government for his unhappy friends. His first efforts were for the deliverance of Settembrini, in captivity at San Stefano, the relief of Poerio, more closely watched in an inland prison, being of secondary consideration. That the work was both arduous and hazardous may be conceived, and that as yet no very palpable improvement in the state of Naples had resulted, notwithstanding Panizzi’s exertions during his visit, may be gathered from a letter by Sir William Temple:

127On the subject of poor Settembrini and his family, Panizzi wrote in these terms to Mr. Haywood:—

On February 21st, 1852, Lord Shrewsbury wrote to Panizzi:—“We were glad to hear of your safe return, and sincerely trust your visit to Italy will not pass without its fruit, both at home and abroad, by removing some English prejudices in favour of the Revolutionary party, and by aiding in the expected reform of the Prison discipline and Police Government at Naples.” On both these points, and more especially the first, his Lordship may be pardoned for having been somewhat sanguine.

There was but little need for Panizzi to seek the aid and support of Mr. Gladstone in his present plans. On his co-operation he could ever count, even without asking; nor was the continued maintenance of that tyranny and injustice, which he had so distinguished himself by denouncing, likely to diminish the great statesman’s sympathy for its victims.

From the year 1852 to 1858, inclusive, many letters, notwithstanding the numerous difficulties in transmission, had passed between Settembrini and Panizzi. The former’s letters were consigned through his wife to Sir W. Temple, and by him forwarded to England. Of the replies, unfortunately none have reached us. They were directed to Mr. Fagan, who delivered them to Madame Settembrini. She had them copied in 129very small characters, in invisible ink expressly prepared for the purpose. Various devices were resorted to for introducing these letters into the prison. At one time they would be hidden in linen or hemp, sent to the prisoners, that they might occupy their time in weaving; at others they would be sewn into the soles of the sailors’ shoes, and a multitude of other modes of concealment was resorted to. It is satisfactory to relate that the ingenuity bestowed on their safe delivery was amply repaid by success, and that the officials of this contraband post-office escaped discovery.

Settembrini’s portion of this correspondence is in itself so interesting, and contains so much matter of value affecting this narrative, that it has been thought fit to give somewhat copious extracts from it. By the following it would appear that the prison of S. Stefano was no very desirable exchange for the dungeons of the “Vicaria,” and, moreover, afforded no great encouragement to any hope or plot for escape:—

The extract next in order shows that, however close his prison, he was fortunate enough to be able to avail himself, notwithstanding great obstacles, of the advantages of that scholarship for which he was so distinguished. His selection of his author also deserves a word of praise. After speaking of his son Raffaele, he says:—

In the middle of the year 1855 Panizzi had sufficiently matured his plan of action to be able to enter definitely on the execution of his great design. He had been hitherto much hampered by the difficulties of obtaining sufficient money to make a beginning of the enterprise. If this could be accomplished in time, he arranged to start for Italy himself in July of the same year. Although the main purpose of his journey was undoubtedly the deliverance of Settembrini and his fellow-captives, he thought it best to keep this purpose as far as possible concealed. An opportunity, however, had occurred, whereby he might probably combine the business of his office with the pleasure of succouring his unfortunate friends. On the 25th of July he applied to the Trustees of the British Museum for an extra month’s leave of absence, at the same time informing them that a circumstance had lately come to his knowledge whereof advantage might be taken to render a portion of his vacation useful to the Library; this referred to the then impending sale of books belonging to Filippo Senesi of Perugia. An extract from a letter to Sir James Lacaita, shows something of the embarrassments under which Panizzi was labouring for want of sufficient funds for his undertaking:—

This obstacle, however, was happily overcome, and on the 3rd of August, he thus wrote to Lacaita:—

Panizzi being now well on his way southward, it is necessary to leave him for the present, in order to give a short account of an incident at Naples, most conspicuous perhaps for its effect on European politics, or on the relations between England and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in which it created a passing disturbance. It appears to have been about this time a deeply-rooted idea in the Neapolitan official mind, that the real and actual disasters, mostly self-inflicted, which the English had suffered in the Crimea, joined to the ill-success which the lively Neapolitan imagination represented as continuously occurring to the British arms, had reduced England almost to the level of Naples. The time, it was thought, had come when this once great Power, the abettor of contumacious subjects against their rightful sovereigns, the upholder of sedition and rebellion against legitimate authority, 133might be insulted with impunity, and a long-standing grudge might be satisfied. Nor was the opportunity for indulging this patriotic feeling wanting. In August 1855, Mad^me. Parepa, a singer, who had married a Maltese gentleman, and thereby become a British subject, was very anxious to obtain a benefit-night at the San Carlo, at Naples. She had been recommended to Sir William Temple, who had a short time before obtained a promise in her favour from the Duke Satriano, Tito, “Superintendent of the Theatres.” Of this promise Sir William requested his Attaché, Mr. Fagan, to remind the Duke; he accordingly called one evening on his Grace at his box in the theatre, so-termed Il Fondo, and delivered the message. As he was leaving he became aware of the presence of an agent of police, apparently on duty, with evil intentions, as was indeed the fact. This man was one Vignati, who had been sent by the Minister of Police, Mazza, with a message threatening the Duke with imprisonment and other dire consequences for having received a member of the British Legation with so much civility. The message delivered by the man was overheard by some one in the theatre; Mazza himself was also heard saying, in a loud voice, “I shall not allow myself to be imposed upon by England, now a fourth-class Power!”

This Caligula, still living and well-known to the biographer, was as notable in his younger days for the energy with which he exercised his office as for the suavity of his manner in executing his intentions. It is recorded of him that, amongst other arbitrary proceedings, he, on one occasion, sent for Signor Niccolini 134(now of the National Museum, Naples) and loaded him with abuse for presuming to wear a beard. Disregarding the advice to hold his tongue, given him by a bystander, Niccolini boldly answered the Minister that if the growing of beards was illegal he ought at least to publish an order prohibiting it. No, no, said Mazza, no publishing of orders for me, to be held up to ridicule by Piedmontese newspapers. You go and cut off your beard, and see you keep clear of conspiracies! On another occasion at Catanzaro, in an excess of temper, he went so far as to break his cook’s arm.

The occurrence at the theatre was communicated that same evening to Sir William Temple, who lost no time in sending a note of remonstrance to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. That functionary, however, seemed in no hurry, either to make apology or give redress for the insult that had been offered to the British Mission. However insignificant and unworthy of resentment Naples might be, however small in comparison with England, the insolence was too great to be passed over. The matter was at once reported to the Government at home, and communicated by Mr. Fagan to Panizzi, who answered as follows.—(August 22nd, 1855.)—“I am delighted to hear directly from you what I have already heard and considered incredible. Lord Palmerston will not, I presume, overlook this affair....” Nor was Panizzi mistaken. Lord Palmerston’s action in the matter was, as might be supposed, prompt and decisive:—

That Ferdinand II. was extremely loth to dismiss Mazza may be gathered from his delay in making up his mind to do so. The case, however, was urgent, and, pressed by his son Francis to hesitate no longer, inasmuch as the Minister was aware of his impending fate, the King removed Mazza from his office, and issued a decree^[E] stating that he had been called to another office.

136Amid all this turmoil and confusion in the Government of Naples—this system of continuous oppression—there was one person who, notwithstanding all his misdeeds, may fairly claim some little share of our commiseration—the King himself. On the evidence of Mr. Gladstone and others, it is clear that Ferdinand was not wholly without his good traits of character. He was not devoid of a certain amount of intelligence.

Tyranny and slavery, however, exercise a doubly evil influence, and harm the despot as much as the victim, the owner as the slave. At the time of the Mazza case, his Majesty, taught by experience, had arrived at that wholesome judgment of persons and things which trusts nobody and nothing. He had long ceased to put confidence even in his own Ministers; political matters he directed himself, and himself wrote all the more important political despatches, many of which display considerable acumen. It would not, indeed, be unfair to impute a portion of his faults to the peculiar character of his subjects, of whom he was wont to say that they differed so much from, and were so greatly inferior to, any other people of the Peninsula, that he alone could govern them.

Meanwhile, Panizzi’s arrangements for the deliverance of the prisoners of San Stefano had been gradually and surely progressing, and to all appearance hopefully. He had communicated to Settembrini the manner in which he proposed to make the attempt, and from him received the following letter:—

Not long after the date of this letter, Panizzi sent to Mr. Fagan a summary of his plan of rescue, containing all the details of the work, and the mode in which he proposed to carry it out. This ran as follows:—

The plan set forth met with the fullest approbation from Mr. Fagan; he, however, wrote to Panizzi “to be most cautious, for although Mazza had left the Police, they, the English, were watched night and day, and were hated by the King’s partisans.”

The great difficulty in the undertaking turned out to be the obtaining of a vessel. Owing to the exigencies of the Crimean War, Panizzi, up to the 31st of August, had been unable either to charter or buy a craft suitable for his purpose. At length the desired object was attained in the shape of the screw steamer “Isle of Thanet.” But now comes the melancholy part of the story; failure of skilfully and anxiously concerted plans, waste of money collected with so much pain, arduous and continuous labour miserably thrown away; bitter disappointment to Panizzi, and prolonged incarceration of the wretched inmates of S. Stefano. The ill-fated vessel charged with the restoration to freedom of Settembrini and his companions was but laden, after all, with the destruction of the hopes of all concerned in the attempted liberation. Scarcely had she started from Hull, when she met with a disabling accident which forced her to put back for repairs. These being completed, she set forth a second time, and had proceeded no further than Yarmouth when she was caught in a storm on the 25th 141of October and totally lost. So ended by no default of skill, but by the merest caprice of fortune, an enterprise which, if we consider the persons engaged, the means within their reach, and the purity of its purpose, must ever be reckoned as a most brilliant attempt; and so did not end, at least with all true lovers of freedom and humanity, the glory of those that had embarked upon it.

Amongst others who felt the disappointment of the failure almost as keenly as Panizzi himself was Mr. Gladstone, who lost no time in writing a letter of condolence on the ill-success of the expedition:—

A few graceful words to the same effect were also received by Panizzi from Sir W. Temple:—“Should the aid of friends be necessary, I hope you will reckon me among the number.”

The following letter, with which the present chapter concludes, distinctly proves of what stuff Settembrini was composed, and the same commendation may, without presumption, be extended to his companions:—

144

Bianchini’s Appointment; Settembrini Fund; Convention with Argentine Republic; Correspondence; Orsini; Napoleon III.

After the suppression of Mazza, a marked change for the better took place in the general conduct of the Neapolitan Police. Bianchini, the new Minister, presented in every way a favourable contrast to his predecessor in office. Under his gentle rule, the normal system of oppression was relaxed, and the strongest front faced those dangers, arising from revolutionary incendiarism, which the cause of Liberty was perpetually incurring. ‘There is a lull,’ wrote Sir Wm. Temple to Panizzi (Jan. 17th 1856) ‘in the proceedings of the Police; Campagna has been kept in order, and there are no longer attacks upon hats and beards; and people breathe more freely,’ Though the ardour for the chasse aux rouges had sensibly diminished, and the King’s subjects were enjoying their liberty—quite a novelty to them—of being able to walk abroad in comparative security, it must not be supposed that the benefits arising from the improved state of things had extended to those political adversaries who were 145already in durance. Of carrying out his schemes for the rescue of Settembrini and his companions at San Stefano, Panizzi, notwithstanding his former failure, had by no means abandoned hope or intention. In framing his future projects to this end, he had met at Genoa, where he now was, with valuable assistance, in the shape of the counsel and co-operation of Dr. Bertani. After deducting the loss sustained by the wreck of the “Isle of Thanet,” for it was not fully insured, there remained still in hand a considerable sum of money, a portion of the fund lately set on foot for the liberation of the prisoners. This sum, until some further design for accomplishing the rescue had been definitely determined upon, Panizzi felt some scruple in retaining; and accordingly wrote to the respective donors of the money offering to return the contributions.

They, however, with one or two exceptions, preferred to leave the whole of their subscriptions in his possession, to be applied by him either to the main purpose, or to such uses as, in his judgment, might seem best for the benefit of Settembrini and his family, who were at this time in a state of the deepest distress. The letters of Lord Overstone and Lord Zetland seem worthy of reproduction:—

Here we may pause for an instant to reflect on the steadiness of Panizzi’s character. With an aim in view he was never faint-hearted or desponding, even when the victim of constantly repeated rebuffs; it is well to note this ever-recurring trait in his character, for the recollection may serve as an encouragement to others who might be inclined to despair instead of imitating his example.

The “Settembrini Fund,” amounting to about £1,000, was finally entrusted to the charge and management of Mr. Gladstone, and by him securely invested in England.

Meantime, a new influence had been brought to bear at Naples on the fortunes of Settembrini and the rest. The King had concluded with the Government of the Argentine Republic a Convention, whereby he was to be at liberty to deport to that State such political offenders (including, as it would appear, others 147of a different and more criminal caste) detained at this time in the Neapolitan prisons, as should choose to avail themselves of the commutation for exile proffered them. It is not clear whether this alternative was actually offered to Settembrini, Poerio, and their immediate companions; but it is evident, not only that they would have been at perfect liberty to avail themselves of it, but that the King would have been delighted to rid himself of them by the means proposed. The question whether or not they would be adopting a judicious course of action in agreeing to the terms offered by the Convention, and accepting the modicum of liberty they could purchase at the price of expatriation, divided their friends and benefactors into two factions.

On one side, Panizzi himself was strongly opposed to their taking such steps, and vehemently supported a different course, viz., that they should petition the King directly for their pardon and release. He appears, and, to judge from his own words, not unreasonably, to have suspected something latent in the Convention which might prove an insurmountable obstacle to the voluntary return of the exiles from their new country to the old, or, indeed, to Europe in general. In a letter to Lacaita (February 17th, 1857) he thus expressed himself strongly on the subject:—

The position of matters at this time, as regards carrying out the terms of the Convention, was reported to Lord Shelburne, who had been requested to consult Lord Clarendon on the subject. This, however, he appears not to have considered of any very great importance. Mr. Gladstone seems equally to have oscillated between the two alternatives of exile to La Plata and a petition for a not dishonourable pardon:—

149On the other hand, Lord Palmerston, though he expresses no belief one way or other, yet perceives in the possible want of bona fides in carrying out the Convention on either side, not in the proposal of emigration, the chance that the prisoners might have to submit to that deprivation of future liberty, so much feared by Panizzi:—

Settembrini, meanwhile, distracted by the diversity of opinion among his friends, and perplexed by the strenuous opposition displayed by Panizzi to the emigration scheme, applied to Mr. Fagan for explanation of this apparently uncalled for opposition, and for further advice as to his own action. As regards the alternative of petitioning the King for pardon, we confess that, on the point of honour, we coincide more strongly in Settembrini’s opinions, stated in the following letter, than in the views expressed in Panizzi’s letter to Lacaita. What the former wrote to Mr. Fagan is so well worth reading, and so characteristic of the writer, that we make no apology for presenting long extracts.

154Whether the Convention had already turned out a “complete failure” or not, the pace at which the whole business was progressing must have given ample time to Settembrini to make up his own mind, as well as to collect and digest all the advice worth following as to the line of action best for him to adopt. The parties to the Convention, and notably the King himself, seem certainly to have been in no hurry to bring the affair to a climax. “Nothing is known,” wrote Mr. Fagan again to Panizzi (April 25th, 1857,) “with certainty respecting the affair of the political prisoners. The two frigates which are now being fitted out will not be ready for sea before the end of next month. The general impression appears to be that about 250 persons will be sent, but they are all men belonging to the lower class, and not all condemned for political offences.”

In this stage of delay and uncertainty we will take the liberty to leave the proceedings for the present, in order to bring on the scene another character, afterwards a somewhat intimate acquaintance of Panizzi’s—it would be scarcely warrantable to call him a friend—in notoriety, more than equal to Poerio or Settembrini, but not as they were, of honourable and untarnished celebrity. Few are living but 155have heard or read of Felice Orsini; equally few are they who do not hold both the man and his criminal intentions in deep execration. He was born at Meldole, in the States of the Church, in 1819. From his youth upwards, his fixed idea, his sole purpose of life was Revolution; conspiracy was to him as the breath of his nostrils. It cannot in strict truth be alleged that he absolutely and deliberately set his mind on murder, as the surest or most desirable means to accomplish his object, but neither can it be denied that if murder became a most necessary ingredient in his plans, if it showed him the easiest way, he was ready, without scruple even, to adopt such fell measures. Orsini’s first imprisonment for political crime was in 1844. In February, 1845, he was again convicted before the Supreme Tribunal of Rome, and condemned to the galleys for life, for a plot against the Government. Fortunately for himself, he was comprised in the general amnesty of the 16th of July, 1846, published by Pius IX. on his accession to the Papal chair, and released, or perhaps it ought to be said let loose, in the same year. In May, 1847, he was expelled from Tuscany for his political intrigues. Two years afterwards he was elected a Deputy in the Roman Constituent Assembly; but, in 1853, was forced to quit Roman territory. He first sought refuge in London, which, however, in a short time, he left, and for a period was busied in roaming through Piedmont, Switzerland, and Lombardy, continually, wherever he went, plotting and scheming under the assumed name of Tito Celci. He was next 156heard of under the name of Hernof, at Vienna, in 1855, when he was arrested and sent to the fortress of Mantua. Thence, by energy and skill, no less by good fortune, he made his escape in the night of 28th-29th March, of the same year. He next visited Marseilles and Genoa, whence he returned to London. At this period he was on most intimate terms with Mazzini. Their friendship, however, was not of lifelong duration: it ended in a quarrel.

By Mazzini, it appears, Orsini was first introduced to Panizzi; but the introduction must have been merely formal, as there is no record of any intercourse between the two arising therefrom, and Panizzi seems to have lost sight of him very soon afterwards. However on the 14th of August, 1856, he was recommended by Mr. John Craufurd as a proper person to become a reader in the Library of the British Museum. The letter of introduction was delivered by Orsini himself, on the 18th of the same month, when he met with Panizzi, and a strong mutual liking for one another sprang up. In fact, as we know from the best of sources, this sympathetic feeling very nearly assumed the proportions of friendship; for Panizzi expressed himself as never having been so much captivated by any one as by Orsini. The familiarity thus quickly established, showed early signs of endurance; and the following letter, which throws a good deal of light as well on the character as on the history of the writer, may be read with interest:—

In another letter, dated “Glastonbury, 7th February, 1857,” he says in further development of his political dreams:—

“The book, with the documents, &c. ... is now finished.... In an introduction I insist on this point, that all our efforts should be directed towards the national independence. “While thus engaged, every thought of political theories must rest in peace; we are bound to be on the side of that Italian Government which, excluding the Pope and any foreign dynasty, will furnish us with the means of making war on Austria. All this I say with the frankness that has been natural to me throughout life, with the patriotic ardour that ever burns within me, and with the firm conviction that by such conduct alone can the Italians work their redemption.”

To refer to the hideous, and, it may be said with justice, the vulgar crime of which Orsini and his accomplices were guilty, is not here necessary, further than will suffice to refresh the memory of the reader. The attempt took place on the evening of the 14th of January, 1858, at the moment when the Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress arrived at the Opera. The details are too well known to need repetition. On March 13th following Orsini was guillotined.

That the crime had been long premeditated, and that Orsini had not been impelled to it by any sudden frenzied impulse, is clear from a passage in his 160defence of himself, if defence it could be called, on his trial:—“From my youth,” said he, “I have only had one object, and one fixed idea, the deliverance of my country, and vengeance against the Austrians, and I have constantly conspired against them up to 1848.... When in England, I was imbued with a mania of being useful to my country. I witnessed ridiculous attempts being made by Mazzini, who sent 15 or 20 men to Italy, where they lost their lives. I tried loyal means; I went over to England, and in all the meetings which I addressed, advocated the principle of non-intervention.... After the fall of Rome, I felt convinced that Napoleon would no longer assist us: and I said to myself, that man must be killed.... I am very sorry that so many people were wounded, and if my blood could repair this misfortune, I am quite ready to give it for the people. Here it is!” These words were described by the French newspapers at the time as bombastic—an epithet singularly out of place. Terrible they might well be called, and full of ghastly meaning: witnesses not only to the atrocity of the crime itself, but to the length of time—two whole years—during which the plot to commit it had been in process of elaboration.

On the eve of his execution, Orsini addressed a letter to the Emperor, in which he said:—“Near the close of my career, I yet wish to make a last effort, for the sake of Italy. Her independence has hitherto prompted me to defy all dangers, to court all sacrifices. Italy has been the constant object of my affections, and this is the last thought that I wish to record in the words which I address to your Majesty.“

161

Let the reader compare the passage with Orsini’s letters to Panizzi. The death of Napoleon, considered so necessary to the cause of Italian Union by Orsini, might possibly not have promoted that good end. But could it have been that the alarm caused to the Emperor by the assassin’s attempt was one of the chief reasons that led him to take arms against Austria in 1859?

It has been told the writer of this memoir, on various occasions in the course of conversation, that, when the news appeared in the second edition of the Times of Saturday, January 16th, 1858, that “Orsini or Corsini” had attempted the murder of the Emperor, Panizzi, who was in the habit of visiting Brooks’s every afternoon, was at once, and on that very Saturday, questioned by other members of the Club whether the assassin was his friend. Panizzi replied that he doubted it very much, seeing that he himself had an appointment with Orsini for the following day, when they were both to call on Lord Palmerston together. This was thought at the time to be a deep but futile scheme for establishing an alibi. Of the truth of the story we have no evidence beyond what we have mentioned. So far as we have been able to ascertain, there is nothing to show that Orsini was in London at all in this month of January. It is a matter of regret that we cannot help the reader further to judge of the truth or falsehood of the anecdote. 162As we would not ourselves be held to have painted the would-be assassin in too dark a colour, so would we willingly grant all indulgence to any who, from merely reading the facts of his history, should be inclined to depict him in the deepest of hues. That, by many ordinary Englishmen, such a man, who scrupled not to attack and destroy all, known or unknown, who stood in his way, might aptly be called the mad dog of society, is perfectly conceivable. But, granting all that can be brought against him, and in no wise seeking to justify his actions, we nevertheless submit that the character of Orsini is rather deserving of careful study, and even of allowance, if that study be made fully and without prejudice, than of hasty condemnation. A fanatic of fanatics, he was undoubtedly, both to friends and foes, the most dangerous of men; but he had also the good points of a fanatic—he was unselfish, and of necessity disinterested. If, to use the mildest of terms, he little more than undervalued his neighbour’s life, he at least threw his own into the balance. Nor can it be denied, from what has been said and quoted above, that patriotism (unenlightened it might be, carried to a crime as it assuredly was, yet earnest and sincere, and having no taint of self-seeking, though much of self-imposture), was the man’s one inspiration throughout his life. That personally he was not of a vulgarly brutal cast of mind is evident if only from his letters to Panizzi. His learning and ability were more than common place; as a soldier his skill and courage were unquestioned. We would be content to speak of him, however, in no higher terms than were employed by 163his advocate at his trial. “He was not there,” said M. Jules Favre, “either to justify or to save his client, but he came there with the wish to endeavour to cast on his immortal soul some rays of that truth which he trusted would protect his memory against the execration of posterity.”

164

Departure of Neapolitan Prisoners; At Cadiz; Cork; ‘Captain James’; Poerio’s Letter; Ferdinand II.

The scheme for getting rid of the political offenders, whose charge daily increased upon the Neapolitan authorities in the ratio of captivity to their victims, was coming near its accomplishment. On the 27th of Dec. 1858, a decree was issued by the King, offering to the prisoners, in accordance with the Argentine Convention, choice between emigration and continuance of durance. This decree commenced as follows, in words possibly not intended to be ironical: ‘By the Grace of God, &c. Having given proofs of our sovereign clemency to the greater part of those condemned for offences against the security of the State during the events of 1848-9,’ &c. It was read to the prisoners, who, with one exception, accepted the conditions. The single voice constituting the minority overbalanced the majority. Poerio refused to accept any of this qualified liberty.

“Better,” said he, “death on the gallows than this futile and costly journey to a far off land, there to 165meet a death more obscure and less honoured.” This refusal of the leading criminal to accept his freedom under the Convention was of such importance that the idea of any treaty was abandoned, and the whole plan for the deportation of the prisoners fell to the ground. Nor was his resolution to bide his time in captivity fruitless. On the 6th of January, 1859, a second decree, in substitution of the former, was promulgated, the main point of which was that certain of the prisoners, in number sixty-six, including Poerio and Settembrini, should be at liberty to leave the galleys on condition of going to New York.

This was readily accepted by the select number, and on the 16th of January, Poerio arrived at Pozzuoli, where, on the same day, he embarked on board the “Stromboli,” a vessel which had been fitted up as a prison. Pironti, eminent amongst those oppressed by the Neapolitan Government, had been attacked by paralysis, and was left behind in safe custody.

Poerio, on his embarkation, was still in chains, and little provision had been made for the comforts of the party on starting for their voyage across the Atlantic. No adequate or suitable clothing was provided for them, and, as a matter of fact, they were literally in rags.

Meanwhile, in London Panizzi was alert for the safety and protection of the exiles in case they reached New York. The United States Government, about that time, had repeatedly protested against some of the European GovernmentsGovernments deporting their paupers, jail-birds and prisoners to America, and threatened 166not only to prevent their landing, but to compel the captains who brought them to take them back. Of course no serious apprehensions were entertained for those Italians, if they fell into the right hands at first. Panizzi consulted Mr. Henry Stevens, who recommended that correct information and supplies should be sent direct to the Collector of Customs in New York, and in such manner arouse his personal interest in the patriots. Accordingly the following letter was written by Mr. Stevens to Mr. Schell, who not only took a lively interest in the affair himself, but encouraged others to the same purpose. A steamer was kept for many days in readiness to go down the Bay to meet Poerio and his companions and welcome them to New York. It was, therefore, no slight disappointment when the news was received that they had found their way to England.

It was on board the “Stromboli” that Poerio and Settembrini met for the first time since their captivity. Little opportunity was, however, afforded for the moment of renewing their acquaintance with each other, for the former, shortly after his arrival on board, was seized with severe illness, and compelled to keep his bed.

It is pleasing to relate an instance of true kindness and humanity on the part of at least one officer connected with the Neapolitan Government, and to record that Ferdinando Cafiero, Commander of the “Stromboli,” directed that his illustrious prisoner should be placed in his own (the captain’s) cabin.

They set sail, escorted by the “Ettore Fieramosca,” man-of-war; and the writer of this “Memoir,” as an 168eye-witness of their departure, well recollects the enthusiasm displayed on the occasion. On their way to Gibraltar they fell in with a Sardinian vessel, flying the national tricolour. This was a signal for the exiles to run on deck, and, with deep emotion, salute the flag, the symbol of liberty and good government in Italy. On the 26th of January, they reached Cadiz, where another ship was to be chartered to take them to the United States.

One morning, while at Cadiz, Settembrini was sent for on board the “Ettore Fieramosca,” a message reaching him that an English officer wished to speak to him. Here a great and most agreeable surprise awaited him. His astonishment can scarcely be conceived when he recognised in the English officer his own son Raffaele.^[F] At this time Raffaele was but a youth in the merchant service. Having been at school in England, he spoke English fluently, and in language and general appearance was well fitted for the character he had assumed. He had taken the name of James, and represented himself as the captain of a merchantman trading between London and Madeira.

Anything like friendly converse between father and son at this meeting was, of course, out of the question, but the latter managed to transmit the whispered words, You shall not go to America. Captain “James,” it should be mentioned, had reached Cadiz by means of a plan carried out through the agency of the Neapolitan consul at that port, and concerted in London by 169Panizzi. All things being thus happily arranged, the party embarked in the American ship, “David Stewart,” commanded by Captain Prentiss. The “David Stewart” was very well found, and comfortable accommodation seems to have been provided for her passengers.

Two days afterwards, she started in tow of the “Stromboli,” and escorted by the “Ettore Fieramosca,” which had orders to see her well out to sea. Having established a good offing, the two Neapolitan men-of-war returned. Captain “James,” meantime, had shown himself equal to the occasion. He had changed his character of master of a merchant vessel for that of steward on board the American vessel. On the night of the Neapolitan’s departure, he communicated to his father a design which he had formed for compelling the Captain to return to Lisbon, adding that, in case resistance was offered, he was provided with arms to enforce compliance.

Settembrini, as might be expected, listened eagerly to his son’s proposal; but, in accordance with his general demeanour, strongly objected to violence of any sort.

The design was forthwith imparted to the exiles, who were sufficiently numerous to carry the point without resort to force. By an accident, they were driven to act a little prematurely, but, as it happened, in no way detrimentally to their ultimate success. A seaman trod on a percussion cap, and the explosion gave the alarm to the captain. On this the passengers at once took action, and, presenting to him a protest against being taken to New York, demanded 170that he should make for the first port he could reach in England. The captain, one-third of whose freight had been retained as a guarantee for the performance of his contract, remonstrated, and the demand was for the moment not pressed. On the following morning, however, it was repeated in a more decided manner. The exiles drew attention to their numbers, being 66 as against 17 of the ship’s hands; they represented that, having suffered much from their confinement, and many of them being of advanced age, they were not in a state to undergo with safety a long voyage, and added that one of their number, being well skilled in navigation, would manœuvre the ship, in case the captain and crew should refuse their assistance. This skilled seaman was none other than Raffaele, who had appeared in yet a new rôle, and came on deck in a mate’s uniform of the Galway line of steamers. The passengers, of course, met with little further opposition. They quietly took possession of the vessel, setting watches, and taking all precautions to ensure due execution by the captain of their orders, which were to make for Cork. The weather proved obstructive, and the voyage tedious, but in the course of a fortnight, they were safely landed at Queenstown.

Great was the excitement caused here by the arrival of the distinguished visitors, with whom heartfelt sympathy had for so long been expressed in every part of the United Kingdom. Lively as was the pleasure expressed at their safety in these countries, the disappointment felt by the inhabitants of New York, who had prepared for Poerio and his companions 171the warmest reception, was equally keen. The Italian residents had appointed a Committee to supply funds for the emigrants to return to Sardinia, which was understood to be their destination after America. All was in readiness to give them a cordial welcome. From Mr. Dallas, the American Minister, Panizzi received the following short note:—

It may be mentioned here that Panizzi, with the concurrence of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, placed £100 at the disposal of Settembrini and Poerio, to be delivered to them at Gibraltar, which sum, however, they never received, not having landed there. This loss was soon compensated by the good fortune which, as we have narrated, had now befallen them. Not that the enthusiasm shown in their behalf throughout the country was likely to allow forgetfulness of the necessity for material assistance. One of the first to propose a mode of benefitting them was Charles Dickens:—

In London a Committee for the relief of the exiles was formed, and large sums were received.

The first letter Panizzi received from Poerio was dated from Cork, 27th of March, 1859. In this there was, however, little beyond an acknowledgment of a letter received, and expression of gratitude for the trouble taken on his behalf. Although Poerio, starting from Cork on the 29th of March, soon joined his friends in London, they had but little uninterrupted enjoyment of each other’s company for some time. Invitations poured in for the great exile from every quarter. Amongst his entertainers may be mentioned Lord Granville, the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Argyll.

The following note of invitation from Lord Palmerston must not be omitted:—

174And Mr. Gladstone wrote on Poerio’s behalf as follows:—

This continued dissipation, and the cold of the English climate, from which he suffered intensely, began to weigh heavily on Poerio. He was forced by his state of health to refuse many invitations, and the only other amusement of which we have any record is a visit to the House of Commons on the 18th of April, under the auspices of Lord Shaftesbury.

It would be too much to expect that amongst the large number of sixty-six prisoners, however exalted the political creed which they might profess, there should not be at least one or two black sheep. There were certainly some amongst the lower order of these exiles, with whom Panizzi had a good deal of trouble. Notwithstanding all his rigid justice in apportioning the money of which he had the charge, they vexed him much by claiming more than their share, by accusations of unfairness, and, in some cases, even by the vilest ingratitude and abuse. Nor did they confine their annoyance to him alone. Poerio, writing subsequently (3rd of June, 1859,) from Turin, gives anything but a pleasing account of these gentry who had accompanied him to Italy:—“I have had a great deal of trouble here on account of the English subscription in favour of the exiles. One of them who was 175destined to receive 250 francs told a great many in secret that this terrible injustice of classification was all my work,” with a good deal more to the same effect, on which it is needless to expend time and space.

But the calls of patriotism were altogether too urgent on Poerio to allow him to spend very much of his time in London society. About the middle of May he left for Turin, where he entered on a long correspondence with Panizzi. Here, for the first time in these volumes, we are able to present the reader with a comprehensive letter from Poerio, although short extracts from others have been given above. His letters are, both in language and style, the acme of combined nervousness and elegance, and we can only express our regret that, to meet the exigencies of the general reader, we are compelled to give this in English, feeling that by translation the beauty and force of the original must materially suffer. Most interesting in themselves, but of still greater value as throwing light on contemporary history, are the accounts of the sad continuance of disorder and misgovernment in the administration of Naples; of the various other complications in the affairs of the Peninsula; the course of action adopted by the French Emperor in connection with the attitude of the Sardinian Government, (which last, Poerio seems to consider occasionally as somewhat hesitating and undecided); and the dawn of the first possibility of effecting the union of distracted Italy, in the achievement of which, however, a thousand difficulties seemed yet to be overcome. Some few necessary excisions of matter of little importance have been made, but this 176has not materially reduced the bulk of the correspondence. Of Panizzi’s share we unfortunately possess nothing. A good notion, however, of his opinions on Italian, and (as connected with Italian) of European politics, as well as of his unwearying efforts in the cause, and the confidence that his compatriots rested in his exertions and influence here, may be gathered from the communications which he received from his friend and others who had suffered from or witnessed the revolting cruelties committed for so many years in Naples and elsewhere; but there is no querulousness, no recalling of the past; every energy, every aspiration, is devoted to the one glorious object—the unity and independence of Italy:—

On the 22nd of May, 1859, Ferdinand II., King of the Two Sicilies, died. The news of his death was not 184received with that universal burst of lamentation which follows when the world at large has suffered an irreparable loss. Indeed, it is painful to relate that throughout a considerable portion of the Christian and civilized world the sad tidings were even welcomed, and with an unseemly manifestation of rejoicing; not a few seeming even to be of opinion that a great obstacle of Christianity and civilization had at length been mercifully removed.

185

Italian Unity; Victor Emmanuel II; War of 1859; Farini; Cavour; Correspondence; Poerio on Southern Italy; Sir James Lacaita; Visit to Turin; The Biographer.

Perhaps only when Italy shall have given proof of her fitness to hold her own amongst the Powers of Europe will the chain of events which has led to the accomplishment of Italian Unity be fully appreciated. True, these events are recent, and require the mellowness of time to impart to them due historical importance. As time progresses, however, the story of United Italy will attain significance; and there is reasonable hope that the new kingdom, hitherto not too harshly tried, will also attain that healthy maturity of which its youth has given promise. To forge the links to bind these discordant States into one, wars, external or internal, have succeeded each other; but, whilst assigning due weight to fortune without, it would be ungracious to stint the praise of the workers from within, whether we regard the mild wisdom of the school of patriots, whereof Poerio, Settembrini, and Panizzi were examples, or the reckless valour of more ardent revolutionists, 186valour which, it must be granted, was not without its uses when occasion demanded, and which in its excess was skilfully controlled by one of whom it were but faint commendation to say that amongst all the records of eminent statesmen, his superior could not easily be found.

Our observations have shown that Panizzi did not confine his love of country to that part of Italy wherewith he himself was most intimately connected. Having achieved his mission in favour of liberty in the South, we now (1859) find him turning his attention to the North of the Peninsula. By way of introduction to our account of his proceedings in this quarter, it may be well to give a short epitome of the events of the year in question, when the first foundations of Italian unity may be said to have been laid.

Victor Emmanuel, on succeeding to the throne in consequence of his father’s abdication, enjoyed the reputation of an experienced and intrepid soldier, yet was not in other respects a general favourite with his people. Nor was unpopularity at home the only difficulty in his way. When, after the fatal day of Novara, he received the crown from Charles Albert, who resigned it not until he had vainly sought honourable death in battle, he swore to avenge the wrongs of Italy, and to uphold the free institutions of his own realm. For this he had to reckon both with Austria and Naples, who, with unparalleled effrontery, called upon him to govern his kingdom in such a manner as should be in conformity with the mode of government in the other States of the Peninsula. To such a demand 187the King did not deign to listen, and his opponents were forced to be content with denouncing Sardinia as a hot-bed of sedition and revolutionary agitation. In the beginning of 1859 Victor Emmanuel, who, in his speech to Parliament, had remarked on the threatening appearance of the political horizon, commenced preparations for war against Austria. The circumstances which precipitated the war are too fresh in the recollection of our readers to be dwelt on here to any length. Cavour, on the part of Sardinia, was under promise to England to make no hostile demonstration against Austria. France had declared that she would aid Sardinia only in the case of the latter being attacked. The preliminaries to an European Congress were actually under discussion, when the Emperor of Austria suddenly broke off all negotiations, and demanded of Sardinia an immediate disarmament, a summons which was treated by Cavour with contempt. At this juncture, Austria, with that peculiar aptitude for blundering which has so characterised her action, sent, in the night of April 28-29, 1859, her armies across the Ticino, thus affording an occasion of action whereof the two allies were not slow to avail themselves. The French troops hastened to cross the Alps. Battle followed battle with uniform success to the allied arms, when, like a thunderbolt, news of the Peace of Villafranca fell on Europe. Unexplained at the time, the reasons for it soon came within the range of tolerably accurate conjecture. In the first place the eagerness with which people of the other States in Italy prepared to unite themselves with Sardinia (which Cavour had foreseen, but which had failed to strike Louis 188Napoleon,) was hardly to the taste of the French Emperor. Whatever were his objects in the war, the unity of Italy was certainly not one of them. He had employed his army, and thereby diverted his people; he had gained a satisfactory amount of glory, though perhaps not so much as his ambition led him to hope for. In his victories, (though it were hard to apply to them the epithet Pyrrhic,) he had undoubtedly sustained greater loss than his adversary; and he possibly thought it as well to refrain from following the Austrians to the strong position to which they had retired, and from whence not all the armies of Italy, Sardinia, and France united could in all probability have succeeded in dislodging them. His fortitude and forbearance were, however, as all know, not without their substantial reward.

It is ours, not to write history, but simply to supply aid to its study; and these may, we hope, be afforded, to the reader by the somewhat varied correspondence of which this chapter will mainly consist. The several writers quoted are at any rate worth listening to, and not least among them Luigi Carlo Farini, the Dictator, well-known as the friend of Mr. Gladstone, a letter from whom (dated March 18th, 1859) comes first in order on our list:—

That Panizzi rated the strength of Austria and the Quadrilateral at its proper value, and considered that the Italians were about this time in trepidis rebus, is plain from the following letter to Mr. Haywood. It bears no date, but evidently must have been written (from the British Museum) just before the conclusion of the war:—

“These Italian affairs have, as you may suppose, made me feverish. First of all, I think the Austrians are not quite done for yet, although I think they will 190be. Even in these times of wonder I don’t believe they can have lost Vicenza and Mantua, and if the whole country is not really up, the King of Piedmont will find these two very hard bits. That they are yet in the Austrians’ hands I argue from the fact of Radetzky’s troops retiring in two columns towards them—what is more, taking with him political prisoners, which shows he is not quite defeated. Even when Mantua and Piacenza are taken, there is the pass of Caldiero, fortified in an awful manner, as I have seen myself, and such fortresses as Legnano, Peschiera, and Verona, in which fifty thousand men can defy three times the number.”

“If the Tyrolese are up to the whole of the Venetian territory, the Austrians may find it awkward, as they are out of favour here, and they may not have either time or the means of victualling their forces. But between us I do not very much like the peasants to take up arms in earnest, even if they join in a popular movement at first. They must enrol themselves, and that I do not think they will do. I foresee, therefore, great difficulties, and at all events great fighting. Yes, and depend upon it the French, if they last as a republic, or even have a Bonaparte, will interfere. As to myself, what can I do? I am more than fifty, and not a soldier, and what they want now are young men ready to shoulder a musket or to command.”

“In the second place, I am almost certain that the Italians will differ among themselves (not as to the Austrians, or as to being dismayed, but as to the form of Government.) The King of Sardinia had no chance 191to keep his crown but by acting as he has done, as they would have proclaimed a republic in Lombardy with the help of the Swiss, and he would have had a revolution in the same sense at home. But the spirit of the ‘Giovine Italia’ is at work there, and I think there will be yet a great deal of trouble before the form of government is settled. My views you know, and I fear I should have no one listening to me, and the utmost I could expect would be to be looked upon as a crazy Angloman. In the third place, I have hardly any friend alive who would care for me, or on whom I could have influence. I am a greater stranger in Italy than here.”

Towards the middle of the year, Panizzi himself visited the scene of action, whence he wrote a graphic account of affairs in the North of Italy to Mr. Gladstone, in a far more cheerful tone than that of the last letter quoted:—

“San Maurizio, near Reggio,

September 4th, 1859.

“My dear Sir,—

... I went to Bologna to see the opening of the Assembly last Thursday, and I hope to give them some good advice as to the wording of the resolutions which are to be proposed to-morrow, proclaiming the independence of Romagna. On Thursday I shall go to Parma again to assist at the opening of their Assembly. I am now staying with some distant cousins at a villa which Ariosto, who lived here, had celebrated.

I cannot tell you how gratified I am at what I have seen ever since I came to this part of Italy, on Monday last. The order and quiet which prevail everywhere are only equalled by the unanimity with which every man, woman, and child is determined not to submit again to the fallen Government. I 192am happy to see that the determination is supported by large numbers of volunteers who flock to enlist: they come not only from the towns but from the country; and at night, since I have been here, I have heard a variety of songs in dialect in praise of Garibaldi and his soldiers, ridiculing the Austrians and the late Duke of Modena, in very expressive although in not very polite terms. I have seen persons who are well affected to the Duke—the cousins at whose house I am staying, and to whose family the Archbishop of Modena belongs, amongst them—and one and all say that a restoration of the fallen dynasty would be a great calamity. Here, in fact—at Parma as well as Bologna—the universal wish is to be united to Piedmont. The organization of the recruits proceeds with the greatest rapidity, and the instructors (old soldiers) are struck by the military qualities displayed by the population. The Republican and Mazzinian agents are secreted everywhere; still I think that the only danger to be feared is that if things were to continue long in this state of suspense, with hardly any Government in fact, anarchists might cause mischief, although not triumph ultimately.

Yours, &c., &c.,

A. Panizzi.”

“I have just heard that the Austrians, most of them dressed in the uniform of the Duke of Modena, are gathering their forces to cross the Po, and come to the right of it.”

Amongst the numerous letters in our possession, written by Count Cavour to Panizzi, the most important and interesting, and at the 193same time the most truly characteristic, both in form and substance, of the great Statesman, is one dated the 24th of October, 1859. It was written from Leri, Cavour’s country seat. Thither he had, immediately after the war, retired for a time from public life, and with a heavy heart; for the obscurity in terms and apparent treachery of the Peace of Villafranca, had affected him with a torturing suspicion that he had been betrayed. It is something of a tribute to Cavour’s greatness that Rattazzi, who succeeded him, was fain, in his embarrassment in carrying on the Government, to seek the counsel of his predecessor, the flame of whose patriotism (however deeply wounded his own feelings may have been) burnt as brightly in his retirement as in office, as it needs but the following letter to show:—

The next letter to Mr. Ellice (to whom, as there was no one whom Panizzi so much loved and respected, he never lost an opportunity of communicating both the intelligence he received and his own comments and opinions thereonthereon) is lively and amusing, and contains much matter within a small compass. The observations on the Rattazzi Government probably in no wise exaggerate its defects:—

This may be fitly succeeded by two more letters from Panizzi to Mr. Ellice. To each reader’s judgment and discretion may fairly be left the decision whether the historical parallel in the second of these is thoroughly correct, and whether either Elizabeth or Cromwell had 200much notion of religious liberalism, or defended Protestantism on the ground of its being the liberal religion.

Two months after the date of the last-quoted letter, Panizzi received an interesting account of Southern Italy from Poerio, which is subjoined:—

While on the subject of Southern Italy we may remind our readers that there has been frequent mention made above of a gentleman, who, as a constant friend and correspondent of Panizzi, and as a prominent personage in Neapolitan matters, demands some further notice. Mr., afterwards Sir James Lacaita, was, previously to the year 1850, legal adviser to the British Legation at Naples. In this position, by his great official capacity, and by his well-proved exemplary character, he succeeded in gaining the friendship of Sir William Temple. He had the further good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mr. Gladstone, at the house of Lord Leven, who was spending a winter at Naples. This acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy, a consequence which was almost a matter of course, for Lacaita was well fitted to win the confidence and attract the liking of those who, themselves possessed of merit, could discover and value merit in others. Endowed with distinguished abilities, and a master of the English language; in political matters of sound and matured judgment, and (as will hereafter be seen) of unassailable honour and integrity; such very exceptional characteristics soon marked him out for invidious distinction by the partisans of King Bomba. On the 26th of December, 1850, he was arrested in the street as a dangerous person and thrown into prison. All his papers were ordered to be examined in his presence; 206but, Sir William Temple having requested the “Attaché” of the Legation, Mr. Fagan, to claim as many of these as possible in the name of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, a large proportion was thereby saved.

A certain note, however, which originated in a mere joke, was detained, and turned out to be the innocent cause of serious trouble. Previously to his arrest, Lacaita, in conjunction with Lord and Lady Leven and their three daughters, had planned a tour for eight days to La Cava, Salerno and Amalfi. In sportive mood it was laid down by the “tourists” that no authority of one over the other was to be recognised amongst the members of this party, and to distinguish nominally the perfect freedom and equality of the society, they dubbed themselves the “Republic.” It must have been with mingled feelings of indignation and gratification that the police discovered amongst the confiscated papers a note written by Lady Anne Melville, after the return from the tour, containing the words, Will you come to tea, and talk over the grand Republican days? In vain was it explained to the authorities that the note had no political significance, but the suspicious adjective was merely playful reference to the little temporary republic of “tourists,” and to no dangerous revolutionary organisation.

Either lacking a natural sense of humour, or holding jocosity to be impossible in so grave a matter as anything Republican in the then state of Italian politics, they altogether rejected this, to them, fanciful interpretation. The letter was registered (it is still in the archives of the Criminal Court of Naples), and 207formed one of the chief grounds for the charge of sedition and conspiracy brought against Lacaita.

In the summer of 1860, Cavour, well aware of the negotiations that were being carried on between England, France and Naples, and desirous of obtaining some trustworthy person to watch his interests, and supply him with information—and being, moreover, unable, for reasons which may be easily understood, to charge his own Minister, the Marquis d’Azeglio, with the mission—applied to Lacaita, who, on receiving the message, although laid up with severe illness, immediately rose from his bed and went straight to Lord Russell’s house. His Lordship, having an engagement with the Neapolitan Minister, had given direction that no person whatever should be admitted. Sir James, however, being intimate with the family, managed to see his Lordship, and was able there and then to turn the current of affairs in a totally different direction, and to prevent the French Ambassador Count Persigny, and his Neapolitan colleague the Marquis La Greca, from carrying out their plans. Had it not been for Sir James Lacaita’s prompt and skilful intervention, England would doubtless have been remitted to the position she had held in 1848.

Nothing now remained to those whom Lacaita had thus thwarted but to win him over to the side of Francis II., and this it was thought might be effected by offering him the post of Minister at the Court of St. James’s, in the room of Count Ludolf. The chief instrument employed for the conversion of this dangerous opponent was Signor Giovanni Manna, the Neapolitan Minister of Finance, who was now at Paris, 208whither he had been sent to negotiate a loan. Manna, who was a personal friend of Lacaita’s, started from Paris in August with the sole object of persuading him to accept the offer; holding out as a further inducement to a change of opinion a considerable bonus, besides a not insignificant salary and the title of Marquis, which might well be regarded as superseding the inferior rank of knighthood which had already been conferred upon him.

The unification of Italy was regarded by most politicians of the time, Lacaita included, as, to say the least of it, a remote possibility. To the King’s offer, and the numerous advantages accompanying it, Lacaita simply replied, This is bribery. In this conclusion he was supported by the advice of two distinguished statesmen, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Gladstone, and by a letter from Panizzi (dated Homburg, 23rd of August, 1860), which did not reach him until a few days after his refusal of the post:—

“... I willingly comply with your request, and frankly give you the advice which you ask on the point which you truly describe as delicate and knotty—that is, whether you ought to accept the appointment as Minister of His Sicilian Majesty at the Court of St. James’s.

“As Minister of that King you must first of all oppose the enterprise of Garibaldi, who wishes to unite the whole of Italy under one sole head, and if that head should be Victor Emmanuel, you, Sir James Lacaita, would have to support an abominable and cruel scion of an execrated race against the only Sovereign who has shown that he is an Italian; in 209fact, you would have to help in cutting up Italy. I do not presume to judge those gentlemen who have undertaken to serve his said Neapolitan Majesty; but they were on the spot, had served—at least some of them—the dynasty, and perhaps had not duly considered before they accepted their posts. But are you, who are free, and in your sober senses, to serve a Bourbon like him of Naples? Are you to stand by the side of those who proclaimed martial law?—you to join a Government which now shoots down the noblest Italians who have liberated Sicily from a detested yoke? No one cui sanum sinciput can believe that the King of Naples is to be trusted, when he gives utterance to the sentiments which he now pretends to profess, and every one who is not bereft of sense knows and feels that the man is still the faithful and true ally of Austria, the tool of the harsh stepmother, the blind and abject slave of the priesthood which has made Rome a sewer. And would you give your honoured name, your influence, your talents to a man without affection and without faith like that King? My dear Lacaita, that name, that influence, those talents belong to Italy and to an honourable King, not to a schismatic party—not to a perfidious and treacherous perjurer.

“I use strong expressions: the case justifies them. You may show this letter of mine to any one you please, and tell what I think without any reserve whatever!...”

In September, 1860, Panizzi paid another visit to Italy, of which, and of the condition of affairs in that country, he gave an account in the two following 210extracts from letters to Mr. Ellice, written after his return.

Some remarks on the evil which Garibaldi’s mistaken zeal was likely to produce on the state of Rome and on the French Emperor are well worth reading. The “confabulation” with the King at Turin, mentioned in the first letter, at which Cavour was present, was held in a stable with great secrecy. Only such passages are given as bear most directly on the history of the time:—

“... I have seen and had long confabulations with the King at Turin, and with the Emperor at Paris. I can tell you that Garibaldi, who seemed to have lost his senses, and who was surrounded by a set of scamps who made a fool and tool of him, honest fellow! will by this time have made an amende honorable, and submitted to the King, or be put down.

“Be assured that Cavour and the rational party in Italy (that is ninety-nine per cent. of the population) are not such fools as to attack Austria. It is owing to the threats of Garibaldi, the French Emperor having undertaken to preserve from injury or insult the person of the Pope, that the French garrison at Rome has been increased. But that garrison will not defend any part of the Papal territory except what it actually occupies; and should the Pope leave Rome, as he was on the point of doing ten days ago, the French will withdraw, and the Sardinian army occupy Rome.

“The note or letter of Lord John to Cavour has disgusted many and surprised all. I think it was 211written of his own accord, and perhaps without the knowledge of his colleagues. He who has been so long a consistent friend of Italy write such a letter, when the Government of the King of Sardinia was supposed to be in difficulties, and was in fact so! Those are the acts which make even the French Emperor popular, and which, by encouraging the despotic party in Germany, may kindle a war.... There will be no anarchy in Italy, and the Emperor Napoleon may be relied on.

“Nothing serves more in France than English abuse. Of this I am certain, and I have most curious proofs. I am also positive that he is personally a firm friend of England, and that he has more to do than people suppose to quiet the Anglophobia of the French.... I had the pleasure of seeing prisoner of war at Turin, that worthy companion in arms of Monsignor Lamoricière, Monsignor Schmidt, he who butchered people at Perugia where he was obliged to surrender at last. It was delightful to see the provoking indifference with which the Piedmontese looked at him.... Cavour wanted to make a present of several hundred Irishmen taken prisoners to the English Government, but the present was respectfully declined....”

“... I am astonished to see the Paris correspondent of The Times allowed to write as he does about the King of Sardinia and his Minister. His misrepresentations are all directed to disparage them all and so far favourable to Austria. In to-day’s number that correspondent, in order to throw discredit on Cavour’s statement, said that he was not 212to be believed, as he had asked Savoy although he had promised not to give up any part of the Piedmontese territory. The King is represented as swearing and mad with rage whenever the cession of Savoy is mentioned. Now I have spoken to the King about this transaction, and have most respectfully said things which were, from their nature, calculated to irritate. The King was not irritated, he was not in a rage, and did not swear; he spoke with great moderation, and with great feeling. I was struck with it....”

Our budget of correspondence, which has been resorted to more copiously than was at first intended, may be closed, so far as this chapter is concerned, by a letter from Panizzi to Mr. Gladstone, which is given in its entiretyentirety:—

The author is well aware that nothing short of his long-standing intimacy with the subject of this “Memoir” could justify the introduction into the work of anything approaching egotism, unless it were to illustrate an essential point in the character of which he is treating; but in writing of the year 1860, recollections crowd upon the memory which he trusts his readers will excuse him for committing to paper. In that same year he (then a boy of thirteen) was sent, under the charge of a Queen’s Messenger, from Naples to a school in England. Arriving in London, he was most kindly received by Panizzi, and well remembers his first interview with one who was thenceforth to be his staunchest friend. Not that this was the first time that the latter had bestowed his good offices upon the 214family of the writer, whose eldest brother, now Major Fagan, owes and acknowledges a debt of gratitude for the kindness received at his hands in youthful days, and up to the time of receiving his Commission and starting for India in 1859.

But pleasant and important as it would be, for some reasons, to dwell upon many happy reminiscences of uninterrupted intercourse with a pre-eminent man, the task which is here undertaken leads us to more serious matters relating to that period, and that yet remain to occupy the space which should be devoted rather to the information of our readers than to a recital of personal recollections.

215

England in 1859; Relations with France; First Visit to Biarritz; Napoleon III; Letters from Gladstone, Mérimée, Fould and Ellice.

The formation of a new and extensive kingdom, as might have been expected, was a question of too deep moment not to exercise an important, though indirect influence on England’s relations with States nearer and more powerful than Italy. It is purposed in the present chapter to deal with events more immediately affecting this country rather than Italian politics. England, in 1859, did not occupy her former high and stable position amongst the nations of Europe. Her late struggle with Russia had taught her a lesson which had not been neglected; she had gained strength it is true, but not in such a degree as to render altogether unwarrantable the disparaging taunts in which certain foreign Statesmen indulged at her expense. ‘Of a truth,’ says the prince of comic writers, ‘wise folk learn a good many things from their enemies’ (Aristophanes, The Birds 1, 387), and well do the words apply to England, who then learnt 216wisdom from her foes. Bitter experiences in the Crimea taught us the miserable insufficiency of our military system, and already action had commenced for future improvement. Regarding, not unreasonably, with some feeling of alarm the threatening aspect of Continental affairs, we had at last opened our eyes to the knowledge that the dispersion of the troops retained in the country over all parts of the United Kingdom (and of these, many, in the sister isle, employed on what may be considered as little better than police duty) was not the policy most adapted to secure home defence, or to maintain that army in the fittest condition for service abroad. It was in the year 1859 that the Volunteer force of Great Britain, which, with the exception of one solitary battalion, had been extinct since the beginning of the century, was revived, or, to speak more accurately, sprang up into a fresh existence: indeed, in the succeeding year the movement acquired strength so rapidly as to appear before the nation as an army, imperfect naturally and undeveloped, but giving such promises of efficiency as have since been so fully and amply ratified.

It is not our intention to enter on the subject of reforms in the regular army which ensued, nor is there any necessity to detail all the circumstances which led England to turn her attention to her own safety, and in the interests of this to set her house in order. The causes for apprehension may have been exaggerated, but that they were altogether without foundation is incredible. It is indisputable that after the cession of Nice and Savoy to the Emperor of the 217French, disquieting rumours as to his further intentions were afloat. His next project, it was said, was the annexation of Geneva, and among other means of aggrandisement which he contemplated, one was an advance of the French frontier to the Ebro, in exchange for which Spain was to receive aid and support in the subjugation of Portugal. These designs of the Emperor were not only freely discussed in society, but set forth in pamphlets apparently stamped with Imperial authority. Lord Palmerston watched with much misgiving the great additional military and naval preparations on the part of France, and to him they were a source of grave anxiety; nor must these rumours, magnified and distorted as they may have been, be regarded by us with contempt, when it is known that such keen observers, and acute politicians, as the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, and Panizzi himself, viewed them with perturbed reflections.

In this year (1860), Panizzi, for the first time, had been invited by His Majesty Napoleon III. to spend his holidays at Biarritz, in company with his old friend Prosper Mérimée. Correspondence of much importance is here adduced, and is given in full, as bearing upon the suspicions and presages of evil already referred to. The first letter in order is from the pen of Panizzi to Mérimée, and from it may be gathered all that is needful of the dreaded omens which threatened to disturb the peaceful relations existing between England and France, whose alliance involved the peace of the whole civilized world, whilst its rupture would throw broadcast the seeds of dissension and of war. The letters themselves indicate the close relations 218between the two correspondents, and their intimacy, will be reverted to hereafter:—

M. Mérimée’s reply partakes much of the style of the special pleader. Whilst he strongly disclaims his belief in the Emperor’s bad faith, as suggested by 221Panizzi, his defence of Louis Napoleon seems hardly inconsistent with the truth of certain of the allegations. He himself appears to have considered his criticism of English policy the strongest point in his letter:—

We next offer Mr. Gladstone’s opinion of England’s relations with France, and would draw attention to the sense of security pervading his expressions in a letter to Panizzi. How these sentiments were modified at a later date will be shown further on:—

Panizzi’s letter of September 30, above-quoted, was forwarded by Mérimée to M. Achille Fould, and in due course he replied, commenting on it. As the correspondence would be incomplete without this, it is inserted, but the contents scarcely call for any special remarks on our part.

226(For “Ferdinand,” infra, read “François.”)

227Now follows the exposition of Mr. Gladstone’s modified views, set forth in two letters. From these we gather that, on further observation, he had come to regard the conduct of the Emperor of the French, both in Italy and elsewhere, as somewhat more than equivocal, and as calculated to engender strife, and threaten the existing peaceful relations of the two countries:—

The substance of these two letters was forthwith communicated as follows by Panizzi to Mérimée:—

231The following letter to Count Cavour, the only one in our possession, will serve to show Panizzi’s opinions of the real intent of the policy of Louis Napoleon towards Italy—an opinion not, in our own judgment, destitute of considerable support from facts:—

What schemes and intentions the Emperor may have secretly entertained at this period (if, indeed, such a creature of circumstances can be supposed to have been capable of possessing fixed intentions beyond the exigencies of the hour) will probably remain hidden from human ken until records now in obscure recesses shall come out into the light of publicity. That ambitious ideas floated through his brain, and that, if it had been possible to carry out his projects, he would have hesitated but little about the means of executing them, there is little doubt; but that, for some reason, he did not see the way to their fulfilment seems 233equally certain. Happily—and probably owing to the firm attitude of England—the cloud passed over, and no rupture occurred between the two great powers. In a little more than two years after the date of the letter last quoted, Panizzi received from the Emperor a second invitation to Biarritz. What led to this invitation we find him thus explaining to his friend Ellice:—

This chapter may close with part of a letter from Panizzi to Mr. Gladstone, wherein he appears to give the result of his visit to Biarritz, and of his conversations with the Emperor Napoleon. Much of the provocation stated by the writer to have been given to His Majesty it is difficult to deny; but those who have studied the subject, or retain any memory of the circumstances of the time, will agree that the conduct of the Emperor himself was the chief source of all those accusations, true or false, which were brought against him.

Here we abandon this subject: leaving at the same time material for much thought as to the instability of all human events, either private or public, and as to the uncertainty of individual character. How inconspicuous may be the turning-point upon which hangs the good or evil of the future, and with what jealous care the actions of the powerful and ambitious should be watched; how a thought or a word may lead to the misery and destruction of thousands; and how soon all that was fair, prosperous, and peaceful may be turned into hideous bloodshed, dissension, and misery! Like the Cæsars of old, the Napoleonic dynasty was ever craving for increased dominion; and although we, who live in these later days, have seen the last hopes of Imperial power in France seemingly extinguished, as we look back to the time when such haughty spirits had to be kept in check, we cannot 236but feel a certain amount of gratitude that such contingencies are unlikely ever again to inspire us with apprehension from so formidable a quarter.

237

Ill Health; Extra Leave; Deputy Principal Librarian; Departure for Naples; Storm; Naples; Excursions; La Cava; Monte Cassino; Monastic Societies; Return to England.

After his return from Biarritz the strain to which the constitution of Panizzi had been subjected by his laborious life gave him decided warning of failing powers. Amongst other disagreeable symptoms he suffered much from insomnia. On several occasions he informed the author of these memoirs that he feared he should be compelled to relinquish his position at the British Museum; nevertheless he continued to carry on his work with ardour. He rose every morning at 8 o’clock, and appeared at his post by 10. Struggling against growing infirmities, and using every means to restore his health and perform his duties, he applied to the Trustees for leave of absence from the 15th of Dec., 1862, to the 1st of May following. It need not be said that his request was granted. As Principal Librarian it was incumbent on him before leaving to fix upon some competent officer to discharge his important duties; and this substitute he very soon found in the person of his longwhile colleague Mr. J. 238Winter Jones, at that time Keeper of the Printed Book Department. This gentleman he nominated as his deputy in accordance with the rules of the Institution set forth in the 2nd Chap., §§ 2 and 3 of the statutes. The document, which gave legal force to this temporary transfer of office, was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, on the 9th of December, 1862. Soon afterwards Panizzi received a kind and sympathizing letter from Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, dated December 16, 1862:—

On the 18th of December Panizzi, accompanied by the author, who had been sent from school, started for Naples. So far as Marseilles the journey was satisfactorily accomplished, the travellers occupying a special carriage, provided by order of the Emperor. Panizzi had called on His Majesty on his way through 239Paris, and thus this accommodation had been afforded him. Arriving at Marseilles, the travellers embarked on board one of the Messageries steamers, trusting to reach Naples by Christmas Day. A terrific storm, however, which burst upon them shortly after starting, delayed their progress; so severe was it that at one moment they were in jeopardy of their lives. At last, after a most tedious passage, Civita-Vecchia was sighted. Here they landed, and, leaving it on the following day, reached Naples on the 26th.

As in 1852, Panizzi went to Lady Holland’s residence at the Palazzo Roccella, whence he sent Mr. Ellice (January 13, 1863) his first observations on the changes which had taken place at Naples:—

“... This country, after centuries of misgovernment, will take many years before it derives from the new state of things the advantages which we all wish; there is, however, an undeniable improvement, in spite of the priests, the brigands, and the Emperor of the French, in everything. The dislike of the Bourbons is general, and there is no Muratist party; but the late Italian Ministry has done everything in its power to create dissatisfaction by the pedantry of its regulations, the total disregard of the habits, feelings, and prejudices of this ignorant population, and the incredible want of tact in its agents.”

Just at the time of the arrival at Naples, an English gentleman had been arrested there on the charge of being the bearer of treasonable letters from Rome. He happened to be a friend of Panizzi’s, and consequently no little anxiety and apprehension arose in the mind of the latter regarding his future destiny. 240On an early day in January therefore, Panizzi, Lord Henry Lennox, and the writer set out to visit the prisoner; the necessary permission to do so was not, however, obtained without considerable difficulty. By an extract from a letter on this case, written by the first-named to a friend, it seems that since the disappearance of the old régime some considerable improvement in the treatment of political offenders had been introduced:—

Panizzi took a sensible view of the way of enjoying and availing himself of the advantages of a vacation. To his active mind, perfect quiescence was not for a moment to be tolerated; and he resolved upon that wholesome and necessary recreation and diversion, which have so great a tendency to restore relaxed vigour. Delightful were the excursions made in and around Naples. One of these was to the celebrated Benedictine Monastery of La Trinità della Cava, founded in 1011 by Alferius Pappacarboni, its first Abbot. Here the library, with its rare and priceless 241contents, was, as may be imagined, the chief point of attraction. The visitors were to have been accompanied by the then abbot, Pappalettere, who, as well as Padre Tosti, of Monte Cassino, was a much esteemed friend of both Mr. Gladstone and Panizzi. Unfortunately Pappalettere had lately got himself into bad odour with the Pope, having rashly expressed himself respecting the Italian cause in terms too favourable to suit the taste of his Holiness, and had, in consequence, been summoned to Rome to give an account of his conduct. Panizzi, consulted as to the course he would recommend him to adopt, at once advised him to disregard the invitation, and to remain quietly where he was—sound advice, and, as the sequel shows, wise, had it been acted on. There are individuals, however, who, asking for advice, disregard it, and adopt the contrary course; and in this instance one of this class was Pappalettere. Obeying the Pope, he went to Rome, and, as a reward for his obedience, underwent what can be expressed by no other words than some years of close confinement. On one expedition to La Cava the travellers had a narrow escape from a sudden termination to their earthly career. In proceeding along a portion of the road, bordering on a deep precipice, either from the overladen state of the carriage or from the bad condition of the road, a wheel came off. The promptitude and agility of the driver, saved the party from inevitable destruction. Jumping down, he at once pulled the horses from the threatening precipice; but for his presence of mind the writer would not have been here to record the mishap nor to present the world with this memoir.

242Another visit in the neighbourhood was to Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict A.D. 529, on the site of a temple of Apollo. It is situated on a mountain from which it derives its name, near the ruins of the ancient Casinum, and approached by a well-paved and winding road, the ascent of which occupies about two hours. The Abbey in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was the seat of science, particularly of medicine, the celebrated School of Salerno having been founded by the monks of Monte Cassino.

Of this monastery, Dante thus speaks in Canto XXII. of the “Paradiso,” line 37:—

At the time of this visit the founder’s tomb was in course of restoration, and amongst those who contributed to the good work was Mr. Gladstone, who requested 243Panizzi to pay, in his name, to the restoration fund the sum of 100 ducats, equivalent to about £16 of English money.

One of the first acts of the newly-established Government of Italy was the suppression of the religious houses. Although it cannot be denied by the candid student of history that, in mediæval times, Monastic Societies were of the utmost benefit, and, indeed, in many respects, actually necessary to civilization, and to many other important ends; and although the debt we owe them for the preservation of literature and art, which, but for their fostering care, would have eternally perished, can never be duly estimated; yet it must be admitted by the most determined lover of antiquity that, in the state of modern society, the monastery is at the present day somewhat out of place. The ends such Institutions formerly subserved, and their power to subserve such ends, have alike become extinct. In our times they appear to exist simply to perpetuate the vicious and unreasonable principle that a man may live in the world, yet not be of it, that he may cast aside his duties as a citizen and every feeling which binds him to his country, sacrificing such sacred obligations to the devout (and selfish) care of his own soul.

At the time of which we write, Italy, above all nations, abounded to superfluity in these establishments; and suspicions, not ill-founded nor unreasonable, were entertained of the loyalty of some of their members, from the perpetual drain made by them on the able-bodied population.

It is, however, to be regretted that the officials to 244whom was entrusted the dissolution of the convents of Italy did not set about their far from pleasant duties in such a manner as to contrast more favourably with the conduct of Henry VIII. under similar circumstances, whereas they displayed an amount of harshness and brutality—nay, cruelty—calculated to throw discredit not only on themselves, but on the country by which they were employed, and, what is more serious still, on the character of Italians in general.

Panizzi, ever alive to injustice and cruelty, and jealous of the fair fame of his country, with an equal abhorrence of the wrongs committed in the name of freedom and of a liberal constitution, though weighed with the tyrannies of King Bomba, was especially indignant at the conduct of the Commission. On this painful subject he gave free vent to his feelings in a letter dated the 13th of January, 1863, and, as the following lines will show, did not confine himself to a simple expression of feeling:—

245Similar sentiments are expressed in another letter to Mr. Gladstone, from which the following is an extract:

These honourable protests against oppression, and possibly others more openly made in language equally forcible, caused an abundance of silly surmises and talk of the conversion of Panizzi, and of his having become an adherent of the Pope and of the Bourbons, &c., &c.

Utterly unworthy as were these of being repeated, we should leave the subject unmentioned, did it not afford the opportunity of introducing a letter, dated Turin, the 2nd of April, 1863, too important to be omitted, from that distinguished diplomatist and most amiable of men, Sir James Hudson:—

On the 1st of May, 1863, Panizzi returned to his duties at the Museum; and with melancholy reflections we must here record that his life of action had 247practically reached its limits; not, however, that the patriot’s zeal had in any way decayed, nor had the politician’s interest in public affairs relaxed one iota.

To this point we have endeavoured briefly to follow up the fortunes of Italy from the year 1820. How much energy had been expended, how many lives of her truest sons had been devoted to the achievement of her liberty and union, and how far England had lent her powerful aid towards the accomplishment of the dearest wishes of patriotic Italians, it is beyond our province to discuss, and we leave such questions to be answered in the sterner pages of history.

Though natural decay crept on Panizzi, and though he felt his powers decreasing, he still continued his activity of body and mind, not resigning himself, as many men would have done, to indolence and absolute rest, but still taking an interest in all that was occurring around him, proffering aid and counsel where it was required or willingly received, and turning a stern countenance to everything approaching injustice.

Returning to his official duties in England, he cheerfully resigned the beauties of his native Italy, although to him they must have had an especial charm, and doubtless he coincided with the patriotic Neapolitan who exclaimed:—

Yet not in this balmy air, nor within the influences of that sea whose azure tint delights the eye did he linger; duty called him thence, and at the post of duty was Panizzi ever to be found.

248

Death of Mr Ellice; Garibaldi in London; Massimo d’Azeglio; Foscolo’s remains removed to Florence; Panizzi’s desire to Retire; Correspondence; Death of Lord Palmerston; Superannuation; Portrait; Museum Staff; Private Residence.

During 1863 Panizzi repeated his visit to Biarritz, and his Italian friends urged him to see the Emperor Napoleon, and to cultivate that potentate’s friendship. With reference to their arguments, he thus wrote to Mr Ellice: ‘I am urged by Lacaita and Pasolini to go, who think I may do some good, which I do not hope in the least.’ However, he went; but on the 15th of October, 1863, he wrote to Mrs Haywood: ‘I have been abroad on a visit to the Emperor and the Empress of the French, with whom I spent four weeks. I might have remained a little longer, but on receiving the news of the death of Mr. Ellice, the greatest friend I had lost since I lost one (Mr. Haywood) still more dear to me, and to whom I owed more, I hasten back to England.... My rheumatic pains have become more violent, and curiously, or rather unfortunately enough, my right wrist is more 249affected than my other joints, which renders my writing always difficult and painful—at times impossible. As you may conceive, as writing is what I must do, this distresses me greatly. At night, too, I suffer particularly, and am kept from sleeping, so that in the daytime I cannot work as energetically as I used to do, and as is required of one who fills my place. I have often thought of resigning, but the Trustees won’t hear of it, and flatter me by saying I am absolutely necessary to the Museum, which I do not think!’

In fact Panizzi, with all his conscientious care of himself, that he might still be fit for office, had never succeeded in rooting out the seeds of that illness from which he suffered so much in 1862. The same exhausting sleeplessness at night wore him out, and every symptom of disease seemed aggravated. How acute were his sufferings the biographer well remembers, and how, notwithstanding all, he never relaxed the undeviating regularity of his attendance to official duties.

His health was in the very worst state when he received from General Garibaldi a letter—very brief—announcing an intention of visiting London. This news, which, under other circumstances, might have been a source of unalloyed gratification, was not altogether welcome, as it foreboded extra work in Panizzi’s then condition, and 250he well knew that on him would devolve much extra care and supervision on behalf of the great patriot. The entry of this illustrious hero into the metropolis, the manner of his reception by the people, and the acclamations with which so popular a stranger was greeted, will not have faded from the recollection of the majority of our readers. On the 15th of April, 1864, Garibaldi dined with Panizzi. The guests entertained at the banquet were the Duke of Sutherland, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Wodehouse, Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, Sir John, now Lord Acton, and the present writer. At the end of dinner the General addressed his host, expressing a strong and sincere desire to visit the tomb of Ugo Foscolo, whose friendship for the subject of the memoir has been mentioned in a former chapter, and who was buried, it will be remembered, at Chiswick.

In accordance with this wish, at the early hour of five o’clock on the morning of the 20th of April, Panizzi and the present writer started from the Museum to call on the General. They found him in bed, half asleep; but, in compliance with their summons, he arose, and in somewhat less than ten minutes came downstairs, having thus promptly prepared himself, as became a soldier.

A brougham was ready to convey the three to their destination at Chiswick; and it was on this occasion that, for the first time, was suggested the advisability of Garibaldi’s departure from London. Arrived at Foscolo’s tomb, the General requested his friend to address the crowd which their appearance had collected 251from all sides; the latter did not, however, hesitate to declare frankly that such a course would be contrary to the customs of this country. Not far from these two distinguished personages stood, towering above those surrounding him, a brewer’s man, of gigantic proportions, who delivered himself in the following words:—Gentlemen, the man who is buried there has done with the pen what Garibaldi has accomplished with the sword! Nothing in the way of a speech could have been more appropriate, and so thought all present.

Panizzi had written to Massimo d’Azeglio on the subject of Garibaldi’s visit to London and his reception there. Azeglio’s most interesting reply will be 252found at page 478 of the Lettere ad Antonio Panizzi, &c., Firenze, 1880, and will repay perusal. It is dated the 25th of July, 1864, and occupies six pages, but space will only allow us to give some extracts in a free translation:—

“I have always admired Garibaldi. When he was beaten at Cesenatico I treated for peace with Austria, and endeavoured to save him. Then I got him a pension which he accepted for his mother and refused for himself. I think with you that he is one of the choicest natures created by the Almighty—a lover of his country, enterprising, substantially humane and generous, averse to cupidity, and he has rendered eminent services ... but, after all, let me add that no deserts, no extent of service, entitle a citizen to set himself above the laws of his country and to violate them. No one is allowed to create imperium in imperio, to treat with his sovereign as an equal, to outrage and ignore the constituted authorities, or to assume the permanent decision of peace and war.... Garibaldi, by instinct shy and mild, has been thrust forward by scamps for their own purposes, and they have intoxicated him with flattery that would have turned the brain of the hardest head, much more his....

“You say that we are behindhand in respect for the laws, and that we ought to follow the example of the English. Let us see:—

“After Aspromonte I was a member of the Council of Ministers which was to decide the fate of Garibaldi. I said: Bring him to trial like any other citizen, and after sentence let him he immediately pardoned by the King.... But it was thought better to grant him 253amnesty, which he refused, saying that he had only done his duty.... Many of the Council were of my opinion, and so were most of the people in the country.... Before Aspromonte Garibaldi was elected by acclamation in thirty districts; after Aspromonte by ballot in two. The Italians said, we don’t want prophets above the laws; one said even, we don’t want him to come as a second Redeemer.

“Do you think we are so very much behindhand?

“Let us now turn to the English people. Garibaldi went to them with the harbinger of a fantastic legend such as no one ever had before. I should have thought it natural for him to be received, applauded, exalted, clubbefied, and dinnered by the whole population, including the Italians in London. But that a man who boasted of superiority to the laws, a man still reeking with the blood of Italian soldiers whom he had slain, should be officially received by the State, by Parliament, by the Ministers, by the heir of the English throne, with honours never accorded to any sovereign ... and this while he who was receiving them was the declared friend of Mazzini, who, could he have got the chance, would have had all such personages hanged, that this should have happened amongst a people that thinks it has a mission to preserve intact the idea of truth, of justice, and of honour, must be bitterly deplored by every one of sound common sense, and I cannot persuade myself that you think differently.”

To this we will append a translation of another letter from the same writer, which will speak for itself.

In April, 1871, Panizzi received a semi-official letter from General Menabrea, announcing the proposed removal to Florence of Foscolo’s remains. We are bound to say that the recipient did not much approve of this step. He was of opinion that in Santa Croce, where are the tombs of Dante, Michael Angelo, Galileo, Macchiavelli, Alfieri, &c., &c., the exiled patriot would be out of place. However, the following inscription will tell the tale of the interment, removal, and final deposition:—

On the East end of tomb:—

On the South side:—

On the North side:—

256In speaking of Mazzini, mention has been made how the biographer undertook the delivery of a message which resulted in the departure of Garibaldi.

The reader’s forbearance must be solicited for the abruptness with which one subject succeeds another, but at present we are relating a succession of occurrences, not deeply important, yet too interesting and too deeply connected with our narrative to be altogether omitted before entering upon sterner topics. The following note of invitation to Mr. Gladstone is of an amusing character:—

Such was the natural humour of the man that, as in this instance, he seldom forebore from giving a jocose turn to his subject when opportunity afforded.

257The first written intimation of Panizzi’s serious wish to resign his high office is to be found in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, dated May 25th, 1865.

This letter shows how deeply the thought of separation from his beloved Institution, on which he had centered all his energies and aspirations, affected him, and how cogent must have been the reasons which impelled him to meditate such a step.

258Mr. Gladstone’s reply was most complimentary, but showed little inclination to fall in with the contemplated scheme; it consisted of original Italian verses, and admirable Italian too, a fine specimen of the abilities of the great statesman in a language not his own.

On the 24th of June, 1865, however, Panizzi informed the Committee of the Trustees that, in justice to the Museum, as well as to himself, the state of his health compelled him, much against his will, to tender to Her Majesty the resignation of his appointment as Principal Librarian. The Report in which he made this communication ran as follows:—

“Mr. Panizzi respectfully represents that he is reluctantly compelled, humbly to beg of the Queen to accept his resignation of the place of Principal Librarian, to which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to appoint him. Mr. Panizzi regrets being obliged, after long hesitation, to take this step; but he finds that neither in justice to this great Institution nor to himself, he ought to continue to hold a place, the duties of which, to be efficiently performed, require a vigour, not only of mind but of body, which Mr. Panizzi is conscious that he no longer possesses.

“Mr. Panizzi hopes that the Trustees will add to the many acts of kindness with which they have been pleased to honour him, that of submitting to Her Majesty’s Treasury the accompanying statement of Mr. Panizzi’s services, and of recommending their Lordships to award him such a superannuation allowance as they may consider just, under the circumstances, in conformity with the Superannuation Act, 1859, sections 2592 and 9, with the Treasury letter of the 7th of June, 1860, and with the Treasury Minute of the 24th of August of the same year.

“Should the Trustees do Mr. Panizzi the honour of considering that, on his resignation being accepted by Her Majesty, his knowledge of Museum affairs might be of use to the Trustees for a limited period, to be fixed by themselves, Mr. Panizzi will feel proud if his humble gratuitous services be accepted, until his successor can enter on his duties and become familiar with them.

“As a mark of respect to the Trustees, Mr. Panizzi begs to submit to them his letter of resignation, previously to transmitting it to the Secretary of State to be laid before Her Majesty.”

In consequence of this the subjoined resolutions were passed:—

The Trustees present on the occasion were:—The Speaker, in the Chair, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Eversley, Lord Taunton, The Right Hon. S. H. Walpole, The Right Hon. B. Disraeli, The Right Hon. R Lowe, Sir P. de M. Grey Egerton, Bart., Sir R. I. Murchison, Dr. Milman, Major-General Sabine, C. Towneley, Esq., and G. Grote, Esq.

On the 7th of July following, Sir George Grey wrote in answer:—

“... It is with sincere regret that I have learnt that you no longer feel yourself fully equal to the duties of an office which you have so long filled in a manner entirely satisfactory to the Trustees, and eminently conducive to the interests of the Museum.”

He then refers to the resolutions of the Trustees, and continues:—

“Under these circumstances it would afford H.M.’s Government much satisfaction if, without risk of injury to your health, you could continue your valuable services to the Museum, at least until early in the next year. I shall be obliged by your informing me 261whether you can concur in this arrangement, before I lay the tender of your resignation before Her Majesty.”

The amount of the retiring allowance was £1,400 per annum, a goodly solace for old age and infirmities, yet none too much for the unremitting zeal Panizzi had evinced in the exercise of his important duties.

On the 8th of July he reported to the Trustees his willingness to place himself entirely in their hands, and to continue, should they desire it, his services for a while, an offer of which the Standing Committee gladly availed themselves, expressing a hope that he would continue his valuable exertions until the following year.

Let us, however, leave the Museum, for a few minutes whilst we draw attention to that which, at the time, assumed the proportions of a national calamity.

On the 18th of October, 1865, Lord Palmerston departed this life. How severe a blow this was to Panizzi may be judged from our frequent allusions to the veneration in which he held the distinguished statesman; and that Mr. Gladstone thoroughly understood, and entered into his feelings, the letter now quoted will show:—

Another year was entered upon, and the Principal Librarian yearned for rest. On the 5th of June, 1866, he addressed a letter to Sir George Grey, earnestly requesting that he might be released from his official duties, and on the 18th of the same month received an answer from the Treasury informing him that immediate steps would be taken to appoint a successor. Eight days afterwards, on the 26th of June, Mr. John Winter Jones was selected as the new Principal Librarian. On finally relinquishing his post, Panizzi addressed the following circular letter to the heads of Departments:—

Numerous and hearty were the responses, and it must have been highly gratifying to their recipient to know that his endeavours had gained the approval of all, and that, now that the battle was over, so far as he was concerned, he could rest satisfied with his own share in the struggle which had ended so triumphantly for himself. It will be unnecessary to quote more than one of the replies, that from his successor:—

265Shortly after he left his post a subscription was set on foot throughout the Museum to present him with a fitting testimonial; this ultimately took the form of a portrait painted by Mr. George Frederick Watts, R.A. It is now hung in, and forms one of the chief ornaments of the Trustees’ Committee-Room. As a likeness it is perfect, by far the most successful example of the kind; as a picture it is one of the finest works of the painter, the modern Tintoretto. Produced in a low and yet powerful key of colour, the whole work exhibits a potent combination of ruddy-brown carnations, with black broken into deep greys—tints which are admirably harmonized with each other, and so happily toned as to produce just and broad chiaro-oscuro. The figure is life-size, three-quarters length, seated in three-quarters view to our right, and easily, as well as sedately, posed in a large chair; the head is slightly bent forward, and the eyes, although directed towards the spectator, are not directed at him; they have an expression of habitual thoughtfulness which is very striking when its influence is felt by the observer, and this is not the less effective because it is undemonstrative. Owing to the position of the eyes themselves, no reflections of the light appear on their surfaces, which by no means common circumstance adds to the gravity, and even to the dignity of the picture, and is perfectly faithful to nature. It increases the repose of the work, and excludes that which is often a disturbing element in designs of equal simplicity and breadth of motive. The steadfast expression of the features, and the restful attitudes of the body and 266hands, are valuable elements of this very important and impressive master-piece of painting.

We have given an exact and faithful account of the causes which led to Panizzi’s resignation of the office which he had held with honour for so many years, of the manner in which it was carried out, and of the testimonials which it evoked. We have now merely to mention that in the House of Lords a scene was enacted similar to that which took place in the House of Commons on the 21st of April, 1856. Whoever is anxious and willing to enter more fully into that controversy, unpleasant as it was, need only examine Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, Monday, February the 12th, 1866.

Let us give Panizzi’s own words to prove whether or not he was pleased and satisfied with the treatment he received at the hands of the Trustees. He thus wrote to Mrs. Haywood, on the 15th of July, 1866:—

“The Trustees have behaved most handsomely, and so has the Government, both in words and deeds. First of all ample justice, and perhaps some may say more than justice, was rendered to my long and many services. I shall certainly remain in London, the pension I am to get being ample for my wants; and now, my dear Mrs. Haywood, let me add a few words from my heart. The first feeling, when my future was settled, was one of deep grief, that the friend who would have so heartily rejoiced at the close of my honourable career, who cheered me when lonely and unknown, who thought of my welfare as much as he did of his own, that he was no longer here. This feeling overwhelmed me for a moment, and even now I can hardly master it.”

267It was a common remark of Panizzi’s that during his long official career he had never, with very few exceptions, (and even then he felt he had acted for the best) shown favour to any one employed in the British Museum who had not afterwards become an honour to the Institution, and of this we have ample documentary evidence, dating so far back as the year 1837.

In the month of June, 1855, requiring the services of a Hebrew scholar, he applied to the firm of Asher, of Berlin, to recommend such a gentleman. Accordingly a certain young man of 23, and a Jew, endowed with natural ability, who understood Latin, Greek, and French, of strict moral integrity, and of faultless character, and thoroughly respectable was introduced to the Keeper of the Printed Books; this was Emanuel Deutsch, afterwards well-known as the writer of several letters to The Times respecting the discovery and reading of the Moabite Stone, and the article in the Quarterly Review on the Talmud. This Assistant was one whose talents his superior officer did not fail to recognise. Unfortunately death claimed him at an early age on the 14th of May, 1873.

It is a somewhat delicate subject to touch upon, but, as we are discussing these matters, we feel bound to mention by name others who were, in a manner of speaking, Panizzi’s children; and let us hope we are not exaggerating or exceeding our proper limits by remarking that they looked up to him as their protector and adviser. For example, Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, the present Keeper of MSS., was ever held by him in high estimation, and also, in an equal 268degree, were Mr. John T. Taylor, Mr. John Cleave, and Mr. Richard Garnett.

The first of these became his intimate friend, and it was also through his intervention that Mr. Taylor gave such valuable literary aid to the late Princess Mary Liechtenstein, in the compilation of the interesting volumes entitled “Holland House.” Mr. Cleave, then, as now, the Accountant of the Museum, had, as we know, many lengthy discussions with Panizzi on financial matters, and, indeed, the opinions of the latter on these points were always regarded as decisive. Greatly esteemed also was Mr. Garnett, whose appointment as Superintendent of the Reading-Room rejoiced the ex-Librarian extremely. Nor, although he has left the Museum, should the name of Mr. W. R. S. Ralston remain unmentioned.

Many more names might be enumerated; one, however, we will not omit—that of the clever mechanician and metal-worker, Mr. Sparrow, who, by his ingenuity, contrived or carried out many appliances for the comfort of the aged Librarian. All were labouring in unison as Panizzi’s barque was nearing the harbour, after its eventful voyage; and truly reciprocal were the feelings of friendship and respect which had grown up between Panizzi and his fellow-workers—friendship in full stream, flowing from the purest sources.

In this manner, applauded on all sides, beloved and respected, did the Principal Librarian retire from the position he had gained step by step by hard and uninterrupted labour. Still the memory of the past clung to him—still he would have devoted, had it 269been possible, his waning physical and mental strength to the internal and external workings of that Institution upon which he had so persistently set his heart. His own words bear witness to the affection he retained for the vicinity of his past efforts:—“I have got,” wrote he, “a house. It is in a very unfashionable quarter, though very respectable, near here, being 31, Bloomsbury Square.” So it was that he still desired to linger with his memories and experiences within sight of the building which had cost him so much in brain and body, and those who read these pages may easily conceive how far his thoughts were interwoven with his expressions.

We have endeavoured faithfully to detail the circumstances of this eventful life, until the time arrived when, succumbing to the stern dictates of nature, Panizzi was compelled to retire behind those scenes which his presence had so long graced.

When the actor or the author departs from the boards where his production or his acting has delighted audiences, how acute is the grief of parting with his admirers! Who does not remember the almost ominous words of the late Charles Dickens, when, at the last of his readings, he made use of the remarkable expression, From these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell? These words—though, of course, not exactly applicable to the present case—may be strained so far as to indicate the deep feeling with which a different, but not less successful, contributor to public requirements was severing himself from labours which had been 270to him pre-eminently a “labour of love,” and may justly be cited as implying the same affectionate remembrance of his fellow-workers and those who appreciated his undoubtedly great abilities. In addition to a faithful recital of facts and an unprejudiced view of the career of the chosen subject of any memoir, a biographer owes somewhat more to his readers. No life is worth recounting unless it affords an example worth following, or unless it is acknowledged at the first to have been set forth for some other specific purpose, either as mere matter for history, or as the life of one whose errors were so great that it is thought advisable to reproduce them as a warning to future would-be evil-doers.

Nothing appertains to the present biography but an intent to put before the world a man who, under the most adverse circumstances and with the most beneficial intentions, by sheer perseverance and by unflinching energy, attained the object of his heart’s desire—a desire that has redounded to his lasting praise.

No words of our own shall be used. Let those of Dean Milman be quoted as our justification for what has been already said of the subject of our memoir. On the 5th of February, 1866, writing from the “Deanery of St. Paul’s,” he used these words:—“As to his (Panizzi’s) public services, his long and most careful connection with the British Museum cannot be more fully or justly appreciated than by yourself” (this letter was addressed to Sir R. I. Murchison), “and I am sure that we should entirely agree on this subject. Above all, the great national gift of the Reading-Room, the envy and admiration of Europe, is, as 271you well know, almost his entire creation, from the original design to the most minute detail—from the dome to the inkstands and bookshelves.”

Those who knew Dean Milman will acknowledge the worth of a testimonial thus given by such a man to the value of Panizzi’s labours.

Yet it is not here that we must stop short; an unbiassed account has been rendered of his difficulties at the outset of his career, never resting he persevered in his onward journey where ordinary men would have resigned the effort. His own national misfortunes were enough to occupy his time and thoughts; yet he found opportunities to attend to all business that pressed upon his attention.

These are the facts and uncontrovertible facts; and the details upon which we have fully entered must excite admiration for the man who could thus concentrate his mind upon duties of the most onerous description, and yet, when occasion required, be found able and willing to befriend a cause which was unquestionably as dear to his heart as any other—viz., the liberty, freedom, and happiness of his own beloved Italy.

No undue exaltation of Panizzi is intended on the part of the biographer; wherever such may seem to be attributed, it is from no personal panegyric of his own.

Numerous letters might be adduced corroborative of the estimation in which the deceased was held—letters whose signature place their contents beyond suspicion; but they are withheld lest a charge of 272adulation should be laid at the author’s door, that charge he has studiously endeavoured to avoid.

At this important point in the narrative it has been thought nothing but reasonable to pause, before entering upon topics connected with the last years of this eminent man.

273

It would appear to be taking a liberty with the reader—or, indeed, what is far worse, to savour somewhat of bookmaking—to engraft a biography on a biography. We have already promised to give some account of the relations between Panizzi and Prosper Mérimée, the well-known writer and French statesman, which account would be incomplete were we to omit some special mention of Mérimée himself. It may be asserted, moreover, that Mérimée deserves, on his own intrinsic merit, a place in the memoir of Panizzi. Happily it has been our pleasing task of late to edit the whole of the letters which passed between them during their long friendship, and as nothing affords a better insight into the true character of a man than his familiar epistles to his friends, we shall make so bold as to use these letters as freely as 274may appear desirable in this short notice of the writer of them. It is much to be regretted that Panizzi’s letters to Mérimée have all been destroyed, with the exception of the very few already quoted, copies of which have been found amongst his papers. In the time of the unhappy Commune, on the 23rd of May, 1871, amongst other and more important buildings, Mérimée’s house was burnt down, and with it much which would have been most valuable for our present purpose. What has distressed me most, wrote a friend to Panizzi on this calamity, was to see the place where poor Mérimée’s house had been! It is a total wreck! All his furniture, his fine library, his manuscripts, his letters, and the thousand souvenirs of a long and intellectual lifetime all reduced to ashes. In conversation one day, Mons. Du Sommerard, of the Hotel Cluny, whose name is frequently mentioned in Mérimée’s letters, informed the present writer how he went to the spot shortly after the fire, in the hope of saving a few little things as souvenirs. But, alas! nothing was left as a relic of Prosper Mérimée except an old pipe.

Happy indeed had he only succeeded in rescuing a picture of Mérimée at five years old, painted by his mother, and another by Alexander Colin, painted about 1865.

The biographer knew the house well, Number 52, Rue de Lille (Paris), and remembers the room hung round with pictures of the Spanish School and English line-engravings. In September, 1869, he stayed with Mérimée. May his vanity in inserting the following record of that visit be pardoned by the reader!

At what time and in what manner the acquaintance between Panizzi and Mérimée began, we are unable to determine. It would be passing strange, considering the position of the two men and their frequent opportunities of meeting, the similarity of their tastes and opinions, and the numerous attractions which the character of each must have had for the other, if such acquaintance had never been formed, and stranger still if it had failed to ripen into that intimate and lasting friendship which afterwards subsisted between them. Panizzi’s affection for his friend was intense, and he used often to say (though we do not allege this as any proof of the intensity of his friendship) that he was the best Frenchman for whom he had ever formed a liking. Mérimée, who was a master of the English language, an accomplishment which in his country ought to be less remarkable than it is, was in the habit of spending a month or so yearly in London. On these visits he always stayed at Panizzi’s house. As regards his external characteristics, he was tall of stature, upright in figure, and his eyes shone with remarkable brilliancy; in manner the most pleasing of men. One of his minor peculiarities was an extreme nicety in the matter of dress, which, though not an unfailing sign of genius and culture, may 276be put down to the credit of his good taste. And, indeed, what more can be said in laudation of a finished gentleman’s taste than that he had all his clothes made in London, and not only in London, but at Poole’s, of which great artist Mérimée was the constant patron. This fastidiousness of his was the cause of much facetiousness on the part of Panizzi, to which, however, the other seems to have been not altogether without means and opportunity of retort, that is to say, if we rightly construe the following passage in one of his letters containing a reflection on an article of Panizzi’s ordinary costume, Mérimée in asking some information as to a picture of Lord Spencer’s, says:—

But in this friendly contest, if contest it may be called, Mérimée had to deal with a less exquisitely polished wit than his own, a wit which occasionally when Panizzi was, or pretended to be, more than 277ordinarily annoyed by his friend’s extreme attention to his attire, was developed in practical joking. One of Panizzi’s especial dislikes, and for this he had sound patriotic grounds of justification, was a peculiar cap, much of the kind worn by officers of the Austrian army, which Mérimée persisted in wearing both in the house and in the garden, known as the Principal Librarian’s. This was so peculiarly an object of annoyance to the Principal Librarian that he once went so far as to purloin the cap and lock it up, adding to the peculation the sin of denying to its owner that he knew anything whatever about it. Nor, though the treachery was discovered, is it on record that the rightful owner ever recovered possession of his property. He had his revenge, however. That the ghost of the victim should haunt the criminal, Mérimée made a drawing of the cap, which he placed every morning at breakfast, and every evening at dinner, in Panizzi’s napkin. The kind of footing on which Mérimée was at the British Museum may be gathered from the following self-invitation to Panizzi’s:—

At the Museum Mérimée was well known and a great favourite with the whole staff. In this he took just pride:—

Prosper Mérimée was born at Paris on the 28th of September, 1803. His father, Jean François Léonore, was a painter of some eminence. Prosper was educated at the Collège Charlemagne, whence he passed the course of Ecole de Droit, and in after years as is well-known took an honourable position in political life. It is not, however, our office here to enter on a history of Mérimée’s career, which, as well as his published works, has been too long before the world to demand particular notice at our hands. Seeing that we have been simply the mechanical means of introducing to the public his letters to Panizzi, we hold it to be no transgression of the limits of modesty most heartily to commend these as among the best specimens of the art of letter writing that can well be found in any language. Upon them we shall principally rely for our information about Mérimée; nor, indeed, seeing that we have treated of him mainly in 279his character of Panizzi’s friend, should we think ourselves justified in travelling very far beyond their contents. Unstudied and unartificial, unrevised after being written, as is plain from the careless repetition that abounds in them, and written with no purpose of meeting any eye but their recipient’s, they present a clearer reflection of the writer’s mind than could be obtained from more elaborate compositions.

Moreover, the multitude of interesting subjects treated in them gives them a value for general history as well as an insight into the disposition and actions of their author.

In politics, Mérimée was of the school commonly known as Liberal-Conservative. He seems to have been singularly free from the gregarious instinct of his race and countrymen, who, to genuine liberty, are apt to prefer enforced equality, which, from the insupportable tyranny of the mob, leads, in nine cases out of ten, to the Despotism of the Dictator. Of the great political principle of vesting the Sovereign power in that quarter where the greatest number of noses are to be counted, he had the most genuine horror, as also of the instrument towards that end, universal suffrage, to which he expressed fears lest the reforms at that time projected in England should cause the nation to drift. It is natural that he should couple the expression of his fears with the praise of one, the moderation of whose opinions on this point he must heartily have approved:—

Happily we have not arrived as yet quite so far as that, although could Mérimée now see us, he might possibly be disturbed at finding that his forebodings of evil were not wholly without foundation, and that he was justified in predicting that tendency on our part towards the American system of politics which he so much disliked. Altogether he views England and its institutions from a strong Conservative standpoint, which position, however, enables him to be a good deal more complimentary to us than to his own countrymen:—

The most old-fashioned politicians amongst us, however they might regret the decadence of old systems and deplore those changes which time and necessity have forced upon us, would probably hardly have the courage to utter such words as these:—

Some of his compatriots, while admitting the good sense and experience shown in the general proposition contained in the following passage may not be quite so ready to admit its application to their own particular notions:—

It remains a question yet to be decided how far this people, which imitates English institutions before it understands them, will be competent to manage a Republic of their own. His praise of the decision and energy of our colonial authorities in the celebrated Eyre and Gordon case is not unalloyed with a dash of sarcasm, but here also there is no reason to 283doubt that what he says of his own country is meant in earnest:—

He is not, however, it pains us to record, so lenient a judge of English foreign policy, under Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston, as he is a fervent admirer of the energy of our Colonial Governors, and of the beauties of our constitution in general. Indeed he seems occasionally a little unnecessarily severe, as, for instance, when he says:—

And in the following extracts, in reference to Lord Palmerston, he shows himself scarcely so far-sighted as might be expected of him:—

On the case of Denmark we refrain from remarking, but the policy recommended towards America might have been hard for that country, and assuredly would have been worse for England, however much some amongst us may have admired the chivalry of the South, and mistrusted the declared motives of those who (there never could have been much doubt at the time) would in the long run have come victorious out of the struggle. Few could seriously suppose that the power of England, even had there been a means of exercising it, would have been of much avail to prevent the ill-feeling which Mérimée admits to have been long smouldering between France and Germany from breaking out into war. After this criticism of our own, it is but fair to record a 285tribute to Lord Palmerston’s worth in another letter:—

De omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis might be the collective title, and may be truly called the proper text of Mérimée’s letters to Panizzi. But it would be as hopeless to attempt to follow the critic omnium rerum, et quarundam aliarum, through all the variations of English politics that happened in his time, as to review the numerous works with which he has amused and instructed mankind, or to recount the offices he filled, from his place in the Senate of France and his membership of the “Académie Française” to his office of Commissioner at the London Exhibition 286of 1862, or the several ways in which he did good service to art and to the State. One subject, then, only shall be added on what may be called public politics, viz., an opinion on the Eastern question, which, even if Mérimée’s prophecy has not been actually fulfilled according to the very letter, shows, at least, a pretty sound notion of the stability of the Turkish Empire:—

Mérimée was an author before he attained his twenty-second year. He wrote a collection of plays, published under the pseudonym of Clara Gazul, a Spanish authoress, and alleged to be translated by Joseph L’Estrange, an equally fictitious personage. Concerning this book and its originator, we quote the words of a writer of the time:—

One of the best imaginary plays was entitled “Les Espagnols en Danemark,” and was a satire directed by Mérimée against the extravagant laudation bestowed by certain people from hatred to the restoration on the régime of the first Napoleon. Whatever Mérimée may have thought of the First, he was on the best of terms with the ruler of the Second Empire. It would perhaps be a little rash as yet to assert positively that the last of the dynasty who had the slightest chance of attaining to future eminence has passed away, but it is a truism that requires no apology that it will be long ere the past fortunes of the house lose their interest for the reader of history, and some of the many anecdotes and other matters related in his letters to Panizzi by Mérimée, who was a constant guest of the Emperor and Empress, wherein he describes the inner life of the family, may be profitably reproduced. Here is an account of an innocent practical joke played on an enthusiastic German lady, which must have afforded some amusement to the perpetrators of it:—

Another great source of amusement must have been the Turkish Ambassador of the period,—of whom we read:—

Nor must a notice of the visit of the Emperor to Algeria in this year be omitted:—

To enter now on more serious matters. The Nemesis of France governed for so many years on the panem and circenses system, and corrupted to the core, must have been hard to face, when the day of trial came for Napoleon III.

Concerning the unfortunate Prince Imperial, Mérimée’s letters contain a good deal of matter which in these days assumes a very melancholy complexion, more especially in adverting to that fair promise of success, both in arts and arms, which his early life indicated:—

The lad seems to have had his full allowance of courage, and to have been thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of his own position and dignity:—

At a very early age he appears to have entered with ardour into his future profession:—

To one of Mérimée’s letters the Empress herself adds the conclusion and signature. Her words in the following extracts are in italics.

These letters to Panizzi must not, however, cause us to lose ourselves in a labyrinth of quotations and remarks.

It is to be feared that enough has already been placed before the reader to spoil his enjoyment of the collection itself, and more than enough to fulfil our own purpose of throwing light on Mérimée’s life and opinions from the letters themselves. By no means always, but certainly sometimes, it has happened that absolute dependence on some more solid reward than popular applause has tended to fetter the pen of a brilliant writer. It is equally true that what is done by men for their diversion is frequently of superior merit to that which is the product of sheer necessity, and we have often thought, though this, we admit, may be but fancy, that the peculiar facility conspicuous throughout Mérimée’s works might be traced to the fact that, being placed by fortune above necessity, he wrote as one in no way enforced, and as much for his own pleasure as for the amusement of his readers. The style of some of his lighter works, it may be remarked en passant, reminds one strongly of some of Voltaire’s Romans, than which there can assuredly be no higher praise.

Of artist blood on the side both of his father and mother, he inherited much of his parents’ ability, and has left behind a goodly stock of productions, of which (Exceptis Excipiendis for one, at least, might 295be objected to on the ground of propriety) it is much to be wished that a collection could be made.

Readers of these letters to Panizzi, and, indeed, of other of Mérimée’s works, can hardly fail to notice how greatly he, in common with his friend and correspondent, was affected by a malady, and that no imaginary one, common enough amongst the Roman Catholic nations, but little known in this country—the hatred of priests.

Nor is it much to be wondered at that, in countries where the Church seems to exist for itself alone, and not for that purpose for which it is supposed to have been founded—the benefit of mankind—where it dwells as a foreign authority, ever busied in jealously watching the temporal power, and opposing all that may be done for the cause of civilization and political advancement, simply because done by the State—the well-drilled officials of such a system should be viewed by the patriot and statesman, by a Panizzi, a Mérimée, or a Cavour, with mistrust and dislike. The letter to Panizzi, however, announcing the death and burial of Mérimée, with which this chapter concludes, shows a result not always brought about by this feeling of hatred of priests; yet we cannot but think that Mérimée had ceased to be a Roman Catholic in the strict sense of the term, rather than become a Protestant of any kind, and that his express desire for the place and manner of his burial is to be taken more as a protest against the creed of his birth than as a sign of his acceptance of any other. However this may be, it is hard to acquit the priests of the charge of 296alienating yet another eminent man from that communion.

Mérimée suffered greatly during the last years of his life, and for a long time before his death was, according to his letters to Panizzi, in something like a moribund state, enduring, in fact, a living death:—

And from another friend Panizzi received the following:—

297

Senator of Italy; Correspondence; Illness; Priests; Athenæum Club, Knighthood; Friends; Death; Etching; The End.

Our book approaches the end. Such materials as we have deemed it expedient to use in recording the events of a laborious life are almost exhausted, and it is necessary to look around and see that nothing has been omitted which may tend to illustrate Panizzi’s unaspiring yet truly estimable character. Had he sought worldly distinctions he might have had more than his share of such unenduring and too often unmerited tokens of flattery. Those that he did accept were for the most part received with extreme shyness, if not with genuine reluctance. They were forced upon him, nor did he assume them until he was out of office.

In the autumn of 1865, Panizzi received a letter from Signor Nicomede Bianchi, announcing that the King of Italy desired to create him a Senator of the Kingdom. Conscious of his official position, he felt great difficulty and delicacy in accepting the high honour intended to be conferred upon him, and applied to Mr. Gladstone, as was his almost invariable 298custom, for guidance and advice. He received the following answer:—

Three years afterwards—on the 12th of March, 1868—Victor Emmanuel confirmed the proposed appointment, and on the 22nd of April following made Panizzi a Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy. A letter, dated April 15th, to Mrs. Haywood, refers to this subject:—

“It is more than three years that I am offered to be made a Senator in Italy, it is a great honour. I begged to be excused, and I only accepted it when it was offered by the present Minister Menabrea, a man of honour and character. The offer came after the Mentana affair, that is at the time that poor Italy was most unfairly run down by everybody. I did not think I ought to shrink from doing what I could for my native country at such a moment, and had I not been taken ill as I was, I should have gone at once to take my seat.”

The last words refer to an attack which, in January, 1868, reached a climax so severe that his life was despaired of by his medical advisers. His friends were unremitting in their attentions; amongst them may be specially named Mr. Winter Jones, Mr. Newton, Sir James Lacaita, and Mr. C. Cannon. The sufferer rallied, and when he had attained sufficient strength went for a short time to Hastings, the air of which watering-place greatly benefited him.

This illness must not be dismissed from notice 300without placing before our readers a most characteristic extract from a “Memorandum” which speaks for itself:—

It may seem strange to some that Panizzi thus strongly and decidedly expressed himself in regard to a priest of his own Church: it can scarcely appear, however, in this light to any one who has attentively studied his character, as pourtrayed in these pages. However disinterested might be the zeal of the Roman clergy—and even of this the sick man seems to have had some little doubt—the officious importunity of this particular ecclesiastic was hardly fitted to commend him to the patient, whom an assumption of spiritual authority would have disgusted at all times; it was, therefore, but natural that he should resent 301the attempted intrusion of a stranger on his presumed helplessness.

He knew all the insidious arts of the Church to which he nominally belonged, and of the religion which he always professed; at the same time he was perfectly aware of the character of the doctrines which, even with the best intentions, the most worthy of the Romish priesthood are bound to inculcate. Knowing all this, he avoided controversy on the subject: if it were introduced in conversation, he would say, I am a Roman Catholic, and there was an end. Such being his ordinary frame of mind, his indignation was aroused at any attempt to pester him on analogous themes in his state of prostration.

No more need be said here to account for the peremptoriness of the “Memorandum.”

About this period Panizzi wrote from Montpellier to the biographer, then travelling in South America:—“As you know, I have been very ill, and I really thought I should not see you again. I hear you are likely to come back. My expenses are frightful, or I should offer to pay your voyage. This climate, or rather Italy, would suit me very well; I could not live in France. The French, and especially the Emperor, have behaved very ill, perhaps cruelly to Italy. On the other hand, the Italians have acted like idiots. I should pass my time arguing and getting angry: so, if I can succeed, I shall return to England; but probably I shall die on the road.“

The present writer returned in June, 1869, and with great regret clearly perceived the ravages in his friend’s appearance caused by the late severe illness.

302Many attempts had been made by friends to induce Panizzi to allow his name to be proposed to the committee of the Athenæum Club for election as a member. Sir Roderick Murchison wrote to him “that he would really be much gratified in seeing those services recognised in the manner he proposed by his (Panizzi’s) contemporaries in science, art, and letters.” To this proposal, honourable as it was, he did not accede. Sir Roderick did not allow the matter to drop, but, in the beginning of 1866, wrote again pressing the subject on his consideration thus: “The moment has arrived when the men of letters, science, and art, who constitute the committee of the Athenæum Club, ought to recognise your merit by electing you as a member on our list of eminently distinguished candidates.”

Hereupon Panizzi overcame his scruples, and acquiesced in the proposal. Sir Roderick was very much gratified, a feeling shared by the Dean of St. Paul’s, as the words of the former show. He said he “was so fortunate as to meet the Dean of St. Paul’s, who joyfully became the seconder, saying that he never signed any document whatever with greater satisfaction.”

An unforeseen difficulty, however, arose, which Sir Roderick thus communicated:—

Already Dean Milman had written the following letter, a short sentence from which has been quoted in a former chapter, and is now reproduced for the sake of the context:—

The answer to Sir Roderick’s letter was this:—

In the summer of 1861, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, then Home Secretary, sought to confer another honour on Panizzi in offering him knighthood, which, however, he declined in these terms (July 23rd, 1861):—

“I can hardly find words to acknowledge as I ought your unexpected communication of to-day. Her Majesty’s approbation of my humble services at the Museum is the highest reward I ever desired to receive for them. I can only regret my inability adequately to express my dutiful gratitude for Her Majesty’s condescension.

“Permit me, however, to represent most respectfully that, occupying as I do, through Her Majesty’s goodness, the honourable position I now fill, I feel great unwillingness to be the object of a further mark of Royal favour which may attract too much public attention to one like myself, a foreigner by birth, who will be considered by many to have already received too high a reward for his exertions.

“If, therefore, I may be allowed to give utterance to my feelings on the subject, I humbly but earnestly beg to be excused from having an honour bestowed on me, the value of which I fully appreciate and unfeignedly regard as far beyond my deserts. Apart from all other considerations, I feel an instinctive shrinking from all distinctions of this nature.

306“With the utmost thankfulness to you for having advised Her Majesty to acknowledge in so gracious a manner the public services which you are pleased to state I have rendered at the Museum, I remain, &c.”

Still the Government cherished the idea of conferring on him some title of honour; for, on the 27th of June, 1866, Lord Russell informed him that Her Majesty had offered a C.B., as a recognition, though slight, of his services to one of our great public Institutions. With many thanks Panizzi reminded his Lordship of what had taken place several years before, and again declined the proferred distinction. However, in 1869, the Queen conferred on him the distinction of K.C.B. In addition to this he was, in the month of August of the same year, unanimously elected member of Parliament for the place of his birth. This onerous position he, however, found it out of his power to accept.

Here we will pause for a few minutes, as we have now arrived at the beginning, as it were, of the end of this remarkable career. As strength failed, and Panizzi no longer possessed his pristine powers of body, his life became more retired; indeed, from the year 1870 up to the time of his death it may be said that he remained in strict privacy. It is true that his friends, his intimates, continued as of old to visit him, nor did they omit to do so to the last; but his facility for correspondence had failed. The old pain in his hand had increased, until it was only with extreme difficulty that he could use his pen; and, for the last few years, he could do no more than append an almost illegible signature to what was written for him.

307During this time his only occupation in the daytime was reading; Dante, Virgil, and Scott’s novels were his chief favourites. In the evening he was glad to see around his table those who still clung to him. Such as had been most in his confidence at the Museum were always welcome, and other old friends occasionally joined them. Then there was the whist party, with a very moderate stake to encourage attention to the game, and the company dispersed with pleasant recollections.

Amongst those who did not forget Panizzi in his latter days was the late Emperor of the French; he paid him several visits, as did other foreign Princes when in London.

Not the least distinguished of the number was King Humbert, then Prince of Savoy, and lastly, his old and constant friend, Mr. Gladstone, who, when in town, never failed to pay his afternoon visit, frequently stopping to dinner, and cheering him with his intellectual conversation.

Nor were his declining days uncheered by sympathisers and comforters of the gentler sex, whose consciences still bear the impress of their good deeds. One only will we mention here—Lady Holland, whose innate gentleness and kindness of heart prompted her to anticipate and administer in many ways to wants and wishes that only a long and intimate acquaintance could have enabled her to understand. Having watched him throughout his arduous journey in life, who could have been better fitted to solace him, and how could she fail to be greatly attached to one whose character she had studied and knew so well?

308On the Friday previous to Panizzi’s death, Mr. Gladstone called for the last time. A sudden change for the worse was too marked to escape observation, and from that evening it was certain that the weary traveller was nearing his rest. He lay in a state of perfect composure, and in the afternoon of the next Tuesday, the 8th of April, 1879, his spirit passed from the scene of his long unceasing labours. His body remains for the present under a marble tomb in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green, where it was deposited on Saturday, the 12th of April, 1879, in the presence of many friends and admirers besides the recognized mourners.

So died Sir Anthony Panizzi, mourned for by all who knew him, and by men of genius especially; no one, in discussing his merits or demerits, can ascribe to him a spark of selfishness. The best part of his life had been devoted to one great object; that object he had attained and enjoyed. He had been rewarded by the appreciation of thinking men, and by the comforts that should accompany old age, love, honour, and troops of friends.

His death was the loss of a staunch friend to the biographer, who etched the portrait prefixed to this life, and on presenting Mr. Gladstone with the identical proof which he had before given to Panizzi, received from the eminent Statesman this gratifying note:—

In conclusion the author cannot more faithfully indicate the scene which terminated the labours, the hopes, the fears, and the aspirations of his revered friend than by quoting these memorable lines in the language he loved so well and so keenly appreciated:—

312

It is thought that the following document, written in Count Cavour’s own hand, may interest the reader. It is well known that the Italian Statesman was in the habit of supplying Panizzi from time to time with information, for the purpose of publication in the English newspapers.

The following are the originals of which translations have been given at pages 156 and 193 of Volume II.

• A’Court, Sir W. I. 56.
• Acton, Lord. II. 250.
• Aberdeen, Earl of. I. 181, 205, 211, 221, 248, 365. II. 71.
• Addington, H. U. I. 180. II. 96.
• Agresti, F. II. 63.
• Alberici, G. I. 33, 47.
• Alberoni, Cardinal. II. 74.
• Aldus. I. 82.
• Alessandria. I. 23.
• Allen. I. 314.
• Andreoli. G. I. 35.
• Angoulême, Duke d’. I. 56.
• Antonelli, Cardinal. II. 57.
• Antonioli. I. 42.
• Anytus. I. 87.
• Apponyi, Count. I. 387. II. 34.
• Arduinus. II. 64.
• Argentine Republic. II. 146.
• Argyll, Duke of. II. 173.
• Ariosto. I. 79.
• Aristophanes. II. 215.
• Armelonghi. II. 179.
• Arnold, Dr. I. 314.
• Ars, Curé of. I. 3.
• Ascoli, Duke d’. I. 21.
• Ashburton, Lady. I. 336.
• iiAshburton, Lord. I. 132, 248.
• Asher. I. 263.
• Aumale, Duke of. II. 21.
• Autharis. I. 8.
• Ayala, M. d’. II. 59.
• Azeglio, Massimo d’. II. 251, 254.
• Azeglio, Marquis d’. II. 207.

• Baber, H. H. I. 131.
• Bachon, M. II. 293.
• Balbo, Count. II. 60.
• Banks, Sir J. I. 111.
• Banks, H. I. 156.
• Banks, S. S. Mrs. I. 111.
• Barbier, de Tinan Admiral. II. 231.
• Bardetti, Father. I. 6.
• Baretti, G. I. 324.
• Baring, B. I. 151.
• Barnard, Sir F. I. 115.
• Baron, Major. I. 281.
• Barrot, O. I. 229.
• Barry, Sir C. I. 357.
• Beaconsfield, Lord. II. 24.
• Beauharnais, E. de. I. 18.
• Beauvale, Lord. I. 247.
• Bello, F. I. 79.
• Bembo, Cardinal. I. 307.
• Bennett, J. J. II. 21.
• Bentham, J. I. 143.
• Bentley, Dr. I. 113.
• Bertani, Dr. II. 145.
• Besini, G. I. 31.
• Bezzi, G. I. 43.
• Bianchi, N. II. 297.
• Bianchini, Signor. II. 144.
• Billaut, M. I. 229.
• iiiBirch, Dr. S. II. 21.
• Birch, Dr. T. I. 111.
• Blacas, Duke de. II. 51.
• Blackstone, Sir W. I. 344.
• Blomfield, Dr. I. 131.
• Boccaccio. I. 79.
• Bodkin, Mr. I. 290.
• Bohn, Mr. I. 289.
• Bojardo. I. 79, 95.
• Bonaparte, J. I. 17.
• Bond, E. A. I. 345, 366. II. 20, 39, 278.
• Boone, T. & W. I. 295.
• Booth, J. II. 15.
• Bossi, G. I. 70.
• Botta, C. I. 74.
• Bridport Election. I. 177.
• Brissac, M. II. 293
• British Museum opened. I. 106.
• Brooks’s Club. I. 250.
• Brougham, Lord. I. 68, 72, 100, 314, 327, 329.
• Brown, R. II. 21.
• Bruce, J. I. 261.
• Brunet, M. I. 310
• Buckingham, Duke of. I. 270
• Bullen, G. I. 161
• Buonarroti, M. A. I. 309 II. 40
• Burney, Dr. C. I. 111
• Byron, Lord. I. 57

• Cadiz. II. 168
• Cadogan, Lord. I. 365
• Calvi, J. A. I. 307
• Campagna, Signor. II. 144
• Canning, Lord. I. 179, 257
• ivCannon, C. I. 310, 354 II. 299
• Capuano Castel. II. 107
• Caradosso. I. 308
• Carafa, G. II. 104
• Carbonaro. I. 13
• Cardwell, Viscount. I. 173
• Carignano, Prince of. I. 23
• Carlyle, J. A. I. 306
• Carlyle, T. I. 335
• Carmagnuolo. I. 23
• Caronzi, F. I. 33
• Carpeaux, J. B. II. 291
• Carpenter, W. H. II. 21
• Cary, H. F. I. 77, 134
• Casaubon, I. I. 110
• Castelcicala, Prince. II. 94
• Cavandoli, G. B. I. 47
• Cavendish, Lord Frederick. II. 250
• Cavour, Count. II. 192, 231
• Cawdor, Earl. I. 365
• Celano. II. 109
• Celci, Tito. See Orsini.
• Champagne, Marquis de. I. 16
• Charlemagne. I. 80
• Charles X. I. 100
• Charles, Albert. II. 60
• Charles, Felix. I. 99
• Chartists (1848). I. 280
• Chaucer. I. 303
• Chepmell, Dr. II. 104
• Cicero. I. 307
• Cisterna, Prince della. I. 15
• Clarendon, Lord. I. 200, 205, 247
• Clarendon, Countess. I. 365
• Cleave, J. II. 268
• vClinton, Mr. II. 6
• Cocchi. I. 12
• Cochrane, J. G. I. 262
• Coke, Mr. I. 66
• Colborne, R. I. 151
• Colin, A. II. 274
• Collier, John Payne. I. 257, 260
• Colt-Hoare, Sir R. I. 111
• Concordat of 1855. II. 121
• Conti, S. I. 33, 45
• Copyright Act. I. 284
• Corney, Bolton. II. 13
• Corn Laws. I. 249
• Costa, Father. II. 105
• Costa, S. da. I. 110
• Cottenham, Lord. I. 327
• Cottonian Library. I. 103
• Cousin, V. I. 45
• Cracherode, C. M. I. 112
• Cracow. I. 232
• Craik, G. L. I. 261
• Cranmer, Archbishop. I. 110
• Cranworth, Lord. II. 7
• Cranworth, Lady. I. 366
• Craufurd, J. II. 156
• Craven, Mr. II. 31
• Cremona, I. 26
• Croker, J. W. I. 262
• Croker, Wilson, Right Hon. I. 356
• Cowtan, Robert. I. 281
• Cugini, P. I. 191
• Cureton, Dr. W. II. 9

• Dacre, Lady. I. 76
• Dallas, G. M. II. 171
• viDante. I. 77, 294 II. 242
• Dati. I. 305
• “David Stewart.” II. 169.
• Davis (of Shelton). I. 288
• Death, Sentence of. I. 46
• De Morgan, Professor. I. 262
• Denman, Lord. I. 323
• Désauget, General. II. 61
• Deutsch, E. II. 267
• Dickens, Charles. II. 173, 269
• Disraeli, B. See Beaconsfield, Lord.
• D’Orsay, Count. I. 320
• Doubleday, J. I. 188
• Dufaure. I. 229
• Duncombe, T. S. I. 184
• Dundas, Sir D. I. 275
• Dunne, G. I. 308
• Dürer, A. II. 40
• Durham Letter. II. 114
• Du Sommerard. II. 274

• Eastlake, Lady. I. 366
• Eastlake, Sir C. I. 366
• Ebrington, Lord. I. 197
• Ecclesiastical Commission Act. I. 315
• “Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.” II. 115
• Edwards, Major A. I. 103, 112
• Edwards, E. I. 161, 168
• Egerton, Lady Charlotte. II. 174
• Egerton, Sir P. I. 151
• Elgin Marbles. I. 355
• Ellesmere, Lord. I. 257, 268 II. 8, 9, 22
• Ellice, Edward. I. 248, 250, 332 II. 197, 233
• viiEllis, Sir H. I. 109, 142, 152, 366, 367 II. 3
• Ercole I. I. 9
• Ercole II. I. 9
• Estcourt, S. I. 151
• “Ettore Fieramosca.” II. 167
• Eusebius. I. 7
• Eugénie, Empress. II. 233, 288, 290, 294
• Eversley, Lord. II. 24
• Ewart, John. I. 54, 100
• Ezzellino IV. I. 8.

• Fagan, George. II. 28, 97, 101, 133, 149
• Fagan, Louis. II. 213, 275, 301
• Fagan, Major. II. 214
• Farini, L. C. II. 188
• Farioli, G. B. I. 33
• Farnborough, Lord. I. 132, 270
• Favre, J. II. 163
• Feilding, Lord. II. 104
• Fellows, Sir C. I. 256 II. 38
• Ferdinand I. I. 21
• Ferdinand II. (death of). II. 55, 135, 183
• Ferdinand VII. I. 20
• Fergusson, J. I. 356
• Ferrucci, Cav. I. 309
• Fielder, Mr. I. 365
• Fieri, F. I. 33
• Filangieri, General. II. 82
• Finistrello Citadel. I. 22
• Fitzgerald, Mr. I. 258
• Fitzwilliam, Lord. I. 114
• Ford, K. II. 9
• Forshall, J. I. 146, 152, 160, 258
• viiiForster, J. I. 167 II. 23
• Fortescue, Lord. I. 275
• Fortunato. II. 82
• Foscolo, U. I. 63, 70 II. 250, 255
• Fosse, C. de la. I. 105
• Fould, A. II. 225
• “Francia il.” I. 306 II. 40
• Francis II. II. 207
• Francis IV. I. 12
• Francis V. II. 99
• Fratuzzi Abbate. I. 10, 144
• Frederick II. I. 8
• Fust. I. 308

• Galeazzo Maria, Duke. I. 9
• Galileo. I. 305
• Gallispani. I. 9
• Gambardella. I. 324
• Gargiulo, R. II. 31
• Garibaldi, General. I. 186 II. 249
• Garnett, Rev. R. I. 161
• Garnett, R. I. 162 II. 268
• Garrick, D. I. 111
• Gaskell. I. 279
• Gaurico. I. 308
• Genoa, Duke of. II. 63
• George III. I. 111, 116
• George IV. I. 100, 114, 116
• Gex. I. 43
• “Giacomino.” See Hudson, Sir J.
• ixGiberto of Correggio. I. 9
• Giglioli, D. I. 47
• “Giovine Italia.” II. 68
• Gizzi. II. 57
• Gladstone, Mrs. II. 171
• Gladstone, The Right Hon. W. E. I. 181, 268, 334 II. 70, 89, 97, 141, 148, 174, 191, 224, 227, 229, 242, 250, 261, 298, 307, 308
• Glastonbury, Lord. I. 271
• Gloucester, Duchess of. I. 365
• Gordon, Sir R. I. 189, 191
• Goulburn. I. 173, 355
• Graham, Sir J. I. 185
• Granville, Lord. II. 173, 250.
• Grasselini. II. 57
• Grassi, T. I. 74
• Gray, Dr. J. E. I. 256. II. 19
• Gray, T. I. 344
• Gregory XIV. II. 56
• Grenville, Thomas. I. 79, 95, 118, 132, 266
• Greville, C. I. 221, 226, 231
• Grey, Lord. I. 252, 314
• Grey, C. II. 12
• Grey, Lady. I. 366
• Grey, Sir G. I. 366 II. 8, 11, 262
• Gruppi, C. I. 10.
• Guizot, M. I. 196
• Guttenberg. I. 308

• Halifax, Lord. I. 104
• Hallam, H. I. 139, 268, 355
• Hamilton, W. R. I. 264, 273, 363 II. 25
• Hampden Case. I. 322
• Hardwicke, Major-General. I. 112
• xHardy, Sir T. D. I. 327
• Hargrave, F. I. 112
• Harleian, MSS. I. 106
• Harriette, Lady. I. 248
• Harris, John. I. 296, 311
• Hawes, Sir B. I. 151
• Hawkins, Ed. I. 371 II. 38
• Hawkins, Sir J. I. 111
• Hawkins, T. I. 154
• Haywood, Mrs. II. 248, 299
• Haywood, F. I. 54, 100, 331 II. 14, 34, 100, 116, 189
• Heber, R. I. 116
• Hernof. See Orsini.
• Holland House. I. 314
• Holland, Lady. II. 239, 307
• Holland, Lord. I. 324, 326 II. 101
• Homer. I. 334
• Hooke, R. I. 105
• Home, T. H. I. 156
• Hosking, W. I. 368, 371
• Houghton, Lord. II. 23, 25
• Howley, Dr. I. 100
• Hudson, Sir J. II. 188, 232, 245
• Humbert, King. II. 307
• Hume, D. I. 344

• Incisa Cav. II. 189
• Inglis, Sir R. H. I. 132, 151
• Isturiz, F. X. de. I. 213

• “James, Captain.” II. 168
• Jardine, Mr. I. 188, 290
• xiJarnac, M. de. I. 214
• Jeffrey, Lord. I. 314
• Jesuits. I. 215
• Jewett, Prof., C. C. I. 170.
• Johnson, S. I. 115, 344
• Jones, J. Winter. I. 161, 168, 261 II. 16, 18, 21, 262, 238, 299
• Joubert, General. I. 75
• Joursanvault, Baron de. I. 153

• Kauffungen, C. de. I. 16
• Keightley, T. I. 90
• Kenyon, J. II. 15.
• Knight, Dr. Gowin. I. 108
• König, C. I. 256
• Kossuth. II. 223

• La Cava (Visit). II. 240
• La Greca, Marquis. II. 207
• Lacaita, Sir J. II. 97, 110, 131, 147, 205, 257, 299
• Lagden, Miss. II. 296
• Lajatico. II. 179
• Lamoricière, Monseigneur. II. 211.
• Landeburiana (Society). I. 25
• Langdale, Lady. I. 327
• Langdale, Lord. I. 327
• Lansdowne, Marquis of. I. 132, 248, 314 II. 4, 6, 10, 173
• Lavallette, M. de. II. 293
• Lawes, H. I. 304
• Lawrence, Sir T. I. 114
• Layard, Sir A. H. II. 24.
• Lefevre, Hon. C. Shaw. See Eversley, Lord.
• Leo I. I. 7.
• Leven, Lord. II. 205
• Lewis, Sir G. C. I. 302
• xiiLewis, Sir G. C. II. 40, 43, 305
• Libri, G. I. 195
• Liechtenstein, Princess Mary. II. 268
• Lieven, Madame de. I. 221
• Linati, C. I. 54
• Lisio, Captain. I. 23.
• Lloyd, W. I. 187
• London, Bishop of. I. 366
• Ludolf, Count. II. 57, 207

• Madden, Sir F. I. 145, 153, 366 II. 21
• Macaulay, Lord. I. 71, 85, 248, 355 II. 15
• Macchiavelli, N. I. 70 II. 69
• Magenis, A. C. I. 194
• Maghella. I. 16
• Maio. II. 87
• Major, R. I. 144
• Mammiani, Count. II. 60
• Manfredi. II. 179
• Manna, G. II. 207
• Manzini, C. I. 278
• Manzoni, G. Count. I. 309
• Maranesi, F. I. 33
• Marliani. II. 182
• Marochetti, Baron. I. 366, 385
• Martin, Miss. I. 60, 95
• Masson, Professor. I. 302
• Maure, Dr. II. 296
• Mauro, Domenico. II. 60
• Mausolus. II. 47
• Maximilian, Archduke. II. 37
• Mazza, O. II. 133
• Mazzini, G. I. 63, 67, 99, 182
• xiiiMazzini, G. II. 156, 256
• Melbourne, Lord. I. 245, 320
• Melville, Lady Anne. II. 206
• Menabrea, General. II. 255, 299
• Mérimée, J. F. L. II. 278
• Mérimée, Prosper. I. 196 II. 218, 273
• Metternich, Prince. I. 190 II. 60
• Millard, J. I. 151
• Milman, Dean. I. 366 II. 270, 304
• Milton. I. 85, 302
• Minto, Lord. II. 60
• Minzi, Dr. I. 13, 40, 42, 47 II. 35, 101
• Molé, M. I. 224
• Molesworth, Sir W. II. 79, 85
• Moll, Baron. I. 113
• Monckton Milnes. See Houghton, Lord.
• Monnoyer, J. B. I. 105
• Montague House. I. 104
• Montague, Duke of. I. 105
• Montani. I. 42
• Monte Cassino. II. 241
• Moore, T. I. 94, 314
• Morgan, Lady. I. 24
• Morgan de, Professor. I. 262
• Morton, C. I. 109
• Mounier, M. II. 292
• Munarini, Count. I. 41.
• Murat. I. 17
• Murchison, Sir R. I. I. 257 II. 270, 302
• Murillo, B. I. 244
• “Museum Megrims.” I. 346
• xivMuseum. See British Museum.

• Napier, Lord. II. 81
• Napier, M. I. 85
• Napoleon I. I. 28
• Napoleon III. I. 15 II. 159, 235
• Newton, C. T. II. 45, 48, 51, 299
• Niccolini, Signor. II. 133
• Nicolas, Sir H. I. 349
• Nizzoli, A. I. 33
• Normanby, Lord. I. 214
• Northcote, Sir Stafford. II. 303
• Norton, Mrs. I. 321
• Numeister. I. 295

• Obizzo III. I. 9
• Oldfield, Mr. II. 29
• Orsay, Count d’. I. 320
• Orsini, F. II. 154, 156, 159
• Otho, Emperor. I. 7
• Overstone, Lord. II. 145
• Ovid. I. 320
• Owen, Professor. I. 366 II. 38
• Oxford, Earl of. I. 104

• Pageot, M. I. 204
• Palladio. I. 342
• Pallavacino, U. I. 8
• Palmerston, Lord. I. 248, 332 II. 12, 28, 46, 54, 135, 149, 161, 173, 261
• Panizzi, A. Birth. I. 10
  • University. I. 11
  • Carbonaro. I. 19
  • Letter to Tax-gatherer. I. 51
  • Moore’s verses. I. 94
  • xvFirst Appointment. I. 100
  • Naturalized British Subject. I. 117
  • Keeper of Printed Books. I. 133
  • Official Residence. I. 140
  • At Ischl. I. 189
  • At Parma. I. 193
  • Portrait by Watts at Holland House. I. 324
  • Portrait by Marochetti. I. 385
  • Appointed Principal Librarian. II. 11
  • Mr. Newton’s Expedition to Budrum. II. 46
  • D.C.L. of Oxford. II. 53
  • Panizzi and Lord Shrewsbury. II. 75
  • Naples, 1851. II. 96
  • Death of his Sister. II. 100
  • At Rome. II. 100
  • Interview with Ferdinand II. II. 102
  • Spies. II. 103
  • “Vicaria.” II. 105
  • Leaves Naples. II. 109
  • Honours. II. 112
  • Sir J. Lacaita. II. 208
  • Visits Napoleon III. II. 217
  • Ill-health. II. 237
  • Departure for Naples. II. 238
  • Convents, &c. II. 243
  • Resignation. II. 257
  • Pension. II. 261
  • Testimonial. II. 265
  • Senator. II. 299
  • Athenæum Club. II. 302
  • Knighthood refused. II. 305
  • K.C.B. II. 306
  • Death. II. 308
• Panizzi, L. I. 10
• Panmure, Lord. I. 366
• Papal Aggression. II. 114
• Pappacarboni, A. II. 240
• xviPappalettere, Abbot. II. 241
• Parenti. I. 32
• Parepa, Madame. II. 133
• Parilli, Signora. II. 102
• Parkes, J. I. 319
• Parliamentary Commission, (1835-36). I. 146
• Parliamentary Grant. I. 173
• Parry, Serjeant. I. 165, 168
• Pecchio, G. I. 58
• Peel, Sir R. I. 212, 245, 248
• Pellico, S. I. 15, 59 II. 60
• Peretti, L. I. 33
• Persigny, Count. II. 207
• Peruzzi, U. II. 179
• Petrarch. I. 307
• Petre, Mr. II. 31.
• Pheidias. II. 48
• Pickering, W. I. 68, 82, 297
• Pironti. II. 165
• Pironti, M. II. 66
• Pius IX. II. 57
• Planta, J. I. 108, 109
• Poerio, C. II. 63, 165, 176, 202
• Ponsonby, Lord. I. 198
• Ponzoni, G. I. 31
• Portland Vase. I. 187
• “Post-office Espionage.” I. 183
• Praxiteles. II. 47
• Prentiss, Captain. II. 169
• Prete, M. II. 109
• Prince Consort. I. 365 II. 12
• Prince Imperial. II. 291
• Principal Librarian. I. 107
• “Psalter of 1457.” I. 189
• xviiPuget, P. I. 105
• Pulci, L. I. 79

• Raibolini, F. See “Il Francia”.
• Ralston, W. R. S. II. 268
• Raphael (Sanzio). I. 309
• Reading-Room. I. 338
• Rechberg, M. de. II. 223
• Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de. II. 48
• Rembrandt. II. 40
• Reynolds, Sir J. I. 324
• Riansares, Duke de. I. 226
• Ribbonism. I. 13
• Ridout, J. I. 161
• Rochester, Bishop of. I. 316
• Rogers, S. I. 73, 193, 268, 278
• Roget, Dr. I. 121
• Roland. I. 80
• Roscoe, W. I. 49, 73, 84
• Rose, W. S. I. 80, 82, 93
• Ross, L. II. 47
• Rossetti. I. 89
• Rousseau, J. I.vol1_ 105
• Roy, E. I. 262
• Royal Commission, (1847-49). I. 255
• Royal Society—Correspondence, &c. I. 119
• “Rubiera Processi di’.” I. 25
• Russell, Lady. I. 366
• Russell, Lord. I. 248, 322 II. 24, 114, 121
• Rutherfurd, Lord. I. 181, 257, 331
• Rye, W. B. I. 161, 274, 384

• Safvet-Pacha. II. 289
• Saint Ambrose. I. 7
• xviiiSainte-Aulaire de. I. 212, 314
• Saint Benedict. II. 242
• Santa-Rosa, S. I. 23, 44
• Satriano, Prince. II. 76
• Satriano, Tito, Duke. II. 133
• Saxe-Cobourg, Prince de. I. 212
• Schell, Mr. II. 166
• Schœffer. I. 308
• Schmidt, Monseigneur. II. 211
• Scopas. II. 48
• Sébastiani Maréchal. I. 211
• Sedlnitzky, Count. I. 190
• Sella, A. II. 109
• Senesi, F. II. 131
• Senior Nassau. I. 325
• Serra Capriola, Duke. II. 61
• Settembrini, Luigi. II. 63, 67, 127, 137, 146, 150
• Settembrini, Raffaele. II. 130, 168
• Settembrini, Madame. II. 128
• Shaftesbury, Earl of. II. 174, 250
• Shee, Serjeant. II. 118
• Shelburne, Lord. II. 148
• Shepherd, Dr. I. 54, 193
• Shrewsbury, Lord. II. 74, 101, 110
• Sidmouth, Lord. I. 116
• Sloane, Sir H. I. 102
• Smirke, Sir R. I. 115
• Smirke, Sydney. I. 360, 373, 378, 386
• Smith, Joseph. I. 114
• Smith, Sydney. I. 268, 314
• Solmi. I. 32
• Somerset, Duke of. I. 257, 366. II. 22
• Sotheby, W. I. 80
• Sotomayor Duke de. I. 219, 224
• “Spanish Marriages.” I. 202
• Sparrow, R. J. II. 268
• xixSpencer, Earl. I. 79, 366 II. 276
• Spenser. I. 303
• Stanhope, Lord. II. 303
• Stanley, Lord. I. 151
• Stevens, H. I. 263, 288 II. 166
• “Stromboli.” II. 165
• Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury. I. 365
• Sussex, Duke of. I. 122
• Sutherland, Duke of. II. 173, 250

• Taillefer. I. 80
• Tait, Mrs. I. 366
• Tasso. I. 334
• Taverna, Countess. I. 248
• Taylor, J. T. II. 268
• Teleki, Countess. I. 327
• Temple, Sir W. II. 27, 126
• Templeman, Dr. I. 343
• Thackeray, W. M. I. 321
• Thiers, A. I. 199, 253
• Thompson, E. M. II. 267
• Ticino. I. 42
• Tizioni. I. 12
• Toledo, Pedro de. II. 108
• Tosti Padre. II. 241
• Townley, C. I. 114
• Towsey, Captain. II. 47
• Trivulzio, E. I. 9
• Trustees of the British Museum. I. 106
• Tuppo, G. and P. I. 295
• Turner, Miss E. I. 7

• Vasto, Marquis del. II. 93
• Vercelli. I. 23
• xxVedriani. I. 33
• “Vehmgerichte.” I. 14
• Vérard, A. I. 110
• Vernon, Lord. I. 295, 298
• Veronese, F. I. 295
• Verrio, A. I. 105
• “Vicaria.” II. 107
• Victor Emmanuel II. II. 64, 186
• Victoria (Queen). I. 211
• Vignati. II. 133
• Vinci, L^o. da. I. 309.
• Vinet, E. I. 340
• Virgil, I. 334

• Waddington, H. II. 11
• Warburton. I. 177
• Waterhouse, G. R. II. 21
• Watts, G. F. (R.A.) I. 324 II. 265
• Watts, T. I. 163, 168, 373
• Wellington, Duke of. I. 100
• Westmacott, Sir E. I. 256, 340
• White, E. I. 299
• Whittingham, C. I. 295
• William the Norman. II. 108
• Wilson, J. I. 361
• Wiseman, Cardinal. II. 75
• Wodehouse, Lord. II. 250
• Wren, Sir C. I. 342
• Wurtemberg, Duke of. I. 16

• Ymes, Mr. I. 54

• Zani, Abb. I. 308
• Zatti. I. 42
• Zetland, Lord. II. 145
• Zwilchenbart, Mr. I. 54