The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

Amu , 7, 1855. obstacle to all real progress. The advantages which the liberal cause would have obtained had the Italian States been free from intestine disturbances and revolts, by the gradual spread of civilisation and the advance of general intelligence, have been 'completely nullified by the fatal agency of the Bette, the scourge and the disgrace of Italy ; for the Governments, harassed and irritated by con stantly-recurring outbreaks, have had a fair excuse given to them to defer projected re forms to the prevention of present conspira cies. "Per rifare Tltulia, bisogna disfare sette" was prophesied by Ugo Foscolo, seven and thirty years ago ; but it is only within the last five or six years that the educated classes of Italy have admitted the truth of his words. The terrible reaction which has succeeded to the tempo rary successes of '4B-9 has opened the eyes of thousands to the object of the Bette, which is to destroy, not to reform, and dispelled for ever among all true patriots the belief that the ultra-democrats—the Young Italy— seek the independence and welfare of their country in preference to their own elevation to power and the attainment of their own private aims. The inevitable result of all this has been the more firm consolidation at this moment, particularly in Piedmont, into a powerful party of all men of moderate views, men who desire the attainment of good government and independence, without the aid of conspiracy, revolution, or secret societies. But at the same time it is only just to state that the system of repression and espionage which Austria adopted towards her Italian States after the peace, and which system was too willingly encouraged and too readily imitated by every petty Government in the Italian States, was the cause above every other which gave strength and vitality to the revolutionary party, which of itself would have died out, perhaps, had gentler remedies been adopted for the then "distempered state "of society." " The operations of these secret " factions," remarks Mr. Wrightson, " have " generally been carried on under the direc " tion of those who have been driven into exile " either by their own imprudence and folly or " tho injustice and impolicy of the Govern " ments under which they lived." Such men speedily obtain the reputation of martyrs, and the more they are persecuted the greater in fluence they acquire ; and it is not to be wondered at that that influence should be exerted to foment revolt against the existing Government of their country. But the sette are essentially men of narrow views ; it is the elevation of party, not of principle, that excites them to action. To their jealous and destructive influence may at least be traced one principal cause of the destruction of the representative systems which were gradually gaining ground before the fatal days of '4B, and of the failure of the King of Piedmont's attempts in 1848.9 to expel the Austrians and unite the whole of the north of Italy under one constitutional sceptre. " L'Austria," said Gualterio, " aequistava in questa setts un no " vello alleato ! " and subsequent events sadly proved the truth of his words. The position of Italy at this moment is one of scarcely apparent tranquillity : it is a country under military occupation, struck down and degraded ; but the " iron hath en " tered into her soul," and the day is looked forward to by the majority of the educated classes when a frightful retribution will be taken for the calamities inflicted now. Let us hope that more moderate views will ere long actuate both the oppressor and oppressed. Let us hope that a wiser and loftier policy upon the one hand will be met with a more sober and chastened feeling upon the other, and that the day is not far distant when a representative system will be estab lished, when the interests of the Government will be identical with those of the nation, and sound and practical ideas will have destroyed for ever the influence of sectarian plots and revo lutionary conspiracies. It is sickening to read of the petty jealousies which actuated the different Governments of Italy at a time when representative institu tions had a fair chance of taking root. Pio Nono, who at heart desired the elevation of Italy, was, in 1848, thwarted in his design of establishing a Representative Government THE PRESS. and of forming the famous Italian League, by the Republican party on the one hand, and by the Piedmontese Government on the other, which, proposing a congress in the north of Italy instead, refused to re cognise the primacy of the Pope in the league; while Charles Albert, suspected by every other Government in Italy of desiring to absorb all the petty States into one great northern kingdom, was in his turn ham pered by the secret plots of the Repub licans, and finally betrayed and deserted by both Rome and Naples at the most critical period of his contest with Aus tria. But the influence of France, always powerful in Italy, was also thrown into the balance against him. The character of the Pope is sketched by Mr. Wrightson with great impartiality : Few princes have been more erroneously estimated, or more unduly praised and censured, than the gentle and in offensive prelate, whose misfortune it was to be placed, at this critical juncture, in a position of difficulty and danger, as sovereign of the Roman States. Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti was born at Sinnigallia, in 1792. On the restoration of Pius VII., being a member of a noble and respected family, he solicited a commission in the guardia nubile. The infirmity of his health, which had been enfeebled by epileptic fits, prevented him from obtaining the desired appointment, and he then determined to devote himself to the service of the church. After he had assumed the ecclesiastical habit his constitution im• proved, and he oontinuel to pursue with assiduity the studies and duties of his profession. In 1823, he accom pealed a commission to Chili, where he remained about two years, and having, after his return, discharged with re putation various employments in the church, was named Bishop of Spoleto by Leo XII., and Bishop of Imola by Gregory XVI., from whom ho also received his appointment as cardinal. Attached by the ties of birth and residence to the people of whom he unexpectedly became the ruler, he had wit nessed with his own eyes the lamentable evils of their misgovernment. His youth had not been spent under the influence of that seclusion and peculiar training which often gives an irretrievable bias to the minds of Boman eccle siastics. Being elevated to the throne at a less advanced period of life than most of his predecessors, he was not old enough to be swayed by a blind attachment to the ancient regime; and the known family leanings, as well as the personal qualities of the new pontiff, suggested a hope, that, under his auspices, the papacy might once more be come, what it was during the middle ages, an instrument of civilisation and progress, and a means of restoring to peace and harmony the disordered elements of society. These sanguine anticipations rested on an imaginary basis. Though sprung from a family of enlightened and patriotic principles, and endowed with a good and generous disposition, Pio Nono was deeply imbued with the senti ments of his caste. With the exterior and accomplishments of an Italian gentleman, he was, above all other things, a devoted churchman. On the attainment of unsought dignity and power, he did not, indeed, forget or disregard the wants and aspirations of his countrymen, but cede sisstical interests formed the paramount object of his solici tude. To elevate the Italian race from its fallen condition, through the mediation and agency of the papacy, and so to regain for the Holy See a portion of its lost popularity and importance, was the task which he longed to accomplish, and of which he did not suspect the difficulty. Of the Piedmontese Government Mr. Wright son speaks in terms of high praise : Piedmont, intent on repairing the losses of the war, necessarily assumed a passive attitude, but the Uovern ment, presided over by Massimo d'Azeglio, adhered to a wisely liberal policy. The first act of Victor Immanuel 11. was to swear fidelity to the constitution —an oath which has been faithfully observed. The provocations and mis doings of the Mazzinists were multiplied. The temptation to reaction was potent, but the loyalty and good sense of the youthful sovereign and of his minister prevailed, and to their consistency and moderation in a season of no ordinary dificulty, one portion of Italy is indebted for the preservation of freedom and independence. When, in the summer of 18 . 49, the intervention of a French army had prepared the way for the Pope's restora tion, Count Balk, was, at the instance of D'Azeglio, des patched to Gaeta. While the representatives of other powers instigated or acquiesced in the Roman States, the Sardinian envoy, whose veneration for the papal authority was not less sincere than his patriotism, pleaded for the maintenance of the pontiffs engagements, and for the preservation of the Medal() Ma i suui ragionamenli, non feces° fruit° : nor were similar exhortations addressed to the Courts of Naples and Tuscany attended with any better result. The renewal of pacific relations with Austria in no degree altered the independent attitude of Piedmont. The constitutional Government, piloted by D'Azeglio and Cavour through the shoals and quicksands which endangered the commencement of its career, though prepared for war, has successfully cultivated the arts of peace. A vast increase of public wealth has alleviated the pecuniary burdens in curred during the national struggle, and within the Sar dinian boundaries a generous hospitality has constantly been experienced by the exiles of less favoured regions. It is wholly beyond our space to follow the author in the histories of the various States ; but those who desire to acquaint themselves with the real history of modern Italy will do well to consult Mr. Wrightson's book. The Italian 333 question is not generally understood in Eng land. We all know that the country is op pressed and suffering, but we do not know that many of her evils are comparatively self inflicted. Yet the real cancer upon the body politic appears to be the Papal Government, a Government at once tyrannical and imbecile. Hated for the evils it inflicts, and despised for the fear it exhibits, it is supported only upon the points of foreign bayonets ; and the day perhaps is not distant when a great and neces sary reform in the States of the Church, in sisted upon by the Powers of Europe, will lead the way for the regeneration of Italy. Such is the opinion of men of moderato views, and such are the hopes of the true friends of Learning and Labour. By Frederick D. Maurice, M.A. Cambridge : Macmillan. Tuts volume consists of six lectures delivered in Willis's-rooms last summer (in reference to the opening of the Working-Men's College in Red Lion-square) to establish that connection which the author believes to exist between toil and intellectual energy ; and of four lectures on the " Religion of Rome" delivered at Edinburgh last December. To a friend who expressed some surprise at the collection of courses of lectures apparently so diverse in spirit in one volume, Mr. Maurice explains,— that the institutions and religion of old Rome owed their force and duration to the "fatherly authority," which he insists was the first, the greatest, and most vital principle of the life of that State. The loss of it, he says, caused the decline and fall of Rome; and Christianity, by showing our relationship to the Son of Man, and to God his Father, has placed that principle of fatherly authority on a surer basis than ever, and given to modern societies the means of acquiring a strength and consistency which those of the ancient world did not possess : To assert a divine true Fatherhood, in place of the paternal tyrannies which have counterfeited it, must, I conceive, be the work of those who would educate and civilise the nations in the way in which they never have been educated and civilised, and never can be, by those who merely seek, even with the utmost skill, to cultivate their material prosperity, at the expense of their inward life. The connection thus sought to be estab lished is not obvious, but that is of little con sequence. Mr. Maurice's conceptions aro seldom very clearly expressed, or at least he rarely gives to them a complete practical de - velopment. We can but imperfectly gather the meaning of the above passage. What shape would he have the fatherly authority upon which he lays so much stress assume ? We must imagine that he altogether repudiates the definition of Government as a system of police to restrain evil and afford free scope to good ; though elsewhere he intimates that from modern societies no more can be ex pected or desired than a combination of liberty with order. But the liberty which he intends is the liberty indicated by the poet Those are the free men whom the Truth makes free. And the order he intends is not the industrial quiet of a well-managed city or state, but the order which is " Heaven's first law," and which springs on earth from an intelligent appreciation of the laws of the universe. And we must suppose that he thinks there is no better way of teaching this doctrine of a " divine true Fatherhood" than that of insti tuting such colleges for working men as tho ono which the lectures delivered at Willis's rooms were intended to promote. It is nearly twenty years since wo first observed Mr. Maurice. He was then engaged in a controversy with the Quakers, endeavour ing to convince them of their errors out of the pages of their founder, George Fox, the bulky volume of whose writings was often before him. It was even then impossible to mis take his character. He had thought pro foundly, and in his absorbed manner and studious expression might be read the earnestness and depth of his convictions. If we judged him rightly, he had formed for him self a large but somewhat dim conception of the whole scheme of Christian theology, which he laboured, but with very partial success, to direct against certain points or Quaker doctrine His scheme had probably