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

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

334

consistence in his own mind, but it would
very ill bear expression in fragments. To
ordinary minds he was at that time much less
intelligible than he is now ; and while we did
him the justice to believe that he had a decided
meaning, and was struggling to set it forth,
we were often puzzled to discover what that
meaning could be. Those who hold that
character is visible in handwriting might find
eminent support for their opinion in the
example of Mr. Maurice. His letters were in
parts utterly unreadable to an unpractised eye,
nor have we ever been able to understand by
what art his printers succeed in deciphering
his " copy." With painful study words could
be caught here and there, and with their aid a
complete sentence might sometimes be made
out. But rarely was there a page in which
some gaps had not to be left. And so it was
with his meaning even when presented in fair
print. The chain of reasoning might be com-
plete, but some links of it would be involved
in darkness. The mind had always to labour
hard over his writing, and often was com-
pelled to interpret by conjecture, passages
which seemed hopelessly obscure.
But in the interval which has elapsed Mr.
Maurice has made great progress in expres-
sion. His style appears to us now lucid in
comparison with what it was then, and if his
penmanship has undergone a similar change,
the difficulty we supposed above would be in
great part removed. Mr. Maurice has not,
indeed, acquired the art of thinking clearly—
we do not imagine that he ever will do so—but
he is not obscure. We can understand his
argument, though we could wish for more pre-
cision in its processes.

That habit, however, which early struck us
as characteristic of his mind clings to him
still. His views are so much larger than his
objects that there is always danger of the
latter slipping through; and those views are
so conscientiously held that he will not suffer
them to be in any degree limited or modified.
Hence, in spite of great talents and greater
virtues, he will remain, we fear, to the end of
the chapter an unpractical man, though with a
heart set on practical objects. It is not that
he undervalues common things, but that he
will not consider them in the simple, natural
aspect in which they appear to common
people.

His Working-Men s College is nothing more
than a mechanic's institution, with instruction
in theology added, for those who choose to
avail themselves of it. To set forth the ad-
vantages of such an institution, Mr. Maurice,
in his first lecture, argues that education
should commence with the adult rather than
with the juvenile population. " Schools," he
says, " according to the original force of the
" word, had not a direct application to child-
" ren. They were places for preserving and
" expanding the studies which belong espe-
" chilly to men." He attempts to show how
easily a people may be interested in intellec-
tual teaching by reference to the multitude of
scholars who rushed to hear the teaching of
Abelard, so that " all the country round did
" not suffice to furnish them with dwellings
" nor the soil with food." But does any one
suppose that there can be any true analogy
between the scholars of Abelard and the me-
chauics for whose instruction this Working-
Men's College is designed ?

In his second lecture it is Mr. Maurice's aim
to show that the connection supposed to exist
between learning and leisure is unfounded ;
and here he is no doubt right, if by leisure we
are to understand that mere command of time
and means which many men possess to pursue
whatever aims may please them. Nor are we
at all disposed to deny that there is a natural
affinity between learning and work, when the
two are of a kindred kind, as in the cases
given here of Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, and
Samuel Johnson. It is sufficiently obvious
that when a man has acquired the elements of
a profession, whatever it be, he can in no way so
well improve in it as by being forced to wrestle
with its difficulties. Necessity is then an ad-
mirable instructor, and stimulates the faculties
which might rust in leisure. But Mr. Maurice
goes much farther than this, and intimates
that in our busy day men, even down to the
Ipw rank of mechanics and labourers, may,

THE PRESS.

from their very occupation, be favorably placed
for study and improvement
- - -

Let us then thoroughly assure ourselves that there is
nothing in industry itself of any kind, agricultural or
manufacturing, nothing in the most steady, persevering,
creative industry, to hinder steady, persevering, creative
thought.

He speaks of operatives who have made
great progress in studying mathematics
amidst the noise of wheels, with scarcely any
external help, and he adduces some particular
instances to show that the toil of the hands
does not tend to detract from the energy of
the mind. Cirnabue, though possessed of the
taste and faculties of an artist, and blessed
with every facility for pursuing the art he
loved, could make no deep or lasting impres-
sion upon the arts in Italy till he had evoked the
genius of the shepherd boy Giotto ; Dante was
not rocked and dandled in poetry in the Court
of Love, but was trained to the hard work of
the camp, bred in the severest discipline of
the schools, and immersed in the factions of
Florence ; Hooker did not cultivate his facul-
ties in a cloister, but rocked his child's cradle,
sheared sheep, and listened to the objurga
tions of a very troublesome helpmate ; Spen-
ser's fairy-land was his common native earth,
and it was in his battle for life that his Sir
Guyons, and Artegalls, and Britomarts, and
Arthurs, proved their laurels and won their
swords; Lord Bacon's scientific pursuits did
not interrupt his occupations as a lawyer and
a statesman ; Shakspeare gained his wisdom,
not in the closet, but in the world; and the
genius of Burns burnt with its brightest and
purest flame when he followed the plough.
To these instances others might be added
more immediately to the point. Giffard ac-
quired the elements of his learning as he bent
over his " last," jealously watched by the brutal
cobbler his master; Stephenson conceived the
idea of railroads when a poor working boy in
a coalpit ; and the author of the " Purgatory
of Suicides" mastered languages and difficult
authors when compelled to labour hard for
daily bread.
But do these instances, with all others that
might be adduced, or even the rules of the
Benedictines, which made study go hand in
hand with bodily labour, support Mr. Maurice's
theory that the life of our handicraftsmen is
favorable to, or even compatible with, intellec-
tual pursuits ? We think not. For, in the
first place, the case of men of rare and excep-
tional genius, such as most of those were, who
acquired great eminence under circumstances
more or less adverse, can prove nothing as to
the general rule; nor are domestic cares to be
regarded as a bar to study, in the same way
that continuous toil for ten or twelve, or more,
hours in the day is a bar to it. Even some of
the instances quoted above show how intel-
lectual energy has been favoured by the pecu-
liar circumstances and occupation of the
individual. Had Giotto been a factory boy, it
is doubtful if he would ever have been a great
artist. In tending sheep he had leisure for
the observation of nature and the exercise of
his hand. The natural genius of Burns had
been fostered by decent education, and his
mind bloomed betore its faculties could be
crushed by the necessity for exhausting toil.
But how ill the life of labour and the life of
song agreed in his case is known to all who
have read the biography of this most magnifi-
cently-endowed but most ill-starred poet.
To be just, Mr. Maurice does not overlook
facts which contradict his theory :

And yet—there is no use in concealing it—facts seem
to show that in this country the class of mechanics as a
class are not disposed to connect study with work, even
when the greatest pains are taken, and the most reason.
able methods used, to point out the bond which there is
between them. I will remind you of one or two experi-
ments which have been made for this end, and of the suc-
cess which has attended them.

And then Mr. Maurice alludes to the history
of mechanic's institutes in this country, and
acknowledges that the class which Dr. Birk-
beck sought to help by these institutions has
not in general been the one to benefit by them.
" The tradesman has rather taken the place of
" the mechanic." This circumstance is espe-
cially noticeable in the manufacturing districts
at the present day. It was Lord Stanley, we
think, who, addressing a large assemblage in
the hull of a mechanic's institute in Lan-
caShire, the other day, said that he saw him-

SATURDAY,

self surrounded by representatives of every
class except the class for which the institution
was designed. And the like complaint is ge-
neral. Whence does it arise? Mr. Maurice
thinks because the lectures in mechanic's
institutes were too superficial in their cha-
racter. " They rather grazed firs surface of
" men's minds than penetrated into them."
The evening classes for young men avoid this
error, he thinks, as in them the pupils learn,
and do not merely listen. " But these classes
" consist, I believe, almost exclusively of
" clerks in offices and young men from shops."
So that the classes most urgently in need of
mental improvement are still not cared for, or
not attracted. The kind of instruction which
promises to fit men better for the practical
duties they have to fulfil is not exactly the
kind of intellectual improvement Mr. Maurice
desires, though he may not despise it.
His Working-Men's College embraces in-
struction, among other studies, in algebra,
natural philosophy, geometry, French, Latin,
and the animal form. In the " first term"
about 140 pupils entered the different classes,
and the entire number has not varied much in
the second term :

Classes on mechanics and astronomy had some pupils
in the last term—none in this. . . . The lecturer on
the human frame, who had no pupils in the first term, has
three in this.

This process is not very encouraging for one
who aims so high as Mr. Maurice. But he
adds :

An evening adult school to prepare pupils for the college
in reading, writing, and arithmetic, is increasing in num•
hers every week.

Compare this with the disparagement of
mere reading, writing, and ciphering, shown
in parts of these lectures (particularly at pages
35.6), and with the ridicule cast on the attempt
to begin with men as with children, illustrated
by the desire of Dominic Sampson to reform
Harry Bertram's education, from the know-
ledge of English grammar upwards, and it
will be seen how little the practice Mr. Maurice
has been forced to adopt agrees with his high-
flown theories.

We must break off for the present. The
volume is sufficiently remarkable to deserve
another article.