The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

doubtless, than amusement may be acquired
by a discriminating reader from these rapid
but profusely-charged pictures of Italian life
and manners. The spirit and temper of an
author once thoroughly understood, every-
thing, or almost everything, casts some stray
or transverse flash of suggested information.
And even this most melodramatic exaggera-
tion of prosaic incidents and of an infructuous
series of ill-contrived efforts—even this
most melodramatic congeries—for that is the
true name for such a medley—may yield its

modicum of enlightenment.
Castellamonte (who, we suspect, must be
some cousin-german of " Lorenzo Benoni")
begins with his boyhood. A sublime passion,
of course, and a grandiose quarrel, opening
with " three mighty strides " into the middle
of a room where many ladies were present (his
beloved among them), and then an invective,
somewhat in the, style of Smithfield on
market day, thundered against his enemy,
whom "he hated" on account of a squint,
these insinuating incidents introduce us into
the story. We are then presented with a fiery
picture of the hero's schoolday frolics,
which (we ask his forgiveness) most vividly
reveal, or rather betray, the man.
We must here take leave to make a remark,
to which we solicit Castellamonte's particular
attention ; it is this—that when we read such
works as the present, as " Lorenzo Benoni,"
and some other self-pictures of the modern
Italian, we feel that we could dispense with all
high political considerations, and still fully ac-
count for the failure of recent Italian attempts
at regeneration. The " primate, "in a worldly
sense, is gone from the beautiful land, or ex-
ists there only in the nuking title of Vincenzo
Gioberti's famous appeal. We deny not—who
would hesitate toacknowledge ?—the thorough-
bred stock from which this fallen race is
sprung. But, by some mysterious law of ge-
neration, whether the virtue be worn out, or
whatever else be the reason, the descendants
of the matchless nation are now essentially
different, we say not inferior merely in degree.
We observe that fatal symptom, so contrary to
the sublime and conscious serenity of strength
always found in the morally indomitable septs,
families, or communities of mankind—the
symptom of touchy, testy, irritability, seeking
a morbid vent in all sorts of quarrelsome
promptitude on small occasions, barren of re-
sult. It is the sign of the " cocktail "or the
mongrel. The great heart has lost its con-
quering patience, and has become fretful at
last, pitifully fretful. For instance, think for
a moment of Camillus about to deliver ancient
Rome from the Gauls, and endeavour to recal
him as he was when proceeding to weigh the
iron or steel of his sword against the gold in
the treasonous scales, and compare the calm
old image with the following picture of patriotic
enthusiasm :
I started up from my chair, wrenched from my friend's
hand the dagger he was holding up to my admiration with
as much eagerness as Macbeth would have clutched the
" air-drawn " weapon that was to help him to a kingdom,
and held it up with its point turned to my eye. It was a
masterpiece of workmanship ; such a weapon as only love
could forge. It was a short stilletto-blade, keen on both
edges as a razor. The handle was made of precious
stones, set mosaic-wise. Galli had been at work upon it
for several months, and intended it as au agreeable surprise
to me, hardly expecting that his gift would come at so sea-
sonable a moment.
I brandished it aloft, flourished it right and left ; all at
once, by a spasmoaic fit, my hand fell, and I hit myself a
smart blow on my thigh.
That keen greedy steel sunk into the flesh full two
fingers' width. The next moment tay nether garment and
boot were filled with blood.
From this point all proceeds regularly—we
mean fitfully—through the bootless outbreak
of the Italian struggles of 1831, consequent
on, and stimulated by, the advent of the
" King of the Barricades " in Paris.
We really have no more to say about the
work; but for the faults we have been con-
scientiously obliged to indicate it would be a
pleasant old tale to tell under a tree in spring,
or summer, or autumn, and by the winter fire-
side.

Remarks on the Three Proposals for Reforming the
Constitution of the University of Oxford. By
Henry Boothby Barry, M.A., Michel Fellow of
Queen's College, Oxford. London : Ridgway.
MR. BOOTHBY BARRY 118$, within the compass of a
small pamphlet, clearly and concisely stated the