The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-19 00:00:00

TEE CAREER OF GA.RIBALDL

The Naples correspondent of La Presse has
forwarded to that journal an animated and interest-
ing sketch of the triumphant career and position of
the deliverer of Naples. The writer says :
" Garibaldi has decidedly dethroned St. Js,nua-
rius. Garibaldi is now the patron saint of Naples.
He :reigns and governs—he is everywhere, he is
everything. He goes forward with a sublime au-
dacity which ensures his success and preserves him
from danger. I doubt whether the world is yet
sufficiently alive to the marvels of his adventures.
Astonishment has its limits. When our dazzled
eyes contemplate his rapid course of glory we at
last cease to wonder, and accept the incredible facts
achieved by him almost without reflection. But
the other day this man was only a general in the
service of a secondary State—he was supposed to be
a " mere soldier who might- be trusted with the
command of a battalion or perhaps of a brigade."
I have even said too much of him ; he was not a
general, for he resigned his commission. This man
had no fortune, no recognised power, no mission
legitimised by any authority whatsoever. He had
not even one of those hereditary great names which
serve to cloak personal ambition with the mantle of
divine right. He was, in a word, but the repre-
sentative of an idea, of an abstraction, or, as many
would have said but yesterday, of an Utopia—not
of a political idea which attracts men by material
interests and promises of advancement—but of a
national idea which asked for sublime and heroic
self-sacrifice, an idea which, far from triumphing
in three days (like a town insurrection, could only
hope to award the prize of victory after years of
privation, peril, and combat.
"He had against him all Europe, the law of
nations, treaties, the ' balance of power,' and to these
traditions, to these established rules, he could op-
pose the prestige of a popular name illustrated by a
few brilliant skirmishes, but not, as yet, associated
with any great victories such as those which trans-
formed General Bonaparte into the Emperor
Napoleon. He was alone, poor, and had not the
law on his side ; but he has stirred the heart of
many nations, raised soldiers as if by enchantment,
found millions of money at his command, and he
now raises the world by a word. And he has done
all this without art, without mystery, without con-
spiracy—he has done it while all mankind saw him
from the first with his eyes fixed steadily upon, and
his finger pointing to, the end he had in view. He
set out on his adventurous expedition with a hand-
ful of men, and with this handful of men he declared
war upon a sovereign who had a hundred ships of
war, and 80,000 soldiers. His designs were known
he was watched and waylaid in all directions, but
he threaded his way through formidable squadrons;
landed unexpectedly on some of the best defended
points on the enemy's coast, within sight of two
men of war, who with a score of shots might have
annihilated his expedition, and at the head of 1,092
Italians and 9 Hungarians he, at the end of a fort-
night, defeated an army of 30,000 men, and eon-
quered Sicily.
"After a pause of three months, during which
time his influence, already greater than that of all
the Powers of Europe; forced a stiff-necked king to
make concessions to his people, and emboldened
that people to spurn a boon too tardily granted, he
passed the straits which separate Sicily from the
mainland, and in 17 days, marching 17 dap straight
before him, and looking neither to the right nor to
the left, he conquered a kingdom, swept away the
work of a century, and astonished the world—in
these times of moderation' and diplomacy—by. an
adventure far more wonderful than the ancient
conquests of the Normans. He was a Corsair repu-
diated by his king, and be has given to that king,
by a stroke of his pen, 100 ships and 10 millions
of men. And he has done all this openlp in the face
of Europe, which was at first disconcerted, but now
has no thought of resistance, and dazzled and car-
ried away in spite of herself recognises the heroic
crime by a sort of sympathetic abstention, which
makes her, morally, an accomplice in theileed.
Alone this man has done this—and he will not stop
here.

" I have heard Garibaldi speak, I have seen
him near • he is admirable. His nature is that of a
_ .

lion. His voice is resolute, his ii;a4 large, and his
body short and thick. When angry he must be
terrible. But habitually he has a placid eye and a
sweet smile. He is not so much a man of genius
as an apostle. He walks onward in faith, without
fear or hesitation, and he works miracles. He is a
man to quit his boat in a storm and walk upon the
waters. He believes in his mission as others be-
lieve in their star.

" The other day during a disturbance in the Car-
mine, when some soldiers fired a few musket shots,
and even some cannon shots among the people, be
never stirred. He offered cigars to the National
Guard about him, saying Smoke while you wait
for them.' But he has a keen scent of danger, and
when he sees it anywhere he
.is wont to say ' Ci
vado io' (I will go myself); and then nothing can
stop him. One of the most striking traits of his
character is his singular simplicity. He is the only
great man I know who never acts a part. His
speeches (like those of all men of strong convictions)
are somewhat grandiloquent ; but in private his
manner is the most familiar and cordial that can
be conceived. He listens to all corners with the
patience of a martyr, not keeping them at a distance
or speaking to them like an oracle. He is simple
and good. To mention one trait out of a thousand.
At Messina one of his old companions in arms knelt
down before him on both knees, saying he had an
immense favour to ask. The man was long before
be could be brought to explain himself, but at length
he stammered out that he wanted one of Garibaldi's
buttons to wear as an amulet round his neck, and
then he was sure he should not die. The dictator at