The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JtiNE 4, 1860.

THE INSURRECTION IN SICIL Y.

(From the Times.)
%e publish to-day news which will gladden the
heart of every friend of liberty in Europe. The
insurrection in Sicily is fully, and we trust finally,
victorious Palermo has been taken by Garibaldi
after a terrible struggle. The Neapolitan troops,
after being driven from position after position,
have at last capitulated, and are to embark on board
the King's vessels with the usual honours. Gari-
baldi is now master of the island. In a few days at
furthest the feeble garrisons which have been left
in some other of the towns on the coast will be
forced to surrender, and Francis 11. will be finally
dispossessed of Sicily. Though believing that it was
impssible to retain the island under Bourbon
domination, we had hardly looked for success so
speedy and so complete. In little more than three
weeks from the landing of the Italian chief with a
handful of men this beautiful and long oppressed
island is free, and another heavy blow has been
given to the fabric of despotism which is tottering
to its fall in Southern and Central Europe. Such
a feat of arms has seldom been related in history.
We have seen so many failures of late years—so
many men have sprung forward in the name of
liberty and nationality to accomplish great things,
have been found wanting in the day of trial, and
then fallen for ever, that lookers-on may naturally
be slow to offer their confidence and admiration to
a revolutionary leader. But Garibaldi has taken
his place in history as one of the most extraordi-
nary military commanders that this century
has produced. He is no longer to be reckoned
among those who are aspiring to a great name, who
give promise of great achievements, but respecting
whom the world must suspend its judgment. His
reputation is made, his position is taken, though
we hope that his work id not yet done. That
genius for war which was first shown in the siege
of Rome, and which bewildered the Austrians last
year by its vigour and audacity, has now broken
up the Neapolitan kingdom, and will end doubt-
less in giving liberty to the whole of Southern
Italy. Henceforward Garibaldi will receive not
only the sympathy but the full confidence of all
who are interested in the Italian cause. He has
shown the difference between foolhardiness and
that boldness which, based on accurate calculations,
is the highest triumphs of military genius. When
he landed with his 1,500 men at Marsala he did
that which might have exposed him for ever to
obloquy as a hot-headed enthusiast. He endangered
all his past reputation. He abandoned a political
position in the Sardinian monarchy which might
have contented any man, and began an enterprise
wnich many of those who sympathised with it
most deeply looked upon as desperate. It now
appears that Garibaldi knew his own powers, the
temper of the Sicilian people, and the weakness of
the Royal authority. The struggle is over, and
the tyrants who but one month ago tortured and
slaughtered the Sicilians with impunity are now
driven from the island, and may perhaps be brought
to Justice even in the capital of the monarchy.
It is of little use for us to attempt to follow
the military operations by which this astonishing
success has been achieved. The news given in the
despatches is too meagre, and we trust before long
to be able to lay before our readers a detailed and
trustworthy narrative from a well-known corre-
spondent. But the main points appear to have been
as follows :—By the 26th of May Garibaldi had
entirely cleared the country about Palermo of the
King's troops. The battle of Monreale, impu-
dently represented by the official accounts as a vic-
tory, had been a most complete defeat, and had been
followed by the retirement of the troops into the
town and the investment of the place by the Sici-
lians, who, though insufficiently armed and desti-
tute of cannon, were numerous and elated by their
success at Calata Fimi and Monreale. At 4 o'clock
on the morning of Sunday, the 27th, Garibaldi made
a sudden attack on the north side of the town, a dis-
trict called Peperito. A fierce combat en sued, which
lasted for two hours, and ended in placing Garibaldi
in possession of this part of the place. No sooner
was this accomplished than the inhabitants rose in
mass, attacking the troops with every weapon
which chance could supply. Two or three hours
more sufficed to give the people possession of the
whole town, and the troops retired into the citadel.
Then followed the brutal outrage on which we
commented on Saturday. The garrison being
driven out of the town, the Neapolitan squadron
began to bombard it. During the whole of Sun-
day afternoon and through great part of the
night the ships threw shells into Palermo, the
town was set on fire in many places, a number
of buildings were destroyed, and no doubt the loss
of life among the inhabitants was considerable. On
Monday Garibaldi stormed the citadel. It appears
that on the previous day a park of artillery was
captured, and no doubt the Sicilians were by this
means better enabled to operate against the refuge
of the soldiery. Of the details of the last conflict
we know nothing. It must have gone hard with
General Lanza, however, for be determined to
capitulate. The transaction was arranged on board.
her Britannic Majesty's ship Hannibal. We pre-
sume it is stipulated that the army which has capi-
tulated shall not be landed at any other point in
Sicily, but, at all events, Garibaldi, with the capital
of the island in his hands, and with a people at his
back flushed with victory, may now bid defiance to
any efforts of the Neapolitan Court.
Perhaps such a capitulation is the happiest mode
of terminating the struggle. We do not doubt that
Garibaldi is willing to hurt as little as possible the
feelings of the King's troops. Those who were the
enemies of yesterday may be the friends of to mor-
row. One account says that during the battle in
the town three regiments went over, and it may be
that the army which was employed to keep down
the Sicilians will shortly endanger its master s
throne. After all, Neapolitans are Italians, soldiers
are men, and there cannot be a high-spirited officer
in the King's service who does not look with more
sympathy on Garibaldi than on a Lanza or a
Salzano. We may conclude that, as far as regards
Sicily, the contest is nearly at an end. Messina must
soon fall, and then the island, placed under a Pro-
visional Government,with Garibaldi at its head, will
be an independent Power in Europe. What will be
the acts of the Dictator we have yet to learn, but
it is not likely that he will sit down in quiet, or
think anything done while anything remains to do.
The man who, like a Norman adventurer of old,
made his descent with two shipfulls of followers
and conquered a kingdom in three weeks, is hardly
likely to settle down now that he rules a population
of more than 2,000,000, and has the spoils of the
Neapolitan Arsenals with which to equip the levies
who will join him. We may certainly look for some
stirring events on the mainland. Italy is in such a
state that boldness is the best and, indeed, the only
possible policy. The Royal party at Naples is panic-
stricken, and the discontent of the people, roused
into fury by the news from Sicily, may anticipate
any movements of Garibaldi. It may be that as we
write King Francis has been driven from the domi-
nions which his family have cursed. It may even
be that the Neapolitan troops, ashamed of their dis-
grace and of the cause they serve, will follow the
example of the Tuscan and Modenese armies, and
bring the tyranny of the Bourbons to an end. But,
even if these events do not take place, we feel pretty
sure that Garibaldi will follow up his victory. His
presence in Calabria now would be the signal for an
insurrection as fierce as that which has broken out
in Sicily. With 5,000 men such as stormed Palermo
he might march from the Straits of Naples in a
month.

(From the liforming Post.)

Very strange is the contrast exhibited at the
present moment between the military struggle of
which Sicily is the scene and the religious hostility
caused by the attitude of the Romish Church in
Central Italy. In the name of civil freedom and
national independence great efforts have been made,
and great successes have been achieved, the most
signal being the capture of the Sicilian capital ;
and the patriotic leader, to whose moral influence
and warlike daring these successes are mainly due,
is, of all living Italians, the man most opposed to
the power and pretensions of the Papacy.
In the name of Catholic rights and clerical privi-
lege, the chief members of the Romish prelacy in
the new dominions of King Victor Emmanuel
are endeavouring to sap the foundations of that
Monarch's throne, and it is but the natural conse-
quence of their intrigues that the Italian people
universally regard, and the Sardinian Government
is compelled to treat, them as rebels to their country
and their King. The guerilla chieftain, who has just
entered Palermo in triumph, looks on the Papacy
as the plague-spot of Italy, or, rather, as a gnawing.
and consuming cancer that preys upon its vitals
and eats away its strength. The mitred conspirator
of Pisa, now forcibly conducted to the Sardinian
capital, regards Italian liberty as an evil spirit, to
be banned and exorcised by bell, and book, and can-
dle, by the sprinkling of holy water, and the perfor-
mance of solemn rites. Both may be taken as Italian
representative men in 1860. But whilst the Pre-
late is only the latest reproduction of a type, never
wanting at any period in the purple oligarchy of
the Vatican, the patriot General is a figure; reap-

pearing only after long intervals of time in Italian
history, and deriving his chief influence from the
rare combination of the exact personal qualities
most required to meet the exact Wants of a com-
pletely exceptional period in his country's annals.
Of the two struggles carried on, one by
.the
patriot bands in the kingdom of the Two Similes
against a rule of unexampled cruelty, the other by
the Papal intriguers in Central Italy against the
nascent freedom of their country, the former pos-
sesses for the moment by far the keenest dramatic
interest. Yet it would be a great mistake to re-
gard it as the more important of the two. Rome
is now fighting for her very altars and her hearths.
It is a moral warfare, of which the results must
prove far more important than any mili-
tary campaign. To dislodge twenty-five thou-
sand well-armed, well-disciplined, and most
desperate troops from the Sicilian capitalis
an insignificant matter when compared with
the dislodging of deep-rooted prejudice and tradi-
tionary belief from the minds of many millions of
the Italian people. A great living poetess, in one
of the noblest passages of her works, has counted
up all the things that go to making up a Pope
before ho wears the triple crown. Passing the
world-wide throes by which his empire was first
secured, the depair of the wise, the good, the free,
the faggots flash, the short, mad cries, " down
oubliettes," the persecution sustained, now at the
hands of a tyrannical prince, and again at those of
an infuriated populace passing by all this, she has
dwelt on what even the best of Popes must be and
do. He must hold by Popes a little, and by councils
a good deal, by hierocratic empire, more or less
irresponsible to men; he must crash the particular
conscience of each individual man, and repress in-
quiry, meditation, and argument, as treason
and faction in his spiritual -despotism. He
must remorselessly sacrifice his country to his
caste. And this is the truth which Pope
Pius has branded into the convictions of
the whole Italian people, who now scoff
and toss back the crozier which Rome would
stretch like a yoke across their necks, to press
them still closer down with an unrelenting tyranny.

In this antagonism between the Italian people
and the Church of Rome are contained the elements
of a great moral and religions conflict, one, of which
the inevitable necessity is but faintly perceived by
the Italians themselves. It is in vain to draw the
distinction, which they so frequently set up, be-
tween the vices and crimes of the Prince of the Roman
State, and the reverence and authority due to the
Pontiff of the Romish Church. This distinction
must, we know, disappear before the inexorabla
logic of facts. The desire of the Italians to sepa-
rate is not half so strong as the determination of
Rome unceasingly to confound her double func-
tions. Throughout the whole Catholic world the
spiritual offices of the Church have at the present
moment a direct reference to the form of Govei n-
ment established in Central Italy. The influence
of the confessional, we are informed in all the

Italian journals, is brought to bear directly on the
political and moral security of the new Italian
kingdom. The finger of the priest crosses or curses,
not the believer or the heretic, but the tool of
Austria and Rome, or the loyal subject of King
Victor Emmanuel. All the laws of human na-
ture must be reversed, all the experience of
history must be set at nought, if the tonsured
intriguers who thus plot against their country are
still able to command in Italy veneration for their
creed. The Romish faith, it is true, retains a won-
derfully strong hold of the feelings, and the imagi-
nation, and the conscience of its devotees. But its
influence is now exposed to shocks, in which the
strongest ties of human nature itself would infal-
libly be snapped asunder. If, by some monstrous
portent, all the relations of domestic life should be-
come so frightfully inverted, that not in one village
or in one town alone, but in all the populous
cities, in all the hamlets, in every cottage of
the Italian peninsula, the father should systemati-
cally neglect, and maltreat, and rob, and beat, and
insult his own offspring, paternal authority and
filial affection would assuredly become empty names
—the outraged child would repel the distinction
between the theoretical reverence which he was
bound to pay and the practical cruelty which he
hourly suffered. It is no otherwise at the present
moment with the fine distinctions which it is en-
deavoured to preserve between the spiritual father
whom the Italians should revere, and the temporal
tyrant who would again bind them in his chains.
In the one case as in the other, common Sense and
human nature laugh to scorn all the theorisings of
an idle sophistry.

FRENCH THEATRICALS.

LYRIQUE.

The great success which has attended the revivals,
at this theatre, of the chefs-d'auvre of Weber, Mo-
zart, and Gluck, gave rise lately to a still more
arduous enterprise—the production of Beethoven's
opera of " Fidelio." On the present occasion, how-
ever, the failure is evident, and the liberties
taken with both music and libretto have
resulted in a pasticcio little better than
a travestie of the opera. It may well be
doubted if any efforts could have rendered this
opera, in spite of all that has been said in its praise,
welcome to a Parisian audience ; the instrumenta-
tion is doubtless a fine study for musicians, and
the genius of the great German composer is evi-
dent throughout, but that genius was eminently
symphonic, and so little is there of easily intelli-
gible or really vocal melody in " Fidelio" that even
with the Malibran and Mlle. Cruvelli as Leonora,
it never became a popular favourite, notwithstand-
ing its unquestioned grandeur of conception and
orchestration, to which the resources of the Theatre
Lyrique are totally inadequate. Mme. Viardot, as
Leonora, displayed all her energy and artistic talent,
but the part is high for her voice, and we cannot
but regret she should have accepted it after her
triumph in Orphee. Battaille is equally unfortu-
nate as Rocco, the jailer, and the subordinate parts
were sustvined, as best they might be, by Mlle.
Faivre, MM. Froment and Serene, of whom Mlle,
Faivre, at least, merited the applause she received.

GAITE.
The list of novelties this week is rather worse
than nil, seeing that the only production it has
brought forth is a lugubrious affair entitled " Une
Pecheresse," being the adventures of a young lady
of the class of " La Traviata," " Marion Delorme,"
and many others, all of which are so perfectly
known to the play-going world that there is not an
incident or scarcely a passage in the present piece
which is not anticipated by the spectator. The
principal character is a furiously virtuous young
man, by name Andrew Stevens, a sign-painter by
trade, who having the good—or ill-:—fortune to Pre-
serve a young woman from suicide, incontinently
goes and marries her. He speedily discovers that
this was a mistake, as she turns out to be one of the
unhappy tribe, familiarly known to London police-
offices as " unfortunate." The results of the singu-
larly hasty union may easily be divined—ceaseless
jealousy on the part of the husband, and misery
to both. Two or three comic roles are introduced
to enliven the dulness of the proceedings, one
scene of which is laid at Musard's ball, which
rather relieve the heaviness of the piece, and at
the close Monsieur Andrew has the grace to ac-
knowledge that he has been wrong, and his sus-
picions of his wife unfounded. Full of common-
place sentiment, absurdity, "and improbability as
this piece is, there is a vein of interest running
through it which somehow, in spite of all defects,
keeps the attention and sympathy of the audience
alive. It is fairly acted ; and the names of the
writers, Mg. Prebois and Barrier°, were received
with a warmth that promises " Une Pecheresse" a
fair prospect of a run.

During the performance of "Pierre de Medicis"
on Monday evening Mme. Ferrais had the misfor-
tune to sprain one of the tendons of the heel, and
was totally unable to continue her performance. The
opera is in consequence postponed for a few nights,
to allow her a little repose.
Miss St. George, a special favourite of the Lon-
dolt theatres, has arrived in Paris en route for the
other principal capitals of the Continent, whither
she is proceeding with a view to give musical and
dramatic entertainments ; a species of representa-
tion to which the sprightly talents and voice of this
young lady are most admirably adapted to give
effect.
Miss Cushman, the justly celebrated American
tragedian, is at present in Paris on her return from
Rome, where she has been passing the winter.
MM. Binfield's Soirée Musicale passed off bril-
liantly. The programme commenced with their
trio on Oberon. Then came an old favourite,
Stevens's glee Ye spotted snakes," new to Paris,
and sung with good expression and ensemble by
Mlle. Fa.lconi and the madrigal party. Mr. H. Bin-
field performed a charming new harp mazurka, and
his variations on the " the faro" and Parish Alvar's
" Mandoline" study with his usual brilliant finger-
ing; his Agnus Dei was very well rendered, and
was warmly applauded. Bach's fine organ prelude
in E fiat, and Schubert's " Hark, the lark," ar-

ranged and performed in masterly style by Messrs.
W. R. and Augustus Binfield, were followed by
" 0 Thou that tellest," from the Messiah, capi-
tally sung by Mlle. Falooni. The elegant audience
and the number of artistic celebrities pres:ent at a
concert so late in the season showed how highly
these conscientious artistes are esteemed in Paris.

Tamberlik is at present engaged at Madrid, after
which, some of the journals state, proceeds to
ltio Janeiro, where he remains for eight months,
receiving the enormous salary of 1;8,000. We are
awure that Tamberlik is a prodigious favourite in
Rio, but £l,OOO a month seems an exorbitant sum,
even considering the extravagant manner in which
Italian artistes are usually overpaid in Europe.
We believe, however, that he is engaged at Covent
Garden for at least a part of the present season, so
that his visit to South America wilt not take place
for some time.

A Paris letter in the Independence gives some
curious details relative to the opera of " Semira-
mide," which is about to be brought out at the
Grand Opera in a French form :—" In preparing
for the coming representation, it was impossible to
find a complete partition of the opera. When Ros-
sini composed it, music was not engraved in Italy;
but the parts were copied by hand at the theatre,
and those copies, being executed by unintelligent
persons, were often very incorrect and incomplete.
The copyist furnished the other theatres who ap-
plied to him, and, as the orchestras of those houses
were limited to only a few instruments, they, from
a principle of economy, merely sent for such par-
titions as would suit them. The quartettes of the
stringed instruments were always more complete
and more carefully copied than the rest. Rossini
told me the other day that even at the Italian
Theatre of Paris, they had never had the partition
such as he had written it. In order to procure it
for the French Opera, it was necessary to make
long and difficult researches, to consult the libraries
of several theatres in Italy, and at length the
work was recompleted. On the clay of the first
representation of " Semiramide," Galli, who had the
part of Assur, sang constantly too high ; he per-
ceived his error, but found it impossible to come
down to the proper tone. At the fall of the curtain
he dared not present himself before the. maestro,
whom he knew was in the house; but Rossini,
perceiving him, approached with open arms, and
exclaimed " Yeni, porco, that I may embrace you;
you have sung admirably false during the whole
evening." So much for the letter of the _lndepen-
dence. We may add that it was in this opera
Mme. Malibran made her debut in Paris. She ap-
peared as Arsace—Mlle. Sontag being the Semira-
mide. The representation was for the benefit of
Galli, the baritone above mentioned, and took place
at the Grand Opera. The success of Milibran was
so great, that she was engaged on the spot for the
Italiens by M. Laurent, who -was then Director.