The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-24 00:00:00

(From the Daily News.)
It has pleased God to close the Mysterious and
afflicting spectacle which the reign of Ferdinand of
Naples has so long offered to the world. After
exhausting the virtue of relics innumerable in a
lingering and loathsome disease, that Monarch died
on the afternoon of Sunday, the 22d inst., having
reigned 29 years.
The reign of Ferdinand may be divided into two
parts—the period of normal Bourbon absolutism,
and the period of revenge. As for the first, the late
King himself explained its principle in a letter to
King Louis Philippe, who had counselled him to
govern with • nuYie moderation. " Liberty," he
wrote, " is fatal to the Bourbons, and I am deter-
mined not to incur the fate of Charles X. My
subjects do not want to think or reflect. Our family
does not belong to this century; we are ancient,
and if we adopted modern notions we should be
ridiculous." Accordingly, after a few illusory
signs of lenity, displayed at the period of his
accession, Ferdinand commenced an era of political
persecutions, proscriptions, and executions. The
infamous Del Carretto made chief of the police,
was permitted to attach every department of the
Government to his office, while all the moral influ-
ences of the Statewere made over to the Jesuits
and the priests. Between 1832 and 1847 seven
attempts at insurrection were made. Criminal pro-
cedure became more vigorous and cruel, the use of
torture in prison become frequent, and members of
the noblest families fled into voluntary exile to
avoid aecusations which were easily made; but
which it was almost impossible to repel. In one
day Ferdinand signed the death warant of eleven
political prisoners. Urged by the events of 1848
to do something for his safety, the King proclaimed
a constitution, and sent au army and fleet to join
the Italian cause. The army was recalled just as
it reached the frontiers of Lombardy, and before it
had struck a blow in the cause of liberation ; the
Admiral of the Fleet, it is now known, had orders
to avoid any collision with the Austrians; and the
constitution was employed as a trap to entice men
to free speech. A feline cunning pervaded the acts
of Ferdinand during the revolutionary period. He
might then be seen kissing and offering cigars to
the patriots and statesmen whom he was about to
consign in a few months to the Most horrible of
dungeons,, and the companionship of murderers,
upon the evidence of men of known infamy,
suborned as accusers. Mr. Gladstone has described
for the world the kind of civil and judicial adminis-
tration which followed the overthrow of represen-
tative government. It was not mere imperfection,
corruption, or occasional severity, but incessant,
systematic, deliberate violation by the Executive of
every law, human and divine. The Government,
he told us, was "in bitter and cruel, as well as
illegal, hostility to whatever in the nation really
lives and moves, and is the mainspring of practical
improvement and progress." The consequence was
"-a total inversion of all the moral and social ideas."
Men said of the Government, " This is the negation
of God erected into a system." And this Govern.
ment was no other than the personal will of the
King. For nine years has the deadly feeling of
revenge been quick and lively in the heart of that
most cruel of Monarchs ; and while he lay on his
death-bed, beseeching the blessing of the Pope,
:twenty thousand of his subjects lay in prison
charged with political offences.
It is fearful enough to think of the victims o? a
monarch pining in prisons while he is abroad in his
strength and pride at the head of his forces perhaps,
or announcing his pleasure to the officers of his
State ; but it is worse to think of his victims so
suffering while he is sinking into the grave, keep-
ing the locks and bars of their prison fast, using
his failing faculties in devising mental troubles for
them, and rousing his energies to evade the de-
mands of an outraged world, when they can no
longer endure the thoughts of what he has inflicted.
The cries of bereaved families, the pangs of wise
and noble men whose lives he has ruined, the stern
whispers of brother despots whose order he has
disgr aced, the muttered curses of his own subjects,
the shout of execration from all free nations—all
these fail to make him penitent, to make him re-
morseful, to make him even human in that hour
when all men are supposed to be alike, and the
power of each to be vanishing, like the sunshine
wh..i tha-cun is disappearing beloNi: the horizon.
Not the most hardened, besotted lover of power can,
however, much relish the image of this last stage of
it. However it may be when the moment arrives,
the anticipation of a dying hour disturbed by
malignant wishes, darkened by curses, and hailed as
the close of an evil period, must be dreadful to the
most hardened despot that the world ever bore.
The cruel are, it is true, the most selfdeceptive of
men ; and of all cruel men, Bourbon Kings of that
character of mind are perhaps the most apt in fail-
ing to see themselves as others see them : but,
amidst all that the self-interest of relatives and the
adulation of courtiers can do, there is something
supremely horrible in the farewell which an out-
raged human race bids to a solitary pilgrim enter-
ing the dark valley. The King of Naples knew
what a part at least of the world thought of him
and his use of povr. He knew what we, the
people of England, Ihought of his victims, and
therefore of himself. However be might fix his
mind pertinaciously on the duty of sovereigns
to override all meaner men, he was aware
what sovereigns and meaner men alike
thought of his way of doing it. He knew
that his death had been long desired ; he believed,
whether truly or not, that it was constantly
sought : he was aware that when the news of his
being no more should spread from his chamber
to every point of the compass, there would arise
every conceivable sound of rejoicing—from the
half-breathed thanksgiving to Heaven, to the curi-
ous inquiry of distant tribes and nations about
the qualities of the monster of whom the world
was rid. It is an awful fate. All common tokens
of popular are trifles in comparison with
the curse which has blighted the last days of
the King of Naples, and the emotions of hope
and joy which render his funeral the gayest
spectacle on which the eyes of his people have
ever rested.
There are some who will be wise not to struggle
against the light which this event should naturally
shed into their minds. Which of the kings of
the earth wishes that his latter end may be like
this ? And how far is it probable that any one
of them should leave the world in such a way?
Alexander of Russia knows that a bitter cry of
grief would go up from all the serfs of his em-
pire if he were to die before he has done
what he intends for them. Let him redeem his
pledge, and live for others as well as the serfs, and
he need fear no mingling of joy in the tone with
which his dirge will be sung. Future Kings of
Prussia may share the security of British sove-
reigns, and the privilege of being loved and
mourned for their good qualities, while they cannot
inflict the horrors which procure a nation's curse.
Austrian rulers have had too much sympathy with
those of Naples, and stand perilously near to the
same fate. There is a bust of the'late Emperor
Francis at Milan, which is a sort of fetish to the
hatred of his victims—whom he had a fancy to call
his children. This bust is inscribed " Our Father
Francis;" and deep growls of wrath have been the
response, for many a long year, to the impudence of
this challenge. " A pretty father he was to me!"
says the Spielberg captive as he passes by. The
present Emperor is young ; but the youngest man's
deathbed is within his ken. Let the ally of King
Bomba consider now what is before his eyes,
Area nl
interpret the sounds which greet his ears,
there sufferers within his dominions whom his
Government is making wretched—any Italians—
, any Hungarians—any. Protestants whom he has
delivered over to the priests ?