The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-07 00:00:00

DEATH- OF COUNT CAYOUR.

(From the Tinges.)
Count Cavour is gone. The mind almost refuses
to believe what but a week ago it would have
been a doubting of Providence to think at all pro-
bable. Its as when, on a sudden darkness, the
eye is stilll possessed with the object that last
nlled it. But just now all minds were on
Cavour. In what form would he cast the still un-
settled, still
.hot and seething Italy ? How would
he win Venice and Rome from the lingering
foreigner ? How would he overcome the more
serious difficulties arising from diversity of race,
mutual jealousy, and conflicting traditions ? These
questions, and many others, were asked when it
was thought they would soon be answered, for busi-
ness did not slacken in the hands of Cavour. In a
small city on a rural stream, surrounded by moun-
tain peaks, he parleyed with every Sovereign of
Europe, and compromised himself with none, in
behalf of the greatest cause that ever fell to the lot
of statesman. Italy has conquered the world ;
Italy, in its turn, has succumbed under the very
weight of its invaders; but never before did the
resources of one mind, dealing with friends and
with foes, raise a bulwark stronger than the Alps
against them all. There was not a European Court
which did not find itself brought face to face with
Cavour. With every one he had a standing con-
troversy for Italy. The harvest was over ; the
harvest-home was being celebrated ; it was but the
gleaning that remained. All at once the master
spirit has left us. The affairs remain—the man
is no more. It is the very soul of Italy that has
fled. We may range through all history and
find few parallels. A conqueror dies with an empire
to be consolidated or divided ; a young Prince
dies with a Reformation unfinished ; the only child
of an unpopular Sovereign or the heir of a new
dynasty is cut off by a sudden stroke; a nation
waging a peat war loses at once its chief ad-
viser or its foremost warrior ; a political principle
loses its champion—his labours just begun or just
ended. In all those cases there is unexpected con-
solation. The work is finished or in good hands,
or, after all, there is nothing to be done ; and the
world is only relieved from a personal usurpation in
order that it may return 'to its former and better
self. In the present instance a work which, on the
evidence of history, is at once most difficult and most
noble, has been achieved by the genius and enter-
prise of one man. Cavour held in his firm grasp
those famous Italian Republics that were never
united except to conquer Europe or under the pres-
sure of a world. Will that new unity survive the
hand that made it ? Will Italy remain in fact, when
it no longer lives in the conception of that powerful
intellect and that resolute will? The most singular
combination of qualities, and the determination to
abandon self, and almost honour, in the pursuit,
were necessary to win success. If such a combina-
tion be necessary to retain it, that combination will
not be found. There are statesmen, and diplo-
matists, and scholars, and heroes, but there will not
soon be another who can be all, and more.

But what if the knot itself required this extrica-
tion ? There never was a great cause that did not
require its martyrs, and was not founded on their
sacrifice and cemented by their suffering. Twelve
years ago the cause now so triumphant was repre-
sented by a defeated army, a banished and dying
Sovereign, a disgraced Minister. United Italy had
become again a dream and a fable. It no longer
existed even in pamphlets and speeches. But
the other day Charles Albert lay in his tcmb,
enveloped by faded chaplets, mouldy sonnets, and
mildewed orations. The living voice was silent,
the living arm was paralysed, and the living heart
was broken. Among the many dreams of Europe
and the many hopes of its old nations, there was
none so impossible as that Italy should rise from
the dead, and be that independent nation which it
was not even under Imperial Rome. The policy
which raised Sardinia from her very ashes, which
made her the ally of Western Europe, which proved
her soldiers in the East, which made Austria the
aggressor, which obtained at least one more pro-
vince for Italy, which made every Italian sure of a
leader, and so made Sovereigns fly before popular
demonstrations, and armies dissolve before a band of
adventurers. This was all Cavour's. His was the
head that planned it, the heart that gave it life, and
the arm that carried it through. Had this been all,
it might still have been classed with the work of
the men who sally forth in quest of States in the
New World, and make a little might do duty for
much right. Cavour could go on with his work.
He could reform Administrations, assimilate States,
bring order out of chaos, found legislative assemblies,
make them do their duty, and dll the time prepare
the ground for future operations still more difficult.
Such is the man who has been cut off in the midst
of his labours. While we write, it is but a few
hours since he was spending his last breath for the
encouragement and union of Italy. He has fallen
in the struggle of thought and word as bravely as
the soldier dies on the battle-field.

All speak well of his successors, except that they
are not CavOur. They are even too honest, and tco
rigidly exact, to use the politic ait which Cavour
used against those who deserved no better treat-
ment. There are none with the versatility required
to deal with the novelties and surprises of a revolu-
tionary period. But the present crisis of Italy's
fortune may still come under the general law
which seems to make the greatest men martyrs
to their own cause, and founds every covenant with
sacrifice. Italian unity—the creation, as some
think, of violence, of duplicity, of treason, and of
all the questionable acts ever practised by the weak
against the strong, by the oppressed against the
oppressor—has now the consecration of a great
death, fitly crowning a life of anxiety and labour.
They who die in a cause bury their own errors, and
purge the example which they set. The discordant
elements of Italy might not be harmonised by any
living statesman, and may yet acknowledge the
authority of one who speaks from the grave. It is
no humiliation to bow to those whose power is in
our own bosoms, and who can only enforce their
opinions by making friends of our own instincts.
Cavour will be as great a name in the tomb as
in the Council Chamber of Turin. Possibly,
too—though this is more precarious—his death
may go far to disarm the jealousy of those
who think Sardinia too much a gainer by Italian
revolution. The living do not envy the dead, at
least on earthly grounds. France and Austria may
pay court and deference to an illustrious shade
who is no longer in a condition to provoke their
jealousy. Even the great Liberator may now feel
more respect for the man who has at least died for
his loyalty. The Court of Rome need not congratu-
late itself on the silence of him who, being dead,
yet speaketh. There is no need, then, to conclude
the game of Cavour over, and not to be played out.
There will be other CavourE raised up by his
example, and not so easily to be cut off as a. man s
natural posterity. This year, indeed, all is quiet,
and all will be quiet; but before another year we
shall see whether the example of the great Italian
statesman is buried and forgotten in the grave.

(Film the Daily News.)
Cavour is dead. Who that read these tidings
profess that even to-day Le has got
willmore than a vague sense of some porten-
from yesterday
the m
porten-
tous derangement of the facts on which the politics
of Europe have turned? The event has too many
bearings and suggests too many consequences to be
grasped at once. In every free country Cavour
was almost as the name of one of its own statesmen ;
while in all countries he was regarded as the man
on whose decisions the most momentous European
questions hinged. Like most great events,
it has come upon the public by surprise.
Probably most people have at one time or
another been disposed to ask themselves
what would happen if Cavour disappeared; but
the thought has been instantly repressed : the re-
sults to be apprehended were too painful. Now
that the fact has to be looked in the face, we can
see many reasons why we might have expected it.
The fatal excesses of labour in which the Count
indulged to the total exclusion of recreation and
repose; his customary annual attacks of illness;
and the well-known atrocious abuse of the lancet
in Italian medical treatment, are enough to make
it unreasonable in us to be startled at what has
happened : but we are startled, nevertheless.
The hold which Count Cavour had taken of the
public mind was in proportion to the rapidity and
vigour with which he developed a policy directed
as much to the satisfaction of great European
necessities as to the independence and greatness of
his own country. We must go back to some great
formative period of history—far beyond the pre-
tended " peace" of 1815, when Europe was
barba-
rously and traitorously hacked about, to give future.___
generations remedial work to do—back to_tthhentinuu
bold
of Richelieu and Oxenstein, to find men or
and the
conceptions, the skilful combinations, n
k proclaim
masterly execution of Cavour.
his character. He found Italyhoin the sight of their
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on her
ilaistliwicted with the
satraps of Austria, againsttvynn
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entitled by population
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children to a passionate
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During this period we have seen his grand policy
was the only
saw at the time the lofty
Power which . aims Which
prompted the .
extraordinary offer of Count Cavour
gradually un.folde . y
to send an auxiliary army to the Crimea in 1855.
Her apprehensions were justified when Count
Cityour tGib his place in the Congress of Paris, and
there formally appealed to Europe against the
illegalities and usurpations under which his country
suffered. The alliance with France for the over-
throw of Austrian supremacy in Italy was a com-
pact all the more daring because none had better

considered than Count Cavour the risks which a
small state runs when it accepts the military aid of
a powerful neighbour. The result at first seemed
rather to warrant the early apprehensions than
approve the final resolution of the Minister. At
the crisis of Villafranca, Louis Napoleon constituted
himself the sole adviser of Victor Emmanuel, and
expressly excluded Cavour from the counsels of his
master. Had the policy of the Minister been less
than national and Italian he had now been irretriev-
ably undone. But the bombards, the Tuscans, the
Romagnese knew the man who had stood by them,
and took up the cause in which he had taught them
to confide, and sustained it until he was again at the
helm of his country's affairs. The extension of the
free Italian Kingdom which followed his return to
office was not accomplished without sacrifices which
sorely tried all Italian hearts, and which, as Cavour
was well convinced, could never be repeated even by
him. The time is not come for publishing the history
of these transactions'; but whenever it arrives it will.
be seen that not Garibaldi himself could have striven
harder to prevent the separation of Nice from Italy.
The remarkable events which have since ex-
hibited his policy, the annexation of Umbria and
the Marches, with that of the Two Sicilies,
are fresh in every memory, and his settled pur-
poseeera
career—the
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r doubtedsteal
Veniceabeitvehei an
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of
euhestivths
to complete the work by acquiring Rome and.
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of Italy—a hundred considerations would perplex
and stagger pedantic lookers on, and in truth we
must add some others, which have at times made the
most candid friends of Italy doubt and pause, were
set aside. Onward he went without precipitation
and without delay, as free from rancour as from
remorse, sometimes compelled to suspend, but never
induced to renounce the pursuit of his magnificent
ends.

And now he is gone ; and his mighty energy,
his calm and far-seeing prudence, his vast political
knowledge can no more be useful to his country.
It is natural to ask—Who will take up and finish
his work ? The , feeling congenial to the hour is,
that the loss sustained in his death is irreparable.
We may admit this undeniable truth without ex-
aggerating it. What Italy needs in her political
situation is power ; and Cavour was power. His
character as a versatile and resolute statesman, full
of resource, and with a knack of rising stronger
from every defeat, was appreciated in every court
of Europe, and entered largely into the calculations
of the enemies of his country. Again, the condi-
tion of Italian affairs demanded a decision and
unity of administration, to which the concentration
of power in a single hand was very favourable
The prestige of Cavour's name, like the ascend-
ancy which he enjoyed in the Cabinet un-
challenged, was of gradual growth, and its loss
cannot be supplied. But we cannot, on reflection,
participate in the fears which so naturally arise
that the conduct of Italian affairs must necessarily
become embarrassed in consequence of his removal.
Italy, which has given great ministers to every
principal country in Europe, will not now be want-
ing to herself. It is true the hour is one of great
gravity. Danger menaces, foes and friends may
be tempted alike to presume on fancied weakness.
But if the public men of Italy display a spirit of
self-abnegation and unity equal to their ability—
if the Ricasolis, Ratazzis, Farrinis, Mamianis,
Minghetti, Pepolis, and others only—as assur-
edly they will—lay aside any personal considera-
tion for the sake of their country, we shall look
for a successful prosecution of that policy which
its illustrious author lived long enough to develope,
and which with his dying breath he bequeathed
to his country.