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CHAPTER XVI.

THE THREE NEWMANS

IN one of the last conversations I had the pleasure to hold with Mr. Gladstone, I referred to the "three Newmans" and their divergent careers.  He said he never knew there were "three."  He knew John Henry, the Cardinal (as he afterwards became), at Oxford.  He knew Francis William there, who had repute for great attainments, retirement of manner, and high character; but had never heard there was a third brother, and was much interested in what I had to tell him.  The articles of Charles Newman I published in the Reasoner, and their republication by the late J. W. Wheeler, were little known to the general public, who will probably hear of them now for the first time.

    Though I name "three Newmans," this chapter relates chiefly to the one I best knew, Francis William, known as Professor Newman.  The eldest of the three was John Henry, the famous Cardinal.  The third brother, Charles, was a propagandist of insurgent opinion.  Francis was a pure Theist, John was a Roman Catholic, and Charles a Naturist, and nothing besides; he would be classed as an Agnostic now.  Francis William was the handsomest.  He had classical features, a placid, clear, and confident voice, and an impressive smile which lighted up all his face.  John Henry manifested in his youth the dominancy of the ecclesiastic, and lived in a priestly world of his own creation, in which this life was overshadowed by the terrors of another unknown.  Francis believed in one sole God—not the head of a firm.  His Theism was of such intense, unquestioning devotion, of such passionate confidence, as was seen in Mazzini and Theodore Parker, of America.  Voltaire and Thomas Paine were not more determined Theists.  In all else, Francis was human.  Charles believed in Nature and nothing more.  In sending me papers to print in the Reasoner on "Causation in the Universe," he would at times say, "My mind is leaving me, and when it returns a few months hence, I will send you a further paper."  Like Charles Lamb's poor sister, Mary, who used to put her strait waistcoat in her basket and go herself to the asylum, when she knew the days of her aberration were approaching, Charles Newman had premonition of a like kind.  He had the thoroughness of thought of his family.  The two brothers—the Cardinal and the Professor united to supply Charles with an income sufficient for his needs.  The Cardinal, though he knew Charles' opinions, readily joined.

    When some questioning remark on Professor Newman was made incidentally in the House of Commons, in consequence of his uncompromising views, the Cardinal wrote saying that "for his brother's purity he would die," which, considering their extreme divergence of opinion, was very noble in the Cardinal.

    Professor Newman, I believe, wrote more books, having regard to their variety and quality, than any other scholar of his time.  Science, history, poetry, theology, political economy, mathematics, travel, translations—the Iliad of Homer—among them a Sanscrit dictionary.  He wrote many pamphlets and spoke for the humblest societies, regardless of the amazement of his eminent contemporaries and associates.  On questions relating to marital morality, he did not hesitate to publish leaflets.  I published a series of letters for him in the Reasoner—now some fifty years ago, so we were long acquainted.  These earlier communications came to me at a time when the authorities of University College in London, where he was Professor of Latin, were being called upon to consider whether his intellectual Liberalism might deter parents from sending their sons there.  But it was bravely held that the University had no cognisance of the personal opinions of any professor.  Like Professor Key, Mr. Newman took an open interest in public affairs.  Though variedly learned, Professor Newman's style of speech, to whomever addressed by tongue or pen, was fresh, direct, precise, and lucid.

    Mr. Newman's quarto volume on Theism, written in metre, is the greatest compendium of Theistical argument published in my time, and until Darwin wrote, no entirely conclusive answer was possible.

    Francis Newman had a travelling mind.  From the time when I published his "Personal Narrative" of his early missionary experience at Aleppo, he grew, year by year, more rationalistic in his religious judgment.  In one of his papers, written in the year of his death, he said: "It may be asked, 'Is Mr. Newman a disciple of Jesus?'  I answer, 'Of all nations that I know, that have a religion established by law, I have never seen the equal to what is attributed to Jesus himself.  But much is attributed to Him—I disapprove of.'  On the whole, if I am asked, 'Do you call yourself a Christian?' I say, in contrast to other religions, 'Yes!  I do,' and so far I must call myself a Christian.  But if you put upon me the words Disciple of Jesus, meaning the believing all Jesus teaches to be light and truth I cannot say it, and I think His words variously unprovable.  Now all disciples, when they come to full age, ought to seek to surpass their masters.  Therefore, if Jesus had faults, we, after more than two thousand years' experience, ought to expect to surpass Him, especially when an immense routine of science has been elaborately built up, with a thousand confirmations all beyond the thought of Jesus."

    What a progressive order of thought would exist now in the Christian world had Mr. Newman's conception of discipleship prevailed in the Churches!

    Mr. Newman's words about myself, occurring in his work on "The Soul," I remember with pride.  They were written at a time when I had an ominous reputation among theologians.  When residing at Clifton as a professor, Mr. Newman came down to Broadmead Rooms at Bristol, and took the chair at one of my lectures, and spoke words on my behalf which only he could frame.  But he was as fearless in his friendship as he was intrepid in his faith.  He wrote to me, April 30, 1897, saying: "I appeal to your compassion when I say, that the mere change of opinion on a doubtful fact has perhaps cost me the regard of all who do not know me intimately."  The "fact" related to the probability of annihilation at death.  He regretted the loss of friendship, but never varied in his lofty fidelity to conscience.  Whatever might be his interest in a future life, if it were the will of God not to concede it, he held it to be the duty of one who placed his trust in Him to acquiesce.  The spirit of piety never seemed to me nobler, than in this unusual expression of unmurmuring, unpresuming resignation.

    His first wife, who was of the persuasion of the Plymouth Brethren, had little sympathy with his boldness and fecundity of thought.  Once, when he lived at Park Village, Regent's Park, his friend, Dr. James Martineau, came into the room; she opened the window and stepped out on to the lawn, rather than meet him.  Mr. Newman was very tender as to her scruples, but stood by his own.  When I visited him, he asked me, from regard to her, to give the name of "Mr. Jacobs"—the name I used when a teacher in Worcester in 1840, where I lectured under my own name and taught under another.

    On February 12, 1897, Mr. Newman wrote:—"MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,—I am not coming round to you, though many will think I am.  On the contrary, I hope you are half coming round to me, but I have no time to talk on these matters."  He then asked my advice as to his rights over his own publications, then in the hands of Mr. Frowde, printer, of Oxford; but with such care for the rights of others, such faultless circumspection as to the consequences to others in all he wished done, as to cause me agreeable surprise at the unfailing perspicacity of his mind, his unchanging, scrupulous, and instinctive sense of justice.

    He regarded death with the calmness of a philosopher.  He wrote to me April 30, 1897: "Only those near me know how I daily realise the near approach of my own death (he was then ninety-three).  I grudge every day wasted by things unfinished which remain for me to do."  No apprehension, no fear, and he wished I could "appear before him, with a document drawn up," by which he could consign to me the custody of all the works under his control.  At the time, as he said, he might "easily be in his grave" before I could accomplish his wishes.  He says in another letter that his "wife, like himself, abhorred indebtedness."  He provided for the probable cost of everything he wished done.  His sense of honour remained as keen as his sense of faith.  He was a gentleman first and a Christian afterwards.

    Mr. Gladstone told me he was under the impression that he had, in some way unknown to himself, lost the friendship of Mr. Newman, from whom he had not heard for several years; and Mr. Newman was under an impression that Mr. Gladstone's silence was occasioned by disapproval of his published views of the "Errors of Jesus"—an error of assumption respecting Mr. Gladstone into which Mr. Newman might naturally, but not excusably, fall; for Mr. Newman should have known that Mr. Gladstone had a noble tolerance equal to his own, or should personally have tested it, by letter or otherwise, before nurturing an adverse conjecture.  I mentioned the matter to Mr. Gladstone, and found Mr. Newman's surmise groundless.  At the same time I gave him a copy of Mr. Francis Newman's "Secret Songs" (as one copy given to me was called) which revealed to Mr. Gladstone a devotional spirit he did not, as he said, imagine could co-exist in one whose faith was so divergent to his own.

    The following letter, which has autobiographical value, may interest the reader:—

"NORWOOD VILLA, 15, ARUNDEL CRESCENT,
 "WESTON-SUPER-MARE.
March 22, 1890.

    "DEAR MR. GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE,—I had no idea of writing to Mr. Gladstone, yet am glad to hear that you gave him my 'Secret Hymns.'  Probably my contrast to my brother, the late Cardinal, always puzzled him.  That we were in painful opposition ever since 1820 had never entered his mind, much less that this opposition made it impossible to me to endure living in Oxford, which also would have been my obvious course.

    "I did send my 'Paul of Tarsus' to Mr. Gladstone, which partially opened his eyes.  For my brother's first pretentious religious book was against the Arians, which I think I read at latest in 1832.  Mr. Gladstone has written that my brother's secession to Rome was the greatest loss that the English Church ever suffered.  Of what kind was the loss my little book on 'Paul' indirectly states, in pointing out that, as our English New Testament shows, Paul in his own epistle plainly originated the doctrine, three centuries later called Arianism, and held by all the Western Church until young Athanasius introduced his new and therefore 'false' doctrine.  My brother, with Paul's epistle open before him, condemned the doctrine of Arian, and did not know that it was the invention of Paul, and thereby prevailed in the whole Western Church.  Moreover, I read what I cannot imagine met Mr. Gladstone's eyes, that 'it is not safe to quote any Pre-Athanasian doctrines concerning the Trinity, since the Church had not yet taught them how to express themselves.'  After this, could Mr. Gladstone, as a decent scholar, mourn over my brother's loss to the Church?  I hope Mr. Gladstone can now afford time to read something of the really early Christianity.  He will find the Jerusalem Christianity perishing after the Roman revolt, and supplanted by Pauline fancies (not Christian at all) and by Pauline morality, often better than Christian.  To me our modern problem is to eschew Pauline fancies and further to improve on Pauline wisdom.

    "But since I have reached the point of being unable to take Human Immortality as a Church axiom, I cannot believe that the problem is above fully stated, or that Christianity deserves to become coetaneous with man's body.

    "Perhaps I ought to thank you more, yet I may have said too much.—Yours truly,

"F. W. NEWMAN,"

    One day as Mr. Newman was leaving my room in Woburn Buildings, he looked round and said: "I did not think there were rooms so large in this place"; and then descending the stairs, as though the familiarity of the remark was more than an impulse, he said: "Do you think you could join with me in teaching the great truth of Theism?"  Alas! I had to express my regret that my belief did not lie that way.  Highly as I should think, and much as I should value public association with Mr. Newman, I had to decline the opportunity.  If the will could create conviction, I should also have accepted Mazzini's invitation—elsewhere referred to—for Theism never seemed so enchanting in my eyes as it appeared in the lives of those two distinguished thinkers who were inspired by it.

 
CHAPTER XVII.

MAZZINI IN ENGLAND-INCIDENTS IN HIS CAREER

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI, whom Englishmen know as Joseph Mazzini, was born in Genoa, June 22, 1805, and died in Pisa, March 10, 1872.  He spent the greater part of forty years of his marvellous life in London. [30]  Some incidents of his English career, known to me, may increase or confirm the public impression of him.

    Never strong from youth, abstemious, oft from privation, and always from principle, he was as thin as Dumas describes Richelieu.  Arbitrary imprisonment, which twice befel him, and many years of voluntary confinement, imposed upon himself by necessity of concealment—living and working in a small room, whence it was dangerous for him to emerge by day or by night—were inevitably enervating.  When he first came to London in 1837 he brought with him three exiles, who depended upon his earnings for subsistence.  The slender income supplied him by his mother might have sufficed for his few wants, [31] but aid for others and the ceaseless cost of the propaganda of Italian independence, to which he devoted himself, had to be provided by writing for reviews.  At times cherished souvenirs had to be pledged, and visits to money-lenders had to be made.

    It was the knowledge all his countrymen had that he sought nothing for himself, never spared himself in toil or peril, that was the source of his influence.  He wrote: "We follow a path strewn with sacrifices and with sorrows."  But all the tragedies of his experience we never knew until years after his death, when his incomparable "Love Letters" were published in the Nineteenth Century, No. 219, May, 1895.

    He appeared to others to have "the complexion of a student," the air of one who waited and listened.  As Meredith said, it was not "until you meet his large, penetrating, dark eyes, that you were drawn suddenly among a thousand whirring wheels of a capacious, keen, and vigorous intellect."

    When anything had to be done, in my power to do, I was at his command.  I had numerous letters from him.  His errorless manuscript had the appearance of Greek writing.  Two letters "t" and "s," such as no other man formed, were the signs of his hand and interpreters of his words.  Of all the communications I ever received from him or saw, none had date or address, save one letter which had both.  Many sought for conversation, if by chance they were near him, or by letter, or interview—for ends of their own.  But no one elicited any information he did not intend to give.  His mind was a fortress into which no man could enter, unless he opened the door.

    Kossuth astonished us by his knowledge of English, but he knew little of the English people.  Louis Blanc knew much; but Mazzini knew more than any foreigner I have conversed with.  Mazzini made no mistake about us.  He understood the English better than they understood themselves—their frankness, truth, courage, impulse, pride, passions, prejudice, inconsistency, and limitation of view.  Mazzini knew them all.

    His address to the Republicans of the United States (November, 1855) is an example of his knowledge of nations, whose characteristics were as familiar to him as those of individuals are to their associates, or as parties are known to politicians in their own country.  There may be seen his wise way of looking all round an argument in stating it.  No man of a nature so intense had so vigilant an outside mind.

    He knew theories as he knew men, and he saw the theories as they would be in action.  There was no analysis so masterly of the popular schools—political and socialist—as that which Mazzini contributed to the People's Journal.  His criticisms of the writings of Carlyle, published in the Westminster Review, explained the excellencies and the pernicious tendencies—political and moral—of Carlyle's writing, which no other critic ever did.  But Mazzini wrote upon art, music, literature, poetry, and the drama.  To this day the public think of him merely as a political writer—a sort of Italian Cobbett with a genius for conspiracy.

    The list of his works fills nearly ten pages of the catalogue of the British Museum.

    Under other circumstances his pen would have brought him ample subsistence, if not affluence.  Much was written without payment, as a means of obtaining attention to Italy.  It was thus he won his first friends in England.

    No one could say of Mazzini that he was a foreigner and did not understand us, or that the case he put was defective through not understanding our language.  The Saturday Review, which agreed with nobody, said, on reading Mazzini's "Letter to Louis Napoleon," which was written in English, "The man can write."  The finest State papers seen in Europe for generations were those which Mazzini, when a Triumvir in Rome, wrote—notably those to De Tocqueville.  De Tocqueville had a great name for political literature, but his icy mystifications melted away under Mazzini's fiery pen of principle, passion, and truth.  This wandering, homeless, penniless, obscure refugee was a match for kings.

    Some day a publisher of insight will bring out a cheap edition of the five volumes of his works, issued by S. King and Co., 1867, and "dedicated to the working classes" by P. A. Taylor, which cost him £500, few then caring for them.  Mrs. Emilie Ashurst Venturi was the translator of the five volumes, which were all revised by Mazzini.  The reader therefore can trust the text.

    Mazzini did me the honour of presenting to me his volume on the "Duties of Man," with this inscription of reserve: "To my friend, G. J. Holyoake, with a very faint hope."  Words delicate, self-respecting and suggestive.  It was hard for me, with my convictions, to accept his great formula, "God and the People."  It was a great regret to me that I could not use the words.  They were honest on the lips of Mazzini.  But I had seen that in human danger Providence procrastinates.  No peril stirs it, no prayer quickens its action.  Men perish as they supplicate.  In danger the people must trust in themselves.  Thinking as I did, I could not say or pretend otherwise.

    Mazzini one day said to me, "A public man is often bound by his past.  His repute for opinions he has maintained act as a restraint upon avowing others of a converse nature."  This feeling never had influence over me.  Any one who has convictions ought to maintain a consistency between what he believes, and what he says and does.  But to maintain to-day the opinions of former years, when you have ceased to feel them true, is a false, foolish, even a criminal consistency.  To conceal the change, if it concerns others to know it, is dishonest if it is misleading any persons you may have influenced.  The test, to me, of the truth of any view I hold, is that, I can state it and dare the judgment of others to confute it.  Had I new views—theistical or otherwise—that I could avow with this confidence, I should have the same pleasure in stating them as I ever had in stating my former ones.  When I look back, upon opinions I published long years ago, I am surprised at the continuity of conviction which, without care or thought on my part, has remained with me.  In stating my opinions I have made many changes.  Schiller truly says that "Toleration is only possible to men of large information."  As I came to know more I have been more considerate towards the views, or errors, or mistakes of others, and have striven to be more accurate in my own statement of them, and more fair towards adversaries.  That is all.  Mazzini understood this, and did not regard as perversity the prohibition of conscience.

    In his letter to Daniel Manin, which I published in 1856, Mazzini described as a "quibble " the use of the word "unification" instead of "unity."  "Unification" is not a bad thing in itself, though very different from unity.  To put forth unification as a substitute for unity was forsaking unity.  It was a change of front, but not "quibbling."  The Government of Italy were advised to contrive local amelioration, as a means of impeding, if not undermining, claims for national freedom.  Mazzini condemned Manin for concurring in this.  All English insurgent parties have shown similar animosity against amelioration of evil, lest it diverted attention from absolute redress.  Yet it is a great responsibility to continue the full evil in all its sharpness and obstructiveness, on the grounds that its abatement is an impediment to larger relief.  Every argument for amelioration is a confession that those who object to injustice are right.  What is to prevent reformers continuing their demand for all that is necessary, when some of the evil is admitted and abated?  Paramount among agitators as I think Mazzini, it is a duty to admit that he was not errorless.  High example renders an error serious.

    The press being free in England, there needed no conspiracy here.  An engraved card, still hanging in a little frame in many a weaver's and miner's house in the North of England, was issued at a shilling each on behalf of funds for European freedom, signed by Mazzini for Italy, Kossuth for Hungary, and Worcell for Poland.  When editing the Reasoner I received one morning a letter from Mazzini, dated 15, Radnor Street, King's Road, Chelsea, June 12, 1852.  This was the only one of Mazzini's letters bearing an address and date I ever saw, as I have said.  It began:—

"MY DEAR SIR,—You have once, for the Taxes on Knowledge question, collected a very large sum by dint of sixpences.  Could you not do the same, if your conscience approved the scheme, for the Shilling Subscription [then proposed for European freedom]?  I have never made any appeal for material help to the English public, but once the scheme is started, I cannot conceal that I feel a great interest in its success.  A supreme struggle will take place between Right and Might, and any additional strength imparted to militant Democracy at this time is not to be despised.  Still, the moral motive is even more powerful with me.  The scheme is known in Italy, and will be known in Hungary, and it would be extremely important for me to be able to tell my countrymen that it has not proved a failure.
                       "Ever faithfully yours,
                                                    "JOSEPH MAZZINI."

    I explained to the readers of the Reasoner the great service they might render to European freedom at that time by a shilling subscription from each. Very soon we received 4,000 shillings.  Later (August 3, 1852) Mazzini, writing from Chelsea, said:—

"MY DEAR SIR,—I have still to thank you for the noble appeal you have inserted in the Reasoner in favour of the Shilling Subscription in aid of European freedom.  My friend Giovanni Peggotti, fearing that physical and moral torture might weaken his determination and extort from him some revelations, has hung himself in his dungeon at Milan, with his own cravat.  State trials are about being initiated by military commissions, and General Benedek, the man who directed the wholesale Gallician butcheries, is to preside over them.  At Forli, under Popish rule, enforced by Austrian bayonets, four working men have been shot as guilty of having defended themselves against the aggression of some Government agents.  The town was fined in a heavy sum, because on that mournful day many of the inhabitants left it, and the theatres were empty in the evening.
                                                                                        "Faithfully yours,
                                                                                                            "JOSEPH MAZZINI."

    People of England have mostly forgotten now what Italians had to suffer when their necks were under the ferocious heel of Austria.

    In a short time I collected a further 5,000 shillings, making 9,000 in all, and I had the pleasure of sending to Mazzini a cheque for £450. [32]

    A shilling subscription had been previously proposed mainly at the instigation of W. J. Linton, which bore the names of Joseph Cowen, George Dawson, Dr. Frederic Lees, George Serle Phillips, C. D. Collet, T. S. Duncombe, M.P., Viscount Goderich, M.P. (now Marquis of Ripon), S. M. Hawks, Austin Holyoake, G. J. Holyoake, Thornton Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, David Masson, Edward Miall, M.P., Professor Newman, James Stansfeld, M.P.  Some of these names are interesting to recall now.  But it was not until Mazzini asked me to make an appeal in the Reasoner that response came.  Its success then was owing to the influence of Mazzini's great name.  Workmen in mill and mine gave because he wished it.

    I published Weill's "Great War of the Peasants," the first and only English translation, in aid of the war in Italy.  The object was to create confidence in the struggle of the Italian peasantry to free their country, and to give reasons for subscriptions from English working men to aid their Italian brethren.  Madame Venturi made the translation, on Mazzini's suggestion, for the Secular World, in which I Published it.

    In 1855, wishing to publish certain papers of Mazzini's, I wrote asking him to permit me to do so, when he replied in the most remarkable letter I received from him:

    "DEAR SIR,—You are welcome to any writing or fragment of mine which you may wish to reprint in the Reasoner.  Thought, according to me, is, as soon as publicly uttered, the property of all, not an individual one.  In this special case, it is with true pleasure that I give the consentment you ask for.  The deep esteem I entertain for your personal character, for your sincere love of truth, perseverance, and nobly tolerant habits, makes me wish to do more; and time and events allowing, I shall.

    "We pursue the same end—progressive improvement, association, transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities.  We both want man to be not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending to power which he hates and despises, carrying empty Popish, or thirty-nine article formulas on his brow and none within; but a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just and heroic—the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet.  We widely differ as to the how and why.

    "I do dimly believe that all we are now struggling, hoping, discussing, and fighting for, is a religious question.  We want a new intellect of life; we long to tear off one more veil from the ideal, and to realise as much as we can of it; we thirst after a deeper knowledge of what we are and of the why we are.  We want a new heaven and a new earth.  We may not all be now conscious of this, but the whole history of mankind bears witness to the inseparable union of these terms.  The clouds which are now floating between our heads and God's sky will soon vanish and a bright sun shine on high.  We may have to pull down the despot, the arbitrary dispenser of grace and damnation, but it will only be to make room for the Father and Educator.
                                                                            "Ever faithfully yours,
                                                                                                             "JOSEPH MAZZINI."

    Another incident has instruction in it, still necessary and worth remembering in the political world.  In 1872 I found in the Boston Globe, then edited by Edin Ballou, a circumstantial story by the Constitutional of that day, setting forth that Sir James Hudson, our Minister at Turin, begged Cavour to accord an interview to an English gentleman.  When Cavour received him, he was surprised by the boldness, lucidity, depth, and perspicacity of his English visitor, and told him that if he (Cavour) had a countryman of like quality, he would resign the Presidency of the Council in favour of him whereupon the "Englishman" handed Cavour his card bearing the name of Joseph Mazzini, much to his astonishment.

    There are seven things fatal to the truth of this story received and circulated throughout Europe without question:—
    1.    Sir James Hudson could never have introduced to the Italian Minister a person as an Englishman, whom Sir James knew to be an Italian.
    2.    Nor was Mazzini a man who would be a party to such an artifice.
    3.    Cavour would have known Mazzini the moment he saw him.
    4.    Mazzini's Italian was such as only an Italian could speak, and Cavour would know it.
    5.    Mazzini's Republican and Propagandist plans were as well known to Cavour as Cobden's were to Peel; and Mazzini's strategy of conspiracy was so repugnant to Cavour, that he must have considered his visitor a wild idealist, and must have become mad himself to be willing to resign his position in Mazzini's favour.
    6.    Cavour could not have procured his visitor's appointment in his place if he had resigned.
    7.    Mazzini could not have offered Cavour his card, for the reason that he never carried one.  As in Turin he would be in hourly danger of arrest, he was not likely to carry about with him an engraved identification of himself.

    Nevertheless, the Pall Mall Gazette of that day (in whose hands it was then I forget) published this crass fiction without questioning it.

    The reader will rightly think that these are the incredible fictions of a bygone time, but he will conclude wrongly if he thinks they have ceased.

    Lately, not a nameless but a known and responsible person, one Sir Edward Hertslet, K.C.B., a Foreign Office official, published a volume in which he related that in 1848 (the 10th of April year, when no political historian was sane) a stranger called at the Foreign Office to inquire for letters for him from abroad.  A colleague of Sir Edward's suggested that he should inquire at the Home Office.  The strange gentleman replied indignantly, "I will not go to the Home Office.  My name is Mazzini."  This answer Sir Edward put in quotation marks, as though it was really said.  Sir Edward has been in the Diplomatic service.  He has been a Foreign Office librarian, and is a K.C.B., yet for more than fifty years he has kept this astounding story by him, reserved it, cherished it, never suspected it, nor inquired into its truth.

    Mazzini was not a man to give his name to a youth (as Sir Edward was then) at the Foreign Office.  He never went there.  It is doubtful whether any letter ever came to England bearing his name.  He was known among his friends as Mr. Flower or Mr. Silva.  When the late William Rathbone Greg wished to see him, he neither knew his name nor where he resided, and his son Percy—who was then writing for a journal of which I was editor—was asked to obtain from me an introduction, and it was only to oblige me that Mazzini consented to see Mr. W. R. Greg.  Sir James Graham never opened any letter addressed to Mazzini, for none ever came.  He opened letters of other persons, as every Foreign Secretary before him and since has done, in which might be enclosed a communication for Mazzini.  Was it conceivable that the Foreign Office, then known to secretly open Mazzini's letters, would be chosen by the Italian exile as a receiving house for his letters, and have communications sent to its care, and addressed in his name?  Was it conceivable that Mazzini would go there and announce himself when the Foreign Office was acting as a spy upon his proceedings in the interest of foreign Governments?  This authenticated Foreign Office story would be too extravagant for a "penny dreadful," yet not too extravagant, in Sir Edward Hertslet's mind, to be believable by the official world now, and was sent or found its way to Foreign Embassies and Legations for their delectation and information.  Yet Sir Edward was not known as a writer of romance, or novels, or theological works, nor a poet, or other dealer in imaginary matters.  His book was widely reviewed in England, and nowhere questioned save in the Sun during my term of editorship in 1902.

    Mazzini preached the doctrine of Association in England when it had no other teacher.  Much more may be said of him—but Sir James Stansfeld is dead, and Madame Venturi and Peter Alfred Taylor.  Only Jessie White Mario and Professor Masson remain who knew Mazzini well.  But this chapter may give the public a better conception than has prevailed of Mazzini's career in England.

 
CHAPTER XVIII.

MAZZINI THE CONSPIRATOR

THERE have been many conspirators, but Mazzini appears to have been the greatest of them all.  In one sense, every leader of a forlorn hope is a conspirator.  Prevision, calculation of resources, plans of campaign—mostly of an underground kind—are necessary to conspiracy.  The struggles of Garrison and Wendell Phillips for the rescue and sustentation of fugitive slaves are well-known instances of underground conspiracy.  There the violence of the slave-owner made conspiracy inevitable.  In despotic countries, without a free platform and a free press, the choice lies between secret conspiracy and slavery.  When Mazzini began to seek the deliverance of Italy he had to confront 600,000 Austrian bayonets.  How else could he do it than by conspiracy?

    Those are very much mistaken who think that the occupation of promoting or taking part in a forlorn hope is a pastime to which persons disinclined to business or honest industry, betake themselves.  The spy, for instance, who is a well known instrument in war, takes the heroism out of it.  The sinister activity of the spy turns the soldier into a sneak.  Honourable men do, indeed, persuade themselves that if by deceit they can obtain knowledge of facts which may save the lives of many on their own side, it is right.  At the same time they also betray to death many on the other side, including some who have trusted the spy in his disguise.  But whatever success may attend the deceit of the spy, he can never divest himself of the character of being a fraud; and a fraud in war is only a little less base than a fraud in business.  But it is the perils of even the patriotic spy, which are so often under-estimated.  If discovered by the enemy, he is sure to be shot; and he runs the risk of being killed on suspicion by friends on his own side—too indignant to inquire into the nature of the suspicions they entertain.  The spy dare not communicate the business he is upon to his friends.  Somehow it would get out; then the spy would surely walk the plank, or hang from the gallows as André did.  The spy's own friends being ignorant of the secret duty he has undertaken, observe him making the acquaintance of the enemy—hear of him being seen in communication with them—and he becomes distrusted and disowned by those whom he perils his life to serve.  Mazzini detested the Cabinets, or the Generals, who employed spies.  He made war by secrecy—open war being impossible to him—but never by treachery.  Some who had suffered and were incensed by personal outrage or maddening oppression, would act as spies in revenge.  Because these were done on the side of Italian independence Mazzini was accused of inspiring them and employing them.

    Mazzini had another difficulty.  Like Cromwell, he sought his combatants among men of faith.  Mazzini was, as has been said, a Theist, like Thomas Paine, or Theodore Parker, or Francis William Newman, he was that and nothing more; and, as with them, his belief was passionate.  He did not believe that political enthusiasm could be created or sustained without belief in God.  He seemed unable to conceive that a sense of duty could exist separately from that belief.  Hence his motto always was "God and the People," which limited his adherents largely to Theists; and implied a propaganda to convert persons to a belief in Deity, before they could, in his opinion, be counted upon to fight for Italian independence.  Yet there were contradictions; but contradictions seldom disturb passionate convictions, and Mazzini himself could not deny that he had often been faithfully served by men who were not at all sure that God would fight on their side, if disaster overtook them.  One night at a crowded Fulham party Mazzini was contending, as was his wont, that an Atheist could not have a sense of duty.  Garibaldi, who was present, at once asked, "What do you say to me?  I am an Atheist.  Do I lack the sense of duty?"  "Ah," said Mazzini, playfully, "you imbibed duty with your mother's milk"—which was not an answer, but a good-natured evasion.  Garibaldi was not a philosophical Atheist, but he was a fierce sentimental one, from resentment at the cruelties and tyrannies of priests who professed to represent God.  To disbelieve unwillingly from lack of evidence, and to disbelieve from natural indignation is a very different thing.

    All the many years Mazzini was in London, Madame Venturi was constantly in communication with him, and was present at more conversations than any one else.  Had she possessed the genius of Boswell, and put down day by day criticisms she heard expressed, the narratives of his extraordinary adventures, and such as came to her knowledge from correspondence, now no longer recoverable, we might have had as wonderful a volume of political and ethical judgment as was Boswell's "Johnson."  Sometimes I expressed a hope that she was doing this.  Nevertheless, we are indebted to her for the best biography of him that appeared in her time.  I add a few sayings of his which show the quality of his table talk:—

"Falsehood is the art of cowards.  Credulity without examination is the practice of idiots."

"Any order of things established through violence, even though in itself superior to the old, is still a tyranny."

"Blind distrust, like blind confidence, is death to all great enterprises."

"In morals, thought and action should be in. separable. Thought without action is selfishness action without thought is rashness."

"The curse of Cain is upon him who does not regard himself as the guardian of his brother."

"Education is the bread of the soul."

"Art does not imitate, it interprets."

    Only those who were in the agitation for Italian freedom can understand the exhausting amount of labour performed by those who were adherents or sympathisers.  How much greater was the labour of the commander of the movement, who had to create the departments he administered, to provide the funds for them, to win and inspire its adherents, and correspond incessantly with agents scattered over Europe and America, and to vindicate himself against false accusations rained upon him by a hostile, ubiquitous European press.

   Orsini was a man of invincible courage, and could be trusted to execute any commission given him.  No danger deterred him, but in enterprises requiring prevision of contingencies, he was inadequate.  Mazzini thought so; and Orsini secretly contrived to plot against the French usurper, to extort from Mazzini the confession that he (Orsini) could carry out an in dependent enterprise.  All the same, the adversaries of Italian freedom made Mazzini responsible for it.

    A writer in the press, who did not give his name (and when a writer does not do that, he can say anything), published, in editorial type, this passage: "By the way, I remember that Orsini, the day before he left England to make his attempt upon the life of Napoleon Ill., had a solemn discussion with Joseph Cowen and Mazzini, as to the justice of tyrannicide."  Mazzini being then dead, I sent the paragraph to Mr. Cowen and asked him if there was any truth in it, who replied:—

"BLAYDON-ON-TYNE, March 2, 1891.

"MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,— I have no idea where the writer of the enclosed paragraph gets his information.  I cannot speak as to Orsini having a conversation with Mazzini, but I should think it is in the highest sense improbable, because long before Orsini went to France, Mazzini and he had not been in friendly intercourse.  There was a difference between them which kept them apart.  I had repeated conversations with Orsini about tyrannicide—a matter in which he seemed interested—but I did not see him for some weeks before he went to France.   "Yours truly,
                                                                                         "JOSEPH COWEN."

Mazzini always repudiated the dagger as a Political weapon.  It answered the purpose of his adversaries in his day and since, to accuse him of advocating it.  He pointed out that calumny was a dagger used to assassinate character, but to that form of assassination few politicians made objection.  Sometimes partisans of Mazzini would supply a colourable presumption of the truth of this accusation.

    A circumstantial story appeared in the "Life of Charles Bradlaugh " (vol. i. p. 69), signed W. E, Adams, as follows:—

"The year 1858 was the year of Felice Orsini's attempt on the life of Louis Napoleon.  I was at that time, and had been for years previously, a member of the Republican Association, which was formed to propagate the principles of Mazzini.  When the press, from one end of the country to the other, joined in a chorus of condemnation of Orsini, I put down on paper some of the arguments and considerations which I thought told on Orsini's side.  The essay thus was read at a meeting of one of our branches; the members assembled earnestly urged me to get the piece printed.  It occurred to me also that the publication might be of service, if only to show that there were two sides to the question of 'Tyrannicide.'  So I went to Mr. G. J. Holyoake, then carrying on business as a publisher of advanced literature.  Mr. Holyoake not being on the premises, his brother, Austin, asked me to leave my manuscript and call again.  When I called again Mr. Holyoake returned me the paper, giving, among other reasons for declining to publish it, that he was already in negotiation with Mazzini for a pamphlet on the same subject.  'Very well,' said I, 'all I want is that something should be said on Orsini's side.  If Mazzini does this, I shall be quite content to throw my production into the fire.' "

    It is true that the pamphlet was brought to me by Mr. Adams, entitled, "Tyrannicide: A Justification."  What really took place on my part, as I distinctly remember, was this.  I said: "I was unwilling to publish a pamphlet of that nature which did not bear the name of the writer, which the MS. did not.  The author answered that "a name added no force to an argument; besides, his name was unimportant, if put on the title-page," which was reasonably and modestly said.  My reply was, "That in an affair of murder, 'justification' was a recommendation, and that any one acting on his perilous suggestion ought to know who was his authority."  Nothing more was said by me.  The writer made no offer to add his name to his MS., nor to meet my objection by a less assertive title.  As any prosecution for publishing it would be against me, and not against him, I thought I had a right to an opinion as to the title and authorship of the work I might have to defend.  It was afterwards issued by Mr. Truelove, a bookseller of courage and public spirit, but who suggested the very changes I had indicated to the author; and by Mr. Truelove's desire the author not only gave his name, but changed the title into "Tyrannicide: Is it Justifiable?" which was quite another matter.  It asked the question; it no longer decided it.

    As to Mazzini, it is impossible I could have said what is imputed to me.  I was not "in negotiation with Mazzini" to write anything upon the Orsini affair.  I knew he would not do so.  Orsini, as I have said, concealed his plot from Mazzini, who never incited it, never approved it, never justified it—he deplored it.  Only enemies of Mazzini sought to connect him with it.  If I left this story uncontradicted, it might creep into history that, in spite of the disclaimers of Mazzini's friends, he actually "entered into negotiation" to write in defence of Orsini's attempt, which must imply concurrence with the deplorable method Orsini unhappily took; and, moreover, that a publisher, regarded as being in Mazzini's confidence, had, in an open, unqualified way, told a writer on assassination of it.  The publisher was speedily arrested on the issue of the pamphlet, as I should have been, but that would not have deterred me from publishing it in a reasonable and responsible form.

    Soon after I printed and published a worse pamphlet by Felix Pyat, which was signed by "A Revolutionary Committee."  The Pyat pamphlet was under prosecution at the time I voluntarily published it.  As what I did I did openly—I wrote to the Government apprising them of what I was doing.

    Besides, I commenced to issue serial "Tyrannicide Literature," commencing with pamphlets written by Royalist advocates of assassination.  Because I did not publish the Adams Tyrannicide pamphlet right off without inquiry or suggestion, I was freely charged with refusing to do it from fear.  No one seems to have been informed of the reasons I gave for declining.  No one inquired into the facts.  Adversaries of those days did not take the trouble.  But, as I had to take the consequences of what I did, I thought I had a right to take my own mode of incurring them.

    On the last night of Orsini's life, Mazzini and a small group of the friends both of Orsini and himself, of which I was one, kept vigil until the morning, at which hour the axe in La Roquette would fall.

    The favourite charge of the press against the great conspirator was that he advised others to incur danger, and kept out of it himself.  This was entirely untrue—but it did not prevent it being said.  The principle these critics go upon is, that whoever is capable of advising and directing others, should do all he can to get himself shot—a doctrine which would rid the army of all its generals, and the offices of all newspapers of their editors.  Upon Mazzini's life the success of twenty small cohorts of patriots depended, ready to give their lives for Italy.  Mazzini was not only the commander of the army of Liberation, but, as has been indicated, the provider of its reserves, its commissariat and recruits.  His life was also of priceless value to other struggling peoples.  He was the one statesman in Europe who had a European mind—who knew the peoples of the Continent, whose knowledge was intimate, and whose word could be trusted.  So far from avoiding danger, he was never out of it.  With a price set upon his head in three countries, hunted by seven Governments, with spies always following him and by assassins lying in ambush, his life for forty years passed in more peril than any other public man of his time.  Yet it was fashionable to charge him with want of courage whose whole "life," to use his own phrase, "was a battle and a march."

    Could there be a doubt of the intrepidity of a man who, with the slender forces of insurgent patriots, confronted Austria with its 600,000 bayonets.  No sooner was Garibaldi in Rome than Mazzini was there in the streets inspiring its defenders.  What dangers he passed through to reach Rome, knowing well that his arrest meant death!

    Rome was not a safe place for Mazzini, neither was London.  His life was never safe.  I have been asked by his host to walk home with him at night from a London suburban villa where he dined, because a Royalist assassin was known to be in London waiting to kill him.

    Mazzini died at Pisa, March 10, 1872, from chill by walking over the Alps in inclement weather, intending to visit his English friends once more. A few of his English colleagues protested against his embalmment.  I was not one.  Gorini, the greatest of his profession, undertook to transform the body into marble, and for him Mazzini had friendship.  Dr. Bertani, Mazzini's favourite physician, approved embalming.  It could not be done by more reverent hands.  How could England—who disembowelled Nelson and sent his body home in a cask of rum; who embalmed Jeremy Bentham, and took out O'Connell's heart, sent it to one city, and his mutilated remains to another—reproach Italy for observing the national rites of their illustrious dead?

    The personal character of Mazzini never needed defence.  In private life and state affairs, honour was to him an instinct.  He saw the path of right with clear eyes.  No advantage induced him to deviate from it.  No danger prevented his walking in it.

    Carlyle, whom few satisfied, said he "found in him a man of clear intelligence and noble virtues.  True as steel, the word, the thought of him pure and limpid as water."

    It may be by experience that a nation is governed, but it is by rightness alone that it is kept noble.  It was to promote this that Mazzini walked for forty years on the dreary highway between exile and the scaffold.  It was from belief in his heroic and unfaltering integrity that men went out at his word, to encounter the dungeon, torture, and death, and that families led all their days alarmed lives, and gave up husbands and sons to enterprises in which they could only triumph by dying.

    No one save Byron has depicted the self-denial incidental to Mazzini's career, which involved the abnegation of all that makes life worth living to other men.

    Mazzini left a name which has become one of the landmarks, or rather mindmarks, of public thought, and, though a bygone name, there is instruction and inspiration in it yet.

 
CHAPTER XIX.

GARIBALDI—THE SOLDIER OF LIBERTY

    DINING one day (June 29, 1896) at Mr. Herbert Spencer's, thirty years after Garibaldi left England, Professor Masson, who was a guest of Mr. Spencer, told me that Garibaldi said to Sir James Stansfeld that "the person whom he was most interested in seeing in England was myself."  This Garibaldi said at a reception given by Mr. Stansfeld to meet the General—as we had then begun to call him.  I was one of the party; but Mr. Stansfeld did not mention the remark to me, and I never heard of it until Professor Masson told me.  Of course I should have been gratified to know it.  We had met before, but it was years earlier, and Garibaldi had forgotten it.  The vicissitudes and battles of his tumultuous career may well have effaced the circumstance from his mind.

    The first occasion of my meeting Garibaldi was at an evening party at the Swan Brewery, Fulham, when I was asked to accompany him to Regent Street, where he was then residing.  My name would be given to him at the time, which he might not distinctly hear, as is often the case when an unfamiliar name is heard by a foreign ear, as occurs when a foreign name is mentioned to an English ear.  On our way he asked me "how it was that the English people had accorded such enthusiastic receptions to Kossuth, and yet they appeared to have done nothing on behalf of Hungary?"  I explained to him that "our Foreign Office was controlled by a few aristocratic families who had little sympathy with and less respect for the voteless voices of the splendid crowds who greeted Kossuth with generous acclaim.  That was why large and enthusiastic concourses of people in the streets produced so little effect upon the English Government."  The great Nizzard insurgent had been mystified by the impotence of popular enthusiasm.  In such plain, brief and abrupt sentences as I thought would be intelligible, I explained that "he must distinguish between popular sympathy and popular power.  He might find himself the subject of the generous enthusiasm of the streets, but he must take it as the voice of the people, not the voice of the Government."  Kossuth, who had a better knowledge of English literature and the English press, never made the distinction, which led him into mistakes and caused him needlessly to suffer disappointments.  To this day the House of Lords is an alien power in England.

    It was at the party which we left that night that I was first struck with the natural intrepidity of Garibaldi.  His square shoulders and tapering body I had somehow come to associate with military impassableness, and the easy, self-possessed way in which he moved through the crowd in the room confirmed my impression.  I was told afterwards by one of his fellow combatants that unconscious courage was his characteristic on the field.  Calmness and imperturbable modesty were attributes of his mind, as seen in his heroic acts, deemed utterly impossible save in romance.  He had received the triumphal acclamation of people he freed, whose forefathers had only dreamed of liberation.

    Since the time of that casual acquaintanceship, Garibaldi had heard of me from Mazzini, from Mr. Cowen, and as acting secretary of the Committee who sent out the British Legion to him.  We had collected a considerable sum of money for him, which was lying in unfriendly hands, but which his treasurer had been unable to obtain.  I had sent him other help, when help was sorely needed by his troops.  Besides, I had defended him and his cause under the names of "Landor Praed," "Disque," and my own name, in the press.  Garibaldi sent me one of the first photographs taken of himself after his victorious entry into Naples, on which he had written the words, "Garibaldi, to his friend, J. G. Holyoke."  He had got name and initials transposed in those eventful days.  After the affair of Micheldever, [34] he charged his son Menotti to show me personal and public attention on his visit to the House of Commons.  To the end of his life he saw every visitor who came to him with a note from me.

    When Menotti Garibaldi died, the family wished that the flag which the "Thousand" carried when they made their celebrated invasion of the Neapolitan kingdom, should be borne at the funeral.  They therefore telegraphed to the mayor of Marsala, who was supposed to be the guardian of the relic.  The mayor replied that he had not got it, but that it was at Palermo; so the mayor of Palermo was telegraphed to.  He also replied that he had not got it, and said it was in the possession of Signor Antonio Pellegrini, but that its authenticity was very doubtful.  General Canzio, one of the survivors of the expedition, says that the flag possessed by Signor Pellegrini is nothing like the real one, which was merely a tricolor of three pieces of cotton nailed to a staff.  At the battle of Calatafimi the standard-bearer was shot and the flag lost.  It was said to have been captured by a Neapolitan sub-lieutenant, but all traces of it have now disappeared.  The wonder is not that the flag has disappeared, but that so many official persons should declare it to exist elsewhere, of which they had no knowledge.  The flag of the Washington would have been lost had it not been taken possession of by De Rohan.  The last flag carried by the Mazzinians, which was shot through, would have been lost also had not Mr. J. D. Hodge sought for it before it was too late.  Both flags are in my possession.

    Walter Savage Landor sent me (August 20, 1 860) these fine lines on Garibaldi's conquest of the Sicilies:—

    How often did I hear it said, in his great days of action, that had Garibaldi known the perils he encountered in his enterprises, he would never have attempted them.  No one seemed able to account for his success, save by saying he was "an inspired madman."  His heroism was not born of insanity, but knowledge.  His wonderful march of conquest through Italy was made possible by Mazzini.  In every town there was a small band, mostly of young heroic men, who were inspired by Mazzini's teaching, who, like the brothers Bandiera, led forlorn hopes, or who were ready to act when occasion arose.  I well remember when seeking assistance for Mazzini, how friends declined to contribute lest they became accessory to the fruitless sacrifice of brave men.  There was no other way by which Italy could be freed, than by incurring this risk.  Mazzini knew it, and the men knew it, as Mazzini did not conceal it from those he inspired.

    The following letter to me by one of the combatants was published at the time in the Daily Telegraph.  It is a forgotten vignette of the war, drawn by a soldier on the battlefield who had been wounded five times before, fighting under Garibaldi:—

    "DEAR SIR,—Just time to say that we are in full possession, after streams of blood have flowed.  Fights 'twixt brothers are deadly.

    "We want money; we want, as I told you, a British steamer chartered, with revolving rifles and pistols of Colt's (17, Pall Mall), also some cannon rayé; but for the sake of humanity and liberty do hurry up the subscriptions.  The sooner we are strong the less the chance of more fighting.  We muster now some 30,000 all told, though not all armed.  We want arms and ammunition, and caps—Minié rifles.  Or the rifle corps pattern the General would as soon have.  He is well and radiant with joy and hope, though sighing over the necessity to shed blood.  Oh! will the world never learn to value the really great men of the earth until the grave has closed over them?  Garibaldi has written only one or two of all the things published over his name.  The rest are the inventions of enemies or over-zealous friends.

    "Messina must capitulate.  If the King grant a constitution, all will be lost.  The Bourbons must be driven from Italy, for it will never be quiet without.  Warn the papers against trusting the so-called letters, etc., from Garibaldi.  He writes little or none, and dislikes to be made prominent.

    "Do try and urge on the subscriptions.  The English admiral here has behaved bravely, and Lord John Russell's praises are in every one's mouth; but he must not falter or hesitate,

    "The Royal Palace was burned down, and the fighting was desperate indeed.

    "Of all the defeats imputed to the 'insurgents, ' not one has really taken place.  The General was at times obliged to sacrifice some lives for strategical purposes.

    "Now, pray use your influence for England not to allow Naples to patch up a peace, for I tell you it is useless.  Garibaldi and his friends will never consent to anything short of 'Italy for the Italians.'

    "You may communicate this as 'official' if you wish to the Times or News, reserving my name Yours truly, in great haste, "———

    "G. J. Holyoake, Esq.

    "P.S.—I need hardly say this will have to take its chance of getting to you.  I trust it to a captain whom I have given the money to pay the postage in Genoa, where he is going.  Will you let me hear from you?"

    He did hear from me.  Whether it is good to die "in vain," as George Eliot held, I do not stay to determine.  Certainly, to die when you know it to be your duty, whether "in vain" or not, implies a high order of nature.  Sir Alfred Lyall has sung the praise of those English soldiers captured in India, who, when offered their lives if they would merely pronounce the name of the Prophet, refused.  It was only a word they had to patter, and Sir Alfred exclaims, "God Almighty, what could it matter?"  But the brave Englishmen died rather than be counted on the side of a faith they did not hold.  Dying for honour is not dying in vain, and I thought the Italians entitled to help in their holy war for manhood and independence.

    When Garibaldi was at Brooke House, Isle of Wight, I was deputed by the Society of the Friends of Italy to accompany Mazzini to meet Garibaldi.  Herzen, the Russian, who kept the "Kolokol" ringing in the dominions of the Czar, met us at Southampton.  The meeting with Garibaldi took place at the residence of Madame Nathan.  The two heroes had not met in London when the General was a guest of the Duke of Sutherland.  As soon as Garibaldi saw Mazzini, he greeted him in the old patois of the lagoons of Genoa.  It affected Mazzini, to whom it brought back scenes of their early career, when the inspiration of Italian freedom first began.

    Mrs. Nathan, wife of the Italian banker of Cornhill, was an intrepid lady, true to the freedom of her country, who had assisted Garibaldi and Mazzini in many a perilous enterprise.  After the interview at her house, she had occasion to consult Garibaldi on matters of moment.  Misled or deterred by aspersion, which every lady had to suffer, suspected of patriotic complicity, Mrs. Nathan was not invited to Brooke House.  Under these circumstances she could not go alone to see the General, and she asked me to take her.  Offering her my arm, we walked through the courtyard and along the corridors of the house to Garibaldi's rooms.  Going and returning from her interview, I was much struck by the queenly grace and self-possession of Mrs. Nathan's manner.  There was neither disquietude nor consciousness in her demeanour of the disrespect of not being invited to Brooke House, though her residence was known.

    On the night of Garibaldi's arrival at Brooke House, Mr. Seely, the honoured host of the General, invited me to join the dinner party, where I heard things said on some matters, which the speakers could not possibly know to be true.  Garibaldi showed no traces of excitement, which had dazed so many at Southampton that afternoon.  The vessel which brought him there was immediately boarded by a tumultuous crowd of visitors.  All the reporters of the London and provincial press were waiting for the vessel to be sighted, and they were foremost in the throng on the ship.  Before them all was Mrs. Colonel Chambers, with her beseeching eyes, large, luminous and expressive, and difficult to resist.  Garibaldi gave instant audience to Joseph Cowen, whose voice alone, or chiefly, influenced him.  Years before, when Garibaldi was unknown, friendless, and penniless, he turned his bark up the Tyne to visit Mr. Cowen, the only Englishman from whom he would ask help.  Garibaldi's first day at Southampton was more boisterous than a battle.  Everybody wanted him to go everywhere.  Houses where his name had never been heard were now open to him.  Mr. Seely was known to be his friend.  The Isle of Wight was near.  Brooke House lay out of the way of the "madding crowd," and there his friends would have time to arrange things for him.  The end of his visit to England was sudden, unforeseen, inexplicable both to friend and foe, at the time and for long after.

    He had accepted engagements to appear in various towns in England, where people would as wildly greet him as the people of London had done.  When it was announced that he had left England, it was believed that the Emperor of the French had incited the Government to prevail upon Garibaldi to leave the country.  Others conjectured that Mr. Gladstone had whispered something to him which had caused the Italian hero to depart.  I asked about it from one who knew everything that took place—Sir James Stansfeld—and from him I learned that no foreign suggestion had been made, that nothing whatever had been said to Garibaldi.  His leaving was entirely his own act.  He had reason to believe that Louis Napoleon was capable of anything; but with all his heroism, Garibaldi was imaginative and proud.  He fancied his presence in England was an embarrassment to the Government.  He being the guest of the nation, they would never own to it or say it.  But his departure might be a relief to them, nevertheless.  And therefore he went.  His sensitiveness of honour shrank from his being a constructive inconvenience to a nation to whom he owed so much and for whom he cared so much.  It was an instance of the disappointment imagination may cause in politics. [35]

    But Garibaldi was a poet as well as a soldier.  Like the author of the "Marseillaise," Korner and Petöfe, he could write inspiring verse, as witness his "Political Poem" in reply to one Victor Hugo wrote upon him, which Sir Edwin Arnold, the "Oxford Graduate" of that day, translated in 1868.  Those do not understand Garibaldi who fail to recognise that he had poetic as well as martial fire. [36]

 
CHAPTER XX.

THE STORY OF THE BRITISH LEGION—NEVER BEFORE TOLD

GENERAL DE LACY EVANS is no longer with us, or he might give us an instructive account of the uncertainty and difficulty of discipline in a patriotic legion which volunteers its services without intelligently intending obedience.  When I became Acting Secretary for sending out the British Legion to Garibaldi, I found no one with any relevant experience who knew what to expect or what to advise.  Those likely to be in command were ready to exercise authority, but those who were to serve under them expected to do it more or less in their own way.  The greatest merit in a volunteer legion is that they agree in the object of the war they engage in.  They do not blindly adopt the vocation of murder—for that is what military service means.  It means the undertaking to kill at the direction of others—without knowledge or conviction as to the right and justice of the conflict they take part in.

    General De Lacy Evans being a military man of repute, and marching with his Spanish Legion had disciplinary influence over them.  Two of my colleagues in other enterprises of danger were among the Spanish volunteers, but they were not at hand—one being in America and the other in New Zealand —otherwise I might have had the benefit of their experience.

    The project of sending out to Garibaldi a British Legion came in the air.  It was probably a suggestion of De Rohan's, who had gathered in Italy that British volunteers would influence Italian opinion; be an encouragement in the field; and, if sent out in time, they might be of military service.  Be this as it may, the Garibaldi Committee found themselves, without premeditation, engaged in enlisting men, at least by proxy.  It was a new business, in which none of us were experts.  We knew that men of generous motive and enterprise would come forward.  At the same time, we were opening a door to many of whom we could not know enough to refuse, or to trust.  However, the army of every country is largely recruited from the class of dubious persons, over whom officers have the power to compel order—which we had not.

    As I was the Acting Secretary, my publishing house, 147, Fleet Street, was crowded with inquirers when the project of the Legion became known.  Many gave their names there.  For convenience of enrolment, a house was taken at No. 8, Salisbury Street, Strand, where the volunteers, honest and otherwise, soon appeared—the otherwise being more obtrusive and seemingly more zealous.  Among them appeared a young man, wearing the uniform of a Garibaldian soldier, of specious manners, and who called himself "Captain Styles"—a harmless rustic name, but he was not at all rustic in mind.  Being early in the field, volunteers who came later took it for granted he had an official position.  It was assumed that he had been in Italy and in some army, which was more than we knew.  His influence grew by not being questioned.  Without our knowledge and without any authority, he invented and secretly sold commissions, retaining the proceeds for his own use.  To avoid obtruding our military objects on public attention, I drew up a notice, after the manner of Dr. Lunn's tourist agency, as follows:—

    The Committee caused, on my suggestion, applicants to receive notice of two things:—

(1) That each man should remember that he goes out to represent the sacred cause of Liberty, and that the cause will be judged by his conduct.  His behaviour will be as important as his bravery.

(2) Those in command will respect the high feeling by which the humblest man is animated—but no man must make his equal patriotism a pretext for refusing implicit obedience to orders, upon which his safety and usefulness depend.  There no doubt will be precariousness and privation for a time, which every man must be prepared to share and bear.

    Further, I wrote an address to the "Excursionists" and had a copy placed in the hands of every one of them.  It was to the following effect:—

    Before leaving Faro, Garibaldi issued an address to his army, in which he said:—

"Among the qualities which ought to predominate among the officers of an Italian army, besides bravery, is the amiability which secures the affection of soldiers—discipline, subordination, and firmness necessary in long campaigns.  Severe discipline may be obtained by harshness, but it is better obtained by kindness.  This secret the numerous spies of the enemy will not discover.  It brought us from Parco to Gibil-Rosa, and thence to Palermo.  The honourable behaviour of our soldiery towards the inhabitants did the rest.  Of bravery, I am sure!" exclaims the General.  "What I want is the discipline of ancient Rome, invariable harmony one with another—the due respect for property, and above all for that of the poor, who suffer so much to gain the scanty bread of their families.  By these means we shall lessen the sacrifice of blood and win the lasting independence of Italy."

To this address was added the following paragraph:—

"In these words the volunteer will learn the quality of companionship he will meet with in the field, and the spirit which prevails among the soldiers of Italian independence."

    When we had collected the Legion, the thing was to get it out of the country—international law not being on the side of our proceedings. As many as a thousand names [37] were entered on the roll of British volunteers for Italy.  The Great Eastern Railway was very animated.

    When they were about to set out at a late hour for Harwich, a "Private and Confidential" note was sent to each saying:—

"As the arrangements for the departure of the detachment of Excursionists are now complete, I have to request your attendance at Caldwell's Assembly Rooms, Dean Street, Oxford Street, at three o'clock precisely, on Wednesday, the 26th instant (September, 1860 ), when you will receive information as to the time and place of departure which will be speedy.
                                                            "(Signed)                            E. STYLES, Major."

    By this times the "Captain" had blossomed into a "Major."  Owing to urgency the Committee had to acquiesce in many things.  Garibaldi being in the field, and often no one knew where, it was futile to ask questions and impossible to get them answered.

    The Government no doubt knew all about the expedition.  Captain De Rohan, or, as he styled himself, "Admiral De Rohan," was in command of the "Excursionists."  He marched up and down the platform, wearing a ponderous admiral's sword, which was entirely indiscreet, but he was proud of the parade.  By this time he had assumed the title of "Rear" Admiral.  De Rohan was not his name, but he was, it was said, paternally related, in an unrecognised way, to Admiral Dalgren, of American fame.  Of De Rohan it ought to be said, that though he had the American tendency to self-inflation, he was a sincere friend of Italy.  Honest, disinterested, generous towards others—and the devoted and trusted agent of Garibaldi, ready to go to the ends of the earth in his service.  When the English Committee finally closed, and they had a balance of £1,000 left in their hands, they were so sensible of the services and integrity of De Rohan that they gave it to him, and on my introduction he deposited it in the Westminster Bank.  He was one of those men for whom some permanent provision ought to be made, as he took more delight in serving others than serving himself.  In after years, vicissitude came to him, in which I and members of the Garibaldi Committee befriended him.

    As our Legion was going out to make war on a power in friendly relation to Great Britain, Lord John Russell was in a position to stop it.  The vessel (the Melazzo) lay two days in the Harwich waters before sailing.  There were not wanting persons who attempted to call Lord John's attention to what was going on, but happily without recognition of their efforts.  No one was better able than Lord John to congeal illicit enthusiasm.

    Mr. E. H. J. Craufurd, M.P., chairman of the Committee, myself, my brother Austin,—who was unceasing in his service to the Committee and the Legion—W. J. Linton, and other members of the Committee, travelled by night with the Legion to Harwich.  Mr. George Francis Train went down with us and explained to me vivaciously his theory, that to obtain recognition by the world was to make a good recognition of yourself.  Train did this, but all it gave him was notoriety, under which was hidden from public respect his great natural ability and personal kindness of heart.  When I last met him, I found him—as was his custom—sitting on the public seat in a New York square, interesting himself in children, but ready to pour, in an eloquent torrent, the story of his projects into the ear of any passer-by who had time to listen to him.

    It was early morning when we arrived at Harwich.  As the ship lay some distance out, it took some time to embark the men, and it was the second day before she set sail.  To our disappointment De Rohan did not go with the troops, which we thought it was his duty to do, but suddenly left, saying he would meet them at Palermo.  He alone had real influence over the men.  No one being in authority over them, feuds and suspicions were added to their lack of discipline.

    The vessel was well provisioned, even to the pleasures of the table.  There was that satisfaction.

    It may interest readers who have never sailed in a troopship to read the regulations enforced:—

1. The men will be allotted berths and divided into messes, regularly by companies, and their packs are to be hung up near their berths.

2. With a view to the general health and accommodation of the men, they will be divided into three watches, one of which is to be constantly on deck.

3. A guard, the strength of which is to be regulated by the sentries required, is to mount every morning at nine o'clock.

4. The men of each watch are to be appointed to stations.

5. The men not belonging to the watch are to be ordered below, when required by the master of the ship, in order that they may not impede the working of the vessel.

6. In fine weather every man is to be on deck the whole day.

7. The whole watch is to be constantly on deck, except when the rain obliges them to go down for shelter.

8. Great attention is to be paid to the cleanliness of the privies.  Buckets of water are to be thrown down frequently.

9. The bedding is to be brought on deck every morning, if the weather will permit, by eight o'clock, and to be well aired.

10. The men are to wash, comb, and brush their heads every morning.

11. At sunset the bedding is to be brought down, and at any time during the day on the appearance of bad weather.

12. At ten o'clock in the evening, every man is to be in his berth, except the men on guard and of the watch.

13. The chief of the watch is to be careful that no man interferes with the windsails, so as to prevent the air from being communicated.

14. The men are strictly forbidden sleeping on deck, which they are apt to do, and which is generally productive of fevers and flushes.

With a view to preventing accidents from fire, a sentry will be constantly placed at the cooking place or caboose, or one on each side, with orders not to allow fire of or any kind to be taken taken without leave.

1. No lights are to be permitted amongst the men except in lanterns.  All are to be extinguished at ten o'clock at night, except those over which there may be sentries.

2. No smoking on any account to be permitted, except on upper deck.

3. No lucifer or patent matches to be allowed.

4. The officers are strictly charged to trace when going their rounds between decks, and to report instantly any man who shall presume either to smoke there, or to use any lights except in lanterns.

Every possible precaution is to be taken to prevent liquor being brought on board ship.

Regularity and decency of conduct are peculiarly required on board ship.  It is the duty of those in command to repress, by the most decided and summary measures, any tendency to insubordination, to check every species of immorality and vice, and to discountenance to the utmost of their power whatever may disturb the comfort of others, or interrupt the harmony and good understanding which should subsist on board.

    We had trouble in London.  One day at a Committee, held at my house, an applicant, who was contracting to supply 900 rifles, attended to show certificates of their efficiency.  The legal eye of the chairman (Mr. Craufurd, M.P., one of the prosecuting counsel of the Mint), detected them to be forgeries.  On his saying so, the applicant snatched them from his hand.  The chairman at once seized the knave, when a struggle ensued to obtain the false credentials.  As it was not prudent in us to prosecute the presenter and have our proceedings before a court, we let him go.

    There being no legal power to enforce order was the cardinal weakness of the British Legion.  A competent commander should at least have been appointed, and an agreement of honour entered into by each volunteer, to obey his authority and that of those under him, on penalty of dismissal, and a certain forfeiture of money.  These conditions, though not of legal force, would be binding on men of honour, and place the turbulent without honour at a disadvantage.

    At the Queenwood community, in Robert Owen's day, no contract of this kind was thought of, and any one who declined to leave could defy the governor, until he was ejected by force—a process which did not harmonise with "Harmony Hall."

    De Rohan met the Excursionists at Palermo on their disembarkation.  "Captain Styles" was prudently absent, and no more was heard of him.  The spurious commissions could not be recognised, and commotion naturally arose among those who had been defrauded.  Captain Sarsfield, Colonel Peard known as "Garibaldi's Englishman," De Rohan, Captain Scott, and others on the spot, with colourable pretensions to authority, took different views of the situation.  Appeals were made to the Committee in London, on whose minutes stormy telegrams are recorded.  Mr. Craufurd, though he had the prudent reticence of his race, would sometimes fall into impetuous expressions.  Yet the second statement of his first thought would be faultless.  This quality was so conspicuous that it interested me.

    The first man of the Legion killed was young Mr. Bontems, only son of a well-known tradesman in the City of London—a fine, ingenuous fellow.  He was shot by the recklessness of a medical student of the London University, as Bontems stood in a mess-room at Palermo.  It was said not to be the first death caused by the criminal thoughtlessness of the same person.  Mr. Southall, another London volunteer like young Bontems, was a man of genuine enthusiasm, character, and promise.  He became an orderly officer to Garibaldi, by whom he was trusted and to whom he gave the black silk cravat he wore on entering Naples. [38]

    When Garibaldi retired to his island home, he sent to England the following testimony of the services and character of the Excursionists:—

    Allowing for Garibaldi's generosity in estimating the services of the Legion, it remains true that the majority deserved this praise.  Many were of fine character.  Many were young men of ingenuousness and bright enthusiasm, prompt to condone lack of military knowledge by noble intrepidity in the field.

    The Legion cost the Italian Government some expense.  Claims were recognised liberally.  The men were sent back to England overland, and each one had a provision order given him to present at every refreshment station at which the trains stopped.  Count Cavour was a better friend of Italian freedom than even Mazzini knew.  It was only known after Cavour's death, how he had secretly laboured to drag his country from under the heel of Austria.  Cavour had the friendly foresight to give orders that the members of the English Legion were to be supplied on their journey home with double rations, as Englishmen ate more than Italians.  The Cavourian distinction was much appreciated.

    The sums due to the men until their arrival in England were paid by the Sardinian Consul (whose office was in the Old Jewry), on a certificate from me that the applicant was one of the Legion.

    A request came to me from Italy for a circumstantial history of the Legion and such suggestions as experience had furnished.  The