IN

N order to form a correct judgment of a public man who has exerted so remarkable an influence over his countrymen as Joseph Mazzini, and to estimate the good or evil effect of that influence, it is necessary summarily to review the moral and material condition of his native land at the opening of his career. Italy was at that time a country without any political existence or rank among European nations. She had no common centre or flag; no common law or market. She was parcelled out into seven different states,* all independent of one another; without even the semblance of a common aim, alliance, or organized connection between them. Internal maladministration and corruption were rife in each of these states; eight lines of custom-houses severed the material interests of each, interposing a barrier to all progress, and rendering industrial or commercial activity on a large scale impossible. Oppressive and prohibitive duties checked the importation and exportation of articles of the first necessity from one province to another; eight different systems of currency, of weights and measures, of civil, commercial, and penal legislation, of administrative organisation, and of police restrictions, held the people of the separate states apart, and rendered them, as far as possible, strangers. All of these states were ruled by despotic governments, in whose administration the people had no share; while in none of them did there exist either liberty of the

* Lombardy, Parma, Tuscany, Modena, the Papal States, Piedmont, and Naples.

men.

press, of speech, of collective action or petition, of education, or even of the introduction of foreign books. The treaties of 1815 had handed over one-fourth of the whole peninsula (Lombardy and Venice) to Austria, who maintained her supremacy by an army of 80,000 The rulers of the other states were practically viceroys of Austria, so that whenever a cry for liberty, progress, or even for the slightest amelioration of the despotic system was raised in any of these viceroyalties, their petty tyrants either appealed to Austria, or she voluntarily stepped in to silence it by brute force. "Silence was the common law: the people were silent from terror; their masters were silent from policy. Conspiracy, strife, persecution, vengeance, all existed, but made no noise. One might have fancied the very steps of the scaffold were paved with velvet, so little noise did heads make when they fell." The very idea of the unity of Italy-the dream of all her greatest men in the middle ages-had been lost, through this subdivision under foreign rule; and Italian patriots conspired and struggled solely for liberty in the several states to which they belonged, but raised no cry of nationality and unity.

The revolution of 1820 in Naples overthrew the despotic government, and compelled the king to grant a constitution, but made no attempt to carry these advantages into the neighbouring states. The same is true of the insurrection of 1821 in Piedmont,† and of those of 1831 in Parma, Modena, and the estates of the l'ope. Each triumphed in turn over its petty ruler; but, neglecting to consolidate the victory by extending it, were speedily crushed by the intervention of Austria. The diabolical policy, Divide et impera, had done its work; the people of Italy (a few exceptional minds apart) had learned to regard themselves as Lombards, Romans, Piedmontese, &c., but had forgotten that they were Italians. Such, in a few words, was the state of Italy when Mazzini's political career began.

In the autobiographical portion of his "Life and Works"‡ (unfortunately very scanty) he refers the awakening of the national idea within him to a day in the year 1821, when the Piedmontese insurrection had just been crushed by Austria, and he, then a lad of fifteen, was accosted in the streets of Genoa by one who was collecting subscriptions to send the revolutionists who had escaped to Spain.

"The idea of an existing wrong in my own country, against which it was a duty to struggle, and the thought that I too must bear my part in that struggle, flashed before my mind on that day for the first time, never again

Naples and Parma were ruled by Spanish and French Bourbons; Modena and Tuscany by Austrian archdukes; Lombardy and Venetia by the Emperor of Austria; Piedmont and Sardinia by Savoyards, united by marriage with Austria.

+ Headed, and afterwards betrayed, by the Prince of Carignano, afterwards Charles Albert.

"Life and Works of Joseph Mazzini." Smith, Elder & Co.

to leave it. . . . I began collecting names and facts, and studied, as best I might, the causes of the failure."

He was not long in discovering the cause of the failure of all revolutionary attempts in Italy to be the lack of a national instead of local aim; and, being unable then to bear testimony to the national idea in action, commenced disseminating it covertly, through the medium of literature. This was in the days of the literary warfare between the Romantic and Classicist schools. Mazzini ardently embraced the Romantic theory; but literary independence was, in his eyes, only a veil to cover the idea of political independence, and he made of his articles" an indirect appeal to the youth of his country to infuse some of their own young life into the latent hidden life fermenting deep down in the heart of Italy," knowing that the endeavour to unite these two elements would be opposed both by foreign and domestic tyranny, and seeking to induce rebellion against both. The governments of Sardinia and Tuscany did, in fact, extinguish the journals in which his writings appeared; but not before he had "awakened chords that had long lain mute in the minds of his fellowcountrymen, and proved to the young men of Italy that the governments were opposed to all progress, and that liberty was impossible until all were overthrown." His writings had already gained him some fame and influence, when he took his first step towards action by joining the Carbonari. He neither approved their doctrines nor system; but found in them a body of men in whom, however inferior to the idea they represented, faith and works were identical; who braved excommunication and death in pursuit of liberty. He, however, "reflected with surprise and distrust that the oath administered to him was a mere formula of obedience, and that his initiator had not said a single word about federalism or unity, republic or monarchy." It was war to the government-nothing more." He was also displeased to find that while he already looked to her own people as the means of saving Italy, the Carbonari hoped in France.

Shortly after the French Revolution of 1830 Mazzini was arrested. His father asked the governor of Genoa of what crime his son was accused, and received for answer, that his son was a young man of talent, much given to solitary walks at night, and " the government was not fond of young men of talent the subject of whose musings was unknown to it." He was confined in the fortress of Savona, and it was in his cell, at the top of that fortress, "with the sea and sky -two symbols of the Infinite, and, except the Alps, the sublimest things in Nature-before him, whenever he approached his little grated window," that he conceived the plan of the National Association of " Young Italy," and "meditated deeply upon the principles upon which to base the organization, the aim and purpose of its labours,'

&c.; principles and labours which were destined gradually to change the face of Italy.

After less than a year's imprisonment, Mazzini was tried and acquitted, but nevertheless exiled. He went to Marseilles, and there founded the association. Charles Albert ascended the throne in that year, and the majority of Italian patriots were full of hope that the king would redeem the broken pledges of the prince. Mazzini did not share these hopes; but he published at that time the celebrated "Letter to Charles Albert," recalling to him, in explicit terms, his duty towards Italy, with the object of proving to the Italians the king's absolute lack of all the qualities which would have rendered the performance of that duty possible. The letter was immediately reprinted in Italy by the clandestine press, and its circulation was immense. The king answered it by forwarding the writer's signalement to the frontier, with instructions to the authorities to imprison him if he should attempt to enter Italy.

The centre of Italy rose in insurrection in 1831; and as each town in succession freed itself from foreign rule, the leaders once again evinced their forgetfulness of the Italian idea. Far from seeking to spread the insurrection in other provinces of Italy, they proclaimed each movement to be purely local, and sought the protection of foreign diplomacy upon that ground. The natural consequence was that they were speedily betrayed, and again consigned to the hands of their masters.

Our space will not allow us to transcribe the whole of the remarkable" Statutes of Young Italy," which professed itself at the outset to be a

"Brotherhood of Italians, who believe in a law of progress and duty, and are convinced that Italy is destined to become one nation . . . and united in the firm intent of consecrating both thought and action to the great aim of reconstructing Italy as one independent sovereign nation of free men and equals; . . . the aim of the Association is revolution, but its labours will be essentially educational."*

Mazzini considered the predominating moral evils in Italy to be: superstition and materialism:

"Superstition was the habit of a part of the population, to whom all light, all education was forbidden. . . Materialism, the natural reaction of those who had been able to emancipate themselves from the abject spectacle which religion offered, from the brutal yoke it sought to impose upon their intelligence. It was said to them, 'Believe all that we affirm: they replied by denying all."

* The symbol of the Association of Young Italy was a sprig of cypress, in memory of the Italian martyrs: its motto, Ora e sempre (Now, and for ever). The banner of the Association, composed of the three Italian colours-green, white, and red-bore on the one side the words Unity and Independence; and on the other, Liberty, Equality, Humanity.

Himself deeply religious by nature, and confirmed in his religious tendencies by severe study and reflection, it was Mazzini's aim to educate his countrymen to "desire to progress, not in order to obtain the satisfaction of certain appetites, panem et circenses, . . . but to fulfil a mission upon earth for our own and for our brethren's good;" and the development of these ideas occupied his thoughts and formed the subject of his writings even in the earliest days of his political career. He believed it

"Necessary to reunite politics to the eternal principles which should direct them. . . . God, religion; the People, liberty in love: these two words, which as individuals we inscribed upon our banner in 1831, and which afterwards-significant phenomenon-became the formula of all the decrees of free Venice and Rome,* sum up all for which we have combated, all for which we will combat unto victory."

The people of Italy instinctively comprehended the value of the National idea, and the Association rapidly became a power among them, spreading from Genoa and the two Riviere to Naples, Lombardy, and indeed to all parts of Italy; and as the secret committees multiplied, tolerably secure means of communication, for conveyance of instructions, documents, &c., were established between province and province. The anxiety to obtain Mazzini's writings was such that the number of copies of the Journal of the Association† which he was able to send to Italy was quite insufficient, and clandestine presses were established in order to reproduce them. Although Young Italy professed itself in principle republican, its aim was the unity of Italy, and her independence from the foreigner; and it declared that obedience to the will of the nation, with regard to the form of government to be adopted, so soon as she should be free, was the citizen's first duty. "In less than one year from the date of its foundation, Young Italy had become the dominant association throughout the whole peninsula, and had concentrated against it the alarmed persecution of seven governments." The most severe punishments were inflicted upon all who, in any way, assisted in introducing Mazzini's writings into Italy. Charles Albert condemned those guilty even of non-denunciation of such offence in others to two years' imprisonment and a fine,-half of which was given to the informer, with promise of secrecy. At the request of the Piedmontese government, Mazzini was banished from France; but he contrived to remain for another year concealed in Marseilles, editing his paper, corresponding with Italy, and holding secret interviews with travellers from his own country and the republican leaders of France. Not only the people, but the most distinguished men in Italy joined his association; but the majority of the latter forsook the insurrectionary * The official acts of the Republics were issued "in the name of God and the People." Edited by him in Marseilles.