[Illustration: Mazzini]
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. * Some
incidents of his English career, known to me, may increase or confirm
the public impression of him.
* First in Devonshire Street, Queen Square; in Chelsea; in
Brompton; in earlier years in penury. Where he had command
of a sitting-room, birds were flying about. Uncaged freedom
was to Mazzini the emblem of Liberty.
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,* 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.
* Of Mazzini's great abstemiousness it was written later in
life:
"A cheaper world no one can know,
Where he who laughs grows fat;
Man wants but little here below--
Mazzini less than that."
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."
Mr. Bolton King has published a notable book on the great Italian,
containing more incidents in his career than any other English writer
has collected. I confine myself mainly to those within my knowledge.
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 L500,
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 L450.*
* The expenses of collection I defrayed myself.
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 'azzini 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.
[Illustration: Mario]