But the work of Gioberti was a panegyric on Italy, a universal laudation of the Italian genius, the Italian spirit, the Italian language, every thing that bore the name of Italian! Its very title, "ThePre-eminence, Civil and Moral, of the Italians," was irresistible.
The monster-folly of all foreigners is a passion for praise; and the unpopularity of the Englishman on the Continent chiefly arises from his tardiness in gorging this rapacious appetite. Gioberti, with evident consciousness of the offence, labours to justify the assumption. "Individuals may be modest, but modesty degrades nations," is his preliminary maxim. "A nation to have claims must have merits; and who is to believe in her merits, unless she believes in them herself?" This curious logic, which would make vanity only the more ridiculous by the openness of its display, is the grand argument of the book. It has made Italy suddenly imagine herself a nation of heroes.
"When a nation," says Gioberti, "has fallen into social degradation, the attempt to revive its courage must be by praise; possibly dangerous at other times, but now a generous art." It is admitted, however, "that the facts ought to be true, and the arguments forcible; and that no good can come from adulation." And in consequence of this wise precaution, the patriotic monk proceeds to inaugurate his country with the precedency in the grand procession of all the kingdoms of the earth! But another striking feature of this work was, that all those changes must emanate from a centre, and that centre the Pope, that Pope being a professor of liberalism, and having for his pupils all the princes of Italy. Whether Gioberti saw futurity with the eye of prophet, or only in the conjecture of a charlatan, there can be no doubt that the coincidence between his theory and the facts is sufficiently curious. We are to remember that book was published in the reign of Gregory XVI.—a genuine monk, hardened in all the old habits of the cell, who thought that a railroad would be the overthrow of the tiara, and the expression of a political opinion would call up the shades of all the past Holinesses from their purgatorial thrones.
The book declared that the Deity being the source of all influence on the civilisation of man, the country which approached nearest to general influence over the world must be the leading nation. It contends that Italy fulfils this condition in three ways. First, that it has created the civilisation of all other nations; second, that it preserves in its bosom, for general use, all the principles of that civilisation; and third, that it has repeatedly shown the power of restoring that civilisation. He further contends that the true principle of Italian power is federation, and the true centre of that federation must be the Pope. He declares that the whole light of Italy, in the eyes of the world, has flashed from the papal throne—that the Roman States are to the rest of Italy what the site of the Temple was to the Jewish people—and seems to regard the whole Italian nation, in reference to Europe, as like the Chosen Land to the rest of the world. Even then, he marked the Piedmontese throne as the chief support of the federation, and Charles Albert as the champion of the great pontifical revolution which, expelling all strangers, and uniting all princes, was to place Italy in secure sovereignty over all the mental and moral influences of the world.
The work is obviously a romance; but it is a romance of genius; it is obviously unsuited to the realities of any nation under the moon, but it touches every weak point of the national character with a new colouring, and persuades the loose and lazy Italian that he has only to start on his feet to be a model for mankind. With him the church of Rome is no longer an antiquated building of the dark ages, full of obscure passages and airless chambers, with modern cobwebs covering its ancient gilding, and, with the very crevices which let in light, exhibiting only its irreparable decay. It is on the contrary a temple full of splendour, and spreading its light through the world, crowded with oracular shrines, and uttering voices of sanctity that are yet destined to give wisdom to the world.
It must be wholly unnecessary for Protestantism to expose the superficial glitter of those views, and the feeble foundations of this visionary empire. The true respondent is the actual condition of Europe. Every Protestant nation has left Italy behind. Even the Romish nations, which have borrowed their vigour from intercourse with Protestantism, have left her behind.Of what great invention for the benefit of man has Italy been the parent during the last three hundred years? What command has she given us over nature? what territory has she added to the civilised world in an age of perpetual discovery? what enlargement of the human mind has she exhibited in her philosophy? what advance in the amelioration of the popular condition signalises her intelligent benevolence? what manly inquiry into any one of the means by which governments or individuals distinguish themselves as benefactors to posterity, and live in the memory of mankind?
It is painful to answer queries like these with a direct negation; but that negation would be truth. Italy has nothing to show for her intellectual products during centuries, but the carnival and the opera; for her gallantry, but the sufferings of French and German invasions; for her political progress, but the indolent submission to generations of petty kings, themselves living in vassalage to France, Austria, and Spain; and for her religion, but the worship of saints, of whom no living man knows any thing—miracles so absurd as to make even the sacristans who narrate them laugh; new legends of every conceivable nonsense, and leases of purgatory shortened according to the pence dropped into the purse of the confessional.
Italy has two evils, either of which would be enough to break down the most vigorous nation—if a vigorous nation would not have broken down both, ages ago. These two are the nobles and the priesthood—both ruinously numberless, both contemptibly idle, and both interested in resisting every useful change, which might shake their supremacy. Every period of Italian convulsion has left a class of men calling themselves nobles, and perpetuating the title to their sons. The Gothic, the Norman, the papal, the "nouveaux riches," every man who buys an estate—in fact, nearly every man who desires a title—all swell the lists of the nobility to an intolerable size. Of course, a noble can never do any thing—his dignity stands in the way.
The ecclesiastics, though a busier race, are still more exhausting. The kingdom of Naples alone has eighty-five prelates, with nearly one hundred thousand priests and persons of religious orders, the monks forming about a fourth of the whole! In this number the priesthood of Sicily is not included, which has to its own share no less than three archbishops and eleven bishops. Even the barren isle of Sardinia has one hundred and seventeen convents! Can any rational mind wonder at the profligacy, the idleness, and the dependence of the Italian peninsula, with such examples before it? The Pope daily has between two and three thousand monks loitering through the streets of Rome. Besides these, he has on his ecclesiastical staff twenty cardinals, four archbishops, ninety-eight bishops, and a clergy amounting to nearly five per cent of his population. With those two millstones round her neck, Italy must remain at the bottom. She may be shaken and tossed by the political surges which roll above her head, but she never can be buoyant. She must cast both away before she can rise. Italy priest-ridden, and noble-ridden, and prince-ridden, must be content with her fate. Her only chance is in the shock, which will break away her encumbrances.
We now come to the Avatar, in which liberty is looked for by all the romancers in Italy. On the 1st of June 1846, Pope Gregory XVI. died, at the age of 81. He was a man of feeble mind, but of rigid habits, willing to live after the manner of his fathers, and, above all things, dreading Italian change. The occasional attempts at introducing European improvements into the Roman territory struck him with undisguised alarm; and even his old age did not prevent his leaving six thousand state prisoners in the Roman dungeons. On the 16th of the same month the Bishop of Imola was chosen Pope. He was of an Italian family, which had occasionally held considerable offices; was a man of intelligence, though tinged with liberalism; and was one of the youngest of the Popes since Innocent III., who took the tiara at the age of 37. The Bishop of Imola was 54.
Adopting the name of Pius IX., his first act was one of clemency. Hepublished an amnesty for political offences, and threw open the prison doors. An act of this order is usual on the accession of a Pope. But the fears of the population had been so much heightened by the singular stubbornness of his predecessor, that the discovery of their having a merciful master produced a universal burst of rejoicing.
But the popular excitement was not to be satisfied with the trumpetings and parades of the returning exiles—it demanded a new tariff, which was granted, of course. Then followed fêtes and illuminations, until the Pope himself grew tired of being blinded by fireworks and deafened by shouts. A succession of acts of civility passed between his Holiness and his people. He talked of railroads, canals, and commerce. He formed a council, which, so far as any practical effect has been produced by the measure, seems to have died in its birth. He cultivated popularity, walked through the streets, occasionally served the mass for a parish priest, and fully gained his object, of astonishing the populace by the condescension of a pontiff. To all this we make no imaginable objection. Pius IX. did but a duty that seldom enters into the contemplation of the prelacy, and which it would be well for their security, and not unwise in their calling, to practise in every province of Christendom.
But it is to be observed that, in all this pageantry of parliaments, and all those provinces of renovation, nothing has been done—that none of the real machinery of the popedom has been broken up—that the monk is still a living being, and the Jesuit, though a little plundered, is still in the world—that every spiritual law which made Rome a terror to the thinking part of mankind is in full vigour at this moment, and that whatever may be thought of the enlightenment of his Holiness, every weapon of spiritual severity remains still bright and burnished, and hung up in the old armoury of faith, ready for the first hand, and for the first occasion.
Lord Brougham, in his late memorable cosmopolite speech, has charged the popedom with being the origin of the European convulsions. There can be no doubt that the popedom, if it did not give birth to the movement, at least set the example. The first actual struggle with Austria was its quarrel about the possession of Ferrara, which was, after all, but a straw thrown up to show the direction of the wind. The call to the Italian states, though not loud, was deep; and an Italian army, for the purpose of forming an Italian confederation, made a part of every dream between the Alps and the sea.
Then came still more showy scenes of the great drama. France had looked on the Ferrarese struggle with the eager interest which inspires that busy nation on every opportunity of European disturbance. But the Parisian revolution suddenly threw the complimentary warfare of German and Italian heroism into burlesque. The extinction of the throne, the flight of a dynasty, the sovereignty of the mob, and the universal frenzy of a nation, were bold sports, of which Italian souls knew nothing. But their effect was soon perilously felt; the populace of Milan determined to rival the populace of Paris—had anemeuteof their own, built barricades, fought the Austrian garrison, and made themselves masters of the capital of Lombardy.
But the Italian is essentially a dramatist without the power of tragedy; he turns by nature to farce, and in his boldest affairs does nothing without burlesque. Could it be conceived that a people, resolving on a revolution, should have begun it by a revolt of cigars! In England "sixty years ago," a noble duke exhibited his hostility to the government of Pitt, by ordering his footman to comb the powder out of his locks—this deficiency in the powder tax being regarded by the noble duke as a decisive instrument in the overthrowing the national policy. It must however be said, for the honour of England and the apology of the duke, that he was a Whig,—which accounts for any imbecility in this world.
The Milanese began by a desperate self-denying ordinance against tobacco. No patriot was thenceforward to smoke! What the Italian did with his hands, mouth, or thoughts, when the cigar no longer employed the wholethree, is beyond our imagination. His next act of patriotic sacrifice was the theatre—the Austrian government receiving some rent as tax on the performances. The theatre was deserted, and even Fanny Ellsler's pirouettes could not win the rabble back. Even the public promenade, which happened to have some connexion with Austrian memories, was abandoned, and no Italian, man, woman, or child, would exhibit on the Austrian Corso. To our northern fancies, all this seems intolerably infantine; but it is not the less Italian—and it might have gone on in the style of children raising a nursery rebellion to this hour, but for the intervention of another character.
The history of the Sardinian states is as old as the Punic wars. But the glance which we shall give looks only to the events of the last century—excepting the slight mention, that from the period when Italy was separated from the fallen empire of Charlemagne in the ninth century, the command of the passes of Mont Cenis and Mont Genevre, with the countries at the foot of the Cottian and Graian Alps, was put in charge of some distinguished military noble, as the key of Italy, that noble bearing the title of Marquis or Lord of the Marches.
We come, leaving nine centuries of feud and ferocity behind, to the eighteenth century, when the house of Savoy became allied with the royal succession of England, by the marriage of Victor Amadeus with Anne Marie of Orleans, daughter of Philip, brother of Louis XIV., by Henrietta, daughter of Charles I. of England.
There are few historical facts more striking than the effect of position on the character of the princes of Savoy. The life of the Italian sovereigns has generally been proverbial for the feebleness of their capacities, or the waste of their powers; but Savoy exhibited an almost unbroken line of sovereigns remarkable for political sagacity, and for gallantry in the field. This was the result of their location. They were to Italy what the Lords Wardens of the Border were to England and Scotland; forced to be perpetually in the saddle—constantly preparing to repel invasion—their authority dependent from year to year on an outburst from France, or a grasp from the restless ambition and vast power of the German emperors. It is not less remarkable, that from the middle of the century, when the hazards of Savoy were diminished by the general amelioration of European policy, the vigour of the Savoyard princes decayed; and the court of Turin, instead of being a school of diplomacy and war, sank into the feebleness of Italian thrones, and retained its rivalry only in the opera.
But the French Revolution came, sent to try the infirmities of all thrones. It found Victor Amadeus the Third sitting calmly in the seat of his forefathers, and wholly unsuspicious of the barbarian storm which was to sweep through his valleys. The French burst on Nice in 1792, then on Oniglia, and stripped Savoy of all its outworks to the Alps.
But Napoleon came, another shape of evil. While the king was preparing to defend the passes of the mountains, the young French general turned the line of defence by the sea, and poured his army into Piedmont. A succession of rapid battles carried him to the walls of Turin; and the astonished king, in 1796, signed a treaty which left his dominions at the mercy of Republicanism.
On the death of the king in this year of troubles, his son, Charles Emanuel IV., succeeded him. But he was now a vassal of France; he saw his country dismembered, his armies ruined, and his people groaning under the cruel insults and intolerable exactions which have always characterised French conquest. Unable to endure this torture, he retired to Sardinia, and from Sardinia finally went to Rome, and there abdicated in favour of his brother, Victor Emanuel.
The new monarch, whose states were undergoing from year to year all the capricious and agonising vicissitudes of Italian revolution, at length shared in the general European triumph over Napoleon, and at the peace of 1814 returned to his dominions, augmented, by the treaty of Vienna, by the important addition of Genoa.
But his return was scarcely hailed with triumph by his subjects, when the example of Spain was followed in an insurrection demanding a new constitution.The king, wearied of political disturbance, and being without offspring, now determined to follow the example of his predecessor, and gave up the crown to his brother, Charles Felix, appointing, as provisional regent, Prince Charles Albert of Savoy Carignano, a descendant of Victor Amadeus I.
After a reign of ten years, undistinguished by either vices or virtues, but employed in the harmless occupations of making roads and building schools, the king died in 1831, and was succeeded by the Prince of Carignano.
Charles Albert has now been seventeen years upon the throne; yet, to this hour, his character, his policy, and his purposes, are the problems of Italy. His whole course strongly resembles those biographies of studied mystery and sleepless ambition—those serpent obliquities and serpent trails—which marked the career of the mediæval princes of Italy; but which demanded not only a keen head, but a bold resolve,—Castruccio, with a Machiavel, for the twin image of the perfection of an Italian king.
The object of universal outcry for his original abandonment of "Young Italy,"—an abandonment which may find its natural excuse in the discovery that Young Italy was digging up the foundations of the throne, on whose first step his foot was already placed, and to which within a few years he actually ascended;—from that period he has fixed the eyes of all Italy upon his movements, as those of the only possible antagonist who can shake the power of Austria. He has at least the externals of a power to which Italy can show no rival: 50,000 of the best troops south of the Alps, which a blast of the trumpet from Turin can raise to 100,000; a country which is almost a continued fortress, and a position which, being in the command of the passes of Italy, can meet invasion with the singular probability of making his mountains the grave of the invader, or open Italy to the march of an auxiliary force, which would at once turn the scale. His government has exhibited that cool calculation of popular impulse and royal rights, by which, without a total prohibition of change, he has contrived to keep the whole power of government in his hands. Long watched by Austria, he had never given it an opportunity of direct offence; and if he has at length declared war, his whole past conduct justifies the belief, that he has either been driven to the conflict by some imperious necessity, or that he has assured himself, on deliberate grounds, of the triumph of his enterprise.
He has now taken the first step, and he has taken it with a daring which must either make him the master of Italy, or make him a beggar and an exile. By rushing into war with Austria, he has begun the game in which he must gain all or lose all. Yet we doubt that, for final success, far as he has gone, he has gone far enough. On the day when he unfurled the standard against Austria, he should have proclaimed Italian independence. We look upon the aggression on Austria as a violation of alliance which must bring evil. But that violation being once resolved on, the scabbard should have been thrown away, and the determination published to the world, that the foreign soldier should no longer tread the Italian soil. This declaration would have had the boldness which adds enthusiasm to interest. It would have had the clearness which suffers no equivocation; and it would have had the comprehensiveness which would include every man of Italian birth, and not a few in other countries, to whom unlicensed boldness is the first of virtues.
The private habits of this prince are said to be singularly adapted to the leader of a national war. His frame is hardy, his manner of living is abstemious, and his few recreations are manly and active. He has already seen war, and commanded a column of the French army in the campaign of 1823, which broke up the Spanish liberals, and reinstated the king upon the throne. But, with all those daring qualities, he never forgets that the Italian is by nature a superstitious being; that he is, at best, a compound of the mime and the monk—with the monk three-fourths predominating; and that no man can hope to be master of the national mind who does not take his share in the priestly slavery of the people. This accounts for theextraordinary reverence which from time to time he displays in the ceremonials of the church, for his sufferance of the monkish thousands which blacken the soil of his dominions, and for his tolerance of the Jesuits, whom he, as well as probably every other sovereign of Europe, dreads, and whom every other sovereign of Europe seems, by common consent, to be fixed on expelling from his dominions.
What the ulterior views of the King may be, of course, it would require a prophet to tell. Whether the crown of Lombardy is among the dreams of his ambition, whether the Italian hatred of Austria stimulates his councils, or whether the mere Italian passion for freedom urges him to stake his own diadem on the chances of the field for the liberation of the peninsula, are questions which can be answered only by the event; but he has at last advanced,—has menaced the Austrian possession of Italy; has pressed upon the Austrian army in its retreat; has reduced it to the defensive; and has brought the great question of Austrian dominion to the simple arbitration of the sword.
The history of the Sardinian campaign has been hitherto a history of skirmishes. The Piedmontese troops have advanced, and Radetski has retired. The Austrian position is memorable for its strength, and has been successively adopted by every defender of the Austro-Italian provinces. Peschiera, Verona, and Mantua form the three angles of an irregular triangle, of which the line of the Mincio forms the base. Charles Albert, by crossing the Mincio at Goito, is nowwithinthe triangle. The three fortresses are strong, and he has already made some attempts on Peschiera, which commands the head of the Lake of Garda. Those attempts have failed, and Verona is now his object; and there too he appears to have already undergone some failures. The true wonder is, that he has been suffered to remain a moment making these experiments, and that Austria, with 300,000 men under arms, should allow an Italian army, of 50,000 men at the most, to shut up her general, and lord it over half of her Italian territory. All this is an enigma. It is equally an enigma, that the Austrian commander-in-chief should have allowed himself to be driven out of the capital of Lombardy by the rabble of the streets, and have marched out with a garrison of 15,000 men, before a mob of half their number. He ought to have fought in Milan to his last battalion. If he had been embarrassed by orders from home, he ought to have resigned at once. A heavy blow at the insurrection in Milan would have extinguished Italian rebellion.
He has now a position in which he might fight with perfect security for his flanks and rear; with the strongest fortress in Italy, Mantua, for his place of refuge, if defeated; and, if successful, with the certainty of ruin to his adversary;—yet he stands still. It was by a brilliant movement in this position that the Austrian Kray gave the French that tremendous defeat which ultimately drove them over the Alps.
The surrounding country is of the most intricate kind—a perpetual intersection of large rivers, guarded at every passage bytêtes de pont, and all the means known to military science. A war of this order may be carried on for years; and, unless the Italian population shall riseen masse, it must be a mere waste of blood and time.
The true tactique of an Italian invasion is a succession of rapid, daring, andhazardousattacks. This is the dictate of experience in every example of Italian conquest. A bold rush into the interior, leaving all fortresses behind, despising the obstacles of rivers, lakes, and mountains, and only hurrying on to meet the enemy in line, has been the principle of success from the first days of the French assaults on Italy to the last.Theirwar was an incursion, their marches were a headlong charge, their battles were outbursts of furious force; and, if their triumphs were transient, they failed merely from the national caprice which tires of every thing, and from the exhaustion of an ill-regulated finance. The French, even under the old Bourbons, never descended the Alps without sweeping all resistance before them. The campaigns of Napoleon in 1796, and the following year, were on the same principle. He plunged into Italy at the head of 50,000 troops, ragged, hungry, and in beggary, butthe first robbers in Europe. He told them that, by beating the Italians, they should get clothes, food, and money. As a strategist, he probably committed a thousand faults, but he did not commit the grand fault of all, that of giving the enemy time to recover his senses. He fought every day,—he fought by night as well as by day. At Montenotte, he fought for twelve hours, and was beaten; he again mounted his horse at midnight, attacked the victor in his first sleep, and, before morning, was master of the mountains, with the Austrian army in full flight, and the gates of Turin open before him. The Russian campaign in Italy was on the same principle. "When you are not fighting, march; when you are not marching, fight." When the Austrian generals advised Suwarrow to manœuvre, he laughed, and told them that tactics were only trifling. "Make reconnoissances," said the greybeard pupils of the Aulic Council. "My reconnoissances," said the great Russian, "are of 10,000 men. Form column, charge bayonet, plunge into the enemy's centre. These are my only reconnoissances." In three months he drove the French, under their two best officers, Macdonald and Moreau, across the Alps, and cleared Italy. A lingering Italian campaign is always a campaign thrown away, or a country lost. It is the work of a military gambler. Napoleon's invasion of Italy, in his consulate, was one of the most desperate hazards ever ventured in war. He might have been defeated, and, if defeated, he must have been utterly ruined. But he attacked the Austrians, was repulsed, renewed the attack in desperation, repulsed the enemy in turn, and next day saw all Italy capitulate to him.
What a month may bring forth is beyond our calculation; but while we were writing those pages, there had been a general movement of the Piedmontese troops on Verona, probably with the intention of aiding some insurrectionary movement in the city. The Piedmontese artillery speedily demolished the field-works in the approaches to the city. A general advance was ordered, and the Austrian troops continued to retreat, still turning on the advancing line, and fighting, through a country the greater part of which is a low shrubby forest. At length, however, a Piedmontese division was vigorously attacked, taken by surprise, and broken with a loss so heavy, as to determine the retreat of the army to its position of the morning. Still, this was but an affair of posts; and, in the mean time, General Nugent, with an army of 30,000 men, is putting down the insurgents in the Venetian provinces, and is marching towards the flank of the Piedmontese.
One fact is evident, that Italy hasnotrisen in a body, and that, with all the harangues of her revolutionary orators, and all the promises of what those orators call "her heroic youth, burning to extinguish the abomination of the Teutons," very few of them have stirred from their coffee-houses. Italy, with her twenty millions of men, has probably not furnished to the field twenty thousand volunteers. Yet this is the time for which they have been all panting in all kinds of sonnets; when the "new spirit of political regeneration" has full range for its flight, when the Austrian police are a dead letter, and when Spielberg and its bastions are a bugbear no more.
But the movements of the Roman populace are matters of more rapid execution. What the Pope was a month since, every one knows;—Pius the powerful, Pius the popular, Pius the restorer of liberty to all the aggrieved nations of Italy, with a slight appendix, including the aggrieved nations of Europe. But the populace, which gave him his titles, have now changed them, and he is "Pius the Monk."
In a year whose every week produces a revolution, who can predict the events of a month? In the middle of this month of May, Pope Pius is virtually a prisoner in his palace; within a week he may be transferred to the castle of St Angelo; within a fortnight he may be an exile, an outlaw, or a refugee in England.
The intelligence from Rome at the commencement of the month was simply, that he was a cipher. The people, in their eagerness for Austrian overthrow, demanded a declaration of war. But the German bishops aresaid to have informed the Court of Cardinals, that a measure of that order would instantly produce a renouncement of their allegiance to the Roman See. A council of cardinals was now summoned, before whom the Pope laid a recapitulation of his policy, which may be considered in the light of a penitential speech. In the mean time, all his ministers tendered their resignations, probably hoping to lay theonusof things on the shoulders of Pius himself, and glad to escape from being massacred by the mob, or hanged by the Austrians.
But the Pope wisely determined, that whatever happened to one, should happen to all, and refused to let them resign. The general staff then held a "sitting," and the municipality marched in procession, to give their opinion at the Vatican on matters of government, and recommend "abdication!" Such are the benefits of telling the rabble that they are the true depositaries of the national wisdom. In other and better days, the Pope would have sent those volunteer privy-councillors to the galleys, as their impudence richly deserved. But he may now thank his own political visions.
The affair was not yet over. The civic guard, that darling creation of regenerate freedom, took up its muskets, planted themselves at the gates, and declared that no one, priest, bishop, or pope, should stir from Rome. A kind of rabble proclamation was next made, that "no ecclesiastic should hold any civil office." If this be persisted in, there is an end of "Our Sovereign Lord the Pope." He may possibly be allowed to say mass, hear confessions, and work miracles in the old monkish fashion. But his tiara must pass away, his sceptre will be a staff, and his toe will be kissed no more. The mob say that as they do not wish to take him by surprise, they have allowed him some days to settle the question of private life with himself. But the declaration of war is thesine quâ non, and if he refuses, there is to be a "provisional government."
"By six o'clock, on the 1st instant, no answer had been received." Such is the new punctuality of popular dealings with princes and popes; and such was the announcement of the mob leaders to all those political reformers, the loungers of Rome. But at last the old expedient of startled sovereignty has been adopted. The ministry, by intelligence on the 5th, had been suffered to retire, and their successors, more liberal than ever, were received with popular acclamation.
The senate of Rome, probably to soften this measure to the Papal feelings, presented Pius with a long address, which, however, contains a repetition of the demand for war at any price. It says, "The people do not expectyou, a messenger of peace, to declare war. But they only desire that youshould not preventthose to whom you have confided the direction of temporal affairsto undertake and conduct it." Thus the division is complete. The Pope is to be two distinct personages—the messenger of peace, and the maker of war; unless, in the latter instance, he is to be responsible for acts which he does not guide, and to acknowledge his ministers to be "viceroys over him." Of all the acts of sovereignty, the most inalienable is the making of peace and war. But the sovereign of Rome is to have nothing of the kind. He is to be a puppet in the hands of a Board. We may well believe the accounts which represent him as "in deep dejection" at these manifestations of popular dealings with princes and popes. If his "Holiness" is not expeditious in his decision to obey his Sansculotte statesmen, the conclusion will be as rapid as the conception.
In all this chapter of change, whatever may be the coolness of our respect for the Papacy, we feel for the Pope, as we should feel for any man intolerably insulted by a conspiracy of wretches pampered into gross arrogance by sudden power. His personal character is unimpeachable; and if his vanity has met with a sudden and bitter reproof, it is only the vanity of an Italian.
Even of the people of Italy we speak only with regret. If these pages contain contemptuous expressions, wrung from us by the truth of things, we are not the less ready to acknowledge the original merits of a people spoiledonly by their institutions. We admit every instance which their panegyrists adduce of their natural ability, of their kindliness of disposition, of their ancient intrepidity in the field, and of their brilliancy in the arts. We impute all their waste of those gifts to the fiction which they call their religion. We lament over the hopelessness of Italian restoration while the nation sees the melting of St Januarius's blood as a work of heaven; expects the remission of sins from looking at the napkin of St Veronica; bows down to an image of the Virgin as the worker of miracles, and as an object of divine worship. While this lasts, the mind of Italy must remain in the darkness of that of its fathers, it may have wars, but it will have no advance in liberty; it may have revolutions, but it will have no national vigour; it may have a thousand depositions of sovereigns, but it will only be a change of masters, and every change only leaving it the more a slave. Italy can have but one charter—the Bible.
But now the world is in confusion. War in the north—war in the south—war gathering in the east of Europe. Russia, with 120,000 men, marching on Poland, to be followed by 300,000 more. France, with half a million of men in arms, waiting but the blast of the revolutionary trumpet to pour down on Italy. Can these things be by accident? Universal convulsion after a tranquillity of thirty years! And are these but the beginning of sorrows?
ASTLEY'S.
"Most votes carry the point, as a matter of course," said the Doctor, carefully distilling the last few drops of an incomparable Badmington into his glass. "I must say I am strongly in favour of the Surrey Zoo. They have got up Rome there in a style that is absolutely perfect; and the whole thing puts one remarkably in mind of Tacitus."
"Very likely," replied our friend the Spaniard; "but it so happens that my classical reminiscences are the reverse of agreeable. I don't believe there was a single oak in the whole grove of Dodona; at least my instinctive impression is towards the fact, that in the days of Agricola the world was a wilderness of birch. No; I declare for the opera. Pauline Viardot——"
"Bah!" said the Doctor. "These are no times to encourage foreigners. What say you, Fred?"
"I pronounce decidedly against the opera. In the first place, I am for the encouragement of native talent, especially in these revolutionary days; and in the second, I am remarkably hard up for cash. I agree with the Spaniard that Rome is rot. Suppose we go down to Astley's, and indulge ourselves with the death of Shaw?"
"I rather think that Shaw is used up," replied the Doctor. "Gomersal was the last of his race. However, Widdicomb survives, and there is still a chance of fun. So Astley's be it."
Accordingly, we soon found ourselves at that notable place of hippodramatic entertainment. In former years, Astley's was by far the most national of all the metropolitan theatres. It afforded the best practical exposition of the military history of Europe. One by one the fiery fights of the Peninsula and of Flanders were reproduced with an almost unnecessary amount of carnage. Real cannon—or at least cylinders which had every appearance of being bored—rumbled nightly across the stage. Squadrons of dragoons, mounted upon piebald, cream-coloured, and flea-bitten chargers, used to dash desperately through groves of canvass in pursuit of despairing fugitives; and terrific were the thunders of applause as the chivalry assailed a bridge, or overleaped the battlements of a fortification. No featwas too impracticable for these centaurs—no chasm too enormous for their vault; and it really was a touching thing to observe that, whenever a trooper fell, his horse invariably knelt down beside him, and seemed to beseech him to arise by pathetically nibbling at his buttons. The entertainments usually concluded with a series of single combats, a transparency of Britannia seated on a garden roller, and a most prodigal distribution of laurel. They were not only blameless, but highly praiseworthy and patriotic exhibitions; and it is deeply to be regretted that they are rapidly falling into desuetude.
There is no denying the fact that Astley's has undergone a change. There may be as much good riding as ever, and as fearless bounding on the tight-rope—the courier of St Petersburg may still pursue the uneven tenor of his way along the backs of six simultaneous geldings—and the lover may regain his bride by passing through the terrific ordeal of the blazing hoop as of yore. But the British feeling—the indomitable spirit—the strong, burly, independent patriotism of the ring has departed, and the Union Jack no longer floats triumphant over a sea of sawdust. This is matter of painful thought, for it is a marked sign of the decadence of the national drama.
We were just in time to witness the last act of an entertaining spectacle, which argued on the part of the author a particular intimacy with natural history, and with the customs of the Oriental nations. The scene was laid in some village of Hindostan; and it appeared that sundry British subjects, male and female, had by accident been caught trespassing within the confines of a grove sacred to Bramah. No Highland thane in the act of detecting a stray geologist on his territory could have exhibited more unbounded wrath than the high-priest, whose white beard and coffee-coloured arms vibrated and quivered with indignation. Regardless of the laws of nations, and insensible to the duties of hospitality, the hoary heathen summoned the captives before him, and offered them the fearful alternative of embracing the worship of Bramah, or of undergoing the sentence of Daniel, with the certainty of a worse catastrophe. It is hardly necessary to add, that the whole party, even down to a deboshed sergeant, whose religious scruples could hardly have been very strong, spurned at the idea of repudiating their faith, and unanimously demanded to be led on the instant to the menagerie. One young lieutenant of the Irregulars, indeed, was liberal in his offers to die for a certain lady, who had very unwisely followed him into the jungle without a bonnet, and in a gauze dress of singular tenuity: but as the old hierophant had made no offers whatever of a partial amnesty, it did not exactly appear that such generous devotion could in any way be carried into effect. The audience, accordingly, were led to prepare for a scene of indiscriminate bone-crushing, when a new turn was given to the posture of affairs by the appearance of a tall gentleman arrayed in flesh-coloured tights, who demanded the priority of sacrifice. The precise persuasion of this individual, and his claims to such invidious distinction, were not accurately set forward; but as he rejoiced in the appellation of Morok the Beast-tamer, it appeared evident to us that at some period of his existence he had been admitted to the privilege of an intimacy of M. Eugene Sue. After some consideration, and an appeal to an invisible oracle, the high-priest of Bramah, influenced probably by the distinguished literary position of his prisoner, consented to the request; and a solemn festival, to begin with the disparition of the European captives at the banquet of the beasts, and to end with the incremation of about twenty young native widows on the funeral pile, was decreed accordingly. This announcement seemed to fill the hearts of the aforesaid widows with unbounded rapture, for they incontinently advanced to the front of the stage, where they executed an extempore mazourka.
The next scene exhibited a cave, divided into two compartments, each of them stocked with a very fair supply of decrepid-looking lions and attenuated leopards. There was some slight squalling from the pit on the part of the female audience; for the interposed grating appeared to be needlessly slight, and one of the lions,though possibly from the mere ennui of existence, had a habit of yawning, which might have struck terror into the heart of Androcles. The clown, however, though not properly a protagonist in the drama, was kind enough to restore confidence to the spectators, by walking several times upon his hands before the bars, and exposing his motley person in divers tempting attitudes to the wild beasts, without apparently exciting their appetite. The yawning animal took no further notice of the invitation than to raise himself on his hind legs, and rested his four paws upon the cross-bar; after which he remained sitting like an enormous terrier supplicating for a fragment of muffin. A sickly tiger in the other compartment began to cough unpleasantly, as though the air of the circus was too pungent or too loaded for his delicate lungs.
Presently the procession entered, singing a hymn, which must have been highly gratifying to Bramah. In this ditty the widows joined with a fortitude worthy of so many Iphigenias; and we were not a little shocked to observe that some of the European captives were participators in that heathen psalmody. However, for the credit of our country, it should be stated, that neither the lieutenant of Irregulars, nor Amelia Darlingcourt, the young lady in whose affections he had a decided interest, took part in any such apostasy—indeed the mind of the latter was wholly occupied by other feelings, as she presently took occasion to assure us; for, the priest of Bramah having proclaimed silence, she advanced to the foot lamps, and warbled out an appropriate declaration that her heart was at that moment in the Highlands. This over, she threw herself into her lover's arms; and they both contemplated the menagerie with a calmness which testified the triumph of affection over death.
At a given signal, Morok the Beast-tamer stepped undauntedly into the den. We are ashamed to say that our friend the Doctor gloated upon this part of the spectacle with evident interest—it being a favourite theory of his that, on some occasion when the digestive organs of the animals were more than ordinarily active, Morok was sure to go the way of all flesh. Zumalacarregui was more indifferent,—pronounced the whole exhibition a humbug, and contrasted it disparagingly with the bull-fights in which, according to his own account, he was wont to take an active share at Salamanca. For my own part, it did not strike me that Mr Morok ran any particular danger. Either the animals were gorged, or their native ferocity had been long ago subdued by a system of judicious training. The lions submitted with perfect resignation to have their jaws wrenched open, and showed no symptoms of any desire to imitate the example of nutcrackers, even when the beast-tamer was inspecting the structure of their throats. The panthers were as pacific as though they had formed part of the body-guard of Bacchus; and the leopards ran up the shoulders of the man, and even allowed themselves to be twisted up into neckcloths, with a docility which was positively engaging.
Thedenoûmentof the drama was, of course, simple. The high-priest of Bramah, and indeed the deity himself, were taken thoroughly aback. The oracle declared itself satisfied. The European captives were set free without the slightest stain upon their honour. Morok was discovered to be an eminent rajah—perhaps Tippoo Saib or Hyder Ali in disguise; the elderly individual with the coffee-coloured arms gave his benediction to the lovers—and the widows, sharing in the general amnesty, and relieved from the statutory duty of performing as suttee, testified their entire satisfaction with the whole proceedings by another mazy dance; after which the curtain fell upon a highly appropriate tableau.
"Well!" said the Doctor, "upon my honour, I must say that we should have been quite as well off at the Surrey. In this hot weather, the ammoniacal odour of the stables may be salubrious, but it is very far from refreshing; and I question whether it is improved by an intermixture of carnivorous exhalations."
"Were it not for that pretty face in the next box, I would have been off before now," observed he of Salamanca; "this lion and tiger stuff is enough to try the patience of Job."
"But the horsemanship, my dear fellow," said I.
"Psha! what do they know of real horsemanship here?" interrupted the Spaniard. "When I was in the Christino cavalry."
"There! I knew it!" said the Doctor. "Once set him off on that yarn, and we shall have the whole history of his campaigns, without the slightest remorse or mitigation. Do, my dear Fred, be cautious! You don't know what I endured yesterday at supper."
"You be shot!" replied the Iberian. "Was I not compelled to substitute some rational topic of conversation for your interminable harangue upon the symptoms of pulmonary complaint? It was enough to have emptied an hospital. But see! they are bringing in the horses. By Jove, how fresh Widdicomb looks! I wonder whether he was really master of the ring at Trajan's amphitheatre. Not a bad brute, that one striped like a Zebra. How on earth do they manage the colours?"
"It is a chemical process," said the Doctor. "Perhaps you are not aware that the hyper-iodate of ——"
"Oh yes! we know all about it: very queer stuff too, I daresay. Hallo—look here! what kind of character is this fellow intended to personify?"
The question was not easily answered. The individual who provoked the remark was attired in most parsimonious silk drawers, with a sort of diminutive kilt around his waist. His head was decorated with a circle of particoloured feathers springing from a spangled circlet, not altogether unlike a highly decorated library-duster. On the whole, his costume was such as might have suited a Peruvian climate; but it was manifestly unfitted for the temperature of any untropical locality. By his side was a young lady similarly attired, only with a more liberal allowance of drapery, and rather more spangles upon her sleeves. The clown proceeded to chalk their soles with an expression of devout humility.
"These, I presume," said the Doctor, consulting the playbill, "are intended to represent the Inca and his bride; though what Incas had to do with horses, is utterly beyond my comprehension."
"They might have got them from the Spaniards, you know. Pizarro, is said to have been a liberal fellow in his way. I know a descendant of his at Cordova—"
"There they go—now for it!" said the Doctor. "I wonder if people ever galloped across a prairie in that way, holding one another by the hands, and standing each upon the point of one particular toe?"
"No more than Mercury ever chose to light upon the summit of ajet d'eau," said I. "But you are very prosaical and matter-of-fact to-night. See! up goes the lady on the Inca's knee. Do you call that attitude nothing? Why, even the master of the ring is so lost in admiration that he is forgetting to use his whip."
Here come the pole and ribbons. Yoicks! Capitally leaped! That young lady bounds over the cords as light and playfully as a panther. Surely the Inca is not going to disgrace himself by tumbling through a hoop? Yes, by the powers he is!—and a very fair somersault he has made of it! Now, then, put on the steam! Round they go like a whirlwind, attitudinising as if in agony. She looks behind her—starts—points; he turns his head—some imaginary foe must be in pursuit! Onwards—onwards, loving pair! One leap now, and ye are safe! It is a rasper, though—being nothing more nor less than a five-barred gate, speaking volumes in favour of early Peruvian agriculture. Over it they go both together; and Mr Merryman, in token of satisfaction, refreshes himself with a swim upon the sawdust!
"That course alone is worth the money," said I. "Now, Chief, unless you are bent upon prosecuting your conquest to the left, we may go. I feel a strong craving in my inner man for a draught of Barclay and Perkins."
"After all," remarked the Doctor, as we wended our way homewards, "there is something remarkably refreshing in the utter extravagance of the fictions which are presented at Astley's. They must keep in pay some author of very extraordinary genius. He never seems for a moment at a loss; and I doubt not that, at an hour's notice, he could get up a spectacle as brilliant as Aladdin's, in the Arabian Nights."
"I wish some of our friends would profit by the example," said I. "There is a fearful dearth of invention just now, especially in the fictional department; and if no speedy improvement takes place, I confess I do not know what is to become of the periodicals."
"I quite agree with you," remarked the Spaniard. "Some people are rather given to hunt an idea to death. For example, I am acquainted with a certain gentleman who can write about nothing except the railways. Every story of his has some connexion with scrip or shares, and the interest of the plot invariably turns upon a panic."
"Allow me to remark, Mr Zumalacarregui," said I, considerably nettled at the allusion, which seemed excessively uncalled for, "that any subject of domestic interest is much better than an incessant repetition of low Peninsular skirmishes. You may probably think that the public are interested in the exploits of Herrera the dragoon, in the forcible strangulation of gipsies, attacks upon convents, and the other wares in which you usually deal; but my opinion is very different."
"No doubt of it!" exclaimed the Doctor, who was delighted at the prospect of a literary row. "Every body is sick with the eternal sameness of these señoras. I wonder, Chief, you don't change your ground, and let us have something better."
"Better than what?" said the Spaniard. "Better than rigmarole stories about surveyors, and gradients, and old gentlemen with pigtails that dabble in stock. I rather suspect that, at all events, my bitterest enemy cannot accuse me of having put out any thing worse."
"Nay, that's true, enough!" chimed in the Doctor: "I by no means vindicate our friend. He is sufficiently tiresome upon occasion, I allow."
"It is very easy for those who never wrote a line to pass criticisms upon the works of others," said I.
"Works? railway works, you mean," said the Spaniard.
"Allow me to tell you, my fine fellow," replied I, "that I will back myself for any given sum to write a tale against you on any possible subject; and you may lay the locality, if you please, in your favourite Spain, though I know no more about it than I do of Timbuctoo."
"And I," said Zumala, "will knock under to no man, not even Alexander Dumas, for invention. So the sooner we begin the better."
"Well, then, fix your subject. Shall it be at the siege of Salamanca?"
"In order that you may pilfer right and left from military memoirs, I suppose. Thank you—I am not quite so foolish!"
"Take your own ground, then. Where shall it be? Asia, Africa, America, or New Zealand, if you like it better."
"By no means let us interfere with G. P. R. James. He has taken the convicts under his own especial charge. Let us say America, North or South, and I leave it to you to select the century."
"I won't have any thing to do with Fenimore Cooper's Redskins," said I. "Your gipsy practice would give you a decided advantage in portraying the fiery eyes of a Crow or a Delaware Indian, glaring through a sumach bush. Besides, I hate all that rubbish about wampum and moccassins. But if you like to try your hand at a Patagonian tale, or even a touch at the Snapping Turtle or Cypress Swamp, though that is more in your line, I assure you I have no objection."
"Let me mediate," said the Doctor. "The whole of this discussion seems to have arisen out of to-night's performances at Astley's, and I don't see why you should not avail yourselves of a ready-made hint. There is the Inca and his bride,—a capital suggestive subject. Take that as the groundwork of your tales and pitch them in the days of Pizarro."
"Very well," said I—"only let us start in a mutual state of ignorance. It is many years since I have read a word about the Incas, and I do not mean to refresh my knowledge. What is your amount of preparation, Hidalgo?"
"Precisely the same as yours."
"So far good. But—harkye—who is to decide between us?"
"The public, of course."
"But then, reflect—twotales upon the same subject! Why, nobody will have patience to read them!"
"Couldn't you try chapter about?" suggested the Doctor.
"A capital idea!" cried the Spaniard. "I am going down to Greenwich to-morrow for a white-bait party, so you have a clear day to begin with. We shall write it alternately, after the manner of the Virgilian eclogues."
"Arcades ambo," quoth the Doctor. "Well, good-night, lads, and see that you work out one another's ideas handsomely. I shall step into the club for half an hour, and have a glass of cold brandy and water."
"I say, Zumala," said I, as I walked home with my rival, "I am afraid the villain the Doctor is making game of us. Had we not better give the idea up?"
"Not a whit of it," replied the Spaniard. "I really want to see how the thing will do: and if you like to drag in the Doctor as a character, I shall be happy to keep it up. I presume there were plenty Caledonians wandering about the world even so far back as Pizarro's time?"
"There is always plenty of that stock in the market," I replied, with a groan. "Well, good-night. The MS. of the first chapter shall be sent you to-morrow evening; and recollect that we are both upon honour to avoid all kind of reference."
THE RUBICON OF PERU.
It was the sunny dawn of a tropical morning. The sea had just ebbed, leaving a vast expanse of white sand studded with strange particoloured shells, between the primeval forest which formed the boundary of the ocean verge, and the heavy line of breakers which plashed sullenly along the shore. One vessel, partially dismasted, and bearing tokens of the recent storm, was riding at anchor beyond the outer ridge; another lay in hopeless wreck, a black and broken hulk, upon the beach. Her timbers were stove in, her bulwarks swept away; the once stately Estremadura would never more walk the waters like a thing instinct with beauty and with life.
Upwards of three hundred hardy and bronzed veterans occupied the beach. In the countenances of some might be traced that sullen expression which is the result of absolute despair. Others used vehement gesticulations, attempting apparently to convince their comrades of the propriety of adopting some strong and dangerous resolution. Others, who were either more used to peril, or more indifferent to consequences, were playing at games of chance, as composedly as if, instead of being outcasts on a foreign shore, they were wiling away the tedium of an hour in their dear but distant Spain.
Two men, who seemed by their garb and bearing to be the leaders, were walking apart from the others. The eldest, a tall gaunt man, whose forehead was seamed with the furrows of many years, appeared to be dissuading his companion from some enterprise which the younger eagerly urged. Ever and anon he stopped, pointed with his finger to the gigantic, woods which stretched inward as far as the eye could see, and shook his head in token of dissent and discouragement.
"I tell thee, Pizarro, it is madness, sheer madness!" said he. "The foot of man has never yet penetrated that howling wilderness, from which all last night there issued sounds that might have chilled the bravest heart with terror. Even could we hope to penetrate alive through its zone, what thinkest thou lies beyond? I see in the distance a chain of dark and gloomy mountains, upon whose summits the sun never shines, so thick are the clouds that obscure them; and I fear me that, could we reach their top, we should but look down upon the frightful abyss that is the uttermost boundary of the world!"
"Pshaw, Don Gonsalez! I did not think thou hadst been so weak as to believe in such fables. Be the end of the world where it may, never let it be said that, so long as one rood of land remains unexplored, the bold Spanish Buccaneers shrank from theirappointed task. But I know that it is not so. Beyond yon dusky ridge there are valleys as rich as ever basked in the glory of the sun—fields more fertile than any in Spain—cities that are paved with silver and with gold. I have seen them, old man, many and many a time in my dreams; and, by Santiago, I will not forego their conquest!"
"Thou hast said the truth unwittingly, Pizarro," replied the other. "These are indeed dreams, the coinage of a visionary brain, and they will lure thee on to ruin. Bethink thee—even were it as thou supposest—were El Dorado separated from us only by yon colossal barriers of nature, how could we achieve its conquest with a handful of broken men? Those valleys thou speakest of, if they do exist, must be peopled—the cities will be strong and garrisoned. Men build not that which they are utterly unable to defend; and our force, heaven help us! is scarce strong enough to capture a village."
"Listen!" said Pizarro, and he laid his hand on the arm of the other. "I am not a learned man, as thou knowest, but something have I seen and heard. I have seen thirty determined men hold their own at point of pike against an army. I have seen thirty horsemen scatter thousands of the barbarians like chaff; and have we not more than thirty here? Nay, listen further. I have heard that in the old time, when a land called Greece was assailed—it might have been by the Saracens—three hundred stalwart cavaliers, under the leadership of one Don Leonidas, did, trusting in the might of Our Lady and Saint Nicolas, hold at bay many thousands of the infidel scum; for which good service to this day there are masses sung for their souls. And trow ye that we, with the same number, cannot hold our own against heathen who never yet saw lance glitter, axe smite, nor listened to the rattle of a corslet? Out upon thee, old man! thy blood is thin and chill, or thou wouldst speak less like a shaveling, and more like a belted Castilian!"
"Son of a swineherd!" cried the old man, drawing himself up to his full height, whilst the red spot of passion rose upon his faded cheek—"Son of a swineherd and a caitiff! is it for thee to insult the blood of a hundred ancestors? Now, by the bones of those who lie within the vaults of the Alhambra, had I no better cause of quarrel, this speech should separate us for ever! Remain, then, if thou wilt—nay, thoushaltremain; but recollect this, that not one man who calls me captain shall bear thee company. There lies thy black and stranded hulk. Make the most of her that thou canst; for never again shalt thou tread a Spanish deck where I, at least, have the authority!"
During this insulting speech, the brow of Pizarro grew livid, and his hand clutched instinctively at the dagger. But the man, though desperate, had learned by times the necessity of habitual control; he thrust the half-naked weapon back again into its sheath, and proudly confronted his commander.
"It is well for thee, Don Gonsalez," he said, "that thine years are wellnigh spent, else, for all thy nobility, I had laid thee as low as those who are rotting beneath the marble. Hearken, then—I take thee at thy word, so far that thou and I never more shall tread the quarter-deck together. Thy vessel is safe. Mine is lost—well, then, take thine own and be gone! But mark me! Over the men here thou hast no power. In this land there is no fealty due to the flag of Spain. No man owes allegiance save to the leader of his adoption, to the strong heart and stout arm of him whom he selects to be his chief. If there be but one among them willing to cast his lot with mine, I will dare the issue. Do not, as thou regardest thy life, attempt to gainsay me in this. I am armed and resolved, and thou knowest that I am not wont to dally."
So saying, he strode towards the place where the sailors were congregated, and, with his sheathed rapier, drew a deep line along the sand. All gazed in silence, wondering what his meaning might be; for the brow of Pizarro was now bent with that resolute frown which it seldom wore except on the eve of battle, his lips were compressed, and his eyes flashing as if with an inward fire.
"Spaniards!" he said, "the hour for action has arrived. There lies the ship, ready-winged to transport you back again to Spain, not as conquerors of the New World, but as beggars returning to the old. Go, then—plough the seas, greet the friends of your childhood, and when they ask you for the treasures that were to be gathered in this distant land, tell them that you have surrendered all at the moment when victory was secure. If they ask for your leader, tell them that you abandoned him on a foreign shore—that he only remained steadfast to his purpose and his oath—that he is resolved to win a crown, or to perish nobly in the attempt!"
"No, by the blessed scallop-shell of Compostella!" cried a burly soldier, pressing forward: "come what will of it, Pizarro, there is one at least who will not flinch from thy side! Here stand I, Herrera the dragoon, ready to follow thee to the death. It shall never be said that I crossed the salt sea twice without striking one blow for Spain, or that I left my captain in his extremity!"
"Therein I recognise my ancient comrade!" cried Pizarro, pressing his hand. "Gallant Herrera! stalwart brother! I knew that I might count on thee."
"And I," said another soldier, "would have small objection to do the same; because, d'ye see, it has always struck me that Don Pizarro had the root of the matter in him—"
"Ha, my tall Scot! sayest thou?" cried Pizarro: "wilt thou too cast thy lot with us? I know thee for a hardy blade that loves hard knocks better than oily words. See—I have drawn this line upon the sand: let those come over who will follow fortune and Pizarro!"
"Hooly and fairly!" replied the other, whose high cheek-bones and sandy hair bore unequivocal testimony to his race. "There's some small matters to be settled first; for it seems to me that this is verra like the taking of a new service. Now, we have a proverb in the North that short accounts make long freends; and I would fain speer of your valour, in the event of my biding here, what wad become of the arrearages to whilk I am righteously entitled?"
"Base fellow!" cried Herrera, "wouldst thou barter thy honour for gold?"
"By your leave, sergeant," replied the Scot drily, "maist men barter baith their life and honour for little else. But I cannot allow that this is a case of barter. I hold it to be a distinct contract of service, or rather of location and hire, anent which it is written in the book ofRegiam Majestatem, that no new contracts shall be held effectual until all previous conditions are purged and liquidated. Wherefore, touching these arrears, which amount for service of man and horse to nine doubloons, four maravedis, excluding interest and penalty as accords—"
"Hearken!" said Pizarro; "if a man owed thee a handful of dollars, and offered, as the condition of his release, to show thee a mine of diamonds, wouldst thou reject his proposal?"
"Assuredly not," replied the Scot; "I wad indubitably accept of the same, reserving always my right of diligence and recourse, until the furthcoming and valuation of the aforesaid jewellery."
"Well, then, the matter stands thus," continued Pizarro: "Gold have I none to pay thee; but if thou wilt follow me across yonder mountains, I will lead thee to a land richer far than any of your native valleys—"
"That's impossible," interrupted the Scot. "It's clear ye never saw Dalnacardoch!"
"A land which we will win and hold for ourselves and our heirs for ever!"
"Blench, doubtless, or for a mere nominal reddendo," remarked the Scot. "There's some sense in that; and since ye say that the arrears are scantly recoverable, by any form of process, I care not if I sist procedure thereanent, and take service under my freend the sergeant, whose acquaintance with the Pandects is somewhat less than his dexterity in the handling of a halbert."
So saying, the Scot stepped across the line, and was warmly greeted by Herrera. His example, however, was by no means contagious. Gonsalez, though not absolutely popular with his men, had nevertheless commanded theirrespect, and was well known to be a judicious and experienced leader. His strong opposition to the rash project of Pizarro had materially shaken the confidence of many who would otherwise have been forward in any enterprise which promised a favourable termination. Besides, their position was such, that the hardiest adventurer might well have been excused for hesitating to expose himself to further danger. Only one ship remained, and with the departure of that, all chance of returning to Spain seemed at an end. The aspect of the country was sterile and uninviting. No inhabitants had flocked down to welcome the Europeans to their shore—none of the happy omens which hailed the advent of Columbus had been visible to them. It seemed as if nature, revolting at the cruelties which had already been exercised by the invading Spaniards on the denizens of the infant world, had closed her gates against this marauding band, and absorbed her treasures into her womb. Of the three hundred Spaniards, only twenty-five crossed the boundary line, and declared themselves ready to take part in the desperate fortunes of Pizarro.
"Farewell, then!" said that haughty chieftain, addressing himself to the others. "I need you not; for what is a strong arm without a resolute and determined heart? Farewell! I have pointed out to you the path, and ye will not tread it!—I have held up the banner, and ye will not rally under it!—I have sounded the trumpet, and your ears are deaf to the call! Henceforward there is nothing for us in common. Go, cravens as ye are! back to Spain—work for hire—dig—sweat—labour at the oar! It is your portion, because ye know not what valour and glory are! But for you, gentlemen—who, superior to the vulgar ties of country and of home, have sunk the name of Spaniard in the glorious title of buccaneer—let us be up and doing! Our march may be toilsome, the danger great; but before us lies the new world which it is our glorious destiny to subdue. Mount, gentlemen cavaliers! Herrera, do thou display the standard! One last look at the ocean, and then forward for victory or death!"
"One word, Pizarro, before thou goest," said Gonsalez. "Amidst all thy rashness, I cannot but discern the flashing of a noble spirit. I would fain not part with thee in anger. It may be I have wronged thee, and—"
"Old man, what art thou and thy wronging to me?" replied Pizarro. "But yesterday I was thy subaltern—now, I am a chief. The soul of a conqueror is swelling in my bosom, and thou and such as thou have no power to do me wrong. I have no time to waste. Set on, I say! Another hour has struck in the mighty destiny of the world!"
A few moments afterwards, the watchers on the beach heard the last note of Pizarro's trumpet dying away in the depths of the Peruvian forest.
"A very fair chapter," said I, folding up the MS. "Strong, terse, spirited, and a good deal in the Waverley style. It is a pity I could not manage to foist in the Doctor, but this other sort of character will do remarkably well. Not a word about the Inca as yet. Well—that's the hidalgo's look-out. I wonder what kind of work he will make of the next chapter!"
THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN.
"Oneiza!"
"My love—my lord!"
"Look upon me with thy lustrous eyes till I see my image dancing in them. O my beautiful, my beloved! Tell me, Oneiza! when the song of the nightingale warbles across the lake, what dost thou think of then?"
"Of thee—of thee, my adored one!"
"And when the stars are glittering in heaven like sapphires in thine ebon hair—what then, Oneiza?"
"Of thee—still of thee!"
"When the humming-bird is stooping o'er the chalice of the flower,—when the sweet azalea blossom bursts brightly from the bower,—when the very breeze is loaded with odour and perfume, and the murmur of the hiddenbrook comes singing through the gloom,—when the fire-flies light the thicket like spangles struck from gold,—when all the buds that love the morn their tiny cups unfold,—when the dew is falling warmest on blade, and leaf, and tree—where is thy soul, Oneiza?"
"With thee, my love! with thee!"
Never, surely, since the first blight fell upon Eden, did the virgin moon look down upon a lovelier or a more innocent pair!! Manco Capl was of the race of the Incas, whom tradition asserted to be the direct offspring of the sun. But a shrewd physiological observer would have had no difficulty in recognising the traces of a descent more human but not less illustrious. The clustering curls, the dark eye, the aquiline nose, and the full underlip, of the young Inca, bore a striking resemblance to that ideal of beauty which far transcends the product of the Grecian chisel. They were the features of a prince of the Captivity—of a leader of the most ancient race that ever issued from the defiles of the Caucasus. For it is not to Assyria, or even to Thibet, that we must look for a solution of the great mystery attendant upon the departure of the Ten Tribes; They were not destined to remain by the streams of Babylon, hewers of wood and drawers of water in an unkind and alien country. The Israelitish spirit, which in former times had expanded to the strength of a Sampson, would not brook such a degradation, and the second mighty pilgrimage of the nation was even more prolonged than the first. At length they reached a land of rest and refuge;—Dan took possession of Mexico, and Zebulon was located in Peru.
Manco Capl had long loved Oneiza, the daughter of the Peruvian high-priest, with that ardour and entire devotion which is unknown to the callous nations of the north, whose affections are as cold as the climate in which they shiver and exist. She, in return, had surrendered to him that treasure than which the world contains nothing of more estimable and priceless value—a perfect trusting heart. Child of a paradise in which the trail of the serpent was hardly visible, she knew none of the coy arts which are practised by European maidens for the sake of concealing those emotions which, in reality, constitute the highest excellence of our being. She loved—warmly, keenly, passionately; and she felt that to conceal the expression of that love, was to defraud her betrothed of his due. Oh! if women only knew what they sacrifice through fictitious delicacy—if they had but once experienced the delight of an unrestricted communion of soul—they would throw restraint to the winds, and worship with the ardour of Herodias!