LETTERS.FROM 1849 TO 1852.LONDON.
To the Rev. ——10
January 4, 1849.
My Dear Sir,—After a good deal of thinking and some advising, I find that I have only to repeat what I stated at your house.
I do not feel myself competent to undertake the conduct or superintendence of any prayers, nor can I in any way pledge myself to be present. Any attendance I might give would simply be that of a private person—no way official; it would be as that of a junior member of a family at domestic worship; it would be a matter of conformity, not of individual choice; my own feeling, meantime, being to leave it, as I understand the Quakers do, to spontaneous emotion; and so I confess I should prefer any arrangement which would make my absence not unnatural, as might for instance be the case if prayers were combined with a Greek Testament lesson not given by me.
Meantime, I am sure I should have every disposition to facilitate devotional arrangements. In fact, I should not unwillingly concede that it might bebetterthat your Principalshould be one who could officially join in them, as indeed it might be best could all your students be expected to attend. But, whether better or worse, I had conceived your institution was to be one on which this maturer form would not be fixed, one which would offer alocus standiand a home for Theology and other subjects excluded from the College, and would aspire to encourage moral and religious sympathy, but would nevertheless leave all this to free, quiet and spontaneous development.
I confess I see great advantages in this system, but whether greater or less than those of the other, it is the only one in which I myself can co-operate. Not that I entertain any reluctance to attend the worship of others than those with whom I have hitherto been connected. Far from it. In Scotland I have always gone by preference to the Presbyterian churches; I have continually been to Mr. Martineau’s chapel at Liverpool; I have joined in the prayers of Unitarian families. If obliged to do one or other, I should probably go to Westminster Abbey rather than to any either Scotch or English Presbyterian chapel. But I have expressly testified my dislike to the Thirty-nine Articles, and you yourselves are quite as likely to attach to me such names as heretic, as I to apply that word to you.
I need not of course say that I suppose I have on these subjects, if not convictions, sentiments; not assuredly a definite theological creed, but what would be called religious views—views which may prove very different from those commonly entertained by Unitarians. But of course, too, I can entirely disclaim everything approaching to a disposition to proselytise; so far from it, I hardly expect to make up my own mind as yet, and am not likely to meddle with those of others. At the same time, what a man feels for himself can hardly fail to affect his communications with his neighbour, nor should I in any way feel bound tosuppress, because of the opinions of a young man’s parents and friends, anything which other reasons would not induce me to withhold. Hasty talking would be grievous misdoing, evasive dealing would vitiate everything; but I should hope to find other matters to occupy me with the students.
I believe I have only to add my thanks to yourself and your friends for your kindness and courtesy during our communications, and to subscribe myself,
Yours faithfully,A. H. Clough.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
Liverpool: February 15, 1849.
Alea jacta est; I stay for the present here. I have accepted the position at University Hall; and commence there in October, with a good deal of misgiving it must be confessed; but, on the whole, I believe myself right. I am not so clear as you are of the rottenness of this poor old ship here. Something, I think, we rash young men may learn from the failure and discomfiture of our friends in the new republic. The millennium, as Matt says, won’t come this bout. I am myself much more inclined to be patient and make allowance for existing necessities than I was. The very fighting of the time taught one that there were worse things than pain, and makes me more tolerant of the less acute though more chronic miseries of society; these also are stages towards good, or conditions of good. Whether London will take my hopefulness out of me remains to be seen. Peut-être.
I like the Manchester people, of whom I have been seeing a little, better than the Liverpuddlians. They are more provincial perhaps, but have more character; are less men of the world, but more men of themselves. Your sanguine friend still puts his trust in master manufacturers,as in those olden foolish days, when the face of Fortescue shone triumph in the Decade. Yet why be troubled about politics and social matters?
Here also, as on the Poirirua road, sweet odours of human nature ascend to the heavens. To quit the country for altogether is not, so far as I can tell, my vocation. This may be Ur of the Chaldees, or even Egypt, but no angel hath as yet spoken to me, either in dreams by night or in any burning bush of the desert.
February 24.
To-day, my dear brother republican, is the glorious anniversary of the great revolution of ’48, whereof what shall we now say? Put not your trust in republics, nor in any institution of man. God be praised for the downfall of Louis-Philippe. This, with a faint feeble echo of that loud last year’s scream of à bas Guizot, seems to be the sum total; or are we to salute the rising sun with Vive l’Empereur and the green liveries? Meantime, the great Powers are to restore the Pope, and crush the renascent (alite lugubri) Roman republic, of which Joseph Mazzini has just been declared a citizen.
To his Mother.
Rome, Hôtel d’Angleterre:11April 18, 1849.
I am at Rome; I stayed two days at Paris, where I called on your American friends the Murats, and saw Madame and her sister. She is now Mme. la Princesse, and her daughter Mdlle. la Princesse.
There is no immediate expectation of any change in the Government here; the only difficulty is to get money.They are going to divide the lands of the Church in small farms among the peasants; but payment will not be made for some time for these allotments.
St. Peter’s disappoints me; the stone of which it is made is a poor plastery material; and, indeed, Rome in general might be called arubbishyplace; the Roman antiquities in general seem to me only interesting as antiquities, and not for any beauty. The Arch of Titus is, I could almost say, the only one really beautiful relic I have yet seen. I have seen two beautiful views since I came, one from San Pietro in Montorio, the other from the Lateran Church, over the Campagna. The weather has not been very brilliant.
April 21.
I have seen the Vatican gallery and Sistine Chapel. To-day being the natal day of Rome, was to have been a great feast, with illumination of the Colosseum, &c., but it is impossible for the weather.
I see the ‘Times’ tells very odd stories of Rome. People here tell you that it has been bought by Austria. At any rate the story of the proposed sale of the Belvidere Apollo to the Americans is as simply a joke, I am told, as another story, that the Pantheon was sold to the English for a Protestant chapel.
To F. T. Palgrave, Esq.
Rome: April 23, 1849.
In my way here I saw Genoa again, and visited the Doria Palace, which had just been quitted by the victorious Piedmontese soldiery, who had not, I am glad to say, damaged the frescoes on the ceilings, as far as I saw (the battle of the Titans, which I suppose is the finest, was quite uninjured), but in other respects had played all sortsof furious and beastly pranks. The balcony with the fresco figures of Andrea Doria and his family is a good deal damaged, one or two cannon-balls have passed through, and the soldiers have scratched it with their bayonets. The furniture is all destroyed; it belonged, they say, to the Prince of Carignano, the King’s uncle or cousin, who had latterly taken the palace: gilded cupboards and tables, japanned cabinets and chess-boards, porcelain vases and French clocks, mingled their precious fragments on the floors with relics of bread and other deposits, among which empty bottles should be mentioned; the Prince appears to have had a fine assortment of Madeira. No other damage is done in Genoa.
About 150 refugees came off with us in the French steamer; the government paid for them as far as Leghorn, but at Leghorn they wouldn’t have them, so they came on to Civita Vecchia, and I see several of them about in the streets; they are incorporated with the other forces.
Yesterday was the most lively day I have had here. In the morning a review in the Piazza before St. Peter’s, where Avezzana, the Genoese commander, who is also an American citizen, and is now Minister of War, reviewed about 10,000 men and twenty pieces of artillery. In the evening a grand illumination of the Campidoglio, Forum, &c., all the way to the Colosseum, which was the great scene. When I entered, it was mostly dark, and a great crowd filling it, a band somewhere above the entrance playing national hymns. At the end of the great hymn, of which I don’t know the name, while the people were clapping, viva-ing and encoring, light began to spread, and all at once the whole amphitheatre was lit up with—the trois couleurs! the basement red fire, the two next stories green, and the plain white of the common light at the top. Very queer, you will say; but it was really fine, and I should think the Colosseum never looked better than it did, if notthen at least afterwards, when the plain light was left, and the area got cleared. The same thing was done again for the outside.
In the afternoon, I had paid my visit to Mazzini; a French envoy or agent was with him, and I had to acknowledge the triumviral dignity by waiting almost an hour in the ante-chamber. However, on the envoy’s retiring, he discoursed with me for half an hour. He is a less fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected; he appeared shifty, and practical enough. He seemed in excellent spirits, and generally confident and at ease. He asked me if I had seen anything of the pillaging, which the English papers were acquainted with; he said that any of the English residents would bear witness to the perfect tranquillity, even greater than before, which prevailed in the city (and certainly I see nothing to the contrary).
The ‘Times,’ he said,mustbe dishonest, for the things it spoke of as facts were simply not facts! émeutes where émeutes had never been thought of; the only outbreak had been at Ascoli, near the Neapolitan frontier, where a sort of brigandage had been headed by two or three priests, but easily suppressed. In Rome there were plots going on amongst some of the nobles and priests, but they were well known to the government. The temper of the people and the Assembly alike was clearly against the restoration of the temporal power; on that point he believed the Right would go heartily with the Left in the Assembly, and the people be unanimous. The object at present was rather to repress violence against the priest-party, or Neri, to which some sections of the populace were inclined; but this the government was careful to do. The feeling everywhere is, he says, simply political or national. Communism and Socialism are things undreamt of. Social changes are not needed; there are no manufacturing masses, and in the lands there is a métayer system. You have heard perhapsthat they are going to divide church lands amongst peasants; this is true, but only of a portion, a surplus he called it, after provision is made for the carrying on of the services of each establishment. They have got about 22,000 troops, and mean to have 50,000, so as to be able to take the field, at any rate not in mere desperation. But he expects foreign intervention in the end, and of course thinks it likely enough that the Romana Reppublica will fall. Still he is convinced that the separation of the temporal and spiritual power is a thing to be, and that to restore the Pope as before will merely breed perpetual disquiet, conspiracies, assassinations, &c.; and he thinks it possible the Great Powers may perceive this in time. The French envoy had asked him if he would apply to France for protection; he said, No, but that if France or any other power offered protection, they would welcome it.
So much for Mazzini. Meantime, Rome is very peaceable to all appearance, rather cold, however, and very rainy: the illumination, which you should be told was in honour of thePalilia, was put off one day in consequence. I do not observe much enthusiasm for the Romana Reppublica: but neither do I hear as much complaint as might be expected from the shop folk and foreigners’ jackals. The religious customs seem to thrive still; they kissed away yesterday at St. Peter’s toe as fast as they could have done in its best days. Money, however, is scarce; one pays 30 per cent. for silver, and Mazzini acknowledged that the financial crisis was a great difficulty; but, as he said, it was unavoidable in revolutions. I get on but poorly in lionising, but have at last to-day seen the Sibyls. How much of this is restoration? how much is really Raphael? Michael Angelo’s Moses has ‘met my views’ as much as anything I have seen. Are the two figures beside it also by M. Angelo? And tell me what is M. Angelo’s design for St. Peter’s exactly? do the huge inside pilasters belong to him? I think it utterlylamentable and destructive that his plan was not carried out.
Tell Blackett he really must defend S. P. Q. R. in the ‘Globe.’ It is a mostrespectablerepublic; it really (ipse dixit) thought of getting a monarch, but couldn’t find one to suit.
To his Sister.
Rome: April 30, 1849.
Perhaps it will amuse you hereafter to have a letter commenced while guns are firing, and I suppose men falling dead and wounded. Such is the case on the other side the Tiber, while I peacefully write in my distant chamber with only the sound in my ears. I went up to the Pincian Hill and saw the smoke and heard the occasional big cannon, and the sharp succession of skirmishers’ volleys—bang, bang, bang—away beyond St. Peter’s. They say the French have settled down in three positions, and do not mean to enter till the Neapolitans arrive. And the affair of to-day is probably only with their advanced guard: the Romans profess to have carried off four cannon and fifty prisoners, but who knows?
May 2.
600 prisoners and 500 killed and wounded, they say. The French have certainly retired. But the Neapolitans are at hand.
To his Mother.
Rome: May 11, 1849.
The war would seem to you very small if you saw it; and except for the nuisance of all galleries being shut, I should be very well content. We are all safe and comfortable, with British flags hanging out of our windows; andLord Napier, an attaché of the British Embassy at Naples, has been here, and is at present, I believe, at Palo, a port between this and Civita Vecchia, where H.M.S. ‘Bulldog’ is lying, and has arranged with Marshal Oudinot that his troops are to behave politely to us. Which troops came again yesterday within three miles, but have done nothing, and are said to be retiring. The Neapolitans,i.e.a detachment of 7,000 men near Palestrina, are stated to have got a severe licking from the corps of Garibaldi, about 5,000, the day before yesterday.
The only awkward thing that has happened in the city has been the killing of four or perhaps five priests by the mob, soon after the news of the advance of the Neapolitan army. Some say that one of them had fired out of a window and killed a soldier; others, that they were found making off to the Neapolitans. However, some, I don’t know the exact number, were killed in the street. Next day the government sent out a proclamation, and I have heard of no more outrages of this kind. Some plundering by the troops has given trouble, but they seem to be suppressing it.
Meantime the gates are all shut, and the streets strongly barricaded. The Pincian gardens, the great resort for walking, are closed and fortified, and between the Trinità dei Monti and Sta. Maria Maggiore, in one line of streets, you can count, I think, six barricades, besides smaller ones in the side streets.
My great affliction is that the Vatican is shut up. I got into the Sistine Chapel, however, and St. Peter’s of course is open. These and the Pantheon are my resources. Many of the churches are occupied as hospitals (the Frenchmen who were taken up wounded are very kindly and lovingly treated there, I am told; and they have sent back their prisoners without stipulation), and the Palaces are mostly shut up.
May 16.
Two French commissioners arrived here yesterday, and it is understood that France has more peaceful intentions than appeared before.
May 17.
Hostilities are suspended between us and the French. I shall be as greatly surprised as pleased if the two republics come to a good understanding. The people here will not like to have the Pope except as Head of the Church, and the French will insist on something more.
To the same.
May 28, 1849.
At last I have got my permit for the Vatican. Once having seen a couple of lines from Mazzini, how the officials skipped about for me! I was ashamed really to take all they offered me, good creatures. If I could have got this paper before, it would have been much better; but I had great reluctance to obtrude myself on the Dictator, as the ‘Times’ calls him, and some difficulty to get at him at last, he being, of course, ‘moltissimo occupato.’
Bulbs from the fountain of Egeria I have no chance of getting, nor shall I see Tivoli, Albano, or Nemi, for it requires a permit from the Minister of War, and I cannot for shame bother the Dictator any further with my trivial English-tourist importunities.
The Romans are content the French should remain at Civita Vecchia, or even Viterbo (for the sake of health). They sent them the other day an immense quantity of cigars and snuff for a present.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
Rome: May 24, 1849.
You will have heard of our driving back the French (April 30), and amongst many lies would probably detect the fact that the French never entered the town. Whether the Roman Republic will stand I don’t know, but it has under Mazzini’s inspiration shown a wonderful courage and a glorious generosity, and at any rate has shaken to its foundations the Odillon-Barrot Ministry, which I trust may yet go to its own place. ‘Peace be with all such!’
I live here, studying chiefly Michael Angelo, specially in the Sistine Chapel. I believe the engraving of his ‘Creation of Eve’ there, more than anything else, led me to Rome. I conceive myself to understand his superiority and Leonardo da Vinci’s to Raphael, who is only natural, while they are intellectual: he produces with, and they out of nature. The idea of St. Peter’s has been wholly killed out of it, partly by the horrid internal ornaments, but still more completely by the change of the form from a Greek to a Latin cross; the latter belonging to Gothic, which Michael Angelo rejects, because he assertsTOTALITY. There!
To Rev. A. P. Stanley.
Rome: May 24, 1849.
Your historic soul shall be gratified—better late than never—with an account of the fight of the 30th of April; fatto d’armi gloriosissimo. ‘Yes, we are fighting at last.’12... ‘Meantime, the Æquians and Volscians, quitting Algidus and concentrating their scattered forces on Velitræ, ventured under the walls of this stronghold to give battle to the detachment of Garibaldians which the bold temper oftheir leader had brought up somewhat in advance of the main body of the Romans. The enemy, driven after a severe conflict into the town, acknowledged his discomfiture by a retreat during the following night in the direction of Terracina.’
There—— to be translated into the style of Livy! However, I forbear to proceed, for it is a fatiguing exercise, and ere this goes, our history will have something newer to record than the fuga del Re Bomba of Sunday, 3A.M., 30th inst.
May 31.
If you are interested in our politics you should study the letters to Lesseps by Mazzini. Only a vagrant artist or two represent with me our country. Freeborn, British Consul, abides with his flag; but Lowe, the British grocer, is at Florence. Piale, successor to Monaldini, is a huge republican, and stands at corners in full civica uniform, shutting up the reading-room. The Miss Pfyffers also love their country and hate the priests; but their betrothed lovers being of the old Guardia Nobile, take the other line. Papa Pfyffer (my landlord) follows these, but protests against cardinalism loudly. Priests, by the way, walk about in great comfort—arm-in-arm with a soldier, perhaps; in cafés and legnos and all profane places they are seen circulating as freely at least as government paper. Confession is still administered openly with long sticks in St. Peter’s, and the Apostle’s toe multitudinously kissed. The Bambino also drives about to see the sick in infinite state, and is knelt to and capped universally.
Wandering about alone and with the map I have been twice hailed by the civicas as a ‘spione,’ but after some prattle affectionately dismissed. The barricades are very strong. A perfectagger Servianusandfossa Quiritiumcrosses the road between the Palatine and Aventine; andbefore the Porta del Popolo there is an immense work. In the line from the Trinità del Monte to Sta. Maria Maggiore there are five or six, besides laterals. The soldiers, so far as one sees, are well behaved; but the government has been scolding a good deal. It is pleasant to my pastoral soul to see them sitting by market-women and shelling peas. I have only seen Mazzini once, but have been up to his rooms three or four times. Anyone can go; he is sadly ἀδορύφορος for a τύραννος, and I wonder no spirited Jesuit has yet looked in with a pistol.
June 1.
At this moment comes a rumour to say that the French arecombinatiwith us. But no; it proves that after getting certain conditions accepted by the Romans, Lesseps had them refused by Oudinot, so he is off to Paris to see about it there. Meantime, I take it, Oudinot will only sulk without fighting.
June 3.
On the contrary, just the reverse. They are at it, at-at-at it, with small arms frequent and occasional cannons, at the Porta San Pancrazio. We began at four this morning. Oudinot had said distinctly he would not attack before Monday, but hisParisiaca fidesbrings him here this present blessed Sunday.
11
After something like seventeen hours’ fighting, entirely outside in the Villa Pamfili grounds, here we arein statu quo, barring a good many morti e feriti.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
Sunday, 10A.M., June 3.
This is being written while guns are going off, there—, there—, there! For the French are attacking us again.May the Lord scatter and confound them! For a fortnight or more they have been negotiating and talking, and inducing the government to send off men against the Austrians at Ancona, and now here they are with their cannon. It is a curious affair, truly; the French Envoy Plenipotentiary makes an accommodamento; the General repudiates it, and, without waiting even for advice from Paris, attacks.
To J. C. Shairp, Esq.
Rome: June 2, 1849.
Concerning Roman politics, hath not God made great newspapers, and appointed the ‘Times’ for certain seasons? Which even though it lie.... But briefly, for P——’s sake. Lesseps, the envoy, agreed yesterday to four conditions with the Roman government: the French army to go into cantonments in the healthy districts hereabouts,but not in the city: guaranteeing these districts against foreign invasion, but exercising no political power, till things should be settled. But Oudinot repudiates. There—but for the awful lies which all the newspapers, specially the ‘Débats,’ ‘Constitutionnel,’ and ‘Times,’ indulge in, I would not have said a word thereupon. But theydolie, indeed!
June 3.
No; your letter won’t go to-day: for the French are attacking us—there! there! ‘But do Thou unto them as unto the Midianites. O my God, make them like unto a wheel.’
10P.M.
Seventeen blessed hours have they battled—3.30A.M.to 8.30P.M., and the French, I am told, have been unable to plant their cannon against the wall. The Villa Pamfilihas been taken and retaken two or three times. But to us only smoke and occasional flashes are visible.
June 4, Tuesday.
They can’t get in; they banged away by moonlight most of last night; but, as I see a French officer at Toulon says, Oudinot is not the man.
June 5.
This is the third day, and they are still outside. The Pancrazio untaken, and the Villa Pamfili in our hands still.
June 18, Monday.
Going, going, and to-morrow I shall be gone. We have had a fortnight of gunnery, and what now, heaven knows: perhaps more gunnery; but to-day I hear hardly anything. Yes—there is one. But we have been bombarded, think of that! It is funny to see how like any other city a besieged city looks. Unto this has come our grand Liberty-Equality-and-Fraternity Revolution!
To F. T. Palgrave, Esq.
Rome: June 21, 1849.
Shall I date one more letter from Rome? I hope to get off to-day, but Frenchmen break down bridges. Here we are in the nineteenth day of our siege, expecting immediate assault, of which, however, I hear as yet no notice. In the way of cannonade or fusillade, all at this moment is silent. But the breach is fully big enough, and the last breach was being made, they say, two or even three days ago. Meantime all is tranquil within. The soldiers, I think, will fight to the last, and then retire upon the castle or into the mountains. And though I suspect some plotting is at work, yet the whole basso popolo will fight, and themiddle classes mostly, and the ‘youth’ almost universally willat leastoffer a passive resistance. It is curious how much like any other city a city under bombardment looks. One goes to the Ara Celi or the Palatine to look at the firing; one hears places named where shells have fallen; one sees perhaps a man carrying a bit of one.
The ‘Monitore’ this morning says that the Temple of Fortune has been damaged, and that a ball has entered the roof exactly above the Aurora of Guido.
The Romans have suffered heavy losses in their sorties; but they seem to have obstructed the works a good deal. The French papers spoke of ten days as the utmost space required for preparation; and on the 12th Oudinot announced himself ready to enter.
Assure yourself that there is nothing to deserve the name of ‘the Terror.’ There may be timidity in the passiveness of the Moderates, and I will not say that if they tried resistance against the Government, they would not be suppressed, force by force. But one sees no intimidation. Since May 4 the worst thing I have witnessed has been a paper in MS. put up in two places in the Corso, pointing out seven or eight men for popular resentment. This had been done at night: before the next evening a proclamation was posted in all the streets, from (I am sure) Mazzini’s pen, severely and scornfully castigating such proceedings. A young Frenchman in a café, hearing his country abused, struck an Italian; he was of course surrounded, but escaped by the interference of the national guard and of the British Consul. The soldiers, so far as I see, are extremely well behaved, far more seemly than our regulars; they are about of course in the streets and cafés, but make no disorder. Ladies walk in the Corso till after 10P.M.Farewell; I must go and see about my place.
Alas! it is hopeless. I am doomed to see the burning of Rome, I suppose. The world, perhaps in the same day, willlose the Vatican and me! However, they won’t get in yet, I guess.
June 22.
It may have been merry in Dunfermline grey when all the bells were ringing; but here at Rome it is by no means so. They are sounding the storm-alarm. Venit summa dies. During the night the French made a general attack from the Portese south to the Popolo north, and managed to throw a body of 500 (?) men into a solitary house within the walls, at the south-west corner.
To the same.
Rome: June 28, 1849.
I wrote on the 22nd, just after the misfortune of the night of the 21st. I was not then certain of the fact, that the passage of the breach was effected without a shot being fired; the 600 men of the Roman line who were there were seized with a panic, and their commanding officer is said to have told them to save themselves—anyhow, save themselves they did, and only lost a barricade, which these poor brutes had been working at for a month. A very fatal go, indeed; but not so immediately fatal as was expected when I wrote, and when all the bells were ringing. The batteries of the new Roman line commanded the breach, and the French have had to dig a trench to secure their advance.
In the following night (of Friday, 22nd) an immense number of bombs were thrown; they fell chiefly in the Piazza di Venezia, Piazza Sant’ Apostoli, and Via del Gesù. I do not think much harm was done, and the people took it coolly enough. I found a crowd assembled about 9P.M.in the north-east corner of the Piazza Colonna, watching these pretty fireworks, ‘ecco un altro!’ One first saw the ‘lightning’ over the Post-office; then came the missiveitself, describing its tranquil parabola; then the distant report of the mortar; and finally the near explosion, which occasionally took place in the air. This went on all night. But it has not been repeated in the same degree. The Consuls have remonstrated with Oudinot, but he, I believe, pleads ‘orders.’ The operations meantime, till yesterday, were unimportant,e.g.four cannon were got up on the breach, but the Roman batteries say that they upset them. On Sunday night, however, the 26th, there was another general attack, and under cover of this the French got their guns planted on the breach, and were playing with these all yesterday uponourbatteries of S. Pietro in Montorio, which I fear will not be long tenable.
This morning I hear nothing I can rely on, and considering the bombs, I forbore to visit my look out of the Ara Celi. As for the feelings of the people, I can of course say little. I fancy the middle-class Romans think it rather useless work, but they don’t feel strongly enough on the matter to make them take steps against a government which I believe has won their respect alike by its moderation and its energy; perhaps, too, they are afraid of the troops, under which term however do not understand foreigners, unless you choose to give that name to the levies of the Papal States in general. Visiting the Monte Cavallo hospital the other day, where there are I think 200 men, three Poles and one Frenchman were especially pointed out to me, that I might say some words of French to them. All the others I saw were Italians, from Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Perugia, and so forth. There was one Swiss. Most of them had received their wounds on the 3rd. Nice fellows they seemed, young, and mostly cheerful, spite of their hurts. One had lost an arm and a leg; another had a ball in his hip, yet to be extracted; ‘and the like.’ On the whole I incline to think they will fight it out to the last, but chi lo sa?
We have a General Archioni, a Milanese noble, a fine brave fellow, in the lodgings here, with his secretary and capo del stato maggiore, and a soldier or two. He was posted at the Villa Ludovisi, and thither two days ago we all went—fourteen, ‘Mama’ and four daughters, and niece, and their escort, a gay party of pleasure.
Festa di San Pietro: Friday, 29.
I have been this morning to the Colosseum, whence you see the position very well and securely. The French batteries are too strong for the Romans, I think; they respond but feebly. The Secretary of the General here detected two nights ago some people making signals; he took some ‘civicas’ and went and arrested them; there were three monks and two ‘civicas’ in open communication with the French, while it was still daylight. A good deal of this telegraphing goes on, they tell me.
The ‘panic’ of the 21st seems to have been a good deal felt as a disgrace; these last few days they have been fighting very bravely, I take it. The ‘Moniteur’ this morning states the number offoreignersin the Roman service to be 1,650; 800 Lombards, 300 Tuscans, 250 Poles and French, and 300 miscellaneous in Garibaldi’s corps. The national guard is 14,000 strong; the army, I suppose, 20,000. A bomb, I am thankful to say, has left its mark on the façade of the Gesù. I wish it had stirred up old Ignatius. Farewell.
A. H. C.Le Citoyen malgré lui.
To M. Arnold, Esq.
Rome: June 23, 1849.
I advertise you that I hope to be in the Geneva country in August, reposing in the bosom of nature from the fatiguesof art and the turmoil of war!!!Quid Romæ faciam?What’s politics to he, or he to politics? But it is impossible to get out, and if one did, Freeborn, Vice-consul, who however is aCaccone, says the French avan-posti shoot at one.
July 3.
Well, we are taken; the battery immediately to the left (as you go out) of St. Pancrazio was carried by assault, on the night of the 29th or morning of the 30th, while we in this corner got bombarded by way of feint. The Roman line in several cases has behaved ill, and certainly gave way here rather early; afterwards, however, under Garibaldi’s command, it seems to have fought well, at least two regiments, who are now off with him and his free corps to the Abruzzi.
On Saturday morning (30th June) the Assembly resolved to give in; Mazzini & Co. resigned; and a deputation went off to Oudinot. Sunday was perfectly tranquil; yesterday evening Garibaldi withdrew his troops from the Trastevere, and went off by the S. Giovanni. To-day they say the French will enter. Altogether, I incline to think the Roman populationhasshown a good deal of ‘apathy’; they did not care about the bombs much, but they did not care to fightveryhard either. The Lombards are fine fellows, and the Bolognese too; the only pity there were not more of them. If you put the whole lot of them together, Poles, Lombards, Tuscans, French, they would not exceed 3,000. On the whole, the French were notverybarbarous, but if we had not yielded, I believe they meant to bombard us really; and as it was, their shells might have done irreparable harm.
At noon to-day the Assembly proclaims the Constitution! which it had just completed.
To F. T. Palgrave, Esq.
Rome: July 4, 1849.
If you should happen to read in the ‘Constitutionnel’ that ‘on Tuesday, July 3, our army entered Rome amidst the acclamations of the people,’ perhaps you will not be the worse for a commentary on the text.
On Monday evening Garibaldi, with all the free corps except some Lombards under Medici, and with a good many Roman troops in addition, set off for the Abruzzi. On Tuesday at noon the Assembly proclaimed theConstitutionon the Campidoglio. I went there and heard it. There were present perhaps 800 or 900 people. This done, I presume the deputies dispersed, the labours of the Constituent being clearly completed. The French had already begun their entry, and occupied the Ponte Sisto, and, I believe, the Trinità dei Monti. About half-past four I went out, and presently saw a detachment coming up from the Palazzo Borghese to the Condotti. I stood in the Corso with some thirty of the people, and saw them pass. Fine working soldiers indeed, dogged and business-like; but they looked a little awkward, while the people screamed and hooted, and cried, ‘Viva la Reppublica Romana!’ When they had got past some young simpleton sent a tin pail after them; four or five faced round with bayonets presented, while my young friend cut away up the Corso double quick. They went on. At this moment some Roman bourgeois, as I fancy, but perhaps a foreigner, said something either to express his sense of the folly of it, or his sympathy with the invaders. He was surrounded, and I saw him buffeted a good deal, and there was a sword lifted up, but I think not bare; I was told he got off. But a priest who walked and talked publicly in the Piazza Colonna with a Frenchman was undoubtedly killedI know his friends, and saw one of them last night. Poor man! he was quite a liberal ecclesiastic, they tell me, but certainly not a prudent one.
To return to my own experience. After this the column passed back by another street into the Corso, and dispersed the crowd with the bayonet point; they then went on and occupied, I take it, the Post-office, which I afterwards found full of them. About six o’clock I walked out again, and found the Monte Cavallo, the Palazzo Barberini, and other places occupied. I thus missed the entry of Oudinot and his staff. I got back only just to see the final dragoons; but an English acquaintance informed me that in passing by the Café Nuovo, where an Italian tricolor hung from the window, Oudinot plucked at it, and bid it be removed. The French proceeded to do this, but the Romans intervened; Cernuschi, the barricade commissioner, took it down, kissed it, and, as I myself saw, carried it in triumph amidst cheers to the Piazza Colonna. I did not follow, but on my bolder friend’s authority I can state that here the French moved up with their bayonets and took it from Cernuschi, stripping him moreover of his tricolor scarf. One hears reports of as many as eight Romans being killed for fraternising with the Gaul, and of some of the French themselves having been assassinated. My friend told me two shots were fired from a café in the Corso when the troops passed that way at half-past four. This morning I have been to the field of battle and looked at the trenches. I condescended to speak with two Frenchmen, consoling myself by an occasional attempt at sarcasm. They said the Romans did nothing at all when the batteries were assaulted; but the artillery had been well directed. You see lots of villas, six or seven at least, in ruins. S. Pietro in Montorio is in a sad state; balls have come in and knocked great holes, and the east end is nearly in ruins, but the paintings are most, if not all, quite safe—those ofSebastian del Piombo certainly; and Bramante’s chapel is wholly untouched. My French officer said the troops were about 25,000. Almost all are in the city. The Roman forces are to withdraw immediately into cantonments assigned by Oudinot, and guaranteed against the Austrians. The national guard will be disarmed, and then all will be considered safe. On the whole, the French soldiers seemed to me to show excellent temper. At the same time, some faces I have seen are far more brutal than the worst Garibaldian; and we have hitherto seen nothing so unpleasing in the female kind as the vivandière. The Gaul is certainly the stronger animal, but assuredly the greater beast.
The American banker tells me he was told that in the morning the French were cheered. I rather doubt it; but I believe the bourgeoisie in part are very glad it is over. Naturally, for there was to have been a regular bombardment; so said my French friend. They had got a large supply ready, just come from France. The priest is not dead, and perhaps will survive; but another, I hear, was hewed in pieces for shouting ‘Viva Pio Nono,’ ‘Abasso la Reppublica,’ &c. Oudinot’s proclamation is expected every moment. They say it will declare a stage of siege; name a military governor and commander of the garrison; dissolve the national guard and the Assembly, and so forth.
To the same.
Rome: July 6, 1849.
Medium of all desirable communication with my brethren at home! you shall receive one more despatch. I think of going off to Albano, or some of these places, which now one supposes will be attainable. Tivoli, they say, is dubious. Garibaldi went off that way, and the French have sent a detachment after him, with orders, one is told, to give no quarter.
It is a sight to make one gnash one’s very wisdom teeth to go about the fallen Jerusalem and behold the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not; not that the French misbehave, so far as I see, individually. They appear to me to display considerable temper. Still one is told that they carried off a lot of lemons, &c., the first night without paying for them. One soldier, they say, was stabbed by a Trasteverine woman at the Ponte Sisto for insulting her. Any way, one sees how ‘riling’ it is to be conquered.
I am greatly rejoiced meantime that they have been obliged to proclaim the state of siege. They make much of the adhesion of the army. I don’t exactly know how far it has been given. Two regiments went off with Garibaldi and one heard divers stories. However, with the alternative of dissolution and beggary, it is no marvel that the Roman line, not a popular body, should consent to give its service to any de-facto government.
Last night, for the first time, ‘by order,’ we were all driven in at half-past nine. I found a bayonet point within a few inches of me as I came along the Corso, while the battalion was clearing it.
Has the ‘Times’ correspondent told the funny way in which they have shown their spite, by daubing out all the French sign-boards?
The natives do not universally quit the cafés when the French come in; at the Bon Goût in the Piazza di Spagna they appear to be treated with polite indifference; in the Café Nuovo, such unmistakable disgust was evinced that, considering also its size and importance, for you know it is a whole palace, andthegreat place of resort, they have seen fit to shut it up and fill it with soldiers. Elsewhere the enemies feed together, but with a pale very distinctly marked between them.
Mazzini was still here yesterday. Galetti, president ofthe Assembly, and commander of the Carbineers, was taken under American protection (as I hear); otherwise he would have been arrested; but the political arrests have been limited to some half-dozen agitators. Ciceruacchio got off with an American passport. You know the Assembly sat on the day after the French entrée; Mazzini was present. They passed some three or four decrees, and put them up in the streets. Oudinot’s proclamation dissolving the old government came out an hour or two after.
I told you that Garibaldi lost his negro on the 3rd. ‘Il Moro,’ as they called him, was the son of a rich negro merchant at Monte Video, who, though married and father of a family, yet, for the love of the Italian captain, came over to fight by his side, which they say he never quitted. I have seen each separately, but not together. There is a Mrs. Garibaldi; she went out with him to the Abruzzi. I hope the French won’t cut them to pieces, but vice versâ.
July 7.
Last night I had the pleasure of abandoning a café on the entrance of the French. The Italians expect you to do so. It was quite composedly done; no bravado or hurry.
Mazzini, on the 30th, after the capture of the bastion, proposed to the Assembly that it, with the army, should quit Rome, carry off the artillery, and occupy some stronghold. But the Assembly at first would not; and after, when it would, could not. The course actually taken was repugnant to Mazzini’s views, who was anxious to save Rome from destruction, but at the same time to hold out somewhere and somehow to the last.
The Chigi chapel, in Sta. Maria del Popolo, is a remarkable case. Raphael’s Jonah is untouched, but the statue next it has been chipped in two places by a ball. Nothing else is hurt.
To the same.
Rome: July 13, 1849.
We are all in admiration here of M. de Corcelles’ statement, that during the twenty-six days that elapsed of the siege, not one bomb had been thrown into the city. I dare say a large proportion of what were thrown were grenades, but that there were bombs, in the strictest sense, is undoubted. A military friend whom I can trust has seenone, and I think I myself have. Moreover, the grenades were large. And I presume M. de Corcelles will prefer saying plainly that he was misinformed, to the alternative of professing not to have meant to deny grenades. On the night of the 22nd, 150 missives of the bomb or the grenade species are said to have been thrown into the town; 130 were counted by an acquaintance of mine, a Roman; at the rate they were being plied while I was looking on myself, I cannot doubt some figure like this must be correct.
On the night of the 29th, a French officer told an English gentleman the detachment in the Borghese grounds was ordered to fire 120 shots into the Piazza di Spagna quarter, as a feint; they had no particular aim, but seeing a light in a high window, they took it for their mark, and—hinc illæ lachrymæ—hence those balls and bombs, or, I beg pardon, grenades perhaps, which frightened us out of our propriety into the primo piano.
Mazzini, through the negotiation of Mr. Cass, the American Chargé d’affaires, received a passport in his own name from the French, and went off viâ Civita Vecchia, with a bearer of despatches from the same Mr. Cass, I think, on Tuesday last, the 10th. He would go into Switzerland. This is quite positive.
On Monday I was at Albano. The French, seventy horse, came in that afternoon at four. The Spaniards meantime had just the previous night occupied Genzano,three miles off. One hears that the French have turned them out of it.
Two newspapers appear in Rome besides the official gazette, called the ‘Giornale di Roma’; one of these, the ‘Costituzionale,’ belongs to thepreteinterest; the other, ‘La Speranza dell’ Epoca,’ to Mamiani and coterie. They are under a military censure, but liberally exercised; a new appointment was freely commented onin malam partemyesterday by this latter print.
The Principessa di Belgiojoso is still here, looking after her feriti at the Monte Cavallo, who, as I think by Mr. Cass’s intercession, are allowed to remain there; at first, orders were given that they should be removed within a week. Garibaldi is said to have effected a junction at Terni with Forbes, an Englishman holding rank here of colonel, I think, and commanding a small detachment.
Add to the list of fortunate escapes, that a ball struck the façade of the Palazzo Sciarra on the terzo piano. On the secondo in front is the gallery, whose ample windows give light to the famous Modestia e Vanità of Leonardo da Vinci, the Violin Player of Raphael, Titian’s Bella Donna, and others, most of which, however, have been put into the passage for safety.
Freeborn, the Consul, has gotonebomb in his bank. Doyouknow the difference between the two things, bomb and grenade? bomb has two handles, and grenade is a hollow ball with a hole in it; that is all I know. Grenades, they say, burst in the air; otherwise they are as big as bombs, and by no means innocent things.
July 14.
Giving the French and the ‘Times’ credit for some degree of truth-telling, the simple truth would appear to be, that we have been grenaded, not bombarded. It is possible that the cannon andmortarswere pointed merelyto the breach, and that the bombs and balls that came in were merely bad shots. But theobus(singular or plural) must certainly have been pointed against the very heart of the city, the Pantheon and Capitol; and a discharge of 150 or more grenades in a single night is, if not a bombardment, still—— My authority about Mazzini’s movements is13Miss Fuller, an American, who was in immediate communication with Mazzini and Mr. Cass, and who was a party to the negotiation. She is now gone to Rieti.
To the same.
Geneva: August 7.
I shall go and see Mont Blanc, among other duties (for I am finishing my education before coming to town), and move homeward by the Rhine. I saw the French enter Rome, and then went to Naples, which I greatly enjoyed. Thence direct by Genoa and Turin to this place, and from here by Interlaken home. I am full of admiration of Mazzini. But, on the whole, ‘Farewell, politics, utterly! What can I do?’ Study is much more to the purpose.
This is a dull sky-and-water atmosphere, after the blue sweaters of the south; and the English locust of course prevails in it.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
University Hall, London: October 29, 1849.
Well, here I am, and with Palgrave, who is breakfasting with me in my hall, where we all—i.e.myself and my eleven undergraduates (that should be thirty, and I hope will be some day)—breakfast and dine daily. Here, I take it, I shall remain for some little time; though even as you talk of coming over here, so I, believing that I shall bekicked out for mine heresies’ sake, and doubtful of success in literary doings, have sometimes looked at my feet and considered the antipodes, reflecting however much on the natural conservatising character of our years after thirty. As I say, I have no confidence in my tenure. For intolerance, O Tom, is not confined to the cloisters of Oxford, or the pews of the Establishment, but comes up, like the tender herb,partout, and is indeed in a manner indigenous in the heart of the family man of the middle classes.
Do we not work best by digging deepest? by avoiding polemics, and searching to display the real thing? If only one could do the latter!—Emerson is an example, and also Carlyle, and in his kind M.A. Yet [Greek: ἕκαστος ἔχει τὸ ἑαυτου χάρισμα] and οὐ πάντες χωροῦσι τοῦτον τὸν λὸγον. Let B——s delight to bark and bite, if indeed God has made them so.
Interrupted by my one pupil—for you observe that undergraduates all attend the University College professors, and I only keep a hall, as an M. A. of old times did in the days of professors at Oxford—and out of the eleven only have one pupil—I now resume to say farewell.
To J. C. Shairp, Esq.
University Hall: October 31, 1849.
You and Walrond may read this,14but don’t show it to others; nor, therefore, name it, as if you do, they’ll importune. You are nice discreet creatures, I know.
I wish you would come and see me on your way to Oxford. London, generally speaking, is lonely—for evil at any rate and partly for good. A loneliness relieved by evening parties is not delightful, but I get on well enough in general, looking forward always to the Long. If I do not get a pupil for the Continent, I shall come up to Scotland.
You do not perhaps enjoy at Rugby a fine yellow fog this morning. We do.
To F. T. Palgrave, Esq.
[On receiving a present of Goethe’s works.]
University Hall, London: November 18, 1849.
Thanks many, specially perhaps for the note. I had a great mind to say to you, ‘As soon as you give me the Goethe, we will cut.’ Let us suppose that done, and look forwardtout-de-suiteto a recommencement—‘Cut and come again’ being the true motto for all proper intercourse. I think the best way of looking at a present is as a thing to be much more valuable some time hereafter than just now; it is more properly a future than a present. Cast thy Goethe upon the waters; give with thy left hand, and let not thy right hand of fellowship ask what thy left doeth.
And so on, whereof enough.
To ——
It is a good deal forgotten that we came into this world to do, not kindness to others, but our own duty, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, not benevolently, philanthropically, and tenderheartedly. To earn his own bread honestly—in the strictest sense of the wordhonestly—to do plain straightforward work or business well and thoroughly, not with mere eye-service for the market, is really quite a sufficient task for the ordinary mortal.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
University Hall, London: January 3, 1850.
Here I am, just about to recommence the crambe repetita of pædagogy after a brief fortnight’s holiday. Of what use is pædagogy? Some, I suppose; and as much probably asany other occupation one is in the way of getting harnessed to. Cast, therefore, thy syntax on the waters. But in the meantime εἴσελθε εὶς τὸ ταμιεῖόν σου, καὶ κλείοας την θύραν σου, κ.τ.λ.
There is a great blessing, I sometimes think, in being set down amongst uncongenial people, for me at least who am over-provocable. Consider the coal upon the fireplace, how it came to blaze thus: was it not concealed and compressed for long world-ages, never expecting to see the light again, far less that in its own self there was light, heat, and joyfulness, having no sort of imagination that it should be transmuted into, or shall we say, wooed, wedded and incorporated with the subtle atmosphere itself? Consider, I say, the long preparation of this strange marriage of coal and oxygen air, and say, if you can, moreover, when was there most real worthiness of existence, in the grimy or the blazy period, in the imprisonment or deliverance of the gases, the incarnation or apotheosis, the suppression or expression, &c. &c. &c.?
Sunday, January 27.
As in old times at breakfast in Oriel, so here for an afternoon walk and dinner I am waiting for M. and, I believe, E. They tell me you like the ‘Bothie’; it was a pleasant anticipation to me that you would, while it was yet in swaddling-clothes. They have reprinted me at Cambridge, Massachusetts!
To a Friend.
[In answer to some criticisms on ‘Amours de Voyage.’]
Good heavens! don’t be afraid. You are a very gentle beast, and of a good conscience, and roar me like any sucking-dove.Parturiunt montes—you are not half trenchant enough. Yet your criticism is not exactly what I wanted.What I want assurance of is in the way of execution rather than conception. If I were only half as sure of the bearableness of the former as I am of the propriety of the latter, I would publish at once. Gott und Teufel! my friend, you don’t suppose all that comes from myself! I assure you it is extremelynotso.
You’re a funny creature, my dear old fellow: if one don’t sing you a ballant, or read you a philosophic sermonette, if one don’t talk about the gowans or faith, you’re not pleased. However, I believe that the execution of this is so poor, that it makes the conception a fair subject of disgust. You cannot possibly be too severe and truculent about the execution, and I agree quite as to the correctness (which is the only question) of what you say; except that I am not sure that scenes and scenery would exactly improve the matter.
But do you not, in the conception, find any final strength of mind in the unfortunate fool of a hero? I have no intention of sticking up for him, but certainly I did not mean him to go off into mere prostration and defeat. Does the last part seem utterly sceptical to your sweet faithful soul?
Your censure of the conception almost provoked me into publishing, because it showed how washy the world is in its confidences. There is a Roland for your Oliver, my boy. But I probably shan’t publish, for fear of a row with my committee.
To the same.
June 19, 1850.
It continues to strike me how ignorant you, and I, and other young men of our set are. Actual life is unknown to an Oxford student, even though he is not a mere Puseyite, and goes on jolly reading parties.
Enter the arena of your brethren, and go not to yourgrave without knowing what common merchants and solicitors, much more sailors and coalheavers, are acquainted with. Ignorance is a poor kind of innocence. The world is wiser than the wise, and as innocent as the innocent; and it has long been found out what is the best way of taking things. ‘The earth,’ said the great traveller, ‘is much the same wherever we go’; and the changes of position which women and students tremble and shilly-shally before, leave things much as they found them.Cœlum non animum mutant.The winter comes and destroys all, but in the spring the old grasses come up all the greener.
Let us not sit in a corner and mope, and think ourselves clever, for our comfort, while the room is full of dancing and cheerfulness. The sum of the whole matter is this. Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it without fiddle-faddling; for there is no experience, nor pleasure, nor pain, nor instruction, nor anything else in the grave whither thou goest. When you get to the end of this life, you won’t find another ready-made, in which you can do without effort what you were meant to do with effort here.
To R. W. Emerson, Esq.
University Hall, Gordon Square: July 22, 1850.
Why I have let six months pass away without acknowledging the copy of your ‘Representative Men,’ which I received and read so thankfully, I do not know; unless it be that I was not willing to put an end at once to the relation of debtor which resulted. To have a distinct claim on one for a letter constitutes a sort of connection, even with the Atlantic between us.
I am here at the end of my first session in London, not much the worse, nor much the wiser. I am not sorry myself to be where I am: in very many ways, it is a greaterseclusion than the academic shades you took pleasure in looking at, at Oxford.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
University Hall: July 23, 1850.
I am rejoiced to find you busy andin mediis rebusso soon. Your population of course won’t be very beautiful and attractive, but all the truer to fact in general for having plenty of alloy, and that is a comfort to a certain extent; earthly paradises being mostly milk-and-watery, and not long to last. Van Diemen’s Land with its convict basis has got at any fate something of thetantum radice ad Tartara, to begin with, andquantum verticemay come. In new colonies, I suppose, no amount of bishops and archdeacons can resist the general indifferentist tendencies of the commercial English middle-class, to whom the world is committed for the present.
I find, meantime, even the small amount of business which I have to do in this place beneficial to me, even the bank-books and cash-accounts.
To J. C. Shairp, Esq.
University Hall: March 9, 1851.
Ex nihilo nihil.He who does not come at all, does not come with goose quills, andà fortiorinot with swan quills. Thus the logicians.
You must, therefore, correct your exercises with your own goose feathers. But, tell me. Have you got such big boys this half-year that the ordinary-sized instrument will not apply to their Latin prose? Why don’t you come up here and buy them for yourself?
We are still, I believe, travelling about the sun, round and round, and round and round, in the old foolish fashion. It is certainly a very funny way for theanima mundito amuse itself. But chacun à son goût. In the midst of lifewe are in death, for suppose theanima mundiwere to take a fancy to do something else, to go backwards and forwards, or even round the other way!
Cudwith, I am told, has an admirable disquisition on ‘A Plastic Nature,’ in a parliamentary sense, I suppose; for otherwise, would it not be pantheism? But indeed that is a mistake, for I hold it to be perfectly constitutional language, entirely in the spirit of our institutions in (Church and State, that is to say) Natural and Revealed Religion. Consider these things; watch and pray, that is the right way, for self and friends, among whom, believe me,
A. H. C.
To T. Arnold, Esq.
University Hall, Gordon Square: March 16, 1851.
I sent you five or six copies of the poem you were so friendly as to like so well. By the time they reached you, you would probably have been properly disenchanted, with a view to which contingency I fortified them by two Idylls of a truer pastoral poet or poetess. These you may accept, for the lack of better, as my wedding-present. The following you may accept or not, as you please:—