BOOKS.

CORRESPONDENCE OF COUNT CAYOUR.* WITH the exception of Garibaldi, Count Cavour probably has been the subject of more studies and sketches than any other great man of our day ; many of them by foreigners who had but an imperfect knowledge of the man, however familiar they might be with the public facts of his life. Of these facts we have all a general idea from reading the newspapers ; but in a biography we expect something more,—we want a picture of the whole man. We know that our heroes fought certain battles or made certain speeches on a given date, and we do not care very much whether it was Friday or Saturday ; but we should like to know something of their motive-springs of action, and this cannot be attained unless we are made acquainted with their education, surroundings, and associates. Not long ago we met with a curious instance of the mode of looking at a great man from a distance—through a telescope, sc. to speak—as an isolated object. In a biographical essay, which had a certain King for its subject, his first Minister, a man of great talents and influence, was curtly dismissed, in a sentence describing him as the author of a book he did not write.

We have looked at Cavour long enough from this distant stand-point, as the writer of protocols and King's speeches. It is time we should approach nearer, and see what sort of man he was in his own Piedmont, among his friends. A complete and rounded work, taking in all aspects of the subject, would con-

• Letters, Edits at Inalite. Raccolte ad illustrate do. Luigi Childs, D.P. Vol. I. e U. Torino : Roux e Pavel% 1883.

stitute a history of the times ; and it is too soon to expect a history, in its full sense, of the events which ended in the esta- blishment of the Kingdom of Italy. But it is not too soon to put together all available information about its founders, more especially should their private correspondence be collected and preserved, for a hasty note to a familiar friend often throws more light on a man's character than pages of analytical de- scription. "Let us not be told about this man or that," says Mr. Froude; "let us hear the man himself speak, let us see him act, and let us be left to form our own conclusions about him." We would add, let us see him and hear him in his unguarded moments, when the eye of Europe is not upon him, when he lays aside the mask of etiquette, and reveals his soul to a trusted friend.

Italian writers of the present day generally seem to recog- nise the importance of catching the portraits of their great men while the impression of their personality is still fresh in the memory. Leaving history to a future generation, they confine themselves to the useful task of preserving from oblivion all information likely to throw light on the character and explain the conduct of their heroes. The two large volumes before us furnish a good example of this spirit of industrious research without literary ambition. It is easy to see that the author, or rather editor—who has already contributed some important chapters to the history of the Resorgimento — thinks little about himself, and much about his subject. He is evidently bent on the clearing-up of his facts, and leaves them to explain themselves. Both volumes have long introductions of three hundred pages, or more, which should be read with the cor- respondence, in order to understand the topics treated of therein. The letters themselves are of such absorbing interest—to those who admire Cavour and care for his work—that we are surprised that more than twenty years have been allowed to elapse before a general collection of them has been made. Of course, there existed the usual objection to an early publication of a states- man's correspondence ; offences and misunderstandings might arise, and besides, the work involved heavy labour and re- sponsibility. Captain Mala has used his own discretion in suppressing some few passages of cutting criticism which might hurt living persons, and serve no public object ; but he has been very sparing in the exercise of this right. We have about eight hundred letters, almost all complete as they were dashed off from the writer's quick, unfaltering pen ; he never paused to think, and rarely, if ever, erased a word in his private cor- raspondence; and they were for the most part addressed to friends and colleagues, many of them strictly confidential. In these letters of varied interest, as the writer's life was varied and full of interst, we see the true reflection of Camillo Benso di Cavour in all the moods of his complex nature, which was inscrutable to the outer world. He was:enthusiastic, yet cal- culating; frank and confiding, yet at times suspicious ; warm- hearted and benevolent, yet sarcastic and severe; courteous and good-humoured, but subject to violent gusts of passion. A lover of political freedom in its broadest sense, he bated a display of power. Who has not heard the oft-quoted saying,—"We will have no state of siege ; any one can govern with a state of siege ? " Nevertheless, he loved personal power,—the real thing, not the display of it. Some of his admirers, who only know him as the champion of liberty, would angrily resent this assertion, for they hold him to be as faultless as the Ultramontane party hold him to be demoniacal. But those who have studied him more closely, his colleagues and countrymen, know that his disposi- tion was not less imperious because it was accompanied by a winning amiability of manners. The story told by Cavour's friend, De la Rive, in his Souvenirs, is an illustration of character, for the child is father to the man. The little Count was not six years old when, arriving in Geneva, he complained of the bad horses with which he had made the journey, and demanded the dismissal of the postmaster. When old M. de la Rive explained that no one but the Syndic could do that, he required to see the Syndic ; and being furnished with an introductory note, the resolute little fellow presented himself ceremoniously to the magistrate, insisting on the dismissal of the postmaster.

"With this little man," said Azeglio, soon after Cavour entered the Cabinet, "I do like Louis Philippe ; I reign, but do not govern." La Marmora, who loved him sincerely, found something in his character non facile ; and the King and his incomparable Minister sometimes came into violent

collision.- a man of less capacity, his self-will would have been obstnacy ; accompanied by such commanding abilities, it

was conscious superiority and decision,—a little exaggerated. Cavortr seen in some lights had a certain resemblance to Lord Palmerston. Reading lately a thoughtful criticism on Trollope's Life of Palmerston, we were struck by a passage which ascribed his success in a great measure to his immense physical etrength and sound health. As it is applicable to Cavour, though in a less degree, for he had original genius, we will quote a few lines from it

"At the bottom of his success lay, as Mr. Trollope points out in effect, the passion of perfect physical strength and health. A strong body is, as we have all been taught from our youth up often enough, a very inferior thing to mental and moral excellence Yet a strong, and, above all, a healthy body (the two things are by no means the same), is, if not the necessary, yet cer- tainly the natural foundation for a strong character and healthy mind. Lord Palmerston's physical endowments exactly represented his mental and moral gifts This determination to bide his time is the characteristic of the strong man. The impa- tience which forces weaker natures to seize on positions which they can hardly hold with credit is to some extent connected with a sense of physical weakness or disease. He -who has no certainty that his life will be long feels that he cannot sacrifice the chances of the pre- sent day for the better opportunity which may never be his. The man of vigorous body has within him the presage of a long life. Looking for a lengthy existence, he can play a waiting and therefore, in many cases, a wise game. Healthiness is, again, half the secret of sound judgment. Morbid feeling is the almost certain concomi- tant of a sickly body ; but morbid sentiment is a fatal bar to forming a correct estimate of other men's character."

It may be objected, in reply to this, that no man has the certainty ofu long life, and that, in fact, Cavonr's life was cat short in the zenith of his powers. But while he lived he had, in common with Lord Palmerston, the patient hopeful- ness of the strong man, the sound, clear judgment in estimat- ing other men's characters, and the absence of all rancour. Cavour did not spare opponents while they obstructed his way, but he bore them no Once, in trying to persuade a number of the .out-going party to remain in office under him, he gave as his reason that h. sometimes needed one "to hold him back by the coat-tails." This calls to mind Mr. Cobden's inter- view with Lord Palmerston, when Lord Palmerston so unex- pectedly invited Cobden to take office, telling him he could check the warlike policy of the Government better when he was a member of it ; and that political attacks should all be forgotten within three months.

This generous and forgiving trait, which Cavour and Palmer- ston had in common, is certainly an element of greatness, but it goes oftener with a thick-skinned than with a sensitive nature. It did not pain Cavour to know that he was spoken ill of by the extreme parties in his own country and abroad. To the Republicans he was the bloated aristo- crat, upholding the odious institution of monarchy, and trampling on the neck of the people; while to the Reactionists he was the plotting revolutionist, devoid of conscience, an in- describable combination of craft and audacity. His sense of humour was tickled by the awful reputation he had earned, and when he beard of a man being in Turin who was supposed to have been his agent in stirring up the Romagna to rebellion, he expressed a wish to see him. " Voglio vedere questo terribile strumento della mia volonth !" he said, with a laugh of genuine enjoyment. Cavour, like Lord Palmerston, could practise diplo- matic arts with enemies, but untold wealth could not tempt him for a moment to forget his duty to his country, or postpone her service to any private interest. In these letters we have abundant proofs of the sincerity of the passion of patriotism which absorbed his life ; and while they lay bare his weaknesses, they reveal also many attractive traits of which the world in general know nothing. His character and his history are told in them as no biographer could tell it, and the editor has exer- cised a wise discretion in confining his notes to simple explana- tion of • facts. In citations from Parliamentary speeches, he generally gives an account of the occasion which called forth Cavoar's oratory ; and in the case of a controverted subject, he quotes the evidence on both sides in the most im- partial manner, as, for instance, the misunderstanding between Count Cavour and Lord Clarendon at the Paris C _ingress, with reference to the help that England was disposed to extend to Italy.

The most interesting and important of the letters are addressed to Ca.vour's colleagues in confidence, meant to supplement the lengthy official despatches written from or to a foreign Court; others are penned from his country seat to Turin, and others, again, are hastily despatched notes from one

office or house to another in the same city. The different grades of intimacy to which he admits them are marked by the pro- nouns lei, voi, and tu, Azeglio and La Marmora being the the only persons with whom he uses the last familiar mode of

address. He discusses freely home and foreign policy, gives instructions, asks advice, tells all the news of the day, some- times administers a rebuke, and frequently offers a frank apology for some hasty expressions of the day or the week

preceding, for he had a fiery temper and a warm heart, and was always impatient to make the antende if he had offended, and to forgive if he were the offended one. It was impossible to keep

up a sustained quarrel with Cavour, for he would not permit it; no matter how insignificant the person was, he would go in pur- suit of him till friendly relations were resumed, thus obeying an imperious necessity of his nature, says his friend Torelli, who tells a story of a quarrel, and his having written two notes to him and Farini, inviting them to an interview, to which they gave no reply ; after which the Count, coming up with Torelli in the street, said, " Avete capito, non voglio bronci ?"

and taking his arm with an irresistible gentleness and cour- tesy, drew him into a friendly conversation. "Dear colleague," he writes to Cibrario, "though you still hold offence, and do not reply to my letters, I will not give up writing directly to you ;" and at the end of the letter, "Give me back your good- will, and believe in my sincere friendship."

Perhaps the most interesting portion of Cavour's correspond- ence is that directed to General La Marmora, his most trusted colleague, his "cariasimo amico," to whom he confided every-

thing, whom he described as "wise in council as be is brave in battle." Many of them are written during the painfully anxious period of the Crimean war, when La Marmora was in command of the Sardinian troops ; others are penned in a gay mood during the King's visit to Paris and London, and many more while the Congress was sitting after the termination of the war, in which there are long accounts of the writer's conversations with the English plenipotentiaries ; and we see with what intense anxiety he hung on Lord Clarendon's words, and with what joy the hope of the English alliance inspired him. "Not to lose time,

I put the question of the Romagna on the lapis," he writes to Rattazzi, in that free-and-easy style which he permits himself

in private correspondence, perhaps as a relief from the stilted diplomatic forms. "In this we shall have valuable auxiliaries in the English, who would joyfully send the Pope to the Devil." Then he tells his friend there is a serious difficulty in the way of his first plan, because "the Devil has willed that the Empress should want the Pope for godfather to her son."

The attempt on the life of the Emperor of the French by the Italian Republican Orsini, in 1858, all but undid the elaborate work of three years to which Cavour had devoted himself, — that is, the French alliance in a war against Austria. Napoleon and his Ministers assumed such a tone to the Piedmontese Ambassador that Victor Emanuel's blood was roused, and he wrote with his own hand a very dignified, almost defiant, letter to the Emperor. Cavour

having received intimation that the King's life was threatened —his own life was else threatened, bat that he kept a secret—

by the same party who had tried to destroy Napoleon III., brought in a Bill for the protection of crowned heads from assassination. His speech, which excited a great sensation in the Chamber, was very telling, and contained a powerful in- dictment against secret societies and Mazzini, as the responsible head of the party to which Orsini and his companions belonged. The great conspirator's reply could not have been surpassed in

-vituperation by the coarsest of the Land Leaguers in the British Parliament :— "Sir," he wrote, "I have lorg known that you were more tender of the Piedmontese Monalchy than of our common country ; a materialistic worshipper of facts, mach more than of holy, eternal principles ; a man of genius, astute rather than powerful, a partisan of crooked policy, and averse, by patrician instincts and inborn tendencies, to libeity. But I did not believe you a calumniator ; now

I know you for such You have, knowing that the falsehood would augment your votes, declared to the Chamber that your liberty. slaying law was for the protection of Victor Emmanuel's life, threatened by us. In this accusation, there is a double lie

If I did not like un before, I now de.pise you. You were an enemy Now you are a rite, shameful entmy You are worse than stupid, 0 calumniator! Fool, and calumniator at the same time, you were, Fro. We represent Italia ; you represent the old, covetous, timid ambition of Casa Savoja. Between you and us, Sir, Italy shall judge. I think that you might, if you wished, have made Italy. But the rdic.a of the Marchese d' Azeglio and yours will attain nothing eosept the ores throw of Piedmont."

It was precisely in those days, with these fearful prognostica-

tions ringing in his ears, in a sort of discordant accompaniment.

with the curses and threats of the Vatican, that the Minister was conducting to a consummation the plan he had had in view ever since the Crimean war,—an English or French alliance. Finding his hopes of English help ill-founded, he now turned all his energies to bringing the Emperor to a decision, and so momentous did he feel the expected interview at Plombieres to be that he almost lost confidence in his own powers at the last, as we see by a hasty letter to La Marmora :—

"Dear Friend," he wrote from Geneva, "I found here the reply of Belville. He says the Emperor will be charnid to see me at Plombieres. The drama approaches the climax. Pray to Heaven to inspire me, that I may not commit any folly in this supreme moment. In spite of my coolness and confidence in myself, I am seriously anxious now."

The eight hours' conversation with the Emperor he transmitted to the King, with a request that that La Marmora should examine it; and, in addition, be wrote him a private letter re- lating the main points, and begging of him to meet him on the frontier, as he wished to see him first, before encountering any other of his countrymen, so anxious was he to share the burden of his secret with his trusted friend. Cavour expressed himself soddisfatlissimo with the result of the meeting, as he had reason to be. He had played the waiting game of the strong man, and his hour of triumph had struck.

Cavour's style is vigorous, clear, unpolished, not free from grammatical errors. His early education had been neglected, and though he was a hard student when he grew to manhood, he studied only what interested him deeply, and would be use- ful for practical purposes ; the graces of his native language were not included in these,—he had no literary ambition, and thought more of the substance than the form of his composi- tions. Yet he wrote for the Press, and an occasional article from his pen was eagerly welcomed by the reviews, the reason being that he only wrote when he had something valuable to say. He sometimes appealed to his accomplished rival and friend Azeglio to help him in the composition of important documents, and Victor Emanuel's speech in reply to the address of the City of London, attributed, in the Life of ilta Prince Consort to Cavour, was really the work of Azeglio.

The charm of this correspondence is in the perfect freedom and unreserve of its tone, and the manner in which small and great things, lively and grave subjects, are intermingled. Sometimes Cavour's playful humour breaks forth in the most serious moments, as in the following note to Cibrario :—

"DEAR COLLEAGUE,—The supreme hour of the Ministry has struck. Before dying, we ought to pardon each other all offences ; therefore, I hope that you will not continue to be angry with me for the warmtl; (viracitcl) of yesterday, which, however, you provoked, and that you will join us in the Council Chamber at nine, to hear our testament read.—Your affectionate " Csvoun."

In conclusion, we have only to say that the reading of these volumes has afforded us as much entertainment as information, and we heartily commend them to those interested in Italian biography and history.