Mazzini's Letters to an English Family. Edited by E. F.
Richards. Vols. II. and In. (Lane. 16s. net each).— Mazzini's correspondence with his English friends, the Ashursts, is completed in these skilfully edited volumes, which cover the years 1855-60 and 1861-72. The most interesting letters are, of course, written during the critical year when Mazzini's dreams of a united Italy were realized in great part while at the same time his hopes of a Republican Italy were rendered vain. His frank letters regarding Garibaldi point the contrast between the two men—Mazzini, the inspiring writer and thinker, with a fixed purpose, and Garibaldi, the ardent, careless, wayward man of action, who could fight, but who was no match for Cavour in Political manoeuvring. It was a good thing for Italy that Garibaldi in the end followed Cavour rather than Mazzini, and yet one may sympathize with the stern Republican who through many weary years had kept alive the agitation for Italian freedom and unity. In the closing pages are references to Mazzini's scathing denunciation of the Paris Commune and to the violent attacks made upon him by Bakunin and by the Anarchists and Atheists in and out of Italy. Mazzini detested Marx for his vulgar materialism and predicted rightly that the triumph of the " Internationale " must lead to a dictatorship as odious as the old monarchical despotisms. Mazzini's innate honesty and abounding charity charm us throughout these interesting volumes.
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