B 0 0 K S .

GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND.*

IT is a name of romance and magic which heads this article. Garibaldi must always kindle the imagination, and appeal to every generous heart. Mr. Trevelyan satisfied the ideals of Garibaldians by his fine volume on The Defence of Rome, which appeared in 1907, and which narrated so clearly one of

the hero's great achievements. In a little epilogue at the close of that volume he summed up the years which followed Garibaldi's escape from Italy after the extinction of the Roman Republic :—

"I cannot here relate all that befel Garibaldi after his embarca- tion. Suffice it that he was now in relative safety, that after touching at Elba he reached the ports of Piedmont, saw his motherless children for a few hours at Nice, and was then hurried out of the country by Victor Emmanuel's government, not yet in a position to harbour him for long. Expelled once more, he passed six months at Tangier, enjoying the hospitality of the Pied- montese and British Consuls, until in 1850, feeling that he ought no longer to depend on the charity of others, he passed by way of Liverpool to the United States. He was never more noble than during the obscurity of the year that followed. He acquired none of the faults and habits characteristic of the exile, but cheerfully set about the task of earning his bread, first as a journeyman candle-maker, then as a merchant captain, and finally as a farmer, until the time came round for him to deal in the manufacture of kingdoms, and to be hailed by his countrymen as ' Captain of the People.'"

Such is Mr. Trevelyan's epilogue to his previous volume,

and it may serve now as a prologue to his next instalment of Garibaldian romance. In Garibaldi and the Thousand he

narrates the invasion and capture of Sicily. A more wild and improbable adventure does not exist in authentic history.

Outside the world of imagination there is nothing like it.

Mr. Trevelyan has presented it with remarkable success and skill, with all its romance, all its improbability, all its atmosphere of heroism and patriotism, its passion for liberty and justice. The crimes of the despots are not exactly mellowed in his hands, for we see them in all their naked horror, and realise their sordid cruelty ; but the mistakes and absurdities of their incompetent officials, especially of their soldiers, turn to gold under his touch ; and we almost forget the tragedy of the Sicilians in the huge comedy of errors which tumbled Palermo into the bands of Garibaldi. Any expectations which may have been raised by Mr. Trevelyan's former volume will certainly not be dis- appointed by this continuation of it. In conception and in execution we think he has surpassed his earlier standard.

And as we venture to offer him our congratulations, we desire to thank him for the extraordinary and vivid pleasure which is conveyed by his pages. They put us, and they keep us, in the heroic atmosphere of the Risorgimento. They live them-

selves, and they make us live, in contact with a hero and a poet. They are filled themselves, and they fill us, with Gari- baldi's immense vitality. And this is no common benefit. " 'Tis worth ten years of peaceful life to see such brave array," says

an old hero in Marmion; and Mr. Trevelyan's volume is worth ten ordinary histories, and more than ten melodramatic novels. We say this because it expresses our genuine

appreciation for what is fine and true in his work ; but also for another reason. Mr. Trevelyan has been praised very generally for his style. Certainly his style has many good qualities. But we cannot help thinking that a great deal of

the praise given to it is really due to those heroic and poetical elements which are inherent in his subject. His readers, and some of his critics, have been carried away, very properly, by these, and they have attributed the effect to Mr. Trevelyan's words. Now Mr. Trevelyan's natural way of conceiving things is poetical. His natural way of writing is perhaps

inclined to be flowing, and even flowery. His present subject will bear a good deal of such treatment without showing up its inherent dangers and defects. We do not wish for a moment to depreciate Mr. Trevelyan's writing, or to dissociate ourselves from his admirers. We wish merely to indicate a source of possible danger, an inclination towards exuberance, which should be carefully guarded against in future work, especially in work which is less inspiring and glowing than the story of Garibaldi. The true prose, the abiding prose, is always quiet and restrained. There is no

* Garibaldi and the Thousand. By George Macaulay Trevelyan. London; Longmans and Co. [7s. Od. net.]

exuberance and there are no purple patches in the greatest masters. Lord Macaulay, if we remember, laboured at his purple patches, deliberately, in spite of the classics, and thus he sinned against the light. He may have secured popularity and circulation ; but it was a mortal sin, and will be mortal in its effects. It excludes him from the small band of perfect writers. We implore Mr. Trevelyan to be on his guard against hereditary genius. It would be a thousand pities if it misled him in the direction of an hereditary vice.

Plenty of Caesar, plenty of Tacitus, a daily study of the French prose classics, all used devoutly, is what we should prescribe, if we could, for Mr. Trevelyan.

In his present history be gives us more than the title promises. Garibaldi's biography is filled in delightfully. We see him in his wanderings, even making his candles, and finally settling at Caprera in 1856. Both the man and the place are set before us clearly by Mr. Trevelyan :—

" The qualities which endeared him to the simple souls who lived in his house on Caprera similarly won the hearts of the most critical and experienced judges of men in Italy and England. The fond simplicity of a child, the sensitive, tender humanity of a woman, the steady valour of a soldier, the good-heartedness and hardihood of a sailor, the imposing majesty of a king like Charle- magne, the brotherliness and universal sympathy of a democrat like Walt Whitman, the spiritual depth and fire of a poet, and an Olympian calm that was personal to himself—all plainly marked in his port and presence, his voice and his eyes—made him not the greatest, but the unique figure of the age. That this rare creature had no head for administration or politics need cause no surprise. That he had an instinctive genius for guerilla. war was a singular piece of good fortune. Such another nature will never be bred in cities or by the typical life of modern times. It had been nurtured in the solitudes of the sea and the Pampas, and was preserved intact by the life of Caprera."

The description of Caprera is too long to quote. We must refer our readers to pp. 31-37.

During the years which followed the murder of the Roman Republic much history was being prepared. The Pope was restored by France, and maintained only by French bayonets. He and his brother-despots were doing their utmost to alienate the Italians, and to ensure the destruction of their own Governments. Napoleon III., with every sympathy for Italy, in which his interest was both genuine and generous, was nevertheless the prisoner of the Clericals. French opinion was strongly opposed, even among many Liberals, to a united Italy, for reasons which were natural, if not far-seeing or sagacious. French Clericals detested Italy, and were duped by all the current fallacies about the religious necessity of the temporal power. " When will the French garrison be withdrawn from Rome ? " Antonelli was asked once. " When I withdraw my garrison from Paris," he answered.

And this sums up the cruel position of Napoleon III., to whom, as we think, Mr. Trevelyan is hardly just, though he concedes much more than used to be admitted. In the North of Italy, Austria by her brutality and blunders was keeping alive that spirit of revolt with which the whole country was fermenting. Mazzini and the revolutionary exiles were plot- ting continually. Sardinia was playing a difficult and almost a desperate game between Austrian fears and hatred, French jealousy, the dislike of all the arbitrary Sovereigns, and the mistrust of most Italian Liberals. The wretched tragedy of Charles Albert was played out to its end, and was just

saved from utter ignominy by a touch of heroism. Then Victor Emmanuel came on the scene, and not long after him Cavour. Between them they transformed a situation which appeared hopeless.

The first act in the great drama was the Lombard campaign of Magenta and Solferino, by which the French liberated Milan from Austria, and gave Lombardy to Victor Emmanuel.

In this war Garibaldi led a body of volunteers with con- spicuous ability. His leadership enabled " 3,000 young volun- teers, with old muskets, and no cannon, to defeat twice the number of highly trained Austrians, excellently armed, and fully equipped with artillery, and thereby to draw away from the main seat of war three whole brigades amounting to 11,000 men." It was in this campaign that the Thousand were trained who went with him the next year to Sicily.

We cannot, and perhaps we need not, go into the history which followed the Lombard campaign and the Treaty of

Villa Franca. By that Treaty Garibaldi's native Nice was taken from Italy. Cavour, for various good reasons, went out of office for a time. But Garibaldi, with great sense and loyalty, accepted the ideal of unity under the house of Savoy.

The Neapolitan Expedition was arranged with the secret approval and help, but the public ignorance and neutrality, of Cavour. It should not be forgotten that Lord John Russell and the English diplomatists in Italy were sympathetic; and Lord Palmerston's services to genuine Liberalism and to European liberty should be held in lasting remembrance.

After the narrowest escapes, Garibaldi's little fleet of two steamers reached Sicily; and the force should have been annihilated as it disembarked. It had no artillery, no rifles, only some inefficient muskets, with bayonets that did not fit, and hardly any ammunition. With this army Garibaldi landed at Marsala on the west of Sicily, and marched across to Palermo on the north-east, winning on his way the battle of Calatafimi. The population was on his side ; but it was useless, or worse than useless, for military purposes. The garrison of Palermo was more than twenty thousand regular troops, and they were supported by a fleet. Yet Garibaldi made his way into the city, took possession of the heart of it, encouraged the 'population to set up a maze of barricades, bluffed and terrorised the garrison into surrender, though before the end of the fighting he had himself no ammunition left. Such a feat would have been thought impossible if it had not been accomplished ; but this is what Garibaldi and his Thousand did. We may leave the telling of it to Mr. Trevelyan, who is quite admirable in this part of his task. It would be impossible to construct a more moving and absorbing narrative.

By this heroic adventure Sicily was freed from Naples, and came into United Italy. In a following volume, which we hole will appear soon, Mr. Trevelyan promises to give us the conquest of Naples itself. Meanwhile we may leave his hero as Dictator of the most romantic and beautiful of all islands: haunted by the memory of its numerous masters, all great Dorians, Carthaginians, Romans, Saracens, Normans; haunted not less by the idylls of Theocritns, the odes of Pindar, and the pious Virgilian. echoes : an island certainly of sword and song, and of enchantment.