BOOKS.
THE WRITINGS OF M. MAZZINI.*
ALL M. Mazzini's utterances are on one note. The editor classi- fies the essays contained in this volume as " Critical and Literary," and, if we except the last article, the address to the Italian working class on "The Duties of Man," the classification is just enough ; but the predominant interest everywhere is of another kind. M. Mazzini, indeed, is an able and candid critic, his views are largely conceived and original, and his style is distinguished by a strong and manly eloquence ; but his readers forget everything else in the presence of the absorbing power of his political convic- tions. It is not that he violently wrests his subject from its proper course, or diverges into irrelevant disquisitions ; the one over- powering interest makes him view every subject in the same aspect. His conception of politics, it must be understood, is of the widest possible kind, more than equivalent to the Aristotelian Ircatrtxn, because it extends to the whole of humanity what the Greek philosophy restricted within the narrow limits of the Hellenic nationality, and because it supplements it with the idea of a secular progress which the world was not then advanced enough to observe. Italy is, indeed, the O.69aXas 7"i)s to him, the centre of the hopes and aspirations of the world ; "Italy is a religion," as he expresses it in his latest utterance ; but his ' views pass beyond the limits of nationality, and extend to all the interests of collective humanity. These he finds to be involved in every subject of which he treats. We may take as an instance his essay on the " Philosophy of Music." Art has seemed to most thinkers, as it notably did to Goethe, a quiet domain into which the disturbing influences of human affairs cannot intrude, and music especially, among the branches of art, might appear to be exempt from them. No such exemption will M. Mazzini admit. He tells the young aspirant that the "art entrusted to his ministry is closely bound up with the progress of civilization ;" he declares that it is " the religion of an entire world, of which poetry is only the highest philosophy ;" he speaks of "sublime harmonies, wherein every instrument will represent an affection, every melody an action, every concord a moral synthesis." This might of course be nothing more than the inflated language of a musical fanatic, and it is not free from a certain extravagance, to be accounted for, possibly, by its early date (1833) ; but it is everywhere manifest that the writer magnifies the art primarily and even solely for the sake of the world, in whose regeneration it is, be thinks, destined to assist. Readers who, like ourselves, do not feel themselves competent to judge of the special criticisms which this essay contains, will yet read it with interest as exhibiting the depth and absorbing power of M. Mazzini's convictions. The two articles which follow it, one of them treating generally of the tendency of Mr. Thomas Carlyle's writings and genius, and the other specially criticizing his History of the French Revolution, will excite the same interest in a still higher degree. And here we are struck, and struck the more when we note that these essays were written four- and-twenty years ago, at the precision and completeness of M. Mazzini's views, at the clearness of his intuitions, the distinct- ness with which he defines his aims, and his consistency in pursu- ing them. Reading what he said of Mr. Carlyle nearly a quarter of a century ago is like reading a prophecy, so clearly does he express the radical differences of thought which have resulted in a divergence that is now so marked. Many men holding M. Mazzini's democratic opinions would have been ready at that time to recognize an ally in a writer so little reverent of the established order of things as the author of Sartor Resartus. M. Mazzini is far from falling into any such error. He discerns, indeed, qualities in Mr. Carlyle's writings on which he can bestow the highest praise, and tendencies with which he can most heartily sympathize. He appreciates his sincerity and candour, his " spirituality," his belief, " that it is the invisible which governs the visible, the spiritual life which informs the exterior," but he perceives a defect for which all these excellencies are not an equivalent. "Mr. Carlyle," he says (p. 75-6), " comprehends only the individual, the true sense of the unity of the human race escapes him. He sympathizes with all men, but it is with the separate life of each, and not with their collective life. He readily looks at every man as the representa- tive, the incarnation, in a manner, of an idea ; he does not believe in ' a supreme idea' represented progressively by the development of mankind taken as a whole." This is the capital defect which * Life and Writings of Joseph dfassini, Volume IV., Critical and Literary, London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1867.
M. Mazzini sees in Mr. Carlyle, and to which he traces all his failures and inconsistencies as moralist and historian. The follow- ing are specimens of a criticism which seems to us singularly able and far-seeing :—
" A perpetual antagonism prevails throughout all that he does ; his instincts drive him to action, his theory to contemplation. Faith and discouragement alternate in his works, as they must in his soul. He weaves and unweaves his web like Penelope ; he preaches by turns life and nothingness ; he wearies out the powers of his readers by continually carrying them from heaven to hell, from hell to heaven. Ardent, and almost menacing, upon the ground of ideas, he becomes timid and sceptical as soon as he is engaged on that of their application. He desires progress, but shows hostility to all who strive to progress; he foresees, he announces as inevitable great changes or revolutions in the religious, social, political order ; but it is on the condition that the revolutionists take no part in them Give him the past, give him a power, an idea, something which has triumphed and borne its fruits, so that, placed thus at a distance, he can examine and comprehend it from every point of view, calmly, at his ease, without fear of being troubled by it, or drawn into the sphere of its action, and he will see in it all that there is to see, more than others are able to see. Bring the object near to him, and as with Dante's souls in the inferno, his vision, his faculty of penetration, is clouded." (pp. 94-5.)
There are few who will not acknowledge that the critic has divined the truth, that there is in Mr. Carlyle this want of faith, faith in a divine law, and in a human progress which expresses it- Hence, surely, come the varying moods of perplexity, scorn, and pity with which he looks out upon human life, hence his inability to discover an order in the past and a hope in the future, and hence the weakness, so much increased in these latter days which has disappointed and alienated those who most trusted him, the worship of force and success. " Victory," says M. Mazzini, " Carlyle regards as the intervention of God by His decree, from which there is no appeal."
We cannot read these essays without a reference to the remark- able position of the writer, which, indeed, they do much to illus- trate and explain. No living man has done more to change the face of European politics, and yet he has been almost continuously shut out from the opportunities of direct political action. He has accomplished his work, not byhis appearances on the scene, which, indeed, have been brief and unsuccessful, but by his personal influence and his pen. When we turn to his writings, and see their intense energy and unity of purpose, we begin to understand the phenomenon. They leave upon us such an impression of power, quite apart from all question of literary excellence, that we cease to wonder at what the writer has achieved. Yet, as it would seem, in his own judgment, be has achieved nothing. While others are attributing to him the glory of having accomplished Italian Unity, he himself sees in what has been accomplished no merit and no stability. His inexorable principles, and his hatred, implacable though passionless, forbid him to anticipate good for Italy united under the sway of a King, and that King belonging
to the House of Savoy. And so he remains in exile, indignantly refusingthe pardon which be conceives to be needed rather from him- self. Non haecest via redeundi ad patriani, he exclaims, in the wordsof Dante, which he has himself quoted in this volume. Readers who will turn to this essay (on the minor works of Dante, published in
1844) will find it complete the illustration which, as we have said, M. Mazzini's works furnish to his career.
Whatever value we may put on democratic principles, we can, at least, do honour to one who holds them in their integrity.
M. Mazzini differs, we need not say how widely, from the noisy demagogues of our streets. He never forgets that
the people means the whole nation, and, therefore, he is free from the passionate class-hatreds which embitter the eloquence and distort the judgment of the greatest of our popular leaders. He knows nothing of the Secularism and the Czesarism with which our younger democratic thinkers are tainted. He would not barter freedom for social equality, and though constitutional monarchy does not satisfy him, he does not admire the "magnificent calm " of despotism. What-
ever his errors and extravagances, he is loyal to his country, loves liberty with a genuine affection, and believes in God.
It only remains to say that our author seems singularly happy in his translator. It is a slight, but an annoying blemish, that the Latin quotations are full of misprints.
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