THE OCCASIONAL.
By LEIGH HUNT.
No. XI. Tax NICKNAIIE OF THE LATE KING OF MAMMA Different accounts of its applicability and the reverse; and probable reconcilement of both. THIS is rather a note, or postscript, to a preceding "Occasional," than a new number: but the reader is requested to accept it, as completing what we had desired to say: for in our summary last week of the im- pressions left upon the world by the King of Naples, we forgot to notice what everybody seems to remember; to wit, the tragi-comie nickname which had been assigned him, of King Bombe. Bombe is the name Af children's play in Italy, a kind of prisoner's base, or what used formerly to be called in England, " King by your leave"; and there was probably an allusion to this pastime in the nickname; especially as his Majesty was fond of playing the King, and had a predilection for childish amusements besides, and for playing at soldiers. But the name, what- ever its first cause or its collective significance, is understood to have derived its greatest weight from a charge made against his Majesty of having called upon his soldiers to "bombard" his people during one of their insurrections. " Bombard'em ! Bombard'eml " he is said to have cried out—that is to say,—" Sweep there away, cannonade 'em ! " His apologist, Mr. Macfarlane, not only denies the charge, but says his cry was the very reverse; to wit, "Spare my misguided people! Make prisoners Do not kill! Make prisoners ! " And he is afterwards said to have rebuked an officer for calling the people canaglia (rascally dogs). "Be calm, sir, and do not call the people canaglia. They are misguided, but they are still my people. If you allow yourself to be transported with passion, there will be great slaughter, and this I would by all means avoid. Take prisoners, but do not kill." The book entitled "Naples and King Ferdinand," repeats the charge however in the strongest man- ner. It says that he kept crying out, "Down with them! down with them " ! adding in a note, what was stated to be the particular expres • sion, " Bombardaro " ; and hence, says the author, "arse his well- known sobriquet of " Bombe." We are also told by this writer, that the king changed his policy on the occasion "from hour to hour, indeed from minute to minute; so as to secure a victory, of which he had per- haps little hope at first." What if this vacillation reconciles the two opposite accounts; and that the frightened and exasperated monarch actually said all which is attributed to him by both the writers, according as the fright or the ex- asperation prevailed? At one o'clock, when matters looked perilous, mercy and flattery may have been in the ascendant; and at three, when success was certain, or when it required only the merciless portion of Lear, cruelty may have reigned supreme. In one of these interludes in the plays of MoMre, which ought never to be left out of editions of them, for they are as good in their way as the plays themselves, and as deeply grounded in truth, however mad they look with animal spirits and drollery, there is a man who is in danger of being eaten by a bear. The man (we speak from memory, but are sure- of the spirit of what we relate) takes at last, as a forlorn hope, to flattering the bear; praises his manners and appearance; calls him all :sorts of sweet names; and in the excess and eetasy of his desperation, addresses him at length as "Your Royal Highness." But hunters com- ing up, and the bear's attention being diverted, his flatterer scrambles up a tree, and his first word to the hunters is, "Shoot him." There is a similar passage in Fielding, in relation to Tom Jones's atten- dant Partridge: but as there is no flattery in it, though plenty of fear and almost as good a dramatic turn of surprise, we must content our. selves with suggesting it to the recollection of brother-readers. We should really have been glad to have something of some kind or other, to admit in favour of this unhappy prince; but the groans of thou-. sands of his captives rise up and drown the panegyrics of his court newts- men in ghastly contradiction.
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