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PULSZKY'S HUNGARIAN TRADITIONS. Tales an...
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Savonarola In London. Orations By Father...
capers * and to lead it fretting , but obedient , to the winning-post . But besides this rare gift of tongue , Father Gavazzi possesses a talisman which to some extent explains his countrymen ' s enthusiasm . Dr . Aehilli may put forth claims as a martyr ; but the Padre stands up before them a hero : — " The first appearance of Gavazzi on the political scene was on the n « ws of the Milanese insurrection and the discomfiture of the Austrians throughout Lombardy being celebrated in Rome , when the students of the University seized on the eloquent priest , carried him on their shoulders into the pulpit of the Pantheon , and called on him to pronounce the funeral oration of the patriots
killed at Milan . The orator ro & e at once to the height of that great argument , and became at once the trumpeter of freedom throughout Italy . The tricolor cross was now displayed on his cassock , and is the same decoration which h « has worn during the whole campaign , and now wears unsullied on his manly breast . In the Colosseum he harangued for weeks crowds of citizens gathered within that gigantic structure , which became an arena of patriotic manifestations . The Pope encouraged his efforts to rouse the national energies , and conferred on him the office of chaplain-general to the forces , then organizing by the levy of volunteers and the formation of National Guards . In that capacity he marched from Rome with sixteen thousand men , and after a short , hesitating
halt on the frontiers , positive order g came from the Vatican , and private instructions to Gavazzi himself , to move forward and act against the Austrians . The onward progress of the Roman army was a succession of triumphs to the walls of Vicenza . Gavazzi ' s eloquence supplied ammunition , clothing , provisions , horses , and all the materiel de guerre , from a willing population . He was the Hermit Peter of the whole crusade —the life and soul of the insurrection . At Venice , in the great area of St . Maik , he harangued , day after day , congregated thousands , and filled the Venetian treasury by the voluntary oblations elicited by his irresistible appeals . Women tore off their earrings a ' nd bracelets , and the wives of
fishermen flung their large silver hair-pins into the military chest , and several thousand pounds' worth of plate and jewellery was the result of his exertions . When the Itoman division was ordered to fall back , the Father made Florence ring with his exhortations to uphold the cause . The Grand Duke , who had already begun his tergiversations , gave orders for the forcible expulsion of Gavazzi from Tuscany . He took refuge in Genoa ; but the Bolognese , having broken into open mutiny against the Pope on the 8 th of August , and formed a Provisional Government , Gavazzi was recalled , as the only means of allaying the discontent of the Legations ; his retutn was in triumph , and order was restored by his presence .
" General Zucchi was now sent from Rome to take the command of the troops at Bologna , when , at the instigation of the Cardinal-Legate , this lieutenant of Rossi seized on Gavazzi , and sent him off secretly , under a strong esort , to be incarcerated in Corneto , —a sort of ecclesiastical prison , where clerical robbers , assassins , and adulterers have been for ages confined by popes ; but on his passage through Viterbo the whole city rose to rescue their patriot , and Pius IX . found it expedient to ordtr his liberation am d the plaudits of the town . On the flight of the Pope , the formation of a Republican Government , and the convoking of the Roman Assembly , Gavazzi was confirmed in his previous functions ofchaplaingcneral to the forces , and began his preparations for
theapwill say how many volunteers mustered up , what sums were subscribed at his mere beck . In behalf of that noble though ill-fated cause of Italy his gift of speech was truly miraculous . Had the Italian convents sent forth only ten such heralds anc trumpeters , and had they everywhere been allowed the same free appeal to popular passions , it is noi easy to calculate all the effect they might have bad on the mass of that brutified but not irreclaimable
populace . It is but justice to Father Gavazzi as a patriot to say , that " his heart was in the right place . " He was an Italian and no party man . He was with all who fought for Italy , no matter whether it was in a " royal or a People ' s " war . A good man and true to the last ; even now he professes himself neither an " Albertist" nor a " Mazzinian . " Like all Italians , a Republican on principle ; yet willing to give even aKing and a Patrician Minister his duea friend to all Italy ' s friends ; wishing for harmony and brotherhood amongst them all .
It is not amongst Father Prout ' s extracts , cleverly as they have been got up for the Daily News , that we must look for evidence of the Padre ' s astonishing faculties . Nor would it be even in Gavazzi's own complete edition of his speeches , if he really ever sat down to the task of committing his thoughts to paper . The thrilling effect of delivery is all in all : " vox et preterea nihil . " A funeral oration in honour of his brother in mission , the
Father Ugo Bassi , who was shot by the Austrians at Bologna , is alread y in circulation , and it looks too sadly like improvised poetry in print . It is a kind of mere photograph of the Padre ' s language ; it is mere shadow and gloom . The tinsel and tawdriness of stage decoration stare us unmercifully in the broad noonlight . Happy Peter the Hermit , happy Savonarola , who lived in the age of no reporters and no short-hand writers ! Father Gavazzi is no writer ; he has just as much intellect as can place him on a happy level with the multitude ; and rises above them no higher than the stump he stands upon . Even in the height of our admiration , we always envied the happy portion of his English auditors , who understood never a syllable of what he said . He is a man to be looked at , not listened
shake off as the unwieldy Austrian himself . The very Piedmontese talk Critsca in their Parliament . No man has a tongue in Italy j no one out of it- —I save Mazzini . Those who have not heard Father Gavazzi , however , must not take too literally the severe sentence we have passed upon him as a writer . Though the whole of his orations might be rather dull work to go through , there are passages , here and there , that must be read with wonder . Gavazzi possesses
immense skill m turning ancient arguments to new account , in illustrating old saws with modern instances . He has a Soyer-like skill in seasoning and serving up commonplace things i will make you eat the sole of your boots with exquisite relish . He has always an eye about him ; he deals in no vain speculation or academical abstraction . His dead subjects are made to bear on all things living . Italy and England , Alexander VI . and Dr .
Wiseman , Matilda of Tuscany and Jane Wilbred , all comes to its place in the train of his arguments . Not one word in his discourses but has a direct reference to the present day . The empty-pated Mr . John O'Connell , the namby-pamby Mr . Baillie Cochrane , supply him with as ready topics for fresh outbursts of oratorical passion as Pius IX . or Ferdinand of Naples , or that main butt of hi * bitterest invectives—the French , not the Government alone , but the Assembly , army , and people .
Indeed , nothing that has yet appeared of his orations was half so rich as the handling of those two puny adversaries , the Honourable M . P . 's for Bridport and Limerick , in his discourse of Sunday before last . We do not think anymanin either House , not even Lord Brougham himself , will be so rash for the future as to meddle with the terrible friar . It did our hearts good to hear the Father visit his hot displeasure on the devoted heads of his foolhardy aggressors . We will not quote his burning words , as they must be fresh in men ' s minds , rendered as they were with rare power and felicity by Father Prout in the Daily News of the following Monday . We only wish poor Italy could fight out her battles with Austria and France—could crush
and demolish Popes , princes , and all her other evils with the same ease as Gavazzi disposes of the game those would-be champions of the same evils in the British Parliament afford him . Oh ! the small curs those honourable Members looked in the huge paws of the Barnabite mastiff ! We shall not forget the scene in a hurry ; and are only sorry that the Padre annihilated his enemies too utterly at one stroke that we may hope to enjoy such capital sport at any future occasion .
to ; we doubt , indeed , whether a great popular orator ever can , ever should , be anything above that ; whether he should have more than a few ideas , provided those be always at his fingers' ends . It is easy for no man to descend from the clouds . Place Mazzini by the side of Gavazzi to address an Italian multitude , and you will see which of the two has the key to the people ' s heart . Mazzini is the man of the cultivated youths at the head of the people . Over the mass he only exercises a second-hand influence . It is only through such organs as Father Gavazzi that Mazzini ' s voice can reach the lower ranks .
And yet , there is something to interest us even in these short and imperfect fragments , judiciously selected and soberly laid down by the maturer judgment of Gavazzi's Irish friend , Father Prout . We are not quite sure whether the Padre could appear more attractive to English readers under his own garb ; and , anxious as we are that his orations should reach Italy in all their genuine luxuriancy , we are inclined to think that the English editor has given our public just as much of these discourses
as it will bear and no more . Whatever injury may have been done to Gavazzi ' s pocket by Mr . Bogue's somewhat unceremonious dealing with his copyright , there is no doubt in our minds but a good service has been rendered to him by taking away his chance of appearing in England in the unaided capacity of a writer . Kven in our English Parliament , the reporter is in nine out of ten cases the orator ' s tailor—i . e ., the maker of the man . Father Prout ban covered the improvisatore ' s nakedness , and the latter ought to be truly thankful .
When all lias been . said that can be said , the Italian taste in not our taste . All the towering popularity of Cjiioherti ' s name was unable to tempt any of our one thousand and one translators to speculate on a Kindle line of the Abate ' s voluminous writings . Not one of ( iioberti ' s lines could be patiently read in England . The Italians , we verily believe , have thinkers amongst them but
when they nit clown to write , thought seems to ooze out from every pore of their skin ; they have the purity and propriety of language to mind ; the figures of speech : even Manssoni ' stylo in mere mosaic work . The Florentine academy has choked all the good flour that was in Italy under the intolerable weight of that , bum ( Crunca ) that gave name to their awsociation . I'udantry holds its unmitigated awuy over the country : a yoke as hard to
proaching siege of the French , by organizing the military hospitals on u . scale commensurate witli the coming warfare , lie formed a committee of the principal Homan ladies to provide for the wounded ( Princess Jiflgiojoso , Countess Pallavieino , and 1 'isacane at their head ) , and superintended the mirgical ambulances during the whole struggle . At the lull of the fight against Oudinot , when a sortie of fourteen thousand llomans was made to repel the K . in »; of Naples , who , with his twenty thousand men , had udviinced as far as Velletri , the father went forth at the bond of the troops with the gallant Garibaldi , and after the utter rout and precipitate flight of the invading army assisted the dying and the disabled of both sides . lCctijrniikg into the besieged capital , lie sustained the
spirit of the inhabitants throughout , and was ever at the bastions and in tlie front of the battle . At the fall of Home ho received an honourable testimonial and nauf conduit from Oudinot ; and while his companion , father Ugo Bassi , w , i 9 shot , by the Austrian *) without trial , aud a ^ uinst ihe law of nations , at iiolo ^ na , he was suffered to depart by the more ; civilised freebooters of l'Vance . In Jjondon he baa since * lived in retirement , giving- for bin daily bread a few lessons in the language of his beloved but downtrodden land ; when a few of his ft-llowexilfs , anxious to bear m the country of their forced adoption once more t . hc eloquent voice which cheered
them in their hour of triumph , clubbed together the pittance * of poverty to hire a room for the purpose ; and the result has been , the potent , blast , of indignant oratory , and the ; trumpet-note of withering denunciation , with which he now assails the : renchery , fraud , anil accumulated impostures of the Homan court , and nil its malevolent , and { Machiavellian macliinci v . The bold freedom of bis strictures derives i in me use importance from the fact be sctH forth of their being in accordance with the M-ntiuu-nUt of a large body of the young clergy uf Italy — a kind » , f 1 ' uneyisut , menacing the utt « r ruin of ultramontane ascendancy ut home , while it hiu'ks to triumph ij » England . "
11 e who the Peter the I lennit of the Italian Crusade , except that , unlike the French enthusaist of old , be never was known to hide himself in the hour of danger . Those who have travelled in his track in 1 H 1 H , and arrived at Bologna , at Modena , at Fauna , wherever his meteor-cross had been dazzling men ' s eyes , and bin Dio h vuole ! sounding in men ' s cars
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Pulszky's Hungarian Traditions. Tales An...
PULSZKY ' S HUNGARIAN TRADITIONS . Tales and Traditions of Hungary . By Francis and Theresa Puls / . ky . 3 vols . Colburn . Freshness of subject is invaluable in literature . We have so trodden down all known paths , so combined and recombined , renamed , and redressed the old materials , that , unless a man of genius appears , novelty of subject is indispensable . Hungary is still fresh ground . It has been trodden , but is not yet a common highway . Hence these volumes of Tales and Let / ends have an interest which their intrinsic merit would not give them ; and this interest is very strong in Mr . Pulszky ' s portion . For you must know the composition of these volumes is thus divided : the first consists of " Tales and
Legends , " collected and rewritten l > y Madame l ' ulszky ; the other two volumes form an orig inal historical novel , the "Jacobins in Hungary , " by her husband . The " Tales and Legends ' v ery various , from the mere traditional anecdote to the regular legend , and they have the sort of interest which all national traditions excite ; but they are not very striking as stories . The novel affords ample scope for representing the various phases of Hungarian life , and Mr . Pulszky has adroitly seized
bold of this method of interesting his readers , conscious that the art de canter , the d extrous complication of incidents , perils , escapes , and love entanglements , is not his forte . He has chosen for bis theme the Jacobite conspiracy of A . bbot Ma *~ tinovitcb , with its imitations of France and the German Illuininati ; so that , besides representing varieties of Hungarian life , he is enable" to give » strong political colouring to his pages . It is by no meant * a work to Ue judged , of by extracts ; but wo must select this sly hit : — -
MAN B HIO . II I'RKUOOlATIVJt . " The old friar who hud taught him in his boyhood hail often explained to him that men were surpassed by the b «* e in ukill , und b y the do in loyalty , by the not in industry , by the elephunt in strength , and by the ape in nimble mimicry ; the parrot learns to apeak , and the bull bows under the yoke no less than man . What , then ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05041851/page/14/
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