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WALT_WHIT^IA1S: JYutfD HIS CEITICS.*
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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not sprung- from her " quenchless ashes " when she suffered destruction as . the immediate reward of her zeal , a powerful impulse would have been wanting" to that resistance to the Austrian which has at last proved successful , and the' barrenness of the past would have opposed a serious obstsicle to a present . or future fertile life * Englishmen should study the conduct of their country during the wars against tlie First Empire in France , because there are not wanting influences cither in ihe cabinet or ^ the ceurt that would itnnel us towards a repetition of the crimes and mistakes of that heroic but unfortunate period . ft is only those curious foreigners , tie Peace at any price party , that
indiscriminately condemn all the opposition made by England to the rapacious conquests of Napoleon I . It was rig-lit to restrain the spirit of ravennns ae-gression , hut wrong- to attempt to combat it by « ni * in « y physical force to principles that were false . That jealousy of France as a disturbing- power , at a time when Europe did certainly need disturbance , which led our Government to he the tool and partisan of Austria , was a fatal mistake in policy , and a great crime in morals . Constitutional England could not he ju titled in endeavouring" to keep the peace by causing- a larjre part of Eumpp to be oppressed by desnotic Austria ; nor could Protestant Ene-land be justified in assisting- to place enormous power in the hands of the most ferocious persecutors of freedom of opinion .
When the Allies wanted the assistance of the Italians against Buonararte . thev made promises ' which they afterwards deliberately betrayed . English officers and Austrian generals , like Count Nug-ent . sneakinsr of the Hsmsburg- armies , declared that they came to bring- freedom to TtnTy . " Our armies have come to Italy to free you . You must all become an independent nation . " When the victory was gained , and kinsrs began to recover from the terrors of Napoleon ' s name , they sacrificed and betrayed Italy bv destroying-, as far as they were able , the good which | he Cbrsiean adventurer had accomplished , and by aggrandizing- Austria , in spite of all the protests the people could make . The Hapsbnrg-s were , as iisnal , legitimate children of the " Father of Lies . " The Emperor Francis promised all ¦ ' ports' of blessings , and his Marshal Bellejrarde issued a proclamation to Lombardy . Mantua . Brescia , Bergamo , and Cremona , " that the first care of theEinperor would be to give their provinces a satisfactcry and durable forrii of
g-overhboasted freedom of the English Constitution there was [ is ] one department of her administration to which popular influence had nofc found its way . and that the foreign policy of the coimtry was [ is ] conducted with a secrecy and an independence of national opinion which has no parallel in the proeeeding-s of the Courts in which the forms of the most absolute despotism prevailed . " .... . Our diplomacy is , no doubt , an unrEngTisli abomination , and it is secret , because neither the Court nor the very small number of chief actors in it dare bring it before the lig-ht of day . We owe the Russian war to secret diplomacy , which had previously g-ot up the Affglian war , and we may at this moment be drifting- towards another war , through engagements made on behalf of the German powers . There is no question more important , and ministerial responsibility is a farce while so much is done in the dark .
A very interesting portion of Mr . Butt ' s work- relates to Sicily and our unhappy complicity in tlie betrayal of the people of that island and of Naples to all the horrors of Bourbon cruelty . Mr . Butt discusses the conduct of Nelson in reference to the judicial murder of Carraecioli and the restoration of Ferdinand in a very impartial spirit , and his remarks are the more important as a recent article in JBlacTrtvood has adopted a partisan tone in favour of our naval hero , and cast upon Carraecioli odium he did not deserve . Whatever blame may rest upon Nelson , who was certainly not quite sane when he wished his midshipmen to " hate every . Frenchrnan as tlie devil / ' it is an awful blot upon the history of our country
that our power did restore Ferdinand to his throne . The consequence was , that the royalists excited the mob to the most horrible cruelties ., in which the Government showed itself as bad as the worst of the lazzaroni . Men , women , and children were barbarously cut to pieces ; executions ? were frequent ; and Sir Thomas Trowbridg ' e stated ' -that upwards of 40 . 000 families had relations confined . " Nearly one in" fifty of the adult male population was punished , and one in two hundred and fifty perished upon the g-allows . Tory writers are never weary of enlarging on the horrors of the French " Revolution ; but in these atrocities , and those committed by Austria in Italy and Hungary , and by Russia in Poland , we have crimes committed with all the deliberation of which a monarchical Government is capable , and which equal , if they do not exceed , any thing- ever perpetrated by an infuriated mob . The crimes of despotism a-re so aw fill , that Eng-land must never repeat the error of having * been its accomplice m the bad times of Pitt and Castlereagh . We shall look with pleasure for the completion of Mi * . Butt ' s most valuable work .
ment , and an administration adapted to secure their fntiire happiness , so fliat " their mindsHiiVis-ht beTtill of joy in contemplating- an epoch as happy as it was- remarkable , arid in their gratitude transmit to remote g-enerations the jidelible proof of their devotion and their layaltyi" This was pppropriately followed by the suppression of all local government arid every yestig-e of freedom . The Emperor told his ministers that the " Lombards miist forsreff-they are Italians , " and Metterrmh declared that his master " desired to extinguish the spirit of Italian unity , and to destroy all idea of an Italian constitution , " ' •¦ 'Popular discontent was the natural result of this abominable conduct , and Mr . Butt tells us how it was met in 1814 . In that year a " French nobleman" came to Milan with excellent introductions , fflfirmins" that he visited Italy by desire of the Prince Regent and louit ? XVTII ., who desired to promote 'he cause of Italian riationnlity . These pretensions carried the " French nobleman" into the society of the patriotic party , arid when he had learned enouffhh ' e 11 i ^
the principal persons who had been honoured with his acquaintance . Austria \ vas permitted to " establish her sway over almost all Northern Italy before Ihe meeting- of the Congress of Vienna , " and the story just cited shows her method of rule . When Nnpoleon escaped from Elba , and gave the despots another frig-lit , Francis promised national institutions to the Italians , but of course the promise was never kept . Lord Castlereagh—whom it is now the fashion to whitewashwas so madly and wickedly Austrian that the Italians could expect no justice at his hands . When their deputies reminded bim that Generals Wilson , McFarlane , and Lord William l ? eiitinck had called " upon them to join the British arms in asserting- the
independence of Italy , " he told them that "if they were about to be placed under a jpovernment like that of Napoleon ' s , he would support them in their demands for g-uarantees ag-ninst oppression , but that under the Imperial House of Austria power had ¦ never yet been abused . " Frorin Ibis it would appear that his lordship did not call the extinction of liberty in every country in which ' the House of Austria ever ruled an " abuse of power "— -at any rate , he had determined to sacrifice Italy to the fear of France , which was his predominnnt iden . In the year 1859 Fnrini published " ¦ letter which he states to exist in 1 h © archives of Vienna , and which was written by Metternich to Castlereng-h a few days before the . Treaty of Paris . In this extraordinary document a secret treaty of Prague is alleged to have been made between England and Austria on the 27 th of
June , 1813 , by which the former Power was bound to use all her influence to obtain for Austria a complete dominion over Italy , except in the Sardinian territories . The existence of this letter is positivelylaffirmed J } y .. J ^ nTHiil ^ li 08 e _ intepri'ity no one enn doubt ; but ho baa not stated how he obtained the copyT Mi' 7 Butt . judicionnly balances the arguments for rind again ** t its genuineness , very properly conceding- much to tbe solemn nnd deliberate assertion of the eminent statesman and historian by whom it is made known . We fully coincide in the reflections made by Mr . Butt upon this remarkable question "; nnd whether ov not the alleged treaty was ever made we are sorry that wecan feel riodoubt that bargains as objectionable are made by our Governments , nnd concealed from the people under tliat mnsk of secrecy that cannot be too soon removed . Mr . Butt observes , " If the alleged treaty of 27 th July , 1813 , did really exist , it may perhaps sug-gost to the reflective , that with nil the
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rpHERF / is a tendency in the critical mind of Ame-iea , and , for A that matter , of other countries too , to create wondnrs where , in the . natural process of things , no wonder * or a very sniaM wonder , exists . Amonsr American authors there is one named Walt Whitman , who , in 1855 , first issued a small , quarto volume of ninety-five pages , under the title of " Leaves of Grass . " In appeariince and mode of publication , it was an oddity , this same small volume ; which , it appears , the author had printed himself , and then " left , to the winds of heaven to publish . " By the booksellers of the United Hgt ^ Cfrprenerally-t ^^^^^ " ^ ^^^ ' ^ " ^ ^ if . rm / . M he obtained by tlie persevering- appliennt . Walt Whitman was then about . tti'irtysix years of ag-e , a native of Lonir Island , born on the liillf , about thirty miles , from the greatest American city , and brought up in Brooklyn and New York . Mr . B . W . Emerson , it seems , recognised the first issue of "The Leaves . " arid hastened to welcome the author ; then totally unknown . Among- of her thin g-s , said Emerson to the new avatar , " I greet you at the beginning of a great career , which yet must have had a love / foreground somcwlieve , fp } ' sue 7 i a start . ' This hist clause was , however , overlooked entirely by the critics , who treated the now author as one self-cduonted , yet in the rough . unpoliHhed , and who owed nothing- to instruction . Fudg-e ! The authority for so treating the author was derived from himself , who thus described , in one of his poems , his person , character , and name , having- omitted the last from his title-page : —
" Wai-t WniTMAN , an American , one of the roughs , a Kosmos , Disorderly , fleshly , nnd sensual ;" , . and in various other pKissag-es confessod to all the vices as well as virtues of man . All this , with intentional wrong ' -headedness , was attributed by the sapient reviewers to the individual writer , nnd nofc to the subjective hero supposed to be writing 1 . Notwithstanding-the word " Kosmos , " the writer was 'tnUun to be an ifj-nornnt man . Emerson perceived at once there had been " a long ; foregroimd somewhere , " or somehow : —not so , they . Every pnpro te « ms with
knowledge , with information , —but they saw it nofc , because it did not answer their purpose to see it .. The poem in which the word Kosmos appears explains in fact the whole mystery;—nay , the word itself explains it . The poem is nominally upon himself , but really includes everybody . It begins—»• - > - -.- --, - - , ., ., .., „ " I celebrate myaolf , A lid what I nssiime you ohaU aeeumo , For every atom belonging to m « , as good belongs to you . "
In a word , Wnlt Whitman represents the Kosmical Man—ho is the Adamus of the 19 th century , not only an individual , but mankind . Ar such , in celebrating ; ' himself , ho proceeds to celebrate universal humanity in its iittributoH ; and nccordiiig-ly cornmeno o his dithyramb with the five senses , beginning with that of smell .
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ai 4 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 30 , 1860
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? Leaven of Grant ) . Uoaton : Thayer & Eldridpe . Tr « r 85 of t / io State * ( 1800—01 ) . London : Triibnor & Co .
Walt_Whit^Ia1s: Jyutfd His Ceitics.*
WALT _ WHITMAN , JV ? O ) HIS CEITICS . *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1860, page 614, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2354/page/14/
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