only be revealed by events; but Cavour fulfilled one function no other man can ever adequately perform. The country needed above all things freedom, yet required at the same. moment the strong hand of an able and secret despot. The unquestioning confidence felt in Cavour enabled him to combine both these necessities. He acted always through a Parliament, always refused to violate individual freedom, sometimes seemed to fear-as in Naples-lest a just severity should resemble too closely the proceedings of an absolutist court. Yet he seldom explained his plans. The real negotiations with Napoleon are still unknown beyond the palace-walls. He raised loans, summoned armies, and annexed kingdoms, without calling on Parliament for any thing save the ratification of his acts. He was enabled, in fact, by popular trust to perform, without suspending the constitution, those tremendous functions the Romans comprised within the brief phrase, "see you that the republic suffer no wrong." The want of such an authority may yet be severely felt. Ricasoli is, in all probability, the equal in ability of his friend. A cabinet, of many capacities, may execute all the plans Cavour's single sagacity would have carried out. But no other man will ever be able to act for Italy as if he were its owner, yet be certain of the support of those he has kept without information. It was as the representative Italian, even more than as the statesman, that Cavour was invaluable to Italy. The character of the deceased statesman will be very differently described by his admirers from different points of view. To the Frenchman, conscious of momentary slavery, its most wonderful point seemed the power of guiding without restraining the opinion of his countrymen. The slow German admired the wily craft against which he felt himself powerless to contend, which kept up, even when inactive, a permanent sense of peril among his foes. Italians forget every thing in their glowing love for one who so heartily and ardently loved the "beautiful land." But to Englishmen, whose records are unstained by the name of even one great traitor, who are accustomed to freedom, and half contemptuous of policy, but who resent what they think the over-caution of their own statesmen, the marvellous quality of Cavour seems courage. The man dared, as if his daring sprang from prescience. Whether fighting a colleague, or braving a stormy Parliament, or bidding defiance to half Europe, not only did his courage never fail, but he could never be shaken out of a confidence so complete as to suggest the idea of a contempt for politics. It was this imperturbable humour, this disdain in his manner of treating difficulties, which suggested the Mazzinian charge that he regarded politics as a game, an amusement, which stretched his faculties to the highest, and in which the reward was the struggle rather than the victory. There was some slight truth in the accusation; about as much as in the same when brought against the Roman patrician. There are natures so strong that the difficulties which to ordinary men seem appalling, yield them only a delicious excitement. They have the lust for civil contest which some men have for battle; but they are not the less earnest because they cannot fear. Twice within two years did Count Cavour dare acts which seemed rather those of a Jacobin, of a Saint Just, who cannot crane at the leap because he cannot see the chasm, rather than of a deeply reflective thinker. The first was when he seized Umbria. The consent of the Emperor had been barely extorted, that of Europe had not been sought. There was almost the certainty of exciting a frenzied wrath in the Catholic world, and rousing the lingering fanaticism of Naples to defend the priests. Count Cavour dared all; and amidst the screams of the Pope, the wrath of conservatives through Europe, he swept his troops forward to within sight of Rome. The second example was in Naples. The one thing it was supposed the Government dare not do, was to strike at the priesthood of the South. The population was superstitious, the educated few, the priests wealthy and determined. The Premier struck them to the ground; in one decree confiscated their revenues, suppressed their superfluous houses, and changed them from an order in the State into powerless pensionnaires. The truth is, that, popular in his sympathies and imperial in his designs, Cavour was in temperament an aristocrat. The contempt with which, in the last parliamentary debate at which he assisted, he laughed down the idea of Neapolitan resistance, was a true index to his mind. His views, once clear to himself, were inflexible; and the circumstances which to other men seemed so insuperable, appeared to him only to call for more vigorous exertion. It was the temperament we admire in the Roman patricians and in the history of England, but which seems marvellous, because, though often found in a class, it is seldom so conspicuous in the individual. We have left ourselves small space to sum up the character of Cavour; but if ever man united in himself the highest praise of the ancient statesman, "he made a small State great," with the highest claim of the modern patriot, "he deserved well of his country,"-that man was the one whom all that is best in Europe has now agreed to mourn. BOOKS OF THE QUARTER SUITABLE FOR READING SOCIETIES. Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, with an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church. Murray. [Reviewed in Article II.] The History of Civilization in England. By Thomas Henry Buckle. Vol. II. Parker, Son, and Bourn. [A volume remarkable for its very dogmatic scepticism, and carrying the strange and often foolish theories of its predecessor to even greater extremes; but full of interest, and of Mr. Buckle's one-sided ability.] The Early and Middle Ages of England. By Charles H. Pearson. Bell and Daldy. [The work of a true scholar, and yet calculated to prove a most useful instrument of education in the highest class of schools.] The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. By the Count de Montalembert. Authorised Translation. 2 vols. Blackwood. The New Examen; or, an Inquiry into the Evidence relating to certain Passages in Lord Macaulay's History. By John Paget, Barristerat-Law. Blackwood and Son. [Noticed in Article IV.] The Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt. By Earl Stanhope. Vols. I. and II. Murray. [Reviewed in Article IX.] Some Account of the Life and Opinions of Charles, second Earl Grey. By Lieutenant-General C. Grey. Bentley. Private Correspondence of Thomas Raikes with the Duke of Wellington, and other distinguished Contemporaries. Edited by his daughter, Harriet Raikes. Bentley. My Own Life and Times, 1741-1814. By Thomas Somerville, D.D., Minister of Jedburgh. Edmonton and Douglas. [A book of shrewd sense and some humour, and extremely well edited.] The Life of Richard Porson. [Reviewed in Article V.] By the Rev. John Watson, M.A., Memoirs of Edward Forbes, FR.S. By George Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E, and Archibald Geikie, F.R.S.E. Macmillan. [An interesting subject somewhat clumsily treated.] Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the 2 vols. Allen. [A book full of amusing historical and biographical anecdotes of the Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. By E. B.' Ramsay, Considerations on Representative Government. By John Stuart Mill. [A book which, if not quite up to the mark of Mr. Mill's best works, is Lectures on Colonisation and Colonies, delivered before the University The Doctrine of the Atonement of the Son of God. By Henry Solly. [A thoughtful and earnest book.] Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews. By Richard Whately, D.D., [Containing some of Dr. Whately's best essays, but some also very poor The History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine. By J. Rutherfurd Russell, M.D. With Portraits. Murray. [A good and amusing book, pervaded by the writer's homœopathic creed, but scrupulously just to the great men of all schools.] Essays from the "Quarterly Review." By James Hannay. Hurst and Blackett. The Province of Jurisprudence determined; being the first part of a Series of Lectures on Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Law. By the late John Austin, Esq. Murray. Java; or, How to Manage a Colony. By J. W. B. Money, Barristerat-Law. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett. [An able book, intended to give us hints on Indian government, but not at all adapted for that purpose.] ༣: T Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 239 The English Cathedrals of the Nineteenth Century. By A. J. Beresford Hope, M.A., D.C.L. With Illustrations. Murray. The Englishwoman in Italy. Impressions of Life in the Roman States and Sardinia during a Ten Years' Residence. By Mrs. G. Gretton. Hurst and Blackett. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa; with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. With Maps and Illustrations. Murray. [Amusing enough, if trustworthy.] History of the Siege of Delhi. By an Officer who served there. With a Sketch of the leading Events in the Punjaub connected with the Great Rebellion of 1857. Black. The Punjaub and Delhi in 1857. A Narrative of the Measures by which the Punjaub was saved and Delhi recovered during the Indian Mutiny. By the Rev. J. Cave Brown, Chaplain of the Punjaub Movable Column in 1857. 2 vols. Blackwood and Sons. Ten Weeks in Japan. By George Smith, D.D., Bishop of Victoria and Hong-Kong. Longmans. Ten Years' Wanderings amongst the Ethiopians, with Sketches of Manners and Customs of the Civilized and Uncivilized Tribes from Senegal to Gaboon. By Thomas J. Hutchinson, F.R.G.S. Hurst and Blackett. By-Roads and Battle-Fields in Picardy, with Incidents and Gatherings by the Way, between Ambleteuse and Ham, including Agincourt and Crecy. By G. M. Musgrave, M.A. Illustrated. Bell and Daldy. Sketching Rambles; or, Nature in the Alps and Apennines. By The English at Home. By Alphonse Esquiros. Translated and edited by Lascelles Wraxall. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall. Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. By George Eliot, Author of "Adam Bede." Blackwood and Co. [As finely conceived and as perfect as "Adam Bede, " though not admitting of the same display of various power.] Homeless; or, a Poet's Inner Life. By M. Goldschmidt. Hurst and Blackett. [A novel of real genius, rather ill-proportioned, and occasionally dragging in interest; tinged, too, with the not very moral idealism of Goethe's school.] |