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solemn opening of thedeposit consigned by Goethe in 1827 to the authorities of Weimar , with directions for its opening on May 17 , 1850 , m presence of both his and Schiller ' s heirs Frau von Goethe—his daughter-in-law— Walther and Wolfgang , his grandsons , with Frau von Junot , and Karl von Schiller were assembled . The contents were found to be the entire correspondence between the two great Poets—a portion of which has been published some years m 6 vols . octavo—mostly autographs . The whole collection is to be printed forthwith .
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PEPE ' S ITALIAN STRUGGLE . Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy , from 1847 to 1849 , including the Siege of Venice . By Lieutenant-General Pepe , Commander-in-chief , &c . In 2 vols . H . Colburn . A witty and accomplished English novelist , whose grandfather came from Venice , has said , in mercy to the Italians , that " they were better than their reputation . " He might have said both better and worse . Many of the virtues they get credit for , no less than many of the vices they are charged with , belong to the past—perhaps merely to the romance of the past . On a closer acquaintance , the Italians , like the rest of us all , will be found " no better and no worse than
they should be . General Pepe , for one , is undoubtely as far above the moral as he is below the intellectual standard commonly assigned to his countrymen ; a rare phenomenon of a man from Italy , whose heart is better than his head . More uprightness and consistency , truth and soldier-like candour and simplicity , are not to be found amongst the most genuine Teutons . But hs for his statecraft and political foresight , the old Calabrian conspirator is little more than a very child .
So much for Italian talent for politics ; so much for their inheritance of all the keen wisdom of Macchiavello . General Pepe had concluded his memoirs in 1847 . He was composing himself to leisure and comfort for his evening of life ( being then on his sixty-fourth year ) when the shadows of coming events , which , in good sooth , came upon him by surprise , made him aware that his task was not yet accomplished , and that " he should have more volumes to write . "
He left Paris on the very first vague report of an outbreak at Milan . Upon his landing at Genoa , finding that matters were already progressing" in the north , that Charles Albert had already crossed Ticino , and the Au trians were in full retreat to the Mincio , the General steered for Naples , reaching the litter city on the 29 th of March . Here he had a narrow escape of being Prime Minister ; but , once more taking to his former trade , he accepted the offer of a supreme command of a Neapolitan force destined for the national war into Lombardy .
At the time , be it remembered , Pepe and every man in Europe thought that the Neapolitan expedition was scarcely needed to make assurance doubly sure . The southern troops must march with great speed if they wish to be in time to see the last of the barbarians out of Italy ; but the King and people of Naplrs thought it worth their while to try what share in the glory , perhaps in the profits , of the emancipation ofLombardy , would be secured by at least a show of good intentions , and the expedition was resolved upon .
It took the whole of April to fit it out . Pepe was nt Bolognn , with his head-quarters only on the 20 th of May . On the 22 nd he received orders for a countermarch . He disobeyed the Royal decree : was forsaken by the whole mass of his troops , and entered Lombardy nt the head of two battalions of Neapolitan imil other volunteers ; with these ho shut himself up in Venice , and there held the supreme sway of the defenders of the Lngoon , during that memorable fifteen months' siege . Had lVpo limited himself to a recital of his own
saying- * and doings , to that part of his theme where he shines forth both as hero and historian , his book would huve , with half its bulk , twice its importance . The remainder , the accounts of Charles Albert ' s disastrous campaigns , the revolutions of Palermo , Milan , Venice ; the riots in Calabria , the slaughter in Uriseiu , the affairs ot Tuscany and Home are given not onl y oii ^ thc faith , but in the very words of other yjiritto&&B » sVw'iVh ii great variety not only of diligence uud ability , tnjt also of political views and convic" ticfois , \ ' , ¦ " , \ ' No lees thari ten chapters out of the twenty-seven likvu ljpp'fi Touti'ibuteil by oHut hind .-. We deem it
important to state the fact in justice to the work itself and its author , especially as some of our contemporaries , the Alhenaum for one , have overlooked it , notwithstanding the notes and other declarations , by which the honest general tenders his acknowledgment to his fellow-labourers , and which stare at the critic at the beginning or end of each of the borrowed pieces . By this kind of joint-stock production the General has endeavoured hastily and clumsily to get up a history of the last two years in Italy . But poor Pepe is anything rather than a historian ; his " memoirs " are the only thing of value in his two volumes . The rest , worse than cumbersome . In spite of a great deal of anile verbosity , and of childish , but extremely harmless egotism , in spite of his half-classical , half-sansculottic view of the game of politics , we read him with breathless interest : a very different interest , indeed , to whatever could accrue to the recital of his youthful exploits , published in 1847 ; for there the twaddle was distressingly elaborate , and the events related ( the revolt of Naples in 1820 ) such as every lover of freedom , and every upholder of man ' s dignity , would wish to see eternally consigned to oblivion . But in 1848 the Italians have saved , indeed restored , their honour . Any man coming out of Rome or Venice after an inevitable surrender has a right to be listened to : Pepe , of all men , whose evidence alone will set at rest our doubts on one or two points , and clear up much of the mystery of those cruel Italian disasters . And first , as to the backward movement of the Neapolitans in May , 1848 , which was the very first home-thrust at the cause of Italian independence , Pepe has Ferdinand ' s private and official documents in his hands , and he writes with full determination to spare no living being—less than all a King . On his first interview with the King of Naples , when Pepe was trying to organise a Ministry of his own , he advised Ferdinand to grant a new constitution on a *? broader basis ; " he pioposed the abolition of the Chamber of Peers , &c . The King would not listen to this , and , seeing the unseasonableness of internal reforms and improvements in times of open war , we must say that he evinced a sounder sense than his adviser . The expedition to the north was then proposednot by Pepe , be it remembered , though he would most certainly have recommended it—but by the King's Government . The fitting out of this armament did not keep pace with the General ' s own impatience ; but we do not think a month too long a time for Neapolitan troops , kept as they always are in a state of proverbial improvidence and indiscipline . The King was loth to take the lead himself , as Pepe strongly recommended , and the army never reached the number of forty thousand combatants , agreeably to the original plan . In all this Pepe discovers symptoms of bad faith ai : d lukewarmness on the King's part . Yet , if we reflect upon the unsettled state of the kingdom , the open war in Sicily , the dread of falling into utter helplessness in h ; s own capital , we think that even a far better King than Ferdinand nvght have shown hesitation and perplexity . The war of independence was a necessity for him as it had been for the sovereigns of Piedmont , Home , and Tuscany , Italy willed it , God willed it , but Naples was far away from the scene of action ; Ferdinand ' s own share of the spoil could certainly never be so large as that which was sure to fall to the lot of his Piedmontese rival . On the other hand the ultra-Democrats , with Pepe at their head , who seemed to think an old despot may be won to their cause in two minutes , harassed him without ceasing , came to him with fresh demands every day , and made him too soon aware that the footfall of the last Austrian driven across the Alps would be the death-knell to all that remained of royalty in Italy . It is impossible not to perceive that after the fatnl events of February in Paris , the Italians repented their moderate and conciliatory course they hud hitherto followed with their Princes , and that , able now to act without them , they were only anxibus to get rid of them . The expedition set out , nevertheless . Pepe found them at Anc . ona struggling against the obstacles which the pious Pope was everywhere raising on their way . lie gathered them at Uologna , harangued hem in the loftiest strain of confidence and assurance , notwithstanding tho following precious
document which he held in his waistcoat pocket all the time : — " ' Naples , May 3 , 1848 . " 'Excellency , —I must bear your Excellency , on the arrival of the troops which the State has so worthily com . rnitted to your Excellency ' s charge , to confine yourself to concentrating them on the right bank of the Po , and there wait for instructions from the regal Government as to the active part they are to take in the present war , for the liberation of Italy from a foreign yoke . ' The most energetic measures are being taken in order to establish a convention among the Italian princes , to determine the part which our troops are to take in the said contest , whereupon your Excellency will receive instructions , perhaps before the troops are reunited ; and you may rest assured that not an instant will be lost in informing you of the part assigned to them . " Your Excellency will be pleased to inform the Regal Government , as often as possible , of all the movements made , whether partially or collectively , by the troops confided to your Excellency . " ' For this purpose your Excellency is authorised to expedite couriers or officers in employment , either as far as Guglielmo , where we have a telegraph , or here , according to the importance of what you may have to communicate . " The Minister Secretary of State for War and Marine . ( Signed ) " ' Rafaele del Giudice . " To his Excellency Lieut .-Gen . Baron Guglielmo Pepe , Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Expedition for Northern Italy . ' " Had Pepe made known the contents of this letter to the public , he says the King would inevitably have been assassinated ; he contented himself , however , by putting away the despatch and considering it as not received . This letter , however , does not contain sufficient proof of a determination on the part of the King to withdraw from the national contest . It must be remembered that at that time the success of the Piedmontese was universally looked upon as too rapid and certain . Consequently the King of Naples might , by relieving too soon , have suffered Charles Albert to carry all the honour and price of the liberation of Lombardy , and had to bear all the brunt of liberalism at home with the increase of unpopularity consequent on his dastardly defection . On the other hand , Ferdinand must , indeed , have felt sure of the hold he had on . his troops , especially under such a general , if he could reckon on their implicit reliance whenever it were his pleasure to recall them from the path of honour and duty . It must be kept in mind , also , that up to the fatal 15 th of May , the King only acted by the advice of Ministers chosen from the popular ranks , amongst the most exalted patriots , and that jealousy of the Piedmontese success was a feeling , we are sorry and at-hamed to confess , that prevailed in many a heart in Northern Italy , besides Ferdinand ! Well , from the date of that letter ( May 3 rd ) to that of the final recall of the Neapolitan troops ( May 18 th ) only a fortnight elapsed ; but during that fortnight the King was attacked in his own palace , and had to struggle for existence . Liberal papers have boldly asserted , it is true , that it was the King himself who attacked the people , and that the pretended insurrection of the loth of May was the result of a plot of his own contrivance . We must not , however , lote sight of the fact that the King was almost disarmed ; that in spite of the staunch fidelity , and intrepidity of the Swiss , he found himself more than once in a forlorn , and almost hopeless situation . We are quite willing to go hand in hand with Ferdinand ' s enemies so long as they describe him as a thoroughly bad and base man ; but not when they attribute to him a finesse and far-sightedness beyond that of any man ; not when they attribute to him either the brains for plotting or the heart for hutching a coup d'Ctat . No ! No ! he acted at random as almost every man did in 18-18 , and is even now thundoistruck at his own success , like his father and grandfather before him ; that wretched King liumba is nothing better than a ead mixture of the craven and imbecile . . . Pepe himself , addicted as ho is to see prodigies of kingcraft in all those blunderings of a distracted cabinet , thinks it impossible that the recall of tho troops would bo contemplated before the bloody doings of May 15 . Even then , wo think , the King was any thing but easy as to the reception his orders would meet with at the camp . That Pepe would be contumacious was tolerably certain . 13 ut Ilubclla , the commander under him , and vice-admiral De Cosu , a place-man , even though un old patriot , found it expedient to obey . " De Cosa obeyed with grief , " * «>"••* Pope , •* but he obeyed ; " the soldiers everywhere ie-
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280 ®!> e % LtU'&tX + [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), June 15, 1850, page 280, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1842/page/16/
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