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    THE VOLCANO IN VENETIA.

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    Sardinia to engage to refrain from sending troops into Central Italy , and at the same time have permitted Austria to have continued her preparations for a sudden arid fraudulent attack . It is fortunate for all parties , herself excepted , that Austria has declined to . accept the doctrine of non-intervention , or "to recognise a state of things in Italy that has arisen from insurrection , " and eminently characteristic that she has coupled this declaration with falsehoods , which Lord John Eussell gravely detailed to the House . Austria declares " that she has no intention of interfering in the affairs of Central Italy , and " that she is not going to send any troops beyond her own frontiers . " In . spirit ; , if not in letter , both these statements are untrue . Recruiting is going on at Vienna for the Pope and the King of Naples , not only among the vagabonds of the place ; but among discharged soldiers who have seen eight

    , years' service and are ready for the field . Additional fortifications are erected in Austrian Italy , and large reinforcements have recently been sent to Mantua , near which place is stationed the Duke of Modena , with a little army wearing the Austrian uniform , and not to be distinguished from the Imperial troops . It is very difficult to get accurate accounts of the forces which are threatening Central Italy , but it is reported that the Duke of Moderia has with him about 4 , 000 men , who are virtually , and in many cases actually , Austrian , troops ; . and this little army can , at any moment , be surreptitiously increased from the garrison of Mantua , which is out of all proportion to the requirements of defence . The Pope has , probably , 4 , 000 so-called Swiss , as many . Austro-Bavarians , and as many Italians . At any rate four regiments have been sent to Ancona , and they are considered as much Austrian as before they entered the service of

    the Church . In Vienna * as well as in Italy , a renewal of war in some shape or another is confidently expected , and from present : appearances it seems likely to take the form of a clandestine attack by Austria upon some portion of Central Italy . If the Pope moves it will bean Austrian move , -whatever the Hapsburg Government may say , and the same may be affirmed of the King of Naples or the Duke of Modena . . If Austria is determined to hold Venetia , and not to recognise

    the independence of Central Italy and her right to annex herself to Sardinia , she is morally at .-war both with the people and the Government which they have chosen . She is also phy sically . at war with them , by supplying- soldiers to their avowed enemies , -and by crowding their open and vulnerable frontier with massps of troops . That this condition of tension can last long without explosion is in the highest degree improbable ; and no one appears able to influence the infatuated sovereign at Vienna with a single just , honourable , or prudent idea . We must look to the

    decay of Home or Byzantium for a parallel to Francis Joseph ' s course . He avoids all means of knowledge , or the society of enlightened men . "When not engaged in schemes of violence , or listening to the evil counsels of priests , his time is passed in debauchery ; and what may be the last hours of the last Emperor of Austria are said to be divided between his equestrian mistress and bottles of champagne . The young woman alluded to is nominally / engaged to tame the Imperial horses ; but is suspected to be employed by the Jesuits to exert her Itarey powers upon their Imperial master .

    Count JIechberCt , Count Buol , Count Tiiuk , and Baron 13 a . ch are the men whp represent the policy of the decrepit empire ; The first is a proud incapable absolutist ; the second engaged at Home in those intrigues of which the Pope is the focus ; the third got up the Concordat , with the help of Baron Bach , and is now signalising himself by exciting the alarming Protestant quarrel in Hxingiuy . It is marvellous that tho Whigs should still express hopes for the stability of * Austria , and under any circumstances assist her in retaining" the Venetian territory ; and it is to bo remarked that Lord John Rus » jell has received no encouragement from Itussin , for whom he is too liberal ; while Prussia exhibited her usual policy of cowardice , and waited to know what France and Austria would think .

    What Austria thinks ia now definitely made known , and Lord John Russell has received a lesson against foolish speaking ,-for , in rejecting his schemes , Count HEqiUBEito reminds him that last April ho defended the existence of foreign domination in Italy , by appealing to the Treaty of Vienna , which he deolured to be " tho chartor by which Europe holds its present ilistvibution of territory . " His lordship will have to lcara that human , rights are abovo all conventions of potentates , and lie had better teU Austria with frankness that Europe has outgrown the Treaty of 1815 5 and that if it wore not so , she would not bo entitled to its protection , after she had violated it by tho absorption of Cracow , If a renewal of war in Italy is to bo prevented , it will not bo

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    PLINY the Elder , when lie saw the great eruption of Vesuvius , compared its appearance to a vast tree of-fire ,, whose , red boughs rose slowly from the orifice of the crater , and spread luniinousj wider and wider , till they overshadowed * with broad crimson shadows , the mountain from which they had emerged . Such a tree of fire as Pliny saw is now rising through the soil of the Austrian territory , of Venetia . Already the keener sights can ¦ distinguish the topmost twigs , piercing through the ground at the foot of the very ramparts of . Verona . Oh , for another Dante to cry Woe ! to those Tedeschi who linger top long under its consuming shade , when that volcano tree of revolution shall jet forth again in all the fulness-of its destructive majesty . ; . \ .

    Dismissing our simile , let us draw attention to the unmistakable signs of revolt that every week's letters bring us from the last refuge of the Austriansin Italy . To-day it is seven officers who have been poniarded or shot in the streets of Verona- ^—tomorrow , a popular demonstration in the theatre-at Venice ; now some . sympathetic murniurings at Naples—now a groan from handcuffed Mantua . No one accustomed , to study the political barometer but must feel that there is a storm in the air , as surely as the farmer does when he sees his pigs uneasy or his cat washing her face Avith her paws . The straw is a small thing ; hut , thrown up , it tells , certainly ,, how the wind , blows , , .

    Every traveller who arrives from Italy infonns us that the regions of freedom and slavery are now as easily distinguishable as sun and shadow ; day and night . Happy free faces receive you at the gates of Milan ; you no longer are dragged before-a sort of court-martini of insolent and threatening officials ; A cloud seems lifted from the city . The citizens walk with a . bolder step . Milan is no longer the prison fortress that it Avas in the Austrian time . It is . the " same , they tell us , all the way to Peschiera . As you are swept by the train through oliveyard . and vineyard , rows of mulberries , and yellow gourd patches , the people sing and talk free and bold , and ani frank , gentle , happy , and proud of the liberty they helped to win .

    Pass the Peschiera frontier , got out of sight of the blue Lago di Ga . rda and the enchanted Tyrol mountains , pnss the bencon tower of Solferino on its scorched hill , and a great darkness falls over the scene . Every third person is a . brutal defiant soldier , or a sly , sleek , effeminate priest . Detentions . become longer , military officials demand your passport as if they were demanding your purse . You are locked in , shouldered about , questioned as if you were a criminal ; your luggage is punctured and rifled , and at last you entor Ycrona , tired and vexed , through a town ' s length of . turfen mounds , and through a gate of enormous strength . It is the same at Venice . Two antagonistic rnces—races that never can blend—fill the streets . You see the Italian scowl , you sec the Austrian officer curl his lipand you feel that such a ' state of things cannot last .

    , Everywhere there is a sense of restlessness among the people . Watchwords are invented , lampoon ' s written , telegraphic signs arranged to express sympnthy with Gaiudaldi and hatred for the Austrian . Tho smallest event is caught up and used to express popular feeling . For instance , the other day in Mantua , with true military lovo of interference , Baron Arloz , a great man , no less than the Imperial Royal Lieutenant , and Field Marshal and Governor Commandant of tho city and fortress of Mantua , issued on edict in favour of orinoliues , of all things in tho world . The very next Sunday nearly all tho Indies of Mantua appeared without crinolines , just to spite the ftaron , and

    the few who retained thorn were followed by mobs oi' boys , crying out " Abnsso i crinolini I" Those nro siunll things , but they show a great hatred ., . No wonder that tho Austrian garrisons begin to lose moral courage , and to feel savage and distrustful at seeing every Italian fnco blacken us they upproaoh . Tho Commandante , ns ' ho sips his lomonudu in tho oaf 6 , deserted when he enters , knows that tho groat troo of five is putting out its first buds under his very , . foot . The Austrian captain , who at tlio opera hears tho people cheer when there is sorne ohanco allusion to Freedom , loses heart , because ho feels that the fiory tree of tho voloano has struck its roots under tho very playhouse whore he is . , Let diplomatists squabble and lie over thoir maps and parcU *

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    by inviting Sardinia to abandon the national cause , but by inducing Austria to sell Venetia , and let the Pope and the King of . Naples reckon with their subjects as well as they may . If the Austrian Court will not bring its mind to this conclusion , it will drift , or willingly move , towards a renewal of hostilities , and for such a catastrophe the Hungarians wait in confidence , that for them as well as for the Italians the hour of liberty must arrive .

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    Feb . , 1860 . J TheLeaderand'SaturdayAnalyst . 129

    The Volcano In Venetia.

    THE VOLCANO IN VENETIA .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 129, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2333/page/5/