No More Learning

A. H. Bullen in their different
anthologies and editions rescued him for us. Mr. Bullen's privately
printed volume of his works appeared in 1889. The present writer
has more recently (1896) edited a very full selection of the lyrics in
the 'Lyric Poets' series. Campion's fame, without doubt, is destined
to grow steadily from this time forth, based as it is on poems which
so perfectly and exquisitely satisfy the lyric sense and the lyric rela-
tionship between music and poetry.
srest Rhys
A HYMN IN PRAISE OF NEPTUNE
F NEPTUNE'S empire let us sing,
At whose command the waves obey;
To whom the rivers tribute pay,
Down the high mountains sliding;
To whom the scaly nation yields
Homage for the crystal fields
Wherein they dwell;
OF
And every sea-god pays a gem
Yearly out of his wat'ry cell,
To deck great Neptune's diadem.
The Tritons dancing in a ring
Before his palace gates do make
The water with their echoes quake,
Like the great thunder sounding:
The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,
And the Syrens, taught to kill
With their sweet voice,
Make every echoing rock reply,
Unto their gentle murmuring noise,
The praise of Neptune's empery.
From Ward's English Poets. '


## p. 3187 (#157) ###########################################

CAMPION
3187
OF CORINNA'S SINGING
WH
HEN to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear.
But when she doth of mourning speak,
E'en with her sighs the strings do break.
And as her lute doth live and die,
Led by her passions, so must I:
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring;
But if she do of sorrow speak,
E'en from my heart the strings do break.
From Ward's English Poets>
FROM 'DIVINE AND MORAL SONGS›
(A. H. Bullen's modern text)
NE
EVER weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my trou-
bled breast.
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven's high Paradise;
Cold age deafs not there our ears, nor vapor dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the Blessed only see.
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
TO A COQUETTE
(A. H. Bullen's modern text)
WHE
HEN thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finished love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,


## p. 3188 (#158) ###########################################

3188
CAMPION
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honors done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.
SONGS FROM LIGHT CONCEITS OF LOVERS'
HERE shee her sacred bowre adornes,
The Rivers clearely flow;
WHER
The groves and medowes swell with flowres,
The windes all gently blow.
Her Sunne-like beauty shines so fayre,
Her Spring can never fade :
Who then can blame the life that strives
To harbour in her shade?
Her grace I sought, her love I wooed;
Her love though I obtaine,
No time, no toyle, no vow, no faith,
Her wished grace can gaine.
Yet truth can tell my heart is hers,
And her will I adore;
And from that love when I depart,
Let heav'n view me no more!
GIVE beauty all her right,-
She's not to one forme tyed;
Each shape yeelds faire delight,
Where her perfections bide.
Helen, I grant, might pleasing be;
And Ros'mond was as sweet as shee.
Some, the quicke eye commends;
Some, swelling lips and red;
Pale lookes have many friends,
Through sacred sweetnesse bred.
Medowes have flowres that pleasure move,
Though Roses are the flowres of love.
Free beauty is not bound
To one unmovèd clime:
She visits ev'ry ground,
And favours ev'ry time.
Let the old loves with mine compare,
My Sov'raigne is as sweet and fair.


## p. 3189 (#159) ###########################################

3189
GEORGE CANNING
(1770-1827)
HE political history of this famous British statesman is told by
Robert Bell (1846), by F. H. Hill (English Worthies Series),
and in detail by Stapleton (his private secretary) in 'Polit-
ical Life of Canning. ' He became a friend of Pitt in 1793, entered
the House of Commons in 1794, was made Under-Secretary of State
in 1796, was Treasurer of the Navy from 1804 to 1806, Minister for
Foreign Affairs from 1807 till 1809, Ambassador to Lisbon from 1814
to 1816, again at the head of foreign affairs in 1822, and was made
Premier in 1827, dying under the labor of forming his Cabinet.
Soon after his birth in London, April
11th, 1770, his disinherited father died in
poverty, and his mother became an unsuc-
cessful actress. An Irish actor, Moody,
took young Canning to his uncle, Stratford
Canning, in London, who adopted him and
sent him to Eton, where he distinguished
himself for his wit and literary talent.
With his friends John and Robert Smith,
John Hookham Frere, and Charles Ellis,
he published a school magazine called The
Microcosm, which attracted so much atten-
tion that Knight the publisher paid Can-
ning £50 for the copyright. It was mod-
eled on the Spectator, ridiculed modes and
customs, and was a unique specimen of juvenile essay-writing. A
fifth edition of the Microcosm was published in 1825. Subsequently
Canning studied at Oxford. He died August 8th, 1827, at Chiswick
(the residence of the Duke of Devonshire), in the same room and at
the same age as Fox, and under similar circumstances; and he was
buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of William Pitt.
It was not until 1798 that he obtained his great reputation as a
statesman and orator. Every one agrees that his literary eloquence,
wit, beauty of imagery, taste, and clearness of reasoning, were
extraordinary. Byron calls him "a genius-almost a universal one;
an orator, a wit, a poet, and a statesman. " As a public speaker, we
may picture him from Lord Dalling's description:-

GEORGE CANNING
"Every day, indeed, leaves us fewer of those who remember the clearly
chiseled countenance, which the slouched hat only slightly concealed; the lip
satirically curled; the penetrating eye, peering along the Opposition benches,


## p. 3190 (#160) ###########################################

3190
GEORGE CANNING
of the old Parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. It is but here
and there that we find a survivor of the old days to speak to us of the sin-
gularly mellifluous and sonorous voice, the classical language, - now pointed
with epigram, now elevated into poetry, now burning with passion, now rich
with humor, which curbed into still attention a willing and long-broken
audience. »
As a statesman his place is more dubious. Like every English
politician not born to a title, however, - Burke is an instance, — he
was ferociously abused as a mere mercenary adventurer because his
livelihood came from serving the public. The following lampoon is a
specimen; the chief sting lies not in Canning's insolent mockery,-
"Every time he made a speech he made a new and permanent
enemy," it was said of him,- but in his not being a rich nobleman.
THE UNBELOVED
.
Not a woman, child, or man in
All this isle that loves thee, Canning.
Fools, whom gentle manners sway,
May incline to Castlereagh;
Princes who old ladies love
Of the Doctor * may approve;
Chancery lords do not abhor
Their chatty, childish Chancellor;
In Liverpool, some virtues strike,
And little Van's beneath dislike.
But thou, unamiable object,
Dear to neither prince nor subject,
Veriest, meanest scab for pelf
Fastening on the skin of Guelph,
Thou, thou must surely loathe thyself.
But his dominant taste was literary. His literature helped him to
the field of statesmanship; as a compensation, his statesmanship is
obscured by his literature. Bell says of him:—
"Canning's passion for literature entered into all his pursuits. It colored
his whole life. Every moment of leisure was given up to books. He and
Pitt were passionately fond of the classics, and we find them together of an
evening after a dinner at Pitt's, poring over some old Grecian in a corner
of the drawing-room while the rest of the company are dispersed in con-
versation. . . In English writings his judgment was pure and strict;
and no man was a more perfect master of all the varieties of composition.
He was the first English Minister who banished the French language from
our diplomatic correspondence and indicated before Europe the copiousness
and dignity of our native tongue. "
* Addington.


## p. 3191 (#161) ###########################################

GEORGE CANNING
3191
Part of the time that he was Foreign Secretary, Châteaubriand
held the like post for France, and Canning devoted much attention
to giving his diplomatic correspondence a literary polish which has
made these national documents famous. He also formed an intimate
friendship with Sir Walter Scott, founding with him and Ellis the
Quarterly Review, to which he contributed with the latter a humor-
ous article on the bullion question.
In literature Canning takes his place from his association with
the Anti-Jacobin, a newspaper established in 1797 under the secret
auspices of Pitt as a literary organ to express the policy of the ad-
ministration, similar to the Rolliad, the Whig paper published a few
years before this date; but more especially to oppose revolutionary
sentiment and ridicule the persons who sympathized with it. The
house of Wright, its publisher in Piccadilly, soon became the resort
of the friends of the Ministry and the staff, which included William
Gifford, the editor,-author of the Baviad' and 'Mæviad,'— John
Hookham Frere, George Ellis, Canning, Mr. Jenkinson (afterward Earl
of Liverpool), Lord Clare, Lord Mornington (afterward Lord Wellesley),
Lord Morpeth (afterward Earl of Carlisle), and William Pitt, who con-
tributed papers on finance.
The Anti-Jacobin lived through thirty-six weekly numbers, end-
ing July 16th, 1796. Its essays and poetry have little significance
to-day except for those who can imagine the stormy political atmo-
sphere of the Reign of Terror, which threatened to extend its rule
over the whole of Europe. Hence the torrents of abuse and the vio-
lent attacks upon any one tainted with the slightest Sans-culottic
tone may be understood.
The greater number of poems in the Anti-Jacobin are parodies,
but not exclusively political ones. The Loves of the Triangles' is
a parody on Dr. Erasmus Darwin's 'Loves of the Plants,' and con-
tains an amusing contest between Parabola, Hyperbola, and Ellipsis.
for the love of the Phoenician Cone; the Progress of Man' is a
parody of Payne Knight's 'Progress of Civil Society'; the 'Inscrip-
tion for the Cell of Mrs. Brownrigg' a parody of Southey; and 'The
Rovers, of which one scene is given below, is a burlesque on the
German dramas then in fashion. This was written by Canning,
Ellis, Frere, and Gifford, and the play was given at Covent Garden
in 1811 with great success, especially the song of the captive Rogero.
'The Needy Knife-Grinder,' also quoted below, a parody of Southey's
'Sapphics, is by Canning and Frere. The poetry of the Anti-
Jacobin was collected and published by Charles Edmonds (London,
1854), in a volume that contains also the original verses which are
exposed to ridicule. Canning's public speeches, edited by R. Therry,
were published in 1828.


## p. 3192 (#162) ###########################################

3192
GEORGE CANNING
ROGERO'S SOLILOQUY
From The Rovers; or the Double Arrangement >
ACT I
The scene is a subterranean vault in the Abbey of Quedlinburgh, with cof-
fins, 'scutcheons, death's-heads, and cross-bones; toads and other
loathsome reptiles are seen traversing the obscurer parts of the
stage. -Rogero appears, in chains, in a suit of rusty armor, with
his beard grown, and a cap of a grotesque form upon his head;
beside him a crock, or pitcher, supposed to contain his daily allow-
ance of sustenance. A long silence, during which the wind is heard
to whistle through the caverns. — Rogero rises, and comes slowly
forward, with his arms folded.
R
OGERO Eleven years! it is now eleven years since I was
first immured in this living sepulchre-the cruelty of a
Minister-the perfidy of a Monk-yes, Matilda! for thy
sake alive amidst the dead-chained-coffined — confined — cut
off from the converse of my fellow-men. Soft! what have we
here! [Stumbles over a bundle of sticks. ] This cavern is so dark
that I can scarcely distinguish the objects under my feet. Oh,
the register of my captivity! Let me see; how stands the
account? [Takes up the sticks and turns them over with a mel-
ancholy air; then stands silent for a few minutes as if absorbed in
calculation. ] Eleven years and fifteen days! -Hah! the twenty-
eighth of August! How does the recollection of it vibrate on
my heart!
It was on this day that I took my last leave of
Matilda. It was a summer evening; her melting hand seemed to
dissolve in mine as I prest it to my bosom. Some demon whis-
pered me that I should never see her more. I stood gazing on
the hated vehicle which was conveying her away forever. The
tears were petrified under my eyelids. My heart was crystallized
with agony.
Anon I looked along the road. The diligence
seemed to diminish every instant; I felt my heart beat against
its prison, as if anxious to leap out and overtake it. My soul
whirled round as I watched the rotation of the hinder wheels.
A long trail of glory followed after her and mingled with the
dust it was the emanation of Divinity, luminous with love and
beauty, like the splendor of the setting sun; but it told me that
the sun of my joys was sunk forever. Yes, here in the depths
-
――――


## p. 3193 (#163) ###########################################

GEORGE CANNING
3193
of an eternal dungeon, in the nursing-cradle of hell, the suburbs
of perdition, in a nest of demons, where despair in vain sits
brooding over the putrid eggs of hope; where agony wooes the
embrace of death; where patience, beside the bottomless pool of
despondency, sits angling for impossibilities. Yet even here, to
behold her, to embrace her! Yes, Matilda, whether in this dark
abode, amidst toads and spiders, or in a royal palace, amidst the
more loathsome reptiles of a court, would be indifferent to me;
angels would shower down their hymns of gratulation upon our
heads, while fiends would envy the eternity of suffering love-
Soft; what air was that? it seemed a sound of more than human
warblings. Again [listens attentively for some minutes]. Only
the wind; it is well, however; it reminds me of that melancholy
air which has so often solaced the hours of my captivity. Let
me see whether the damps of this dungeon have not yet injured
my guitar. [Takes his guitar, tunes it, and begins the following
air with a full accompaniment of violins from the orchestra: -]
[Air, Lanterna Magica. ']
SONG
Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.
[Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief, with which he wipes his eyes;
gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds: -]
Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in! -
Alas! Matilda then was true!
At least I thought so at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.
[At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks his chains in cadence. ]
Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift you flew,
Her neat post-wagon trotting in!
Ye bore Matilda from my view;
Forlorn I languished at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.


## p. 3194 (#164) ###########################################

GEORGE CANNING
3194
This faded form! this pallid hue!
This blood my veins is clotting in!
My years are many-they were few
When first I entered at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.
There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen!
Thou wast the daughter of my Tu-.
tor, law professor at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.
*Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu!
That kings and priests are plotting in:
Here doomed to starve on water gru—
el, never shall I see the U-
-niversity of Gottingen,
-niversity of Gottingen.
[During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the
walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion.
He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the
music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen. ]
THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER
FRIEND OF HUMANITY
N
EEDY Knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order-
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!
Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and
Scissors to grind O! "
Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it some squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?
This verse is said to have been added by the younger Pitt.


## p. 3195 (#165) ###########################################

GEORGE CANNING
3195
Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit ?
Have you not read the Rights of Man,' by Tom Paine?
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.
KNIFE-GRINDER
Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir;
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.
Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-
Stocks for a vagrant.
I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.
FRIEND OF HUMANITY
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first-
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!
[Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport
of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy. ]
ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
From the Speech on Parliamentary Reform›
O
THER nations, excited by the example of the liberty which
this country has long possessed, have attempted to copy
our Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond it
in the fierceness of their pursuit. I grudge not to other nations
that share of liberty which they may acquire: in the name of


## p. 3196 (#166) ###########################################

3196
GEORGE CANNING
God, let them enjoy it! But let us warn them that they lose
not the object of their desire by the very eagerness with which
they attempt to grasp it. Inheritors and conservators of rational
freedom, let us, while others are seeking it in restlessness and
trouble, be a steady and shining light to guide their course; not
a wandering meteor to bewilder and mislead them.
Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or dishearten-
ing counsel to those who are either struggling under the press-
ure of harsh government, or exulting in the novelty of sudden.
emancipation. It is addressed much rather to those who, though
cradled and educated amidst the sober blessings of the British
Constitution, pant for other schemes of liberty than those which
that Constitution sanctions-other than are compatible with a
just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of
social obligation; of some of whom it may be said, in the lan-
guage which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of the most
extravagant of his heroes, that
"They would be free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in the woods the noble savage ran. "
Noble and swelling sentiments! - but such as cannot be reduced
into practice. Grand ideas! - but which must be qualified and
adjusted by a compromise between the aspirings of individuals.
and a due concern for the general tranquillity; —must be sub-
dued and chastened by reason and experience, before they can be
directed to any useful end! A search after abstract perfection
in government may produce in generous minds an enterprise.
and enthusiasm to be recorded by the historian and to be
celebrated by the poet: but such perfection is not an object of
reasonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible attainment;
and never yet did a passionate struggle after an absolutely
unattainable object fail to be productive of misery to an indi-
vidual, of madness and confusion to a people. As the inhabi-
tants of those burning climates which lie beneath a tropical sun,
sigh for the coolness of the mountain and the grove; so (all
history instructs us) do nations which have basked for a time in
the torrid blaze of an unmitigated liberty, too often call upon
the shades of despotism, even of military despotism, to cover
them,-
«< O quis me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! "


## p. 3197 (#167) ###########################################

GEORGE CANNING
3197
a protection which blights while it shelters; which dwarfs the
intellect and stunts the energies of man, but to which a wearied
nation willingly resorts from intolerable heats and from perpetual
danger of convulsion.
Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom, the
clime best suited to the development of the moral qualities of
the human race, to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the
security as well as the improvement of their virtues;-a clime
not exempt, indeed, from variations of the elements, but varia-
tions which purify while they agitate the atmosphere that we
breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages which it is our
happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the
flame of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our
Constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the
chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its
purity or hazard its extinction!
ON BROUGHAM AND SOUTH AMERICA
I
NOW turn to that other part of the honorable and learned
gentleman's [Mr.
Brougham's] speech; in which he acknowl-
edges his acquiescence in the passages of the address, echoing
the satisfaction felt at the success of the liberal commercial prin-
ciples adopted by this country, and at the steps taken for recog-
nizing the new States of America. It does happen, however,
that the honorable and learned gentleman being not unfrequently
a speaker in this House, nor very concise in his speeches, and
touching occasionally, as he proceeds, on almost every subject
within the range of his imagination, as well as making some
observations on the matter in hand,--and having at different
periods proposed and supported every innovation of which the
law or Constitution of the country is susceptible, it is impossi-
ble to innovate without appearing to borrow from him. Either,
therefore, we must remain forever absolutely locked up as in a
northern winter, or we must break our way out by some mode
already suggested by the honorable and learned gentleman; and
then he cries out, "Ah, I was there before you! That is what I
told you to do; but as you would not do it then, you have no
right to do it now. "


## p. 3198 (#168) ###########################################

3198
GEORGE CANNING
1
In Queen Anne's reign there lived a very sage and able
critic named Dennis, who in his old age was the prey of a
strange fancy that he had himself written all the good things in
all the good plays that were acted. Every good passage he met
with in any author he insisted was his own. "It is none of
his," Dennis would always say: "no, it's mine! " He went one
day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly good to his
taste occurred till a scene in which a great storm was repre-
sented. As soon as he heard the thunder rolling over his head
he exclaimed, "That's my thunder! " So it is with the honor-
able and learned gentleman: it's all his thunder. It will hence-
forth be impossible to confer any boon, or make any innovation,
but he will claim it as his thunder.
But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim
everything; he will be content with the exclusive merit of the
liberal measures relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous
of violating his own principles by claiming a monopoly of fore-
sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to my honorable
and learned friend [Sir J. Mackintosh] near him, the praise of
South America. I should like to know whether, in some degree,
this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right itself; but lest
we should be too proud if he approved our conduct in toto, he
thinks it wrong in point of time. I differ from him essentially;
for if I pique myself on anything in this affair, it is the time.
That at some time or other, States which had separated them-
selves from the mother country should or should not be admitted
to the rank of independent nations, is a proposition to which no
possible dissent could be given. The whole question was one of
time and mode. There were two modes: one a reckless and
headlong course by which we might have reached our object at
once, but at the expense of drawing upon us consequences not
lightly to be estimated; the other was more strictly guarded in
point of principle, so that while we pursued our own interests,
we took
re to give no just cause of offense to other Powers.


## p. 3199 (#169) ###########################################

3199
CESARE CANTÙ
(1805-1895)
ESARE CANTÙ, an Italian historian, was born at Brivio on the
Adda, December 2d, 1805. The eldest of ten children, he
belonged to an old though impoverished family. To obtain
for him a gratuitous education his parents destined him for the
priesthood.
On the death of his father in 1827 he became the sole
support of his mother, brothers, and sisters. In 1825 he had made
his appearance as a writer with a poem entitled 'Algiso and the
Lombard League. ' His 'History of Como,' following in 1829, gave
him a standing in the world of letters.
Although not member of the revolutionary society Young
Italy,' he was the confidant of two of its leaders, Albera and Bal-
zetti, a circumstance which led to his arrest in 1833. Seized by the
Austrian officials in the midst of his lecture at the Lyceum in Milan,
he was incarcerated in the prison in the Convent of Santa Mar-
gherita. Although deprived of books and pen, he beguiled the time
by writing with a toothpick and candle-smoke on the back of a map
and on scraps of paper, Margherita Pusterla,' with one exception the
most popular historical novel in the Italian language.
(
Liberated at the end of a year, but deprived of his professorship,
he and his family would probably have starved had he not chanced
to meet a publisher who wanted a history of the world. The result
of this meeting was his 'Universal History' in thirty-five volumes
(Turin, 1836 et seq. ), which has gone through forty editions and been
translated into many languages. It brought the publisher a fortune
and Cantù a modest independence.
Up to the time of his death in 1895, Cantù wrote almost without
intermission. Besides the books already mentioned, the most notable
are
the 'History of a Hundred Years, 1750-1850' (1864), and the
'Story of the Struggles for Italian Independence' (1873). His mas-
terpiece is the 'Universal History,' the best work of its kind in Italian
and perhaps in any language for lucidity and rapidity of narration,
unity of plan, justness of proportion, and literary art. It is how-
ever written from the clerical point of view, and is not based on a
critical study of documentary sources. The political offenses for
which Cantù suffered persecution were his attempts to secure a federal
union of the Italian States under the hegemony of Austria and the
Papacy.


## p. 3200 (#170) ###########################################

3200
CESARE CANTÙ
THE EXECUTION
From Margherita Pusterla
HE beautiful sunshine which one sees in Lombardy only at
THE the season of vintage, spread its white light and gentle
warmth upon the sombre façades of Broletto. The Piazza
was packed with people; the balconies and belvideres were filled.
with motley groups.
Even ladies were contending for the best
places to see the horrible sight. One mother showed her little
boy all this preparation for death, and said to him:
"Do you see that man yonder with the long black beard and
rough skin? He devours bad boys in two mouthfuls: if you cry,
he will carry you off. "
The frightened child tightly clasped his mother's neck with
his small arms, and hid his face in her breast. Another, half
ashamed at being seen there, asked, "Who is the victim? "
"It is," replied a neighboring stranger, "the wife of the man
who was beheaded yesterday. "
―
"Ah, ah! " put in a third, "then it is the mother of the little
boy who was executed yesterday with Signor Pusterla? "
"How was that? resumed the first speaker; "did they behead
a child? "
"It is only too true," said a woman, joining in the conversa-
tion; "and such a pretty little boy! Two blue eyes, bluer than
the sky, and a face as gentle and sweet as that of the Christ-
child, and hair like threads of gold. I came here to show my
boy how the wicked are punished, and as I stood near the scaf-
fold, I heard and saw everything! "
"Tell us, tell us, Mother Radegonda. " And Radegonda,
enchanted at occupying the centre of attention, began.
"I will tell you," she said. "When he was there- but for
the love of charity, give me more room; you do not wish to
stifle my little Tanuccio? - Well, when he began to ascend the
ladder, ah, see, the child does not wish to go! He stamps his
foot, he weeps, he cries-»
"I believe you," interrupted a person named Pizzabrasa, " for
I heard all the way from the Loggia dei Mercanti, where I was
being crushed, his cries of 'Papa! Mamma! >»
"That was it," continued Radegonda; "and he recoiled with
horror before that savage figure," she said, pointing with her


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3201
forefinger to Mastro Impicca. "His father sobbed, and could not
speak; but his confessor whispered in his ear-
"I saw also," interrupted Pizzabrasa, determined to show that
he had been an eye-witness, and he continued: "the golden
hair of the child soon mingled with the black hair and beard of
the father. One would have said they were yellow flames on a
funeral pall. I also saw the child caress the priest who talked to
him, and the priest-"
"Who is the priest? " interrupted the first speaker. The
question was passed from lip to lip, until finally a man, dressed
somewhat after the ecclesiastical fashion and having a serene and
devout face, replied: -
"He is the one who preached at Lent last year at Santa-
Maria del Sacco. He could have converted Herod himself. But
the world is so wicked! He had no more success than if he had
preached in the desert. "
"His name? "
"Fra Buonvicino of the monastery Della Ricchezza de Brera.
But the riches that he covets are not those which one acquires in
sewing cloaks. Do you know him? Ah, what a man! question
him, talk to him, he knows everything, and—”
"But what did he say to the child? ". "And what did the
child say? ". "And the child's father, what did he do? " - It
was thus they interrupted the speaker, without listening to his
eulogy.
――
-――
Here Radegonda, regretting that she had been deposed from
her throne, took occasion to resume her speech, for no one was
able to give more details. She began again.
"Here, here," she said, "who is to talk, you or I? There are
some people who stick their noses everywhere and who—
Now do you want to know what the priest said? and how the
poor condemned creature walked with courage? and how in one
instant he was in heaven in the company of the angels? "
"And what did the child say? "
"The little child did not want to go along. He said: 'I
know that it is beautiful in Paradise, that the angels live there,
and the kind God, and there lives the good Madonna: but I
would rather stay here with Papa and Mamma; I would rather
stay with them! ' he repeated, and cried. "
"Sacred innocence! " exclaimed one of the listeners by an
instinctive compassion, and shed a few tears; but if any one had
VI-201


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CESARE CANTÙ
questioned him regarding the justice of putting the child to
death, he would have unhesitatingly answered in the affirmative.
Our eloquent Radegonda continued:-
――――
"But the priest! Is there any one here who did not see his
face? Well, you know how it looks when it rains and shines at
the same time, when they say the Devil beats his wife, - that
was the face of the good monk. Tears large as the beads of a
rosary ran down his cheeks, and at the same time he had a
smile like an angel.
He said to the boy, 'Your father
goes with you to Paradise! ' The child looked at him with sad
eyes, and asked, 'But Mamma? ' 'Your mother,' replied the
priest, will come with us. '-'If I stay on earth,' said the child,
'I must then live without them? › The monk answered 'Yes';
and then the little one consented to kneel. "
—
Here sobs checked the course of the narrative; and the nar-
rator was half ashamed at being affected by the fate of the
condemned ones, just as a young lady is ashamed when she is
caught weeping at the theatre. Pizzabrasa concluded the recital:
"The child dropped upon his knees, and raised towards
heaven his little hands that were whiter than snow, and then
the executioner cut his hair and opened his great eyes to frighten
him. "
"How much I would have been willing to pay to have been
present," exclaimed one of the group; "such affecting scenes
delight me. "
"Then why didn't you come? " asked a neighbor.
The other replied, "What do you think? I had to take to
Saint-Victor a saddle and bridle which I had mended. "
And then with that indifference such compassionate souls
have for the sorrows of others which have affected them for a
moment, they turned the conversation on a thousand unrelated
topics.
On the balconies, on the platforms, and in the magistrates'
halls, conversation of another description was held. Ladies and
gentlemen of high degree discussed arms and battles, inconstant
favors of the court, passage of birds, and the scarcity of hares;
they demanded and related news; and read from the books of
this one and that one. Signora Theodora, the young wife of
Francesco dei Maggi, one of the most famous beauties, asked in
the most nonchalant way as she drew on her gloves, “Who is
this one about to be executed ? »


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3203
« Margherita Visconti," replied Forestino, one of the sons of
Duke, who was playing the gallant with all the ladies
the
present.
« Visconti! " exclaimed the young woman. "She is then a
relative of Signor Vicario? "
"Yes, a distant relative," responded the young man.
But the jester Grillincervello interposed: -"She might have
been a nearer relative, but as she refused this, you see what has
happened. "
"She must regret her action," said another; "she is so young
and beautiful! "
«And then she is not accustomed to dying," put in the fool,
a reflection which caused peals of laughter around him.
Then he turned towards Forestino and his brother Bruzio,
around whom all had gathered in homage: "Serene Princes, it is
my opinion that if you wish to render attentions to the lady of
Signor Franciscolo dei Maggi, she will not imitate Margherita. »
At this moment the clock struck again. There was sullen
silence-then a second stroke- then a third, vibrating with a
moribund horror.
"She has arrived? >>>>
"No. "
"Why is she so late? " was the universal question; for the
spectators were impatient, and imbued with expectation and curi-
osity, as if they were in a theatre waiting for the curtain to
rise.
"Perhaps they have pardoned her? " said one.
"Well, for my part, I should be glad. " And the people seemed
to find as much pleasure in imagining a pardon as in watching
the execution: either way it gave them material for applause,
emotion, criticism, and discussion.
Soon all observations were interrupted, for upon the parlera,
which was covered with black cloth and velvet cushions, they saw
appear the magistrates, the podesta, his lieutenant, and finally
the captain Lucio. As I have told you, justice was then barbar-
ous but honest, and these men came to admire their work.
Through all the narrow streets, which terminated at this point,
ran a whisper; and the murmurs grew more excited towards the
large gate which gave entrance to the Pescheria Vecchia. Here
was seen the winding funeral procession, which made a long cir-
cuit to let the multitude profit by the lesson.


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3204
"Here she is! Here she is! " they cried, and exactly like a
regiment of infantry in obedience to the commands of a sergeant,
the entire crowd stood on tiptoe, stretched their necks, and turned
heads and eyes to the scene.
Then appeared a yellow standard bordered with gold lace,
upon which was painted a skeleton, erect. In one hand it held
a scythe and in the other an hour-glass. At the right of the
skeleton there was painted a man with a cord around his neck,
and to the left a man carrying his head in his hands. Behind
this gonfalon advanced two by two the Brothers of the Consola-
tion. This was a pious fraternity founded in the chapel of Santa
Maria dei Disciplini; this chapel was afterwards changed into a
church, which yielded to none other in Milan for its beauty of
architecture. To-day it is a
To-day it is a common school. This fraternity,
which was transferred to San Giovanni alle Case rotte, had for
its one aim to succor the condemned and to prepare them for
death. The brothers advanced. They were attired in white
habits, fitting tightly around their figures, and their cowls were
sewn around their heads. Instead of a face, one saw a cross
embroidered in red, and at the arms of this cross tiny holes
were made for the eyes to peer forth. On their breasts they
wore a black medal representing the death of Christ, and at the
foot of the cross was engraved the head of Saint John the
Baptist. With their long unbelted robes, the chains on their
wrists, they resembled nocturnal phantoms.
The last ones bore a coffin, and sang in lugubrious tones the
doleful Miserere. ' Chanting a service and carrying the bier of
a person still in the flesh! Breaking through the crowd, they
arrived near the scaffold and placed the bier upon the ground.
Then they arranged themselves in two cordons around the block,
so that they could receive the victim among them, and also to
form a guard between the world and her who was to leave it.
Now a car came, moving slowly and drawn by two oxen capari-
soned in black. In this car was our poor Margherita.
In obedience to the curious sentiment which commands one
to adorn one's self for all occasions, even the melancholy ones,
Margherita had dressed herself in a rich robe of sombre hue.
With great pains she had arranged her black hair, which set off
to advantage the delicate pallor of the face revealing so much
suffering. Upon her neck, which had so often disputed white-
ness with pearls, she now wore her rosary, which seemed to


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3205
outline the circle of the axe. In her hands she clasped the
crucifix attached to the chapelet, and from this she never
removed her eyes,-eyes which had always beamed with kind-
ness and sweetness, but which were now full of sorrow. They
could only look upon one object — the cross, the one hope of sal-
vation.
By her side was seated Buonvicino, even paler, if possible,
than she. In his hand he held an image of the Crucified God
who has suffered for us. From time to time he spoke some con-
soling words to the young victim,-a simple prayer such as our
mothers have taught us in infancy, and which come to us again
in the most critical moments of life: "Savior, unto thee I yield
my spirit. Maria, pray for me at the hour of death. Depart,
Christian soul, from this world, which is but a place of exile, and
return into that celestial country sanctified by thy suffering, so
that angels may bear thee to Paradise! "
When Margherita appeared, every one exclaimed: "Oh, how
beautiful she is! She is so young! "
-
Then tears flowed. Many a silken handkerchief hid the eyes
of fair ladies, and many a hand, accustomed to a sword, tried to
retard tears.
Every one looked towards Lucio to see if he would not wave
a white handkerchief-the signal of pardon.
Translated through the French by Esther Singleton, for the Library of the
World's Best Literature. '


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3206
GIOSUE CARDUCCI
(1836-)
BY FRANK SEWALL
PRS
ARELY in the history of ancient or modern literature has a
writer, while living, been so generally recognized by his
countrymen as their national prophet as has the Italian
poet and essayist Carducci. In January, 1896, he completed his thirty-
fifth year as Professor of Belles-Lettres in the University of Bologna;
and the solemn and brilliant festivities with which the event was
celebrated, extending over three days and including congratulatory
addresses from the king, from the municipality, from the students
and graduates, from foreign universities, and from distinguished
scholars at home and abroad, testified to the remarkable hold this
poet has gained on the affections and esteem of the Italian people,
and the deep impress his writing has made on the literature of our
time.
Born in northern Italy in the year 1836, and entering upon his lit-
erary career at a time coincident with the downfall of foreign power
in Tuscany, the history of his authorship is a fair reflection of the
growth of the new Italy of to-day. In an autobiographical sketch
with which he prefaces his volume of 'Poesie' (1871) he depicts with
the utmost sincerity and frankness the transition through which his
own mind has passed, in breaking from the old traditions in which
he had been nursed at his mother's knee, and in meeting the
dazzling radiance of modern thought and feeling; the thrill of
national liberty and independence, no longer a glory dreamed of,
as by Alfieri, nor sung in tones of despair, as by Leopardi, but as
a living experience of his own time. He felt the awakening to be
at once a literary, political, and religious one; and following his
deep Hellenic instincts, the religious rebound in him was rather to
the paganism of the ancient Latin forefathers than to the spiritual
worship that had come in with the infusion of foreign blood.
"This paganism," he says, "this cult of form, was naught else but
the love of that noble nature from which the solitary Semitic
estrangements had alienated hitherto the spirit of man in such bitter
opposition. My sentiment of opposition, at first feebly defined, thus
became confirmed conceit, reason, affirmation; the hymn to Apollo
became the hymn to Satan. Oh! the beautiful years from 1861 to
1865, passed in peaceful solitude and quiet study, in the midst of a


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GIOSUE CARDUCCI
3207
home where the venerable mother, instead of fostering superstition,
taught us to read Alfieri. But as I read the codices of the fourteenth
century, the ideas of the Renaissance began to appear to me in the
gilded initial letters like the eyes of nymphs in the midst of flowers,
and between the lines of the spiritual laude I detected the Satanic
strophe. ”
So long had Italy lived in passive dependence on the fame of her
great writers of the times of Augustus and of the Medici, and in the
apathy of a long-abandoned hope of political independence and
achievement, that it required a man of powerful instinct and genius
to rouse the people to a sense of their actual possession of a national
life and of a literature that is not alone of the past, and so to throw
off both the "livery of the slave and the mask of the courtesan. "
Such was the mission of Carducci. As Howells in his 'Modern
Italian Poets' remarks of Leopardi :- "He seems to have been the
poet of the national mood: he was the final expression of that hope-
less apathy in which Italy lay bound for thirty years after the fall
of Napoleon and his governments. " So it may be said of Carducci
that in him speaks the hope and joy of a nation waking to new life,
and recalling her past glories, no longer with shame but a purpose
to prove herself worthy of such a heritage.
-
A distinguished literary contemporary, Enrico Panzacchi, says of
Carducci: —
"I believe that I do not exaggerate the importance of Carducci
when I say that to him and to his perseverance and steadfast work
we owe in great part the poetic revival in Italy. "
Cesar Lombroso, in the Paris Revue des Revues, says:— "Among
the stars of first magnitude shines one of greatest brilliance, Carducci,
the true representative of Italian literary genius. "
The poem that first attracted attention and caused no little flutter
of ecclesiastical gowns was the 'Hymn to Satan,' which appeared in
1865 in Pistoja, over the signature "Enotrio Romaho," and bore the
date "MMDCXVIII from the foundation of Rome.