France, lost all his influence on the abdication of Napoleon; and the kingdom of Italy found itself at the mercy of the senate of Milan. Unaccountable circumstance! The kingdom of Italy was the political centre of the peninsula ; it contained six millions of inhabitants, with an army, a senate, and a ministry of Italians; Milan had been unexpectedly raised to the rank of capital, it had seen all the elite of the peninsula assembled within its limits, and Napoleon had forgotten no one. To yield Milan, was to yield the kingdom, was to yield Italy. Well, all this splendid structure was faulty in its foundation. The middle classes of Lombardy had been so little initiated into political life, that in 1814, after having enjoyed all the advantages of the French rule, they were not yet able to comprehend this great design of the kingdom of Italy; one portion of the nobility, who would have consented to the destruction of their country rather than part with one iota of their privileges, called in the aid of Austria; the liberals were deceived into taking part with the nobility, whose honours they shared, and in the hour of danger the public functionaries, who alone were interested in the preservation of independence, found themselves without support or influence; the kingdom of Italy was but an administrative machine, which must be destroyed by the very first shock. at On the news of the emperor's abdication, an Austro-liberal conspiracy endeavoured to excite the army against Beauharnais, who was at Mantua. The conspiracy having failed Mantua, took Milan for its theatre. On the 20th of April, 1814, the palace of the senate was surrounded by the mob; the Buonapartist senators, who assembled for dispatch of business, were received with execrations. The crowd demanded the revocation of the act which recognized the government of Beauharnais, and the convocation of the electoral colleges to dispose of the crown. The rioters, who were of the lowest class of the population, were directed by a great number of persons of mean extraction, armed with umbrellas. The senate, intimidated, granted all that was asked; instantly the hall of assembly was crowded, the furniture was thrown out of the windows, a rush was made towards the residence of the minister of finance; the minister Prina was discovered in an attic of the palace, and he was lowered by a rope from a skylight into the street, where he was instantly dispatched by the umbrellas of the mob. The palace of Count Prina was plundered and razed to the ground, and his dead body dragged through the city; the rioters threatened to plunder the residences of all the Buonapartists. Let us hasten to explain, that the liberals, blinded and deceived in this matter, were urged on and ruled by the nobility, who had excited the populace and the peasantry to these acts of violence against the senate. The nobility excited the popular discontent, by attributing the taxes, the conscriptions, and all the measures which had displeased the public, to ministers and public officers, whom they treated as intriguers and extortioners. All the government officials were, notwithstanding, Italians; they were selected from Modena, Venice, Bologna, and the other provinces of the kingdom of Italy; but they were represented by the nobility as a band of foreigners and robbers. The rioters, driven from the streets by the energetic measures of the middle classes, were, notwithstanding, completely victorious in the electoral colleges, owing to the skilful manœuvres of the Milanese nobility. Without consulting the electoral colleges without convoking the body of savans, whom they deprived of their political rights-without assembling the provincial merchants, whom they thus excluded from the deputation-without allowing the electors of the conquered provinces then in Milan to use their privilege of voting-seventy electors of the duchy of Milan forced their decision on the kingdom of Italy, pronounced the deposition of Napoleon, and hurried off commissioners to the camp of the allies to secure the ratifiIcation of the revolution. The commissioners who went to the Emperor Francis were empowered to demand-first, the independence of the kingdom of Italy; secondly, that the limits of the kingdom should be as widely extended as possible; thirdly, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy; fourthly, an Austrian prince as king; fifthly, a declaration that the Catholic religion, apostolic and Roman, should be proclaimed the religion of the state. The requisite promises were given; the Austrian general, Bellegarde, proceeded to Milan to direct the affairs of the regency; and in one year Lombardy was no more than a province of the Austrian empire. Thus a riot of the populace, bribed by the nobility, closed the reign of Napoleon in Italy. In other words, the ancient duchy of Milan, containing nearly a million of inhabitants, revolted against the kingdom of Italy, which had the misfortune not to speak the pure patois of Milan, and to be also four times as large. Victory sided with the partizans of the old institutions, and the duchy, with its nobles, its Spanish grandees, and its zealots, fell back under the sway of the house of Austria. The schemes of Count Göess, and the agitation of 1809, thus attained their object; the kingdom found itself circumstanced like the little commune of Crispino, which, in 1806, marched to the relief of the Austrians. Napoleon punished it by subjecting it to the laws of Austria, which substitute flogging for imprison ment. Prince Eugene Beauharnais had abandoned his kingdom on the first appearance of troubles at Milan. Murat remained sole head of the party of Italian nationalists. It is well known that his plan, which in 1810 failed of accomplishment, was to possess himself of Italy; that in 1813 he acquiesced in the designs of Lord William Bentick; that afterwards he made his peace with Austria; and finally, that in making overtures to Napoleon he could neither secure to himself the support of France, which in the end must prove ruinous to himself, nor that of the allies, which could not be depended on. In 1815 he invaded the Romagna, proclaiming the independence of Italy. What could he expect from the natives of Italy? Whether devoted or hostile to the government of Napoleon, Murat was to them but a stranger, a lieutenant of the emperor, and consequently he was the representative of the war, with its ruinous taxes, violent conscriptions, and military dictatorship. Was it possible for Murat to support his cause by representing himself as the defender of the institutions of Napoleon? Italy still enjoyed the benefits of those insti tutions, and no one anticipated the possibility of their overthrow. Could he announce himself the champion of Italian independence? He was looked on as a mere actor in doing so; it was but too evident that this independence really meant nothing more than the domination of the king of Naples over the entire peninsula; no one in central Italy was deceived for a moment. Could he use liberty as a watchword? The name of liberty was valueless in Italy, unless in connection with the constitution of 1812, and that Murat had refused, giving no pledge and yielding no concession. A few volunteers from the Papal States alone joined his standard; Lombardy, still under Austrian domination, replied to his call only by a conspiracy amongst the military; Murat displayed prodigies of valour on the plains of Macerata, and after having plunged from error into error, ended by losing his kingdom. The Italian nationalist party, which was wounded at Milan in the person of Count Prina, received its death blow at Pizzo, in the person of Murat. With Murat ends the second phase of the Italian revolution-an era short indeed, but glorious, during which reflection took the place of enthusiasm, and the successes of the peninsular armies kindled hopes of realizing the oft-looked-for Italian union. Notwithstanding, the despotism of the empire had completely extinguished democratic enthusiasm, the continuation of the war had exhausted all its force, peace was eagerly desired, and the royalists promised it. If Austria gave rise to apprehensions, the attitude assumed by Lord W. Bentick, the prevalence of a constitution in Sicily, the influence of England, the promises of the Italian princes and of the allies, all tended to re-assure the nations of Italy. Besides, the dynasty of Napoleon must fall with him, and Italy must have a new race of kings; thus, even the revolutionists asked of the Emperor of Austria new sovereigns, it mattered not whom. The congress of Vienna determined the matter at once. All the former rulers returned to Italy without exciting either enthusiasın or repugnance; their subjects had forgotten them, and the people's indifference secured to the princes immunity for the past. MACKAY'S LEGENDS OF THE ISLES." AMONG the duties of the periodical critic, those which would seem to be the easiest and the lightest are those which are most apt to be postponed. Here is a volume of poems, from which we have derived exceeding pleasure, and which contains many passages calculated to give much more enjoyment to our readers, than the discussions to which from day to day, we cannot delay calling their attention; and-how shall we excuse the apparent neglect?-it has remained for several months unnoticed. It Johnson has said that nothing can please many and please long, but just descriptions of general nature. The sentence when carefully examined is scarcely as true as it at first appears. In poetry, individual portraiture has more effect than any description, however just, of classes of men; and the poet who would seek to interest his readers by pictures more true to general nature than is consistent with just delineation of particular scenery, will find that he has few readers. is unfair, however, when we can assign no meaning to Johnson's words which will enable us to agree with his proposition, to examine in detail the different interpretations that may suggest themselves of this very vague language, or to assume that the shadowy phantoms of meaning which we but conjure up to show their emptiness, are those of the great critic. We suspect that such sentences are, after all, to be examined very much as Jeremy Bentham used to examine law maxims, and that the turn of the sentence has a music of its own, which is what is chiefly to be sought at least which is a great portion of the entire that is found in these solemn formulas. The true poet, if wise, will not preach on the mysteries of his art-yet his secret is now and then betrayed. Sir Walter, in his studies for Rokeby, was observed to note down the names of * the wild flowers near a little spring which he had to describe. One of his friends thought this was an idle labour;-might he not introduce in his description of the particular locality, any flowers or grasses which grew in the country round? Was more it not enough if he guarded against making his trees blossom in a season not their own? Why not enrich his description with whatever fancy might suggest from anything in the neighbourhood? Is not truth to general nature all that is required-nay is it not a higher truth, and consonant to the great purposes of art? Sir Walter knew his art better than any critic, and Sir Walter was one of the few poets who found no difficulty in explaining the principle on which he acted. He told his friend, that the poet who acted on the principle of relying on his own fancy to supply materials for such description, would soon find how limited was its range; while he who drew his pictures faithfully from the scenery which nature supplied, would, in the effects produced, seem to imitate the variety and the profusion of nature. There can be no doubt of the justness of this remark. In the spirit of Scott's practice, we think that Mr. Mackay's poetry has been conceived and written. His Legends of the Isles are for the most part traditional stories; and his descriptions of scenery are faithful transcripts of the features most likely to impress themselves on a visitor of the landscapes which he describes. We have had repeated occasion to urge on our young poets the necessity of a distinct subject-feeling that of all the vices which intercept the effect of genuine poetry on the reader's mind, that which does most mischief and to the best order of intellect, is the vagueness and indeterminateness of purpose, characteristic of the mind in a certain stage of its Legends of the Isles and other Poems, by C. Mackay. Edinburgh. Blackwood. 1845. growth, in which the less it communicates with others, the more may it be regarded as observing the dictates of ordinary prudence. In imparting any kind of instruction-and the highest poetry is not exempt from the condition-the minds of those to whom the communication is made should be consciously present to the instructor. The transcendant lyric itself is but an apparent exception. "Fit audience let me find, though few," implies what we would say. The poet has to adapt himself to that audience whom he seeks to elevate above themselves, and if possible to his own height; but the associations through which they are addressed, must be their associations. In our modern quintessential poetry, in which the poet thinks but of his own sensations and sentiment, at once "Merry and tragical-tedious and brief," the result is as in that play of old, of which Shakspeare tells : "A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have known a play; But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, Which makes it tedious." While the whole life of poetry is, no doubt, the poet's heart, and soul, and imagination, seen through his work, and from within illuminating all; yet the more directly his subject is taken from local and popular tradition-the more assistance he receives from every such source of interest-the truer and more genuine will be the magic of his song. In this was the strength of Hogg. Never was there a writer more truly original; and we do not know a single poem of his, even those which seem of pure imagination, that had not its birth in the traditions or the belief-call it superstition, or what you please of his country. Read the Spectre's Cradle Song: "Hush, my bonny babe, hush and be still, "See yon thick clouds of murky hue, Away, above yon little star, There's a home of peace that shall soon be thine, Read this poem over till your heart is filled with its true beauty and music; and then listen to the shepherd telling you the sources of his inspiration. "As I was once travelling up Glendochart, attended by Donald Fisher, a shepherd of that country, he pointed out to me some curious green dens, by the side of the large rivulet which descends from the back of Ben More, the name of which in the Gaelic language signifies the abode of the fairies. A native of that country, who is still living, happening to be benighted there one summer evening, without knowing that the place was haunted, wrapped himself in his plaid, and lay down to sleep till the morning. About midnight he was awaked by the most enchanting music, and on listening, he heard it to be the voice of a woman singing to her child. She sung the verses twice over, so the next morning he had several of them by heart. Fisher had often heard them recited in Gaelic, and he said they were wild beyond human conception. He remembered only a few lines, which were to the purport that she had brought her babe from the region below to be cooled by the breeze of the world, and they would soon be obliged to part, for the child was going to heaven, and she was to remain for a season in purgatory. I had not before heard any thing so truly romantic." Of greater beauty than this poem of Hogg's, are Samuel Ferguson's "Fairy Thorn" and "Fairy Well;" and of both the subject is one having its existence in the superstitions of the people, and in this way commanding a Fancy is the power Wild fantasies, yet wise, The superstitions of a people, in one sense, endure for ever. Even in its highest stage of civilization, traditions of an earlier time retain something in them kindred with the heart of the nation in which they have originated; and the holiest service in which genius can be employed is in furthering their salutary effects. The world is better from such a man as Scott having existed; but to Scotland-to the humblest cottage, to the poorest man in Scotland -the effects of this great man's genius, finding in the language and the * Queen's Wake, and notes. legends of Scotland the current in hers. † See Vico's Scientia Nuova, or Henry Coleridge's translation. "Classic Poets," p. 94. |