To listen to her, is to seem to wander In some enchanted labyrinth of romance, Whence nothing but the lovely fairy's will, ' SWINTON. Bless'd privilege Of youth! There's scarce three minutes to decide After these extracts, our readers cannot doubt that many individual passages in the piece are written with the full spirit and ease of the author's best style: but, as a whole, we are bound to say that it is only an apology for a drama; and we should pay a poor compliment to Sir Walter Scott's genius, if we did not add that we expected so much more at his hands than the present production, that we have been grievously disappointed. One person in the present sketch, Hob Hattely, a false thief but yet most faithful Scotsman,' is much in the novelist's manner. With the character of Swinton we think that every reader must be highly pleased, for it is uniformly grand, and is pictured in the boldest and most vivid manner. Gordon is in many parts much too tame and submissive, and has that sort of wavering and weakness about him which is observed to prevail in the Waverley heroes. The Regent is imbecility and absurdity personified, rendered contemptible to a degree which we should have imagined to be unnecessary, and destitute of dignity or feeling. Even his language, so far from being in any respect accommodated to his station, is more vulgar than that of the quarrelsome nobles around him; and the reader gladly relieves himself by incredulity from such an offensive picture of meanness and coarseness. ART. XI. Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy, particularly the Carbonari. Translated from the original MS. 8vo. pp. 235. With Engravings. 12s. Boards. Murray. WE are not informed who is the author of the MS. menWE tioned in the title-page of this volume; nor are we solicitous to know, for a more indifferent composition seldom issues from the British press. It begins with an historical essay on the the origin of Carbonarism, which is only curious inasmuch as it is one of the documents of this singular association, and bears strong testimony to the system of imposture and delusion to which that body owes its influence over the minds of the ignorant and illiterate. The purport of it is that, in the reign of Queen Isabella of Scotland, many refugees from civil and religious persecution betook themselves to the woods, and employed themselves in making charcoal, the only commercial produce of Scotland. Calling themselves Carbonari from their functions, they established signs and conventional words by which they recognized each other, and erected a government, issued laws, and passed their days comfortably and happily; not unlike Shakspeare's exiles in the forest of Arden. It happened,' says this precious record, that Francis I., King of France, hunting on the frontiers of his kingdom, next to Scotland, in following a wild beast, parted from his courtiers. Night came on, and he lost himself in the forest. He stumbled upon one of the tents of these people, and asked for shelter; it was granted, and the good Cousins unanimously ministered to him all that he was in need of. Francis I. admired the happiness of these Carbonari, and their mystic discipline. He thought he saw something mysterious and singular in it, and discovered himself to them as King of France. He earnestly requested to be made acquainted with their secret, and with the object of their association. They gratified him, and he was struck with admiration, and expressed a wish to be initiated into their order, promising to be their protector. The favour was granted, and next morning he was restored to the hunters, who, having missed him, were seeking him in great anxiety. On his return to France, he scrupulously fulfilled his oath. He declared himself the protector of the Carbonari, and increased their number. The society afterwards spread itself successively over Germany and England." The whole book is made up of documents of equal value ; and they who expect to acquire any useful information from it, relative to the subject on which it professedly treats, will be equally disgusted and disappointed. All however that is really known, or worth knowing, concerning this extraordinary sect, may be derived from better sources, and stated in a much shorter compass. It is certain that through the Neapolitan provinces, at the period of the late Revolution, the Carbonari, which was a society framed in obvious imitation of the Free-masons, but avowedly in pursuit of some plan of political innovation, comprized a very large portion of the population. Yet they do not, as some persons have erroneously supposed, appear to have imbibed the spirit or principles of French politics; for it is notorious that they were alike adverse to the French government of Joseph Bonaparte and to that . that of Murat. Their existence, however, for several years, has been a matter of much notoriety; and, though they affected great secrecy, their proceedings were very far from being concealed: but no sooner did the Revolution of 1820 burst forth than they threw off the mask, published their proceedings, and even issued their proclamations. We do not entirely agree with those who affect to despise the Carbonari as obscure and insignificant, and unworthy of thesolicitude and alarm which they have excited; because societies whose compact is secrecy, and whose principles are change, must at all times be objects of anxious vigilance to governments. Besides, if they are not precisely a numerical majority in Naples, they include in their numbers that part of the population which has the most decisive influence in political movements. In the two extremes of society, the higher nobility and the lowest of the populace, few or no Carbonari are to be found: it is chiefly in the intermediate classes that their strength resides; and among these are the Possidenti, or small landed proprietors, who, in an agricultural country like Naples, have considerable weight in all projects to which they contribute their influence. In addition to these, the rapid fluctuations of property and transitions of government for the last twenty-five years had created a comparatively new class of middle men; men who, having been agents of the great landed estates, have, by their own industry and knowlege of rural economy, so profited by the vicissitudes of the times and the improvidence of their employers, as to have obtained actual possession of the domains which they once superintended. They bear the general designation of Galantuomini, or gentlemen. From this class, official situations are supplied in the provinces; and these people, almost to a man, are enlisted among the Carbonari. It was therefore a perplexing problem to the Neapolitan government, to determine what precautions could have been taken against a sect which embodied so large a portion of the most efficient functionaries of the state; for whole districts and provinces were thus in the hands of persons who, while they discharged their duties with the most scrupulous fidelity, were carrying on their occult and mysterious projects. A majority of Carbonari in the Decurionato, or public assembly of the province, would ensure the election of the Syndics, the Gabielleri, (excise-men,) and a variety of subordinate officers. It seems that, in this sect, proselytism is incredibly rapid, and the recommendation of an initiated man is in most cases a sufficient passport for new candidates. At the same time, every member is unwearied in his canvass for fresh recruits, and and an admission is not without its private advantages. It is a new and artificial bond of fellowship and benevolence: labourers are supplied with tools and implements, and frequently with money; and every Cousin is sure of sympathy and aid in sickness, and consolation in death. Such are among the most efficient causes of the rapid diffusion of the sect. In no class had the principles of this association struck a deeper root than among the numerous provincial militia, the legionarii, the civici, the militi; and this was the class that had the principal share in the late Revolution. As every individual of this body must be assessed ten ducats to the land-tax, it is plain that, exclusively of an armed power, they must have had great influence as proprietors of the soil; and in Capitanata, the most extensive and populous of the Neapolitan provinces, 40,000 of these persons, each with forty cartridges and four ducats in his pocket, were for several months completely equipped for action. It cannot therefore excite much surprize that the late commotion, dignified with the name of Revolution, broke out: but why its duration was so short, and why a more heroic resistance was not made against the Austrians, it is more difficult to explain. Perhaps, however, the Neapolitan people themselves are the best solution of this problem. Like their own Vesuvius, they are liable to sudden and short-lived ebullitions: their zeal had begun to cool; and they had already regarded its objects as scarcely adequate in value to intense or perilous efforts. Still it is clear that a political society, which had sufficient influence to stir up a people to revolt,-though not, as it should seem, to encourage them to fight, -must be a continued source of alarm to the government of Naples; and it is a perplexing question to decide how to deal with such bodies. The opposition which is ordinarily called persecution would, by a principle inherent in human nature, only inflame their zeal and increase their proselytes. Rome could indeed in a single day, and by one decree of her senate, put down the mischievous sect of the Bacchanalians, which, according to Livy, threatened instant destruction to the republic: but the full-grown, gigantic, and adult mischief of a conspiracy, which contains in its bosom the numerical majority of a nation, will not admit of so instantaneous a remedy. There are, however, in the Carbonari of Naples, some peculiarities which distinguish them favorably from the societies of the same name in other parts of Italy. That body, for instance, which was detected in the papal dominions about the end of 1817, seems to have been in pursuit of the most bloody and vindictive projects. On the trial of these wretches at 19 Rome, Rome, the following triplet was declared to have been read in a baracca at Ascoli: "Figli di Bruto, ill brandi omai scuoteti, They were intercepted on the eve of a plot which in a few hours was to have deluged the streets with blood, and placed national and individual property at the mercy of ruffians and assassins. The Neapolitan Carbonari are chiefly formidable from their numbers: a circumstance which, if we may trust history and experience, diminishes their dangerousness, and assuages their mischief; for an association consisting of a million of members cannot be secret. In such a multitude, also, the spirit of the confederacy is not long in evaporating, and the control of the leaders must become every day less vigorous and autho-ritative. There is also some reason to believe that the solemn puerilities of their ceremonies, and their farcical solemnities, are sufficient to engross and absorb the faculties of the greater part of them. They produced, it is true, a revolution: but what became of that revolution? "It vanished at the crowing of the cock," and it is not likely that so inauspicious an experiment will be soon repeated. A few lean and sallow Cassiuses are a more portentous evil in any state than a whole people composed of Neapolitan Carbonari.-Moreover, the mere number, of which this association consisted, do not furnish any inference whatsoever of that collective, physical, or intellectual might, by which durable revolutions are effected. It is a hot-bed, and of forced growth: but moral vegetation is never healthy, unless it is slow and gradual; and the aim of the Carbonari seems to have been that of making an imposing and terrific effect by mere numbers. We have taken some pains in thus collecting the chief features of a sect, which has of late occupied a considerable space in political speculation; and we think that our views of the subject will be found accordant with the observations of the best-informed travellers who have lately visited the southern peninsula of Italy, and who have studied the regular influential principles of human nature. Reform must, sooner or later, alleviate the distresses of the people, and mitigate the pressure of governments, in all the old states of the world: but it is not by such instruments as the Carbonari that the great and beneficial designs of Providence, to ameliorate the civil by improving the intellectual condition of men, will be carried into effect. MONTHLY |