exasperated them."* In fact, these Garibaldian heroes acted in a manner which outraged every feeling of the people upon whom they forced themselves. The cathedral was sacked, the sacred vessels were stolen, and sacrileges were committed, from the very thought of which the mind recoils if it be not dead to faith. The lapse of time between Monte Rotondo and Mentana, which, in reality, was a full week, is much too short in the poetic narrative. This, however, the author acknowledges in his preface to Rome or Death! therefore we pass on. Nothing is said about the surprise given to the Garibaldian force at Mentana, though this was acknowledged by themselves, and even in Ricciotti Garibaldi's account of the battle. Mr. Austin represents them calmly watching the advance of the Pontifical army. The solitary rifle-shot, which many who were present will remember was the herald of the engagement, is not omitted here. Hark! the sharp challenge of a rifle rings Shrill through the air! then all again is still. The description of the battle is poetically fine, but prosaically unjust. The glory of the day is awarded to the Garibaldians, the victory to the French; while the author stoops to speak of the Zouaves under the imagery of "base mongrels." Now, the fact stands, that at the time France, ever thirsty for military glory, did not for several days speak of her own share in the battle, and never after had the conscience to assume the whole honour of it. There was doubtless bravery on the side of the Garibaldians, but why has Mr. Austin no word except a vulgar term of disgust for the men who left home and country to pour out their blood as a witness to the faith that was in them-men who in youth, some of them almost in boyhood, would have fought as determinedly if there was no French uniform on the field. The glory of the day was not exclusively theirs, but the Zouaves and the rest of the Papal army shared it with the proudest military power of the time, and that nation herself, we repeat, did not think of appropriating the honour, or at first of publishing the fact that she had even had a large part in the victory. From the poem we should infer that the Garibaldians were at a disadvantage in point of numbers. The worthlessness of the popular opinion on this matter was well shown by an English military periodical at the time :— Of course (it said) the Garibaldians, we are assured, were outnumbered Standard, Nov. 16th, 1867. * four to one; but as we know from official records that the assailants were less than 3,000 all told, it is hard to understand where the 1,700 prisoners now in Rome came from, saying nothing of the 900 who are allowed to have escaped behind the Italian lines, or of the 600 left dead on the field. The fact is the Garibaldini were much the strongest. .. The heat and burden of the day had been manfully borne by the Papalini, and to ascribe the victory to the French alone is merely to reproduce the old fable about the Prussians at Waterloo.* The account of the engagement given by Mr. Austin is that the Papal army was totally routed. The French turned the tide of battle and won the victory, the defeated Papalini reappearing on the field when they saw the day would be theirs. Now we learn from the report of General Polhes, that towards the end of the fight, late in the afternoon, he sent his French troops to form on both flanks of the Zouaves, lest they might be outflanked by the Garibaldian lines. This shows that the Garibaldians were in immense numbers, since there was a chance of their lines turning those of the Papal army on either hand. Again, it proves that the Zouaves were not routed in hopeless flight when the French came up, but were holding their ground. The report of General Polhes also tells that at General Kanzler's request the Zouaves were allowed to go into battle first. This testifies that they were not inferior troops; if they were, no French general would have let them take their place as the van of the army. Before turning to another aspect of this Third Act,-the story of individuals woven through it, we must pause to recommend to the reader's attention two very happy remarks made by the poet, one in the description of Mentana, the other long before. We point them out more readily as the extreme felicity of the language has perhaps not struck even the author himself. Here is a suggestive metaphor : The dense ranks that fenced the Triple Crown And, too unmindful of rebuke divine, Drew Peter's sword afresh. Let the figure of speech pass, and then we may ask, against whom did Peter draw his sword? The assailants of Christ's Vicar are immediately-and how truly!-placed in the position of that other band, who, with Judas for their leader, stood long ago in the darkness of Gethsemane. The other passage is a gem. In a stanza lauding Victor Emmanuel, he is described figuratively coming from the midst of war, His kingly breast bestarred with gory mud. * United Service Magazine, Dec. 1867. From first to last Victor Emmanuel has shown himself worthy of this decoration, in building up United Italy by force, bloodshed, and robbery, over a misgoverned, overtaxed, and misrepresented people. In this act a new character is brought before us, Miriam, an Italian girl, whose affection is destined to fill the void in Gilbert's heart, and to build up again the happiness that had been shattered at Florence. The picture of Miriam is very richly coloured, and though the conversations with her are somewhat high-flown, we can more easily imagine them under an Italian sun than we can reconcile ourselves with some of the poetical dialogue of Olive and Godfrid in the first act. Miriam brings forcibly to our mind the Theodora of Lothair. She accompanies the Garibaldians, sings war songs and hymns of liberty, and pours forth curses on France. When Gilbert is wounded and apparently dying, she gives him her marriage vows in one of the churches that has been turned into a temporary hospital. Godfrid also is wounded, and his meeting with Olympia as a Sister of Charity is eloquently told. It is refreshing to turn from the hot atmosphere of battle, smoke, and tumultuous passion that surrounds the Garibaldian heroine to the recollection of those heroines of the Papal army whose work was not to raise their voices or to frame maledictions but to comfort the dying and soothe the wounded. Far happier than that of the imagined Miriam or Theodora was their true womanly task of helping back to repentance many of those who at the last hour craved the divine mercy through the religion they had once rejected, fearing, when the veil would be torn away by death, to stand as renegades before the Judgment Seat. But Godfrid's slow recovery from his wounds in a Roman convent is gracefully told in the Fourth Act. There are some exquisite passages regarding his sad and reverent search for Olympia, and her own narrative of the manner in which she had him conveyed from the battle-field to Rome hidden in the cart of a contadino is a pretty idyl in itself. now we come to sterner scenes. Godfrid has long ago roused Gilbert to large ideas and wider views. The pupil outsteps his mentor, and while Godfrid stands aloof, he plunges into the strife of the Commune, desiring that altar and throne should be levelled together, and advocating the rights of man and universal equality. Miriam had sustained him in his new creed, and accompanied him to France in Garibaldi's corps, and afterwards to Paris, where he had joined the ranks of the insurgents. Meanwhile another traveller is destined to go to Paris on a far different errand. It is Olympia, and Godfrid obtains leave to be her escort. Mr. Austin's convent scenes are particularly interesting, and have about them the true convent air. We are therefore all the more surprised to see him join the links of his story with this huge improbability. The superior of the convent freely tells him that she knows it is for him all Olympia's prayers are offered, yet she readily consents to his accompanying the nun to the scene of her next works of charity; and in Paris, where he becomes one of the wearers of the red cross, it is an everyday thing for him to call at the convent and aid the nuns in their labours for the wounded, and frequently he and Olympia are to be found pursuing the work of compassion alone. This part has more of an air of romance than of reality. To those who are aware of the ordinary prudence of religious superiors, and of the habits of those nuns who, as S. Vincent de Paul said, have to walk through the world with only their veil for a cloister, the journey of the two former lovers to Paris is so improbable that it descends to the absurd. However, there are some beautiful points of description on the wayfor instance, the sight of the scene of their first meeting and of her early days at Madonna's shrine, when they gaze across the water at "the little city by the sea," while Olympia, blinded by her tears, kneels "mute and motionless " vessel's deck, till the old place fading fainter, Slow dwindled to a speck, then quick to view Was lost behind a seaward-jutting hill. on the War, fire, and death, mingling with the horrors of the Commune, throw a lurid light on the closing scenes. Godfrid cannot for a moment sympathize with the rabble who are up in arms. Despite Gilbert's entreaties, he stands neutral, wearing the red cross of mercy, till one day he takes it from his arm, and gives it to Gilbert to enable him to save himself and his wife. Then the story comes to its tragic close, and Godfrid and Olympia at the same moment are struck down by chance shots, and are taken back to be laid in one grave by the Italian seashore. "So ye," says the poet, who go, half-guided by my song, To Spiaggiascura, there a grave will find, He either shares her bliss or she his doom. To our mind the character of Olympia changes during the progress of the story. At Spiaggiascura she was gentle, warm-hearted, but positively uncompromising. Now, when she took the veil and some years elapsed, while her heart remained as human as ever, the uncompromising spirit would have grown strong instead of decaying; and though her life, with all its prayer and sacrifice, might be offered for Godfrid, she would shrink from intercourse with him, and the spirit which prompted her to crush her own heart when she bade him farewell on the seashore, would urge her, not to more self-indulgence but to still greater sacrifices as life went on, sacrifices which would be offered for him, perhaps, in the firm hope that in the next life the desolation of this would be repaid to both. Gilbert's character is well drawn. The man, who is ignorant and narrow-minded, enters another world when sorrow comes upon him and leaves his life void. He is driven out of selfishness because there is no longer repose in the thought of self, but he speeds madly on without clear judgment to guide him, and he is deluded by broad views and high-sounding theories. But it is Godfrid's mind that deserves special study. When we look back to the opening act, we cannot believe that he is the man who is there weak, irresolute, worshipping beauty, and swayed by a passion that, though it is refined, has nothing about it either lofty or spiritual. In the second act we see another man, or perhaps an older man though but a short time has elapsed-one who holds determinedly to his own views, and believing them, has sufficient strength of mind to resist every allurement towards his life's happiness rather than stoop to insincerity. We do not hesitate in saying that the Godfrid of the first act is scarcely to be recognized in this character, and that it would be hardly possible for the weakness of the first Godfrid to ripen, in a few months, into the strength of that noble but misguided man who, in the second, places conscience before all things, and conceives for Madonna's Child a devotion which is constant, though hopeless, and which is of such an ennobling nature that it precludes ever after the possibility of mere sensual affection and of the worship of outward beauty. When we lay down the book, the feeling which prevails is an excessive sadness at the thought of so many souls of which Godfrid's is a true picture-noble souls, capable of doing great things had they been faithful to grace and humble enough not to throw themselves into the darkness and misery of scepticism. shadow of paganism has fallen on him; he speaks of Fate and of the God of Love, and looks only to a doubtful possibility of another life beyond the grim certainty of death. At VOL. XXVII.—NO. LIII. [New Series.] N The |