invention never exhausted, and an instinct of marvellous soundness. These qualities were actually embodied in Count Cavour. Death has cut short his career before he was allowed to perfect his work. Will those who now must take up his arms be capable of carrying them to victory? That is the point hidden from the anxious gaze of the present hour. But if, as we hope, they may so succeed, they will themselves be ready to acknowledge how much of their success has been due to the master mind that preceded them.

Whoever at any time had the advantage of approaching Count Cavour could not fail to be struck with the homely heartiness that marked the vivacity of his action and the cogency of his speech. About him there was not a particle of stilted affectation. His greatness wore the unassuming garb of common sense, but a common sense of colossal proportions, exalted by perpetual direction to the pursuit of what was great and lofty. Always ardently engaged in practically following out some purpose, his eager nature had no notion of decking itself with false ornaments of rhetoric or attitude. There was a stamp of sound and thorough healthiness on the cast of this great statesman's faculties which threw an air of inward joyousness and hilarity over his whole manner; in truth he had a keen sense of enjoyment and humour. Intrepid at the council table, indefatigable in the public offices, keen in debate, Count Cavour in the evening was the playful, jocular host, throwing his lively wit into the pleasures of conversation and society. He was to be seen in his happiest moods in the country. He had an especial fondness for rural life; and on his estates Count Cavour became forthwith transformed into the thorough squire, apparently absorbed heart and soul in crops and farms, as if his sole business in life had been to watch his agricultural labours. With the village priest, the farm bailiff, the county neighbour, he mingled with the familiarity of a simple landowner, who had never known more distinguished individuals, and whose heart had never felt higher emotions than for his harvest, his vintage, and the state of his cocoons. In treating all subjects Count Cavour's manner was to go straight to the heart of his purpose, yet omitting no point that could add weight to his argument. Plainly, without any fine words, he grappled with the truth of a matter in homely language intelligible to every comprehension, and at the same time animated with a living force of logic from which there was no escape. Hence the effectiveness of his oratory, although he was deficient in the elaborate arts of eloquence. Indeed his speech was even rugged, yet did it become so lit up with beaming earnestness and lofty purpose as to over

whelm an opponent and dominate with a Jove-like power an assembly of all others in Europe the most abounding in rhetorical talent. From this very unswerving directness of purpose sprang what has been charged against Count Cavour as imperiousness. Totally indifferent to his own ease, and incapable of irrelevancy, he expected others to be endowed with the same powers of endurance and the same concentration of purpose. But his native eagerness caused him instinctively to turn away with impetuous disdain from whatever to his indefatigable vigour appeared to be formal procrastination. Nature, indeed, created him for command. But though thus he at times gave offence, no man ever was freer from envy and malice. His soul was always so thoroughly bent upon great aims as to have no space left for petty passions. Terrible he was indeed with his vehement cogency of argument and withering repartee for antagonists to encounter, but he waged his contests in fair debate on public grounds and with the weapons of honest conviction. After the fight his nature bore no resentment. Count Cavour has been sometimes charged with injudiciously placing excessive confidence, but never has the accusation been even whispered of his having used his authority for hunting down an enemy. As his ambition was the ambition of public spirit, so his firm hold on power was merely the natural grasp of strength, by no means the anxious clutch of interested acquisitiveness.

Like many great men, Count Cavour may be considered to have derived his most characteristic qualities from his mother. That lady was a native of Geneva, and her son inherited all the remarkable propensities to sound industry, strong practical intelligence, and stoutness of spirit which have conspicuously distinguished the citizens of that little republic in their successful assertion of civil and religious liberty. The happy alliance in Camillo Cavour of these sterling qualities with the more fiery impulses of that subtle intelligence proper to Italian genius is what marked him out from the rest of his countrymen, and admirably fitted him steadily to call forth and safely to guide to success the manifold and highly inflammable forces with which he had to deal in an Italian revolution. At the same time by paternal descent he inherited every advantage for the full enjoyment of whatever his country could offer, had he been so content. His family is of that proud and bigoted aristocracy, imbued with the true temper of the Castilian sangre azul, which once held the whole patronage of the State in Piedmont, and now with rare exceptions reposes in moody sullenness within its gloomy palaces. No one not personally acquainted with the country can adequately conceive the intense exclusiveness of

this class the unmitigated disdain with which since 1848 it has spurned all connexion with the public service, and the bitter feeling it entertained against Count Cavour as a renegade to his order. Moreover the family was one of great wealth, and the statesman's father was high in office. But young Cavour could not accommodate himself to the intolerable bigotry and vexatious compression that weighed on Piedmont. Not that he ever at any moment was a Carbonaro. His strong sense was always proof against the morbid fascination of conspiracy; but instinctively it rebelled against the prevailing system of jealous compulsion, and gave vent to feelings with that eager openness which, with all his powers of profound calculation, Count Cavour to the end never cared to check. In consequence he became an object of suspicion to the government, which caused him to be arrested and for some time confined at the Fort of Bard. This was the reason why he found it necessary to throw up his commission as Lieutenant in the Engineers' Corps and advisable to withdraw abroad. A curious proof of the attention he had then already called upon himself is afforded by an instruction from Vienna to the police authorities, discovered at Milan, that they should vigilantly watch young Count Cavour, as a highly dangerous individual, in the event of his touching the Austrian territories. He spent thus several years abroad, mostly in France and England. At this period he stored his mind with that vast knowledge which later he brought to bear with such rapid effect upon the administration of his country. The course of his studies is indicated by a series of publications, for the most part contributed to a Genevese periodical. These are the enlightened and comprehensive observations of a mind that dwells with accurate investigation on points of political economy, and with intuitive interest inquires into the best practical means for developing a people's resources, with the view of propelling it to greatness and freedom. It would seem as if he had inwardly felt how indispensable it would be for him in after life to have at his command an intimate acquaintance with the levers calculated to elevate a state. His instinctive sense of civil and religious liberty, the precious heirloom of Genevese extraction, attracted him with genuine predilection to the study of English institutions. Count Cavour ever reverted with fond pleasure to his recollections of this country, and loved to dwell with intelligent appreciation upon the distinctive features in the constitution and society of a nation for which he expressed 'the esteem and interest due to one of the greatest people that have 'done honour to the human race, -a nation that has stoutly 'promoted the moral and material progress of the world, and

'whose civilising mission is yet far from having reached its ' term.'

Indeed no foreigner ever gained a more thorough insight into the temper of our country. Cavour's stay in England coincided with the climax of the O'Connell agitation, and Ireland could not but actively engage the attention of this vigilant observer, as it did that of most distinguished politicians on the Continent. In common with several of these he also wrote a book on the state of Ireland. Interesting and instructive as many of these productions were, Count Cavour's alone is one which might altogether have proceeded from an enlightened Englishman. He is the only foreign publicist to our knowledge who, alive to the grievances of Irish maladministration, could truly distinguish what was true and sham in the O'Connell agitation, and confidently detect the factitious nature of the Repeal cry. This book of Count Cavour has always seemed to us an admirable instance of perspicacity, when contrasted with the glaring errors of judgment into which so many eminent politicians in Europe fell in regard to the same perplexing subject.

The same accurate acuteness of perception marked Count Cavour on all great and critical occasions, amounting in its bold confidence to a kind of second sight. The most remarkable instance of this gift-an instance so remarkable that we are at a loss where to find its parallel-was afforded by his conduct in reference to the Crimean war. Count Cavour's instinct then without hesitation seized the opportunity offered by its occurrence for bringing at once his struggling, hardly recognised little State, into even alliance with great Powers, by engaging it directly in what at that time was the most important of modern undertakings. With the keen confidence of conviction, he saw in such a course the means of recovering for Piedmont the moral consideration destroyed by the catastrophe of Novara, raising the military spirit of his countrymen in general, reviving the trust of the army in its leaders, and above all of drawing the attention of Europe upon the marvellous progress of the little kingdom which six years before had seemed hopelessly annihilated. Alone Count Cavour was convinced of this, and alone he had the self-reliance to insist upon his conviction. His ordinary supporters quailed at this idea, and his fellowministers declined to associate themselves with his views. was in the King that he found the support to get the better of this wholesale opposition. Strong in his adhesion, he was dauntless enough to declare himself prepared to change his whole cabinet and dissolve the parliament for an appeal to the nation. Thus did his unflinching spirit carry its resolution,

VOL. CXIV. NO. CCXXXI.

T

It

and from that day it may be said that the structure of his ulterior hopes first began to rise above ground; for in virtue of this course Count Cavour obtained admittance to the Paris Congress, where he brought forward the grievances of his country, and secured official recognition for the existence of an Italian question. Taking into consideration all the circumstances, we cannot but think this to have been as bold a decision as any statesman ever had the nerve deliberately to embrace.

He

No

Before this, however, Count Cavour had already rendered services to his country that deserve to be treasured by it as not less precious than all the splendid aggrandisement he lived to promote. It is especially due to him that in Italy constitutional government became a reality. In this, the dearest object of his heart, he had at first to overcome unjust suspicions. On reappearing upon the stage of Italian politics, he laboured under the great unpopularity of his father while he himself disdained to flatter the passions of demagogues. failed to find a seat in Parliament at the first elections. sooner, however, had he succeeded in entering it than he became at once a leading man, and devoted himself to defend the integrity of the infant constitution, as well against bigoted retrogrades as intoxicated democrats. Essentially and emphatically Count Cavour was a constitutional Minister. That he should live to see the union of Italy was an event for which he might hope towards which he could work-but the certainty of which depended upon circumstances beyond the actual range of any human foresight. Therefore the foremost aim of his life was the effective introduction of self-government and the bracing habits of freedom into Italy, as the means of surely training his countrymen to the faculties indispensable for their ultimate greatness. His determination was at least to bequeath to his country an endowment of sound and free institutions. As Minister, he shrank with instinctive horror from the idea of vitiating parliamentary action. No charge was ever breathed against Count Cavour of having tried to corrupt constitutional opinion to bribe parties. During his last illness he is reported to have exclaimed in delirium that he would not hear of states of siege that any one could govern with them. The observation is one which we know Count Cavour to have repeatedly made. Nothing could exceed his indignation when pressed by some Neapolitans to inaugurate constitutional government by putting their provinces under martial law. In the same good faith did he carry out religious liberty. It was Count Cavour who caused its principle to be declared in the Charter, with the applause of the Democrats, who thought to get a weapon for the