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The third volume by Mr. Henry Stevens, mentioned on the title-page, is in preparation, and will probably be issued some time this year. It will be sold separately or with the two volumes of Mr. Fagan, as purchasers may desire.

Bibliography          The Tree of Knowledge

My dear Sir,

Well knowing that Sir Anthony Panizzi entrusted most of his literary articles and reviews to you for re-publication in America under your editorship; and aware that he gladly availed himself of your co-operation in adding to the store of American history and literature in the British Museum, I feel that your assistance will be of great advantage in promoting an American edition of my work.

The addition of your ‘Twenty years personal and bibliographical Reminiscences of Panizzi and the British Museum’ cannot but add interest to the new edition, hence I heartily IIcoincide with and approve the suggestion, in full expectation that your long experience and special opportunities will have enabled you to throw still more light on the labours of a life and the merits of an institution which cannot be too well-known everywhere.

Trusting that our combined work will be as cordially received in your country as Americans always were by Panizzi at the British Museum,

The first chapter of these Volumes discloses the reasons which induced me to undertake the present Biography—a task amounting to a labour of love, owing to the personal interest I have felt in it from beginning to end. How far, however, I may succeed in satisfying my Readers—fully conscious as I am of my own demerits and the many defects to be met with—I leave them to decide, trusting to their kind indulgence not to be hypercritical in their verdict on my faithful endeavour to perform my duty both to them and to the subject of these memoirs.

Some delay has arisen in the completion of the work, to be attributed to three causes: the interruption occasioned by my official duties, the variety and complicated nature of the subject, and the numerous translations required for the full development of the life I desired to treat with justice in every respect.

Grateful acknowledgments are due for the valuable assistance received from Mr. Charles Cannon of the Foreign Office, Mr. Richard Garnett of the IVBritish Museum, Mr. C. E. Fagan and from Mr. C. M. Tyndall, to whom I am deeply indebted. Certainly in no less degree must I record, with sincere thanks, the cheerful and graceful aid rendered me by Madame Arditi, who has, throughout my labours, proved a most encouraging and able coadjutrix.

The respectful expression of my gratitude to the Duke D’Aumale and to the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone is an honourable duty, since to them as well as to Mrs. Franklin, Sir Gilbert Lewis, Sir James Lacaita, Mr. C. T. Newton, Mr. Andrew Rutherfurd and the late Mr. Edward Ellice I am indebted for the loan of letters, etc., without which my work could never have attained the degree of completeness of which it may fairly boast. Finally, in the list should also be named those who have helped me to present these volumes in their finished state—MM. Durand, Pilotell, Sem and F. Gusman, to whose courtesy I owe six of the portraits interspersed within these pages.

To men of letters throughout the civilized world I can scarcely doubt that a biography of one so well-known in his particular and important sphere as was the earnest worker of whom I have written should be otherwise than acceptable. Nevertheless, it is with some anxiety that I lay my venture before the public, Vthough trusting at the same time that no serious drawback in the accomplishment of my labours may prevent a just appreciation of them by all considerate readers.

3

Introduction; History of Brescello; Birth; Parentage; Education Carbonaro; Piedmontese and Neapolitan Revolutions, 1820-1; I Processi di Rubiera.

The labour attached to the biographer’s task depends on the amount and quality of incident in the career, as well as the peculiar characteristics of the person whose life is portrayed, provided there be a sufficiency of salient points in these respects to have made him conspicuous in the eyes of the world. It would be difficult, both to writer and reader, to follow the career of a conventional country gentleman or clergyman, however diligently and conscientiously either might have discharged the duties alloted to him in his particular sphere. The life of the Curé of Ars, however, although in reality as much hidden from the public eye as that of the most ordinary squire or parson, must ever be reckoned, if only for the psychological study it presents, amongst the most interesting and, from certain points of view, the most instructive of biographies.

4The subject of the following “Memoirs,” so far as regards the two points above mentioned, would seem to offer most favourable conditions for the pen of the biographer; nevertheless, the writer confesses that the very facility presented has caused difficulties to spring up in his way. Though utterly a novice in such work, an ardent longing has possessed him to write of one with whom he lived for twenty years on terms of the most intimate friendship, little, if at all, inferior in warmth to consanguineous affection. He has deemed it his duty, after duly weighing the many communications received from his friend in hours of confidential intercourse, and regarding them as illustrative not only of the life of the man himself, but in their wider sense as pertaining to contemporary history, and elucidating the opinions of the great statesmen and other notable individuals with whom the subject of this memoir was in daily intercourse—to show forth his life to the world, calling to aid personal memories of the events recorded, original documents in the writer’s own possession or those he could obtain from others, besides information given orally by friends.

That life, chequered even at the outset by struggle and adventure, devoted to incessant activity, and bound up, as it were, with all the stirring public events of the most active period of our age, being of necessity gathered from documents so voluminous as to constitute a veritable “embarras de richesses”—a plethora of material—the mere task of condensation and selection has proved a formidable one; whilst the arrangement of facts following closely on one another has presented at times considerable difficulty.

5Other causes have stimulated the biographer in his work, inasmuch as he himself was not unconcerned in some of the more important and exciting events of the life which he records. The struggles of oppressed nationalities, the numerous revolutions and changes of dynasty, the intrigues of politicians throughout Europe, the face of which may be said to have been changed during the middle of this century, the varied events at home, and the vicissitudes of the country which his friend had adopted for his own, and for which he evinced unswerving affection and fidelity, have supplied matter which must be treated at some length in order to depict his life in its true light, and to represent adequately the motive power which prompted his ways and actions.

These matters may be but feebly and imperfectly shadowed forth here, and scant justice may possibly have been done to the varied details; nevertheless, these pages will be recognised as an earnest endeavour to sketch the life of a meritorious, able, and—it might without exaggeration be added—in his way a great man.

Where events follow their forerunners with extreme rapidity, where it is sometimes necessary to record circumstances which are simultaneous, it requires the greatest care and discrimination to avoid confusion, and to present the subject clearly to the reader’s mind. The utmost pains have been taken in these volumes to maintain correct chronological order: dates are almost always given, so that no doubt shall arise and no uncertainty exist as to the time of action. Should quotations appear at any time too copious or prolix, the author 6asks the indulgent reader to impute this to his idea of the importance of perspicuity in dealing with an intricate subject.

With these remarks we enter upon our arduous but pleasant task, with a profoundly sincere hope that from a life of so much energy and perseverance, our readers may extract for themselves an example worthy of admiration and imitation.

Men have not lived in vain when, either by indomitable spirit they have left behind encouragement for their fellow-men to enter as keenly as themselves into the battle of life, or have proved in their own persons how strict integrity and undeviating rectitude finally bring their reward; and such an example, we venture to declare, was the subject of this memoir.

In the territory of Modena, on the right bank of the River Po, stands an ancient town formerly called Brixellum or Brexillum, hodie Brescello. Father Bardetti (Lingua dei primi abitatori d’Italia) informs us that the name of “Brescello” is derived from the remote Gallo-Germanic words Brig, a bridge, and sella, to observe. With all due respect to the learned father, to his skill in philology, and to his knowledge of the Gallo-Germanic dialect, our opinion is that the names Brixellum and Brescello are simply the common diminutives of Brixia and Brescia respectively, a town not one hundred miles from Brescello.

However that may be, it is certain that Brescello is a place of most respectable antiquity, for according to Pliny the younger it was a Roman colony, founded during the period of the Republic. It is equally 7certain that Brescello has, from the time of its foundation, undergone as many of the vicissitudes of fortune, and suffered as much from the horrors of war, as many towns of far greater size and importance in the eyes of the world. A brief notice of its history will, however, cause our readers to marvel, not so much at the ruin and destruction which has fallen with such persistent recurrence upon Brescello as at the almost miraculous power possessed by this phœnix among cities of straightway rising again from its own ashes.

The first event of local historical importance which strikes us is the suicide (A.D. 69) of the Emperor Otho, which took place while he was encamped here, on receiving the news of the total defeat of his army by Vitellius. A tomb erected in the town to the memory of the unfortunate Emperor, for whom we have always entertained a certain amount of sympathy, possibly arising in a great measure from our contempt of his rival, is mentioned by Plutarch as having been seen by himself.

From A.D. 69 to A.D. 388 nothing is known of the history of Brescello. This interval, however, seems to have been one rather of obscurity than of quiet; for the name next occurs in a letter of St. Ambrose, of the last-mentioned date, wherein he speaks of the place as amongst one of the many ruined cities, and ranks it with the equally oppressed towns of Bologna, Modena, Reggio, and Piacenza. It may be conjectured that by the year 452 Brescello must have been wholly rebuilt; for in a letter of Eusebius to Leo I. (St. Leo), commencing “Ciprianus Episcopus Ecclesie Brixellensis,” it is stated that the town not only gave 8name to a see, but was the dwelling place of a bishop.

In the troubled times of the Longobardi it was destroyed by King Autharis, circa. A.D. 585, but even then gave promise of future vitality; for again it was rebuilt, and a monastery existed there in the tenth century. In the year 1099, for the first time, the Castle of Brescello comes to our knowledge, with the addition of fortifications to the town.

It is needless to follow the fortunes of Brescello throughout the wars between the Cremonese and Parmese, of the many horrors of which, and notably those which occurred in the year 1121, it was the scene. The following brief statement of facts will probably supply as much of the history of this much-suffering place as may be desired.

In 1247, while Frederick II. Emperor of Germany was besieging Parma, his ally Ezzellino IV., the Tyrant, took possession of Brescello and Guastalla, in order to deprive the inhabitants of Parma of all means of subsistence, and thus reduce them to submission by famine. During this campaign the first-named town was partially destroyed; but Frederick and Ezzellino made up to a considerable extent for the damage inflicted on the Brescellese by building for them a bridge over the Po.

The Parmese, always the bitter foes of Frederick, retook Brescello two years later—i.e., in the year 1249—and erected important fortifications, which, however, were destroyed in 1251 by the Cremonese, under the leadership of Uberto Pallavicino.

9Peace was declared two years afterwards, and the conquered town became a portion of Parmese territory. A congress took place here between the Parmese and the Cremonese in 1295, and in 1303 Giberto of Correggio was made Lord of Brescello. This nobleman at once fortified his new possession so strongly that the Cremonese, after a most furious attack, were obliged to beat a hasty retreat. A second bridge was constructed during the same year, but it was soon destroyed by the strong currents of the river.

Twelve months had hardly elapsed when the Cremonese, undaunted by their previous defeat, again attacked Brescello, and this time with such success that the town was set on fire and utterly destroyed; only, however, to be rebuilt by the determined citizens, who soon afterwards were under the dominion of the Marquis Obizzo III., of Este, at whose death, in 1352, the government of the town passed into the hands of the Visconti, and continued so up to 1421. In 1425 the Venetians took possession of Brescello, and held it until 1432, when it was captured by the Duke of Milan, who, in the years 1442-3, gave it to Erasmo Trivulzio.

In 1479 Brescello passed into the possession of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, Ercole I., and in 1512 and 1551 was under the yoke of foreign troops. In 1552, Ercole II., re-fortified the town with very strong forts, which were, however, totally destroyed in 1704 by Gallispani.

Here, on the 16th September, 1797, was born the subject of our memoir, Antonio Genesio Maria 10Panizzi; a great portion of whose chequered life seemed, in its changes and chances, to reflect the early fortunes of his birth-place.

The similarity in the unsettled state of both is striking, and it is a source of gratification to watch, how, in progress of time, Panizzi was enabled to surmount misfortune, and, freed from private as well as political trouble, to end his life in assured peace and security. His father, Luigi Panizzi, was the son of Dottor Antonio Panizzi, a lawyer. His mother, Caterina Gruppi, was descended from a respectable line of ancestors, many of whom had earned for themselves honourable distinction chiefly in the profession of the law.

At an early age Antonio Panizzi was sent to a school of the better class at Reggio, where he was placed under the care of the Abbate Fratuzzi, Professor of Rhetoric and Director of the Lyceum, with whom, as stated by a contemporary, Dr. Zatti, he soon became a special favourite. Of this school Panizzi seems always to have cherished happy memories, and the author remembers hearing him narrate a rather amusing incident of his school-days.

This anecdote is presented to our readers with some apology, and with the recommendation, after the manner of facetious novelists when about to introduce a more than ordinarily racy chapter, to use their own discretion as to its perusal.

It is the custom at schools in Italy, even at the present day, for one of the pupils to be chosen to serve at mass. For this office the Abbate Fratuzzi on one occasion selected Panizzi. It so happened 11that the priest was administering the sacrament to a man, whose head was of conspicuous uncleanliness, and was uttering the usual sentence, “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam æternam.” Young Antonio, interrupting the priest at the word “custodiat,” murmured to himself “pediculos tuos,” then looked at the priest, who omitting the “animam,” in a great hurry concluded the sentence, perhaps unconsciously, “in vitam æternam. Amen.”

Surely never yet had man and his tormentors in combination so rich a blessing invoked on them.

Having finished his first course of studies at the Lyceum, early in the year 1814 Panizzi entered the University of Parma, where he kept the terms necessary to qualify him for the legal profession. In August, 1818, he obtained the Baccalaureat, with the title of “Dottor” Panizzi. The original certificate conferring this degree was taken away from him when subsequently he became involved in political troubles; but a second fully certified copy was sent to him on the 22nd of May, 1827, most probably at his own request, for about this period there was a possibility of his appointment to the chair of Italian professor at the London University.

As every detail is important to our subject, it may be mentioned here that, within a month of his obtaining his degree, he was attacked so violently by typhoid fever, that his life was for awhile despaired of.

It was Panizzi’s good fortune at this time to stand on the best possible terms with the ruler of his State, 12Francis IV. Duke of Modena, who esteemed the young man so highly as to appoint him, though still a mere youth, to the office of Inspector of Public Schools at Brescello. This office he seems to have discharged with more than common industry and conscientiousness, bestowing on every detail, whether of management or expenditure, the most careful supervision. For the favour with which the Duke regarded him, he was indebted to an intimacy existing between Francis IV. and the Advocate Cocchi, with whom Panizzi acted as a sort of legal partner, and whom he constantly assisted in the various causes before the Tribunal at Reggio.

One who knew Panizzi about that time, thus describes his personal appearance: tall, thin, and of dark complexion; in temper somewhat hot and hasty, but of calm and even judgment, which commanded respect and caused him to be looked up to by all. He must have been most diligent in his pursuit of knowledge, losing no opportunity of study, for he is described as constantly engaged in reading, even while walking from his house to the office.

As regards his professional reputation, he may be said to have certainly occupied more than an average position, both as counsel and as a legal authority. His powers of eloquence were of no mean order; they were especially conspicuous in a law suit, in which he was engaged for the defence, and was opposed by the celebrated advocate Tizioni, well-known as a most formidable, and (as was said) unscrupulous opponent.

It was about this period that the political condition of Italy began to engage, and shortly afterwards to 13absorb his attention; and, in this place, it will be best to notice a charge, openly brought against Panizzi, that he was a Carbonaro. The truth of this assertion must be at once and freely admitted; for although no one ever heard him confess it in England, nor is there in his book “Processi di Rubiera,” of which more hereafter, any allusion to his having been of the Association, yet it is indisputable that he was not only a Carbonaro, but one of the most active members of that Society. We have it on the evidence of Doctor Minzi (one of his greatest friends), that in the month of January, 1821, he, Dr. Minzi, and an ex-captain of the Napoleonic army were admitted by Panizzi as members of the Society, that such admission took place in Panizzi’s own bedroom, and that he himself had then been a member since the month of March, 1820.

In this country all secret Societies are apt to be regarded—to use the mildest term—with disfavour. It is true that ridicule attaches to the general denunciation of Freemasonry indulged in by the Roman Catholic Church; for, except that the manner of creating a Freemason, and the sacred signs by which he may hereafter be known, are kept in darkness from the profane world, the Institution itself is about as much a secret society as a London club; there is, however, unfortunately, in a portion of these realms a dark and dangerous organisation,^[A] unjustifiable, we conceive, as regards its purpose, and unscrupulous as to the means which it employs to carry out its designs. 14From the condition of this conspiracy, and of the country where it is carried on, we are doing an injustice to other and widely different nations to judge of the causes from which their societies spring by the same standard; for, let us frankly and impartially put ourselves in the place of some at least of these, and we may possibly find a sort of exculpation if not a justification even of the Carbonaro.

Where the law is so weak that justice cannot be obtained at its hands, some other organisation will naturally be resorted to for the protection of life and property, and this organisation being beyond, and therefore to a certain extent antagonistic to the law as existing, or at least as administered at the time, must, if it would be effectual, be secret. No peaceful and well-conducted inhabitants of certain cities in the Far West, have yet, to our knowledge been heard to complain of the existence or action of that most terrible of Vehmgerichte, the “Vigilance” Committee. Where, on the other hand, despotism, uncontrolled by law, exercises an uncertain and galling tyranny, or being acquiesced in by the majority, reduces sovereign and subjects to the lowest moral and intellectual, and it might almost be added physical level, whatever there is of life and spirit in a nation will be forced into some plan of action for the preservation both of itself and the country; and this action will of necessity be secret.

Conditions such as these existing, as will be hereafter seen, in Panizzi’s own country, may fairly be alleged as an excuse—if excuse be needed—for his complicity with Carbonarism.

15It is not brought forward as a further justification, but simply adduced as a fact, that such distinguished and eminent men, as Silvio Pellico, and the Principe della Cisterna, are known to have been deeply imbued with Carbonarism, and the late Emperor Napoleon III. was among the number of those accused of taking an active interest in the doings of this society.

Into the condition of Italy at the time of which we are writing it is unnecessary to enter as yet. Suffice it to say that the restraints upon personal liberty and the despotic conduct of the ruling powers aroused the spirit of Panizzi, and he longed to liberate his country; ardent patriot as he was, it seemed to him that freedom could only be secured by the expulsion, in the first place, of certain persons whom he deemed tyrants. With a view of bringing about this result, he thought it necessary to belong to a sect, or secret society, whose predominant ideas were—to free Italy, to unite her several States, and to expel the “stranger.”

In order that the reader may not be misled in any way in judging of the early political principles of Antonio Panizzi, it will be well to give in this place a short account of the source whence Carbonarism sprung, of its original purpose, and of the more ambitious aims which it in aftertimes developed. Let it be first of all clearly understood that the Carbonari of 1820 had nothing in common with the Communists of the present day.

The Italian society of Carbonari dates from the period of the French Revolution (1790); it’s name was 16derived from that of a similar association which had existed in Germany from a very early period. The necessity of affording aid to one another induced the charcoal-burners who inhabited the vast forests of Germany to unite against robbers and enemies.

By conventional signs, known only to themselves, they claimed and afforded mutual assistance. The criminal attempt of Conrad de Kauffungen (executed 14th July, 1455), to carry off the Saxon princes, failed through the intervention of the charcoal-burners; and, at a more recent period, a Duke of Wurtemberg was compelled by them, under threat of death, to abolish certain forest laws, considered offensive and cruel. This association gradually acquired more consistency, and spread itself all over Germany, France, and the Netherlands—the oath its members took being called “the faith of colliers or charcoal-burners.” It is asserted that several members of the French Parliaments were enrolled in its ranks in the years 1770-1790, and it may be remarked, en passant“$2”$3, that in France there had long existed, in the department of the Jura, an association known as the “Charbonniers” or “Bucherons,” and that amongst its members it was known as “Le Bon Cusinage.” This society was revived and brought into activity by the Marquis de Champagne, in the reign of Napoleon I.

But it is Italy which claims our immediate attention, and in treating of the rise and progress of Carbonarism in that country a somewhat remarkable personage must be introduced—no other, in fact, than he to whom Carbonarism owed its existence. This was one Maghella, a Genoese of low extraction, 17who had risen from the position of clerk in a counting-house to that of minister of police in the Ligurian Republic. He was in high favour with Murat, who had made his acquaintance during the French campaign in Piedmont.

Shortly after Murat had succeeded Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Naples he sent for Maghella, and in course of time made him minister of police. It may be a matter of question whether or no the king found in his newly appointed officer the best of counsellors or the most faithful of friends. Maghella was actuated by two feelings of equal intensity—hatred of Napoleon and a desire for the independence of Italy. With these views he took upon himself to urge on Murat not only that he should refuse to join in the campaign now (1812) projected by Bonaparte against Russia, but should openly declare himself against the Emperor. How Murat received this advice, which, proffered from such a quarter to such a man, appears to us now to betoken madness, there is no record to show. As he shortly afterwards appeared in the field as general of Napoleon’s cavalry, his proper sphere, it is pretty plain that he did not adopt it.

The unfortunate termination of the Russian expedition, and the complete disaster which befel the French army therein, gave fresh encouragement to Maghella to carry out his patriotic schemes. Now, he conceived, there was a golden opportunity for driving the French troops out of Rome, Tuscany, and Genoa, and for placing himself at the head of the insurrectionist party. In this, as is well known, he signally failed. 18That the occasion he took for the accomplishment of his project was not, however, so ill-timed as might generally have been supposed, is proved by the subsequent revolution at Milan, which broke out on the 20th April, 1814, and which showed that the government of Eugène de Beauharnais was much less stable than had been fondly imagined.

Although Maghella’s plans had thus failed, he still had means at command to employ for the benefit of his enslaved and distracted country. Of these the society of Carbonari presented the readiest; and he accordingly set himself to work to introduce the association into Naples. In this he was successful, and a duly constituted branch of the institution was established there by his efforts; the object aimed at being stated, in express terms, to be the liberation of Italy from a foreign yoke. That qualification of character was required for admission into the ranks of the Neapolitan league appears from the following extract from their rules:—“General doctrine of the order.” Article 4. “Tried virtue and purity of morals, and not Pagan qualities, render men worthy of belonging to the Carbonari.” Although the ordinary Neapolitan Carbonaro might possibly have failed to fulfil these rather severe conditions, yet we do not believe, still less is there any evidence to prove, that the Carbonari of Naples in general were animated by any less worthy motive than by a thoroughly sincere, if not very enlightened, spirit of patriotism.

It cannot, however, be denied that whatever may be said of these new Southern Members of the Society, the men of Northern Italy, who in 1819 and subsequent 19years joined in considerable numbers, were of a class vastly superior, so far as regards social standing, culture, and education, energy and decision of character, to their confrères of the South—and amongst the Northern Italian associates was Antonio Panizzi.

By 1820 Carbonarism had spread all over the Peninsula; it could scarcely be called any longer a secret society. There were head centres in almost every town. It had reached a numerical strength far above that of any other society, and it is hardly too much to say that, by this time, it had made itself respected as the expression of a national idea.

The system had, as will have been seen, now developed itself into something very different from, and, to the various rulers of divided Italy, far more formidable than the innocent convention for mutual support and defence of the German charcoal-burners. It is not, therefore, under the circumstances, surprising that certain people outside the pale of the society, though we can hardly suppose them altogether ignorant of its professed objects, should have come to regard it with a vague and uneasy feeling of fear and aversion. In the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, as it was then styled, His Majesty the Emperor of Austria had, in August, 1820, issued a decree against the Carbonari, which, after accusing them of high treason, went on to declare that “The precise object of the Carbonari is the subversion and destruction of all governments.” Now, with whatever danger to the Austrian Government the organization might have been suspected to be fraught, and it must be readily granted that there were grounds for such suspicion, the foregoing universal 20proposition presents a remarkable variation from the truth. The aim of the Carbonari was, it is true, to liberate their country from the yoke of the foreigner, but there cannot be a doubt that it pointed in an equally direct degree to the unification of Italy, or at the least to a confederation of her several States under Italian government or presidency.

Having thus endeavoured to trace the origin, growth, and aim of Carbonarism, it behoves us to consider how it affected the state of Naples, what was the condition of that place at the time of its introduction, and what were its immediate and subsequent results. To do this it will now be necessary to recapitulate the events of the memorable years 1820 and 1821.

Whilst the secret societies and the people united in endeavouring to upset the existing state of affairs, the government of Naples, utterly unconscious of all danger, continued its arbitrary career. Such, indeed, was its feeling of security, that it had the amazing stupidity to imprison any person, who from excess of zeal or mistaken patriotism gave intimation of approaching danger. Danger there was, however, and in 1820 the revolution broke out in Naples. Two months afterwards a similar revolution, caused by the obstinacy and arbitrary acts of Ferdinand VII. of Spain, occurred at Cadiz. All Europe greeted these movements with applause. The Neapolitans, more eager and more active than the others, obtained their political reforms at the cost of but little bloodshed, and no public injury; had the revolution presented itself with its usual accompaniments of risk 21and disaster, the Carbonari, and, indeed, the Liberals, would not have felt inclined to proceed. Never was there greater excitement amongst the former, and never did their numbers and strength increase so rapidly.

Thus encouraged they made essay of their strength on the ranks of the regular army, and were fortunate enough to be able to add to their Society no inconsiderable number of associates, both of the rank and file, and of officers.

The Government was completely taken by surprise. Calabria, Capitanata, and Salerno issued various proclamations, whilst the army joined the Carbonari against King Ferdinand I.

One morning five Carbonari, the most distinguished of the sect, entered the royal palace, announcing that they came in the name of the people, and that they desired to speak with the King or some high authority of the Court. Whereupon the Duke d’Ascoli presented himself, and was informed by one of the delegates in unmistakable words that tranquility could not be preserved in the city unless the King granted the constitution demanded. On the 6th of July, 1820, Ferdinand was compelled to issue an edict “To the Nation of the Two Sicilies,” in which he solemnly promised to “publish the basis of the constitution within eight days’ time.” New ministers were appointed, and shortly afterwards a document appeared stating that the King had resigned the royal authority to his son. The people suspected this to be a stratagem, and insisted on the establishment of the “Cortes” at once. The Viceroy Francis was induced to publish a 22decree declaring that the constitution of the Two Sicilies should be the same as that adopted in Spain in 1812. Thus the Government was constituted on its new basis amid general approbation.

In Palermo, however, a rebellion had broken out which forced the King to send 2,000 soldiers to reduce the town to obedience. Emboldened by his success over the Sicilian rebels, he now fancied himself safe, and forthwith entered upon extreme measures. A general disarmament of the civil population commenced, death being the sentence of all found in secret possession of arms. The liberal-minded monarch further proceeded to prohibit or suspend the action of all public schools, universities, and lyceums, and to disband the militia.

Such was the wretched state of Naples, when premonitory and alarming symptoms of disaffection appeared in the north. On the 11th of January, 1821, a band of young men, wearing the red cap of liberty, appeared at the theatre of the Ardennes, in the district of Novara, and raised a tumult. This ebullition of enthusiasm was put down by the troops on guard at Turin; but the revolutionary spirit was checked only for the moment, and soon broke out again supported by men of wealth and influence. In the month of February, on the representation of the Austrian Ministry, the revolutionary party was publicly accused of conspiring to expel the Austrians from Italy. On this charge, which might possibly be true enough, many men of noble birth and of the highest social position, were imprisoned in the citadel of Finistrello. This was the signal for a general rising. Officers and 23statesmen joined the revolutionists, and, according to Santorre Santa-Rosa, even the heir-apparent, Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, was no stranger to the intrigues that were going on.

On the morning of the 4th of March symptoms of revolt appeared in some regiments stationed near Vercelli; but they were speedily suppressed by the soldiers who remained faithful to the royal cause.

On the 10th of March the Spanish constitution was publicly proclaimed at Alessandria. As soon as the news of this gain to the cause became known throughout Italy, great were the rejoicings of the Carbonari, and loud and frequent the shouts of “Viva il Re! Viva La Costituzione!” A cavalry regiment was raised and stationed on the heights of Carmagnuolo, under the command of Captain Lisio, the soldiers shouting, “Death to the Austrians!” Turin, abandoned by its governor, was occupied amid the acclamations of the people and many of the soldiers.

The King all this time was at his château of Moncaliere; but on hearing of the events above described at once hastened to the capital. His first impulse was to put himself at the head of his troops and attack Alessandria; but he was forced to relinquish this enterprise owing to the unfaithfulness of his soldiers. Thus baffled, he attempted, as a sort of half measure, a proclamation of the French constitution. But it was too late—the insurgents had gained the upper hand. As a last resource, the King sent the Prince of Carignano to the revolutionists in order to ascertain their demands. The prince was received with respect and military honours, accompanied by 24shouts of “Viva la Costituzione di Spagna!” He was told that war with Austria was desired. The King, on hearing this, rather than give way, abdicated in favour of his heir.

On the 13th the royal family left Turin and set out for Nice, and a proclamation was issued that the Prince of Carignano had been appointed regent of the realm. He was soon afterwards installed in full sovereignty, and the constitution of Spain proclaimed.

We may be permitted in closing this necessarily very short sketch of the two revolutions, to quote a passage from that most amusing but slightly erratic writer, Lady Morgan, on the subject of the Piedmontese Revolution:—“Had this revolution not been disturbed by the unprincipled interference of foreign nations it would have led to the happiest consequences. What is to be said of a Government which reduces the great majority of the people to a slavish insensibility to national degradation, to a perfect indifference to national honour?”

It may certainly be asked, on the other hand, how a nation reduced to the state described by Lady Morgan could be entrusted to work out for itself a revolution which “would have led to the happiest consequences.” But liberty in Italy, as elsewhere, must have taken time to grow; even under the most patriotic of leaders a nation does not become suddenly ripe for the blessings of freedom. Nor can it be doubted that by the spirit that moved in 1820-1822, and which burst forth so brightly in aftertime, were laid the first foundations of that structure of Italian unity finally completed by politicians more skilled but not more patriotic than the revolutionists.

25How far Panizzi’s own country, Modena, was concerned in the attempted work of liberation will be best shown by a short notice of his book, the “Processi di Rubiera.”

By this work, no doubt originally intended for the world, but even then so sparingly circulated and subsequently so rigidly suppressed by the writer that very few persons have even seen it, the circumstances which drove Panizzi into exile, though not detailed in all their fulness, are illustrated and rendered intelligible.

A somewhat minute analysis is not therefore out of place here, although, whether from indisposition to thrust himself forward or from fear of compromising others, the author’s name occurs but once or twice in the body of the work, which therefore contributes hardly anything to the elucidation of his own biography. It has usually been referred to as “I Processi di Rubiera,” Rubiera being the name of the fortress situated between Reggio and Modena, where the prosecution of Modenese political offenders was conducted before a tribunal nominated ad hoc. The title of the book, however, is “Dei Processi e delle Sentenze contra gli imputati di Lesa-Maestà e di aderenza alle Sette proscritte negli Stati di Modena;” 247 pages, besides the title, Madrid, 8°., 1823. The imprint was a disguise; the publication, if the work can be said to have been published, took place at Lugano. The designation of the anonymous editor, dating from Madrid, Feb. 2, 1823, and subscribing himself, “Un membro della società landeburiana,” was no doubt equally apocryphal, and may probably have concealed Panizzi himself. The document is altogether 26one of the most interesting productions of its author, especially as an indication of the eminence he might have attained in his chosen profession of advocacy had his lot been cast in a free State. The style borders on the oratorical, charged with fiery but restrained indignation, while the vehemence of invective is supported by legal acumen, and a thorough acquaintance with the maxims of jurisprudence, to which the writer continually appeals. His power of recollection and mastery of incidents, whether public or personal, appear extraordinary when it is considered that, his papers having been seized at Cremona, Panizzi himself must have depended to a very great extent upon his memory. Yet the completeness of the documents, which are all given in full, induce the belief that he might somehow have preserved this part of his materials, or have subsequently obtained it indirectly. Some inaccuracies may well have crept unheeded into the narrative under such circumstances, and this may possibly account for his evident desire to suppress the work. Years after, being questioned on the subject by the biographer, he answered, “Better say nothing about it.” It seems difficult to assign any other reason, unless it might be an excessive deference to the sentiment alluded to in the preface, “che lo scoprire le turpitudini delta patria sua, comecchè a ciascuna persona non istia bene, a coloro poi che per capriccio di malvagia fortuna furono fuori del seno di lei trabalzati, più specialmente non convenga.” The tone of the production can scarcely have been disapproved by his maturer judgment. Though emphatic, it is always decorous, 27whilst the literary effect is even impaired by a punctilious adherence to constitutional fictions in criticizing the acts of the sovereign. There is nothing capable of being construed to the writer’s own disadvantage, unless an adversary were sufficiently malicious or prejudiced to discover an incentive to political assassination, in his report of a matter of fact, that Modena rejoiced at hearing the news that a tyrannical official could persecute his fellow-townsmen no more. This moderation of tone certainly cannot have arisen from any vacillation on Panizzi’s part. He never altered his opinion of the Modenese Government; and, even if his mere opinion were disregarded, the documents printed by him speak sufficiently for themselves. It is fortunate that he did not succeed in entirely suppressing so lamentable an illustration of the forlorn condition of the Italy of his youth.

The book commences with a retrospective survey of the then recent history of Italy, displaying remarkable insight into personal character, and containing shrewd remarks on State policy. This introduction may one day be appealed to as a testimony that the true founder of Italian independence and unity was neither Charles Albert nor Victor Emmanuel, not Cavour, nor Mazzini, nor Garibaldi, but Napoleon. Nothing, certainly, could have been farther from the intention of the rapacious conqueror, who, ere the ink was well dry with which he had assured the citizens of the Cisalpine Republic that their liberties would shortly be secure, proceeded to confiscate them himself.

A contemporary writer mentions the project which Bonaparte is known to have long entertained, for consolidating 28Italy into one State, and adds: “While he was Emperor of France he probably intended to administer his new Government by a Viceroy, but since his abdication we are satisfied from all we have seen and heard of his conduct that he dreams of his Italian kingdom for himself.”

It was, however, impossible for a revolutionary invader, whose authority involved the negation of the old order of things, to govern Italy without appealing to Italian national sentiment. The various branches of administration fell into the hands of natives. A national army was formed which participated to the full in the glories of the Empire, and Italy regained something of that reputation for valour and conduct which she had forfeited for three hundred years. The Italian youth, no longer condemned by the jealousy of their rulers to an existence of indolence and frivolity, awoke to the perception that their immediate progenitors had reversed the mission of their forefathers.

For themselves, if still subjects, they were no longer slaves.

Napoleon, “nato,” in Panizzi’s pregnant phrase, “per dar l’orma all’età sua”, prepared the way for the love of liberty by reviving the love of glory. Looking around them, the Italians beheld an enlightened code of laws, impartial judges, religious toleration, education fostered by the State, active industry, flourishing finances, above all, a strictly national administration, 29with every post accessible to desert. The instinctive sagacity of the race taught them to be content with so large a measure of good for the present, and to reserve their aspirations for independence until their beneficent master should bequeath his empire to his son. That day never came. Bonaparte fell, execrated by the many nations which he had pillaged and dismembered, but cherished by the one he had trained to national life, with a regard which is still a force in European politics.

Six millions of Italians had, in Napoleon’s time at least, been permitted to bear the Italian name. The Congress of Vienna resolved them back into Lombards, Piedmontese, and the people of Parma and Modena. Modena was assigned to the Austrian Archduke, descended on the female side from the ancient house of Este, a petty tyrant of a peculiarly exasperating type, timorous, suspicious, and hypocritical. His first act was to abolish the Code Napoleon, and replace it by the code promulgated by authority in 1771. The motive for this retrograde proceeding was apparent. The code Napoleon was lucid and comprehensive; the obscurity and imperfection of the “Codice Estense” left a margin of uncertainty, under cover of which the maxims of the antiquated civil and canon law would always be introduced when required. The judge had thus the power of resorting to either as he pleased, and his arbitrary decision might be the most potent element in the proceedings. This was plainly equivalent to a denial of justice to persons charged with political offences. The remodelled magistracy was filled with subservient functionaries; 30but the real main-spring of the judicial administration was Besini, the Chief of Police. Every act of the Government betrayed the same tendency, especially the oppressive system of taxation, introduced to replenish the Duke’s private exchequer, and the restrictions imposed upon higher education. Schools and colleges were placed under the control of the Jesuits; and scholarships established for the support of poor students at the universities were suppressed, the Duke declaring openly that people must not be encouraged to aspire beyond their station. Every person of liberality or culture became disaffected, and as all open expression of discontent was prohibited, secret societies began to permeate the entire duchy.

Matters were in this state when the sudden explosion of the Neapolitan revolution turned the apprehensions of the petty Italian Governments into an actual panic. Austrian troops, hastily summoned to repress the Liberal movement, passed through Modena on their march. Some of these were Hungarians, a nation sympathising with Italy. An address was prepared and secretly circulated among them, imploring them not to fight against the Neapolitans. The jealousy of the Modenese Government was roused to the highest pitch. Many arrests were made, chiefly by means of espionage and the violation of private correspondence; and on March 14th, 1821, a special tribunal was constituted for the trial of political offenders. It was the formal inauguration of a reign of terror. “Avrà luogo,” says the decree, “un processo e un giudizio statario—Statario, dal latino statim, se mal non avviso,” is the sarcastic note of the editor.

31The etymology might seem borne out by the injunction that the duration of the proceedings was in no case to exceed eight days, and by the sinister regulation: “Si terrà, pronto il carnefice, si potrà secondo le circonstanze, eriggere il patibolo anche preventivamente, e si disporrà per aver pronto un religioso il quale assista coloro che fossero condannati.” The priest and the executioner, however, were not immediately called into requisition; and the Neapolitan and Piedmontese revolutions having been promptly extinguished, the tempest seemed about to pass off, when suddenly, about the beginning of 1822, numerous arrests were made of persons suspected of participation in the meetings of secret societies. It was soon reported that one of those implicated had denounced his friends, and dark stories became current of the tortures and privations by which the chief of the police, Giulio Besini, sought to wring out confession. By a decree of unheard of injustice and indecency, this natural enemy of the accused was appointed their judge, and charged to receive the depositions he had himself extorted. The issue was eagerly awaited, when, on the evening of May 14th, 1822, Besini perished by an unknown hand. Besini was taken home, surgeons sent for, and the blow declared mortal. Quick as lightning the welcome news spread through Modena, and the people heard with joy that there was a man in the town who had been bold enough to rid the land of a miscreant. With his dying breath he denounced a certain Gaetano Ponzoni, who, he said, had cause to be his enemy, “as if,” observes Panizzi, “Ponzoni were the only such person in the duchy.”

32Upon the admonition of the attendant magistrate, Solmi, Besini acknowledged that he could not positively identify his assailant. Ponzoni was nevertheless arrested, and Solmi’s humane interference cost him his office. The special tribunal, hitherto dormant, was called into activity for Ponzoni’s trial.

The course of the procedure gave earnest of what was to follow. Parenti, Ponzoni’s advocate, was allowed only three days to prepare his defence, and denied an opportunity of examining the adverse witnesses, a part even of the written depositions was withheld from him, he was charitably admonished not to occupy the time of the court with trivialities, and referred to a secret Ducal decree conferring unlimited powers on the tribunal, which could not be shown to the advocate, because it contained very confidential instructions intended for the court alone. In spite of all these obstacles, Ponzoni’s innocence was irrefragably established; but his judges, afraid to acquit and ashamed to condemn, simply laid the proceedings before the Duke, who left them unnoticed, and when Panizzi wrote, Ponzoni was still in prison, where he remained, though innocent, till the year 1831. The true assassin proved to be a certain Morandi, who, when safe in London, openly avowed having committed the deed.

This prosecution was but a preliminary to the indictment of the unfortunate men who had languished in captivity since the beginning of the year. About the middle of June the commission appointed to try them commenced its session at Fort Rubiera. Its first task was to receive the confessions extorted from 33the prisoners during their incarceration, and to elude the numerous retractations of the accused. All these avowals proved to have been obtained under Besini’s management by fraud or force. Manzotti had been chained to a wall in such a manner as to oblige him to remain in an erect position until he subscribed to what was required of him; Nizzoli’s signature was affixed during the paroxysms of a fever fit, after he had been chained so as not to be able to sit down for forty days. Conti was entrapped by a forged confession attributed to another prisoner; Alberici was gained by allurements and flatteries; Caronzi was persuaded by the prayers and tears of his wife, whose honour was said to have been the price of a fallacious promise of her husband’s deliverance, he being sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, a term reduced by the Duke to fifteen. Peretti, Maranesi, Farioli, and others testified to similar deceits and cruelties ineffectually employed against themselves; some, beguiled by the inducement held out to them, remained silent. The chief prosecutor, Vedriani, a man of honour and integrity, called upon the tribunal to acquaint the prisoners that such promises were illusory and unauthorised. His colleague Fieri opposed him; the question was referred to the Duke, who denied having authorised Besini to hold out any expectations of indulgence. Vedriani insisted that the culprits should be apprised of this declaration; the judges, fearful lest the unfortunate men should escape from the snare into which they had fallen, peremptorily negatived the demand. Vedriani indignantly threw up his brief, and the last hope of justice 34vanished with him. A more supple instrument was found, and the prosecution proceeded as the Government desired. The prisoners were debarred from choosing their own advocates, and those selected were only allowed to confer with them under restrictions. The defenders nevertheless did their duty, and although they could not, without subverting the entire judicial fabric of Modena, as then understood, have brought the judges to acknowledge the uselessness of extorted confessions (the sole evidence against most of the accused)—the illegality of the tribunal itself ab initio, or, even granting its legality, the incompetence of the tribunal to take cognisance of offences which it had not been constituted to try—they deterred the court from accepting the conclusions of the prosecutor Fieri.

This man had demanded the execution of forty-two persons, at most only guilty of belonging to a secret society, and accused of no overt offence against public tranquility. The tribunal reduced the penalty to various terms of imprisonment. The sentences, before they were pronounced, had to be submitted to the Duke for confirmation. Francis, enraged at their lenity, summoned the President of the Commission before him, the revised sentences assumed a very different complexion, and all the three judges stultified their previous decision by subscribing them “perchè tale fù la Sovrana mente e volontà.” Nine of the accused, some of whom had fortunately made their escape, were condemned to death; the remainder to the galleys or imprisonment for life, or for various periods. A Ducal decree appeared after some delay maintaining the punishment of death against those 35who had escaped, pronouncing a virtual sentence of imprisonment for life against those who had steadfastly maintained their innocence, and extending marked indulgence to those who had merited it by a “sincere, prompt, and spontaneous confession,” in other words, those who had been cajoled or intimidated into betraying their associates. The latter part of Panizzi’s publication is occupied with a legal demonstration of the incompetence of a tribunal constituted to try charges of high treason to deal with the mere offence of belonging to a secret society. The argument seems conclusive, but in fact the tribunal had voluntarily branded itself with a deeper mark than any that its assailant’s eloquence or ingenuity could have affixed to it.

On a perusal of the sentences, which are given “totidem verbis” in the appendix of the book, the civilized reader remarks with astonishment that, on the tribunal’s own showing, half the offences for which it awards penalties are not proved at all. First, is recited a series of facts considered to be established, by far the greater part of which relate merely to the presence of the inculpated person at the formal reception of some new member into a secret society. Then, in many instances, comes a second string of accusations, confessedly not proved, but considered possible “perchè si ha pure in processo qualche indizio.” And sentence is equally awarded for both!

The reasons, for which the sentence on a priest, Giuseppe Andreoli, was carried out, are worthy of attention:—

1. Because he had committed a crime which was punishable with death.

362. Because he had been the means of corrupting the younger part of the community.

3. Because he had abused the situation of Professor of Belles Lettres, at Correggio, in converting it into an instrumentinstrument of Carbonarism.

4. Because he had confessed his crime too late, and not within that time, which the Duke had fixed upon as available for such confessions.

As to the latter, it is to be borne in mind, that he confessed, simply on account of the Duke’s encouragement. The sentence was confirmed on the 11th of October, 1822, not because it was legally necessary, but, indeed, for the personal gratification of Francis IV; “Invocando il Santissimo nome di Gesù.”

At the period of the production of this work Panizzi’s own process was in suspense. He mentions it in a note, complaining of the delay, as intended to discredit him in the eyes of the other Italian patriots. His cousin, Francesco Panizzi, had, it appears, made some sort of confession, and been treated with suspicious lenity. If the Modenese Government had any intention of forcing or enticing Antonio into the like course of action with his cousin, it must have been frustrated by his publication, which may account for the impotent passion evinced in the subsequent proceedings against him. The work would be felt the more irritating from its sobriety of manner, its moderation even in the midst of invective, and its constant appeal to establish legal principle, as the criterion of the whole question. While proclaiming his fervent aspirations for the independence of his country, the author incidentally disclaims any participation 37in the proceedings of the Carbonari, and the commission of any act tending to the overthrow of the existing Government.

Such would be the natural attitude of a citizen like Panizzi, and he may well have affiliated himself to the secret society, as at that time the sole efficient agent in the cause of Italian freedom.

It is, nevertheless, difficult to conceive a man of his solid sense and practical sagacity, long acquiescing in the mummery of a Carbonarist conclave, and submitting to be known to the initiated as Thrasybulus or Archimedes. He represents, however, all the more faithfully, the indignation of the generous youth who had grown up under the comparative liberty of Napoleon’s sway, and who, on attaining maturity, found themselves deprived by political changes in other countries, of their birthright in their own; forbidden to call or think themselves Italians; and with every avenue in life closed against them, unless they consented to become instruments of a cruel and senseless despotism.

As this generation has passed away other aspects of the Italian question have come into greater prominence; the stately tree of Italian unity has covered the soil in which it originally took root. Even more as a picture of contemporary national feeling, than as an exposure of the fraud and cruelty of an extinct tyranny, is Panizzi’s youthful work, worthy of being rescued from the oblivion to which he for so long condemned it.

Deeply interesting as are these recollections of the struggle for freedom in Italy, and intimately as they 38are connected with the life of Panizzi, than whom no stauncher advocate for the liberty of his country ever existed, it must not be forgotten that the object we have immediately in view is to refer to these exciting events so far only as Panizzi himself was concerned with them, and not to allow ourselves to be carried away by our subject beyond the limits necessary to elucidate the object we have at heart.

39

Flight; Lugano; Arrival in London; Santa-Rosa; Sentence of Death; Liverpool; Roscoe and Friends; Letter to the Tax-Gatherer and Inspector of Finances; Miss Martin; Lectures.

It is hardly possible for a native of a free country to form a right conception of the more than fatherly interest formerly taken by the petty prince of an Italian State in the welfare of his subjects. So deeply impressed with this feeling was Francis IV, Duke of Modena, Panizzi’s patron of yore, that he was in the habit at this time (1821) of sending regularly during the week one of his own private carriages into Brescello for the express purpose of bringing back two persons (whose names were set down in his orders, but not divulged) whom it was, doubtless, his intention to reclaim from evil opinions, to save them from the dangers to which such opinions might lead, and to hold them up as examples of his paternal care, or, it is just possible, as a warning to the remainder of his people. The Brescellese, either from uneasiness of conscience or from a natural dislike to all that was good, regarded both the duke’s intentions and his carriage with aversion. Of all men the least anxious for a seat in it were Panizzi and his 40friend Dr. Minzi, whom, it may be remembered, he had initiated into Carbonarism. It happened one day, as these two friends were taking their afternoon stroll along the Peggio road, that the ill-omened carriage suddenly appeared in the distance. Their only resource was to throw themselves into the ditch by the roadside, and remain concealed as closely as possible until the fatal vehicle had passed. This they accordingly did, and, as good luck would have it, escaped unnoticed. To return to Brescello was to meet the carriage a second time in all probability, for they suspected, and not without reason, that they themselves were the two persons who were to take a forced drive to Modena—a journey for which, at present, they felt little inclination. It was decided, therefore, as a temporary measure, to cross the frontier, and both being nimble of foot and with bodies well trained, as becomes all wise and prudent men, by athletic exercise, they fled across country with all possible speed for the Parmese territory. Arrived on this hospitable soil, the story goes that they threw themselves prone upon it, and actually (not figuratively) kissed it, pouring forth their heartfelt thanks to Providence for their deliverance from impending evil. Their position was even now far from enviable. It was impossible for them to remain on Parmese ground, and they were fully aware that perils as great as those from which they had just escaped lay before them. Exhausted as they were, they held a council on the road, in doubt whether to proceed or return to Brescello. The conclusion at which they arrived was that the better plan was to go back and 41make careful inquiries in the neighbouring villages, in order to ascertain who were the two persons for whom the agents of the police were seeking. On that very night, therefore, they returned, reaching Brescello about daybreak, and learnt to their great satisfaction that their names had never been mentioned. Here they seemed to have secured repose; but, as it turned out, of short duration, lasting only for the space of two months; for on the 22nd of October in the same year Panizzi received a slight message summoning him to the police office, where he accordingly attended. Hardly had he reached the door when he was arrested. Throughout all his misfortunes he seems not to have been without his share of good luck. The man who arrested him proved to be a friend, and by the aid of this kindly official he was enabled to jump out of a window, and again make his way for the frontier.

It may not be uninteresting to mention here that this man afterwards became an Austrian spy. Many years later on, while Panizzi was on a journey to Italy, and had arrived at the frontier, some one approached the carriage and demanded his passport. It was, of course, handed over. On returning it the man said, “Buon viaggio, Signor Panizzi!” and he recognised his friend of the Brescello police-office.

In the meantime, and before his arrest, the refugee, whose good luck it must be confessed was mainly owing to his sagacity and foresight, had taken care to provide himself with a passport. This, strange to say, he obtained duly endorsed, through a friend of Count Munarini, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. In addition to this passport, he had also armed himself 42with another document, almost equally useful. This was a pass, in the form usually given to labourers who wished to absent themselves for the day. With these papers in his possession he crossed the Po to Viadana, and, setting out from thence in company with Minzi, Zatti and Montani, arrived at Cremona, where he was recognised by the Austrian police-agent Ticino, who endeavoured to arrest his further progress. In this attempt, however, he failed; Panizzi’s passport being perfectly en règle. Nevertheless, he succeeded at the instigation of a notorious spy named Antonioli in robbing the fugitive of a portion of his luggage.

From Cremona he made his way as well as he could to Switzerland, where he took up his quarters at Lugano. Here he wrote his “Processi di Rubiera,” and at first thought of settling in the place, as this was a free town, near his own home. It may be as well to keep the memory of wrongs before the world, and it is unfortunately the way of unsuccessful men in general, and of unsuccessful revolutionists in particular, not to accept defeat philosophically, but after all hope of success has departed, still to irritate those whom they have failed to dispossess or overcome. From this pardonable defect Panizzi was, as might be expected, not more free than the rest of mankind. His restless and energetic disposition would not allow him to refrain from political controversy, and the character of his writings so provoked the Austrians that he was ordered to quit Lugano and proceed to. Geneva. Thither he accordingly went, but not to remain long; his objectionable reputation had preceded him, and the representatives of Austria, France, and Sardinia 43insisted on his expulsion. England was the only country now open to himself and his brother exiles, and thither they determined to journey by way of France; but, as they were not certain that the French authorities would allow refugees to pass through their country, it was decided to send forward Signor Bezzi (afterwards well-known in England as Mr. G. Aubrey Bezzi, who died in Piedmont only a few months before Panizzi) to exploiter the route. This gentleman’s exploitation must be held to have fallen a little short of complete success. At Gex, a small town in France, in the Department of Ain, and about 11 miles from Geneva, he was stopped, unceremoniously stripped, and after being thoroughly searched and examined, sent back. There was, however, a way to England still left to the party, by the Rhine and the Netherlands, and by this route they arrived in London in May, 1823. It is painful to have to record that the slenderness of their means obliged them to live in a state bordering on actual destitution. The author clearly recollects hearing Panizzi narrate that, in these days of his indigence, fourteen-pence was all he allowed himself for breakfast and dinner, and how well he remembered spending one portion of an afternoon in gazing through the windows of a cook-shop watching with hungry eyes the more fortunate mortals who were satisfying their appetites within; and this reminiscence gained additional zest from the fact that it was related at a banquetbanquet.

London at this period was full of refugees, from every country and of every grade, including presidents of republics, generals, men of letters, lawyers, poets, etc.

44At first these various celebrities enjoyed a considerable amount of notoriety, no small part of which was bestowed upon them by the newspaper writers, who seemed for some time to be indefatigable in drawing public notice to the exiles, and in relating exciting anecdotes of this or that famous person sojourning amongst them. In due course, however, the novelty of the thing wore off, and readers, having had a surfeit of such accounts, the newspapers gradually ceased to stimulate their curiosity, and the expatriated heroes were forgotten by the public at large.

If, as the maxim is, a man may be known by the society he keeps, Panizzi, who seems at most times to have had peculiar good fortune in attracting to himself men of worth, both privately and publicly, must be allowed to have stood high in this respect.

His dearest friend at this period of his life in London was the illustrious Piedmontese statesman, Santorre Santa-Rosa, who, the life and soul of the great patriotic movement then lately made to achieve the freedom of his country, was born at Savigliano in Sardinia, in September, 1783. He was the author of the History of the Piedmontese Revolution, a work which breathes the true spirit of national liberty, and exhibits its writer as a most determined foe to anything in the shape of foreign domination. Forced by his Government to expatriate himself in 1821, Santa Rosa went to Switzerland, but being, like Panizzi, compelled by the Austrian and Sardinian Governments to quit that country, he betook himself to France, taking up his residence in Paris, where he 45assumed the name of Conti, and became the bosom friend of Victor Cousin. Early in October, 1822, he arrived in England, on the merits and defects of which country he makes the following quaint comment in one of his letters to his brother exiles:—“Here I have been received with sincerity and kindness. I also admire the virtuous habits of the English, but cannot get used to their mode of cooking.”

For ourselves, as true lovers of our country, we are too well content with the eulogy at the beginning, to take exception to the blame of one of our institutions implied in the concluding part of the sentence.

In November, 1824, Santa-Rosa left England for Napoli di Romania to fight for the cause of Greek independence, and was killed in battle on the 19th of May, 1825. His death was a sad blow to the band of Italian patriots in London, but especially to Panizzi, who had looked up to him as a father and a counsellor, and had kept up a constant correspondence with him. There are in our possession but two letters written by Santa-Rosa to his friend, dated respectively the 5th September and 13th November, 1823, from “The Green Cottage, South Bank, St. John’s Wood,” a part of the town much affected as a dwelling place by the leading refugees. Conspicuous in these are the writer’s affection for Panizzi and anxious care for his welfare; nor are matters of mental instruction omitted, for we find strong recommendations carefully to study the political and literary history of Italy, and also “note all the most important points of English habits.” After Santa-Rosa, Panizzi’s chief friends, with whom during his stay in town he spent a great portion 46of his time, were the brothers Camillo and Filippo Ugoni, both literary men of some note.

Shortly after Panizzi’s arrival in London he was tried in his absence on the charge of Carbonarism, in which it has been shown that he was deeply implicated. Of this, as might have been expected, he was found guilty on pretty clear evidence, and, in default of appearance, was sentenced to death by the Government of Modena.

Subjoined is a translation of the sentence:—

These hair-breadth escapes may be very amusing and pleasant to read about, but to the principal person concerned, who was thoroughly capable of appreciating the various positions and vicissitudes of life, they must have conveyed anything but agreeable impressions, or conduced to the ease of mind so acceptable to mankind in general.

49

Panizzi remained but a short time in London. The celebrated Ugo Foscolo, to whom the Ugoni had introduced him, had strongly advised him at once to quit the metropolis and to try his fortunes at Liverpool, where there was more likelihood of his obtaining employment. Foscolo furnished him with letters of introduction to William Roscoe, author of the life of Leo X., and also to other distinguished Liverpool men. How he was received by Roscoe, the following passage in the biography of the latter (Lond. 1833), vol. ii., p. 406, will show:—“It was the good fortune of Mr. Roscoe to retain, even to the close of his life, that power of attracting the friendship of others which had been from his youth one of his most marked characteristics. Amongst these, the friends of his age, there was no one who became more sincerely attached to him, or for whom he himself felt a higher degree of esteem and affection than Mr. Panizzi, an Italian gentleman, who had been compelled, in consequence of political persecutions, to abandon Italy and to take refuge in England. Soon after his arrival in this country he settled in Liverpool as a teacher of the Italian language, where his talents and worth soon won the regard of Mr. Roscoe. To the kindness and attention of Mr. Panizzi, which rather resembled that of a son than of a stranger, he owed many happy hours.” Mr. Roscoe died on June 30th, 1831.

50At his death Panizzi received the following letter:—

The centenary of William Roscoe’s birth was celebrated at Liverpool on the 8th March, 1853, and Panizzi was of course asked to attend.

In replying to the invitation he said:—“Feb. 19, 1853.... The veneration in which I, together with all lovers of truth, of freedom, of independence, of literature, and of the arts, hold the memory of that illustrious man, and the grateful recollection of the warm and affectionate regard with which I was honoured by him, are inducements so powerful to accept so kind an invitation as that which your letter conveys, that nothing but the absolute impossibility of leaving my duties here could restrain me from availing myself of it.”

Before Panizzi left London he received from Italy a most curious bill for money due from him; such a bill as few men have ever received at any time, and such as many men, Panizzi, probably, amongst the number, would hardly consider the most unpleasant 51of their kind. It was from the Inspector of Finances and Tax-gatherer (Ispettore ed Esattore di Finanze) at Reggio, who, having heard of Panizzi’s escape and arrival in Switzerland, sent him an account of money spent in preparing his accusation, sentence of death, and even for the expenses of his execution, “in contumaciam.” The actual sum demanded was 225 francs and 25 cents, including the usual fee for the hangman.

In his then low state of spirits Panizzi hardly felt equal to answering this amusing epistle in a befitting manner, and accordingly postponed his reply until after his arrival at Liverpool, whence he sent the following humorous letter:—

53It must be acknowledged that this was rather a substantial letter to emanate from the world of spirits, and the imaginary separation of the soul from the “sound and sprightly” body should certainly have satisfied his extraordinary creditors and absolved him from the debt.

Panizzi had now settled for the time in Liverpool, where he kept up a constant correspondence with absent friends. The two letters from Santa-Rosa, dated 1823, too clearly prove that he was at this time in a state of great poverty, and that he thought of returning to London, a step, however, strongly opposed by his friend.

The capricious nature of the English climate—it was in the winter that he had arrived at Liverpool—seemed to discourage and depress him, perhaps, more than anything else; whilst the want of the most ordinary comforts of life, even of proper food, told severely upon his health. His income was chiefly derived from giving lessons in the Italian language and literature; some of his pupils lived far away from the town, and he used to start on foot early in the morning, give his lessons and return to Liverpool by eleven o’clock. This was necessary, as other duties required his attendance in the town at that hour; and, when we consider that the journey had frequently to be made through snow and rain, its depressing influence on the spirits of the young Italian, accustomed to the more genial climes of the south, may be readily understood.

His address at this date, December 1823, is not known, but in the January following he lodged at 54No. 6, King-street, Soho. He continued to extend his acquaintance and was upon friendly terms with the bankers, Mr. Ymes and Mr. Zwilchenbart. At this period, too, he knew Mr. John Ewart, at whose house he met Mr. Francis Haywood, the translator of Kant’s “Critick of Pure Reason.”

From these gentlemen, who, as well as the Rev. William Shepherd, author of the “Life of Poggio Bracciolini,” were among his earliest acquaintances in Liverpool, he received the greatest kindness. With Mr. Haywood he soon became most intimate, and frequent communications passed between them. Indeed, if a day elapsed without a letter from Mr. Haywood, Panizzi wrote, asking “why had he not written.”

Such were the friends, whom even in his early career, when chances of success appeared at a hazy distance, this young man was able to draw towards him, and many more he secured in after life.

The necessity of close attention to his duties, and the attractions of the hospitable society of English friends, never led him to neglect his fellow exiles.

Amongst the latter was a certain Count Linati, whose character and antecedents deserve some short notice at our hands. Claudio Linati was born in the Duchy of Parma, on the 1st of February, 1790. He appears to have been at one time a man of wealth and standing, but had become deeply involved in the political complications of his country. On the 559th of April, 1824, he was tried in his absence for conspiracy against his Government, and sentenced to death in contumaciam by the Supreme Tribunal of Parma. Having succeeded in making his escape, he settled for a time in Spain, and subsequently in France. He was a writer and artist of no mean ability. In a letter to a mutual friend, Panizzi describes Linati, as a man of turbulent spirit, on whom nature had bestowed a robust constitution, proof against all changes of climate; full of energy, though without any decided aim, an adept at all employments, and well versed in literature; a painter and a poet, a writer of plays, too, both comic and tragic, many of which he delighted to read to his friend. The manners and customs of the countries in which he lived were his constant study, though his views of mankind in general partook of his own untutored spirit. Speaking of Spain he says that priestly anarchy predominates in that country, and calls France “quel servilissimo versatile compassionevole popoletto,” stigmatising the nation as “servile pecus” for its submission to tyranny. Linati’s troubles were many, and these it was his constant pleasure to relate to his friend at Liverpool, in long letters which Panizzi often answered by sharp criticisms, perhaps provoked in part by the heavy postage which he had to pay, and to which he did not scruple to call attention. In one especial respect there was great dissimilarity between the Count and Panizzi, for whereas the former for some unknown reason hated England and the English people, the latter early evinced the strongest liking for both.

56In December, 1823, he wrote to Linati, minutely describing his position, and concluding his long letter thus:—“In spite of all my sufferings and many troubles occasioned by poverty, I had rather live in England than in Italy.”

Upon this Linati wrote:—“Though your dear and beloved England may in some measure have slackened your chain, I will nevertheless tell you that I still prefer the Duke d’Angoulême, open enemy as he is, to that vile and infamous Sir William A’Court, who has betrayed the rights of hospitality by supporting a Government which, if unable to save itself, ought at least to have saved others. I can make a distinction between the generous people of England, whose hearts beat with noble enthusiasm at the war-cry of the liberal Spaniards, as well as the aspiration for Greek independence and self-government. I am delighted to learn that you are in the way of getting an honest livelihood. A hazardous occupation is that of teaching languages, particularly if you happen to meet with a pretty ‘Brittanna,’ who, whilst she is anxious to learn how to sing in Italian, may seem still more anxious to master the language of Petrarch, and suggest to her teacher that he might assist her in conjugating the verb amare (to love).”

The biographer has at this point to deplore the absence of some of Panizzi’s letters; not only because of the interesting matter which they are sure to have contained, but because curiosity must now remain unsatisfied in regard to the particular impression made on Panizzi’s mind by the suggestion in the last paragraph of Linati’s letter.

57As the Count was no longer allowed to reside in France, the police ordered him to quit the country at once; whereupon he emigrated to Brussels, and here he found a letter from his Liverpool friend, enclosing an order for 300 francs. This present, however, he declined with thanks. The wretched state of the Italians, cast into the streets of Paris penniless, after several months of imprisonment, gave Panizzi and Linati work enough to do. The former used his influence with the Philhellenic Society in London, and the latter secured the interest of Lord Byron, of whom he happened to be an intimate friend.

In the summer of the following year it appears that both intended to settle at New York. Panizzi, however, in discussing this project, remarked that his acquaintance, though showing him every mark of kindness, never seemed to lose sight of the fact that he was an Italian; from the Americans, who were “a proud people,” there was a fortiori but scant courtesy to be expected, and but little advancement to be hoped for in their country. Linati’s answer was:—“I do not agree with you in what you say respecting the North Americans, for half the population consists of adventurers, and the system of colonization being so active, there will be no difficulties in becoming a citizen, whereas in England you will remain a ‘foreigner’ for ever.”

However, Linati went to Mexico, and from there again indulged in his abuse of England in these words:—“I cannot understand your sympathy with those English tradesmen; for whilst living amongst them I daily noticed cold and formal ceremonials, stupidity 58provoked by drink, and the brutality of the ‘prize-ring,’ with its livid eyes and battered faces. Really, and indeed, my dear friend, I am truly sorry that you do not agree with me.”

Linati seems to have discovered that worse countries existed than England; only a short interval had elapsed before we find him leaving Mexico in disgust and returning during the winter of 1827 to London, where he is heard of no more until 1830. In that year he was upon the committee for remodelling Italy. It is certain, however, that in course of time he overcame his antipathy to Mexico, for he afterwards returned thither, and died at Tampico in the year 1832.

Count Giuseppe Pecchio was another of those distinguished exiles in whose company Panizzi delighted. Their long correspondence reveals a close intimacy. Pecchio, better known in England as the author of the “Semi-serious Observations of an Italian Exile during his Residence in England,” was also one of the victims of the ill-fated Piedmontese Revolution. England was his first refuge, and, after being engaged in various occupations, amongst others that of Italian teacher at Nottingham, he married an English lady, and, “post tot naufragia tutus,” took up his residence at Brighton.

The book, published at Lugano in 1827, contains amusing sketches of English life from a foreigner’s point of view; and after perusing it one can safely conclude that the Count was indebted for his inferences rather to imagination than to memory—perhaps to the two combined more than to actual facts.

59While residing in London Pecchio contemplated the production of a periodical, to which Panizzi was to be the chief contributor, with Messrs. Haywood and Roscoe as his supporters in addition to Silvia Pellico, who was about to be set free on occasion of the marriage of the Archduke Leopold, and whose presence was expected in the metropolis. This formed a strong company for the undertaking, to which the promoters were justified in looking forward with no little hope of success. The attempt to start this periodical, however, proved futile, and not even a number of it ever appeared.

On the 13th November, 1825, Pecchio wrote a letter to Panizzi, for the purpose of introducing a certain Miss E ****, telling him that he ought to appear as a Narcissus to captivate the young lady. Panizzi’s health, however, seemed at this time to fail him, and this he attributed to the severity of the winter season, which, as before stated, invariably affected him in a remarkable decree.

Possibly this may have been one cause of his indisposition. The Count, however, with some acuteness in deciding on symptoms, remarks: “The loss of one’s country is a wound which never heals; it is one of those pains which slowly destroy our own existence without our perceiving it.”

Sufficient space has, however, been allotted to Panizzi’s friends, and it is now time to return to Panizzi himself. His celebrity as a teacher of Italian and lecturer on that language was established at Liverpool. Before dilating upon his peculiar aptitude in this direction we must mention one feature in his 60character which will pre-eminently raise him in the estimation of all discerning readers. Miss Martin, one of his former pupils, knew him as a political exile in the time of his penury; nevertheless, she well recollects and bears witness to his most high-spirited disinterestedness in pecuniary matters—in fact, his singular disregard of money.

The lectures on the Italian language, at which this lady was present, were delivered by him in the years 1824 and 1825 in English; they had been inaugurated by Mr. Roscoe, and were given at the Royal Institution, Liverpool, where, strange to say, no record of them has been kept.

The following anecdote related by Miss Martin may serve to illustrate the earnestness of his addresses. In reciting some of the lines of the “Gerusalemme Liberata,” where the anxious Crusaders first catch sight of the sacred city of Jerusalem:—

his eager eye glanced at the wall at the side of the lecture-room with such realistic animation, and with such power over his hearers, that some of the audience turned to gaze on the vacant space as though the veritable towers and walls of Jerusalem had been thereon depicted.

These lectures were never published. The following extracts, expressive of his personal feelings towards his auditors may, even at this distance of time, be not altogether devoid of interest.

61The first quotation is from the first of the lectures, written in the summer of 1824, and the second is from the concluding lecture of the series, delivered three years afterwards.

It is pleasing to trace in these words the grateful heart of Panizzi, reflecting as they do the warmth of his feelings, and acknowledging the kindness shown him by Liverpool friends at a time when he sadly needed sympathy and support; we now leave him, through such aid, in better worldly circumstances than he had but recently encountered.

63

Foscolo; At Holkham; First Article; Departure from Liverpool; Brougham; Miss Turner; London University; Botta; Lady Dacre; ‘Orlando Innamorato’; W. S. Rose; Keightley; Moore’s Verses; Correspondence with Mr. Grenville; First Appointment.

Panizzi being established in Liverpool in 1826, it may be concluded (and, indeed, in a letter to be presently quoted he admits as much) that he was now earning sufficient to satisfy his immediate wants, and to enable him to enjoy a certain degree of luxury. He resided at 93 Mount Pleasant, an eminence overlooking the town, and celebrated in Roscoe’s poem of the same name. From the invitations he received, constantly dining out, it may be inferred he moved in the best society and was leading a comfortable life. Far otherwise was it with Ugo Foscolo, his fellow-exile. For Foscolo, of whose celebrity in England, as of the reverence paid to his name by the youth of his native Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini writes so warmly, was now living in London in a state bordering on destitution.

“Stern and somewhat aggressive in temperament,” says Mazzini, speaking of Foscolo, “his mind nourished 64and fortified by severe study, little calculated for laying new foundations, but endowed with mighty faculties for destruction, he effectually overthrew (except for those who bow down kindly before precedents) a whole edifice of errors which barred the way to the study of Dante. In his different writings, especially in his “Discorso sul Testo,” etc., etc., etc., he cleared the ground for a better understanding of the ‘Commedia’ and the poet.”

This estimate of Foscolo’s character was founded entirely on reading and reports, and seeing that the two famous refugees had no personal knowledge of each other—indeed had never met—must be taken as an eulogium rather of the genius than the moral worth of the great writer.

Though doubtless much might be said on this topic, our space and the purpose of this memoir forbid our dwelling at any length on the subject. For Foscolo’s genius as writer and poet, Panizzi—as who would not, even without his shrewd discernment?—ever entertained the profoundest respect; but in a somewhat important qualification, strict adherence to truth, he detected a slight deficiency. However, he made 65every allowance for this failing in a man of superior endowments, and felt the deepest sympathy with one of so great attainments reduced to such ignoble shifts. It is but too true that Foscolo wrote his famous book, “Discorso sul Testo, etc.,” and other of his last works under the pressure of extreme poverty and in continual dread of his creditors, which rendered his bodily sufferings the more intolerable, and caused him alarm lest want of bread should put a stop to his literary labours.

It is unnecessary to give further details of Foscolo’s life. They were better known to Panizzi than to any one else, and he alone could have narrated the true story of the experiences of his illustrious friend. The biographers of the former have unaccountably and unpardonably neglected to take due cognizance of the intimacy which subsisted between the two.

The first letter, written by Panizzi to Foscolo from Liverpool, and dated 25th February, 1826, is long and most interesting. Herein he recalls to his friend’s memory that it was just thirty months since he laid the foundation of all that the writer possessed, and proceeds in the following grateful strain: “Were it possible for me to forget my own country, I could not certainly forget Liverpool. If the misery of selling articles and verbs were not such as to freeze one’s blood, I might say that I live, yet I only vegetate; even this is due to you.”

Of Foscolo’s “Discorso sul Testo” of Dante, Panizzi always expressed the highest admiration. “Itadmiration. “It would be impossible,” he writes of his friend’s magnum opus, “to describe how much superior your work seems to me, 66compared with those hitherto made known, not only in Italy, but by any critic elsewhere. Being a great admirer of Dante, in whom I find the greatest comfort of my exile, I paid last month a visit to the Bodleian, where I saw thirteen manuscripts of the ‘Divina Commedia.’ I have ready a minute description of each, which I have written in the shape of a letter, with the intention of sending it to the ‘Antologia,’ a paper more Italian in feeling, and less slavish than the others; but if you would like to see it, I shall most willingly send it to you. I may add that not far from here there is another manuscript of Dante, which, according to Mr. Roscoe, is well worth consulting; I propose seeing it next Easter. Mr. Coke, of Holkham, also possesses other MSS. and has kindly offered to send them to my house, that I may have an opportunity of studying them at leisure.”

The splendid library at Holkham had been, in 1812, carefully examined and catalogued by Mr. Roscoe, who was immensely impressed with its value and importance.

“Such MSS. of Dante,” he writes to a friend, “drawings of the old masters, treasures of European history—you have no idea ... besides beautifully illuminated MSS. on vellum of many of the Latin classics, a most exquisite Boccaccio, a very fine old Dante.”

In the catalogue the following note is written by Roscoe: “For a transcript of this very difficult MS. of Boccaccio, by Signor Antonio Panizzi, see the illustrations in Vol. VIII. of this catalogue.”

67Next, if not equal in value to the “Discorso sul Testo,” in Panizzi’s estimation, was another work of Foscolo’s. This was “La Commedia di Dante Alighieri illustrata da Ugo Foscolo.” (London: 8vo., 1825). It may be mentioned that the preface to the first vol. of a later edition (1842) of this book, signed “un Italiano,” was written by Mazzini. Panizzi reviewed “La Commedia” (it was his first attempt at criticism in the English language) in the Westminster Review (vol. 7, p. 153).

This will amply repay perusal. The sincerity of the writer’s patriotism, and the manner in which it serves to enhance his interest in the great poet of his native country, will probably attract the reader’s attention at the outset. The philological contest in which Dante was engaged—his conclusions (set forth in his “De Vulgari Eloquio”), on the true origin of the Italian language, by which he so much disgusted his Florentine compatriots,—his own life and greater works,—the relations of the different powers by whose influence Italy was chiefly affected,—the spiritual in jeopardy of its existence in its own home, and externally the temporal, on which it mainly relied for support,—are all brought under notice, and skilfully treated.

Reference has been made to the “Westminster Review,” and as that periodical is easily accessible it is unnecessary to destroy the reader’s interest by extracting from the article in question.

Meanwhile Foscolo still continued his correspondence with Panizzi, furnishing him with details of his troubles. Serious differences seem to have arisen 68between him and Mr. Pickering, the publisher of his projected works, whose treatment of him he describes as shameful. Neither is Mr. Brougham spared; Foscolo had employed him to heal the breach between Mr. Pickering and himself; and these are the terms in which he mentions the services rendered:—“Brougham, at first, offered to take the matter to heart, but allowed it to drop, because I have no money to carry on the suit. He has acted as a lawyer, and wisely too; I shall also act wisely by having nothing more to do with him.”

It is somewhat difficult to discover from these words the exact part Brougham took in the matter. To substantiate the charges brought by Foscolo against men of acknowledged worth is against our inclination, nor have we the opportunity of clearly knowing their nature. In writing a memoir of Panizzi it is but just to remark that, so far as the worthy publisher is concerned, he entertained the highest opinion of Pickering up to the last, as a man of taste, of great knowledge, and of indisputable private worth. These accusations, in all probability without foundation, possibly created in their recipient’s mind his before-mentioned suspicion of his friend’s entire trustworthiness, a suspicion he almost publicly divulged in 1871, when Foscolo’s remains were about to be removed from Chiswick to a more honourable grave in Santa Croce, Florence.

In the summer of the year 1826, Foscolo reached the lowest depth of his poverty. Persecuted on all sides by his creditors, he hid, or rather, as he wrote, buried himself alive. “I send you my new address, 69you are the only person who will be acquainted with it, 19, Henrietta-street, Brunswick-square, let nobody know it, now or ever, and if in town, I can offer you a bed, and thus prevent your portmanteau from being ransacked by some London hotel-keeper.” At this period (painful to relate), he evidently meditated suicide. “The virile act of voluntary death becomes dreadful, when committed through poverty. I must, in order to proceed with my work, take care of myself; and have imitated you, in finding a few humble families, to whom I give lessons at three shillings each.” Of these lessons he could give no more than six a week, having in hand another important work, also on Dante, in which he requested the assistance of Panizzi who possessed some valuable notes on the subject. This aid was readily afforded. Panizzi, however, who wished to serve his friend to the utmost urged Foscolo to visit Liverpool; and, as a compensation for his expenses, proposed that he should deliver six lectures at the Royal Institution, on Tasso and Ariosto, during the space of three weeks, and receive for this £50. In the letter suggesting this he says:—“I do not care for these lectures myself; having so many friends I am obliged to give away tickets to, in return for their dinners and tea-parties. Come, and write, never mind the postage, for I had sooner deprive myself of a good dinner than one of your letters. Moreover I am not in want.”

As to the subject of giving lessons the writer remarked: “How much better it is to sell articles, nouns, and verbs than to stretch forth your hand and ask for assistance from those generous, miserable, 70proud rich people whose rude manners make one unwillingly ungrateful. When I think that Macchiavelli acted the pedagogo to live I may well be proud of my present position. There will be no more of this soon. Courage, my dear friend, the storm will clear up before long, and the serene sky will also return for you.”

It would appear by this letter that the political atmosphere of Liverpool had affected Panizzi in a manner that may seem strange to some of our readers. That the little “nuances” of character, which he notes as distinguishing the members of our different political parties, may be discerned by a keen observer, and the causes of their existence perceived, is not impossible; they seem to have struck him very forcibly, as a foreigner, in his short experience. Of the three sections as they existed at that time (it would be interesting to know his opinion of parties more recently) he remarks not less strongly than naively: “D—n the English Liberals! my experience (Roscoe and Shepherd excepted) shows me that the Tories are more polite than the Whigs, and much more so than the Radicals.”

Poor Ugo Foscolo, who, for some reason, had been unable to accept the invitation to Liverpool, and whom misfortune seemed to have marked for her own, died in London in penury on the 10th September, 1827. His death was at once announced to Panizzi by Giulio Bossi. The few books he left behind were purchased by some of his remaining friends; Panizzi bought as many as his means allowed him, and these he distributed among the most distinguished admirers 71of the deceased, one of whom was Mr. Macaulay, who acknowledged the presentation in the following letter:—

No doubt the untimely death of Foscolo under such lamentable circumstances grieved his friend deeply; but it must have been to him a consolation that he had endeavoured to assuage the exile’s sufferings, although, as has been stated, the generous offer was not accepted. It is such sympathy for our fellow-man which stamps the character, and imparts to it the true ring of charity and worth.

The year 1828 may be said to have been the turning-point in Panizzi’s career, for it was then his departure from Liverpool took place. In that populous town, by his own personal merits and ability, he had won for himself, if not quite the traditional golden opinions of all sorts of men, at least that well-deserved meed of praise and respect to which all aspire. To this a contemporary bears witness and writes of him, “that he never abused a friend’s kindness, but always availed himself of it in a becoming 72manner, turning it to good account for himself, and at the same time reflecting honour upon him who bestowed it.”

Conspicuous amongst his friends was Mr. Brougham, then one of the most active members of the Council for the new University of London, now known as University College. At this college Panizzi was asked to occupy the chair of Italian Literature, an offer made to him solely through the influence of Brougham, with whom he became intimate in the spring of 1827, when they proceeded in company to Lancaster, to attend the famous trial of the Wakefield family, for conspiracy and the abduction of Miss Ellen Turner, who had been a pupil of Panizzi. That, among all the vicissitudes of his life, he had not forgotten his former cunning, appears from the statement that he rendered important assistance in this case, by his knowledge of law in general, and particularly, as might be supposed, of Roman law.

After serious and anxious consideration the offer of this professorship was accepted, mainly at the instigation of his learned friend, who strongly urged it upon him. This determination was not arrived at without much reluctance and regret; for, indeed, he was loth to abandon his friends at Liverpool, which he now regarded as his second home. His appointment bears 73date, May, 1828, but it was not till the 1st of October following that the college was formally opened.

Four days afterwards Brougham wrote to Lord Grey “that the delight of all who have been admitted to the university was perfect.... The professors and all concerned are therefore in the highest spirits.”

Amongst those who felt Panizzi’s departure from Liverpool most keenly was Roscoe, who, now in his sixty-fifth year, had become thoroughly accustomed to his frequent visits, and took the greatest delight in his conversation. The old savant, however, spared no trouble in giving him letters of introduction to friends, amongst them one to Samuel Rogers.

“This is intended to be delivered to you by my highly-valued friend, Signor Antonio Panizzi, professor of the Italian language in the London University, who lived some years in Liverpool, whence he is now returning, after visiting the numerous friends whom he has made during his residence here. He is probably already known to you by his literary works, particularly his edition of Bojardo and Ariosto, now publishing; in addition to which I beg leave to add my testimony, not only to his abilities as an elegant scholar, but to his experienced worth as a sincere friend, and to his character as a man. It is, therefore, with great satisfaction, that I introduce him to your better acquaintance, 74being convinced that it cannot fail of being productive of pleasure and advantage to both.”

Panizzi, on his appointment as Professor, took up his abode at No. 2, Gower Street, North, close to the college, and delivered his first lecture in November, 1828. As was the case with his Liverpool lectures, so with these. They do not seem to have been reported, consequently no record remains. In 1837 he resigned the Professor’s chair.

The first of his London publications (“Extract from Italian Prose Writers, for the use of Students in the London University”) appeared in 1828, and was followed, soon afterwards, by “An Elementary Italian Grammar.” In addition to the compilation of these works, he now began to contribute frequently to the Reviews. The first of these contributions appeared in the Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany; it was a criticism of a work entitled “I Lombardi alia prima Crociata. T. Grassi. Mil^o., 1826. 8vo.” This was followed by another, a very interesting review of the “Storia d’Italia dal 1789 al 1814, da Carlo Botta. 8 vols. 1824. 12mo.” To this last the critic extends at least as much justice as mercy, and spares no pains to refute (which he does by the clearest evidence) many of the statements put forward in the work as historical facts. Of the author he gives the following notice:—

“A Piedmontese physician, who, in 1794, after two years’ imprisonment in Piedmont, for his warm support of the principles of the French Revolution, made his escape (Heaven knows how!) to France, and was employed in his professional capacity in the 75French army. When this army entered Piedmont, Botta fought with it against the King and his country. He went to Corfu in the capacity of army physician. The King of Piedmont having been obliged to abdicate, the French General, Joubert, appointed a provisional government, which the historian, of course, mentions with high eulogium, inasmuch as of this very government Signor Botta was a worthy member.”

As to his diction, the reviewer says:—“We wish not to criticize minutely Signor Botta’s style.... The Italian edition, however, we have read, and, save only school-boy themes and college exercises, more coldness, stiffness, and affectation is scarcely to be found.”

Apart, however, from the historical blunders and style of the work, another cause existed to call forth the hostile criticism of Panizzi. This will appear from the opening passage of the review, which runs thus:—“The name of Carlo Botta has long been known as that of an historian. While yet a member of the legislative body, during the reign of Napoleon, he published at Paris a ‘History of American Independence.’ Whether it so happened that his notions on liberty have been since wonderfully revolutionized, or his bitter vituperations of England and laudatory tropes in favour of America, propitiated the then rancorous hatred of the French towards this nation we know not, but his work was eminently successful.”

Undoubtedly it was Botta’s ill-feeling towards England, more than the demerits of the work itself, which called for such severe and scathing comments. 76The review was translated into Italian, and circulated amongst Botta’s compatriots.

Other articles on various subjects appeared in the same journal up to the year 1830.

The new college, though happily inaugurated, did not attract so many students to the lessons in the Italian language and literature as might have been anticipated, and the expected emoluments of the Professor fell proportionately short; nevertheless his reputation as a sound scholar and acute critic increased daily, and his circle of friends widely extended. Mr. Brougham, who assiduously cultivated his society, lost no opportunity of introducing him to the leading literary personages of the period, and to the most prominent members of the Liberal party. Among the former was Lady Dacre, whose translations from Petrarch were highly valued, yet not beyond their merit, by some of the ablest critics of the time. To her Panizzi was introduced in the following note from Brougham:—

The acquaintance thus formed ripened into a lasting friendship. Of the frequent correspondence which this led to the chief and most interesting examples are the views exchanged on the interpretation of various passages from Dante and Petrarch. Lady 77Dacre, in fact, began very shortly to regard Panizzi as her literary adviser; and some years later, on the publication of her work, “Translations from the Italian” (1836), makes the following grateful mention of him:—“I have of late years been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum, and to obtain also his approbation of these English versions of his great national poet. It is by his advice and that of other high authorities that I now make this collection of my attempts.”

Lady Dacre’s letters are beyond measure charming. The elegance of mind and purity of taste pervading them, with the rare beauty of their tone and style, must cause any one who may happen to have read them, though knowing nothing before, nor having even heard of Lady Dacre, to regret that the amiable and accomplished translator of Petrarch is not more extensively appreciated.

A passage from one of her earlier letters seems worth extracting, as showing her estimate of the best known English translator of Dante, although the comments it calls for may lead to a slight digression from the line of the narrative:—“As to Cary’s translation of ‘La Divina Commedia,’ I still hold translating Dante as an impossibility.... Cary does not satisfy me, for, as he gave himself all the latitude of blank verse, I cannot help thinking he might have done more justice to the gems.”

With the opinion expressed in the first clause of this extract few will disagree. Lady Dacre, indeed, might have extended her sentence to other poets besides Dante, and, it may be said, to poets in general of any marked eminence.

78Of these poets, or of any save those of the second or third class, to which may be added certain of the satirical and didactic category, it is not too much to assert that nothing that could be called a sufficient translation has yet been accomplished. By translation is here meant not a mere rendering, however faithful and intelligent, of the words, phrases, and plain meaning, but a transfusion, by the translator’s own genius, of the spirit of the original into the ordinary diction, idioms and peculiarities of another language. Pope and Dryden have, perhaps, arrived nearest this result; but, too great themselves, they have so imbued their greater originals with their own spirit—a spirit in many respects differing widely from the classical, that their versions may with more justice be called paraphrases than translations. Still, if there are degrees of impossibility, Dante is fully entitled to a place in the first class of such impossibilities.

To Lady Dacre’s assertion, however, of the facility which Cary ought to have derived from his use of blank verse, exception may well be taken. Although in some cases, as in translating Petrarch, it may be difficult, and in others, as in rendering certain classic metres, impossible, to reproduce in the alien language the exact form of verse employed in the original (and with the form of his verse, it must be observed, the spirit of the poet is always indissolubly connected), yet it is necessary to a good and true translation that this course should be adopted wherever practicable. Dante is a rhymed poet, and the system both of his rhymes and of his verse is by no means uncommon in English poetry; to none, it might be supposed, more 79familiar than to Lady Dacre. For this reason alone it would appear that if Dante, of all poets, is to be clothed anew in English garb, the most fitting attire for him would not be blank verse.

These remarks are merely by the way, our work is not particularly concerned with poetry, but with the life of Panizzi, who was then (1829) engaged upon his “Orlando Innamorato di Bojardo: Orlando Furioso di Ariosto: with an Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians; Memoirs, and Notes by Antonio Panizzi.” 9 vols. 8vo. London, 1830-34.

The first volume of this edition, dedicated to his benefactor Roscoe, contains a dissertation on Italian Romantic Poetry, with analyses of the “Teseide” of Boccaccio, the “Morgante” of Luigi Pulci, and the “Mambriano” of Francesco Bello, besides other Italian romantic epics. The second volume is prefaced by a memoir of Bojardo, with an essay making him full amends for the long usurpation of his fame by his adaptor Berni. It also contains a life of Ariosto.

The corrupt text of the “Orlando Innamorato” is restored, with great acumen (from a collation of rare editions, principally contributed by the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville and Earl Spencer), and, as well as that of the “Furioso” (published later on, 1834), is accompanied by long and learned notes in English, “from an idea that they would prove more acceptable 80to the English reader, who will gladly excuse any errors, when he reflects that, had I not preferred his language, he would not have enjoyed the beautiful translations by Lady Dacre; W. S. Rose, Esq., and W. Sotheby, Esq., which adorn this introductory essay.”

The first part is well worthy the consideration of such as are curious in tracing the windings of the stream of civilization from its fountain head. In this, with great ingenuity, the author describes the passions and incidents of the most remarkable period in the history of mediæval times—the age of chivalry—which institution he attributes to Celtic sources. Chivalry raised Europe from its barbarous condition. Every institution, indeed, is of lowly origin. Love, naturally a brutal appetite, only becomes refined by emulation among men, advancing knowledge, and civilization. Panizzi (p. 29) tells us that the Italians were indebted to the popular songs sung in the north for their long prose romances, giving, as an example of the most popular and inspiriting of these songs, the Lays of Roland and Charlemagne, sung by Taillefer, the Norman standard-bearer who led the charge at the battle of Hastings. “If,” Panizzi continues, at p. 34, “the original destination of poetry were in every nation of the world to celebrate the glorious actions of heroes, one of the provinces of England, possessing one of the most ancient languages extant, would seem to have surpassed all other countries in the application of the art. All the chivalrous fictions, since spread throughout Europe, appear to have had their birth in Wales.... So famous were their lays in France, 81that the French trouvères were accustomed to cite the British originals as vouchers for the truth of their stories, while some of them were translated by Marie de France. A glance at these translations will show the lays to be of British origin.”

To this ingenious theory it is difficult, without considerable further inquiry, to give so unqualified an assent as the Editor of Bojardo appears to have done. The subject, however, opens up a field of discussion far too wide to be entered into in this biography.

Besides Panizzi’s valuable notes, his work is further embellished with a selection from Lady Dacre’s translations from Petrarch. The peculiar skill with which this most elegant authoress could transfer to her own language the graces of her Italian original will be best presented to the reader by an example of her art:—

When the work was published, copies were presented by the author to his most intimate friends, and he received, amongst others, the following letters of acknowledgment:—

From Mr. W. S. Rose^[B] (whose ire at Pickering’s device is not altogether unjustifiable):—

“Brighton, 29 April, 1830.

“Dear Panizzi,

I have seen nothing to quarrel with in your book, but will read it again, and with a more exceptious disposition.

If Pickering be not squeezed to death in his own press, his nose at least ought to be rubbed in his own frontispieces (I mean title-pages) while the ink is still wet, ... as an appropriate punishment. I do not blame him for his imitation, but for his bad imitation, of Aldus. His symbol and disposition of words are not offensive.

83

Compare this with Mr. Pickering’s.

Anglus is not an adjective.

Why have we Arabic instead of Roman numerals? which would have harmonized with the rest of the letterpress.

Ever yours,

W. S. Rose.”

84From Roscoe:—

And from Macaulay, dated “Calcutta, 1st January, 1835.” (This letter has reference not only to Panizzi’s “Orlando Innamorato,” but to another work of his, shortly to be mentioned, that is, the edition of Bojardo.)

Macaulay, no doubt, intended to bestow on Panizzi’s book something more than a mere acknowledgment of its presentation. In a letter addressed to Macvey Napier, dated 29 April, 1830, he says:—“There are two subjects on which I think of writing for the next number (of the ‘Edinburgh Review’). ‘The Romantic Poetry of the Italians’ is one of them. A book on the subject has just been published by my friend Panizzi, Professor in the London University, which will afford a good opportunity. I have long had this project in my head.”

86On the 16th October, 1830, he, however, writes again, saying, “My article on the Italian Poets must be postponed till the spring.” And again on the 8th October, 1838, writing from London, to Napier, “I think of writing an article on Panizzi’s edition of Bojardo, with some remarks on the romantic poetry of the Italians generally. This I can do as well, indeed better, on my journey than in London. I will try to send it off by the middle of December, or earlier.”

The intention, however, thus twice, at all events, expressed, was never carried into effect, and an essay which would probably have taken its place with the best of Macaulay’s has been lost to the world.

From what has been said it will seem that the book received due appreciation from some, at least, of those well capable of judging of its value.

This short notice of its reception would be incomplete were all account omitted of a curious but somewhat unpleasant episode in the history of the work in question, to touch upon which it is necessary to anticipate a little the course of events. The fons et origo mali is best told in Panizzi’s own words, which are taken from a letter dated 27th March, 1835, and addressed to the proprietors of The Foreign Quarterly Review:—

“In the last number of The Foreign Quarterly Review (called XXIX., but in fact No. 1 by your editor) (Vol. XV., p. 48), there is a lucubration on Italian Romantic Poetry, in the shape of an article on the Orlando Innamorato and Furioso, edited by me, in which occurs the following passage, intended, I suppose, as a sample of the courteous and gentlemanly 87style of literary criticism which is to grace this journal under the new régime:—

On these strictures, just as fair as they are to the point, with reference to his character as an author, Panizzi pertinently remarks:—

What seems especially to have aroused Panizzi’s anger (and herein may be remarked his sincere affection for the land of his refuge and rest), was that he should be called a “foreigner.” If to be domiciled in England and naturalized by an act of her legislature makes a man an Englishman, then was he an Englishman to all the then necessary intents and purposes. “It is true,” says he, “that I am not ungrateful; I love my adoptive country as much as the one wherein I was born, and being able to gain a very honourable and independent subsistence, by making use of those talents which Providence has been pleased to bestow on me, no wonder that I do not allow murmurs and sighs to escape me.” His alleged disposition towards Rossetti, the foundation for which he declares to have been derived from advantage taken of certain private conversation, grossly misrepresented by his reviewer, he thus vindicates from a charge which he declares to be “utterly false.”

“I dissent from Mr. Rossetti’s views concerning Dante; but I have a high opinion of his talents and acquirements; I respect them too much to be virulent 90when speaking of his works, which I do not incessantly attack. The contrary assertion made by the reviewer is a wilful and deliberate falsehood, charitably invented and propagated to cause mischief and strife between Mr. Rossetti and myself. I once stated freely my reasons for differing from Mr. Rossetti’s system concerning Dante; but I then said, that I knew him to be a very clever man, and I added that his writings on the subject do much honour to his ingenuity, and his very mistakes indicate a lively imagination.imagination. Is this the language of ‘a virulent assailant’?”

In treating another passage in the article our author displays, as well he may, more of contempt than anger. His reviewer, one Mr. Keightley, drew a comparison between Panizzi’s literary merits and his own—by no means in favour of the former, a practice, though decidedly blameable, not so rare as to call for lengthy notice here. A couple of sonnets translated from Bojardo by this same Mr. Keightley are actually inserted in the review. Examples are to be found, both in early and late history, of an author praising his own works anonymously, and if by means of self-laudation he can smite his enemies secretly his acuteness has been thought all the more deserving of admiration.

To what motive can the savage tone and evident personal rancour of this article be imputed? The office of the critic has for a long time past been discharged fairly enough; if not with an undue excess of leniency and generosity, at least (from the critic’s own point of view) with justice and honour. Politics, and such other matters as may be taken to be the 91common property of the public, have, it is true, been known to infuse something of what might at first sight be called acerbity into his style; but as he who in fair and open fight, complaining of blows, would meet with scant pity, so the “benighted Tory” or the “reckless and destructive Radical,” or possibly the propounder of some latest theory in literature, science, or art, must put up smilingly with the rubs which it may please his adverse judge to give him, remembering always that the office of that judge is to suppress the ignorant, to repress the arrogant, and occasionally, though of course but very rarely, to oppress those who are neither the one nor the other. Still, that the gall of personal animosity should mix itself with the ink and infect the pen of the reviewer is plainly a thing so utterly monstrous as to astonish us on hearing of its occurrence more than once in an ordinary lifetime. There is, unfortunately, too clear evidence that, not uninfluenced by some such dark motive, the critic now under notice perpetrated the article in question.

It seems that about two years before the review appeared either Panizzi made Mr. Keightley’s acquaintance or Mr. Keightley Panizzi’s.

The relations between the two—so long as they lasted—seem to have been of an amicable kind. Panizzi assisted his new acquaintance in the Italian works on which he was engaged, and, although he never appears to have been inclined to admit him to any very intimate friendship, yet a good deal of intercourse seems to have taken place between them, especially in matters relating to the peculiar study 92with which each was occupied. Panizzi, indeed, acknowledges that the last time he met Mr. Keightley the latter insisted upon his accepting a copy of his works, and that he (Panizzi) “peremptorily objected” to doing so. It maybe admitted that this was somewhat discourteous, and perhaps hinc illæ lachrymæ. Be that as it may, what must have been his astonishment to receive, three months afterwards, the following letter from his quondam friend, of whom during that period he had quite lost sight:—

Following closely upon this letter came Mr. Keightley’s article in the Foreign Quarterly. It may be safe to conclude here—hoc ergo post propter hoc.

93Panizzi, his temper already not unreasonably ruffled by the letter, appears to have been terribly put out by the Review. He winds up his own appeal to the proprietors of the “Foreign Quarterly” with a burst of indignation and menace, which, had it been carried into execution might have brought him into collision with the laws of his “adoptive country.”

Dreading and deprecating any such forcible expression of his ire by the outraged author, Mr. W. S. Rose sent him the poetical epistle which we subjoin.

Panizzi himself seems to have possessed somewhat of a poetic faculty, if we may judge by the sole specimen extant of his skill in the art—a translation of one of Moore’s songs, “Her last words at parting.” In confirmation of this, it may be observed that the canon before assumed in speaking of Lady Dacre on Cary, namely, that the translator should conform to the style of the verse in the original, has here been overlooked. For this neglect there may be cogent reasons. It would be difficult to adapt Moore’s 94anapæstic lines to Italian verse in the same measure, and, when adapted they would in all probability, prove inelegant, and perhaps unnatural; even were this not the case, liberties which would not be admissible with an important poem, might very pardonably be taken with the trifling composition of Moore.

The stanzas set out below are neatly turned, andand convey the idea of the original in elegant and musical versification:—

This, however, is merely given as an instance of versatility in a genius that was more fully developed and more usefully employed, in illustrating and setting forth, so far as such work is concerned, to the world the poetry of others. The “Orlando Innamorato,” &c., &c., was soon followed by the “Sonetti e Canzone del Poeta Clarissimo, Matteo Maria Bojardo, Conte di Scandiano. 4^o, Milano, 1835.” This remarkably handsome volume, in beautiful type, and extremely scarce, only 50 copies of it having been printed, is inscribed “All onorevolissimo Signor Tommaso Grenville, &c., &c.”

As in the case of the former work so in the execution of this one, Mr. Grenville had kindly given his aid by the loan of his two editions of Bojardo’s Sonnets to the editor. The correspondence between the two gives ample proof of the genuine love of his subject for its own sake felt by Panizzi, and affords satisfactory corroboration of the disinterestedness in money matters, to which his old pupil, Miss Martin, of Liverpool, has borne witness. Mr. Grenville was desirous that the editor should receive some remuneration for his labours. The manner in which this desire is declared, and the offering with which the writer supports 96it, cannot fail to receive its due meed of praise for consummate delicacy and good feeling. We subjoin a few extracts in evidence:—

In returning from our dissertation on Panizzi’s works to his life, we bring the narrative back to the date 1830-1831, it may be observed, when Europe was in a state of revolution. In Italy fresh disturbances indicated that the spirit of discontent was unallayed—especially in Modena—where Francis IV. continued his oppressive government; while in Piedmont, a more earnest and conscientious people founded an association under the name of Giovine Italia; amongst them was the Genoese Giuseppe Mazzini, who forwarded an address (1831) to the King of Sardinia, praying for a Constitutional Statute.

For this act Mazzini was forced into exile, and from that time may be said to date the end of Carbonarism, which, overpowered by the new scheme of not only uniting Italy, but of establishing a Republican form of government, seemed to have alienated those that were left of the older patriots who had sacrificed life and property ten years previously.

The King, Charles Felix, died, leaving behind him the reputation of having ruled his kingdom after the fashion most worthy of the “rois fainéants”, and as an unworthy nephew of Emanuel Philibert 100and Charles Emanuel. His death, by a strange coincidence, happened on the very day, in the same year that one of His Majesty’s most bitter enemies, Antonio Panizzi, entered the Institution which afterwards he so much honoured.

In England the death of George IV. (1830), and the unpopularity of the Duke of Wellington, largely contributed to the overthrow of the Tory party. In France, too, the expulsion of Charles X. (in consequence of his attempts on the constitution and the press), had its influence on the masses in this country; the elections greatly favoured the Whig party, and Mr. Brougham, raised to the Peerage on the 22nd of November, 1830, took the earliest opportunity, as an ex-officio Trustee of the British Museum, to place his Italian friend in that noble establishment, under the title of Extra-Assistant Librarian.

On the 27th of April, 1831, his appointment was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and by the Lord Chancellor, Brougham; the House of Commons having been dissolved, there was no Speaker at the time. Panizzi had to give, according to usage, two securities of £500 each, which were promptly forthcoming in the persons of his two earliest friends of Liverpool, Mr. Ewart and Mr. Haywood.

Thus far have we drawn from the materials at hand, a sketch of that early career which was to lead to the achievement of a lasting literary reputation, and the exercise of an energetic administrativeadministrative faculty. We have glanced at the struggles of the incipient jurisconsult, the patriotic agitator, the outlaw, the homeless fugitive, the indigent teacher, the literary aspirant, 101and, in every vicissitude, the man of many warmly-attached friends. We have traced his progress until he attained the position wherein his abilities had extended scope, wherein his influence was to be beneficially felt, and his success consummated. The record of his life to this period is of itself the most valuable testimonial to his character and conduct; but while we lay sufficient stress on his own exertions, let us not forget to award the share of honour due to Lord Brougham, who, discarding national prejudice, recognised the capacity, and gave ample sphere to the energy and genius of Antonio Panizzi.

102

The British Museum; Appointment Discussed; First Duties; Royal Society; Promotion; Cary; Hallam’s Letter; Official Residence.

Not before the middle of the eighteenth century had the grand idea of establishing a National Museum been entertained in England. The project was suggested by the will of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., of Chelsea, who, during a long period of eminent practice in physics, had gathered together whatever was within his reach of rare and curious, not only in England, but in other countries. This great originator of our National Collection was born in 1660, and died in 1753. The codicil of his will bears date the 20th of July, 1749, and expresses a desire that his collection might be kept together and preserved in his Manor House.

By the said codicil the testator directs that his trustees should make their humble application to His Majesty, or to Parliament at the next session after his 103own decease, offering the entire collection for the sum of £20,000. This consisted of a numerous library of books, and MSS., with drawings, prints, medals, and coins, articles of virtu, cameos, precious stones, &c., &c., which he had himself collected at an outlay of £50,000.

His testamentary offer to the nation was accepted by Parliament, and in 1753 an Act (26 George II., c. 20) was passed, which may be termed a Charter of Foundation.

Trustees were appointed, the identical individuals named by Sir Hans during his lifetime, who had been consulted by competent persons, and strongly felt the necessity of procuring the collection as a whole for the use of the nation.

The attention of the legislature was not confined simply to the collection of Sir Hans Sloane. The Act which directed the purchase of his museum also gave instructions for the purchase of the Harleian collection of MSS., for which a sum of £10,000 was granted. This Act also directed that the Cottonian Library of MSS., which had been granted to the Government for public uses by an Act of the 12th and 13th, William III., should, with the addition of the library of Major Arthur Edwards, form part of the general collection.

It was ordered that these several collections should be kept in their respective places of deposit until a more convenient and durable repository, safer from fire, and nearer to the chief places of public resort, could be provided for the reception of them all.

To defray the expenses of these purchases, to procure a fit repository for their preservation, and to 104provide a fund for the permanent support of the establishment when formed, the Act directed that £100,000 should be raised by way of lottery, the net produce of which, together with the several collections, was to be vested in a corporate body selected from the highest in the land so far as regards rank, station, and literary attainments, upon whom it conferred ample powers for the disposition, preservation, and management of the Institution, which, it was determined, should bear the name of The British Museum.

The sum really raised under this Act, partly in consequence of benefits arising from unsold tickets, amounted to £101,952. 7s. 6d.; but the expenses of the lottery amounted to £6,200, and the cashier of the bank received more than £550 in consideration of his management of it, so that the net produce was £95,194. 8s. 2d. Out of this the sum of £20,000 was paid to the executors of Sir Hans Sloane; £10,000 to the Earl and Countess of Oxford for the Harleian MSS.; £10,250 to Lord Halifax for Montague House, and £12,873 for its repairs, which had been estimated at £3,800; £30,000 being set apart as a fund for the payment of future salaries, taxes, and other expenses. Some loss was also sustained by the difference of price between the times of buying and selling stock, and £4,660 were expended for furniture. The surplus was applied to the gradual liquidation of numerous and general expenses, including the removal of the different collections.

The only buildings offered as general repositories were Buckingham House, with the gardens and field, for £30,000, and Montague House for £10,000.

105The consideration of the former was waived, partly from the exorbitant sum demanded for it, and partly from the inconvenience of the situation. The latter was finally fixed upon, and the agreement for its possession was drawn up in the spring of 1754.

No offer of ground for building a repository was made, except in Old Palace Yard, where it was at one time proposed that the Museum should find a place in the general plan which had been there recently designed by Kent for the New Houses of Parliament.

Montague House was originally built about 1674, by Ralph, Duke of Montague, after the style of a French palace. It was erected from the design of Robert Hooke, the celebrated mathematician, who took so important a part in the re-building of London after the great fire. Foreign artists were chiefly engaged in its completion, and amongst them Verrio superintended the decorations.

When finished it was considered a most magnificent building; but on the 19th January, 1686, owing to the negligence of a servant the house was burnt to the ground. The large income of the owner was again brought into requisition for the re-construction of his palace; and, though executed by fresh artists, the plan was the same, the new structure being raised upon the foundation and remaining walls of the old one.

The architect now employed was Peter Puget, a native of Marseilles, who was assisted by C. de la Fosse, J. Rousseau, and J. B. Monnoyer, three artists of great eminence.

The exclusive employment of French artists gave rise to the popular, but improbable, tale that Montague 106House was re-built at the expense of Louis XIV., to whose Court the Duke had twice been attached as Ambassador.

The second building was purchased as a repository for the collections.

In 1755 the Harleian MSS. were removed into it, and the following year the other collections were added, and when all had been properly distributed and arranged the British Museum was opened for public inspection on the 15th of January, 1759.

The government of the Institution was vested in trustees, to the end that, as the Act says: “A free access to the collections may be given to all studious and curious persons at such times, and in such manner, and under such regulations for inspecting and consulting the said collections, as by the said trustees, or the major part of them, may be determined in any general meeting assembled.”

The trustees are forty-eight in number. Twenty-three are called official, being the holders for the time being of certain high offices; by these the National interests of Church and State, Law, Science, and Art are presumed to be represented and protected. Of these the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons are termed the Principal Trustees. Nine others are called the Family Trustees, as representing the families of Sloane, Cotton, Harley, etc., etc.; one is termed the Royal Trustee, because nominated directly by the Crown. The remaining fifteen are styled the Elected Trustees, who are all chosen by the other twenty-three.

107In accordance with the desire of Sir Hans Sloane, the elected were chosen in the beginning from among the adepts in learning and science, and this practice continued until about 1791, when the vacancies began to be filled almost exclusively by persons of rank and fortune.

The chief officer of the British Museum is styled the Principal Librarian, which is to a certain extent a misnomer, as he has no more to do with the books than with the other portions of the collection; he derives his appointment from the Crown under sign manual, and is entrusted with the care and custody of the Museum, his duty being to see that all the subordinate officers and servants perform their respective duties properly.

The different departments are each managed by a head called Keeper, and in most of them there is also an Assistant-Keeper, besides assistants and attendants.

The patronage of the Museum is vested in the three Principal Trustees, of whom the Archbishop of Canterbury takes precedence.

The hours for the opening of the Museum in 1759 were from 9 o’clock in the morning till 3 in the afternoon, from Monday to Friday between the months of September and April inclusive, and also at the same hours on Tuesday in May, June, July, and August, but on Monday and Friday only from 4 o’clock till 8 in the afternoon during these four months.months.

Persons desirous of inspecting the Museum were to be admitted by printed tickets to be delivered by the 108porter upon their application in writing. No more than ten tickets were to be delivered out for each hour; five of the persons producing such tickets were to be attended by the Under-Librarian, and the other five by the Assistant Librarian in each Department.

On the 30th of March, 1761, the hours of admission were changed from nine to eleven and one, and the number admitted at one time was increased to 15.

On the 9th of February, 1774, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider a more convenient method of admitting persons into the Museum, and on the 11th of May the Committee suggested that on certain days visitors should pay for admission. This was adopted and the practice continued for 36 years afterwards, when, in 1810, Mr. Planta, then Principal Librarian, first took the step of having the Museum opened three times a week from ten to four o’clock, without tickets.

The first “Principal Librarian” was Dr. Gowin Knight, a distinguished member of the College of Physicians. He was appointed in 1756, and remained at the Museum till 1772, when he was succeeded by Dr. Matthew Maty, who was born in 1718, near Utrecht, and was educated at the University of Leyden. In 1740 he published “Dissertatio philosophica inauguralis de Usu,” and, later on, a work on the effects of habit and custom upon the human frame. Coming to England in 1741, he practised as a physician, and soon became a man of reputation, but much of his spare time was occupied in literary pursuits, and at the death of Dr. Knight he was appointed Principal 109Librarian, which post, however, he held only for four years, as he died in 1776.

Dr. Charles Morton, a native of Westmoreland, born in 1716, was his successor. He was the author of several important works, and contributed largely to the “Philosophical Transactions.” His death took place on the 10th of February, 1799.

Joseph Planta next obtained the appointment, having been engaged in 1773 as an Assistant Librarian. A native of Switzerland,he was born on the 21st of February, 1744, and educated at Utrecht, besides having been a student at the University of Göttingen. From the date of his appointment as Principal Librarian (1799) it may be said that the affairs of the Museum began to improve; chiefly devoting himself to the improvement of the reading-room, in 1816 the number of visitors increased, and, as already stated, he suggested the vast improvement of throwing open the doors of the British Museum freely three times a week. He died in 1827.

Sir Henry Ellis next occupied the position of Principal Librarian, having been a servant of the Trustees since 1800. He was born at Shoreditch, in London, 29th of November, 1777, but of him we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter.

During this period the contents of the British Museum were divided into three separate departments, namely, Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Natural History, and to the first of these we must now draw the reader’s attention.

The department of Printed Books consisted at first only of the library of Sir Hans Sloane, which is said 110to have amounted to 50,000 volumes, and that of Major Edwards; these were not, however, actually transferred to the Museum till 1769. In 1757 His Majesty George II., “fully impressed with a conviction of the utility of this Institution,” by instrument under the Great Seal, added the Library of Printed Books and Manuscripts, which had been gradually collected by the Sovereigns of these realms from Henry VII. down to William III. Rich in the prevailing literature of different periods, and including, with others, the libraries of Archbishop Cranmer and of Isaac Casaubon, this library also contains the venerable Alexandrian Codex of the Bible. His Majesty added to his gift the privilege which the Royal Library had acquired in the reign of Anne, of being supplied with a copy of every publication entered at Stationers’ Hall.

The bulk of this Royal Collection consists of books of English divinity, history, classics, &c., as well as of Italian and Spanish works, many of the volumes remarkable for being printed on vellum, or dedication copies. The most valuable among them are the productions of Vérard, the celebrated Paris printer (1480-1530), who struck off, during the reign of Henry VII., a copy on vellum of every book he printed. Unfortunately, part of this collection was dispersed.

In 1759, Mr. Salomon Da Costa presented 180 Hebrew books, which, as he states, “had been gathered and bound for King Charles II.”

The department was further enriched, in 1762, by a donation from George III. of a collection of pamphlets and periodicals published in the convulsive 111interval between the years 1640 and 1660. Chiefly illustrative of the civil wars in the time of Charles I., they were collected by an eminent bookseller, George Thomason; the whole comprises upwards of 30,000 articles, bound in about 2,000 volumes.

It is impossible to enumerate in detail all the additions which have been since made by gift or purchase. Dr. Thomas Birch’s library, bequeathed in 1766, is rich in biography; two collections of books on musical science were also presented—one by Sir John Hawkins, in 1778, and the other by Dr. Charles Burney.

In 1780, 900 volumes of old English plays were given to the Museum by Garrick. In 1786, numerous classics from the library of Thomas Tyrwhitt, and a collection of ceremonials, processions, and heraldry from Mrs. Sophia Sarah Banks was added. These gifts were supplemented in 1818, two years later, by the library of Sir Joseph Banks, consisting of about 16,000 volumes, particularly rich in scientific journals, transactions of societies, and books on natural history, but which were not actually transferred to the Museum till 1827.

A collection of Italian history and topography from Sir Richard Colt-Hoare, Bart., was presented in 1825. This gentleman printed only twelve copies of the catalogue of his books, and wrote on the fly-leaf of the copy 112which accompanied the presentation, “Anxious to follow the liberal example of our gracious monarch, George IV.; of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., of Richard Payne-Knight, Esq. (though in a very humble degree), I do give unto the British Museum THIS my collection of topography, made during a residence of five years abroad, and hoping that the more modern publications may be added to it hereafter, A.D. 1825. Richard Colt-Hoare. This catalogue contains 1,733 articles.”

The valuable library of the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, consisting of 4,500 volumes, came into the possession of the Museum in 1799; and lastly, in 1835, Major-General Hardwicke bequeathed to the Trustees the deficient works on natural history which formed part of his library, and which caused an accession of 300 volumes.

Parliament also evinced its interest in the library, and gave instructions for the following purchases:—

Mr. Francis Hargrave, an eminent barrister, had formed an important collection of law books, which was purchased in 1813 for £8,000, having been valued by a bookseller at £2,247. 8s.

Dr. Burney’s library was likewise purchased in 1818, and was estimated at the value of 9,000 guineas. It contained a remarkable collection of Greek classics, besides 700 volumes of newspapers, &c., &c.

In 1769 a sum of £7,000 was paid for Major Edwards’ library, and in 1804 the sum of £150 was applied to the purchase of a collection of Bibles belonging to Mr. Combe.

113In 1807 classical works, with MS. notes by Dr. Bentley, were also obtained by purchase.

£1,000 were spent in 1812 in the purchase of works on English history and topography, and in 1815 books on music, belonging to Dr. Burney, were acquired for the sum of £253.

In the course of the same year a collection of books, portraits, minerals, &c., belonging to Baron Moll, of Munich, became national property for the consideration of £4,777. 17s. 5d., and in 1818, the Ginguené collection, consisting of 1,675 articles, chiefly on Italian literature, besides 2,686 articles in Greek, Latin, French, &c., &c., &c., became another addition for £1,000.

Four separate collections of tracts, illustrating the Revolutionary History of France, have been purchased at different times by the Trustees. One was that formed by the last President of the Parliament of Brittany, at the commencement of the revolution; two others extended generally throughout the period, whilst the fourth was a collection of tracts and papers published during the “Hundred Days” of the year 1815, and became the property of the Museum in 1823, the whole forming a library of revolutionary history, which contains as complete an account of those important days for France as does the already-mentioned collection of tracts of the civil wars of England.

Another and unrivalled feature of the Museum history is its progressive collection of newspapers from 1588. But as, for the purposes of this biography, we have stated enough of the condition of the Museum 114at the time of Panizzi’s appointment, we shall say no more on the subject except to add a few words on the general collection at the British Museum, which may not be devoid of interest at this point of our narrative.

Between 1805 and 1816 were added the choice statues and antiques of Mr. Charles Townley, the Lansdowne MSS., the Greville minerals, the Phigaleian and the Elgin marbles. Whilst, however, treasures upon treasures were accumulating in the Institution, other good opportunities were allowed, through apathy and ignorance, to be neglected, and amongst the rarities thus lost were Dodwell’s Greek vases, Belzoni’s alabaster sarcophagus, the Ægina marbles, the Millingen vases, and, last but not least, the famous collection of drawings by old masters acquired by the energy of Sir Thomas Lawrence, which, by the terms of his will, was offered to the nation for one-third of its original cost.

To this neglect was added the sale of duplicate books, which so much disheartened Lord Fitzwilliam (who died in 1816, and who intended to bequeath his collection to the British Museum), that he altered his mind, and handed it over to the University of Cambridge.

In 1823 the library of George III. was presented by George IV. to the nation, and ordered by Parliament to be added to the Library of the British Museum, but for ever to be kept separate from the other books. Immediately after his accession George III. began to purchase books, and for this purpose gave Mr. Joseph Smith, Consul at Venice, £10,000 for 115his collection, besides other money which he sent to various continental agents.

This library contains selections of the rarest kind, more especially works in the first stages of the art of printing, and is rich in early additions of the classics, in books by Caxton, in the history of the States of Europe, in the Transactions of Academies, &c. At the time of its formation the houses of the Jesuits were undergoing suppression, and their libraries were on sale. It was accumulated during more than half a century at an expenditure of little less than £200,000.

In the preface to the catalogue it is stated that it was compiled in accordance with a plan suggested by Dr. Samuel Johnson. His Majesty’s Librarian was Sir Frederick Barnard, who survived his royal master, and continued to hold the appointment until the library became national property. He died at the age of 87 on the 27th of January, 1830.

Soon after the reception of the gift, a Select Committee of the House of Commons reported (April 18, 1823) that a new fire-proof building ought to be erected to preserve it from all risks, and accordingly the present east wing of the Museum was built, at the cost of £140,000, by Sir Robert Smirke. The upper floor, though it has been used for the Natural History collection, was intended for a picture gallery and for the reception of MSS. The new building was completed in 1826, but the library was not opened for two years afterwards. The room is 300 feet in length, 55 feet in width in the centre, and 31 in height. The presses are all glazed to preserve the books from dust. In the centre of the room are four 116columns of Aberdeen granite, each of a single piece, surmounted by Corinthian capitals of Derbyshire alabaster. Over the door are inscriptions, one in Latin and the other in English, in these terms:—“This Library, collected by King George III., was given to the British Nation by his Most Gracious Majesty George IV., in the third year of his reign, A.D., MDCCCXXIII.” As to the reality of the gift to the nation there is some doubt; for it appears that George IV., having some pressing call for money, did not decline a proposition for selling the library in question to the Emperor of Russia. Mr. Heber, the bibliographer and book collector, having ascertained the facts, and that the books were in danger of leaving for the Baltic, sought an interview with Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, and stated the case, observing—“What a shame it would be that such a collection should go out of the country!” to which Lord Sidmouth replied, “It shall not;” and, as it proved afterwards, the library was presented to the nation, but on condition that the value should be paid, which was done from the surplus of certain funds furnished by France for the compensation of “losses by the revolution.”

With this necessarily brief account of the rise and progress of the British Museum, we return now to the immediate subject of these memoirs.

In the previous chapter reference has been made to Panizzi’s dislike to the appellation of “foreigner” a dislike, which, indeed, he always entertained.

The act of naturalization took place scarcely one year after he became a servant of the Trustees of the 117British Museum. It bears the date of March 24th, 1832, and was, as might be expected, a source of great satisfaction to him.

It has already been noticed that the National Institution had previously enrolled amongst its increasing staff other foreigners, who all held important, if not responsible, appointments—viz., Dr. Maty, a Dutchman, and the very first Under-Librarian of the Department of Printed Books, afterwards Principal Librarian; Dr. Solander, a Swede, and Joseph Planta, a Swiss, besides Charles König, a German.German. Of these, strange to say, not one was naturalized. Panizzi was now an Englishman after his own heart, and his subsequent political career will amply testify to the pride he took in being so. His suitability for the appointment and the causes which led to his selection for so responsible an office, will be best understood from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s own statement before the Select Committee on the British Museum, which sat in 1836; but on this subject more will be said hereafter.

His answer (No. 5,511) to a question put to him was as follows:—

The news of his appointment was first communicated to him on the 25th of April, 1831, by the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville.

That the Trustees were satisfied with the performance of Panizzi’s duties there can be no doubt, and it will be interesting to record his earliest labours. His first report is dated May 4th, 1831, in which it is stated that he was engaged in transcribing a catalogue of duplicates to be submitted to the Royal Society for their selection. This duty was soon followed by cataloguing an extraordinary collection of tracts, illustrative of the history of the French Revolution, and formerly the property of Mr. Croker. That it was no easy task, and that it demanded special attention, may be gathered from a letter which the cataloguer addressed on the 18th of April, 1834, to Mr. Baber, then his superior officer:—

He continues:—

As it is a matter of importance that Panizzi’s stormy connection with the Royal Society should be fairly and impartially added to these memoirs, and as we have now arrived at the period when, for the proper elucidation of the facts thereto belonging, the whole circumstances of the case should be thoroughly weighed and dwelt upon, it will be necessary to devote a few pages to a clear account of the proposal made by that Society, of the obstacles that were placed in Panizzi’s path, in his conscientious endeavours to fulfil the obligations imposed on him, and of the untiring zeal and patience he displayed in doing his duty in the matter, and in opposing the force with which it was attempted to crush the evidence of his superior talent, and to trample under foot even the Society’s own verbal agreements upon which, as coming from a body of men beyond suspicion, Panizzi relied. The whole of that opposition was successfully surmounted by his undoubted genius.

Biographers generally have to undergo the tedium of monotony in their faithful endeavours to reproduce the lives of those whose careers they pen, and it is only at certain epochs in the course of the lives of 120consistent men that an opportunity is afforded for a discursive chapter such as is now presented to our readers. It deserves, however, due consideration, and has its value as a proof of the forbearance, learning, and perseverance of the man of whom we are writing; whilst it, without doubt, throws somewhat into shade the members of a very learned Society, who vainly strove, first from want of knowledge of their own requirements, and secondly from non-appreciation of him with whom they had to deal, to undervalue true talent, and, by their associative power, to make a show of quashing not only Panizzi’s (subsequently proved) intelligence, but also his right to acknowledgment for the new light he threw upon their want of accuracy and knowledge for the work which they had confided to him, and for which they should—some, at least, must—have known he was so eminently fitted.

The origin, progress, and dénoûment of this affair cannot be brought within very small compass; but attracting (as they did at the time) the notice of many literary men, are worthy of some space in this volume.

It would be amusing to watch the progress of this attempt to thwart Panizzi’s intentions for the development of that which he so well understood, even were it not also a necessary record of the heartburnings of, and wrongs done to, one who, justly confident in his own position, had to prove, step by step, willingly or not, for his own defence, his superiority to those whose business it was to direct him, and not to derive from him their inspiration.

To proceed, then, as we have intimated above, in reference to the connection of Panizzi with the Royal 121Society; and to give our readers a clear conception of that connection, it will be necessary to make considerable quotations from his own letters and notes, for which, considering their importance as indications of his learning, and humility under adverse treatment, it will scarcely be necessary for us to offer any apology.

In the year (1832-33) the Royal Society, from the incompetency of those who had taken the matter in hand, found it advisable to engage the services of some known and experienced cataloguer to revise a work, which had been begun on their behalf by one of the members, whose presumption and arrogance cannot be better proved than in the mild unassuming language of Panizzi himself:—

This is an extract from a letter dated 28th January, 1837, from Panizzi to his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex (then President of the Royal Society), a letter wherein is fully set forth his whole conduct in the case, and which, besides revealing the puerile and almost unpardonable errors he detected in the titles brought under his notice, is a wonderful certificate to the patience, endurance, and acuteness of a gentleman who was called upon to contend, single-handed, with a corporate body, supported by a clique necessarily jealous of its own distinction.

We shall now explain as clearly as possible the course pursued by the Society, and the pains-taking, 123much enduring way in which Panizzi met his opponents.

Let us, therefore, continue to extract from the memorable letter to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, those passages wherein are particularized the egregious blunders of Panizzi’s predecessor in the work:—

How amusing are some of Panizzi’s remarks, and how fully do they evince the supreme contempt he must have felt for the ignorance displayed in the sheets, which were submitted for his correction. It is 127impossible not to help dwelling on and re-quoting such a sentence as this: “It is a fortunate thing for feu Mr. Da Cunha that this libel (the utter non-appreciation of the word feu) on his fair name was not published in his own country (he was a Portuguese) when he was living, and when the fashion was not only to burn books, but authors.” This must have been a cutting but amusing hint for His Royal Highness, and then we perceive the manly tone of Panizzi when he added: “So dangerous an insinuation by the Royal Society of London might have exposed him to the chance of paying dearly for their blunders and bad French.”

In October, 1833, the New Catalogue, entrusted to Panizzi was commenced; not, however, left to his own discretion, for cabined, cribbed, confined, he was called on to follow a plan, concocted by the Library Committee, of which he incidentally remarks: “Heaven forbid that I should ever be supposed guilty of having approved of it, or be suspected capable of selecting such a plan, had I been at liberty to execute the work as I pleased. I agreed to carry their plan into execution on my own responsibility.”

The agreement entered into with the Council of the Society was only a verbal one, and, by its terms, the compiler of the Catalogue was to be paid according to the number of titles written, and at certain stages of his labour, the first instalment when the whole of the titles were written, the second when they were ready for the printer, and the third when the book was completed. This agreement or contract was never reduced to writing. Panizzi, it may be, was inexperienced 128in a business point of view, but it is more probable that he placed implicit confidence in the understanding with the Council, through the Chairman Mr. Lubbock.

As the work progressed, however, the members of the Library Committee appear to have conceived that they had a right to interfere with the execution of the work. The compiler firmly resisted this, and it was ultimately conceded that any proposals of the Committee were to be regarded merely as suggestions.

In the course of a year Panizzi, having nearly completed the writing of the titles on slips of paper, applied for the first instalment of the remuneration in proportion to the number he had written.

What must have been his mortification to find that the Council would not accept his computation, but referred his account to an underling, in consequence of whose report they reduced the demand by one-third.

The consequent offer was rejected, and Panizzi’s claim afterwards admitted by payment of the full amount.

A similar difficulty or objection arose about the second instalment, due in July, 1835; when, after the Council had voted but one half the amount, they ultimately granted the other, and the whole was paid.

When matters had progressed to the final stage, the revision of the printer’s work for press, Panizzi had again occasion to complain of the interference of the Catalogue Committee, and of insufficient access to the books.

The Council hereupon took the opinion of certain then well-known bibliographers, which was unanimously 129in favour of the compiler, nevertheless it was resolved “that Panizzi he no longer employed in the formation of the Catalogue.”

The Council had only paid a portion of the value of the work in its possession, had refused arbitration, and by their summary resolution thought to escape further liability.

Not so thought Panizzi. He maintained his claim, and the matter, after narrowly escaping the intervention of the law, was settled satisfactorily through the good offices of friends.

The summing up of his case, as expressed by himself, in concluding his letter to the Duke of Sussex, is worthy of reproduction here.

Thus thwarted and impeded at every step, Panizzi at last succeeded in once again proving that right can contend successfully with might; and though years have elapsed since this unseemly treatment at the hands of a great and learned Society took place, it is well that the occurrence should not pass into oblivion, as it forms a conclusive proof of the determined astuteness of the man, of his endurance of character, and of his ability to judge of the weak points of his adversaries, a foretaste of his prowess in many a subsequent struggle in his oft-times arduous career.

Panizzi’s dealings with the Royal Society having been thus satisfactorily disposed of, it will now be necessary to return to the more matter-of-fact conduct of this remarkably persevering man in his every-day efforts to attain that position which he held steadily in view—efforts which were finally crowned with success.

At this time it was not an unusual thing, and especially during the absence of the Keeper, for him 131to spend some of his holidays, and evenings after official hours, in the Library; and it is a well-known fact that in the winter, when the Museum closed early, he remained at his post working by candle-light, which, however, was put a stop to on account of the alleged possible danger of the practice.

About three years after his appointment, Panizzi was, in a report written April 26th, 1834, proposed by Mr. Baber to direct the General Catalogue then contemplated, Mr. Baber’s scheme of Cataloguing the books in the Library not having been adopted. Panizzi and other of his colleagues were desired to prepare titles for a new Catalogue. It appeared, by the end of the year (1834), that he had written a larger quantity of titles than any two of the other gentlemen, which assiduity gained for him the approbation of the Trustees. Panizzi’s own words before a Royal Commission on the 20th of May, 1848, were in these terms:—

In consequence of this the adequacy of the remuneration in question was, on the 10th of January, 1835, 132referred to the Sub-Committee of Finance for their consideration; but at this meeting nothing material was resolved on, except that the claim was admitted, and the matter considered worthy of further deliberation. Sir R. H. Inglis was added to the Finance Committee for this purpose; but in June of the same year a meeting took place, with Lord Farnborough in the chair, when the following resolution was passed:—

The members present, beside the Chairman, were the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Ashburton, and the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville.

Here, therefore, was strong admission of the inadequacy of Panizzi’s remuneration at the time, and strong special reasons were advanced to support that admission, as well as the proposal for a more adequate salary.

It was necessary for this resolution to be submitted to the General Meeting on July 11th, 1835. Another minute was then passed openly against the principle affirmed six months previously; it ran:—

It might be interesting to inquire into the motives of the Committee, in taking the adequacy of the remuneration in question into their consideration. Was the concession made to the office or to the man who held it? But we need not pursue this.

The minute of the General Meeting produced an unprecedented event. Mr. Grenville, one of the Committee present, when he saw what was taking place, rose, left the room, and never attended a meeting of the Trustees again. The increase was not granted. To preserve the correctness of our chronology, it is necessary to reserve an account of Mr. Grenville till much later on. It is fair to state that Lord Lansdowne and Lord Ashburton were not present on this occasion; but the Board considered it necessary to instruct the Secretary (then Mr. J. Forshall) to forward to Mr. Grenville a copy of the minute which he sent to Panizzi, with the following note:—

In March, 1837, the Keeper, Mr. Baber, gave notice that he intended to resign his post at midsummer. 134Mr. Cary, the celebrated translator of Dante, who was then an Assistant-Librarian, would have been the natural successor; but on account of his infirmities the Principal Trustees raised an objection to such an appointment.

Now it is of great importance to us that these statements should be made known, for much controversy, angry discussion, amounting to personal vituperation, and many letters ensued on the appointment of Panizzi as Keeper of the Printed Books, which, notwithstanding, took place on the 15th of July of the same year.

Meetings were held against the “Foreigner;” and one of the speakers made an open statement that Panizzi had been seen in the streets of London selling white mice: had it been a few years later, possibly the distinctive title of organ-grinder would have been added. The infirmities of Mr. Cary were well known, and Panizzi, out of regard and in fairness to him, never asked for the place, nor took any decided step for the purpose of obtaining it. On the 13th of March, 1837, he addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Principal Trustees, soliciting in general terms that if any appointment was to take place they would bear his past services in mind.

The letter was to the following effect:—

The letters to the Lord Chancellor and Speaker were in the same terms.

It was a common opinion that Mr. Cary had been ill-treated and passed over in favour of Panizzi. However, Samuel Rogers, the poet, a friend of Cary’s, after having strongly recommended the latter, thought that, considering his ill-health it would scarcely be acting fairly to the Principal Trustees, or to the public to press his claims. Mr. Cary saw the Speaker, who, in the course of conversation, said: “I heard of a Mr. Panizzi, who is next: What do you know of him?” What Cary’s answer was is not known; but it is certain that, when the post was declared vacant, the gentleman went to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 24th of June, 1837, and 136again solicited the appointment, which, as might have been expected, was withheld. Panizzi, having heard of it directly from Gary, asked, in the presence of Mr. Baber, whether he would object to his applying for it, when he answered, “Not at all.” There and then Panizzi sat down and wrote this letter to the Archbishop:—

No sooner was the promotion made known than the controversy began. It was a piece of favouritism, to a Foreigner, and an injustice to Mr. Cary.

As to the first point, Panizzi was at the time personally unknown to the Principal Trustees. Of this there was sufficient evidence.

There was ample precedent for the appointment of a Foreigner, and, if so, objections could not be made, especially to a naturalized Foreigner, and there was plenty of time for a better qualified person to come forward, as quite four months elapsed between Mr. Baber’s announced resignation and the appointment of a successor. If there was a semblance of injustice, it was because the claims of an individual 137had been postponed to the necessities of the Institution.

Mr. Cary then thought fit to write the following letter to the Lord Chancellor Cottenham, which was published in the “Times” of July 18th, 1837.

“The following letter has been sent to the Lord Chancellor by the Rev. H. F. Cary, the Translator of Dante, who seems to have been treated with extraordinary injustice:—

In justification of Panizzi, Hallam’s opinion of his fitness for the post is given:—

“Wimpole Street, July 6, 1837

My dear Sir,

You first mentioned to me, about two months since, the prospect of attaining a higher station in the Museum, in consequence of Mr. Baber’s resignation, and seemed rather desirous of testimonies to your literary and general character. The closer connection I have since had with the Museum does not, I think, make it improper for me to say what I would then readily have said had it appeared to me as requisite at that time; but you are, of course, perfectly aware that I am only to be considered as a private person, who has had frequent opportunities of seeing you in the Library. In the many conversations on literary subjects we have had together, both there and on other occasions, I have been struck with your extensive and very ready knowledge of books, which has several times been of much service to myself. Your zeal and activity in the Department 140are so generally acknowledged that no testimony of mine can be of much additional value, and the many private friends you possess, among whom I reckon not a few of my own, bear sufficient witness to the sincerity and integrity of your character.

I am, &c.,

Henry Hallam.”

Panizzi then wrote to the Archbishop:—

A fortnight had scarcely elapsed when a question arose on the subject of an official residence, and this involved a lengthy correspondence between Panizzi, the Secretary (the Rev. J. Forshall), and Sir F. Madden. The latter—who, from the outset, appears to have regarded his colleague in an inimical spirit (and no doubt the feeling was reciprocal)—evinced the greatest eagerness to take possession of a certain one of the lodgings which accompanied the appointments.

Further details would weary the reader; it will, therefore, be only necessary to state that Panizzi was unsuccessful on this occasion in obtaining the house to which, according to his own account, he was entitled.

141The following letter, however, is worthy of perusal as a specimen of his persuasive and straightforward argument in the matter:—

142

Sir Henry Ellis; Parliamentary Committee, 1835-6; Keepership; Removal of the Library from Montague House; Temporary Assistants; Catalogue; Garnett; Winter Jones; Watts; Parry; Additions and Deficiencies 1838; Annual Grant.

Allusion has already been made to Sir Henry Ellis, who was, at the time of which we write, Principal Librarian, having held this appointment since the 20th of December, 1827. In the year 1800, Mr. Ellis had entered the service of the British Museum as a Temporary Assistant; and Mr. Edwards, in his work entitled “Lives of the Founders of the British Museum,” observes that “had it never fallen to the lot of Henry Ellis to render to the public any service at all, in the way of administering and improving the National Museum,” he would still have earned an honourable niche in our literary history. His contributions to 143literature are, indeed, very unequal in their character. Some of them are fragmentary; some might be thought trivial. But very many of them have sterling value.value.

He died at the age of 92, on the 15th of January, 1869, having retired in 1856.

Between Panizzi and Sir Henry Ellis there was no reciprocal feeling of friendship; indeed, at times, the former expressed himself so strongly that we prefer not to reproduce his remarks. The first apparently inimical act was Panizzi’s decided objection to Sir Henry’s Printed Catalogue of the Museum Library; and we learn from a report, drawn up by Ellis, on the 30th April, 1834, and which Panizzi delighted in cutting up, that as soon as he (Ellis) was placed at the head of the Printed Books Department, in 1806, and Mr. Baber advanced to the post of Assistant-Keeper, the preparation of a new Alphabetical Catalogue of the Library was ordered by the Trustees, and the work undertaken by the two Librarians jointly. The former was answerable for the letters A to F, with P, Q, and R, and the latter for the remaining letters. It may be considered a bold statement, yet, this report, instead of containing a correct account of the whole undertaking, was full, from beginning to end, of the most inexact assertions: and these are clearly pointed out by Panizzi, in the shape of marginal notes; he, indeed, seemed most constant in his great delight of finding faults in the Printed Catalogue itself. On one occasion, whilst in search of a book, he came suddenly on an entry of a French translation of one of Jeremy Bentham’s works, in which the 144author’s name, having been translated in the title-page of the book into French, was transferred in the same form “Bentham (Jérôme)” into the Catalogue. Panizzi’s comment on the entry was: “In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt,” a verse in the first chapter of St. John, from the Vulgate, which he may, probably, have learnt when a boy, acting as a server at mass, under his master the Abbate Fratuzzi; it is equally probable that he knew it in no other form. The sentence is an exact translation from the Greek εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθε καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον

But the English version is not so; “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Mr. Major, the present Keeper of Maps, in the British Museum, was at the time sitting in the same room with Panizzi, and seeing him point out the mistake committed by Sir Henry Ellis, in order to court enquiry exclaimed: “How do you account, Sir, for the words “in propria” being used instead of “ad suos” which might have been the version, had the English translation, the only one with which he was then acquainted been correct. Panizzi was amazed at the question, and turning round to his friend, exclaimed, “Goodness, he knows all about it, I had never noticed the difference.” It is, however, a pleasure to reflect that no very serious results accrued from these disputes between the antagonists, and this is to be attributed to the circumstance that both were true gentlemen, in the strict sense of the word, and both men of education.

Whatever differences they may have had, they controlled their feelings, and reined in their animosities, 145guided by the polished hand of education, which, as was instilled into our minds, in our schoolboy days,

The whole case affords a fair example of the influence of gentle blood and good breeding, as opposed to that grossness of ignorance, the sure tendency of which is to cause forgetfulness of our better nature, delivering us bound into the power of unbridled passion, and forcing the most trivial disagreements to issue in petty spite and ill-feeling. Conduct unworthy of a gentleman was the last thing that would be found on either side in the case of Panizzi v. Ellis.

It is devoutly to be wished that this would happen on every occasion where two men opposed in views meet; but it has been our lot to see a very different state of affairs, where the disputants were unequally matched on the intrinsic points of education and breeding.

But before dismissing the subject of quarrels (if such a term is applicable to the jealousies and misunderstandings of educated men), we must refer to the strong antagonistic feeling evinced towards him, whom, in very bad taste, his colleague, Sir F. Madden, was wont to dub the “Foreigner;” whilst necessity only compels the production of some evidence of this, and makes us acknowledge our reluctance at laying-such matters before our readers:—

Many other disagreements—amounting by the animosity evinced, to something worthy of a worse name—we gloss over. Mention must, however, be made of the Rev. Josiah Forshall, Keeper of the MSS., afterwards Secretary, with whom Panizzi more than once came into collision.

Let us now leave this unpleasant topic, and proceed to an account of the Select Committee on the British Museum—more generally known as the Parliamentary Commission of 1835-36—which forms a turning point in the history of our Museum—not so much on account of anything actually effected by it, as from its marking the era when the national character of the Institution, and its mission as an instrument of the national culture, were first clearly recognised and defined. They would, indeed, have been professedly acknowledged at any period of its history; but the circumstances under which the establishment originated, and the manner in which it was managed and 147supported, had invariably tended to impress upon it a private and exclusive character. By the public it was principally regarded as a show of curiosities, differing from the Zoological Gardens in the same degree as inanimate differ from living things. The literary and scientific world recognised its value for students and amateurs, but had little conception of its function as a great educational agency. It could scarcely have been otherwise. Sir Hans Sloane’s munificent bequest had bestowed upon the public of his day that which it had neither demanded nor required. The measure of its immediate utility may be estimated by the regulation that it should be inspected by parties of not more than fourteen at one time, and always accompanied by an official.

Panizzi’s part in the Committee of 1835-36 was not prominent, though of considerable importance as respected his peculiar Department. The investigation, nevertheless, brought into the clearest relief the three great ideas with which he entered upon his official duties, and which, though acknowledged in principle, he was left almost alone to maintain and enforce, until they eventually became the accepted principles of the Museum, thereby occasioning a total metamorphosis in the spirit of the Institution, while its administrative constitution remained unaltered. These ideas may be thus defined:—

I. The Museum is not a show, but an Institution for the diffusion of culture.

II. It is a Department of the Civil Service, and should be conducted in the spirit of other public Departments.

148III. It should be managed with the utmost possible liberality.

It may not be irrelevant if we attempt to show how these points had been understood before Panizzi’s time.

In a Minute dated February 27, 1809, Sir Joseph Banks defined a Museum for exhibition as “a collection framed for the purpose of administering instruction in the form of amusement, and thus endeavouring to awake latent curiosity.” He, therefore, concluded that not only the anatomical paintings in the custody of the Trustees should be transferred to the College of Surgeons, but the Osteological Collection also. He further thought that the specimens preserved in spirits, when not capable of being stuffed, should also be transferred to the same place, more particularly as “the room where they are kept must unavoidably smell strongly of spirits,” and “they are very frequently designated by the opprobrious appellation of hobgoblins.” It was clearly the view of this representative of science upon the Board that the Museum had no business with anything unadapted for public exhibition.

With respect to the second point, it is certainly no reproach to the governing body, or the officers of the Museum, that at the period of its establishment very little work should have been required from the latter. This ensued almost as a matter of necessity from the fact that the Museum was no national foundation, planned with systematic forethought, but a mere lucky windfall. Enough was done if its safe custody was ensured; the extension it was capable of receiving 149entered into nobody’s mind. The inevitable consequence was that, while the standard of knowledge and accomplishments among officers of the Museum has at all times been high, the standard of official efficiency was in its first days very low. So late as 1837 an honourable and respected officer could, without conscious absurdity, urge as a plea for promotion that he would thereby have less to do.

A conclusive criterion of the primitive conception of an officer’s duty may be found in a Minute of June 21, 1759—the year of the opening of the British Museum:—

“The Committee think proper to add that the requiring the attendance of the officers during the whole six hours that the Museum is kept open is not a wanton or useless piece of severity, as the two vacant hours (if it is not thought too great a burden upon the officers) might very usefully be employed by them in better ranging the several collections, especially in the Department of Manuscripts, and preparing Catalogues for publication, which last the Committee think so necessary a work that till it is performed the several collections can be but imperfectly useful to the public.”

In point of fact, these “Librarians” were “ciceroni.” In 1802, after forty-three years, three attendants were appointed to relieve the “Under and Assistant Librarians from the daily duty of showing the Museum,” and their salaries were advanced. But it does not appear, says the report of 1807, “that the Under or Assistant-Librarians received any particular injunctions to execute the several duties proposed for 150them, nor does it appear by their subsequent conduct that they understood themselves to be under any specific obligation to do any specific duties of that description.” “So that,” continues the report, “the public has been, and is, at an annual expense of above £2,000 a year for the mere purpose of showing the house to strangers, and providing an attendant upon the Reading Room.” This discovery led to considerable reform; the Trustees, very naturally, “feeling strong apprehensions that the munificence of Parliament should be checked, if it should think fit to inquire into the nature and extent of the duties now executed by the officers of the Museum.”

Matters were much improved by 1835; but the organisation of the Institution still bore evident traces of its origin in private liberality, and of the misconceptions which had so long prevailed as to its functions.

It was the constant endeavour of Panizzi to divest it of everything indicating affinity with private institutions, and to impress it more and more with the unique character of a national emporium of the world’s treasures.

The third point which generally characterised Panizzi’s administration was one to which the attention of the Committee of 1835-36 was vigorously directed, and in reference to which it was of considerable service. The regulations for the admission of the public were illiberal. Visitors were excluded at the very times when they had most leisure to attend; but when, as Sir Henry Ellis remarked, “the most mischievous part of the population was abroad,” and in 151holiday weeks the Museum should be closed, “because the place otherwise would really become unwholesome.” The Committee, however, came to a different conclusion, and admitting that reforms were necessary, decided that the Museum was to cease to be a private establishment. But the immediate cause of the Commission in question was the unreasonable complaint of a discharged servant, a Mr. John Millard, employed for some time as supernumerary in the Department of MSS., who had lost his situation through inefficiency. He possessed, it was said, some influence with Lord Brougham, and Mr., afterwards Sir Benjamin Hawes, M.P. for Lambeth, was induced to take up his case, and obtain its investigation under cover of a general inquiry into the administration of the Museum. The Committee, as at first appointed, March 27, 1835, was inconveniently numerous, and when re-appointed in the following session its numbers were considerably curtailed. Mr. Hawes, a man of no great refinement, but of thorough business capacity, and an excellent specimen of the not unfrequent type of popular M.P., who begins as a patriot and ends as a placeman, represented the reforming element, together with Dr. Bowring and some other members of a similar stamp, who mostly disappeared after the first session. Lord Stanley (the late Lord Derby) and Sir Robert Inglis represented the interests of the Trustees. Sir Philip Egerton, Mr. Ridley Colbome, and Mr. Bingham Baring were also amongst the most prominent members, Mr. Sotheron Estcourt being chairman.

The administrative organisation of the Museum at the time was certainly better calculated to invite inquiry 152than to sustain it. The offices of the Principal Librarian and Secretary, instead of being united, as at present—and of which more hereafter—were divided, with very mischievous consequences as regarded the authority of the former officer, and attended by all the evils of divided responsibility. Sir H. Ellis was an excellent antiquary and a most kind-hearted man, but could never, under any circumstances, have been more than the nominal head of the Museum.

The Secretary was, as has already been remarked, the Rev. Josiah Forshall, and the government of the Museum was in his hands. By a most preposterous regulation, while the inferior officer, the Secretary, always attended the meetings of the Trustees, the Principal Librarian was never present unless summoned. Mr. Forshall enjoyed the fullest confidence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose hands, by a tacit understanding which had become traditional, almost all administrative arrangements were left by the Principal Trustees. He was entirely opposed to all innovation tending to impart a more popular character to the Institution; and was, in fine, as thoroughly the representative of the principles on which the Museum had hitherto been administered as Panizzi was of those destined to supersede them.

Mr. Millard, the trivial cause of the Committee’s great effect, did not occupy much of its attention. It appeared that he had been removed for two causes, either of which was in itself sufficient to justify the act: he was incompetent, and his services had been dispensed with. The inferior work on which he had been engaged was discontinued; he was fit for nothing 153else. He had been treated with great and, indeed, with immoderate indulgence, having been allowed to remain two years after his virtual dismissal, in order “to give him an opportunity of finding another situation.” His case, it appeared, had kept the amiable Principal Librarian awake all night; the Keeper of MSS. himself, strangely enough, had given him a testimonial to the Windham Club. His patron endeavoured to prove his efficiency; but on July 2nd Sir Frederick Madden, then Assistant-Keeper of the MSS. came down “with some instances of Mr. Millard’s mistakes, and some questions which I should like to put him.” For some sufficient reason the instances were not adduced, the questions were not put, and no more was heard of Mr. Millard. He had, however, made an outlet for the long accumulating dissatisfaction with the Museum management, and the Committee found themselves arbiters in contentions affecting every Department in the Institution. They had to digest Mr. Forshall’s opinion that “men professionally engaged in literary and scientific pursuits” were unfit for the office of Trustee; and to reconcile Sir Henry Ellis’s statement that literary and scientific men looked up to a Trusteeship as the blue ribbon of their calling, with his admission that not one of them had ever obtained it. They had to enquire whether Sir Henry had made an adequate examination of the Baron de Joursanvault’s manuscripts, magnanimously offered by that nobleman to the English nation for 100,000 francs and permission to import 500 pipes of Beaune wine duty free. If he had not done so, was it because the collection was shelved so high that Sir 154Henry could not get at it without a ladder, and was it really a fact that no ladder could be found in the whole town of Pomard? Was it true, as asserted by the Edinburgh Review, that cases of birds had been transferred to the College of Surgeons and subsequently repurchased by the Museum? Or was Sir Henry Ellis’s conjecture admissible that certain green glass bottles, of which the transfer was acknowledged, might have been large enough and dirty enough to have been mistaken by the person who wrote that review “for packing cases?” How much of the Saurian collection bought from Mr. T. Hawkins was plaster? Was the Keeper of Geology justified in affirming that “the principal ichthyosaurus could not be exhibited without derogation from the character of the British Museum,” and that if it were treated as it deserved “the whole tail would disappear?”

Had the College of Surgeons been obliged to spend £1,000 on Zoological Literature, in consequence of the deficiencies of the British Museum Library?

It was admitted that the Museum possessed a fine collection of “Megatherium, Chalicotherium, Anthrocotherium, Anoplotherium, and Sus diluvianus” in plaster; but did it possess genuine fragments of any of these extinct quadrupeds? To be straightforward, were the “saurian and chelonian reptiles” in a confused and nameless state? Would the “intelligent visitor” have naturally expected to find “the limited space available for exhibition filled with twenty-eight cats placed together? Had the larger mammalia been mostly devoured by insects, with the exception of the llama’s mouth, which had happily withstood their 155ravages from consisting of plaster of Paris? The brunt of the assault, it will be seen, was borne by the Zoological Department, whose comparatively starved and neglected condition rendered it a convenient basis for attacks upon the general condition of the Museum, the assailing party being well versed in the axiom of fortification—that a fortress is no stronger than its weakest point.

The Printed Book Department, the battle-ground of subsequent years, attracted comparatively little attention at the time. The public had not yet discovered the value, either actual or potential, of such a collection. The ideal of what a National Library should be as yet only existed in Panizzi’s head. The general standard was exceedingly low, nor could this be a matter of surprise, when, as he himself pointed out, the Museum Library, after all, contained 40,000 more volumes than any library in the modern world, previous to the French Revolution.

With all the drawbacks of the Institution, its management was liberality itself, compared to that of even so splendid a library as the one at Vienna, with its accommodation for 45 readers, bringing their own pens and paper.

The acknowledged defects of the Museum Library, in some degree, served to screen its unacknowledged failings, for the Catalogue was so much behind hand that it was difficult to be certain whether any specified volume was to be found there or not. One important accession had been obtained, the English newspapers were now regularly deposited in the Library, and it was to this that the recent increase of readers was 156principally attributable. A late Trustee, Mr. Henry Banks, had been an incubus on the establishment, “It was extremely difficult to get any assent in his part to any purchase that was of any amount.” Mr. Baber had now more of his own way, yet when asked, “Is there that general consultation and cordial intercourse which is satisfactory to you as head of your Department?” he answered, “Certainly not.” His evidence related, in great measure, to the project for a new Catalogue, which had hitherto attracted but little attention outside the Museum. Mr. Hawes did his utmost to extort an admission that a Classed Catalogue would be desirable; but Mr. Baber, an experienced bibliographer, maintained firmly that such a Catalogue by itself was a delusion. The alphabetical arrangement was the only safe one: an index of subjects, however, might be a valuable appendage to such a Catalogue. It was the one fault of Mr. Baber’s evidence and of Panizzi’s that neither of them said how invaluable. They were probably afraid of countenancing the mischievous agitation for a Classed Catalogue pure and simple, knowing that years had already been wasted over an impracticable plan of their colleague, the Rev. T. H. Horne. Panizzi evidently felt much embarrassed between loyalty to his chief, allegiance to the Trustees, and his own strong sense of the deficiencies of the Library. His evidence, under such circumstances, was a model of tact and discretion. He implied rather than asserted, and his testimony gains greatly in cogency when read in the light of the reforms subsequently effected by himself.

157In the question of classed and alphabetical Catalogues, Panizzi supported his chief, and took care to acquaint the Committee, how much the latter, and the Library, had been damaged by the compulsory withdrawal of Mr. Baber’s first plan for a Catalogue in favour of an alternative and inferior scheme. It was not difficult to discover that Panizzi was by no means satisfied with the administration of the Museum as it stood; at the same time he came to the assistance of the Trustees on a subject which had led to much criticism, by pointing out the importance of having men of rank and influence upon the Board, as well as men merely distinguished by literary and scientific eminence. Not his least important contribution to the proceedings of the Committee was the mass of information with respect to foreign Libraries and Educational Institutions, published in the appendices to its report, and mainly collected, directly or indirectly, by himself, either personally or from trustworthy witnesses, during his travels on the continent. These papers embody a vast amount of curious and interesting information from Vienna and Gottingen down to San-Luis Potosi, where “se trata de poner una biblioteca, y un museo, pero aun no se verifica.”

The report of the Committee was issued on July 14th, 1836.

It was not an elaborate document, and contained no reasons for its recommendations, most of which were of a sensible and obvious kind. The deficiencies and disarrangements of the Collections were attributed with perfect justice to the inadequacy of the funds 158and insufficiency of space. It was suggested that those Trustees whose attendance was infrequent and uncertain should receive a hint to retire, and that “for the future” literary and scientific distinction should constitute a ground of election for the Trust.

Many were the reforms adopted, to the great advantage of the Institution. The principal benefit of the Commission, nevertheless, consisted in the distinct recognition for the first time of the national and educational character of the Museum.

These observations must, however, be relinquished, interesting as they are, or we might be wandering on far beyond reasonable limits.

More might be said, and perhaps advantageously, on these seemingly unimportant subjects—yet, oh! how important to prove the steady progress of the Museum, and that in no small degree owing to Panizzi’s energy—but, as already said, we must restrain ourselves; and having subjects of intrinsic interest for the earnest peruser of this book to discuss, our inclination must be foregone.

When Panizzi entered upon his new office as Keeper, he was fully alive to the important duties which devolved upon him, and was well aware of the arduous and extraordinary task which he was called on to perform simultaneously with the ordinary business of the Department; he, therefore, resolved to keep the whole under his own immediate superintendence so far as was compatible with the regulations and wishes of the authorities.

The Trustees having, in 1837, provided means for removing the Library of Printed Books from Montague 159House to the new building on the north side of the Quadrangle, it was necessary to appoint a separate staff of assistants, and these were known as “temporary assistants.”

The operation of moving this mass of books, begun on the 1st of January, 1838, was successfully performed by efficient subordinates; but the labour and forethought required for the proper re-arrangement of the volumes and the alteration of the press-marks and references in the catalogues were such as can only be fully appreciated by those who have had some experience in similar undertakings.

At this time the collection consisted of about 160,000 volumes, exclusive of the Royal Library. On Panizzi was thrown, in addition to his other duties, the responsibility of suggesting, examining, and criticising every single article of furniture, fittings, &c., which the Library itself and the Reading Room required. The style of these, as well as the contrivances then adopted in the Department of Printed Books, were subsequently, so far as possible, copied in other Departments of the Museum, having been found equally economical and useful. The Trustees, under these circumstances, offered to find a person who should undertake the superintendence of the Catalogue—an outlay which, however, they were not called on to incur, Panizzi having twice declined the proffered assistance. The opinion of the Trustees and that of Panizzi, however, in regard to the amount of the work necessarily to be carried out without delay will be best gathered from the two following letters:—

The removal of the books having been proceeded with for six months, it was found on the 23rd of June, that the collection contained, in round numbers, 165,000 volumes, of which 450 were extra folios, 15,000 folios, 23,000 4tos., 126,000 8vos., &c., &c. Up to that day 47,000 volumes had been removed to the new Library, and placed on the shelves destined for their reception, and at the end of 1839, about 12,000 more volumes remained still in Montague House.

A singular feature in the carrying out of this laborious task, was that no interruption of the supply 161of books to the readers took place. When Panizzi informed the Trustees of his intentions, the Bishop of London happening to be in the Committee Room, exclaimed, “It is impossible.” There is probably no precedent for this display of energy, and the magnitude of the attempt can only be appreciated by persons conversant with the daily use made of a Public Library by students, whose pursuits would have been totally interrupted had the method adopted absolutely required the closing of the Reading Room. The attempt was successful, and the works asked for by readers were generally forthcoming, excepting those actually in the course of removal and rearrangement, amounting at no time, on an average, to more than 8,000 volumes, or about five per cent. of the whole Library.

Mention has been made of the “efficient staff,” this was composed of the following gentlemen:—The Reverend Richard Garnett, Mr. John Winter Jones, Mr. Edward Edwards, Mr. W. Brenchley Rye, Mr. George Bullen, and last but not least, the late Sergeant Parry.

The Rev. R. Garnett was appointed Assistant-Keeper of the Printed Books, vice Cary, in 1838. He was an excellent scholar, thoroughly versed in German, Italian, French, and Spanish; had a good knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, and was conversant with several oriental languages. This gentleman died on the 27th of September, 1850, the sad event being announced to Panizzi by Mr. John Ridout, Panizzi’s and Garnett’s medical attendant. This coincidence deserves notice, for in reality it relates indirectly to 162the appointment of Mr. Richard Garnett, the present Superintendent of the Reading Room, so well-known to all its frequenters.^[E]

Panizzi wrote thus to Mr. Ridout:—

Mr. John Winter Jones had been in the Institution since 1837, and besides ranking next to Panizzi, was also his friend, and stood firmly by him through all the vicissitudes of fortune which attended him; it will hereafter be noticed that he, in 1856, succeeded Panizzi as Keeper of the Printed Books, and finally in 1866, as Principal Librarian.

163Mr. Thomas Watts, the linguist, was another of the “Temporary Assistants,” appointed in 1838, who rose to the grade of Keeper of the Printed Books, in succession to Mr. Jones, but did not live long to enjoy his promotion, for he died three years afterwards, on the 9th of September, 1869, aged 58.

In the autumn of the year 1835, Mr. Watts’ attention was attracted to the publication of the Parliamentary Commission of 1835-36, previously discussed. He read the evidence with great interest, and ere long, in 1836-37, wrote some valuable comments upon it, which embodied several suggestions for the improvement of the Museum service, some of which he had the satisfaction of seeing carried out during his lifetime.

Judging from certain passages which occur in a letter addressed to Panizzi by Mr. Watts, it might almost be inferred that long afterwards some sort of ill-feeling existed between the two. Panizzi, as already described, was a strict disciplinarian, and as he seldom allowed himself to be one minute behind-hand at his post, expected from all those under him similar punctuality in attendance, so that the Trustees might not lose any of the time which was their just due. Now it seems that Mr. Watts was accused by Panizzi of arriving late at the Museum and of wasting his time, as proved by the insufficient number of titles written by him for the Catalogue. This Panizzi communicated to him in the shape of a letter; which, after a few days, Mr. Watts, naturally stung by the rebuke, answered by an epistle of more than ordinary length, extending 164almost to eight quarto pages, of small writing, and beginning thus:—

He seems to acknowledge that he had actually been in the habit of coming late to his work; (it was known that at times his health was not good) but promised that in future he would do his utmost to please and satisfy his chief in every possible manner.

In corroboration of the statement of Watts in the first part of his letter, it may not be amiss to give in full a report which Panizzi addressed to the Trustees about that period:—

This Report is an excellent proof of Panizzi’s consideration for those under his supervision, and no further confirmation that the fault found with Watts arose from his strict sense of duty towards the Trustees, and a fearless disregard of bringing on himself the enmity of anyone for the simple discharge of that duty, is required. Perhaps this is better explained in his own words, in answer to Mr. Watts’ letter:—

The next distinguished “Temporary Assistant” to be introduced to our readers was John Humffreys Parry, the late Serjeant Parry, who has so recently departed this life.

Mr. Parry was recommended on the 31st of January, 1839, to Panizzi by Mr. Forshall, through the following letter:—

Immediately afterwards, at an interview, Panizzi gave him the appointment he sought, and on the 14th of February, 1839, Mr. Parry thus addressed his new chief:—

All those who knew the learned Serjeant in after years fully appreciate the geniality of his disposition. Panizzi soon became attached to him, and was not long in discerning his superior qualities. He was a great favourite with all. On one occasion, when all the Assistants were mustered in solemn conclave, to discuss a new rule for cataloguing, some one knocked at the door, when Parry, without leaving time for Panizzi to speak, imitated a person suffering from influenza, and said “Cub id!” None but he would so have dared to beard the lion in his den; but Panizzi joined in the laughter created by the joke as heartily as the rest. On another occasion Panizzi asked these gentlemen to give their opinion on a portrait of himself. One of 167them remarked that it looked rather dark, when Parry said, “Oh, I have seen Mr. Panizzi look much blacker than that!” One more instance of his ready wit and we have done. Mr. Parry occasionally absented himself from the Museum, until one afternoon Panizzi sent for him and requested him to discontinue such habits, when he received the following answer:—“I am very sorry, sir, for I was just going to ask you to let me go for the day.”^[G]

The position and the pay of these “Temporary Assistants,” most of whom in after years became men of distinction, would certainly be considered inadequate in the present day.

Previous to the year 1837, the Assistants were temporarily engaged to perform such services as were required in the several Departments; there being no regular scale of remuneration, but a daily payment fixed by the Trustees according to the aptness of the individual for the particular service allotted to him. The rate was 10s., 12s., and 15s., in one instance as high as 20s. for each day whilst actually employed at the Museum.

In 1837, the Trustees decided that the appointment of these Assistants should be permanent, and fixed a 168standing scale of remuneration; the members of this class were known as “Permanent Assistants.”

In 1838, at the time of the removal of the Library, the “Supernumerary or Temporary Assistants” were engaged at the rate of £2. 12s. 6d. a week, or 8s. 9d. a day, for every day actually employed. Their number was increased from time to time, to provide the extra labour required in preparing the new Catalogue, and in the additional duties consequent upon the rapid increase of the Library.

In 1847, a slight change for the better took place in their status. In practice the promotion was from the Supernumerary to the Permanent class of Assistants; but there was no recognised claim to such promotion on the part of the Supernumeraries. In the year 1851, the distinction between the Permanent and Supernumerary Assistants was abolished, these Assistants, in all Departments, being considered as forming one body, although divided into two classes. In all these and subsequent changes, Panizzi was always the one who strove to promote the welfare of his subordinates.

Panizzi, Thomas Watts, J. Winter Jones, Edward Edwards, and John H. Parry, formed a committee for framing the rules for the new General Catalogue of the whole Library; each of them was separately to prepare, according to his own views, rules for the compilation of the projected work. These were afterwards discussed collectively, and when any difference arose, it was settled by vote.

The rules so drawn up were sanctioned by the Trustees, on the 13th of July, 1839, and printed on the 15th 169July, 1841. They were acknowledged at the time and still continue to be the most complete ever compiled, although attempts have, at various periods, been made to improve upon them: nor has the approbation bestowed upon them been merely of a local character; it has extended throughout Europe and America. The work occupied several months, the busy staff often being detained until late at night, on which occasions Panizzi invited his colleagues to share refreshments with him.

The above rules engaged Panizzi’s earnest attention, and on the 18th of March, 1839, he sent in the following report to the Trustees:—

170On the 16th of the same month, March, Mr. Baber (Panizzi’s predecessor) happened to call at the Museum, when the draft of these rules was submitted to him, and with respect to them he expressed general satisfaction.

America has been mentioned with special reason.

The first general Conference of Librarians was held at New-York, September 15, 16, and 17, 1853, upon an invitation, signed by Professor C. C. Jewett, “for the purpose of conferring together upon the means of advancing the prosperity and usefulness of Public Libraries, and for the suggestion and discussion of topics of importance to book collectors and readers.”

At this meeting the learned Professor made a statement to the effect that the scholars of all nations demanded of Great Britain that the Catalogue of the Library of the British Museum should be thoroughly and efficiently executed, and should be a work of bibliographical authority.

Professor Jewett had made Panizzi’s acquaintance on his visit to London several years before, with the object of studying our Library, and sent to him a special invitation to attend the Conference. However, it was not accepted, and he wrote to Mr. Haywood thus, July 21, 1853:—

The grant for the purchase of Printed Books in 1838, being £1000 more than the preceding years, permitted the purchase of some rare and valuable books. For instance:—

The Translation of Montaigne’s Essays by Florio, with an autograph of Shakespere.

A copy of Luther’s Translation of the Bible in German, printed at Wittemberg, in 1559-61. (2 vols. folio, on vellum.)

The first edition of the Pentateuch, in the original, printed at Bologna, in 1482. (vellum, folio.)

The new Testament in German, printed at Augsburg, in 1535. (2 vols.vols. 8vo, on vellum.)

A richly illuminated Roman Missal, with the arms of Savoy facing the title-page, richly emblazoned. Printed in Paris, in 1517. (1 vol. folio, on vellum.)

The lives of Cornelius Nepos (1 vol. 4to, on vellum), printed at Parma, at the Bodoni Press, in 1799; and many others of equal importance.

In the year 1839 it must be noted that the Museum acquired two Latin Bibles, with copious manuscript notes, supposed to be by Melanchthon.

Besides these noteworthy and valuable purchases, presents were also received, and deserve particular mention. Two, especially, must not be omitted to be named:—1st. The Resolutions and other papers of the States General of Holland, from 1524 to 1798, with indices, the whole contained in 389 vols. folio, presented 172by H.M. the King of the Netherlands. 2nd. A copy of Cicero’s Orations, printed by Adam Ambergau, in 1742. 1 vol. folio, handsomely bound, presented by the Right Hon. Sir Arthur Paget, G.C.B.

The work having progressed satisfactorily thus far, it became necessary to inquire diligently into the many deficiencies in the National Library, and to propose means of supplying them. This was accordingly done in a Report dated 1st of January, 1845. On the 16th of December, the same year, it was forwarded to the Treasury by direction of the Trustees, and in the letter accompanying it the following passage occurs:—

The Report contains a sketch of the British Museum, and of its arrangement, together with some 173suggestions as to its future increase, utility, and importance. It shows how and when the Library was brought to the condition in which it was at the end of the year 1842. The state of the Collection in its several branches is examined, with regard to the various classes of human knowledge, to the various countries where the books were published, and to the languages in which they are written. Means are suggested by which the Collection ought to be increased to proportions worthy of the nation; and, lastly, attention is called to the effects which the proposed increase would have with regard to its arrangements, good order, and economy. This elaborate Report was begun as early as 1843. After many delays, Panizzi at last obtained consent, on the 4th of January, 1845, to its being printed privately for the Trustees, to whom individually it was ordered to be transmitted on the 24th of May following.

It remained disregarded, however, until the autumn of that year, when it was brought under the notice of Mr. Goulburn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Cardwell, Secretary of the Treasury. In consequence of this step, a meeting of the Sub-Committee on the Department of Printed Books was held on the 29th of November, 1845, the Chancellor of the Exchequer being present, and it was resolved that application should be made to the Treasury for the annual grant of £10,000 for ten years to come, to supply the deficiencies and exigencies shown by Panizzi to exist. The answer of the Treasury was most favourable: it was followed by a preliminary Parliamentary grant of £10,000, which was but the prelude to many others.

174The letter of the Trustees to the Lords of the Treasury, their Lordships’ answer, and Panizzi’s report were laid before the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and ordered to be printed on the 27th of March, 1846.

From that year the collection of Printed Books increased steadily and at a rate unexampled in any other country. This influx of books, the necessity of Cataloguing, placing, and binding them, to render them available, and the difficulties created by want of space, added enormously to the already onerous duties of the Keeper.

Nor was this special grant otherwise than truly necessary; in fact, it ran short of the sum requisite for purchasing the rarest and best editions; the commonest being consequently acquired, and this only tended to increase the bulk, thus reducing it to the level of an ordinary Library, instead of raising it to the rank and splendour of a National Collection, worthy of so great a country as England.

Interesting and important as is the subject of the present chapter—viz, the gradual development of the resources of the National Institution, and the energy displayed by those whose duty it was to use every endeavour to raise the Museum in grandeur and extent—no great digression is admissible, inasmuch as there is on our hands so great a press of matter that nothing should induce us to lose the thread of our biography, or forget that we have the life of Panizzi under treatment, and the history of the British Museum only so far as it bears on his doings and his labours on its behalf.

175Of these we have attempted to give a clear and honest account. As Panizzi was one of those who felt sincerely that “whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well,” and as he was blessed with ability and decision of character to carry out whatever he had in hand, it is pleasant to remark how thoroughly and efficiently he applied his talents to the benefit of the National Institution; and much as it would delight us to expatiate further on the subject, we must deny ourselves at present, as it is now incumbent on us to enter into new channels in connection with his life.

176

Bridport Election; Desire to visit Modena; Mazzini; Post Office Espionage; Biographer’s Personal Reminiscences; Portland Vase; Psalter, 1457; Interview with Francis IV; Libri.

In the honest endeavour to represent a man as he really was, both in his inward and his outward bearings, the biographer has much difficulty to encounter. It behoves him to reproduce a life with special regard to dates, with no matter likely to confuse a reader, or to press too heavily on his understanding; but this biography claims an especial degree of attention, inasmuch as the principal person concerned, though actually absent from his best-loved locale, was proving the interest he took in affairs at home by his assiduous care of the duties with which he was entrusted. Panizzi possessed no more power of ubiquity than other men; still such was his energy that only a close observer could follow his movements, and his wonderful activity often made him appear to be in many places at the same time, and induced the belief that he was, at all events, performing a dual character.

These observations are made simply to warn the reader against mystification as to Panizzi’s movements, 177related in the pages which follow—pages it is now incumbent on us to pen—for whereas he has lately been treated of more especially in his official capacity, our position must be changed, and he must be regarded from a political and personal point of view. Indeed, the phases in which so remarkable a man may be contemplated, are so varied that it requires consideration whence to take our first observation.

However, having before us his own correspondence (and what can be more corroborative of a man’s perspicuity than his own written expressions on a subject?), a letter bearing date October 1, 1841, clearly sets forth the political tendencies of Panizzi. In reference to the Bridport election, then on the tapis, he writes in a spirit so rich in tone, so lively, sensible, and witty, that nothing can induce us to debar our readers from the enjoyment of his remarks. His manner of defending Warburton’s “purity,” and his friend’s innocence in being deceived by a “rascally attorney,” are too good to be passed over, and not only shows acute insight into the matter, but is a testimony to the contempt he bore for underhand dealing, under any circumstances, and in any sphere of life:—

In the year 1842 it was Panizzi’s desire, after twenty years’ absence, to visit his native country, and the attempts he made to do so, and the ready assistance which the English Government afforded him 179may be easily estimated from the following official letters:—

These documents sufficiently prove the opinion entertained of Panizzi in this country, and the facilities provided for the adoption of the course he had planned for the attainment of the wish he had at heart; but by a subsequent letter from the Foreign Office, dated 26th October, 1842, we can conclusively 180prove that he was unable to accomplish his object, for in this official document we read that a “Note Verbale” had been delivered to Her Majesty’s representative at Vienna, to allow the applicant to prosecute his travels under certain conditions—conditions which the circumstances at that expiration of time most probably made him feel unwilling to comply with. The following is the letter in question:—

In another letter, dated 3rd November, we find that Panizzi’s wish to be unfettered by the “Note Verbale” is unnoticed by the authorities of the Foreign Office, and that, however much they might feel disposed to use their influence in his favour, still, entertaining due respect to foreign authority, they declined to interfere again in the matter, and therefore it must be concluded, having no further correspondence, either on the part of the applicant or the Foreign Office, that the opinion of the latter preponderated, and that the anxious hope of the former proved abortive.

From the year 1842 to 1844 there is little substantial evidence of Panizzi’s private movements. Notwithstanding 181his apparent activity, we know what he had at heart, and how difficult he found it to obtain success in the attainment of his wishes. In a letter from no less a personage than Mr. Gladstone, dated 12th January, 1844, strong sympathy in the endeavour to pass as a free man to Italy is evinced.evinced.

That Panizzi waited, and waited in vain, for the accomplishment of his purpose, is evident from a second letter from the same distinguished gentleman, dated 4th June, 1844, and what more valuable testimonial could a man have than this? “I only wish the Austrian Government knew you as well as we do—none of these difficulties would occur.”

Less than two months afterwards Panizzi seems to be ailing in health; so, at least, it must be inferred from a letter dated British Museum, 6th of August, 1844, wherein he states that he is suffering from a painful swelling in the right wrist, and where, also, he repudiates the imputation of goutiness. The letter is so characteristic, that, with very slight abbreviations, we append it for the perusal of our readers:

This is an appropriate period of our history for the introduction of the well-known Giuseppe Mazzini, or the “Profeta,” as he was commonly called by his worshippers, amongst whom Panizzi is certainly not to be reckoned. It would be superfluous to enter into details about this notable character; his writings, and perhaps it may be added, his private life also, are already familiar to most of us.

183Though Panizzi did not agree with Mazzini’s violent views as to Republicanism, there is no doubt that they were for some considerable time on intimate terms. Besides being a politician and a patriot of the most enthusiastic kind, Mazzini was also a literary man of some note, and shared Panizzi’s intense admiration for the works of Dante, and still more those of Ugo Foscolo, as already related. Farini’s opinion of Mazzini exactly tallied with Panizzi’s—that he was a man of no common talent, remarkable for perseverance in his plans, for resolution under suffering, and for private virtues; but in the last crisis of the Italian nation he had confounded patriotism with self-love, or rather with selfish pride, and chosen to risk seeing the temple of Italy burned down, because she would not dedicate to him its high altar. Amongst our papers are various letters in the handwriting of Mazzini, and one especially noteworthy, written in 1840, wherein he recommends a friend (as a reader) to the Reading Room of the British Museum, and in this letter occurs a sentence worthy of reproduction:—“I received safely the papers I lent you. I perceive that by the tone you do not agree with me. I trust soon to be able to come and see you, and talk over my future plans.”

That Panizzi, in after years, disagreed “in toto” with his friend’s principles is notorious; but the actual origin of their estrangement will for ever remain a mystery. In November, 1844, an article appeared in the “North British Review,” written by Panizzi, and entitled “Post-Office Espionage.” The opening of Mazzini’s letters at the Post-Office, and 184their perusal by the authorities, formed the subject of this treatise, and those revelations immediately aroused John Bull to a pitch of honest indignation—“highly creditable to the moral feeling and sound, good sense of the nation.” We learn from this article that Mazzini’s suspicions were first awakened by observing that his letters were doubly stamped; the stamp of 2 o’clock in the afternoon, for instance, superseding that of 12 at noon. Having read in an Austrian paper that the English authorities had undertaken to watch the proceedings of the Italian refugees in Great Britain, the idea struck Mazzini that it was not improbable that recourse might be had to opening his letters. This was communicated to Panizzi, who strongly dissuaded Mazzini from giving credence to such strange suspicions regarding the English Government. He spurned this well-meant counsel, posted letters directed to himself and to others, in the presence of witnesses, and found that whilst the other letters were regularly delivered, his own were as frequently delayed; he sealed them with wax, placing the impression in a particular position, and then discovered that that position of the seal had been changed. Another artifice was resorted to. Grains of sand were enclosed in letters: they reached other parties safely, but had disappeared from the letters directed to himself. This, on the 14th of June, 1844, induced Mr. T. S. Duncombe, Member for Finsbury, to present a petition from four gentlemen, living at No. 47, Devonshire Street, Queen Square, alleging that their letters had been delayed and opened by the authorities at the Post-Office. Sir 185James Graham, the Home Secretary, did not deny that he had issued his warrant for the adoption of such a course, adding, moreover, that a power was given by Statute to the Secretary of State to open letters in transit through the Post-Office. This led to some members of the Liberal side taking up the subject with much warmth, and denouncing such proceedings as despotic and perfectly unconstitutional. Their own action was not altogether left undefended by the Ministers. Mr. Duncombe, though unsuccessful, showed no disposition to let the matter rest here, and ultimately succeeded in the formation of a Committee of both Houses, composed of some of the most eminent amongst their respective members. A report was printed, showing that the warrants of the Secretary of State in previous cases were issued only on peculiar emergencies. There was no other result from this affair, except that a Bill was introduced by Lord Radnor in the Upper House for the abolition of the power complained of; it was not, however, carried beyond the first reading.

The correspondence between Panizzi and Mazzini was by no means frequent, and soon after this disgraceful scandal we find him sending to Panizzi proofs of the well-known printed letter addressed to Sir James Graham, and asking his advice on the matter.

So far has been traced the acquaintance of these two men from documentary evidence; but the biographer can bring forward personal reminiscences of this extraordinary man. Often has he heard Panizzi relate how, on a certain journey, whilst waiting for a 186seat in the stage coach running between France and Italy, one morning early, almost before daybreak, he, on taking his seat, recognised close to him the figure of a man, in blue spectacles, and carefully enveloped in his long Italian cloak. It was no other than his quondam friend Mazzini, who, finding his incognito discovered, whispered “Per amor di Dio, Signor Panizzi!!!” (For the love of God, Signor Panizzi!!!) As might be expected, Panizzi assured him of his perfect safety. The frontier was passed, after a most scrutinizing search by the French and Piedmontese authorities.

The biographer also remembers one afternoon, about the year 1860, whilst walking down Fleet Street, in the company of Panizzi, being desired to look towards the left, on doing which, he perceived a man of very dark complexion, in a shabby black coat, with a silk kerchief wound round and round his neck, without collar, waistcoat buttoned high, and with downcast eyes, standing by the side of one of the small archways of what was but recently Temple Bar. Panizzi observed, “That is Mazzini.” No bow, no sign of recognition passed between them. That the subject of this memoir never afterwards communicated with his compatriot would be a deviation from the truth, for in April, 1864, when Garibaldi visited London, on the day, or soon after, it was publicly announced that the Italian hero intended to leave England, the present writer was the bearer of a note, penned by Panizzi, from whom he received instructions to deliver it safely into the hands of Mazzini. This occurrence took place early in the 187morning; so early, indeed, that day had scarcely dawned when he left his friend’s residence at the British Museum, where he was then staying.

This is but a slight sketch of the connection between Panizzi and Mazzini, from which it may be gathered that no great warmth existed between the two, for the latter was too impetuous to consort with the former, who was imbued with common sense as well as with patriotic motives in all his actions.

Let us now confine ourselves more immediately to Panizzi himself, and whilst giving particulars of the various occurrences at this period, the destruction of the famous Portland Vase, must not be passed over.

On the 7th of February, 1845, Panizzi, at about a quarter to four, when descending the staircase of the Museum, leading from the room where the vase stood, to the outer door, observed the perpetrator of this singular piece of barbarity in the act of running away; and he used to relate, with the greatest emotion, how delighted he should have been to stop him (as he might have done), had he known the man’s dastardly conduct, and to have inflicted on the spot that chastisement which the law was powerless to administer. The suddenness and unexpectedness of the deed probably saved the rascal from an immediate attack; he had seized an ancient brick kept in the room, and deliberately aimed it at the treasure, nor would he, on being questioned at the time, give any account of the motives which had prompted him to commit so wilfully mean and base an act. His name was William Lloyd, a native of Dublin. No time was lost in conveying him to Bow Street, where 188he was remanded by the sitting magistrate. The utmost punishment the magistrate, Mr. Jardine, was able to inflict—£3, or two months in default—was absurdly inadequate (as true believers in art know only too well) to so signal an offence. The money was moreover paid very soon after by some perverse sympathiser, and the offender was set free.^[H]

So much then for the Portland Vase and its ignominious and cruel fate: at the time of its occurrence the affair caused a great stir.

In the month of June, 1845, Panizzi made an application to the Trustees to grant him twelve weeks’ holidays, in lieu of the usual annual vacation; on the very excusable plea that, for several years past, extra official duties had obliged him to forego the greater portion of his allowed and legitimate leave. He was promptly, and with the consideration that all servants of the Trustees have ever experienced on such special and reasonable applications, whether for the sake of their health or for visiting foreign countries, and thus acquiring valuable knowledge—granted the twelve weeks’ holidays.

189These commenced on the 30th of June, and we append a letter from Panizzi to Lord Rutherfurd, dated from Ischl on July 28th:—

The time, thus allowed, was not dedicated altogether to private enjoyment, most probably quite the reverse. Panizzi went abroad with the intention of visiting the leading libraries of Germany, taking on his way to Vienna, Stuttgart, where the famous Psalter^[I] of 1457 was said to be for sale. It had been discovered in 1842 in the Library of the Collegiatstift, at Eichstädt, in Bavaria, by the antiquarian, J. Hess, through whose interest it was transferred, in 1843, to Stuttgart in exchange for another rare volume, the “Acta Sanctorum.” The Keeper of the Printed Books was, as it may easily be imagined, eager to purchase the volume, and on the 11th of June he wrote the following report:—“Mr. Panizzi has the honour to report that a copy of the 190First Psalter (1457) not long since discovered, and now in the Royal Library of Stuttgart, may be obtained for the British Museum, if what Mr. Panizzi has heard may be relied upon. It is said that the Government of Würtemberg might be disposed to part with it to a Public Library, but to no one else. Mr. Panizzi intends visiting Stuttgart partly for the purpose of seeing this volume—the most important by far, as well as the rarest of all early monuments of typography.”

The recommendation of Panizzi was that the sum of six hundred guineas should be offered, for, to use his own words: “The copy now in the Royal Library at Paris, wanting six leaves, sold by auction in 1817, for 12,000 francs, or £480. It is made up of two copies, and is otherwise objectionable. The funds of the Royal Library at Paris being then low, Louis XVIII. himself paid the above price, and presented the volume to that institution.”

It is hardly necessary, though the volume did not find its way to the British Museum, to say that the Trustees did not hesitate a moment to sanction the purchase for the sum recommended.

The main object, on this occasion, being that of visiting his native place, Panizzi’s official position must be temporarily ignored, and this point of view kept in sight. On the 24th of June of the year 1845, he received a friendly note from the Austrian Ambassador in London, requesting him to call at the Embassy, in order that he might submit to him a dispatch from Prince Metternich, and another from the Minister of Police, Count Sedlnitzky, stating that he 191might with safety proceed to the Austrian Empire. Early in July he arrived at Vienna, as has already been noticed, and was there received with marked attention by Her Majesty’s Ambassador. The Duke of Modena was at the time on a visit to the Emperor of Austria, and through Sir Robert Gordon, Panizzi obtained an interview with Francis IV. Before the meeting took place, Panizzi wrote to a near relative of his, Signor Prospero Cugini, to the effect that the Duke had accepted all he had heard of him with unusual grace, expressing, at the same time, his desire for an interview, and also, what must have astonished Panizzi most, that he would have been allowed to go unmolested to Brescello. His delight can easily be imagined. On the 21st of July he had the gratification of an interview with the Duke, who, being now in his 66th year, was perhaps a little less blood-thirsty than when Panizzi left him in the year 1821. Francis’s love for Jesuitism and his cunning never seems to have abandoned him, even to the last; he died in the following year. The meeting was all that could be desired; and, as may be conceived, the conversation turned at once on the political state of Italy. On this subject Panizzi was too open-hearted, even to the extent of forgetting the prudence which should have permeated his words and actions; he clearly and distinctly told the Duke that his mode of Government was wholly hateful to his visitor, though he had no feeling of enmity towards the Duke himself personally, and that perhaps there remained even a sense of gratitude. However, in spite of this, they parted apparently good friends, and with the full 192assurance that Panizzi was at perfect liberty to go to Modena, or wherever he pleased.

His license was, however, based on false pretences; no such liberty was in reality granted. Indeed, it was never intended to be carried out, or if so, to be under the most unpleasant restrictions. Our warrant for this assertion is not only gathered from Panizzi’s own words, but from incontrovertible and stern facts. On the 7th of August Panizzi wrote from Venice to Cugini:—

He then proceeded to Mantua, where he arrived on the 19th of August, and was met by some of his relatives. From this place he addressed a note to the Modenese authorities, demanding an explanation; the answer sent was short and discourteous.

It was so pre-arranged long before Panizzi and his former sovereign met; for on the 9th of July, eleven days before the meeting, an order had already reached Reggio to watch the visitor, to note his associates, and to send a full account of all that transpired to Modena.

193He was, however, not to be baulked of his projected visit to Parma, where he went by a circuitous route, in order to avoid touching the soil of his native State. Here he was met by all his old acquaintances, not a few of whom travelled all the way from Brescello to Parma to see him. The names of these Brescellese were taken down, and sent to the Police Office at Modena. On his return to London he wrote to Lord Rutherfurd:—

We must pause for a while to congratulate Panizzi on his safe return, and to quote the good wishes of Samuel Rogers and Dr. Shepherd on so auspicious an occasion:—

Before closing this interesting portion of our narrative, a letter from Vienna, October 17th, must be quoted; it will be read with interest:—

195A few facts relating to Signor Libri must not be omitted. Inclination might lead us to suppress them, but our duty as faithful recorders of truth points to another direction. A biographer who has the heart and the will to introduce into his narrative the events of the life he is depicting, fearless of comment, is to be commended; and as such we do not intend to pass without notice the Libri case—a case which indeed, next to Panizzi’s sentence of death, was the most anxious event of his life.

Signor Libri, a man of extraordinary talents, especially distinguished as a mathematician, was a Tuscan by birth. He settled in Paris, and whilst there, in addition to his political avocations, aided by his able pen the Government of Louis-Philippe, and consequently became the bosom friend of Mons. Guizot.

As a purchaser of books he contrived to amass a collection of rare volumes, which he afterwards sold publicly to much advantage. Shortly after the revolution of 1848 rumours were afloat that he had been the robber of Public Libraries.

It is not our intention to enter for one instant into the merits of the case, or to make any statement bearing on Signor Libri’s innocence or guilt. Certain it is, that this most unpleasant affair gave rise to much discussion at the time; and Panizzi has often been heard to say that, had he not been known, as he was, to be a man of strict truth and honesty, he himself would never have dared to defend such an accusation as had been set up against his friend. As already intimated, we have no plea to offer except that of faithful biographers for touching on so delicate a subject. 196Panizzi was certainly not alone in his opinion; he was supported by many others, and those men of distinction, amongst them Guizot, Mérimée, and other personages now living.

M. Guizot wrote thus to Panizzi on the subject:—

Enough has been said, however, on this painful subject, and it is to be hoped our readers may take the same lenient view of it as these notable individuals.

This chapter can scarcely be better brought to a conclusion than by an original and characteristic letter of Panizzi’s, which is added as a specimen of terse writing, and as showing his detestation of intolerance in religious matters, as well as for the spirit in which it is worded, so full of undisguised feeling, and so worthy of its open-hearted writer:—

The versatility of thought displayed in this letter, the rapidity with which its author speeds from subject to subject, and his clear and decided views, are worthy of close observation.

199

Thiers; Spanish Marriages; Downfall of Lord Melbourne’s Administration; Corn Laws; Coolness between Panizzi and Thiers.

Amongst the eminent men whose friendship Panizzi had the good fortune to enjoy, not the least was M. Adolpho Thiers, who must ever be regarded as one of the ablest and most honourable, if not the most successful of European statesmen. Thiers and Panizzi first met about 1840. Frequent association community of friends, similarity of tastes, and especially the interest felt by both in political affairs, soon united them in a friendship both intimate and lasting, which bore its fruits in due season. Thiers, writes Panizzi to Lord Rutherfurd, Oct. 30, 1845, has taken up all my time when here. It was I who brought him and Lord Palmerston together, and I have sent him away quite pleased with the reception. We shall talk about it, and you will be amused—if you answer my letters—with what 200I shall tell you of him and from him, and about him.”

Certain communications from Lord Clarendon to Panizzi contain acute and pertinent remarks on the illustrious Frenchman. For ourselves, we have always believed that an intimate feeling of Anglomisos (to coin a word somewhat milder in significance than Anglophobia) materially influenced Thiers. Himself the very incarnation of the Gallic indoles, it is not to be wondered at that he looked on the most prominent and obnoxious traits of English character as antagonistic and repulsive. Englishmen seemed to him the collective impersonation of a Sabidius, or of a Dr. Fell; but however much he might have disliked the English as a race, he was ever ready, owing to his candour and love of truth, to render full justice to England as a nation, whilst the facility with which he made intimate friends in this country is too well known to require illustration in these pages. The following letters are, however, suggestive:—

These letters cannot fail to be read with interest, coming from so appreciative a man as Lord Clarendon, pointing distinctly as they do to his intimate friendship with Panizzi, and expressing his hopes that Thiers would be cured of this “Anglo-phobia,” or, to use our own modified term, “Anglo-misos,” with his very true remark: “I’ll defy even his cleverness to know this country, or to carry away any correct perceptions of it in a transitory visit, such as he is making.”

In politics, though Panizzi’s opinions (albeit somewhat modified by lapse of time, and by his intercourse with the greater English statesmen) were probably still of a deeper revolutionary tinge than his friend’s, the two men were in the main of one mind. The prominent question of the day was that tissue of petty chicanery commonly known as The Spanish Marriages—a miserable intrigue—which caused considerable commotion at the time, and in due course produced consequences of a gravity out of all proportion to its intrinsic importance.

To recapitulate, its history in this place, and at this period, would be impertinent; with the aid of a slight introduction, and a few connecting remarks, 203enough of the nature of the transaction for the present purposes may be gathered from the correspondence of Thiers and Panizzi, as given below.

The affair seems to have come under serious diplomatic notice about the beginning of 1842, when Queen Isabella was in the twelfth year of her age. For a rough sketch of its origin, let the following suffice. M. Guizot, apprehensive that if a Prince of other than French or Spanish blood were to share the throne of Spain, France might be placed as it were between two fires, and patriotically wishing to make Spain, so far as possible, dependent upon his own country, insisted on limiting Queen Isabella’s choice of a husband to the descendants of the Bourbon Philip V.; at the same time, however, disclaiming any intention of including among the aspirants to the Queen’s hand any son of the King of the French.

The candidates spoken of at the time were—1st. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, brother of the Queen of Portugal, and by no means a stranger to French blood, whose claim, if it can be so called, though causing the greatest disquiet to M. Guizot, was more a subject of conversation than reality. Indeed, except for a kind of counter-intrigue of a suspicious character, purporting to be in his favour, this competitor, can hardly be said to have been in the race. 2nd. Prince Metternich’s candidate, the Count de Montemolin, son of Don Carlos, who, although within M. Guizot’s conditions, had but little chance of success from the beginning. The third candidature was that of Count de Trapani, brother of the King of Naples, whose chance, as it turned out, was about 204equal to that of Count de Montemolin. To complete the list followed Don Francisco d’Assise, Duke of Cadiz, and his brother Don Enrique, Duke of Seville, sons of the Infant Don Francisco de Paula.

The design of the French Minister was communicated by M. Pageot, whom he sent for that purpose, to Lord Aberdeen, then Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The English Minister heard, with considerable astonishment, and with no little indignation, the unwarrantable proposal to restrict the Spanish Queen’s selection of her consort. He replied, however, that in a matter of a nature so entirely domestic it was not the wish of this country to interfere. M. Pageot thereupon endeavoured to obtain from the Foreign Secretary an expression of a like disinclination to intervene in case Queen Isabella were to fix her choice on her cousin, the Duc d’Aumale. The answer to this invidious hypothesis was that it was based upon a very different footing, and involved the question of the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe, as settled by Treaty.

As a matter of fact, Mons. Guizot had thus expressed himself to the Cabinet of England:—“We thought fit to apprise you, as the Ministry of one of the Great European Powers, of our intentions in regard to a political matter, which you may possibly consider of European interest, but in which we, on the other hand, take leave to hold the interest of France to be paramount to all others; and, inasmuch as, in such matter, we, the Government of France, have laid down a course of action, from which, so far as lies in our power, we will suffer no departure. 205We respectfully request you to give your adhesion to our design, or, if that be impossible to you, at least to remain impartial and inactive.”

Such a policy, subtly conceived, and springing from outre-cuidance, might well arouse patriotic indignation, and in no one would it be more likely to awaken this spirit than in Lord Clarendon. His lordship’s censure of Lord Aberdeen’s conduct, however, expressed in the following letter to Panizzi, seems, to say the least of it, a little severe:—

These are strong denunciations, strongly expressed; yet, no doubt, Lord Clarendon felt keenly that Lord Aberdeen’s “predilection” for Guizot was “endangering the peaceful relations” between England and France, and his laudation of Lord Palmerston bears equal proof of the sincerity of his impressions.

207Be it said, with all submission, that we might have gone further with Lord Aberdeen and fared worse.

It is perfectly true that the vigour and decision of character so conspicuous in Lord Palmerston was not invariably to be found in Lord Aberdeen. Still, if there was vigour, there was also a certain amount of violence occasionally apparent in the policy of the former. Granting fully that Lord Palmerston might, by a more decided show of opposition than was offered by his predecessor in office, have crushed the Spanish Marriages plot in its inception, and granting all that is said in Lord Clarendon’s letter as to the effect likely to be produced by Lord Aberdeen’s course of action (or inaction) on the “entente cordiale” we may be allowed to suspect that, under then existing circumstances, a peril of a different kind, and a more serious, might have arisen from direct interference on the part of the English Government; and that the coldness between the two countries, already caused by the audacity and double-dealing of the King of the French and his minister, might have been exchanged for a more acrid feeling, possibly even subversive of the peace still subsisting between England and France, and involving even the peace of Europe.

It only remains to be noted here that the effect of the underhand policy pursued all along by the French Government was the simultaneous marriages of Queen Isabella to Don Francisco d’Assise, and of her sister, the Infanta Luisa Fernanda, to the Duke de Montpensier, on the 10th of October, 1846. The 208diplomatic correspondence on the subject ceased soon after that event.

The following is the first letter written by Thiers to Panizzi on the important question:—

To this Panizzi replied in a letter which, for its detailed and lucid statement of facts, may really be looked upon as a useful work of reference. Nor will the reader, we imagine, be inclined to think the comments of the writer on the doings of Guizot and of his accomplice (for so we will venture to call him), Count Bresson, French Minister at Madrid, one whit too severe:—

The plot within a plot, in favour of Prince Leopold, caused Guizot much alarm and discomfort. The place of its origin he took to be Lisbon. It was, he conceived, if not strongly backed by British influence, at least virtually, though passively, supported by the English Cabinet. In this respect, looking on him as one who was likely to gaugegauge the diplomacy of others by his own measure, and, moreover, as being moved by the independent, and, it must 218be confessed, imprudent line taken at the time by the British Minister at Madrid, he need not be too harshly judged.

Panizzi’s theory, however, as to Queen Christina’s part in the affair, seems to go a little too far. To suppose her to have been the direct agent of Louis-Philippe in so ingenious a plot, and to be employed simply in carrying out his designs, is to impute even too much cunning and iniquity to the King of the French (who, it must be borne in mind, afterwards denied categorically any complicity in the matter), and to give too little credit for independence of character to the Queen Dowager. There are many reasons why Christina, a born intrigante, at a distance from Paris, and in her own country, finding that she had, for a time at least, the game in her own hands, should have been inclined to play it in her own way, give it an independent turn, and, at the same time, provide against chances of failure, without laying herself open afterwards to the charge of rashly deviating from the course which she had really come to Spain to follow. It requires no great stretch of imagination to conceive any amount of underhand dealing on the part of the principal actors in the Spanish Marriages; but we are disposed, after all, to take for truth what Guizot himself says in his “Mémoires,” of this episode of the intrigue, or that which, considering his position, may be accepted as pretty much the same thing, what he firmly believed to be the truth. Of course his wrath may have been simulated, and his joy at perceiving additional advantages in the counterplot well concealed; but that 219either he or his master directly instigated it, may well be doubted.

Having received no answer from Thiers, who, as he subsequently says, was very much engaged at the time, Panizzi wrote again, in continuation of his strictures on Guizot’s nefarious proceedings, in forcing on the Montpensier marriage;—

Mons. Guizot, though successful in the end, was unable to carry out his design for marrying the Queen of Spain, after his own and his master’s mind, within the space of a few weeks or months. Some years elapsed ere the slow course of the Spanish Marriages reached its climax. Meanwhile, a great political incident had occurred in this country. In the summer of 1846 Sir Robert Peel’s ministry had resigned. Lord Palmerston had succeeded Lord Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. The new Foreign Minister continued, with respect to the Spanish intrigue, his predecessor’s line of conduct throughout, albeit his expressions of indignation at Guizot’s duplicity may have been a little stronger and sterner than Lord Aberdeen’s. For this, however, it must be allowed that, as the affair progressed, there was ample reason.

By this time the list of candidates for the Queen’s 222hand had been considerably reduced. There remained but two within the principle of the descendants of Philip V., the Duke of Cadiz, and his brother, Don Enrique, Duke of Seville. To the last of these, Lord Palmerston, but simply as an outsider, gave the preference, as the only Spanish Prince who is fit, by his personal qualities, to be the Queen’s husband. Don Enrique, however, was a little too liberal and progressive in his principles to be accepted by the opposite party. Finally, after a long course of unseemly manœuvring and double-dealing, the marriage of Queen Isabella with Francis, Duke of Cadiz, was brought about, and at the same time, by a violation of good faith, such as blushing history has seldom had to record, the Duke de Montpensier’s marriage with the Infanta took place.

An excellent commentary on the various phases of this wretched intrigue, and on the conduct of those concerned in it, will be found in the subjoined correspondence between Thiers and Panizzi. In answer to the charges brought by the latter against Guizot, Thiers replies with very summary treatment of the French Minister, both politically and personally. The sketch of Louis-Philippe’s character, in the first quoted of these letters, is admirably drawn. The policy, however, of the great monarch of the barricades, made up of audacity and cunning, was on the whole so skilfully conducted, though so little likely to be enduring, as to our mind to justify a more significant epithet than that of a mere umpire.

What, however, stands out most conspicuously in this same letter is the sound, practical, and commonsense 223view taken by Thiers of the claim to actual and substantial importance of the Spanish Marriages; his justification of the British Cabinet’s policy of non-interference (and, with it, of Lord Aberdeen’s conduct) in a matter in no wise vital to England; and his far-sighted estimate of what might have been the consequences to Europe had more serious measures in opposition to the plot been adopted. It would have been an evil day that had seen the four greatest European powers ranged in two directly opposite, if not, indeed, openly hostile camps; whereof England and Prussia should have occupied the one, and France and Austria the other. The Spanish Marriages was a comedy, and decidedly unworthy of exaltation, at least for the time being, to the rank of an European tragedy.

In the next letter quoted, being the answer to the first written by Panizzi, Thiers seems to have conceived a more probable solution of the Queen’s mother’s share in the Coburg counter-plot than his correspondent. Her real motives and purposes must, it is to be feared, be for ever relegated to the unreliable realms of conjecture. It is amusing to read Thiers’s account of how the evil influence of the intrigue extended so far as to threaten—happily only threaten—a rupture in the Liberal party in France. The true moderation of Thiers, and his sound common sense again shine forth conspicuously in the following letter:—

In the preceding and in the following letters, allusion is made to an act of political iniquity, on which subject, as it happened in a remote corner of Europe, and at a considerable distance of time, it may not be amiss to refresh the reader’s memory. By the Treaty of Vienna, it was stipulated that Cracow should be for ever a free and independent town, under the protection of the three powers—Russia, Prussia, and Austria. In 1846 an insurrection broke out in the town, and the insurgents set up a Provincial Government. They were promptly defeated, and Cracow again became subject to the three powers. For a time things went on as before, but the ramifications of the Spanish plot had extended a little further than the plotters either intended that they should or imagined that they could. Taking advantage of the shattering by Guizot and his master of the entente cordiale between England and France, the three powers concerned with the protection of Cracow, coolly proclaimed, without consulting their fellow signatories to the Treaty, that, so far as regarded that unfortunate town, the provisions of the Treaty were annulled, and Cracow was forthwith annexed to Austria as an integral part of the empire. Separate 233protests against this act of spoliation, were, as a matter of course, made by both France and England; but, equally as a matter of course under the circumstances, the protests were separate, and as such had no influence on the action of the three confederates.

In his next letter Thiers indulges in forebodings which, though under the circumstances most reasonable, 234were fortunately unfulfilled. The trickery of Guizot revealed in his contrivance of the Spanish Marriages, might well give rise to coolness between England and France, but was, happily, not likely to be the foundation of any deep feeling of rancune, still less to be requited by a mauvais tour on the part of the English Cabinet:—

The concluding letter of Thiers on the great question shows that, however open he may have been to our charge (which may be unfounded) of a natural abhorrence of the English, yet that such dislike was by no means inconsistent with a full appreciation and staunch recognition of the advantages to be derived from their political co-operation. He appears, in this letter, to attribute just a little too much importance to Mr. Greville’s so-called mission. This was scarcely a matter of sufficient consequence to excite the suspicion of so experienced a statesman.

The affair of the Spanish Marriages, so far as relates to the incidents of the plot itself, and the manner in which it was worked out, has subsided into a matter of no interest, and, save in the material pages of history, has lapsed into oblivion. People have even ceased to discuss the curious question whether or no the marriage of the Duke de Montpensier was a violation of the treaty of Utrecht. One meagre pleasure, however, remains, to read of the various minor difficulties which, in addition to the vis inertiæ of the British Government and the Coburg countermine, M. Guizot, in the course of his machinations, was called upon to encounter.

238Some of these he attributes to the peculiar temperament of the people with whose domestic affairs he was meddling:—

And again, writing to Bresson:—

Mons. Guizot was free from some of the more prominent characteristics of his countrymen, and was by nature formed for a cool and keen observer and discriminator. Had he used his observation to the fullest extent, he might have ascribed the peculiarities of Spanish temper to some other, and more original cause, than that to which he assigns them; and, had he combined comparison with that observation, might possibly have been led to the unpleasant conclusion;—Simia quam similis turpissima bestia nobis.

There is within these realms a people, in blood closely akin to Frenchmen and Spaniards, to whom certain noble qualities, attributed by M. Bresson to the latter, might not unjustly be ascribed:—“La jalousie, l’ambition, et la vengeance, m’écrivait-il (le 11 Mars, 1844) sont les principaux mobiles des hommes qui figurent ici sur la scène politique. Je ne fais 239exception pour aucun parti; haïr, se satisfaire et se venger, ils ne voient rien au delà.”

In fact, the great Celtic race, in its several divisions, is the same throughout the world—alike unpolitical and ungovernable. Reform succeeds reform; revolution, revolution; all is labour in vain, spent only on forming material for fresh change. Not that we should blame the race for declining to accept even good government from any alien authority had it either the wisdom or the power to construct for itself a stable administration, or the foresight to submit to the necessary control of the authority so created.

The Spanish Marriages affair, though of itself the meanest and most miserable of plots, nevertheless left results behind, the ultimate effect of which has, perhaps, not even yet been felt. Nemesis, however, was not long in overtaking the perpetrators of this striking example of chicanery. The accomplishment of the intrigue—the first overt act, the first great achievement of the reactionary policy adopted by the King of the French and his Minister, both at home and abroad, and notably in the affairs of Italy, as well as of Spain, was, it is no exaggeration to say, one of the main causes of the downfall of the former, as it was the direct cause of his falling despised and unregretted of all.

Mons. Guizot records in his “Mémoires” (Vol. VIII., p. 571) a proceeding on the part of certain members of the Liberal party which caused him much surprise, but of which he accepts an explanation that might probably not have been equally satisfactory to everybody.

It is beyond our present range to travel so far into subsequent history, but mention must not be altogether omitted of the intimate connection between the Spanish Marriages and an event of far greater importance than the Revolution of 1848, the war between France and Germany in 1870-1, originating in the vacancy on the Spanish throne.

Touching the Revolution of 1848, there is but one letter of Thiers to Panizzi, and this bears more on the immediate incidents of the abdication, and on the culpable weakness of the King himself, than on the causes that led to his dethronement.—

242Another letter from Thiers, though not written to Panizzi, having some connection with this subject, demands attention, inasmuch as it notices the state of France a year after the Revolution, the unpatriotic and disgraceful conduct of the Reds, and the struggles and endurance of the Constitutional party, ere peace and order could be re-established in the country.

Amusing reference is herein made to his friend:—

The remaining letters of Thiers to Panizzi, quoted below, are of less importance, and briefer than those which enter into their correspondence on the great Spanish question; they chiefly consist of miscellaneous matter, although politics have still a fair share of space. We propose to place before the reader merely those which touch upon personal and domestic relations:—

The first of these letters, relating to a political question of the day, was written by Thiers on the fall, for the second time, of Lord Melbourne’s administration, and the consequent accession of Peel to power.

It is amusing to recall how, on the previous overthrow of the Government of Lord Melbourne, a certain periodical, of Tory and Conservative proclivities, and of undoubted ability and influence, confidently predicted the eternal exclusion from power, thenceforth, of the defeated Minister, and the impossibility of his return. The fact that the succeeding Government of Peel lasted but a few short months, by the end of which time Melbourne was reinstated, was a proof of the prophetical skill possessed by the writer in the magazine. On the second occasion, however, Peel obtained a somewhat firmer and more durable seat.

246The just appreciation shown in this letter, not only of the political bearing of events at the time, and of the character of Peel himself, but generally of the ordinary moderation in the tone of English politics, is not invariably conspicuous in the comments usually made on England by foreign critics.

The supposition or assertion of Monsieur Guizot’s despair at the end of the letter was probably a parting shot at a political rival.

The next letter, from which the date of the year is absent, may be assumed, from the mention in it of the grande entreprise of Peel, to refer to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in that case must have been written in the year 1846.

This assumption appears to be fully borne out by the further mention of Philippe-Guizot.

In another epistle Thiers makes amusing allusion to Panizzi’s patriotism, and suggests means of liberating his country from tyranny and oppression which were more desirable than practicable, and which, to say the least, were not likely to come to pass just at that time, even with the patriot’s most earnest aspirations.

Happily the Italians have succeeded in achieving their own liberty, not only without the aid of foreign support, but in the teeth of very formidable and determined foreign opposition:—

Lastly, we add a letter to Rutherfurd, written by Panizzi while staying at Lord Clarendon’s. This letter seems to treat almost entirely of English politics, and furnishes an excellent specimen of the acuteness of the writer’s judgment on this subject, and, as it contains references to Thiers, this has been thought a not unfit place for its introduction. It is without date, but the contents show it to have been written early in January, 1846; and certain passages in it may possibly, after such a lapse of time, require a few words of explanation. In the previous year, it will be remembered, the Government of Sir Robert Peel had become involved in extreme difficulty, and an attempt had been made by Lord John Russell to form a ministry capable of settling the vexed question of the Corn Laws. This attempt proved signally unsuccessful, owing to an unhappy difference, which it is not too much to designate as a quarrel, that had sprung up between Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey. On the conduct of the latter in the affair, Lord Macaulay had written to a correspondent in Edinburgh a letter containing severe animadversions, which he wished to be strictly private.

Unfortunately, his correspondent, unaware, probably, of the writer’s wishes, and taking upon himself to think that so decided an expression of opinion on 250the part of so important a person was the legitimate property of the political world at large, sent the letter for publication to a leading Edinburgh newspaper, wherein it forthwith appeared, much to the disgust of Macaulay, and the displeasure of all right-thinking men. Panizzi’s remarks on this gentleman’s course of action are such as to be fully permissible under the circumstances:—

The correspondence between Panizzi and Thiers extended no further than the letters set forth above.

Later on a feeling of coolness seems to have arisen between the two, the real origin of which it is difficult to determine; but if a conjecture may be hazarded, it was possibly caused by the fact that Thiers declined to extend his love for Panizzi—or, at least, any beneficial effects of it—to Panizzi’s countrymen in general, and thereby offended the ever ardent patriotism of his friend. Be that as it may, the intimate relation, which had so long subsisted between these once firm allies gradually cooled; and during the last years of their lives little or no communication passed between them. Nevertheless, the letters given will be valuable in the eyes of all admirers of the distinguished statesman whose pen has so short a time since been stayed for ever by the cold hand of death, and will serve as invaluable evidence of his ideas on various subjects of interest and importance.

255

To return to the British Museum andand the Royal Commission of 1847-49—which differed widely from the Committee of 1835-36. Before both Parliamentary Committee and Royal Commission, the Institution was on its trial, but the points of attack were different. In 1835, the Natural History Departments engrossed the principal attention, while the Library escaped with comparatively slight notice, for although its deficiencies were not less conspicuous than those of the Natural History Department, the public standard of completeness in the Library was low. Panizzi had been Keeper eleven out of the twelve years. There could hardly have been a better proof of his administration than the elevated ideal of a public Library which it had produced. He was tried by a standard of his own, which but for him would have had no existence. Many silent in 1836 were now clamorous for the realization of an ideal which they owed to him, and the severity of their attacks was in truth the best testimony to his desert.

256It soon appeared that Panizzi would be the lion of the day, and that the proceedings of the Commission would be chiefly important as they might result in confirming or weakening his position with the public. It was believed, indeed, that the dissatisfaction of scientific men with the preponderance of literature in the governing body had much to do with the appointment of the Commission; and the ostensible cause was undoubtedly a memorial addressed by many persons of high eminence in science to the Prime Minister on March 10th, 1847. The centre of gravity, nevertheless, shifted very quickly. The proceedings of the Commission, as regarded the Library, were interesting from beginning to end; elsewhere, though much that was curious and amusing came to light, it would hardly be thought that a nodus tali dignus vindice had been shown to exist.exist. If such there were, it was in the Secretary’s Office, where irregularities were admitted requiring correction, and involving the examination of the whole anomalous system by which, in a measure since 1828, and more particularly since the Committee of 1835, the Secretary had been allowed to usurp the functions of the Principal Librarian. Everywhere else the subjects calling for inquiry were comparatively slight, such as misunderstandings between Sir C.C. Fellows and Sir R. Westmacott respecting the arrangement of the Xanthian marbles, or disagreements between Dr. Gray and Mr. König respecting the rightful custody of the Gilbertson fossils and the boundaries of Zoology and Palæontology in general. The Library was the real field of contention, and matters 257relating to it occupy more than one half of the bulky tome in which the evidence and recommendations of the Committee were finally embodied (1850).

The Commission was originally appointed on June 17th, 1847, but was only enabled to hold three sittings during the expiring session of that year.

It reassembled in 1848, amid the storms of Continental revolution which inevitably occupied much of the time and thoughts of its members; and it was soon discovered, both that its numbers were too limited, and that the quorum required by the Royal Letters of appointment was too large to insure the indispensable regularity of attendance. It having on one occasion proved impossible to obtain a sufficient attendance, the original Commission was revoked, and a new one issued, increasing the number of Commissioners from eleven to fourteen, and reducing the number necessary for despatch of business from five to three (May 5, 1848).

The Commission, as thus finally constituted, was a very strong one, presided over by so accomplished a man of letters as Lord Ellesmere, and including, among its more active members Lord Seymour (the present Duke of Somerset), Lord Canning, Sir R. Murchison, and the Lord Advocate, Mr. Andrew Rutherfurd. Mr. John Payne Collier, at that time Librarian to the Duke of Devonshire, officiated as Secretary.

The first attention of the Commissioners was naturally directed to the Principal Librarian’s and Secretary’s Offices, and their inquiry soon brought out the extent to which the functions of the former had come to be 258discharged by the latter. “He has risen,” said the report, “to be the most important officer in the establishment, though without that responsibility which attached to the Principal Librarian and the heads of departments.” The importance which the Commissioners rightly ascribed to this officer entirely depended upon his preparation of the agenda to be submitted to the Trustees, and his habitual attendance at their meetings. The duties of his office were in other respects so light, although they had been represented to require the assistance of a subordinate, who had actually been appointed (Mr. Fitzgerald, subsequently Prime Minister in New Zealand), that when Mr. Forshall was attacked with serious illness, during the sittings of the Commissioners, Sir Henry Ellis found himself able to discharge all the duties of the Secretary in addition to his own. Of an endeavour which had been made to find the Secretary occupation in keeping a register of acquisitions, the Commissioners were obliged to report that this document, as prepared in his office, was “not only of no practical use, but in some cases destructive of responsibility.responsibility.”

Under these circumstances, the Commissioners very quickly came to the conclusion that the false step made in 1837 must be retraced, and the offices of Principal Librarian and Secretary amalgamated—a decision so obviously sound that it must probably have been carried into effect, even if, shortly after the close of their deliberations, Mr. Forshall’s infirmities had not rendered his retirement absolutely inevitable.

The administration of the Secretary’s Office had a strong bearing upon the questions relating to the 259Department of Printed Books of which the Commissioners had to take cognizance. Nothing had more strongly excited public animadversion than the delay in the preparation of the new printed Catalogue. The Trustees, as was supposed, had directed that it should be complete in print by the end of 1844. The year 1848 had now come, and it had not progressed, even in manuscript, beyond letter D. One volume, containing letter A (or part of it), had been printed in 1841, and there were no symptoms of a successor. Panizzi was able to show convincingly how contradictory were the instructions which the inexplicable carelessness of the executive department had allowed to be attributed to the Trustees. In the manuscript copy of their minute of July 13, 1839, the application of the rules of cataloguing was left to his discretion. In the copy subsequently printed by direction of the Trustees, this discretion was limited to titles already prepared. In the former he was ordered to have the Catalogue ready in press by December, 1844. In the latter he was told that it must be ready for press. The latter, it would appear, was what the Trustees really intended; but no intimation of their wishes having been conveyed to Panizzi, time, labour, and money had been wasted in printing an imperfect volume, which, it now appeared, need not have been printed at all; whilst the supposed necessity for an alphabetical method of cataloguing had prevented recourse to the much more expeditious plan of taking the books shelf by shelf. It further appeared that this unfortunate minute need not necessarily have been final. An opportunity for remonstrance had been 260expressly reserved, but the portion of the document referring to this point having been kept from Panizzi’s knowledge, no action could be taken, so that the Trustees and their Officer were committed to an impracticable undertaking. The Commissioners determined that “any delay which could have been avoided was mainly ascribable to the desire of the Trustees to hurry on printing.”

A still more important question was whether the Catalogue ought to be printed at all. The opinion of the literary witnesses unconnected with the Museum was naturally strongly in favour of a printed Catalogue. The opinion of Panizzi may be gathered from the verbal replies he had already given to questions put to him by the Library Committee of the Trustees on March 6th, 1847.

This estimate could not be impeached if its basis were admitted—namely, that the system already adopted in framing the Catalogue was to be adhered to. Many men of letters, however, thought that the plan of the Catalogue might be contracted with advantage, but found it difficult to answer the argument that the work already done must, in that case, be thrown away. Mr. J. Payne Collier, the Secretary 261to the Commission, apparently thought this sacrifice immaterial. He had convinced himself that by short entries, and a disregard of minor niceties, the rate of cataloguing could be accelerated fourfold, and was, perhaps, justified in considering that if so, the abandonment of all that had been effected would be a measure of economy. Unluckily for Mr. Collier, he did not, like Panizzi’s other antagonists, confine himself to abstract propositions, but rashly exhibited himself in the light of an amateur cataloguer. He catalogued twenty-five books in his own library, and placed the titles in the hands of Panizzi, who transferred them for examination to his principal Assistant, Mr. Winter Jones. “They contain,” said Mr. Jones, “almost every possible error which can be committed in cataloguing books, and are open to almost every possible objection which can be brought against concise titles.”

As Mr. Collier had entered a play of Aristophanes under Mitchell, and the works of Shakespeare under Schlegel, as he had put an anonymous English book under a writer to whom it was only attributed conjecturally, and had catalogued a collection of plays in such a manner as to suggest that it was a history of the drama, the justice of Mr. Jones’ characterization could not be disputed. The Commissioners were, doubtless, justified in the unexpressed conclusion at which they evidently arrived, that such blunders, committed by a man of Mr. Collier’s attainments, must be attributable to the fundamental errors of his system. Mr. J. Bruce, Mr. G. L. Craik, and other advocates of hasty work and concise catalogues, would have 262fared no better at the hands of Mr. Winter Jones. One of them, indeed, Mr. J. G. Cochrane, of the London Library, had actually produced a Catalogue, the unscientific character of which was pungently exposed by Professor De Morgan, by far the most bibliographically competent of all the witnesses, and whose profound acquaintance with early mathematical literature enabled him to demonstrate what research, accuracy, and scholarship, the correct description of such literature demands. Another valuable witness was Mr. John Wilson Croker, whose evidence was in general full of good sense, and who brought forward the scheme (already independently suggested by Mr. E. Roy of the Library) for keeping up the Catalogue on movable slips pasted on the leaf, and thus admitting of displacement when it became necessary to insert new matter. This plan was subsequently adopted, and proved adequate for all practical purposes until recently, when, from the enormous bulk of the Manuscript Catalogue, printing has been adopted.

Several other matters of great, though minor, importance were the subject of detailed explanation on the part of Panizzi. He had to rebut the frequent complaints made on account of deficiencies in the Library. These proved to be utterly unfounded in almost every specific instance alleged, with the sole exception of the English books which had not been duly delivered under the Copyright-Act, the enforcement of which was at that time, as we shall hereafter fully discuss, no part of the keeper’s duty, and had been performed with little zeal by the Secretary. 263As regarded the unquestionable deficiencies of the Library in foreign literature, no one, it was admitted, had exposed them so energetically as Panizzi himself in the celebrated report of 1845, to which reference has already been made. He had done more than point them out; by personal influence he had obtained the grant of £10,000 per annum towards making them good. Not the least interesting portion of his evidence related to the measures adopted to this end in concert with intelligent booksellers, such as Asher and Stevens. The Grenville Library, however, had been by far the most brilliant acquisition of his Keepership; and this, as we shall soon show, was wholly due to his private influence with Mr. Grenville. His prescience of the ultimate destination of this magnificent collection accounted for his apparent neglect of several opportunities of acquiring books, for which he had silently submitted to censure. There was nothing in which Panizzi’s practical good sense was more apparent than in the improvements introduced by him into binding, whether as regards economy or durability. The books bound before his time are in very many instances tumbling to pieces, and not from use, while not a single book bound under his direction has required rebinding, except from excessive wear and tear.

On the whole, it may be confidently affirmed that no public officer whose conduct had been subjected to scrutiny ever established a more triumphant justification than Panizzi, and that investigation has seldom brought to light more creditable facts, previously unknown, 264or not properly appreciated. His detractors were covered with confusion, and he appeared to the world as the one man in the Museum endowed with signal administrative talent, and as qualified, above all other men, to be at the head of the Institution. The Commissioners did not say this in so many words, but their opinion was no mystery, and their report, in so far as the Library was concerned, was in general but the echo or endorsement of Panizzi’s views.

One most important recommendation they made, which unfortunately was not acted upon—viz., the provision of means for the compilation of an index of subjects to the catalogue, to proceed pari passu with the alphabetical titles of the latter. This would have doubled the value of the Catalogue; but thirty years have passed, and the Catalogue is still destitute of this inestimable auxiliary. The suggestion may still be carried into effect at any moment, as regards accessions for the future; but the lost ground will be regained with difficulty.

Of many other questions raised, the only really important one, outside the Printed Book Department, related to the Secretary’s Office, and here the Commissioners’ purpose was firm, and the reform they proposed radical. The post of Secretary, as distinct from that of Principal Librarian, was to be abolished altogether. This return to the ancient practice of the Museum had the advocacy of one of the most accomplished and influential of the Trustees, Mr. W. R. Hamilton; and the indisposition of Mr. Forshall soon rendered it necessary, as well as expedient, to carry it into effect. From that hour Panizzi was the real ruler of the British Museum.

265It may be remarked that the Trustees and their officers alike appeared in a much more advantageous light than before the Parliamentary Committee of 1835. The inquiries of that Committee had borne fruit. The duties of the officers were understood and discharged in a far more liberal spirit, and the Board of Trustees had profited largely from the disposition to elect its members out of regard to literary and scientific eminence or proved administrative ability rather than mere rank.

This tendency, happily for the Museum, has gone on increasing to the present day.

We may now proceed to treat of that acquisition of the Grenville Library which so greatly affected the fortunes of the British Museum, and for which Panizzi has mainly to be thanked. For this a new chapter seems to be required.

266

Mr. Thomas Grenville; his Bequest; Portrait by Manzini; Chartist Demonstration; Copyright Act; Mr. Bohn.

The acquisition of the Grenville Library, in 1847, made that year notable for the British Museum. Before describing the collection, or the circumstances under which it was bequeathed to the Nation, it will be well to recall the liberality and discriminating judgment of the high-minded donor, who brought it together at so great a cost; and, therefore, we append a short notice of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Grenville, the nation’s benefactor, who was born on the 31st of December, 1755, and entered as a gentleman commoner at Christ Church before he was sixteen years old. On the 10th of May, 1778, he joined the army as an ensign in the Coldstream Guards, but resigned in the following year. His reasons for having taken 267such a step were narrated by himself in Parliament on the 11th of April, 1780. On the 26th of October, 1779, he was returned to Parliament as a member for Buckinghamshire, and enrolled himself in the party of Fox, who in 1782 trusted him to arrange the terms of the treaty drawn up for the separation of Great Britain from her American colonies.

From this mission Mr. Grenville was suddenly recalled, at the death of Lord Rockingham; but in 1794 Earl Spencer sent him as Minister Extraordinary to the Court of Vienna. Four years afterwards he was made a Privy Councillor, and subsequently was despatched on an embassy to the court of Berlin, in order to induce the King of Prussia to co-operate with England against the continual attacks of the French Republic. This mission, however, proved unsuccessful.

In 1800, he was appointed to a sinecure office, that of Chief Justice in Eyre, South of Trent, which was worth about £2,000 per annum. Other appointments followed; when, in 1818, he retired simultaneously from Parliament and from public life.

To describe his personal appearance, his features were fine and regular, with blue eyes shadowed by large eyebrows. In addition to quick perception, he possessed a marvellous memory, ever ready with quotations from his favourite authors.

In his old age he derived great pleasure from entertaining a few intimate friends at dinner, and spending the after hours at whist. Amongst those who frequented his house on such occasions were, Lord 268Ellesmere, Samuel Rogers, Hallam, Lord Macaulay, Mr. Gladstone, Panizzi, and Sydney Smith, who with reverent appreciation remarked to Panizzi, à propos of the host’s dignity and cheerfulness, There, that is the man from whom we all ought to learn how to grow old.

The collection of this superb Library cost Mr. Grenville much labour, and nothing could be more admirable in its way than the persistence with which he followed out the intentions he had formed. It was a pursuit, indeed, which he began early in life.

A favourite recollection of his, which he was apt to quote, was that while in the Guards there bid against him at a sale a whole bench of Bishops, for some scarce edition of the Bible; this was his first essay, and similar success attended him in all his subsequent dealings. At his death, 20,239 volumes were counted, all in admirable condition and beautifully bound. It was stated, at the time, that the collection cost £54,000.

He had the habit of writing on a slip of paper, which he placed on the fly-leaf of the volume, a short sketch of how and when it was acquired; this was done in the neatest and clearest manner.

Mr. Grenville did not collect books simply for their rarity and curiosity, he knew well the worth of those he purchased, and used them as books of reference, as is proved by the notes which are to be found in his own handwriting, even stating the number of times he himself perused them; for instance, in the edition of Dean Sherlock on Death, he wrote:—Read thirteen times in 1846.

269The acquaintance between Grenville and Panizzi probably commenced as early as 1830, at which period, it will be remembered, the latter was engaged on his Bojardo and Ariosto.

The correspondence which passed at the time of the dedication of the “Sonetti e Canzone di Bojardo,” has been fully given, and the documents and letters which follow will prove how much Mr. Grenville became attached to his Italian friend, and in what high estimation he held him.

The following “Memorandum” written by Panizzi himself, bearing the date of November 3, 1845, is given in full:—

“Yesterday being Sunday, I called, as I generally do on such days, on the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, who has had an attack of cold, which produced great cough and difficulty of breathing, somewhat alarming. When I saw him last he was better, and we played whist till nearly eleven o’clock. This was on Friday last, the 31st of October.

“Yesterday I found him considerably better—I may say well—reading a book of prayers, as he usually does on Sundays. It was about three o’clock, and he was alone. After the usual inquiries after his health, &c., &c., he spoke nearly as follows:—

“‘I am glad, Mr. Panizzi, that we are alone, as I have something to tell you, which I wish to be considered strictly confidential, and that you will not mention to any human being as long as I live. There is nothing, perhaps, that renders secrecy strictly necessary in what I am going to say; but it is as well to keep it to ourselves, as it concerns nobody but me. 270I have often perceived that you wished to know what would become of my library after my death, and I have often seen also that you wished it should go to the British Museum. That wish is very natural as well as very creditable to you; for, treated as you have been by the Trustees, had you been a less zealous officer, and not so thoroughly honest a man, you would not so easily have forgiven their conduct towards you, and felt so warm an interest in the welfare of that Institution as you have.

“I have admired your conduct in that respect, and been extremely pleased by it. I have not imitated you for years I confess. The minute of which I gave you the copy in Mr. Forshall’s handwriting, and which conveys an ample and deserved acknowledgment of your good services, was a disgraceful and unjust act towards you, and insult to me. They reserved for me to do what they never had done to any one else, and they behaved ill to you to vex me, I believe ... (as I dissented, he added). Well, well, may be they or some one who had influence on them, counselled them to punish you. I felt so much their conduct that, as you know, I left the room when I saw what they were bent upon doing, and never went again to their meetings, and I felt very much inclined never to speak again to Lord Farnborough, who, after having both in private to me and at a Committee agreed with the justice of doing what the Committee suggested, got up at the general meeting which he and Mr. Forshall had packed to move the rejection of the Committee’s report. I then was more than ever determined to leave my library to the Duke of Buckingham, to be 271kept at Stowe as a heirloom. But your generous conduct made me think that if you, who had been much more injured than I was, forgave them, I ought.

“I knew, moreover, that you would be delighted to have my books, and I often thought that the coming into your hands from mine was the very best thing that could happen to them, as well as the most pleasing to me. I was determined partly by these considerations to alter my will, and still more so—or rather much more so—by another circumstance.

“You know that I have enjoyed for a long series of years a very good sinecure. Although, as I have sometimes told you, my cousin, Lord Glastonbury, left me a large fortune and made me rich, yet I could not have formed such a library (which I think cost me nearer £50,000 than £40,000) without my income from the sinecure. I have, therefore, determined to bleach my conscience, and to return to the Nation what I got from it, when I could have done without—but which would have been given to some one else if I had given it up myself—by bequeathing my library to the British Museum, and I have altered my will accordingly. I shall direct that part of my will to be printed, that my motives be understood, and that no one should think that I take the library from my nephew the Duke, to whom I have told that I have left it to him, from any unkindness or unfriendly feeling, which I certainly have not, as the rest of my will will show. I could not in my Will say anything about you, and the treatment you have received from those you have served and serve so 272well and so faithfully, but I thought it a proof of my great friendship for you to inform you of what I have done, and of my motives for so doing. But, although I cannot say anything about it, the public and the Trustees must be well aware that you have not taken any mean or unfair advantage of my great regard for you, my dear friend, to turn me from doing what I had done. I hope the Trustees will be more just to you in future; indeed, you tell me they are, and have been lately, and am glad of it. I thought they would not change; they must feel they have wronged you, and I thought they would never like you in consequence. Even my friend the Archbishop, one of the very best and most amiable men living, was no doubt influenced, perhaps unconsciously, by such feelings when he made objections to your appointment to succeed Mr. Baber. There is some one who has great influence on the Archbishop, who is no friend of yours. Take care, I know it. But I trust now that you are better known you will be appreciated as you deserve.’deserve.’

“This was the substance, and, as far as I recollect, these were the very words of the communication which was delivered uninterruptedly, with his usual energy and clearness, and without appearing the least fatigued, or being stopped by coughing or anything else.

“I made the best acknowledgment I could for the honourable proof of confidence he gave me. I told him, strongly moved, almost to tears, that I hoped the day would be far distant when the British Museum should profit by his munificent gift; and 273here we shook hands most heartily and warmly, and I thanked him as well as I could for the affectionate manner in which he had spoken of me and of my conduct.

“He replied it was only justice. Then he added that he left the whole unfettered; that he thought we should have many duplicates among ours of his books, but that he thought we ought to have them; at the same time, he said, he did not care whether the Trustees sold his duplicates. I said they never did it. Very well, he answered. Then he went on to say that he would desire his executors to express a wish that the whole of his books should be kept together, and that a catalogue of them all should be published. But, he said, I shall not add these as absolute conditions, only as my wish.

“We spoke of cataloguing, of how the books could be kept together, &c., which I said could and should be done, as was done for Sir J. Banks, Cracherode, &c.; even without their desiring it. But the Dutch Minister, was announced; we began to speak of indifferent things; and presently I took leave and left them together at about four o’clock.

This document bears the following signature and note:—

“This paper was received by me from Mr. Panizzi, sealed up, on the 3rd of November, 1845, and opened and read at his desire by me on the 18th of December, 1846.

Mr. Grenville died on the 17th of December, 1846; therefore, the above document was read by 274Mr. Hamilton on the following day. The ”codicil” made to his Will is dated 28th of October, 1845, exactly a week before the incident narrated in the above memorandum.

Space does not allow us to make public a long and minute direction, given by Panizzi to his Assistant, Mr. Rye, for the removal of this Library to the British Museum; suffice it, therefore, to observe that it enters into all the details respecting the handling and removal of these treasures of typography.

The books now having safely reached the Museum, Panizzi made the following official report respecting them:—

In vain did Panizzi urge the Trustees to provide adequate room for the books; many of them lay for nearly two years on the floor of the gallery, where they had been originally placed, exposed to the dust, and to injury in various forms. Lord Fortescue, on one occasion, asked to see his uncle’s books, and was not a little astonished to find them thus uncovered and unprotected.

Much later, through the intervention of the Duke of Cambridge, the collection was arranged as it now stands, and the donor’s bust, the work of Conolly, presented by Sir David Dundas, was removed from the Committee-room, and placed in its present position; this was accomplished in the month of October, 1850.

The catalogue, the great expectation and hope of Mr. Grenville, now demands our special attention.

A report was, therefore, sent to the Trustees:—

Panizzi showed the practical affection he had for his friend by his presentations of rare and expensive books from time to time; these were accompanied by letters, and Mr. Grenville invariably attached them to the volume.

277The following is a specimen:—

Immediately after Mr. Grenville’s death, a portrait of him by an Italian artist (C. Manzini,) was offered for sale. It is painted on ivory, representing him at the age of 85, wearing a close-buttoned black coat, and a plain white neckcloth. Panizzi was anxious that this work of art should not fall into strange hands; and consequently, together with other friends of the venerable book-collector, started a raffle, the tickets being sold only amongst a selected few. Samuel Rogers was named as one of them, and this originated the following correspondence:—

This miniature is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

280The following is from Panizzi to Lord Rutherfurd respecting his friend’s death:—

The circumstances of the gift of Mr. Grenville to the Museum having been fully considered, brief allusion has here to be made to that which threatened to become magnified into a national commotion, imperilling the safety of our Public Institutions, and foremost amongst their number, the British Museum. The year 1848 was memorable for the Chartist demonstration. The principles and intentions of the agitators are well known; however, on the 10th of April they proposed to hold a meeting of 200,000 men, who were to assemble at Kennington Common, and to march thence in procession to Westminster, and present a petition to Parliament. The Bank and other Public Institutions were occupied by the Military, organized by the Duke of Wellington; these were strengthened by no less than 150,000 persons of all ranks, voluntarily sworn to act as special constables, and amongst the number Panizzi was enlisted on the 8th of April.

281The British Museum seems to have been one of the places in danger of being attacked by the mob; it was, therefore, considered prudent to take prompt and decisive measures to protect it from any possible assault. Though Sir Henry Ellis was the chief officer of the Museum at the time, Panizzi may be said to have taken the part of the real General, and was most active in swearing in his subordinates, some of whom had Chartist tendencies themselves, as, possibly, he had himself; but the safety of the Museum was paramount to all other considerations, and, to an objector, he replied, What! not defend the place from which you get your living!!

Mr. Cowtan in his “Memories of the British Museum,” tells us “that all persons employed upon the establishment, either in the various departments, or as artizans at work upon the building, were sworn in as ‘special constables,’ making in all 250. Major Baron, of the Royal Engineers, was sent to suggest the best means of barricading, and to place the force at hand in the best positions for defending the Museum, in case of an attack. The military force consisted of fifty-seven rank and file, and two officers. To this must be added twenty pensioners from Chelsea College. Fifty muskets, with proportionate ammunition were supplied, as well as cutlasses, and pikes for from two to three hundred persons. Provisions for three days were laid in, &c., &c.”

Scouts were sent out to bring authentic accounts, but the same “Memories” also inform us that “one or two, who, before the event took place, were loud in their protestations of devotedness to the Museum, 282and willingness to lay down their lives in its defence, began to funk and to look unutterable things.”

The following letter to Sir H. Ellis, referring to this subject, is well worthy of perusal:—

On the 15th of April, the Trustees held a meeting, and “acknowledged thankfully the human means which have been employed in their service, in the maintenance of the safety of the British Museum in their charge, and to record, accordingly, their grateful conviction of the intelligence, energy, zeal, and union, which have been displayed by their Principal Librarian, by the heads of departments” and by the gentlemen engaged under them.”

Thus happily passed off what appeared to be at one time a threatening position for the British Museum; and it is a subject of hearty congratulation that the 284would-be disturbers of the public peace were faint-hearted and disorganized, or serious results might have ensued, fraught with danger to human life, and destruction to public buildings and their contents. Had the Museum been really attacked, who can reckon the loss to the Nation? No doubt the energetic precautions taken had much to do with smothering the fire which appeared at one time likely to kindle; and for this there is much reason for us, of the present day, to be thankful to those, who were instrumental in protecting our National Institution.

Again our ground must be shifted; from threatening without, turn we now to tumults within, viz., in the literary world; it is our province to discuss a matter—then, as now, unsettled, and, considering the arguments, pro and con, adduced on its behalf, most difficult of decision. Our subject is the Copyright Act,—with which of course, in his sphere, as custodian of our National gathering of the work of all nations and all epochs, Panizzi was called upon to have intimate acquaintance, as well as dealings, not always pleasantpleasant or exhilarating. But—not to anticipate—we proceed to give a slight sketch of the objects and workings of this Act, as then in force, the manner in which it affected the custodian, and the code of strict integrity, regardless of consequence, which he always followed.

From the days of Tudor rule to the present time, the Copyright Act has periodically received the consideration of Parliament; literary men regard as an inalienable right of property products of their brain. In so thinking it would certainly appear primâ facie 285that their assumption is correct, but a little sound reasoning will prove how capable of modification are ideas hastily formed on this important subject. This subject is now about to be briefly introduced to our readers, not only as especially suitable to this biography, but as of vital interest to all who are members of the great society of letters, and especially referring to Panizzi, on whom devolved the arduous task of enforcing the powers conferred on him by the Act, for the benefit of the British Nation and the world at large.

It is out of the question to enter into minute details of the working of this Act from its origin until now, for there would be no difficulty in filling a volume were particulars to be fully rendered. Suffice it to say that the first obligation to give copies of a work to any one was imposed by 14 Car. II., c. 33, s. 16, by which it was enacted, “That every printer shall reserve three printed copies, on the best and largest paper, of every book new printed or reprinted by him with additions, and shall, before any public venting of the said book, bring them to the Master of the Company of Stationers, and deliver them to him, one whereof shall be delivered to the Keeper of His Majesty’s Library, and the other two to be sent to the Vice-Chancellors of the two Universities respectively for the use of the public libraries of the said Universities.”

The Statute underwent additions and modifications from this time, being at some periods allowed to expire altogether, as it did on the 25th of April, 1694. 286But, literary property being openly and frequently pirated, a remedy was urged upon the Legislature as necessary in the years 1703, 1706, and 1709. A bill was introduced by Mr. Wortley, and finally passed in the latter year. It is the 8 Anne, c. 21; the fifth section of it enacting “That nine copies of each book or books”books” ... “shall be delivered to the warehouse-keeper of the Company of Stationers for the time being,” ... “for the use of the Royal Library, the Libraries of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Libraries of the four Universities of Scotland, the Library of Sion College in London, and the Library commonly called the Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh respectively.”

To evade this Act, publishers entered only the title of a part, or a volume of any work, as it was generally understood that the claims could be enforced only as to the part or volume entered, and that nine copies of no other volume or part could be claimed; and so, as the Act was practically eluded, enactment followed enactment, until the 5 and 6 Victoria, c. 45, made a very definite provision on the subject; not only ordering the delivery at the British Museum of all books, but particularizing the meaning of the word book: “That in the construction of this Act, the word Book shall be construed to mean and include every volume, part or division of a volume, pamphlet, sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, map, chart, or plan separately published,” a penalty of £5., besides the value of the copy, being the fine for non-compliance.

287In May, 1850, the Trustees conferred on Panizzi, by power of attorney, the unthankful duty of enforcing, in their name, the provisions of the Copyright Act. With his accustomed energy, with a firm sense of duty, and with a zeal, in some instances almost amounting to harshness, did he face the difficulties of the situation. Were it simply to record the success which attended his devotion to the interests of the Institution he served so faithfully, we should have to quote his own words. “The Trustees testified to their sense of the value of my services in this matter by awarding me £100 a year;” but, as must be admitted on the testimony of documents now before us, in his own handwriting, his zeal was rather excessive; his battles with the publishers brought him odium, and, at times, even personal vituperation, although he himself undoubtedly intended to act with forbearance, and with that courtesy which was one of his chief characteristics. Did it ever occur to Panizzi that the noblest literature, that of Greece and Rome, knew no such law? that, even supposing it might be necessary, in the nascent state of literature in the sixteenth century, this more than protection may be most injurious in more modern times, exactly as the state protection of a given manufacture might primarily be good, but, for a permanency, would be unsound policy?

On April 20th, 1852, Panizzi wrote:—

These words as they stand clearly show the real state of Panizzi’s inward determination to persevere in his object; and on the 14th of August, 1852, we find a letter from the Principal Librarian, approving of the steps he had “taken for the enforcement of the Copyright Act in Scotland,” on the part of the Trustees.

In the same year, a certain Mr. Davis, of Shelton, forwarded a prospectus of a work entitled “Crania Britannica,” with a request that, as the book was to be “privately printed,” the Keeper of the Printed Books should subscribe for a copy of the work. Panizzi submitted the prospectus to the Trustees, who declined the purchase, whereupon Panizzi communicated this decision to Mr. Davis, and added:—“In my opinion you are bound to send a copy of that work to this Library in compliance with the Copyright Act (5 and 6 Vic., cap. 45).

In September, 1852, in company with Mr. Henry Stevens, the American book agent, Panizzi visited Oxford, Dublin, and Cork, and rendered signal service to the Library by his unsparing exertions to detect defaulters, and uphold the interests of the Museum. Amongst his remarks when in Dublin was one that he “saw a number of important new works 289exposed for sale of which he did not know the existence, and even in the case of publications of no great general importance, he noticed many which ought to be in the National Collection.” Innumerable difficulties met him in his task. At Derby, “There are,” he says, “many works published, but the two principal publishers having a house in London, it is this house which, should it be necessary, will be held responsible for the infringement of the Copyright Act.” Of course, his presence was in all places which he visited attended with dislike; and it seems hardly fair that, whilst acting from the purest motives in the public service, any obloquy of a personal nature should have attached to him; yet, to say the least, had not a sense of duty sustained him, his would have been a most thankless errand.

Any attempt at times to preserve an incognito was unavailing—a rather undesirable fact which he soon discovered, as his person was well known. However, on the 9th of October, 1852, a report from Panizzi was read at a committee, when the thanks of the Trustees were accorded to him for his exertions.

Many special cases of the actions which Panizzi brought against publishers are worth recounting, but as their details are necessarily very similar, and, as to the general reader such repetitions would not be of any interest, the biographer contents himself with making special allusion to the most troublesome opponent who ever entered the lists against Panizzi, this was Mr. Bohn, the publisher, and bitter were the denunciations hurled at Panizzi’s devoted head in the course of the hearing of seventeen distinct 290summonses before Mr. Jardine, the Magistrate, by Mr. Ballantine, the counsel for Mr. Bohn. Harsh, vexatious, tyrannical, were a few of the adjectives which dropped from the lips of that learned gentleman. Mr. Bodkin appeared for the British Museum Authorities, and finally, Mr. Jardine, with encomiums on the personal worth of both the disputants, considered nominal penalties with costs sufficient to meet the exigencies of the case.

On the 2nd of February, 1853, appeared in The Times a letter from Panizzi, to which our readers are referred, but which is too lengthy to give verbatim here. In this letter he says:—“I knew that the Act had been extensively evaded, and I felt that I ought to endeavour to enforce it better,” and again, “I determined to proceed with as much forbearance as I should find consistent with a due performance of my duty.” He then refers to the fact that “publishers are bound to send their publications to the Museum without receiving previous notice of their omissions of so doing,” and addresses the warning in the shape of a circular prepared by the Solicitors of the Trustees as a proof of their courtesy to those who considered themselves hardly dealt with. If publishers refused to comply with the law, what alternative had Panizzi but to enforce compliance? Was he to purchase the books, or how was he to procure them? He states, and states justly too, “I have no right to spend public money in encouraging non-compliance with the law.... All I get is blame. If the books are not in the Library, I am found fault with, and I am found fault with if I use 291the only means I now have of procuring them.” Then he cites the increase in the delivery of books, &c., 13,934,^[M] in 1852, against 9,871 in 1851, which certainly shows that his labours were not only necessary, but by no means bare of practical results.

In The Times of the same date (February 2, 1853,) appeared a leading article extolling the way in which Panizzi did his duty as a public servant; it notes the peculiarity of the absence of Mr. Bohn’s name in this long letter, although Panizzi must have had him in his mind at the time he was writing; it deplores the “ill-considered expressions” by which these gentlemen appear to irritate one another, and winds up with these words:—“It is a lamentable thing to see two such men engaged in so petty and so discreditable a warfare, the simple result of which will be to damage both combatants in the opinion of all sober and moderate men.” With this remark many will, doubtless, agree, yet Panizzi’s exceptional position as a champion, it may be said almost of the whole world (for the whole world has access to this store of knowledge), must not be forgotten. He himself appears to have considered Mr. Jardine as biassed in his views, for he stigmatized the Act as strong, and its enactments harsh; but in whatever light we view the controversy, it would seem to have been carried on with much acerbity, and this is certainly to be regretted in the case of two such antagonists.

On the 3rd of February, 1853, Panizzi wrote to Mr. Haywood, alluding to the ungrateful return 292made to him for his services. Having two months before this seriously thought of returning his power of attorney, when he was induced to retain it, he says, “I am now bound, and have no wish to perform that duty,” then he alludes to the gratuity of £200 given to Sir Henry Ellis, and continues, “To me nothing has ever been given, and I will not go on,” and with some pardonable self-laudation adds, “They will soon see the difference in the number of books which they will receive, between my fearless and honest conduct, and that of anybody else whom they may appoint.”

Further correspondence followed in The Times—a letter from Panizzi on the 3rd of February, 1853, and one from Mr. Bohn on the 8th of the same month. These letters possess no special interest; the former being Panizzi’s re-statement of his case, and the latter Mr. Bohn’s rejoinder to the fresh insinuations, and his own views on the subject.

On the 24th of February, 1853, Panizzi wrote to Sir Henry Ellis, requesting that, whenever the subject of the re-enforcement of the Copyright Act was again brought before the Trustees, he would “respectfully represent to them his strong wish of being excused from performing a duty which, in conformity with the arrangement of 1837, under which he holds office, was expressly assigned to the Secretary.”

The great remedy for getting rid of all difficulties, now-a-days, seems to be the taking up by Government of important schemes, and the biographer has seen it widely suggested:—“Let Government be the only publisher, because alone having perfect means of 293publicity—publishing for all alike (at their own expense) and giving all alike an equal chance.”

The Law of Copyright is about to come again under the consideration of Parliament, when, we cannot tell, but it would have delighted him whose “Memoirs” we write to have listened to, and advised fresh suggestions on, a subject with which he was so intimately acquainted, and where his disinterestedness (so far as he himself was concerned) led to so much mortification and such undeserved opprobrium.

294

Lord Vernon’s Dante; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis on Milton and Dante; Chi era Francesco da Bologna? John Harris.

During 1848, Europe was greatly disturbed by internal commotions, calculated to unsettle thinking men, and more especially those who took an active interest in politics. It is a matter for astonishment, therefore, that Panizzi, whose share in such agitation was by no means inconsiderable, should have found time and inclination to devote himself to literary productions. Nevertheless, indulging in the aspirations for freedom which were then moving nations he yet was able to dedicate much of his time to literature.

Indeed, it is almost incredible how he could, with so much on his brain, have given himself up to the editing of Dante. Of the great Italian poet so much might be written that it would be but irrelevant to this biography to leave the principal mover in it, even temporarily, to dilate on so exalted a subject. We must, therefore, merely observe that Panizzi was deeply impressed with the 295importance of Dante’s poetry, which excelled all that had preceded it, and was written in the lingua vulgare, only that it might be understood by the people, who delighted in its inexhaustible treasures. Five centuries have elapsed since the great Florentine wrote his Divina Commedia, which has now become the property and admiration of the whole civilized world.

The editions of it are very numerous, but it is with the first four we have now to deal.

The earliest is the Editio Princeps, of Foligno, by Numeister, bearing date 1472. In the same year were also printed one edition at Jesi, by Federico Veronese, and another at Mantua, by Germanus, Giorgio e Paolo. That at Naples was edited by Giovanni Francesco del Tuppo, printed by Reussinger, and appeared three years later.

An idea of the value and importance of the volume edited by Panizzi, at the expense of Lord Vernon (published by Messrs. T. and W. Boone, and printed by Charles Whittingham), may be formed by the mere fact that these first four editions are here united in one, which, to the student, must prove an invaluable boon, as he is thus enabled to perceive at a glance the variations in the text.

These editions can only be found altogether at the British Museum, though separate copies exist in other libraries also.

296In the year 1835, Mr. Grenville gave the sum of £60 for the copy printed at Naples, and in 1842 he purchased for £42. 16s. 0d. the Mantua edition, which two copies are now in the British Museum, forming part of his munificent bequest to the Nation.

From Panizzi’s preface we learn that he gave £90 to Mr. Asher, of Berlin, for the Jesi Dante, in which six pages were missing. Fac-similes were made by John Harris, from a copy in the possession of Earl Spencer. Later on, Mr. Winter Jones, at that time Keeper of the Printed Books, purchased another incomplete copy, from which he was enabled to replace four more pages, thus rendering it all but complete.

Two copies of the Foligno Edition are to be found in the same Library—the most favoured possessor in the world of early editions of Dante.

Lord Vernon could have no better opportunity of reprinting them in London. In securing the assistance of Panizzi, whose knowledge and precision were of the utmost importance, he was most fortunate. Moreover, the printing of the book in question is highly creditable to British typography. It is a folio of 800 pages, with a preface by the Editor, and contains fac-similes of the originals. Lord Vernon, being a corresponding member, dedicated it to the Accademia della Crusca.

The preliminaries for this work, which was published in 1858, were entered into just ten years before; and a memorandum from Lord Vernon, dated October 23, 1848, is extant, in which he makes a proposal to Panizzi that the sum of £50 should be paid to him 297every six months, until the completion of the work—the said payment to terminate in four years—the whole sum amounting in the aggregate to £400.

In this transaction Mr. Pickering was consulted.

Panizzi lost no time, and was evidently eager to begin a task so congenial to his taste; for barely a week afterwards (to quote his own words) he wrote to Lord Vernon, “I have set to work without a moment’s delay, putting aside every other unofficial occupation.”

The question relating to the latter part of the following letter of Lord Vernon, seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding as to the use of the word his for this; and will be best explained by giving his Lordship’s letter, in addition to Panizzi’s very characteristic reply:—

“Florence, 21st Nov., 1848.

“My Dear Sir,

I am very happy to find that Mr. Pickering’s proposal has met with your approval, as it did with mine. As for myself, I can only congratulate myself at having had the good fortune to secure your valuable assistance at any price within my means.

Respecting the correction of the press, you are right in supposing that it was intended to apply not only to the part which more immediately concerns yourself, but to the whole work. If, however, you think that the revision of my part of the work will be a great fatigue, and take up too much of your time, I am willing to omit this from the conditions above 298stated. I must, however, in this case, beg of you to name your own terms, in case it suited you to undertake it, or else to find some one else in whose capacity and judgment you have confidence, and who will have some discretion in his demands upon my purse.

Yours, &c., &c.,

Vernon.”

As early as September, 1849, there was already sufficient material for going to press; but though Panizzi continually wrote to his Lordship urging the necessity of beginning to print, a year elapsed without any communication on the subject, and without any progress with the work. From a letter in the month of June, 1851, Lord Vernon appears to have 299been somewhat discouraged; the booksellers not having taken up the matter in so spirited a manner as he anticipated, and Panizzi complaining, not without reason, that the work seems to have come almost to a stand still, consoled himself by addressing the following letter to Mr. E. White, his Lordship’s solicitor:—

300Much to the editor’s delight, however, work was resumed; and by the summer of 1854 Mr. Whittingham had already sent in a bill for printing the Inferno.

Such was the beauty of the work that it deeply impressed Lord Vernon’s sensitive nature, and in the following year he desired that the Purgatorio should be forthwith proceeded with, but as the first portion approached completion, his Lordship became anxious as to the title of the book and its disposal, as the following letter clearly testifies:—

This letter was followed not long afterwards by another, in which Lord Vernon entered into details regarding the sale and profits likely to accrue from it. He was, evidently, still undecided as to the title of the book, and urged Panizzi to suggest one.

As to the place of publication, his Lordship, with a certain amount of reason, desired that it should be in London; he very justly observes that:—“Being done at the expense of an Englishman, printed in England, on English paper, and from four editions, which are found together only in the British Museum, moreover, being the homage of an Englishman to Italy’s greatest poet, to her literature, and to her most celebrated Academies, it would appear with better grace, as coming from London, than any Italian city.”

302By March, 1858, the book was completed, when Lord Vernon expressed himself thus: “I hope to hear in a short time that, like the Great Leviathan, it has overcome all stops and hindrances, and been fairly launched in the stream of literature.”

Some writers—and amongst them the subject of our memoir—have looked upon Milton as an occasional imitator of Dante. A propos of this theory (which may best be studied in Professor Masson’s biography of the great Puritan poet), we propose to give, at some length, a correspondence on the subject between Panizzi and Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. The letters of the former are so full of sound thought and such fair specimens of his literary knowledge that we append them, together with Sir G. C. Lewis’s reply, for the reader’s edification.

“British Museum,

January 22, 1856.

My dear Sir George,

I have been looking whether my memory had served me right as to Milton having occasionally imitated Dante, which I mentioned on Sunday, when we were speaking of Dante being or not being known in England before the last century. I have found several passages which I think bear me out; for instance:—

‘Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa.’

‘Therefore eternal silence be their doom.’—P. L. 6, 385.

But I don’t quote more, as in his prose works (vol. IV., p. 11, edit. of 1753) he actually quotes as his authority against Rome Dante’s lines, c. 19, v. 115—

303‘Ahi Costantin, di quanto, mal fu matre,’ and translates them thus:—

‘Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was cause

Not thy conversion, but those rich demains

That the first wealthy Pope receiv’d of thee.’

and then he, moreover, refers to the twentieth Canto of the Paradiso.

It is curious to see, not long after Milton—or, perhaps, at the same time—Stillingfleet, in his Origines Sacræ (Book 2nd, ch. 9, sec. 19, and ch. 10, sec. 5) quote Dante as an authority on the truth of Christianity, but he gives the verses in a Latin translation by F. S. (I have not looked to see who F. S. was.)

Spenser, too, has imitated Dante, I think. Tradubio, who is turned into a tree and speaks, of Pier delle Vigne.

‘Uomini fummo, ed or siam fatti sterpi.’

‘But once a man, Tradubio, now a tree.’

Chaucer has often imitated Dante, whom he calls (Wife of Bath’s Tale, v. 6708, in Tyrwhitt’s edit.) ‘the wise poet of Florence—that highte Dante,’ of whom he translated immediately after the lines:—

‘Rade volte discende per li rami,’ &c.

‘Full selde up riseth by his branches small,’ &c.;

and in the Monk’s Tale the whole of Ugolino’s Story is translated, and he ends by referring to

‘The grete poete of Itaille—

That highte Dante ...’ as its author.

And now I end in haste.

Yours, &c., &c.,

A. Panizzi.”

Whatever may have been the ultimate settlement of this friendly discussion, Panizzi’s estimate of Sir George’s talents and abilities may be accurately gathered from the next letter we quote, which asks him to become a candidate for a vacant Trusteeship of the British Museum.

The hopes thus expressed were realized, as, on the 27th of February of the following year (1857), Sir George C. Lewis was appointed one of the Trustees of our famous Institution.

And here may be given an extract from a letter of J. A. Carlyle (Thomas Carlyle’s brother), also on the topic of Dante’s poems, which deserves recognition, as a proof of the esteem in which Panizzi was universally held, in especial by Englishmen.

And now, let us proceed to another publication. In the year 1858 Panizzi issued, for his friends, a charming little work, beautifully printed, also by Charles Whittingham.

Written in Italian, and dedicated to H.R.H. the Duke d’Aumale, only 250 copies were printed, under the title of Chi era Francesco da Bologna?—proving, so far as the question could be then proved, that the said Francesco 307da Bologna was no other than the celebrated painter. Francesco Raibolini, born about 1450, and commonly called il Francia. The name of Francia he derived from his master, a goldsmith, die, and niello engraver. According to Vasari and a document discovered by Calvi, his death took place on the 6th of January, 1517.^[N] Francesco Raibolini was at once, in common with many of his compeers, goldsmith and type-cutter, as well as a painter, and to his skilful hands, Aldus, whose name they bear, was indebted for his characters. From Panizzi, we learn that, “at the end of the short Preface prefixed by Aldus to his first edition of Virgil (1501), printed in the cursive or secretarial characters manum mentientes, afterwards generally known by the name of Aldine, are the following three verses:—

Besides cutting types, Francesco used them too, for he set up a press at his native town, Bologna, in 1516, and printed several works, now rare, as, for instance, “Il Canzoniere” of Petrarch, “L’Arcadia di Sannazaro” and “Gli Asolani” of Bembo, “Il Corbaccio” and the “Epistolæ ad Familiares” of Cicero.

308About 1503, Francesco quarrelled with Aldus, and we find, in a letter prefixed to the edition of Petrarch, that he bitterly complains of deriving no honour or profits from the types he had himself cut. It is notorious that Aldus freely gave out that he was not only the inventor, but also the cutter; and, therefore, the work by Panizzi, to say nothing of its beauty, is of great importance, for it does justice to the real inventor, and this discovery is due to the author of the pamphlet, who, besides, enlightens us, in clear language, respecting the distinguished Bolognese:—

“From the beginning of printing up to a time not far distant from our own, the engravers of punches for types were goldsmiths, die-sinkers, medallists, niellists,—masters in their art. It will be found in Zani that Fust and Schœffer were goldsmiths, and so, it is believed, was Guttenberg; while, in the opinion of the said Zani, it was Giovanni Dunne, ‘a most excellent goldsmith, who led the way in the formation of metal types.’ ... Every one knows how distinguished Francia was as a goldsmith, his first and chief profession, and how frequently he signed his paintings with the words, ‘Franciscus Francia aurifaber,’ or ‘aurifex,’ as if he gloried in the designation. Vasari says, in the Life of Francia, that his fine medals stood on a par with those of Caradosso; but he says never a word of the Furnius conjured up by Gaurico.”

“I had long suspected that this Francesco da Bologna, was no other than the Bolognese Francesco Raibolini, generally known as ‘Francia.’ Some years ago, in running through a work of some note 309in former times, I found that after mentioning various ancient artists, exactly as Gaurico does, it went on to speak of the modern ones thus:—‘I find amongst the ancients one great omission of which the moderns take notice, and that is with regard to engravers or artists in silver, a kind of work known as niello. I am acquainted with a man of the highest excellence, and very famous in his art, his name is Francesco da Bologna, otherwise Franza; he forms or engraves on a diminutive orb or plate of silver, so many men and animals, so many mountains, trees, and castles, and in so many various shapes and positions that it is wonderful to behold or describe.’”

“And here I might stop,” continues Panizzi, “were it not that the direct testimony of Leonardi is corroborated irrefragably by a very remarkable circumstance.... I think I may conclude by answering the question which I have put to myself, thus:—Francesco da Bologna was Francesco Raibolini, called Francia, the worthy contemporary and compatriot of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michel Angelo, great as a painter, great as an engraver, great as a medallist, great as a niellist, without equal as a type-cutter, a shining ornament of illustrious and learned Bologna.”

Conclusive as Panizzi’s argument appeared to be, there were, of course, dissentients, and among them was Count Giacomo Manzoni, who, in a jocular letter to the late librarian of the Laurenziana (Florence) Cav. Ferrucci, expressed his doubts. Panizzi, in a tone of equal good humour, confuted the Count, and issued a second edition in 1873, containing 310his answer to Count Manzoni’s suggested objections.

The “bijou” work (or as Monsieur Brunet, the celebrated bibliophile termed it, un véritable bijou typographique), once out of the publisher’s hands, it was circulated amongst Panizzi’s friends, and translated by Mr. Charles Cannon. The laudatory letters, replete with thanks, which followed were numerous, but as an example of these, that from the already mentioned Mons. Brunet must suffice:—

The fac-similes which are placed at the end of the work were executed by John Harris, L’incomparabile Harris, as Panizzi was in the habit of styling him. As a fac-similist he stood alone. So correct and so wonderful were his productions, that Panizzi himself adopted the safe plan of writing, in pencil, on the margin of them, “This is by J. H.—A. P.” He eventually lost his sight, and died very poor. Some of the leaves supplied by him are so perfectly done that, after a few years, he himself experienced some difficulty in distinguishing his own work from the original. On one occasion a question arose as to the completeness of a certain copy of a rare book in the Museum Library; it was brought to light and carefully examined by Panizzi, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Watts. After a fruitless search, page by page, a consultation ended in a summons to Harris himself to point out the leaves that he had supplied. It was only after a very close examination that the artist was able to detect his 312own handiwork. This circumstance induced Panizzi to to initial all such fac-similes. The reader is recommended to examine a book in the National Library,—a copy of Magna Charta, as a specimen of his skill.

Mr. Grenville employed Harris largely. On one occasion he supplied a few missing leaves to a rare book, and after it was shown to connoisseurs, the venerable gentleman presented him with the book.

So much for Panizzi’s literary abilities and his discernment and success in this sphere of his many and arduous labours, in which he exhibited the same powers of mind and application as in all the varied occupations of his busy life. Enough has, however, been said to show how, amongst all his other multifarious and unceasing occupations, he found time to dedicate his mind to literature, and literature of a class to demand the greatest application and labour of the brain.

313

Minor Incidents; Holland House; Sydney Smith; Ecclesiastical Commission Act (1836); Joseph Parkes; Count d’Orsay; Lord Melbourne; Mrs. Norton; Dr. Hampden’s Case; Watts’ Portrait of Panizzi; Lord Holland; Hardy’s Life of Lord Langdale.

Hitherto our work has consisted for the most part of details of important facts: it may, therefore, be well for a time to digress, and to string together some of the minor incidents of Panizzi’s life, without which this could scarcely claim to be a faithful biography. To recount such small traits of character may be deemed simply gossip; yet, on reflection, it is not so, as it is thus that true light is brought to bear on the man’s character, and, by these details, an opportunity is given of judging disposition and intentions, which could not otherwise have been afforded. In presenting the following items, therefore, to our readers, accompanied as our observations are by original correspondence, we simply perform the duty which should be fulfilled by every honest biographer. In a life like Panizzi’s, much importance is attached to what, at first, may appear insignificant, relating in a great degree to the society of which he was a member.

314

The name of Holland House has long been notable as the headquarters of one of the most delightful of London coteries, not only for the celebrity in the world of letters of its immediate frequenters, but also for the eminence in political life of many more who resorted thither. Whether or no the Church was adequately represented in the person of that wittiest, and most genial of ecclesiastics, Sydney Smith, certain it is that the society of the place would have been greatly the loser by his absence. Here Panizzi, who, in proportion to the sterling worth of his company, appears ever to have been a welcome guest, very soon after his arrival in London established a footing; and at the time of her marriage, in 1833, the present Lady Holland found him already an habitué of Holland House, in company with such distinguished individuals as Lord Grey, Lansdowne, and Brougham, Moore, Jeffrey, and Allen.

Speaking from personal knowledge of Panizzi, we are inclined, in a great measure, to ascribe his remarkable social successes to that innate and subtle quality with which so few men comparatively are endowed—perhaps happily so; for want of a better term, let us call it personal influence. In this respect he has always seemed to suggest to us a comparison of him with the late Dr. Arnold. The latter was apparently a man of great mental powers and amiable 315disposition; still, in his own peculiar sphere, many of his contemporaries may have equalled, and some even surpassed him.

This may be true to a certain extent; but, considering the talents which this great man possessed, it seems almost absurd to remark that some of his own pupils have attributed to him a deficiency of that sixth sense which is generally regarded as the most judicious controller and regulator of our actions—sense of humour. With men of discernment and of note, there is, however, always some distinguishing quality,—so in the case of Arnold and Panizzi it happened that, whereas the one was calculated to instil into those with whom he came in contact awe, the other was ever welcome, from the congeniality of his disposition. Nor in saying this do we detract in the smallest degree from the mental or moral worth of either. For this quality of personal influence, although, like “reading and writing,” it comes “by nature,” yet is nevertheless dependent for continuous life and maintenance upon genuine merit in its subject.

Like mates not always with like, and the characters of Panizzi and Sydney Smith must have differed very widely; yet, notwithstanding all divergences of mental constitution, it was not long ere an intimate friendship sprang up between them.

In the year 1836 the Ecclesiastical Commission Act, for the supervision and re-adjustment of certain of the revenues and sources of revenue of the English Church, was passed. It must be conceded that this Commission made a pretty clean sweep of not a few offices in the Church hardly worthy the expense of retention, 316as well as of others more venerable for antiquity than valuable in point of usefulness; and for many years it had to bear the brunt of accusations, not always made by those who object to the most moderate reforms. It is only lately, indeed, that we have ourselves listened to some, who might long ago have been wearied of, though truly they were not satiated with, their denunciations of this, to them, wanton act of spoliation, this invasion of the rights of the Church, &c., &c., &c.

On the side of the assailants, Sydney Smith put in a very early appearance. His attack upon the arbitrary power given to the Commission, and on the little protection afforded to, and the little heed taken of, the rights of the poorer clergy, lasted until 1840; in which year a petition, presented by him, in July, against it, was read in the House of Lords by the Bishop of Rochester.

Sydney Smith was warmly rebuked, for that he, a professedly consistent Whig, should have borne himself with so much hostility towards the rulers of his party. However, his correspondence on the subject during these four years was extensive, and a letter written by him to Panizzi, criticising the conduct of the Bishops, is certainly worthy of reproduction:

Fortunately even the power of Sydney Smith’s opposition failed to hinder the carrying out of a reform, perhaps the least revolutionary that could have been devised for the administration of the property of the Church.

In the same proportion as diversity of topics enters into a series of correspondence, will, as a rule, be the amount of amusement to be derived by the public from its perusal. But one more letter from Sydney Smith to Panizzi is in our possession, and this, so far as it goes, and in conjunction with the letter already quoted, sufficiently fulfils the above condition. It certainly treats of no grave question of ecclesiastical or other politics, but is concerned with nothing mean or unimportant, since it relates to an invitation to dinner sent by the writer to the recipient, and is eminently characteristic of its author:—

During this part of his career—as indeed so long as he could himself write—Panizzi’s general correspondence was too voluminous to allow of much selection; for the notes and explanations thereon, when at hand or to be obtained, would inordinately increase the bulk of this work. We, therefore, subjoin but a few specimens, which mostly speak for themselves:—

The next is to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, and relates to certain articles written therein by Panizzi:—

320A letter from Count d’Orsay, on a curious fact in natural history, will be read with interest. Panizzi’s answer to this is not forthcoming, but it may be doubted if he succeeded in conveying any very valuable information to the Count’s mind on the subject:—

The following, from Lord Melbourne to Panizzi, conveys the notion that the former discovered the beauties of Ovid’s Metamorphoses rather late in life:—

A letter from the Hon. Mrs. Norton, on the subject of Lord Melbourne’s friendship for Panizzi (to which a second on the same subject is added), must be quoted, though it is not without something of melancholy interest:—

It is hardly to be wondered at that Panizzi never became so thoroughly indigenous as to understand what must appear to a foreigner a greater puzzle than even the constitution and politics of England—viz., the management and regulation of ecclesiastical affairs. His opinion of the Hampden case, and of the circumstances affecting it, cannot be the result of any very profound reflection on the matter. As to the trouble which, he feared, it might bring upon Lord John Russell, it may be recollected that Lord 323John succeeded, in one instance at least, in evading it in a manner that did more credit to his decision than to his good manners.

To continue our ramblings through the correspondence in our hands, we insert a letter showing pretty clearly in what esteem Panizzi was held, not only by 324Lord and Lady Holland, but by others of the society of their house:—

Gambardella was a Neapolitan artist, living at that time in England. He painted a portrait of Panizzi, which, according to Count d’Orsay, was very unsatisfactory. Before quitting the subject of Panizzi’s connection with Holland House, we should hardly be justified in omitting all mention of an affair with which he became accidentally connected, and which, though itself of no great importance, was nevertheless dashed with a slight admixture of unpleasantness. A short time previously to 1850 the late Lord Holland had compiled and edited two books on the life of his father, which were afterwards published with the following titles:—“Foreign Reminiscences, by Henry Richard Lord Holland: Edited by his Son, Henry 325Edward Lord Holland. (London, 1850).” And “Memoirs of the ‘Whig Party During My Time,’ by Henry Richard Lord Holland: Edited by his Son, Henry Edward Lord Holland. (2 vols., London, 1852.)” The first of these works the author had, we understand, entrusted for revision and correction to the late Nassau Senior. It was afterwards, for further assurance, submitted to Panizzi, who, not altogether content with Senior’s treatment of it, subjected it to a closer revision. He performed the same office for the second book, and finally prepared both for the press.

It seems, however, that Lord John Russell, who had been instrumental in collecting the greater portion of the materials composing these volumes, had felt some alarm as to certain matters being published in them, and notably in the Reminiscences, which might possibly reflect detrimentally on the character of Lord Holland’s father, and he accordingly communicated his apprehensions to the author, accompanied by a gentle warning. This the latter regarded, not altogether unreasonably, as one of those pieces of gratuitous advice which nearly approach insults, and ill brooked the suspicion of inability to guard his own father’s reputation. A correspondence ensued, into which Panizzi, as might be expected, was drawn, and which was marked occasionally by a tinge of acrimony. However, Lord Holland, after a number of letters had passed from one party to the other, does not appear to have easily got over his sense of wounded feeling; and by a letter, not in our possession, but 326evidently prompted by indignation, greatly provokes Panizzi, of whose character evenness of temper was by no means the strongest point, and who seems to have been roused almost to hostility. Lord Holland, in his final reply, demands, with some asperity, that the subject be not recurred to, if their mutual friendship is to continue.

“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” and it must be owned that his Lordship’s reply, however far we may suppose him to have been wrong on the main question, is eminently that of a true gentleman:—

So ended satisfactorily this notable controversy. Nor was this the only complication of the kind in which the importance thrust on Panizzi served to 327involve him. To none were his relations closer than to the family of the late Lord Langdale, formerly Master of the Rolls, who, it may be remembered, in 1850, refused the office of Lord Chancellor, offered to him on the retirement of Lord Cottenham.

Panizzi’s acquaintance with Lord and Lady Langdale speedily ripened into a warm intimacy, and of their daughter, the Countess Teleki, he was the especial favourite. On the death of his Lordship, which happened on the 18th of April, 1851, Panizzi wrote as follows to Lord Rutherfurd:—

Panizzi’s intimacy with the Langdale family was, notwithstanding this great loss, kept up as of old, and to her last days Lady Langdale was a frequent guest at his house. After her husband’s death, she, laudably anxious to perpetuate the memory of so worthy a man, committed the materials for his biography to Mr. (afterwards Sir T. D.) Hardy. The book was published in 1852, and it happened that, as in the former case, Lord Holland had aroused the fears of Lord John Russell, so in the present, for like reasons, was the wrath of Lord Brougham evoked by the “Memoirs of the Right Honourable Henry Lord Langdale.”

328It is really difficult to discover anything in Sir T. D. Hardy’s book which could have stirred up the sœva indignatio in Lord Brougham, as expressed in the subjoined letters, still less any aspersions on the memory of Lord Langdale himself.

The charge brought by Lord Brougham in this letter against Panizzi of being an accomplice in Sir T. D. Hardy’s crime, was, in a subsequent letter from his Lordship, repudiated by him.

Here we pause to pursue in the following chapter our anecdotical mood, illustrating the reminiscences with letters confirmatory of our various allusions—letters which in themselves possess great value, if the celebrity of their authors be borne in mind.

330

Panizzi and Austria; Policy of Palmerston; Mr Ellice; Scotch Sabbath; Mr Gladstone on Tasso; Panizzi and Thomas Carlyle.

Panizzi’s correspondence with the sketches drawn from it and from that of the society with which he was connected, will now be continued, for from these is to be derived his private opinion on various subjects, and no doubt can possibly be suggested as to this course furnishing irrefragable proofs of his real sentiments. Miscellaneous as are the matters of which these letters of Panizzi treat, it is not surprising, considering the disturbed and eventful state of this period, that a large proportion of them relate to politics, to which he was so irrepressibly addicted. The following to Mr Haywood and Lord Rutherfurd, contain the comments of an acute observer of the unsettled state of government and of affairs in general in this country and in the East immediately before and after the Crimean War. It is to be wished that, in addition to skill and vigilance, the credit of impartiality could also be ascribed to Panizzi. The fact is, however, that, so deep was his dislike to Austria (scarcely to be wondered at), that it strongly 331tinctured his political views of affairs both at home and abroad. It will be observed also that he was less of a true prophet than a keen observer.

Herein, too, he gives his opinion of the policy of Lord Palmerston and other statesmen, showing very decided and biassed views of the course they would probably adopt, and venturing on surmises which, as events have proved, were not well grounded. They, however, are valuable, not only as clear expositions of his views on the subject, but as specimens of his open and undisguised style of writing, without fear or favour, when his own political ideas required elucidation:—

To the Right Honourable Edward Ellice (whose name is familiar to all), who was an intimate friend of Panizzi, and to whose son, the lately deceased Mr. Edward Ellice, we are much indebted for the documents placed at our disposal. We find a 333letter on the same subject, written on the 4th of December, 1854:—

“My dear Ellice,

I see there is a so-called treaty of alliance signed at Vienna. You will see it is merely to say that next spring Austria will take counsel with her new allies as to the best mode of enforcing what is not yet settled. She now will more than ever embarrass France and England, and prevent them from making war in the only way that such a war should be made. My dear friend, I am as good an Englishman as you are, so far as attachment to this country goes, and I feel confident that the Government are mistaken, and go to ruin the country as fast as they can. All these delays and weaknesses give all the advantage to the enemies of England, and Austria is among the foremost ... and yet the greatest confidence is expressed in her future conduct, because it is assumed that it is her interest to join England and France; as if people acted always as they ought, and as if it was quite clear that she has more to fear from Russia and her system of government, and ultra-legitimist principles, than from two revolutionary governments like England and France. I have no patience with such reasoning.

Ever yours,

A. Panizzi.”

Here follows a terse little note, written in the true Panizzi style. Whether the ass mentioned in his comment on a piece of Scotch Sabbatarianism was, in the common acceptation of the term, “hired,” may be questioned. But we can testify, from our own personal experience, to the peculiar tyranny exercised on the unfortunate inhabitants of Glasgow, and which 334falls most heavily on innocent sojourners in that cheerful city:—

The next letter we shall quote is from Mr. Gladstone:—

With all due deference to so great an authority, and fully agreeing with his estimate of Tasso, the position assigned by Mr. Gladstone to Virgil is scarcely doing justice to the chief of the Latin poets. Panizzi, in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, says:—“I shall be happy, you may be sure, to read what you say on Tasso, who is, no doubt, greatly below Homer, but not so much below Virgil as people affect to say.”

It is true that Virgil laboured under one unfortunate disadvantage; the language in which he wrote is certainly less fitted, in point of simplicity 335and sublimity, as a vehicle for epic poetry than the Greek.

It will not detract from the miscellaneous character of the information promised in this chapter to subjoin a few extracts from a correspondence which took place between Panizzi and Mr. Thomas Carlyle, who was not one of those who were entirely satisfied with the defective Reading-Room at the British Museum, which preceded the present splendid building, soon to be described. Full of sad experiences of the manifold inconveniences of the former, he pardonably, but erroneously, imagined that it might be possible to obtain some more private and more comfortable spot wherein to pursue his studies at the Museum. In his endeavours to attain this end, however, he was not altogether successful.

On the 11th of April, 1853, the eminent historian addressed a letter to Panizzi, which he answered, we fear, in terms somewhat too severe, so much so, that we purposely avoid making public anything which was simply the fruit of former quarrels; be that as it may, the correspondence was submitted to the Trustees four days afterwards, together with a report in which Panizzi stated that he knew of no Private Room, nor of any quieter corner in all the Library for the purpose of study, than the Reading-Room; but even if he did, he did not think that in a Public Library, supported at the National expense for public use, any person should enjoy advantages and facilities denied to the generality. Better accommodation was, undoubtedly, desirable for readers—for them all—but not for any especial individual, leaving others to 336fare as well or as ill as they might. On May 7th the Trustees approved of Panizzi’s conduct.

Not altogether content with this decision, Mr. Carlyle seems to have made an attempt to enlist on his behalf the interest of Lady Ashburton, and, through her, that of Lord Clarendon. The result of this attempt will be gathered from the following letter, addressed to the latter:—

Let us, however, say no more about this unpleasant affair, and look upon it as another example of the unbending, unswerving nature of Panizzi in all matters of duty; for although he was, doubtless, 337impressed with the great deserts of the applicant for relief and especial accommodation, on this occasion he saw no reason for laying himself open to a charge of favouritism, or, under any pretence, being a party to conceding to one reader, however great his merits, that which would undoubtedly be denied to another.

338

It has been, and doubtless for some centuries to come will be, a matter of regret that the unrivalled collection called the British Museum has not, after the incalculable labour bestowed, and the vast sums of money spent upon it, found a home more worthy of its invaluable contents than the present building. Of this huge pile—an irregular oblong—but little appeals to the eye, less to the power of discussion. The Eastern and Western Wings still remain partially exposed to view in all their normal hideousness of yellow brick, unadorned by aught save a few meagre mouldings. The front, being, of course, the most conspicuous part of the structure, has been the object of attention, and has been ornamented in a manner suiting it to the public gaze. To effect this desirable, and certainly most legitimate object, choice has strangely been made of a style which, in itself most beautiful, is so hampered and restricted by the straitest and severest rules as to be almost incapable of adaptation to purposes of 339modern utility, and a magnificent Ionic portico and peristyle have been erected; the building, as a whole, thus presenting a striking contrast to any other structure to be found in the metropolis.

Confront the British Museum for one moment with the Madeleine of Paris, and how great is the difference! In the latter is seen the nearest approach to true Grecian architecture, combined with admirable proportions, and tasteful and correct ornamentation; by admission of light from the roof, the unsightliness of windows inserted in the walls is avoided, and, in its entirety, the building fairly represents that which it purports to be.

Let the visitor, however, enter, and he will find himself somewhat disappointed; for, instead of seeing a tolerably correct Greek temple, he will find a singularly ineffective and mediocre Christian Church. The profuseness of decoration, much of it foreign to the style, the want of power in what should be the central point of attraction, the general horizontal character of the lines, throwing out the building in an unnatural degree—all show the abortiveness of an effort to lend the rigidity of ancient forms to the exigencies of modern tastes.

Still, to compare the Madeleine, with all its faults, to the British Museum, would be an insult to the former; not that the classical façade of our own building is without merit: the nobility and majesty of the portico and colonnade cannot well be denied, and, if built of white marble (supposing the brightness of the marble could be preserved in this variable climate) instead of their present dingy material, they would 340have constituted, by their own merit, a most striking and dignified object, whatever cavils might have existed as to the reality of the purpose to which they would have been applied.

A certain distance, however, is requisite for the view, and this it is most difficult to obtain; on closer inspection it will be seen that the imposing range of pillars rather draws attention to, than serves to conceal, the frightful sash windows which glare from behind it, and whose light it obscures.

In the tympanum of the portico is a group of sculptured figures by Sir R. Westmacott. To this M. Edgar Vinet, in a notice of the British Museum in the Journal des Débats, written in 1858 (30th of December) alludes in the following words:—“Un fronton récemment terminé, et dans lequel Sir Richard Westmacott, ce qui se conçoit pour un sujet pareil, a représenté, d’une manière un peu confuse, l’homme passant de l’état sauvage, sans l’influence de la religion, à laà la civilisation et au progrès.”

This cluster of sculpture is by no means happy, and the kindly phrase of our critic, “une manière un peu confuse,” might, with a little freedom and more truth, be rendered by the English words, muddle, cram, and confusion.

On either flank of the main building, and in advance of it, is a block of official dwelling-houses, which, as some may remember, called down much denunciation at the time they were erected; they are, however, so void of pretentiousness that they seem hardly to deserve any very lavish outpouring of righteous indignation. It is enough to say of them that they would have been better away.

341The British Museum is, however, more admirable inside than out. Here, nevertheless, the Nemesis of the style pursues the observer even more unrelentingly. If some of the vast and dismal rooms be not the very halls of Eblis, at least they are eminently fitted for the depositories of the sarcophagi of those who have descended thither. The beauty of their contents may, it is true, engross the visitor’s attention for a time, but he can hardly hope to remain long free from the depression and melancholy with which the surrounding air seems impregnated. The lighting (and here, again, the blame must be exclusively laid on the style adopted) is in many places most defective; as to the mural decoration, it cannot be better described than in the words of the already quoted M. Vinet:—A l’exception de la salle de lecture, vaste rotonde dont la coupole reluit d’or la, décoration intérieure du Musée Britannique vous étonne par sa simplicité; les murailles sont nues, quelques méandres, peints à l’encaustique, entourent des plafonds percés par un vitrage, par où passe une lumière froide et grise: voilà tout ce que l’orgueilleuse Albion a cru devoir accorder à l’embellissement intérieur de son Musée: décoration conçue avec un tel puritanisme qu’elle est restée au dessous des salles d’attente des chemins de fer, comme ornementation et comme goût. Une large cheminée de fonte, chauffée à blanc huit mois de l’année, occupe le centre de chaque pièce, et, par son prosaïsme forme le plus étrange contraste avec les œuvres élégantes, filles du soleil, qui l’entourent.”

To the objection that those who thus flatly condemn 342one form of architecture are bound to suggest another more suitable, a ready, and by no means embarrassing answer is forthcoming. The Pointed, the most beautiful and ductile of all styles, may be left out of consideration, as being hardly of sufficient congruity to the relics of art stored in the National collection. Moreover, to have attempted a Gothic structure at the time when the present Museum was built, might have afforded an instructive example of corruptio optimi pessima, but, in all probability, would have failed in point of utility, and would most certainly have been an outrage on good taste.

It is hardly possible, however, to suppose that the illustrious architect of the British Museum was not as conversant with Roman as with Greek architecture, or that he was wholly unacquainted with the Romano-Italian works of Wren or Palladio.

As the Roman, unlike the Grecian, and still more unlike the Pointed, does not mainly depend for its beauty on the lines of its construction, the facility for legitimately decorating a building of the shape of the British Museum would have been far greater in the first-named style. Who shall say that in a gallery of the Roman type the statues of Roman Emperors, or even the monuments of Assyrian Kings, are out of place? or that the disjecta membra of a Greek frieze or pediment would be incongruous with an architecture so nearly akin to their own? At any rate, we should have been able to view them with comfort, which is scarcely the case at present; for the power of lighting would have been increased tenfold. Opportunities, too, of a more effective system of intramural 343ornamentation would have been offered, and many other minor advantages, conducive to beauty or convenience, secured. Happily, in the latest addition to the great building—an addition that owes alike its origin, position, and form of construction to the enterprise and genius of Panizzi—the ponderous and unsuccessful imitation of the Greek style has been laid aside, and a light and graceful form of the Italian order adopted.

This little gem of architecture—this “Margarita”—is the “New Reading-Room.”

The history and traditions of the Reading-Room at the British Museum have been so faithfully and minutely recorded by others that it would be unpardonable to overcrowd our space in this work with too full a description of them. Since the year 1758, a Reading-Room has always been attached to the Museum, and the original apartment was, by all accounts, especially comfortable and even luxurious. Though small, it seems to have been sufficiently large to meet the requirements of those early days of its existence. We read of this pleasant corner room in “the basement story, with one oak table and twenty chairs,” so small as to be fitted for only twenty readers, yet it was seldom patronized to the extent of its full capabilities. In one respect it must have been truly paradisiacal, for it opened into a delightful garden in which, as tradition has it, the presiding deity was accustomed to walk, although not in the cool of the evening. This gentleman, Dr. Templeman, afterwards Secretary to the Society of Arts, seems, notwithstanding, to have found his duties sufficiently onerous. 344After eight months’ incumbency,incumbency, “he takes the opportunity of reminding the Committee that he begs to be relieved from the excessive attendance of six hours’ continuance each day, for it is more than he is able to bear,” and on March 13, 1760, he records with a chuckle “Last Tuesday, no company coming to the Reading-Room, Dr. Templeman ventured to go away about 2 o’clock.” Not above twenty readers were admitted monthly during the first few months, and when the novelty of the institution had worn off, even this average declined to ten or twelve. It is true that among these appear the names of Johnson, Gray, Hume and Blackstone. Nor were the regulations patterns of liberality. The statutes directed that notice should be given in writing the day before to the officer in attendance by each person “what book or manuscript he will be desirous of perusing the following day; which book or manuscript in such request will be lodged in some convenient place in the said room, and will from thence be delivered to him by the officer of the said room.”

From the delightful garden with which it communicated, and its almost rural surroundings; from the illustrious names of those ornaments of the silver age of our literature who frequented it, and in the excellence of whose works one almost seems to discover traces of quiet ease of study, such as this resort must have afforded, it is with mingled feelings of regret and envy that we turn to our own time and lament that the world of readers and writers should have arrived at such monstrous dimensions and such unmanageable proportions.

345One great improvement has recently been effected, the electric light—the latest application of science to the means of illuminating large buildings, has been, through the energy of Mr. E. A. Bond, the present Principal Librarian, most successfully introduced into this department—gladdening the hearts of students by increasing their hours of research, and enabling them to seek, with its clear effulgence, the information which they desire to possess.

Our contemplation of Panizzi’s majestic work has, however, its dark shade. It reminds us sadly of the bustling and feverish spirit which pervades our present, literature; of the enormous trade of bookmaking openly carried on amongst us, and of the lack both of dignity and polish only too often conspicuous in the best works of our best modern authors.

The quiet ease and learned leisure gradually died away, readers and authors of all classes rapidly increased; insignificant as were their numbers compared with the present multitude, it became incumbent on the authorities to prepare something more than the single and comfortable room with its garden; and in the old House and in its last days, three rooms were set apart for their accommodation.

To the first Reading-Room in the new building but scant praise can be accorded. The appointments of it were in no wise satisfactory, whilst the mode of access was almost mean and decidedly incommodious. Previously crowded, as a rule, it is on record that, although constructed to hold only about 120 readers, no less than 200 persons were frequently crammed 346into it. A larger apartment was, therefore, urgently called for; and, in 1838, the old room was closed, another being opened in a different quarter of the building. This, divided into two compartments, was about one-third larger than its predecessor, and in its size alone its superiority appears to have consisted. It is true that, in many respects, its fittings were far better, that a more convenient entrance was constructed, and that more attention was paid to the comfort, if not so much of the readers, at any rate of certain of the attendant officials, who had before this been wretchedly housed.

The lighting by means of windows many feet from the ground was, in both rooms, lamentably deficient. In neither had due care been taken to provide sufficient ventilation. The admission of fresh air appears to have been chiefly effected by the simple contrivance of opening the windows, a practice not always possible, and not unlikely, at certain seasons of the year to be attended with as much danger as would have been the retention of foul air. Readers who remained in the stifling atmosphere of either room for any length of time were known to complain of a peculiar languor and headache, and the expressive term Museum Megrims was invented to describe the uneasy sensations of the too persistent student.

The following is an extract from a private letter, written a short time since, in which, although the writer confesses that his memory, at this distance of time, is not as fresh as it might be, a fair description is given of the second or intermediate Reading-Room, as it was in the year 1846:—

The Library of the British Museum continued to increase in proportion to its rapid influx of readers; and in 1849, the collection, excluding the masses of MSS., pamphlets, and other unbound works, amounted to no less than 435,000 volumes.^[Q] What a vast acquisition must this have been to the public, 348whether to the student, the critic, or the occasional lounger!

The power of exercising rights of ownership was, however, by no means commensurate with the legal title to the property: indeed, owing to lack of room and other conveniences, such rights, in the case of very many who would otherwise have taken advantage of them, scarcely extended to liberty of inspecting the outsides of the volumes; as to the insides, they were literally closed books.

Such a state of affairs made a deep impression on Panizzi, whose incessant anxiety for, and interest in the Department over which he presided, added to his repugnance to suffering so much of its contents to lie idle and unprofitable, caused in him a ceaseless feeling of regret. He saw and knew, only too well, how alone reform was to take place—viz., by provision of ample room, and by due attention too the requirements of readers, at the same time securing the necessary amount of space in the building for the ever increasing additions to the Library.

From a very early period his attention had been directed to the requirements of the Reading-Room, and an important improvement in its service had been introduced by him even before he became Keeper of Printed Books. Before his time, the press-mark denoting the place of a book in the Library was not affixed to the Reading-room copy of the Catalogue, and the reader simply indicated the books he wished to see, which were then looked out in the Library copy of the Catalogue by the attendants. This system, which may have answered very well while the 349daily average of visitors did not exceed thirty, became entirely inadequate when they amounted to two hundred; and Mr. Baber, at Panizzi’s suggestion, directed that press-marks should be put to the Reading-Room Catalogue, so that the readers might search it for themselves. This innovation occasioned an immense saving of time, but was naturally resented by many to whom time was of less importance than trouble. Sir Harris Nicolas, an excellent type of the really hard-working reader, thought differently, and spontaneously addressed a letter to Panizzi, congratulating him upon his reform. This incident had an amusing sequel. Sir H. Nicolas saw fit to assail Panizzi’s management in a series of anonymous articles in the Spectator newspaper, and among other points censured the very regulation of which he had previously approved. A correspondence ensued, in the course of which Panizzi cited the material parts of Sir Harris’s former letter to himself without marks of quotations, and Sir H. Nicolas mistaking his own arguments for his antagonist’s, fell foul of them in a fashion which gave Panizzi the opportunity he sought of withdrawing from further controversy with “a man endowed with so flexible a judgment, and so treacherous a memory.”

The improvements introduced by Panizzi into the internal arrangements of the Old Reading-Room were nevertheless trivial in comparison with those which he was destined to accomplish by the construction of a new one.

In 1850, he submitted to the Trustees his first plan for a new Reading-Room. As this, however, involved the acquisition of land and the consequent erection of 350new buildings, it was rejected on account of the delay and expense which would inevitably follow. The next plan of reform relating to the enlargement of the capacities of the Museum in general was brought forward by the Trustees themselves. This or a similar scheme had long since been mooted, but was regularly formulated for the first time in 1848. Their proposal was to buy up the whole of one portion of the street, on the east side of the Museum, to build on the site, and to complete that part of the edifice which faced Russell Square with a grand façade. This scheme, the cost of which was calculated to amount to only about a quarter of a million, did not receive the favourable consideration of Government. There is much reason to be thankful that the infliction of a second grand façade has been spared us. The first sketch for the New Reading-Room was drawn by Panizzi himself on April 18, 1852, and shown to Mr. Winter JonesWinter Jones on the same day.

On May 5 following, Panizzi sent in a report setting forth at large, and in forcible terms, the discomfort and inconvenience existing in his own Department of the Institution, and recommending, as a remedy, the construction of the new building in the inner quadrangle. It will not be amiss to give this report in extenso, as it will present something more than a sketch of the work intended—omitting, of course, all minor and unimportant details.

A few weeks after, Panizzi wrote to Lord Rutherfurd:—

And in December of the same year, he addressed a letter to Hallam, the answer to which we give:—

356In June, 1852, there appeared in the Quarterly Review, an interesting article on the British Museum, from the pen of no less a personage than the Right Honourable Wilson Croker himself. On the face of this article the writer shows himself a thorough advocate of the merits of the Reading-Room then in existence. Denying the credibility, save in the case of a few individuals of abnormally weak and susceptible brains, of the traditional Museum headache, to which so many, and amongst them Thomas Carlyle, had from personal experience, borne witness; he proceeds to charge the room with the very defects on which the majority of its frequenters were in the constant habit of dilating.

Amongst other works at the head of this article, is one entitled Observations on the British Museum, National Gallery and National Record Office, with suggestions for their improvement, by James Fergusson. London, 1849.

In this work Mr. Fergusson, anticipating Panizzi’s purpose and choice of site, proposed to construct in the inner quadrangle of the British Museum, a Reading-Room about 175 feet by 105 feet. The writer of the article gives Panizzi no credit for the soundness of his scheme, and its adaptability to the requirements of the occasion, but attributes his recommendations simply to his zeal for the efficiency of his Department, and wonders how Mr. Smirke could have lent these ideas his professional concurrence. With Mr. Fergusson’s project he disagrees as likely to spoil the effect of the inner court, as touching the grandeur and impressiveness in its naked 357severity; in this he assumes that there is a peculiar merit in the eyes of those who have seen it, though it must be granted that, to the few who had done so, this peculiar merit was not so clearly visible. He proposes as an improvement to cover in the whole court with a glass roof, after the fashion of the original Crystal Palace of 1851, in Hyde Park, and to use the grand room thus obtained as a receptacle for antiquities, sculpture, etc., with other details of improvement, which, as they were never carried out, do not require to be particularized in these pages.

This was, in fact, the scheme submitted in 1853 to the Trustees of the British Museum by Sir Charles Barry. The report made by the Trustees respecting this plan is, as may be supposed, too long to quote verbatim, but is, substantially, as follows:—

That Sir C. Barry’s plan, so far as it related to increased accommodation in the British Museum, was absolutely impracticable.

That it betrayed great ignorance of the wants of the Museum, and indifference as to the safe-keeping of some of its most valuable contents.

That the large skylight covering the 75,200 square feet of quadrangle would darken every window therein, and, in many seasons, obscure the whole space.

That the communications between Departments would be more inconvenient than at present, and that the new Reading-Room, proposed by Sir C. Barry, would be deficient in light, air, and accommodation, and be attended by increased expense and delay in the procuring of books.

358That the supervision of the Reading-Room would be less effective, and risk of loss incurred.

That access to parts of the Library would have to be through the Reading-Room; the Cataloguers would be separated by a great distance from their books, and the Catalogues themselves suspended during the progress of the works.

That the Exhibition of Prints and Drawings would be in like manner affected; that no additional space is provided for printed books; and that general displacement and confusion in this Department would be the result of the scheme.

That Sir C. Barry’s statement—viz., that the space of only one year is sufficient for the completion of the work is without foundation.

That the plan of removal of the greater objects of antiquity from their present site to Sir C. Barry’s new hall would be attended with extraordinary labour and expense, and that their position would be no more conspicuous than before.

That mummies, metals, pottery, and objects having delicacy of colour would run risk of injury.

That ventilation would be most difficult, and the approach to the area highly objectionable.

Lastly, that the sudden fall of any large portion of the enormous glass roof might destroy some most valuable object or objects of art.

Thus the Trustees dismissed the project of Sir C. Barry, and evinced an inclination to cling to their own design, notwithstanding its rejection by the Government.

It was not long, however, before they saw the expediency 359of adopting Panizzi’s views; and in a letter to Lord Rutherfurd, the latter speaks hopefully, first of his plan, and afterwards of his final anticipation of the success of his scheme.

The foundations of the New Reading-Room were commenced in May, and the first brick was laid in September, 1854.

In a work of such a peculiar nature and vast importance, it would be impossible to avoid the constant recurrence of obstacles and difficulties; and a third letter from Panizzi to Lord Rutherfurd proves conclusively that these were caused by circumstances quite unconnected with the actual building operations. This we subjoin:—

As time progressed, it became necessary to encounter and settle the question of internal decoration—a 360question, in all countries, of extreme delicacy and taste, and, in our own climate, especially in the atmosphere of London, most difficult of solution. The New Reading-Room had no exterior, and those who have seen the interior in its present finished state may readily imagine how bald and unsatisfactory an appearance it would have presented had even a less lavish use been made of paint and gilding in its ornamentation. From a letter of Mr. Smirke’s to Panizzi it would appear that it required some effort to obtain for the building the least amount of gilding necessary.

Here, moreover, the equally delicate question of money arose, for Panizzi’s modest estimate of £50,000 had already been greatly exceeded in the mere construction of the room, without any of its numerous and much needed accessories.

That this was so, may be seen from Mr. Smirke’s. letter:—

361Most happily the authorities entertained no parsimonious ideas in the matter; and a letter from the Secretary to the Treasury (the Right Honourable James Wilson) displays a liberal and enlightened view of the necessity of combining in the new room beauty with utility, although his opinions as regards the British Museum in general, may reasonably be questioned.

This letter will also be read with interest; therefore, although lengthy, no apology is needed for its insertion:—

Notwithstanding the suggestions alluded to in this letter, to the great credit of the architect’s taste and judgment, the Dome was “fitted in compartments,” and no opportunity was given for “any grand subject to spread over the whole of the Dome.” Had this project been seriously entertained, it is assuredly more than doubtful whether an artist could have been found of sufficient capacity to undertake it with any probability of success.

There is no doubt whatever that the surface of the Dome, arranged and coloured as it fortunately has been, presents a far better effect than it would have done had it been surrendered to any such decoration as a grand subject painting extending over the whole of it.

363But à propos of decoration, Panizzi’s letter, written just one year before, and addressed to a Trustee of the British Museum, Mr. W. R. Hamilton, will also testify to his judgment and taste in architecture:—

365Although, during the progress of the building, Panizzi had frequent occasion to complain of the short-comings of the workmen employed thereon, yet, the new Reading-Room was entirely finished by the end of April, 1857, in the laudably short space of less than three years. Much credit was due to the great energy of the contractor, Mr. Fielder, for whom Panizzi entertained the highest esteem, and who was untiring in his earnest endeavours in carrying out the plans of the architect; and on the 2nd of May in the same year, the building was duly opened, a grand breakfast being given at the British Museum in honour of the occasion: to this the Prince Consort had been invited by Panizzi, and had accepted the invitation, but was prevented from attending by an unforeseen occurrence.

The following letter accounts for His Royal Highness’s absence from the ceremony:—

The postponement of the opening of the Room was, however, simply impossible, and amongst other notabilities present were the following:—

The Archbishop of Canterbury (Sumner), Earl and Countess of Clarendon, Earl Cawdor, Earl of Aberdeen, 366the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Charles and Lady Eastlake, Lady Cranworth, Baron Marochetti, the Dean of St. Paul’s and Mrs. Milman, Professor Owen, Lord Panmure, Lord and Lady John Russell, Sir George and Lady Grey, Earl Spencer, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, and the Duke of Somerset.

All the officers were also present, with the exception of Sir Frederick Madden (Keeper of the MSS.), but Mr. E. A. Bond, then Assistant-Keeper, represented him. One of the letters replying to Panizzi’s invitation to this breakfast may be given here, to show the estimate formed by one whose judgment may safely be respected, of the Librarian’s own share in the building of the new Reading-Room:—

Another letter, by the same hand, bears testimony to the success of the entertainment itself:—

368The reply to this conveys a graceful tribute to Sir Henry Ellis’s own deserts:—

Whatever may have been Panizzi’s claim to be considered the “Architect,” as well as the originator of the design for the New Reading-Room, his reputation for having performed so great a service was not altogether unassailed. On the completion of his important work, a vigorous attack, more formidable perhaps in appearance than in reality, was directed from a somewhat unexpected quarter against both the originality of the plan and the bonâ fides of the author. Hæc feci monimenta meum tulit alter honorem, sic vos non vobis, etc. Such were the words of William Hosking, Professor of Architecture, King’s College, London.

369This gentleman had, some years before, prepared a design for additional buildings to the British Museum, and these he proposed to place in the quadrangle, on the site afterwards fixed on by Panizzi for his Reading-Room. In 1848 Mr. Hosking submitted his plan to Lord Ellesmere’s Museum Commission, and afterwards, in 1849, to the Trustees.

Great though its merits may have been, it unfortunately met with approbation from neither. Mr. Hosking now made a charge against Panizzi of having pirated not only his choice of the position, but also the form of the building, which he alleges has been colourably altered so as to pass for Panizzi’s own.

The earlier design appeared in the Builder of June 22nd, 1850. We mention this in order that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing it with the latter and judge for himself as to which possesses the greater merit and originality.

Mr. Hosking’s building, it must in justice be allowed, would have been of itself extremely ornamental, and, with equal justice, it may be said would have been considerably less useful than ornamental. Although the superiority of past ages has reduced the art of the present day to imitation, combined, in comparatively rare cases, with happy adaptation, it is, nevertheless, doubtful how far any architect who should make an actual copy of so well-known a building as the Pantheon at Rome, and set it up in one of the most conspicuous positions in London, would be justified in so doing, or would merit popular approbation, even though he acted with the same “bonâ fidesbonâ fides” as Mr. Hosking.

370Not to enter, however, on this higher question, it is obvious that there were valid reasons why the Trustees should have rejected this scheme. They may be excused for not, at first sight, perceiving the necessity or utility of raising no less a structure than the dome of the Pantheon over a portion of the statuary of the British Museum. Another project in Mr. Hosking’s plan (not mentioned in the extract from the Builder), whereby he proposed to cut off a portion of the King’s Library for a new Reading-Room, was scarcely worthy of second consideration.

On the completion of Panizzi’s work Mr. Hosking, probably wroth at his own ill success, and aggrieved at the favour lavished on the other, proceeded to open his attack on the alleged pirate, firing his first shot direct at that individual:—

To this Panizzi lost no time in replying:—

Mr. Hosking also attempted to extract information as to the alleged piracy from the architect of the new Reading-Room.

373How much success Mr. Hosking attained in this attempt will be seen on a perusal of Mr. Smirke’s answer:—

It may as well be mentioned in this place, that as Panizzi in his letter already quoted, disclaims originality in choosing the position of his New Room, so Mr. Hosking, in a subsequent letter, dated 4th of May, 1857, to Mr. Smirke, admits that “It is quite 15 years since Mr. Hawkins proposed to build corridors across it (the quadrangle) to facilitate intercommunication.” Neither of the opposing parties, however, takes note of the fact that, as early as 1836-7, Mr. Thomas Watts, the late Keeper of the Department of Printed Books in the British Museum, had actually suggested the construction of a Reading-Room in the very spot of Panizzi’s selection.

He had written in the Mechanics Magazine for March 11th, 1837, commenting upon the waste of space occasioned by the empty quadrangle, “A Reading-Room, of ample dimensions, might have stood in 374the centre, and been surrounded on all four sides by galleries for the books, communicating with each other and lighted from the top.” A little further on, however, he half retracts his own suggestion, remarking, “So much has been expended on the great quadrangle, that it might seem barbarous to propose filling up the square, as ought to have been originally done.” The grand conception of the cupola, by which architectural effect was to be taken away only to be restored with interest, had not dawned upon him; and, in fact, the reverence expressed by so many for the architecture of the inner court would have been more intelligible, if the court had been more accessible.

As regards originality, therefore, in this portion of the respective designs there can be no possible ground of discussion.

Still Mr. Hosking could not be convinced that, in other points, his design was not feloniously used and himself consequently wronged by Panizzi, and so published a long pamphlet dwelling, amongst other things, on the alleged fact that the latter must have seen the copy of the Builder which he sent to him in May, 1852.

To this allegation Panizzi gave a categorical denial; but a short statement, dated May 18th, 1858, in answer to the longer pamphlet, will show sufficiently for our present purpose the line of attack adopted by his opponent, and his own method of defence.

Previously to the issue of this statement, Panizzi had asked for, and obtained, from the architect his opinion on the dissimilarity between the two plans.

Neither Panizzi nor Hosking lacked supporters amongst the numerous critics and judges who, as a matter of course, came forward on such an occasion; and a war, supported by newspapers on either side, was vigorously carried on for upwards of a year. Into the details of the controversy it would be tedious and irrelevant to enter; but whoever will undertake impartially to peruse the records of it (many of which are still extant), will have neither doubt nor difficulty in ascribing the victory to Panizzi.

But as “there is a river in Macedon and there is, moreover, a river at Monmouth,” so it must be admitted that there were, at least, three sterling points of resemblance between the two designs. They are as follows:—1st. That for each was chosen the same plot of ground, but that the merit of originality in such choice belongs to neither designer. 2nd. That both buildings had domes, but these domes so dissimilar that comparison is out of the question. 3rd (and here lay the most striking point of resemblance), That in design, purpose, execution, proportion, and every other detail, Panizzi’s building differs “toto cœlo” from the structure devised by Hosking.

The whole story gives occasion for melancholy reflection on the common and vulgar fortune of so many great men, whose claims to invention or discovery are constantly challenged by those of whose 379existence they never heard until their own works were perfected. There is reason to believe that the claimants to the invention of the Archimedean screw, are almost equal in number to those who have suggested building in the inner quadrangle of the British Museum.

The following is a description of the room:—

“The Reading-Room is circular. The entire building does not occupy the whole quadrangle, there being a clear interval of from 27 to 30 feet all round, to give light and air to the surrounding buildings, and as a guard against possible destruction by fire from the outer parts of the Museum. The dome of this Reading-Room is 140 feet in diameter, its height being 106 feet. In this dimension of diameter it is only inferior to the Pantheon of Rome by 2 feet; St. Peters being only 139; Sta. Maria in Florence, 139; the tomb of Mahomet, Bejapore, 135; St. Paul’s, 112; St. Sophia, Constantinople, 107; and the Church at Darmstadt, 105. The new Reading-Room contains 1,250,000 cubic feet of space; its ‘suburbs,’ or surrounding Libraries, 750,000. The building is constructed principally of iron, with brick arches between the main ribs, supported by 20 iron piers, having a sectional area of 10 superficial feet to each, including the brick casing, or 200 feet in all. This saving of space by the use of iron is remarkable, the piers of support on which our dome rests only thus occupying 200 feet, whereas the piers of the Pantheon of Rome fill 7,477 feet of area, and those of the tomb of Mahomet, 5,593. Upwards of 2,000 tons of iron have been employed in the construction. The weight 380of the materials used in the dome is about 4,200 tons viz., upwards of 200 tons on each pier.”

It may be considered that we are open to the impeachment of plagiarism, greater even than could be ascribed to Panizzi, inasmuch as we have taken our statistics from a penny book—that most accurate one sold at the Museum at this very moderate price—and having borrowed from this valuable little publication, we can but claim as our excuse the worth of its contents, and the consideration of those readers into whose hands the small publication may never have fallen.

A domed building possessing beauty of appearance is by no means easy of construction, and some of the most celebrated in the world are conspicuously deficient in grace and elegance, especially as regards the exterior.

Fortunately it has fallen to the lot of the new Reading-Room to be concerned only with the most manageable side of its dome—viz., the inside.

By this, as will be universally allowed, criticism is disarmed. The proportions of the room are admirable, and the lines of architecture full of grace and beauty. The lighting is based on the most scientific principles, and the dome itself (only inferior in dimensions to one other in existence) maintains its own appearance as to actual size, and is of grandeur proportionate to its general lightness and elegance.

The spectator will, however, be most struck with its style of internal decoration, a grand example of success, when our attempts have hitherto been so futile.

381The fear of tampering with colour has ever been one of our idiosyncrasies, and it may be observed in this instance.

True, that in our uncertain climate and obscure atmosphere, Nature herself lends but little aid in the matter, either as regards instruction or example; but the colouring of the Reading-Room may be pronounced free from indifference or conventionality, and to the freedom observable is added a boldness and originality which must be seen to be truly estimated at its proper value.

To give the reader, however, some general notion of the manner in which the colouring has been managed, we quote, without apology, one more passage from the small brochure to which we have alluded:—

“In the decoration of the interior dome, light colours and the purest gilding have been preferred. The Great Room, therefore, has an illuminated and elegant aspect. The decorative work may be shortly described:—The inner surface of the dome is divided into twenty compartments by moulded ribs, which are gilded with leaf prepared from unalloyed gold, the soffites being in ornamental patterns, and the edges touching the adjoining margins fringed with a leaf-pattern scolloped edge. Each compartment contains a circular-headed window, twenty-seven feet high and twelve feet wide, with three panels above, the central one being medallion-shaped, the whole bordered with gilt mouldings and lines, and the field of the panels finished in encaustic azure blue, the surrounding margins being of a warm cream colour. The details of the windows are treated in like manner—the spandril 382panels blue; the enriched column and pilaster caps, the central flowers, the border moulding and lines being gilded—the margins cream colour throughout. The moulded rim of the lantern light, which is painted and gilded to correspond, is 40 feet in diameter. The sash is formed of gilt moulded ribs, radiating from a central medallion, in which the Royal Monogram is alternated with the Imperial Crown.

“The cornice, from which the dome springs, is massive and almost wholly gilded, the frieze being formed into panels bounded by lines terminating at the ends with a gilt fret ornament. Each compartment of the dome is marked by a bold enriched gilt console, which forms at once the support of the main rib and the base for a colossal marble statue, a series of which it is proposed to place on the cornice.

“Between the cornice and the floor the space is filled with the bookcases and galleries of access, the cornice, standards, and railings of which are wholly gilded, the panels of the soffites of the latter being blue, having gilded ornaments therein.”

It will have been observed that the original draft of Panizzi’s scheme proposed to provide space for a larger number of readers than was ultimately found advisable. The problem of accommodating readers was, indeed, less momentous than that of accommodating books; and any account of Panizzi’s edifice would be most imperfect which did not take some notice of his solution of this latter difficulty. As already stated, the space in which the new Reading-Room was to be erected was quadrangular, while the room itself was to be circular. The quadrangle is 383335 feet by 235; the diameter of the dome of the Reading-Room, as ultimately constructed, was 140 feet. The circle thus inscribed in the quadrangle left, consequently, ample space for the construction of additional rooms. After deducting a clear space of from 27 to 30 feet left, for the sake of air and light, between the exterior of the new building and the inner wall of the original Museum, the former was still 258 feet by 184, equivalent to an area of 47,472 square feet. The amount of this space external to the Reading-Room (about three-eighths of the whole) was occupied:—1. By a circular gallery in four tiers, including the basement storey, carried entirely round the Reading-Room. 2. By four corridors in three tiers, each forming a quadrangle parallel with the interior walls of the original Museum structure. 3. By four apartments of triangular shape, filling up the spaces left vacant between the circle and the quadrangle in which it was inscribed. Accommodation was thus provided for about 1,200,000 books, or five times as many as the Museum had possessed when Panizzi became Keeper. This result was obtained by great economy of space, there being no walls except the exterior wall, the partitions being formed by the books themselves arranged fore-edge to fore-edge, except against the external wall, the shelves of double bookcases being divided longitudinally by a wire lattice. These shelves are placed between grooved uprights of galvanized iron, and upon metal pins inserted into holes made for the purpose in the wooden lining of the grooves. Sufficient space is left between these rows of bookcases to admit of the passage 384of two barrows, and the entire remaining space is available for the storage of books. The roof is glass, and the flooring of the galleries is formed of open iron gratings to allow of the transmission of light to the basement. The presses are everywhere of the same dimensions, eight feet by three, so that each gallery is eight feet high. The shelves are made of zinc covered with leather, the multiplicity of perforations in the wooden lining of the uprights allowing of their being placed apart at any interval required, and, thanks to Mr. Watts’s elastic system of numbering the presses, the books destined to occupy them were removed from their previous locality without the alteration of a single press mark. They consisted, for the most part, of acquisitions made since 1845, the date when Panizzi’s quoted report on the deficiencies of the Library was laid before the House of Commons. The ground floor of the Reading-Room was occupied by 20,000 volumes especially selected to serve as a Reference Library. These were partly chosen, and the whole were admirably catalogued by Mr. Rye, then Second Assistant-Keeper, who also drew the coloured ground plan of the Reading-Room, and superintended the placing of the volumes. Several picked Assistants worked extra time under him for many days, and the task was only completed just in time for the opening of the room. The galleries were filled with periodicals, and all the books above and below were bound, or, at least, gilt and furbished, with an especial view to decorative effect.

It only remained to provide for the management of the Room by the appointment of Mr. Watts as Superintendent. 385“The readers,” wrote Mr. Winter Jones in 1859, “have thus placed at their disposal, for six hours every day, the services of a gentleman whose intimate acquaintance with the Museum collections, extensive knowledge of the literature of his own and foreign countries, and acquirements as a linguist rarely to be met with, render him peculiarly fitted to carry out the chief object of the Trustees.”

This description, which has already been drawn out to a length rather exceeding our original intentions, but which the interest of the subject somewhat justifies, may appropriately be concluded with a notice of the last ornaments added to the Reading-Room:—

Here is a bust of Panizzi, by Baron Marochetti, placed over the principal entrance; an admirable likeness, but, whatever its merits, the position in which it was to have been placed met at the time with strenuous opposition on the ground of convenience even from Panizzi himself.

It is evident that the ultimate destination of the bust had not been fixed upon up to the 7th of March, when Mr. Smirke addressed the following letter to Panizzi:—

A curious incident, with happier details than the great cause of Hosking v. Panizzi, must not be omitted from the history of the New Reading-Room. It will be remembered that, in 1823, the Duke of Modena had executed a well known 387effigy of Panizzi; and it happened, in after years, that this so-styled “Duchino” potentate’s friend and ally, Austria (who would fain have dealt with the great Carbonaro in a more effective manner), struck with honest admiration of his genius, as displayed in the New Reading-Room, after failing to obtain actual possession of his head, judged it expedient to take what advantage she could of that head’s cerebral development. Accordingly, on the completion of Panizzi’s work, she instructed her Ambassador in this country (Count Apponyi) to apply for information as to the plans, construction, &c., &c., of the New Room in the British Museum, with a view to adapting them to the projected New Library of the University of Vienna. The following correspondence contains an even more valuable tribute to Panizzi’s reputation than the honour already paid to him by his adopted country:—

To this Panizzi, much amused and doubtless flattered, as he should have been by the whole affair, which he had communicated as a good joke to a few of his very intimate friends, sent a courteous reply with the required information.

The effect of the new Reading-Room in encouraging study was speedily perceptible. During 1856 the number of visitors had been 53,422. From its opening to the public on May 18th, 1857, to the end of the year they were 75,128. “The general success of the New Room,” said the Edinburgh Review, “is, in fact, alarming.” The remark proved just. The concourse of readers went on increasing until, in 1862, it was necessary to raise the limit of age from 18 to 21, a measure recommendable on other grounds. The result proved how large a proportion of the visitors were youths under age, who merely resorted to the Reading-Room to get up their tasks. The average daily attendance fell from between nearly 400 and 500 to about 360, and so continued until within the last few years, when, from causes which do not fall within the scope of a history of Panizzi’s administration, the daily average again rose and is now about 450, or nearly treble that of the old Reading-Room.

Thus has been presented to our readers a short history of the steps by which the present Reading-Room became a realized fact, and the important part 389which Panizzi played in its design, erection, ornamentation, and gradual development—a Room, which world-known will ever associate his name with itself and its wonderful treasures, and will remain a noble monument of his zeal for the welfare and grandeur of an Institution so dearly loved.

S. STRAKER AND SONS, PRINTERS, LONDON AND REDHILL.