agitation; and if the Irish believed there was, so much the worse for him! He promised every man, woman, and child, what he or she most wished under the name of Repeal, as politic proselyters do under the name of the Kingdom of Heaven. Above all. Repeal meant every man’s ownership of his bit of land, release from standing debts, and the abolition of taxes. Repeal was “glory” and triumph, and vengeance and wealth, and nothing to do for everybody. The retribution of this characteristic was very terrible to the agitator himself. He had a sincere dread of war and actual rebellion: but what could he do with all the expectations he had excited,—expectations which he always knew could not be fulfilled, but which he trusted Providence or chance would divert. For some time he reached forward from one happy accident to another; and he could always cajole an Irish audience for the moment: but he could not long stand the strain. He broke down, in weakness of body and depression of mind,—with strong instincts of fear of death, but, on the other hand, with only too much cause to dread the next scenes of his life. While his millions of Irish believers were falling off into dubious speculation as to why he did not give them Repeal now that, by his own account, the time was in his own hand, he was carried abroad to sink and die. In the movement in which he joined others he succeeded: and the success was mainly due to him. In his own special agitation he showed the same want of qualification, the same incapacity in the hour of crisis, and the same ultimate failure which attends the talkers, in distinction from the achievers of the political destiny of nations. He was a man of genius (of the true Irish quality), kindly in all the relations of life, except the political, and sincere in his love of his country; but his unscrupulousness ruined all,—even robbing him of his fame,—so excessive while he lived. Two or three years after his death he was so nearly forgotten even at Cahirciveen that nobody would give a few shillings for his picture, or seemed to have a regret to spare for him. He had not given the promised Repeal; and the people saw that he must have known throughout that they never would get it.
In speaking of the political agitators of our century, it is impossible to omit all notice of Mazzini. The briefest mention will, however, be most acceptable to all who have ever vested any hopes in the man, or who bear good will to his country. He has lost as much by surviving the siege of Rome in 1849, as O’Connell did by continuing to agitate after the Catholics obtained emancipation. Of Mazzini’s patriotism there never was, up to that time, any more doubt than of his country’s bitter need of redemption: and we were ready to take his word that republicanism was the form of renovation which the freed people would desire. His outpourings of sounding and indefinite abstractions in his addresses and letters were not to English taste: and his method of insurrection jarred upon the judgment and conscience of Englishmen: but the most favourable construction was put upon his actions, in consideration of his aim, and his supposed knowledge of the conditions of the work he undertook. Events have proved his political quality with as fatal an effect as in O’Connell’s case. He has lived to be recognised as a new enemy of his country, more dangerous than any old one. Into the causes of his peculiarities, it is at once too soon and too late to inquire. If they had been understood earlier, much mischief might have been saved; and hereafter they will afford a curious study. At present, it is enough to perceive that he cannot see facts as they are,—cannot willingly see his country saved in any way but his own,—cannot abstain from agitating a people who need rest, and do not need his interference;—cannot, in short, acquiesce in the accomplishment by other means of a work to which he was inadequate. When everybody finds his lucubrations as unreadable as O’Connell’s Irish speeches, we are told that it is owing to the badness of the translation: but it is plain abroad as at home that while Mazzini believes himself to be a model of perspicuity and practicalness, he cannot meet other men’s intellects. He satisfies them of his sensibilities, and of his having notions of his own; but he cannot put anybody in possession of a clear thought. This is a sufficient disqualification for success in revolutionary action: but he has also misapprehended the conditions of his country’s case; and especially the opinions and will of the people. Thus, carefully educated as he was, he does not escape the “demagogue’s” attribute of “ignorance.” In some sense he maybe said to have succeeded; for he undoubtedly helped to keep alive the hope and courage of his countrymen in their worst adversity: but all else has been failure; and we have for some time seen in him the most dangerous obstruction in the path of free Italy. The people of Italy have a king whom they honour and love, and an administration which they trust. They do not want the interference of republican agitators, who do not honour their king, and will not leave it to the responsible parties to deal with the holders of Rome and Venice at the time and in the mode which they judge fit. The whole Italian nation, and every other, would have regarded Mazzini as crowned with immortal honour if he had accepted his destiny when the moment came, and either thrown himself heartily and entirely into the cause of constitutional monarchy, or withdrawn into silence and invisibility, resolved not to disturb where he could not co-operate. As it is, he has missed the greatness of either position, and has added one more to the long list of political agitators who have begun brilliantly, and ended in failure, with the loss even of the honest sympathy which the lovers of freedom are slow to withdraw from any confessor in the cause. As long as regard for Mazzini was compatible with sympathy with Italy, he met with every allowance. Now that he has himself put an end to that compatibility, there is no question about which interest must give way.
Our own popular political orator must have a glance in such a review;—our “tribune,” our “demagogue,” John Bright. The comparison afforded by the means of political agitation at an interval of four centuries is too instructive to be altogether neglected. There is no resemblance between John Bright and the Shaksperian portrait of Jack Cade; and possibly there was little more