1851-1853] Mazzini 143 



victims of ennui, and so it would be with these children 

 except for the sweet cakes and ices, which I believe would 

 please them better if they had them in the gardens here close 

 at hand." 



The following letter is written during a visit of the Hen- 

 sleigh Wedgwoods to Tenby. 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



August 4ih [1851]. 



... I drank tea with the Hensleighs on Saturday, and 

 Fanny is so charming I should have had a delightful evening, 

 if I had not set fire to myself in talking (I am glad I am deaf 

 or I should have that horrible remorse oftener). Under- 

 neath that refreshing quiet, that delicious calm, Fanny has 

 a lava of living fire that has made her give battle to all the 

 governments in Europe under the banner of Mazzini. 

 She is of his Committee in London ! How could Hensleigh 

 permit it ? It is so contrary to the modesty of her nature 

 to associate her name with such notoriety that I am sure 

 she will suffer. She has a name, and whatever she does, 

 will be no secret. . . . That presumptuous fool (I wish he 

 was one, he would have done less harm) will boast he 

 has ' the daughter of Sir James Mackintosh, doubtless the 

 representative of his opinion, the greatest of Statesmen, and 

 the wife of a Wedgwood, the great representative of the 

 manufacturing interest, on his Committee." He knows 

 how to take advantage of everything that helps on his 

 authority, and those two names are very great on the 

 Continent and will do so. Mazzini, for these twenty years, 

 has been living on what he has duped from the poor Italian 

 exiles, whom he has sent without number to death and 

 dungeon, taking great care to keep himself safe; and now 

 that they begin to understand him and their funds fail, he 

 begins to gull the English. Lift your voice with mine, dear 

 Elizabeth, only do it calmer, wiser, better, but above all 

 do not be betrayed into giving your money tho' but in half- 

 crowns, or even in pence. . . . 



