( 401 ) 

 THE AUSTRIAN DOMINATION IN ITALY.-P A RT I. 



IT is now a year since the Memoirs of Silvio Pellico appealed to 

 the sympathies of mankind against Austria, and exposed the cold- 

 blooded and relentless character of her Italian administration. Never, 

 perhaps, was there a work that produced an impression so deep and 

 universal. From the solitude of the dungeons of Spielberg the voice 

 of suffering humanity arose clear and piercing, vibrating through 

 every heart, and startling the oppressor on the throne. Until that 

 development it seemed incredible that such a system of refined 

 cruelty could have existence in the nineteenth century, in a country 

 that boasts itself civilized. For ten long years Pellico languished in 

 the dungeons of the Austrian state prison at Spielberg. Every petty 

 artifice that ingenuity could suggest was resorted to, to deepen the 

 horrors of solitary confinement : exposure to cold and damp coarse 

 and revolting food labour and chains want of medical attendance, 

 except on certain days refusal of books and paper exclusion of 

 communication with relatives and friends everything, in fact, that 

 could serve to fill the cup of bitterness and render existence intoler- 

 able. To counteract the influence of this simple and affecting narra- 

 tive, Count Ferdinand Pozzo has just favoured the world with a 

 publication in which he endeavours to prove (we shall see presently 

 with what success) that the much-abused Austrian government, so 

 far from being unjust and oppressive, is really wise and beneficent, 

 and eminently calculated to ensure the lasting felicity of its Italian 

 subjects, if they would only make up their minds to receive its fa- 

 vours with gentleness and submission. Of course, the Count has 

 been prompted to this undertaking by the purest patriotic motives ; 

 and there is not the shadow of a reason for suspecting that private 

 interest can have had any share in opening his eyes to the delusion of 

 his countrymen, and the super-eminent and transcendent merits of 

 Austrian potentates, living and dead ; for the Count by no means con- 

 fines himself to panegyrising the reigning emperor, but lavishes his 

 encomiums with profusenesi on his predecessors. In his warm youth 

 he was, he tells us, an ideologist, like his fellow-countrymen ; i. e., 

 he cherished day-dreams of Italian freedom, and contributed to pro- 

 mote the cause by the publication of some political tracts*, which he 

 seems to hold in high estimation. Certain it is that their merit was 

 sufficient to attract the attention of Prince Metternich, who thought 

 proper to reward the author with a peremptory notice to quit his na- 

 tive country, Piedmont, and carry his reforming notions to some 

 more convenient quarter of Europe. This piece of severity the Count 

 pardons from his heart, inasmuch as to it he is indebted for a British 

 wife and British liberty two good things he knows how to appreciate 

 as they deserve. From this new position of philosophic calm and in- 



* " Opusculi Politichi," published at Milan, under the feigned name of a 

 Milanese Advocate of Piedmontese origin, in 1819-20. 

 M.M. No. 100. 2 F 



