COUNT CAVOUR. 



5 



COUNT CAVOUR 



ABSTRACT OF MR. SPENDER'S PAPER. 



The writer commenced by pointing out that the Revolutionary fire 

 of 1848 broke out first in Italy; but while it led to the downfall 

 of the French Monarchy, and the abdication of the Austrian Em- 

 peror, it left Italy more enslaved than before. History has been 

 called the biography of great men : Italian history was for many 

 years the biography of Cavour and Garibaldi. The two men, so dif- 

 ferent in both character and circumstances, worked towards the same 

 end, though in diiferent ways. Garibaldi's career is known to most 

 of us. T^o satisfactory life of Cavour has been published. Those 

 whose theory it is that ''the child is father of the man," would 

 have found in Cavour's early years little indication of his career. 

 At the age when Pitt was Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister 

 of a united Italy was unknown. And yet how diff'erent were the 

 ends of these two statesmen! Cavour's death -bed was over- 

 shadowed by a cloud of glory ; Pitt's, by a cloud of terrible 

 calamity. Cavour could look upon his work, if not as finished, at 

 least as well advanced. Pitt sank beneath the bitter stroke of an 

 overwhelming defeat. The bloodless capture of Naples was almost 

 the last event of Cavour's life ; the bloody rout of Austerlitz was 

 the event which broke the heart of Pitt. 



Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, was born at Turin, July 14th, 

 1810. His family was anticnt and distinguished. At three years 

 old he was described by his mother as "a good, romping boy, 

 stout, obstreperous, and always ready for play." As a school-boy 

 he was popular, although by that time he had begun to show his 

 love for books, and rarely joined in school sports. He studied for 

 the Engineers, and passed the examinations with such credit, that 

 he obtained a Lieutenant's commission at sixteen, four years before 

 the usual age. He seemed to have a distinguished military career 

 before him. But an imprudent remark, expressing sympathy with 

 the French Revolution of 1830, off'ended King Charles Albert, and 

 led to a sort of honourable banishment to a fortress in the Y;d 

 d'Aosta. Disgusted, he threw up his commission, and for ten 

 years travelled in Europe and England, At twenty-four he wrote 

 to a friend: '*I am enormously ambitious; and when I am 



