“Twenty-six years have now passed since we bade one another a last adieu in the Island of Malta, at the fatal period of ’21. You must recollect Dr Costanza, then a young physician and surgeon, now turned of fifty years of age. You had known him in the capital of the kingdom, and you afterwards met him at Montecassino, when you were returning from the gorges of Antrodoca after the hapless result of that first passage of arms upon which depended the fate of our country. That Costanza is now writing to you, and warmly recommends to you three fellow-countrymen of ours, recently saved by miracle from the blood-red hands of the agents of the tyrant of Naples and Sicily....
“Your Compatriot, and erewhile Companion
in misfortune,
Dr Costanza.”
In this letter the mention of Antrodoca (or Antrodoco) is the essential thing. The mountains of Antrodoco are near Rieti, which was the scene of an engagement, on 7th March 1821, between the Neapolitan and the Austrian troops. The actual feat of arms was not discreditable to the Italians; but—perceiving that they were the weaker party, and that the final issue was hopeless for them—they immediately afterwards disbanded, and all was over. I cannot indeed, recollect having ever heard from my father that he was along with the army on that occasion, nor does he affirm it in his versified Autobiography; yet I now see that he must have been so. I do not infer that he was in the fighting ranks; but I do infer that two passages which are to be found in his Veggente in Solitudine have a more positive meaning than I used to attribute to them. The passages are as follows:—
1. “Fratelli, all’armi, all’armi!” etc.
“Brothers, to arms, to arms! Our country has summoned us. I, with my stimulating songs, will also go among you.”
2. (As already referred to) “Tirteo d’Italia,” etc.
“Who will be the Tyrtæus of Italy in the camp? ’Tis I, ’tis I! Such I have been, such I am.”
The first of these passages comes from a song composed by Rossetti towards the date of the soldiering in 1821. The second may have been written about 1845.