The means of Gabriele Rossetti were never equal to paying the cost of expensive publications. My No. 1 was brought out by subscription; Nos. 2 and 4 by the spontaneous liberality of Mr Lyell, and, as far as No. 4 is concerned, Mr Frere came forward, as well, at the close. It is only fair to say that Rossetti was a laborious worker, of independent spirit; and, though he accepted with grateful satisfaction the volunteered bounty of Mr Lyell in these instances, and of Mr Frere in some others likewise, he was the least likely of men to go about to “ask, and ye shall receive.”
As I have been speaking—with the distaste which I learned to feel for them as a class—of Protestantizing Italians, I will add that one excellent man I have known among them was my cousin Teodorico Pietrocola-Rossetti. He was in London in the later years of my father’s life, but was not then taking an active part in the Evangelical propaganda to which he devoted all the closing part of his career. In 1883 he died in Florence, while conducting a service for his congregation. A great number of his hymns are in the collection Inni e Cantici before mentioned.
Back to my tale. And I should here premise
That, turning lengthened studies to account,
I undertook in Malta first to spread
A taste for our Italian literature;
And in distinguished houses not a few
To witness others’ progress was my joy.
A Massic or Falernian wine no more
I drank, as oft in Naples I had done,
But quaffed the spirit of the classics now
Alone, and none could say “Why gorge thyself?”
But, even in study laudable howe’er,
Intemperance is still condemnable.
Many, I know, find teaching wearisome,
Whereas to me ’twas profit and repute;
And I could all repeat from memory
The Comedy of Dante, mystical,
Tasso, Ariosto, drama, satirists,
Petrarch, Chiabrera, and some lyrists more.
Become the foremost of professors there,
I knew the most distinguished travellers
And highest officers of government:
Indeed, from titled man to boatman, all
Bore me affection—saving only one.
The Consul there from Naples was Gerardi,
Who constantly molested refugees.
One day that upon me he fixed his glance,
I cried: “You hangman’s face, what see you in me?”
Confused he drooped his far from pleasant eyes,
And put the tail of him between his legs.
This serf of tyrant power endeavoured then
To get me turned adrift out of the isle,
When Albion’s Sejanus, Castlereagh,
Was ordering to expel the fugitives:
But this Gerardi (he might cry with rage)
Had read my face “Noli me tangere.”
As long as there I lived, I felt assured
That all the world contained no baser man;
But, when I saw in London a Minasi,[48]
I found that I had made a great mistake.
But such a name, by God, pollutes my lips.
No, let my mouth be nevermore befouled
To speak a most opprobrious brigand’s name!
Go, galleys’ rot, or rather gallows’ rot,
Go, Ruffo’s bravo[49] and worse knave than he!
Through that Gerardi, under-strapper of Kings,
I saw from Malta hounded Rossaroll,[50]
And Carrascosa[51] and Abatemarchi,[52]
Capecelatro,[53] Florio, and many more;
And a Poerio,[54] in his rage convulsed,
Was first imprisoned, afterwards expelled.
And Pier de Luca (I record with tears
Thy fate, the flower of courteous learned men)
And Pier de Luca lost his reason hence,
And was in frenzy for some days and nights:
He trembled at Gerardi’s very name,
And later on, to escape, he drowned himself.
O Castlereagh! Thy country rightly deems
That thy best service was thy suicide;
But why no suicide a year before?
Indignant I returned to England’s masts,
For Malta grew to me insufferable.
A nest of corsairs Malta now meseemed,
Where, save that single man, all things I abhorred;
So to the seat imperial of the main
Thetis and Neptune re-conveyed my steps.
Nor shall I paint that lengthy voyaging,
Which in another poem[55] I described.
The curst Gerardi, in insulting terms,
Had written to the Bourbon Council-board
How that Rossetti, that incendiary,
Was to be found upon the British ship;
And cried the King: “Upon a sovereign’s faith,
I’ll do my utmost to get hold of him.”
Well had that General Fardella said,
Who gave me secret pledge of friendliness,
That a malignant star detained me there,
Since o’er me impended a tremendous ire.
And I had stayed, at hazard of my life,
For full three months exposed to all the risk!
Following routine, the British Admiral
Was bidding farewell to the Sovereign;
And he perceived astonished that for rage
The King, like a hyæna, bit his lips.
Treating him almost as a menial, he
Said with an angry and imperious tone:
“Surrender that rebellious subject whom
You saved, and now to England would conduct.”
And he with firmset aspect made reply:
“An English Admiral will not be base.”
Menaces and entreaties he contemned,
And turned his back on him resolvedly;
And, when that evening he returned aboard,
He told what was demanded and refused.
And such a fact cannot be called in doubt,
For all o’er Naples did its rumour run.
I felt myself so moved by that account
That, in the presence of his noble wife,
I with emotion kissed his saving hand.
Thee may God guerdon, mounted soul in heaven!
Twice over did I owe my life to thee,—
And gracious lady, God bless thee alike!
And I reflected: “Why in Ferdinand
Boils up against me such a fierce despite
That, not appeased by lifelong banishment,
He would inflict on me a barbarous death?
So much of rage against my civic song,
In which as father I so lauded him!
And how has he forgotten those my lines
Which drew the very tear-drops from his eyes?”
The savage spirit! When he heard me named,
His knees would jog beneath his body’s weight,
And he against me, the poor exiled bard,
Was all a-tremble, furiously convulsed.
And thence a truthful penman wrote to me
He had himself from the fierce Bourbon heard—
“If even the court declares him innocent,
I’ll make him die under the bastinade:
On public scaffold or in darkest crypt
Die he infallibly shall—and that I swear.”[56]
Thus for a long while I remained in doubt
Of the true motive for such senseless rage:
But then the pen of a most worthy man
Gave me a light amid the obscurity.
What time the King of Naples had decamped,
And I had turned my course to another goal,
Some praise of me was heard by Gaspare Mollo
Duke of Lusciano, who was reckoned then
An able poet; and my fate so willed
That he desired to meet me face to face.
Of voluntary good-will he gave me proofs,
Which I responded to with modesty:
But, when he heard me improvise in verse,
Mollo became as jealous as a beast:
He in my presence spoke in jest alone,
But poured his insults forth behind my back.
He piqued himself the most on improvise:
He saw his primacy endangered much,
And tried his best to make me ludicrous.
And I upon his dramas and his rhymes
(For who can damp a youthful poet’s fire?)
Launched a good ten or dozen epigrams,[57]
Which many men rehearsed with loud guffaws.
For one he gave me, I returned him ten:
This was ill done, I know—but so I did.
Mollo kept brooding o’er his inward grudge,
Which well I read upon his pallid cheek.
Now, when the liberal Government had fall’n,
He was installed as President of a Board
To overhaul the writings then produced.
The President, and Censors in his wake,
From that explosion of anonymous print
Chose hundreds of inflammatory attacks,
And called them all my own—no fable this—
And showed me like a devil to the King.
And how that monumental lie disprove?
If even I had been Briareus,
Writing by night and day with hundred pens,
It would have been a thing impossible
To achieve that quantity of verse and prose.
A shameless slander! Yet my enemy
Mouths it against me, and the King believes.