Mazzini did not settle in London until 1837. It was inevitable that two such patriots and exiles as Mazzini and Rossetti should know one another. There was a great amount of mutual respect between them (of which my Appendix furnishes ample proof), but not anything like constant personal intercourse—in fact, I do not recollect having even once seen Mazzini in our house, but I have occasionally seen him elsewhere. To Italy and freedom they were equally devoted, and the great conception of Italian unity was present to the minds of both. But Mazzini was a determined Republican, which Rossetti was not—being, from the course of his experiences and reflections, more in favour of a constitutional monarchy, though by no means unsympathetic with the idea of a Republic at the rare conjunctures when it emerged as having some practical application: he was never a member of the Giovine Italia. Mazzini was also, by nature and circumstance, an incessant conspirator, and promoted a number of unpromising and abortive insurrections, foredoomed to failure, and viewed with regret, and at times even with great repugnance, by such Italians as were not committed to the extremest forms of political theory and practice. It is no business of mine to express an opinion whether Mazzini or Rossetti was the more nearly in the right; but it has always been my conviction that, had it not been for the agitation so strenuously kept alive by the sublime Genoese patriot, the emancipation and unifying of Italy would not have taken place so soon as they did.

It happened that towards 1850, when my father was writing his Autobiography, he was particularly alienated from the policy pursued by Mazzini and his adherents. The great revolutionary year, 1848, had witnessed uprisings in various parts of Italy (an insurrection in Messina had preceded the French Revolution of February 1848 against Louis Philippe), followed by a regular campaign between the Piedmontese and the Austrians; this was renewed in 1849. In both instances the Austrians were the victors; and many patriotic Italians, including Rossetti, opined that this disastrous result had in large measure been brought about by a Mazzinian agitation (I will not pretend to say how far Mazzini himself was personally responsible for it) which repelled aid that might possibly have been forthcoming from some foreign powers, especially republican France, and denounced the Piedmontese sovereign, Charles Albert, as covertly a traitor to the Italian cause for which he was fighting. I can thus understand a certain feeling on my father’s part which, when he undertook to “sever the few good from numerous bad,” among Italians “posed as Liberals,” withheld him from expressly naming the great protagonist of the national movement, Mazzini, although he indisputably, in his own mind, included him in the roll of “the few good.” Even so the omission is to be regretted.

As to the question of Rossetti’s estimate of Republicanism (to which, as I have already said, he preferred, for practical purposes, a constitutional monarchy), the following distinct profession of faith seems worth preserving. Its date cannot be earlier than June 1850, and is probably a little later. It was written to introduce a poem—not, I think, any that has been published.

“After having seen what is almost always the issue of a democratic republic, more than once attempted in Europe; having seen that, barbarous, sanguinary, fratricidal, predaceous, and atheistic, in France in the last century, it ended in the absolute despotism of Bonaparte; and that, although mild, gentle, generous, and believing, in our own century, it is about to merge into the augmenting despotism of another Bonaparte, who does not even possess the fascination of the military and political successes and the talents of the first; how can ever this blessed Republic still abide in the hearts of so many Italians who sincerely love their country? And yet it does abide.... And was it not this desire which produced among us the discord of minds in 1848, and caused all our subsequent reverses? Oh if all the Italians had then unanimously combined with Charles Albert to expel the common enemy from our sacred soil—oh if many inconsiderate men had not, with the cry of ’Republic’ which they proclaimed with so much fervour, first dismayed that sovereign, and afterwards damped his enthusiasm for Italian independence—at this hour not one German foot would be insolently stamping our land, and Italy would not be such as she has miserably returned to being. Pius IX. himself took fright at that name; and, retreating from the glorious path which he was already footing, he ended by betraying us. A melancholy story this—which has made, makes, and will make, all who love Italy shed prolonged tears.

“‘But then you have no liking for a Republic?’ To any who ask me this, I shall answer: Yes, I like it, and that far better than others do; but I like one which would not have severed from us either Charles Albert or Pius IX., and which would have conduced to our obtaining that national independence that was the ardent longing of all Italians.... I like that Republic which alone can suit the interest of all, and which alone seems capable of enduring in Italy, or indeed in modern Europe.

“Whilst our hapless country had a prospect of good success, I wrote these few extemporized octaves, which might furnish occasion for many notes, so as to establish more fully what such a Republic without peril ought to be—which I have always desired, and now more than ever desire.... I felt my heart touched in re-reading these stanzas; and, rude and unpolished as they are, I yet transcribe them, so that they may bear evidence that my soul did not participate in that political offence which was the cause of our disasters.”

After this rather long digression, I return to the Autobiography, and its contrast between “the few good” and the “numerous bad” Italians.

But ah how few there are that acted thus!
With us a most repulsive crew combined,
Seeking to fish in troubled water-streams.
’Mong scanty good men many bad escaped,
A show of baseness and of wretchedness:
These brought dishonour on the refugees
In French and Portuguese and Spanish soil;
But here in England unexpectedly
There came to settle down the best and worst.
I grieved for famished men and mendicants
Who had recourse to swindling and intrigue:
But Paolelli who became a spy,
And wrought out General Turrigo’s death,[71]
And other such, Italy’s sorrow and shame,
Made me repent—but this I will not say.
Bozzelli was a Liberal of this kind,
And acted it with comic gravity;
And, viler than Borrelli, vilest man,
Betrayed anon his country for a “place.”[72]
The royal beasts having re-sought their dens,
Scoundrels in crowds go to consort with them;
Rome, Naples, Lombardy, and Tuscany,—
I turn my indignant eye from such a horde.

And then reposefully my glance can pause
Upon the upright whom Heaven has with me leagued,
And who, inflamed with patriot charity,
Reverberate on me their proper light.
In a great cause we fell, and from that day
We share the sacredness of Fortune’s blows.
On reaching London, from the very first
I knew some trustworthy, some faithless souls:
These base Minasi set upon my track,
And I—fool that I was—discerned it not.
But all the emigrating company
Treated me brother-like—save only one.[73]
Still, if in me he blames and snaps on all,
For all that’s mine he deems detestable,
He prized my steadfast politics alone,
And, joined with this, my blameless moral course:
As for the rest, he wants all men to sniff
In me the agreeable smell which donkeys yield.
But wherefore in him did such rage collect?
I know not, I: I saw him only once,
When some one showed him to me in the street.