People of England have mostly forgotten now what Italians had to suffer when their necks were under the ferocious heel of Austria.
In a short time I collected a further 5,000 shillings, making 9,000 in all, and I had the pleasure of sending to Mazzini a cheque for £450.*
* The expenses of collection I defrayed myself.
A shilling subscription had been previously proposed mainly at the instigation of W. J. Linton, which bore the names of Joseph Cowen, George Dawson, Dr. Frederic Lees, George Serle Phillips, C. D. Collet, T. S. Duncombe, M.P., Viscount Goderich, M.P. (now Marquis of Ripon), S. M. Hawks, Austin Holyoake, G. J. Holyoake, Thornton Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, David Masson, Edward Miall, M.P., Professor Newman, James Stansfeld, M.P. Some of these names are interesting to recall now. But it was not until Mazzini asked me to make an appeal in the Reasoner that response came. Its success then was owing to the influence of Mazzini's great name. Workmen in mill and mine gave because he wished it.
I published Weill's "Great War of the Peasants," the first and only English translation, in aid of the war in Italy. The object was to create confidence in the struggle of the Italian peasantry to free their country, and to give reasons for subscriptions from English working men to aid their Italian brethren. Madame Venturi made the translation, on Mazzini's suggestion, for the Secular World, in which I published it.
In 1855 wishing to publish certain papers of 'azzini s, I wrote asking him to permit me to do so, when he replied in the most remarkable letter I received from him:
"Dear Sir,—You are welcome to any writing or fragment of mine which you may wish to reprint in the Reasoner. Thought, according to me, is, as soon as publicly uttered, the property of all, not an individual one. In this special case, it is with true pleasure that I give the consentment you ask for. The deep esteem I entertain for your personal character, for your sincere love of truth, perseverance, and nobly tolerant habits, makes me wish to do more; and time and events allowing, I shall.
"We pursue the same end—progressive improvement, association, transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We both want man to be not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending to power which he hates and despises, carrying empty Popish, or thirty-nine article formulas on his brow and none within; but a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just and heroic—the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet. We widely differ as to the how and why. I do dimly believe that all we are now struggling, hoping, discussing, and fighting for, is a religious question. We want a new intellect of life; we long to tear off one more veil from the ideal, and to realise as much as we can of it; we thirst after a deeper knowledge of what we are and of the why we are. We want a new heaven and a new earth. We may not all be now conscious of this, but the whole history of mankind bears witness to the inseparable union of these terms. The clouds which are now floating between our heads and God's sky will soon vanish and a bright sun shine on high. We may have to pull down the despot, the arbitrary dispenser of grace and damnation, but it will only be to make room for the Father and Educator.
"Ever faithfully yours,
"Joseph Mazzini."