"The ministry appointed by the Dictator is a liberal but moderate one. Garibaldi is in earnest in his devotion to the King of Sardinia, and in his determination to unite Italy under his rule. It is to be hoped that he will, as soon as may be, commence the work of raising the Neapolitan people out of some of the absurd superstitions which have always kept them in ignorance, and made them the serfs of juggling priests. He has not yet countenanced, by his presence at the operation, the ridiculous juggle of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius, which is held in such high esteem by the Neapolitans, that all the conquerors of the city have heretofore been obliged to respect it. Saint Januarius, according to tradition, was exposed to be devoured by lions in the amphitheatre of Pozzuoli, when the animals, instead of devouring him, prostrated themselves before him, and immediately became tame. So many persons were converted to Christianity by this miracle, that the saint was ordered to be decapitated, which was done at Solfatara, in the year 305, and the body was buried at Pozzuoli, until the time of Constantine, when it was removed by St. Severus, the Bishop of Naples, and deposited in the church of St. Gennaro. When this removal was made, the woman who is said to have collected the blood at the time of the execution, took it in two small bottles to St. Severus, in whose hands it is said to have immediately melted. After undergoing several removals, the body of the saint was brought back to Naples in 1497, and deposited with great pomp in the cathedral, and the phials containing the blood secured in a tabernacle kept securely locked with two keys, one of which is kept by the archbishop and the other by the municipal authorities. Twice a year, and at other times, on extraordinary occasions, the phials are brought out, and the clots of dried blood, by some chemical process which has been secretly preserved among the priesthood and handed down for four centuries, made to liquefy and run in the phials. Can a people appreciate and derive much benefit from free institutions so long as they permit their senses to be cheated by such a palpable swindle as this?
"But if detestation for young Bomba and his government have been heightened by his flight, how much more grandly than ever Garibaldi looms up in the light of a brave, noble, disinterested, patriotic man. Three months from the day when he left Genoa with a handful of adventurers, denounced as a filibuster and a pirate by the lovers of legitimacy and tyranny, he enters Naples with but five of his staff, knowing that his deeds had made him a home in the hearts of the people there, who welcome him as their angel of deliverance. Naples lights up with joy—the free flag of Italy waves from her windows, her long oppressed citizens shout exultingly, and crown the hero with wreaths of laurel, and fill his ears with glad cries of 'Long live Garibaldi.' Well does he deserve them. Five marvellous stages mark the progress of the hero, Marsala, Palermo, Malazzo, Reggio, and Naples, all passed over in the short space of three months—and this has been all the time which Garibaldi required, supported as he was by the national sentiment, to overthrow a monarchy deemed immovable, which, not four years since, defied France and England, and which in the face of the naval preparations of the two greatest powers of the world, had determined to persevere in its resistance. Such triumphs, such ovations, would have turned the brain of a weaker or more ambitious man, and Garibaldi has given the lie to those adherents of tyranny who have charged him with personal ambition, by immediately, upon taking possession of the capital of the Two Sicilies, proclaiming the territory and himself under the reign and rule of Victor Emanuel. In future ages, when the deeds of the Cæsars and the Alexanders and the Napoleons shall be appreciated as they deserve, according to their merits, how high above them all will rise the memory of the two greatest of the world's heroes, of the two men whose personal ambition was merged and forgotten in the welfare of their country, of two men worthy to stand ever side by side and hand in hand—Washington and Garibaldi."
CHAPTER XVII.
"Thou, Æneas' nurse, Caieta, gav'st thy name,
In dying, to our shores, with deathless fame;
Thy name the place shall keep, thy bones shall guard,
In great Hesperia, if that be reward."
Virgil's Æneid, Book vii. T. D.