Count Giuseppe Pecchio was another of those distinguished exiles in whose company Panizzi delighted. Their long correspondence reveals a close intimacy. Pecchio, better known in England as the author of the “Semi-serious Observations of an Italian Exile during his Residence in England,” was also one of the victims of the ill-fated Piedmontese Revolution. England was his first refuge, and, after being engaged in various occupations, amongst others that of Italian teacher at Nottingham, he married an English lady, and, “post tot naufragia tutus,” took up his residence at Brighton.
The book, published at Lugano in 1827, contains amusing sketches of English life from a foreigner’s point of view; and after perusing it one can safely conclude that the Count was indebted for his inferences rather to imagination than to memory—perhaps to the two combined more than to actual facts.
While residing in London Pecchio contemplated the production of a periodical, to which Panizzi was to be the chief contributor, with Messrs. Haywood and Roscoe as his supporters in addition to Silvia Pellico, who was about to be set free on occasion of the marriage of the Archduke Leopold, and whose presence was expected in the metropolis. This formed a strong company for the undertaking, to which the promoters were justified in looking forward with no little hope of success. The attempt to start this periodical, however, proved futile, and not even a number of it ever appeared.
On the 13th November, 1825, Pecchio wrote a letter to Panizzi, for the purpose of introducing a certain Miss E ****, telling him that he ought to appear as a Narcissus to captivate the young lady. Panizzi’s health, however, seemed at this time to fail him, and this he attributed to the severity of the winter season, which, as before stated, invariably affected him in a remarkable decree.
Possibly this may have been one cause of his indisposition. The Count, however, with some acuteness in deciding on symptoms, remarks: “The loss of one’s country is a wound which never heals; it is one of those pains which slowly destroy our own existence without our perceiving it.”
Sufficient space has, however, been allotted to Panizzi’s friends, and it is now time to return to Panizzi himself. His celebrity as a teacher of Italian and lecturer on that language was established at Liverpool. Before dilating upon his peculiar aptitude in this direction we must mention one feature in his character which will pre-eminently raise him in the estimation of all discerning readers. Miss Martin, one of his former pupils, knew him as a political exile in the time of his penury; nevertheless, she well recollects and bears witness to his most high-spirited disinterestedness in pecuniary matters—in fact, his singular disregard of money.
The lectures on the Italian language, at which this lady was present, were delivered by him in the years 1824 and 1825 in English; they had been inaugurated by Mr. Roscoe, and were given at the Royal Institution, Liverpool, where, strange to say, no record of them has been kept.
The following anecdote related by Miss Martin may serve to illustrate the earnestness of his addresses. In reciting some of the lines of the “Gerusalemme Liberata,” where the anxious Crusaders first catch sight of the sacred city of Jerusalem:—
“Ecco apparir Gerusalem si vede,
Ecco additar Gerusalem si scorge;