April 1.
Yesterday I passed at Ostia and Castle Fusano. A million birds sang; the woods teemed with blossoms; the sod grew green hourly over the graves of the mighty Past; the surf rushed in on a fair shore; the Tiber majestically retreated to carry inland her share from the treasures of the deep; the sea-breezes burnt my face, but revived my heart. I felt the calm of thought, the sublime hopes of the future, nature, man,—so great, though so little,—so dear, though incomplete. Returning to Rome, I find the news pronounced official, that the viceroy Ranieri has capitulated at Verona; that Italy is free, independent, and one. I trust this will prove no April-foolery, no premature news; it seems too good, too speedy a realization of hope, to have come on earth, and can only be answered in the words of the proclamation made yesterday by Pius IX.:—
"The events which these two months past have seen rush after one another in rapid succession, are no human work. Woe to him who, in this wind, which shakes and tears up alike the lofty cedars and humble shrubs, hears not the voice of God! Woe to human pride, if to the fault or merit of any man whatsoever it refer these wonderful changes, instead of adoring the mysterious designs of Providence."
LETTER XXIV.
Affairs in Italy.—The Provisional Government of Milan.—Address to the German Nation.—Brotherhood, and the Independence of Italy.—The Provisional Government to the Nations subject to the Rule of the House of Austria.—Reflections on these Movements.—Lamartine.—Beranger.—Mickiewicz in Florence: Enthusiastic Reception: styled the Dante of Poland: his Address before the Florentines.—Exiles returning.—Mazzini.—The Position of Pius IX.—His Dereliction from the Cause of Freedom and of Progress.—The Affair of the Jesuits.—His Course in various Matters.—Language of the People.—The Work begun by Napoleon virtually finished.—The Loss of Pius IX. for the Moment a great one.—The Responsibility of Events lying wholly with the People.—Hopes and Prospects of the Future.
Rome, April 19, 1848.
In closing my last, I hoped to have some decisive intelligence to impart by this time, as to the fortunes of Italy. But though everything, so far, turns in her favor, there has been no decisive battle, no final stroke. It pleases me much, as the news comes from day to day, that I passed so leisurely last summer over that part of Lombardy now occupied by the opposing forces, that I have in my mind the faces both of the Lombard and Austrian leaders. A number of the present members of the Provisional Government of Milan I knew while there; they are men of twenty-eight and thirty, much more advanced in thought than the Moderates of Rome, Naples, Tuscany, who are too much fettered with a bygone state of things, and not on a par in thought, knowledge, preparation for the great future, with the rest of the civilized world at this moment. The papers that emanate from the Milanese government are far superior in tone to any that have been uttered by the other states. Their protest in favor of their rights, their addresses to the Germans at large and the countries under the dominion of Austria, are full of nobleness and thoughts sufficiently great for the use of the coming age. These addresses I translate, thinking they may not in other form reach America.
"THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MILAN TO THE GERMAN NATION.