GREAT-WORKS.
'Hesperia! Quando Ego te Auspiciam? Quandoque Licebit Nunc Veterum Libris,
Nunc Somno Et Inertibus Horis, Ducere Solicitae Licunda Oblivia Vitae.'
Chapter XCIV.
EXPLANATION,
TO BE SUBMITTED TO
HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY
QUEEN VICTORIA, LONDON,
AND TO
HIS HOLINESS PIUS IX., PONTIFEX MAXIMUS,
ROME.
BY
MY BROTHER DON ANTONIO CARBONI, D.D.,
Head-master of the Grammar School, Coriano, Romagna.
——-
'Homo Sum, Nil Humani a me Alienum Puto.'
How do I explain, that I allowed one full year to pass away before publishing my story, whilst many, soon after my acquittal, heard me in person, corroborate, not indeed boastingly, the impression that I was the identical brave fellow before whose pike a British soldier was coward enough to run away.
I have one excuse, and 'it is an excuse.'
The cast of mind which Providence was pleased to assign me was terribly shaken during four long, long months suffering in gaol, especially, considering the company I was in, which was my misery. The excitement during my trial, my glorious acquittal by a British jury, the hearty acclamations of joy from the people, made me put up with the ignominy and the impotent teeth-gnashing of silver and gold lace; and for the cause of the diggers to which I was sincerely attached, I was not sorry at the Toorak spiders having lent me the wings of an hero—the principal foreign hero of the Eureka stockade. My credit consists now in having the moral courage to assert the truth among living witnesses.
"And I proposed in my mind to seek and search out wisely concerning all things that are done under the sun. This painful occupation hath God given to the children of men to be exercised therein. I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit."—The Preacher, chap. 1st, v. 13, 14.