Again Italy called him to help her in her alliance with Prussia against Austria in 1866, and again he fought nobly. The year following he attempted to take Rome, but was a second time arrested and imprisoned for fear of Napoleon III. When that monarch fell at Sedan, and the French troops were withdrawn from the Eternal City, Victor Emmanuel entered without a struggle, and Rome was free.
In 1874, after helping the French Republic, the brave Spartan was elected to Parliament. He was now sixty-seven. As he entered Rome, the streets were blocked with people, who several times attempted to remove the horses, and draw the carriage themselves. Ah! if Anita had only been there to have seen this homage of a grateful nation. He entered the Senate House on the arm of his son Menotti, and when he rose in his red shirt and gray cloak to take the oath, so infirm that he was obliged to be supported by two friends, men wept as they recalled his struggles, and shouted frantically as he took his seat.
Seven years longer the grand old man lived at Caprera, now beautified with gifts from all the world, the recipient of a thank-offering of $10,000 yearly from Italy. Around him were Francesca, whom he married late in life, and their two children whom he idolized,—Manlio and Clelia. He spent his time in writing several books, in tilling the soil, and in telling visitors the wonderful events of his life and of Anita.
On June 2, 1882, all day long he lay by the window, looking out upon the sea. As the sun was setting, a bird alighted on the sill, singing. The great man stammered, "Quanti o allegro!" How joyful it is! and closed his eyes in death. He directed in his will that his body should be burned; but, at the request of the Government and many friends, it was buried at Caprera, to be transferred at some future time to Rome, now the capital of united Italy. Not alone does Italy honor her great Liberator, whom she calls the "most blameless and most beloved of men." Wherever a heart loves liberty, there will Garibaldi's name be cherished and honored.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER.
Vasari, who wrote the lives of the Italian painters, truly said, "It is not by sleeping, but by working, waking, and laboring continually, that proficiency is attained and reputation acquired." This was emphatically true of Richter, as it is of every man or woman who wins a place in the memory of men. The majority die after a commonplace life, and are never heard of; they were probably satisfied to drift along the current, with no especial purpose, save to eat, drink, and be merry.
Not so with the German boy, born in the cold Pine Mountains of Bavaria. His home was a low, thatched building, made of beams of wood, filled in with mortar, one part for the family, and the other for corn and goats. This is still the custom in Switzerland, the poor caring as tenderly for their dumb beasts as for their children. Jean Paul was born on the 21st of March, 1763: "My life and the life of the spring began the same month," he used to say in after years, and the thought of robin red-breasts and spring flowers made the poor lad happy amid the deepest trials.
His father was an under-pastor and organist in the little village of Wunsiedel, and lived on a pitiful salary; but, generous to a fault, he stripped off his own garments to clothe the poor, and sent the schoolmaster a meal every day, because, if possible, he was poorer than the preacher. In school, Jean Paul was a studious boy, almost envying every one who said his lessons well, and fond of his teachers and mates; but one of the boys having cut Paul's hand, the father at once took him home and became his instructor. A painstaking and conscientious man, he showed little aptness for his work, when he gave his boy, at nine years of age, a Latin dictionary to commit to memory! For four solid hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon, Paul and his brother learned grammatical lessons and Latin verses of which they did not understand a word. Still the boy grew more and more fond of books, and of Nature,—made clocks with pendulums and wheels; a sun-dial, drawing his figures on a wooden plate with ink; invented a new language from the calendar signs of the almanac; and composed music on an old harpsichord whose only tuning-hammer and tuning-master were the winds and the weather.