Carlo Cattaneo is a man of unquestioned power of intellect, of strong character, and resolute energy. Already distinguished, not only as a political economist, but as a forcible reasoner in applied politics, he took a leading part in the struggle of 1848 in Milan, and, inspired by ill-will towards Charles Albert and the Piedmontese, was one of the promoters of the disastrous Lombard policy which defeated the hopes of the opponents of Austria at that day. Though an Italian liberal, and unquestionably honest in his patriotic intentions, he was virtually an ally of Radetzky. When the Austrians retook Milan, he was compelled to fly, and took refuge in Lugano, where he compiled three large volumes on the affairs of Italy, from the accession of Pius IX. to the fall of Venice, in which he exhibited his political views, endeavoring to show that the misfortunes of Lombardy were due to the ambitious and false policy of the unhappy Charles Albert. His distrust of the Piedmontese has not diminished with the recent changes in the affairs of Italy; and although Lombardy is now united to Piedmont, and the hope of freedom seems to lie in a hearty and generous union of men of all parties in support of the new government, Cattaneo, when in March last he was elected a member of the National Parliament, refused to take his seat, that he might not be obliged to swear allegiance to the King and the Constitution. His political desire seems to be to see Italy not brought under one rule, but composed of a union of states, each preserving its special autonomy. He is a federalist, and does not share in the unitarian view which prevails with almost all the other prominent Italian statesmen, and which at this moment appears to be the only system that can create a strong, united, independent Italy. It was to him, perhaps, more than to any other single man, that the difficulties which lately arose in the settling of the mode of annexation of Sicily and Naples to the Sardinian kingdom were due; and the small party in Parliament which recently refused to join in the vote of confidence in the ministry of Cavour was led by Ferrari, the disciple of the Milanese Doctor.
But however impracticable Cattaneo may be, and however mistaken and extravagant his political views, he is a man of such vigor of mind, that a journal conducted by him becomes, from the fact of his connection with it, one of the important organs of Italian thought. We trust that the "Politecnico" will find subscribers among those in our country who desire to keep up their knowledge of Italian affairs at a time of such extraordinary interest as the present.
Elsie Venner. A Romance of Destiny. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 2 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.
English literature numbers among its more or less distinguished authors a goodly number of physicians. Sir Thomas Browne was, perhaps, the last of the great writers of English prose whose mind and style were impregnated with imagination. He wrote poetry without meaning it, as many of his brother doctors have meant to write poetry without doing it, in the classic style of
"Inoculation, heavenly maid, descend!"
Garth's "Dispensary" was long ago as fairly buried as any of his patients; and Armstrong's "Health" enjoys the dreary immortality of being preserved in the collections, like one of those queer things they show you in a glass jar at the anatomical museums. Arbuthnot, a truly genial humorist, has hardly had justice done him. People laugh over his fun in the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," and are commonly satisfied to think it Pope's. Smollett insured his literary life in "Humphrey Clinker"; and we suppose his Continuation of Hume is still one of the pills which ingenuous youth is expected to gulp before it is strong enough to resist. Goldsmith's fame has steadily gained; and so has that of Keats, whom we may also fairly reckon in our list, though he remained harmless, having never taken a degree. On the whole, the proportion of doctors who have positively succeeded in our literature is a large one, and we have now another very marked and beautiful case in Dr. Holmes. Since Arbuthnot, the profession has produced no such wit; since Goldsmith, no author so successful.
Five years ago it would have been only Dr. Holmes's intimate friends that would have considered the remarkable success he has achieved not only possible, but probable. They knew, that, if the fitting opportunity should only come, he would soon show how much stuff he had in him,—sterner stuff, too, than the world had supposed,—stuff not merely to show off the iris of a brilliant reputation, but to block out into the foundations of an enduring fame. It seems an odd thing to say that Dr. Holmes had suffered by having given proof of too much wit; but it is undoubtedly true. People in general have a great respect for those who scare them or make them cry, but are apt to weigh lightly one who amuses them. They like to be tickled, but they would hardly take the advice of their tickler on any question they thought serious. We have our doubts whether the majority of those who make up what is called "the world" are fond of wit. It rather puts them out, as Nature did Fuseli: They look on its crinkling play as men do at lightning; and while they grant it is very fine, are teased with an uncomfortable wonder as to where it is going to strike next. They would rather, on the whole, it were farther off. They like well-established jokes, the fine old smoked-herring sort, such as the clown offers them in the circus, warranted never to spoil, if only kept dry enough. Your fresh wit demands a little thought, perhaps, or at least a kind of negative wit, in the recipient. It is an active, meddlesome—quality, forever putting things in unexpected and somewhat startling relations to each other; and such new relations are as unwelcome to the ordinary mind as poor relations to a nouveau riche. Who wants to be all the time painfully conceiving of the antipodes walking like flies on the ceiling? Yet wit is related to some of the profoundest qualities of the intellect. It is the reasoning faculty acting per saltum, the sense of analogy brought to a focus; it is generalization in a flash, logic by the electric telegraph, the sense of likeness in unlikeness, that lies at the root of all discoveries; it is the prose imagination, common-sense at fourth proof. All this is no reason why the world should like it, however; and we fancy that the Question, Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? was plaintively put in the primitive tongue by one of the world's gray fathers to another without producing the slightest conviction. Of course, there must be some reason for this suspicion of wit, as there is for most of the world's deep-rooted prejudices. There is a kind of surface-wit that is commonly the sign of a light and shallow nature. It becomes habitual persiflage, incapable of taking a deliberate and serious view of anything, or of conceiving the solemnities that environ life. This has made men distrustful of all laughers; and they are apt to confound in one sweeping condemnation with this that humor whose base is seriousness, and which is generally the rebound of the mind from over-sad contemplation. They do not see that the same qualities that make Shakspeare the greatest of tragic poets make him also the deepest of humorists.
Dr. Holmes was already an author of more than a quarter of a century's standing, and was looked on by most people as an amusing writer merely. He protested playfully and pointedly against this, once or twice; but, as he could not help being witty, whether he would or no, his audience laughed and took the protest as part of the joke. He felt that he was worth a great deal more than he was vulgarly rated at, and perhaps chafed a little; but his opportunity had not come. With the first number of the "Atlantic" it came at last, and wonderfully he profited by it. The public were first delighted, and then astonished. So much wit, wisdom, pathos, and universal Catharine-wheeling of fun and fancy was unexampled. "Why, good gracious," cried Madam Grundy, "we've got a genius among us fit last! I always knew what it would come to!" "Got a fiddlestick!" says Mr. G.; "it's only rockets." And there was no little watching and waiting for the sticks to come down. We are afraid that many a respectable skeptic has a crick in his neck by this time; for we are of opinion that these are a new kind of rocket, that go without sticks, and stay up against all laws of gravity.
We expected a great deal from Dr. Holmes; we thought he had in him the makings of the best magazinist in the country; but we honestly confess we were astonished. We remembered the proverb, "'Tis the pace that kills," and could scarce believe that such a two-forty gait could be kept up through a twelvemonth. Such wind and bottom were unprecedented. But this was Eclipse himself; and he came in as fresh as a May morning, ready at a month's end for another year's run. And it was not merely the perennial vivacity, the fun shading down to seriousness, and the seriousness up to fun, in perpetual and charming vicissitude;—here was the man of culture, of scientific training, the man who had thought as well as felt, and who had fixed purposes and sacred convictions. No, the Eclipse-comparison is too trifling. This was a stout ship under press of canvas; and however the phosphorescent star-foam of wit and fancy, crowding up under her bows or gliding away in subdued flashes of sentiment in her wake, may draw the eye, yet she has an errand of duty; she carries a precious freight, she steers by the stars, and all her seemingly wanton zigzags bring her nearer to port.
When children have made up their minds to like some friend of the family, they commonly besiege him for a story. The same demand is made by the public of authors, and accordingly it was made of Dr. Holmes. The odds were heavy against him; but here again he triumphed. Like a good Bostonian, he took for his heroine a schoolma'am, the Puritan Pallas Athene of the American Athens, and made her so lovely that everybody was looking about for a schoolmistress to despair after. Generally, the best work in imaginative literature is done before forty; but Dr. Holmes should seem not to have found out what a Mariposa grant Nature had made him till after fifty.