Tuscan states would have extended from Leghorn | Italy was involved by implication; but for a long to Ancona, I am persuaded that such arrange-time preceding the election of Charles V., the ments would have contributed to the peace of Emperor's authority had been growing weaker and Europe, to the progress of civilisation, and unques- weaker, and had dwindled down to the usage of a tionably to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of few feudal rights and the form of coronation in the people of Italy. Nor do I think that Austria that country, and this latter had been omitted, for would have been lowered in the scale of nations if good reasons, by the immediate predecessors of she had confined her territories to the north of the Charles-the Emperors Frederic III. and MaxiAlps; for then she would have been limited to a milian I. Charles V. was crowned Emperor and degree that at present no one can say is the case." King by the Pope; and he was the last that was Thus, in the summer of 1852, in the last ses- so. During the reign of that potent monarch, sion of Parliament, spoke Viscount Palmerston - Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan, were, hereno longer directing the Foreign Affairs of Great ditarily in the three first, by conquest and approBritain. priation in the last, his personal possessions. It Five years have passed since the despatches we was decidedly the Spaniard and not the German have quoted were written to the Austrian diplo- that dominated beyond the Alps. Upon the abdimatist in London-in rebuke, we presume we cation of Charles this was marked with greater must call it, of the Italian tendencies of Lord distinctness. It was then (as everybody knows) Palmerston. In the interval, a bloody struggle that the division of the Austrian house took has taken place in those parts of "our august place the Spanish branch forming the hereditary, master's" empire which "extend beyond the Alps." the German the elective line. To the former went The sword has been drawn for Italian independ-all the Italian possessions of Charles; and even ence, and has been sheathed in discomfiture. The under the feeble and inefficient princes who sucEmperor" has resumed his sway in his portion of Northern, and, it would seem for the present, even increased his influence, his domination, in Central Italy. And yet, maugre this re-establishment of imperial authority in that country, maugre the disastrous issue of Italian aspirations, here we have the same Viscount Palmerston, in his place in Parliament-not, it is true, as a Minister, but with all the weight of his great name and fame-not been (as they almost invariably were during uttering, in the shape of regrets for the past, words which we may fairly consider as embodying wishes, if not hopes, for the future. We share those wishes our hopes are, it is true, less clear and distinct than they.

ceeded Philip II. on the throne of Spain, it was still the Spaniard's grasp that was fastened upon Italy. The Emperor's titular sovereignty, it is true, remained (for the "Holy Roman Empire" remained) over certain appurtenances of the Spanish crown in that country; but the actual enjoyment and the substantial power lay with the latter; and had the interests of the two branches

that period) identical, the relations of vassal and feudal lord would have had little influence indeed upon the action of one of the parties.

But it is from the peace of Utrecht we proposed to take our departure; for it is then that A vast clamour was raised among politicians of England first appears with any weight or interest a certain stamp against the renowned ex-Secretary in Italian politics. By that peace the Emperor for the line he pursued in Austro-Italian matters. obtained of the spoils of the Spanish monarchy The Ultra-Tory allies of Austria in this country in that quarter of the world, Naples, the presidi were infinitely more angry with his lordship for of Tuscany, and the Duchy of Milan; but the his patronage of Italian than of Hungarian revolt-last he did not obtain entire. During the war that ers. The comparative merits of the two insurrections we will not here enter upon. But, as one principal ground of attack upon Lord Palmerston was what his arraigners called an unprecedented opposition to "our ancient ally," we think we can set that matter fairly at rest, as far as Italian questions are concerned. At the same time, we believe that a retrospective glance at the territorial apportionment of Italy will be interesting to our readers, and useful in enabling them to embrace the present situation, and to appreciate possible eventualities.

We shall not go further back, in detail, than the peace of Utrecht, and for this reason: that for some century and a half before that date the Emperors of Germany scarcely possessed for themselves a single domain on Italian soil.† In the imperial dignity of old the royalty of

*Times report.

preceded that treaty, he had been forced, in order to detach the Duke of Savoy from the French cause, to confer on him certain investitures. Those grants had been made very reluctantly by the Emperor (Joseph I.), and he had even revoked them. The treaty of Utrecht, however, confirmed the Duke (Victor Amadeus) in those assignments-in Monferrat and in the districts detached from the Milanese. It did more. It gave to him "that famous isle of the Mediterranean," and with it the royal dignity. King of Sicily was the first regal style of the Alpine duke, whose ambition, however, pointed elsewhere.

Now, in that treaty of peace, England, we sup pose it will be admitted, played no inferior part: and to the patronage of that power it was that the Piedmontese was indebted for his elevation in the scale of dignities, and for the advantageous place altogether which he occupied in the treaty. England, whilst, in order to counterbalance the acces

The Duchy of Mantua was seized by the Emperor Joseph sion to French power by the establishment of a I., it is true, but only in that war which the peace of Utrecht terminated.

Bourbon on the throne of Spain, she vindicated

LORD PALMERSTON, AUSTRIA, AND ITALY.

for her ally the Emperor the great bulk of the| possessions of the Spaniard in Italy, at the same time endeavoured to secure something of a counterpoise to that extensive rule by the aggrandization and promotion of the House of Savoy. England may be said to have stood sponsor at its regal baptism, and to have rocked the cradle of its royalty. So distasteful, in fact, to the Emperor was this undisguised favour of the British Government to Victor Amadeus, that he refused to recognise the latter as King of Sicily, and would not accede to the stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht. It was not till the next year that he made peace at Baden, when as some compensation (a very moderate one certainly) for Sicily, he obtained Sardinia, which, with a topographical no less than historical propriety that cannot be too much admired, the negotiators of Utrecht had assigned to that equally Mediterranean and maritime power, the Electorate of Bavaria !

Two or three years afterwards Sicily was made over to the Emperor, and Sardinia given to the Duke of Savoy, by the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance (1718)-an alliance formed to arrest the ambitious projects of Alberoni. On the same occasion the Spaniard was re-introduced into Italyin but circumscribed limits, it is true-in the person of Don Carlos, to whom were allotted in prospect the Duchies of Parma and Placentia, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, then occupied by the last of the Medici. We shall see presently how this stipulation ultimately affected Central Italy. But it is the Sardinian monarchy that first con

cerus us.

In the war of the Polish Succession (from 1733 to 1738) the maritime powers, England and Holland, usually involved in any important European contest, took no part. But the Sardinian power was a gainer. Ouly this time it was to an enemy and not to an ally that the price was paid by Austria-in the shape of more territorial cessions; the provinces of Tortona and Lower Novara, with some smaller lordships, and the Laughes (a district between Montferrat and Piedmont) to be held as imperial fiefs.

It was in this case, too, a gainer. True, it did some service for its gains; but even that could not render less bitter to the Empress-Queen the sacrifices she was compelled to make, and she vented her bitterness upon her ally, Great Britain. England had backed, if not suggested, the claims of the Piedmontese; England had taken the House of Savoy under its special patronage; and the fresh subtractions from the fair Milanese at the Treaties of Worms and Aix-la-Chapelle (1743 and 1748) were resented by the Court of Vienna to such a degree that there can be no doubt of their having influenced its relations to this country for some time afterwards, and tended to produce that rapprochement between Hapsburg and Bourbon, in which the rivalries of centuries were forgotten, and in which the daughter of Rudolph's race stooped to conquer-the Pompadour. Any one may read in the historian of the House of Austria" the wounded pride of Maria Theresa, the soreness she took no pains to conceal in her intercourse with the English Ambassador, and her outbreaks against this country as the cause of her mortifications.

66

The deductions from the Milanese just alluded to-made at Worms and confirmed at Aix-laChapelle-were the Valle di Novara (that is, the Upper Province of that name) and the Pavese. This last cession completed the Sardinian territory on the side of Milan. Step by step, since the commencement of the century, the Piedmontese princes had acquired all the portions of that splendid duchy that lay on the right bank of the Ticino. From this date, that river divides the sovereignties of Hapsburg and Savoy.

Such, then, was the territorial progress of the Piedmontese power in the first half of the last century. We pass over all the intermediate time until the great settlement of 1814-15, as affording, whether in the stationary position of the monarchy, or in its vicissitudes during the wars of the French At the Treaties of '14 and '15, Revolution, nothing that immediately touches our present purpose. the kingdom of Sardinia again rears its head out of that vast deluge of ambition that had engulphed It reappears, and with it the Next came the war of the Austrian Succession. so many a throne. One is really weary of these wars of pure lust of patronage of England-patronage extended even aggrandisement that so crowd the eighteenth cen- to the length of dishonour to the patron; for the tury—the war of the Spanish, of the Polish, of faith of England had been pledged to the Genoese the Austrian, the only-not-war of the Bavarian for the restoration of their ancient independence Succession. Nothing but wars of Succession! when Lord W. Bentinck appeared before their Where the contests did not bear this appellation, their motive was the same-mere lust of territory, the wanton rapine of ambition. In effect, from the great religious to the great political devastation-from the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth to the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, not a war occurred involving any principles dear to humanity, disclosing any growing popular opinion, or embodying any great national sentiment. Who, for instance, ever heard or dreamed of Italian independence, Italian nationality in those days? But this by the way. Let us see how the Sardinian power fared in respect to this war of the Austrian Succession.

city.

We may here mention, by the bye, that the Congress of Vienna, to which appeal is so often made, was not the sole standard of the international relations of Europe at the epoch from which its territorial distribution, so long undisturbed, is dated. That Congress stands intermediately between the However, to take all three together, they two Treaties of Paris of May 1814 and November 1815. left at last the monarchy of the House of Savoy in possession of its limits of 1792, with the addition of the states of Genoa, and the so-called Imperial fiefs, which, formerly attached to the German Emperor, had been ceded to form part of the

Ligurian Republic, during its short-lived exist- | same time it seems to have intended to counterpoise

ence.

imperial by Spanish influence in the Peninsula. With these two purposes, as regarded Italian matters, the contracting Powers adjudged Sicily to the Austrian, but granted the eventual succession to Parma aud Placentia, and to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to Don Carlos of Spain, with investiture by the Emperor. It is true that this arrangement was not definitively agreed to till some dozen years afterwards, nor without much opposition and many a shifting alliance; and it is also true that it gave occasion to the only trace we can find of independence or national spirit in all these dreary pages of Italian chronicles. The Pope protested, alleging his ancient rights over Parma.

The

Now, it seems to us, from this résumé of territorial transactions as regards Austria and Sardinia from the beginning of the last century, that the accusation of having taken up the latter as a petpower, and having thus departed from traditional British policy, is not well grounded against our late-and, we will add, great-Foreign Minister. From the date of the establishment of German Hapsburg in Italy upon the ruins of the Spanish monarchy, we perceive England aiding to promote the Piedmontese sovereigns on important occasions never opposing their pretensions. We perceive this country, whilst it assisted in the establishment of the Austrian for the counterac- Farnese Duke refused to acknowledge any but tion of the Bourbon influence, at the same time pontifical sovereignty over his Duchy. The last keeping a steady and vigilant eye upon the march of the Medici, not admitting even that mezzo terof the Imperial power in the Italian peninsula; mine, asserted "divine right" in its most direct and as it advances, pace by pace, taking care to and unmitigated acceptation. rear and to encourage at its side another power, to Three years sufficed for the duration of this serve as a check to over-preponderance, and a ral- settlement" (as used to be said of that ever unlying-point in case of need. In extending, then, settled "Eastern Question"), which had cost so her protection and patronage. to the House of much toil and trouble. "It was a singular revoSavoy, England, acting by her late Foreign Secre- lution," says, justly enough, a caustic historian, "a tary, has followed a policy of tradition. But it is singular turn of things, that deprived Charles VI. said by the adversaries of Lord Palmerston that for ever of Naples and Sicily, and again enriched policy has been pushed too far; it has ceased to the King of Sardinia at his expense, because he be a mere precaution for the purpose of counter-(the Emperor) had had a hand in giving a king to balancing Austrian ascendancy in Italy; it has the Poles."* assumed all but an aggressive character, for the purpose of extending that power altogether. In short, it has abetted the attempts at independence; it has joined in the cry for Italian nationality. But if this be so, we think it can be shown that in so doing it had in view the interests, not of Italy alone, but also of Austria herself, and, in a great measure, of Europe.

First, however, we will just sketch for our readers the territorial vicissitudes of those other portions of Italy in question, in order to show how its fair sovereignties were tossed about between Bourbons and Hapsburgs; how the "Great Powers" handled Italian provinces as mere merchandise; how they resorted to that country for materials for a system of barter to settle their own disputes. The following brief résumé will amply bear out the truth of these assertions.

The treaty of Utrecht, as we have seen, gave to the imperial branch of the Hapsburg House Naples, Milan, and the ports of Tuscany. To these must be added Mantua, of which the Em peror Joseph took possession during the war. Tuscany was then in possession of the Medici; Parma, of the Farnese; Modena (to which Mirandola had lately been sold by the Emperor) of the Este. The allotment of Sardinia and Sicily, made under this treaty, and that of Baden (a sort of supplement to it), has been already mentioned. So it was the German that, almost exclusively, supplanted the Spaniard. The treaty of the Quadruple Alliance was signed five years after that of Utrecht. Its main object, undoubtedly, was to check the daring ambition and arrest the exorbitant jects of the Cardinal-Adventurer; but at the

The war of the Polish Succession was terminated by a treaty of peace in 1738. In accordance with its provisions, Don Carlos quitted Parma and Placentia for Naples and Sicily, conquered by him during the war. The two duchies he resigned to the Emperor; and, moreover, renounced the right-which, by the death of John Gaston, the last of the Medici, had now become available-to the succession of Tuscany, reserving, however, the Presidii. Tuscany was handed over to the consort of that princess whose inheritance was soon to furnish the materials for yet another "War of Succession."

Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;

Nam quæ Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.

It was a duke going a-begging for a duchy-this same Francis, erst of Lorraine. He had been soothe the disappointment of the Posnanian compelled to abdicate his duchy of that name to Stanislaus, and the mortified dignity of his son-inlaw, Louis XV. Happily, the Etruscan vacancy

* Voltaire, "Annales de l'Empire." The whole passage is so much in the vein of the writer, and contains so much truth of general application, that we hold it worth extracting. enchaine tous les évenemens, et se joue de la prévoyance des "Rien," he proceeds, "ne montre mieux quelle fatalité hommes. Son bonheur l'avait deux fois rendu victorieux de 150,000 Turcs; et Naples et Sicile lui furent enlevés par 10,000 Espagnols, en une seule cainpagne. Aurait-on imagicé en 1700 que Stanislas, palatin de Posnanie, serait fait roi de Pologne par Charles XII.; qu'ayant perdu la Pologne, il deviendrait due de Lorraine; et que, pour cette raison là même, la maison de Lorraine aurait la Toscane? Si on réfléchit," he concludes, "à tous les événemens qui ont troublé et changé les états, on trouvera que presque rien n'est arrivé de ce que les peuples attendaient, et de ce que les politiques avaient prepare." Clenching conclusion! and which may well give us all pause.

presented itself. All parties were satisfied: that of Northern, and succeeding the Italian in Cenis to say, all who were consulted. Is it necessary tral Italy; and the Spaniard, yet again, ousting to add, princes were the parties, not the people? the German from the principality of Northern And thus were Italian fortunes affected by a Italy. What an absurd embroglio! equal in inquarrel for a Sarmatian throne! tricacy to the House that Jack built-in logical sequence, we opine, inferior to that celebrated myth. But, on the other hand, what a sad historical spectacle! The famous sonnet of Filicaja, written a century before the date we have arrived

Last of the changes, until the great revolutionary shock which shattered many a political edifice and displaced dynasties, native or foreign, old or new, was the change effected by the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748. Italy again sup-at-that magnificent lament for a stranger-ridden plies the compensation; for it was in consideration of the restitutions made by France of its conquests in Flanders that Parma and Placentia were re-transferred to the Bourbons of Spain. Don Philip, brother of Carlos of Naples, and son-inlaw to Louis XV., was installed in those duchies, to which Guastalla, lopped from the Duchy of Mantua, was thrown in par dessus le marché.

Here then, in the space of less than half a century, we have had the German ousting the Spaniard from Northern and Southern Italy; the Spaniard succeeding the Italian in a principality of Northern,† and not succeeding him in Central only because himself, in his turn, ousted the German from Southern Italy ;§ the German, again, ousting the Spaniard from the principality

*The Milanese and the two Sicilies. + Parma and Placentia.
Tuscany.
§ Naples and Sicily.

land and an impotent nationality-would it have found much less cause for dropping its "melodious tears" over the retrospect of that half hundred we have just reviewed?

Our restricted space causes us to reserve the observations we have further to offer in connexion with the subject of this paper. Having vindicated in some measure, we trust, the policy pursued in Austro-Italian relations by this country under the Palmerstonian régime, we propose, on another occasion, to consider the bearings of that policy if carried out to such "changes in the map of Europe," as the once mighty Minister, now become a presumptuous individual," with a pencil that might be mistaken for a Parthian arrow, "sketched out."

66

A FEW years ago, while residing at the Cape, I became acquainted with several of those enterprising traders who are engaged in the lucrative but rather hazardous traffic with the natives north of the Orange River. These traders are sometimes absent for more than two years from the colony, moving about with their waggons and servants, from one tribe to another, until their goods are all disposed of, when they return to Graham's Town or Cape Town with the cattle, hides, ivory, ostrich feathers, and other valuables, into which their original merchandise has been converted, usually at a profit of some four or five hundred per cent. Most of those traders whom I knew in Cape Town confined their operations to the country lying along the western coast of the continent, and stretching from the Orange River towards the Portuguese possessions in Benguela. Some of them had advanced on that side nearly to the great lake which has since been discovered by travellers proceeding from another quarter. The existence of this lake is well known to the natives inhabiting the western coast, who have often spoken of it to their English visitors.

One of the boldest and most successful of these adventurous traders was a Mr. Hutton, a respectable English colonist, who had accumulated a small fortune by his excursions among the Namaquas and the Dammaras, and was talking of retiring from the

business. I had heard of him not only as a lucky dealer and a daring hunter, but also as being one of the most intelligent explorers of South Africa; and having been able on one occasion to render him a slight service, I obtained from him in return a good deal of information concerning those parts of the interior with which he was familiar. Some of his own adventures which he occasionally related, in illustration of the facts thus communicated, seemed to me to be curious and interesting enough to be worth preserving. One of them I will endeavour to repeat as nearly as possible in the words in which he told it.

It may be as well, before proceeding with the narrative, to mention briefly the circumstances which drew from Mr. Hutton the account of this singular adventure. The service which I had rendered to him consisted merely in obtaining from the authorities, by proper representations, the liberation of a Namaqua servant, whom he had brought to town with him from the country beyond the Orange River. This dusky youth was in appearance and in character a genuine Hottentot. He had the small stature, the tawny complexion, the deep-set eyes, the diminutive nose, the wide and prominent cheekbones, and the curiously tufted hair which distinguish that peculiar race. He was usually silent, grave, and somewhat sullen in mood, except when he was excited by strong

liquor, of which, like most of his compatriots, he would make them out to be. I put the little fellow was immoderately fond. In this state Apollo (as in one of my waggons, and dosed him with quihe was preposterously named) became not only nine and other medicines; and in a few days he lively and boisterous, but excessively pugnacious. was running about, as well and lively as ever. The latter quality brought him frequently into told me that his name was Tkuetkue, or some collision with some of the saucy and knowing other such crackjaw affair, with two or three clucks blacks of Cape Town, who found the same ma- in it, that I would not attempt to pronounce. So licious pleasure in teasing the poor Namaqua, that thinking it best to give him a Christian name, I town-bred youngsters in a London school evince in called him Apollo, in compliment to his good annoying any rustic new-comer. It was in con- looks. He has remained with me ever since, and sequence of an affair of this sort, that poor half-has always shown himself attached to me in his muddled Apollo, after a desperate combat with a gigantic Mozambique" apprentice," had one day been bundled off by the police to the lock-up house; and his master, who was hardly more familiar than Apollo himself with the ways of the town, came to me to ask my advice and assistance towards getting the unlucky Namaqua released. There was little difficulty in accomplishing this, when the circumstances were properly explained to the presiding functionary; and Apollo, after a few hours detention in the "tronk" (or city jail), was restored to his master in a sober and very penitent condition.

I was somewhat surprised by the evidences of strong anxiety and even affection displayed by Mr. Hutton for his uncouth protégé in this affair. The latter had certainly nothing in his appearance or ways which could be considered prepossessing. He had, indeed, the grace to evince some attachment for his master; but otherwise his mental and moral traits did not appear to be more attractive than his physiognomy. I had heard that Mr. Hutton, in spite of his reputation as a keen trader and an ardent hunter, was an upright and kindhearted man; and I concluded that Master Apollo had probably been intrusted by his parents to the trader, with a solemn promise that their precious treasure should be restored to them unscathed; and no doubt Mr. Hutton's solicitude proceeded from his conscientious anxiety to keep his engagement.

He called upon me that evening, to thank me for my attention to his wishes. In the course of our conversation, I casually remarked that Apollo must be a good servant to have inspired his master with such a feeling of regard for him.

I ought to care for him," answered Mr. Hutton, "since he saved my life."

This reply led, of course, to further questioning, and finally elicited from the trader the narrative which struck me as so remarkable.

own way. He is a real savage still. No one but myself can control him; and he generally obeys my orders as long as he can remember them, which is seldom more than a day. But I cannot make him a teetotaler or a man of peace, although I believe I have set him a fair example in both those lines. He will drink whenever he can get the liquor; and when he is excited by drink or provocation he will fight like a mad tiger. Otherwise he is an honest, faithful fellow, and the best after-rider I ever had. An after-rider, you know, is the name given to the Hottentot or black boy who rides with you, and carries your spare gun and ammunition, and sometimes heads off the game, or assists you in any other way, as you order him."

I knew what an after-rider was, but I was curious to hear how Apollo had been able to render his master the great service spoken of. It seemed that in the first instance he had owed his own life to Mr. Hutton's kindness.

"Probably he did," answered Hutton, "although if I had not found him he might have recovered. These Namaquas and Hottentots have wonderfully tough constitutions; it takes a deal of sickness or starvation to kill them. But the other affair took place about four years ago; and if you care to hear the story, I have no objection to repeat it. I have told it often, for the credit of my friend Apollo.

"I was on my way to Dammara-land with two waggons and about a dozen people. Two of them were Mozambique blacks, whom I had brought with me from Cape Town, and the remainder were Hottentots and Namaquas that I had picked up on the way. Most of them I got at old Schmelen's missionary station, on this side of the Orange River. The two negroes were tolerably good servants; they had gained some knowledge of civilised habits in Cape Town. The others could do little besides helping to drive the waggons; though I picked up Apollo about ten years ago," he sometimes they were of service in following said, "on the north bank of the Orange river." spoor"-traces of game, you know. They knew He was then a child, not more, I should say, than ten or twelve years old; though you never can judge accurately of the ages of these natives. I found him all alone, and half dead with fever, under a little shelter of boughs and grass, where his people had left him, when he was taken ill. They almost always desert their sick people and decrepit relations in that way. It is a shocking custom, and I think it is about the worst part of their character; for, in other respects, I must say, they are not altogether so bad as some travellers

the country well, and by keeping a pretty sharp eye upon them I was able to make them useful. In tracking game, as I said, they sometimes rendered good service; but they were great cowards, and though some of them could handle fire-armis tolerably well, I never could get them to face any dangerous animal, such as a buffalo or a rhinoceros, and least of all a lion, with any steadiness. I shot two or three rhinoceroses with little support from any of them, except Apollo, who always stood by me like a Trojan, though his teeth sometimes