in shedding blood, or plundering property. All who refused to join them were shamefully murdered, then cut into pieces, and their quivering limbs exposed on pikes and bayonets. In the mean while, those who led the Neapolitan troops permitted Palermo to surrender on terms of capitulation. While these things were going on in Sicily, at Naples they continued to amuse themselves with constitutions. They changed the nomenclature of the provinces, and, after the manner of the French school, adopted the names and divisions of antiquity. The Terra di Lavoro was named Campania; the three Abruzzi changed into Pletuteria, Marsia, and Frentania; the island and province of Tremiti into Daunia; Otranto into Salentum; Calabria into Lucania, &c. &c. They adopted also the trial by jury. Of this institution far be it from us to deem irreverently; but are wise institutions capable of being transplanted at will? and will every civil blessing flourish in every soil? Is it not a part of the moral order, against which it is. vain to resist, that a people must be antecedently trained to those institutions, and gradually nurtured to those blessings? The almost entire inaptitude of the trial by jury to any other community than that in which it is indigenous, may be a discouraging, but it is an undeniable truth, of which theoretic statesmen are ignorant; and how costly and calamitous, for the most part, is that ignorance! In the mean time, the allied powers took into their deliberation (we shall presently say a few words concerning their competence to entertain the question) the changes which popular force had thus worked in the political system of the country; and the King of the Two Sicilies was, as is well known, invited to their congress. The residue of the revolutionary story is soon told. The Austrians crossed the Po on the 28th of January, and marched to Naples. The principal opposition to this march seems to have consisted in an empty vote of the representatives, never to make peace with an enemy whilst he occupied their territory. On the 28th, Rieti was in the possession of the Austrians, and the Neapolitan army fell back upon Aquila. The Austrians appeared in sight; General Pepe was almost instantly deserted by his troops, and obliged to escape as well as he could. This dispersion was followed by that of the troops at Mignana, who fired on their officers, and then disbanded. The Austrians entered Naples on the morning of the 29th; and thus ended the revolution of Naples. Different minds will arrive at different conclusions concerning the competency, we mean the moral competency, of Austria, to interfere with a revolution in the South of the Peninsula; and many may probably doubt the right of foreign powers to inter fere at all in similar cases. Our remarks upon this much agi tated question shall be short. Perhaps the soundest reasoning is that which keeps at an equal distance from the extreme pro position on either side, neither denying altogether the right of interference in any instance of popular revolution, nor maintaining the right of interfering in all. In political cases, there is an endless gradation of shades and colours. In that before us, it is a question of fact. If, as the Emperor of Austria asserted in his manifesto, the Neapolitan revolution was brought about by obscure fanatics and rebel soldiers, and unnaturally forced upon the people, instead of being the object of their legitimate choice; and if, as it further asserts, that revolution threatened by its contact the peace and independence of neighbouring states; then the law of vicinage was in full vigour, and it became not only an undeniable right, but a sacred duty, to take measures for repressing the mischief. As an Italian prince by birth, as well as by inheritance, whose dominions had been nearly dismembered by similar commotions acting in the north of Italy in avowed sympathy with that of Naples, and generated by the sect of Carbonari, the prolific parent of modern revolutions,the Emperor of Austria could not have hesitated as to the course which prudence, and policy, and justice, alike suggested. As to the Carbonari, of whom so much is said, and so little known, it would be visionary perhaps to magnify their projects into that grand simultaneous insurrection, of which their ap pearance in the south of Italy was to be the signal; though this has been maintained by many sagacious and well-informed writers. We ourselves are of opinion, that these apprehensions were not wholly destitute of foundation; and we are not sufficiently sceptical of the size and extent of the mischief, to consider them merely as "Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise." 66 M. de Beauchamp,* author of a History of the Revolution in Piedmont, considers the Carbonari as a branch of a gigantic anti-social conspiracy, of which Paris was the centre-the dregs and fæces of the French revolution still lurking, both in France and Italy." He arraigns, we think unanswerably, the policy of the French government immediately after the restoration, which nursed, as it were, the dying embers of revolution, by heaping favours and condescensions on the remnant of the " revolutionary faction. Thus cherished and protected, he adds, t the grand democratic or Bonapartist sect extended their ramifications, under different names, to the Alps, the Pyrenees, and 1821. Histoire de la Revolution du Piedmont, par M. Alph. de Beauchamp. Paris, the Rhine, where the people, averse from a foreign yoke, and nurturing a secret but undefined hope of independence, lent a too willing ear to their delusions. Nor is there an absolute absence of evidence to show that the elements of this great combustion had been actually prepared at Paris, long before it. burst forth with so feeble a flame in the southern extremities of Europe. But though there may not be testimony sufficiently decisive to silence all doubt concerning the alleged extent of the conspiracy; it is certain that through the Neapolitan provinces at the period of the late revolution, the Carbonari, a sect framed in imitation of the free-masons, and avowedly pursuing some plan of political innovation, comprised a very considerable portion of the population. They do not, indeed, appear connected with the French party, of which M. de Beauchamp supposes them to have been a branch; for it is well known that they were equally hostile to the French governments of Joseph Bonaparte, and of Murat. Their existence, however, has for several years been a matter perfectly notorious; and, although they affected great secresy, their proceedings were far from being concealed. "But no sooner did the commotion of 1820 burst forth, than they threw off the mask, and, intoxicated with the success of their projects, published their transactions, and even posted up their proclamations. There is much real, and much affected, obscurity as to this sect, and their origin and purposes are in a great mea sure inexplicable. They who expect to acquire any information relative to them, from the book whose title is prefixed to our article, will be completely deceived; for a more confused and unintelligible farrago never disgraced the British press. Yet it is abundantly manifest, that these societies, whose principle is change, and whose compact is secresy, are phenomena which baffle all reasonings derived from former experience, and essentially differ from every confederation which has heretofore exercised the vigilance, or excited the alarm, of governments. If they are not positively a numerical majority of the Neapolitan nation, they include amongst them that portion of it which has the most decisive influence in political action. In the two ex tremes of society, the higher nobility, and the lowest of the populace, there are no Carbonari. It is in the middling classes that their strength resides. Amongst these, are the possidenti or small landed proprietors; who, in an agricultural country like Naples, must have considerable weight in all projects to which they contribute their influence. But, in addition to these, the rapid changes of property, and transitions of government, during the last twenty-five years, had created a comparatively new class; "the middle men," as they are designated in Ire land,-men who, having been agents of the great landed estates, have, by their own industry, and knowledge of rural economy, so profited by the vicissitudes of the times, or the improvidence of their employers, as to have seated themselves in the actual possession of the domains which they once superintended. They bear the general designation of galantuomini, or gentlemen. It is from this class that official situations in the provinces are generally supplied; and these persons, almost to a man, were enlisted amongst the Carbonari. What efficient precaution, then, could the Neapolitan government have taken against a sect which contained a large portion of public functionaries? whole districts and provinces being, in fact, completely in the hands of persons, discharging indeed their duties with exactness, but carrying on, at the same time, their occult and mysterious projects. A majority of Carbonari in the Decurionato, or public assembly of the village, would ensure the election of Syndics, of the Gabielleri, or excise men, and a variety of subordinate officers. Amongst the Carbonari, proselytism, it seems, is incredibly rapid. The recommendation of a member already initiated is a sufficient passport to every candidate, unless there are clear and unequivocal objections against him. At the same time, every member is unwearied in his canvass for new members. Nor is an admission into this association without its private advantages. They extend to each other every office of friendship and benevolence. They supply the labourer with tools and implements; in many cases, with money. Every cousin is sure of sympathy in sickness, and consolation in death. The rapid diffusion, therefore, of such a sect, is no subject of wonder. But in no class of the community had its principles taken deeper root than amongst the numerous bodies of provincial militia who are called legionari, civici, and militi; a class of men who had by no means an inconsiderable share in producing the revolution. As every individual of these troops must be as sessed at least ten ducats to the land-tax, it is plain, that, exclusively of the power of armed men, they must have great influence as proprietors of the soil. In Capitanata, one of the most extensive and populous of the Neapolitan provinces, 40,000 of these persons, each with forty cartridges in his pouch, and four ducats in his pocket, were for several months in complete. readiness for action. It cannot, therefore, excite much surprise that the late revolution broke out. How its duration should have been so short, and that a more heroic and persevering resistance should not have been made to the Austrians, it is somewhat more difficult to explain. What has been already said concerning the character of this versatile people, is the best solution of the problem. Their zeal had begun to cool, and they had already regarded its objects as scarcely of sufficient value to call for protracted efforts to defend them. It is evident, however, that the existence of a political society, which has sufficient influence to stir up a nation to rebel, though not, it should seem, to induce them to fight, must be a continual source of apprehension to the government of Naples. It is a perplexing question how to deal with it. What is ordinarily called persecution would, by a principle inherent in human nature, inflame their zeal, and augment their numbers. Rome could, indeed, in one day, and by a single vote of her senate, put down the pestilent sect of Bacchanalians; which, according to Livy, threatened so much mischief to the state. But the full-grown adult mischiefs of a confederacy containing in its bosom the majority of a nation, will not admit of remedies purely coercive. There are, however, in the Carbonari of Naples, peculiarities which favourably distinguish them from the societies of the same name in other parts of Italy. That, for instance, which was detected at Macerata in the papal dominions in 1817, seemed to have contained the concentrated essence of French democracy,* and to have pursued the most sanguinary and vindictive projects. They were arrested by the police on the eve of a plot which was to have been executed in a few hours, and which would have deluged the streets with blood, and put public and private property at the mercy of a gang of ruffians and assassins. But the Neapolitan Carbonari are chiefly terrific from their numbers; the very circumstance which, if history and experience are to be relied on, diminishes the danger, and assuages the mischief of conspiracy. There is, no doubt, much evil in all secret associations. But an association of a million of men, though united by conventional signs, cannot be secret. In such a multitude, the spirit of the institution will soon be lost; and the control of the leaders, supposing them willing to give an undue direction to' that multitude, every day less felt, and less obeyed. There is every reason to suppose, also, that the solemn puerilities and farcical absurdities of their ceremonies are sufficient to absorb the attention, and exercise the faculties, of the greater part. True, they have produced a revolution; but, having fretted its hour upon the stage, it is heard no more. "It vanished at the crowing of the cock;" nor is it likely, after so inauspicious an expe * Upon the trial of these wretches at Rome, the following triplet was deposed to, as having been read in a barracca at Ascoli: Figli di Bruto, il brando omai scuotete, |