circumstances saved from actual visitation. In the same gorse were found linnets' nests, some just begun, some completed, some containing eggs in various stages, and 1 containing young birds. The most successful workers were G. T. K. Maurice, R. N. Harvey, W. B. Maurice, C. E. Cooper, and B. C. Waterfield. Vegetation was singularly backward. 15 first notices were obtained, and although some flowers were in abundance, only 94 plants were observed, as against 146 last year on May 13th. On Thursday, May 10th, G. F. Rodwell, Esq., read a paper on Volcanoes. After explaining the general nature of the phenomena connected with them, and their products, the lecturer gave some account of the chief volcanoes, most of which he had himself personally visited. The paper was illustrated by diagrams, maps, and some magic lantern slides, of unequal accuracy, in some of which truth had been sacrificed for effect. The thanks of the meeting were expressed by Mr. Gould, who in very happy terms. treated the subject from a classical rather than from a scientific stand point. Present members, 37; visitors, 48; Common Room, 2; Total 87. It has been thought that two evening meetings will be enough for this Term, as we hope to have several Field Days. In the first place we hope to pay our long-intended visit to Corsham Court, availing our selves of the whole holiday; besides that, we think of going to Wilton House. At both these places there is much of great interest in the way of pictures sculpture, architecture, and park. Then there will be several smaller expeditions for sketching pus poses if the weather be more propitious than it was last summer. A prize, or prizes, will be given at the end of the term for sketches from nature done during the course of it: in awarding which prize regard wil be had to the amount of time which shall appear t have been spent by the competitors. We would ur upon all who wish to acquire this useful and pleasant art, the importance of frequent practice. Carry a small book always in your pocket (very good ones of a convenient size may be bought for sixpenc and whenever you have five minutes sketch any thing you can see; a stile, a cow, a hat, the trans of a tree,' anything will do: a jam-pot or a pics: bottle makes a splendid study. Printed by C. PERKINS AND SON, at their General Print Office, Waterloo House, Marlborough. MILL AND MAZZINI-A CONTRAST. Ir may seem bold to pick out from this century of Radicalism any two Radicals as pre-eminent among their fellows; but we do not wish to insist in these remarks upon the recognition of any such superiority in the two men whose names are written above. We have rather chosen them for our subject as types of the two different classes of Radicalism that have had most effect on the course of nineteenth century politics. Whether or not Mill and Mazzini are the greatest names in their respective orders, they are the most typical that could possibly be selected. We are speaking of two men in whose characters there might at first sight appear so little in common as to render a contrast superfluous. Mazzini was every inch an Italian. An ardent, affectionate, and sympathetic nature, an impetuosity and zeal completely under the control of the deepest and truest religious feelings, were the characteristics which ransformed the Italian littérateur into the most active conspirator of modern times. Mill, though not leficient in the high spiritual qualities that marked he Italian, was a thinker rather than an actor, a over of truth and a Humanitarian rather than a PRICE 3d. religionist. Though indeed to speak more accurately on this last point he was religious without having a religion. Still it is undeniable that in selecting the most prominent qualities in the characters before us, we should take them from the intellectual side in Mill, from the spiritual side in Mazzini. But both are alike in two points, in two points which formed the basis of the life of each, a conscientious sense of duty, and a moral courage which enabled them to obey the mandates of that conscience. Hence it came about that each made the same object, the improvement of humanity, the end of his life. Each starting from different points arrived through different processes at the same result. This constitutes the similarity between them. "Life is a mission," says Mazzini. "The only true happiness lies in neglecting yourself and seeking the happiness of others," says Mill. The Italian's motto is God and the People,' the Englishman's, The greatest good to the greatest number.' The formula of the English philosopher is more tangible and practical, the legend on the Italian rebel's banner is withal more more shadowy and vague, but inspiring and the real meaning of each is the same. And so in every aspect of their lives there is a striking similarity, which only renders the differ difference we have now to work out both points more fully. We shall see that while the moral qualities of each are very similar and almost equally to be admired, they differed much from one another in the spiritual and also in the intellectual side of their natures. The Italian's whole life was a long endeavour to fulfil the promptings of his religious feelings. From a few religious dogmas he deduced rules for his whole conduct; faith was the great mainstay of his nature, which enabled him to bear all the load of calumny heaped on him by jealous enemies and renegade friends. He pursued the same course unflinchingly from first to last; an outcast from his country, a pariah in the civilised world, no amount of failure and discouragement had any effect in deterring him from the prosecution of his great schemes. The freedom of Italy must be secured. Italy will give the initiative to the rest of Europe. The peoples in the rest of the world must and will follow her example, and establishing universal democracy form a world-wide federation, the sole means by which man is capable of working A state of universal out his own regeneration. peace, in which all men should associate with one another in the labour of mutual improvement, such was the magnificent vision of him, ences more remarkable. Not far removed from each other in their birth and death, the lives of both extending roughly over the first 70 years of this century, the one was the steady promoter of constitutional agitation in England, the other the very head-centre--to employ the latest word from Dublin-of the Continental rebellions, which have as yet ended only in the south of Europe. Mill lived respected, and sat in Parliament before he died. Mazzini was under sentence of death nearly the whole of his life. Of Mill's external life there would not be much to say. It is the narration of his mental development that makes his "Autobiography" of interest. He was never in want, never unprosperous; if he was not happy, the reasons were internal, arising perhaps from his want of a definite religion, perhaps from his distrust of the future of humanity. Mazzini's life is the story of a long struggle with superior strength. He was born in a country where political freedom was unknown, and, worse still to an Italian, where the people were the slaves not of a master of their own race, but of foreign Austria; but where the memories of a history, unsurpassed in glory by any other nation, still kindled in the breasts of the nineteenth century peasants something of that love of liberty which had inspired the great deeds of the plebeians of old. A life which would, under different circumstances, have been devoted to literature, his sympathy for the wrongs of his oppressed compatriots led Mazzini to consecrate to the cause of their emancipation. He joined the secret society of the Carbonari before he was 21. Expelled from Italy, he formed the societies of Young Italy, and afterwards of Young Europe. Banished from Switzerland, after a year's experience that would furnish an ordinary sensational novelist with materials in abundance for startling the public, he took up his residence in England, and used this country as the basis of his plots. He was one of the chiefs of the Revolution in 1848, and in fact there have been few rebellions or conspiracies connected with Italy in which he did not take a leading part. The contrast between their inward lives is hardly less marked. We have already shown in what the analogy between their characters consisted, and we have also foreshadowed the fundamental "Who rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream." be The great quality which we found to be the back bone of Mazzini's character appears, if it said to appear at all, in a very different way Mill. may in J. S. The son of an atheist, educated in an atmosphere of free thought, Mill had to begin life by seeking a faith for himself. And no mind could have been better prepared for philosophic investigation. He began Greek at the age of 3; at 12 he had read the whole of more classical authors than the most accomplished public schoolboy has touched at 19 On completing his classical reading he was directly introduced at once to studies of a more philosophic nature. Adopting the RadicalUtilitarian views of his father and Bentham he determined like his Italian contemporary to devote his life to the service of his fellow men. But we never find him looking forward on a gorgeous vista of progress. It was no faith in a beneficent Providence, no belief in an unerring God who must accomplish his purpose in the course of time it was no reliance on any power exterior to himself that helped him to fulfil the task set before him. True happiness lies in the performance of duty alone, and the duty of man is to help his fellow man. Such was his creed: not a faith like Mazzini's, not a set of dogmas derived from a belief in a supreme being, but a theory carefully analyzed, and proved true, as far as any theory of ultimate ends is sussceptible of proof. But though not a faith, Mill's belief had so far the good qualities of faith that, as careless as Mazzini of the opinion of the world, he lived up to his philosophy, if ever philosopher did. To give one instance of his faithfulness to his principles; when asked to stand for Westminster in 1865, he rigidly adhered to the strict rules which he had himself laid down for the conduct of candidates for Parliament, although they could not but have been a great obstacle to success. And one particular occurrence that took place in that contest will illustrate his manliness as well as his love of truth. He gives the story in his Autobiography, though for different reason to that for which we place it here. He was addressing a large meeting composed principally of working men, when suddenly a man rose and producing one of his earlier works read a passage out of it in which he spoke in a very uncomplimentary manner of the untruthfulness of the British working man. "Did you write that?" asked his opponent. It is hard to imagine a Parliamentary candidate who would not have tried to shuffle himself out of the difficulty in some way. Mill simply answered "I did," and to his surprise the whole mass that he was addressing united in vociferous applause. a very But his honourable manliness, his fearless courage, and his blameless morality are admitted even by the most rancorous of those opponents whose detestation of his opinions leads them to an abhorrence of Nor in that does he stand in contrast to the man. Mazzini. We wish now to say a word upon the spiritual and sentimental side of his character, which though not predominant in his nature as in Mazzini's, was more highly developed than in the ordinary Englishman who despises Mill as the coldest of Political Economists. He was not the "sawdustish" creature of Carlyle's imagination. He refused to be carried away by unreasoning sentiments, but it was sentiment united with reason which gave their tone to his character and his writings. No one who has read the pages in his Autobiography in which he speaks of his wife's death would ever regard him again as the passionless thinking machine which he appears to those who have not read his books, but are content with criticising them.' We will now turn to the intellectual side of the characters before us. And here we think that we need not hesitate to award Mill the higher place. Both men were possessed of fine strong and clear minds. Mazzini wrote a beautiful style, if we may judge at all by the English Translation through which alone we have been able to approach him. His words are fiery arrows, now hurling contempt upon his enemies, now kindling the hearts of the indifferent with something of their writer's enthusiasm. While again there is many a passage of heart-rending pathos when he speaks of the friends of his young days who perished in the early insurrections. always had his pen under control. There is no Italian fire in his works; they are cool, calm surveys of things, written from the heights above, looking down on the boiling passions of the world beneath. From no other writer can one learn so well to refrain from employing abuse as a method of argument. there is little that is stirring in Mill, if there is a lack of the poetic grandeur to which the Italian often rises, there is an elevated tone in his language which has a no less salutary effect on the reader. Where Mazzini dogmatises Mill reasons. The one appeals Mill If to sentiment for confirmation the other verifies his assertion by logical proof. Mazzini accepts a truth because he feels it to be true: Mill will not accept feeling as a judge without testing and proving the feeling itself. 'Is this so or is it not?' Mill would ask "it may be agreeable or disagreeable to believe in it, but no prejudices that we may have conceived can alter its reality." The conspirator of the South knew better how to appeal to the popular imagination, but the more passionless Englishman was a truer philosopher, a deeper thinker. One more point of comparison and we have done. Like so many of the greatest lovers of humanity both these men were the reverse of happy. In both cases their melancholy arose from a sudden distrust of themselves. Mill relates that when he was still quite a young man, but had for several years been doing the work of Radicalism the question suddenly occurred 1 84 to him If the greatest possible well-being were ineffably pathetic in his acceptance for a time of the for an instant allowed myself to think that my own unhappiness could in any way influence my actions The sun lets slip a ray, Far on the bounding circle of the sea; A rocky path hangs over caverns wide; Along the faithless shore, Sullenly rises the inexorable tide. Take courage, fainting heart, Turn to the frowning cliff and mount with haste; And see thy fancy's home gleam out across the waste. And her sweet influence lend thee Gleams of remembered gladness round about thy is The deathless pæan of the deep-mouthed sea; Shall trumpet from their caves Their thronging battle-cries and shouts of victory. The short-lived glories of a rainy sky? For sounds that he would gladly Hold for a breathing space, as they go sweeping by! So indistinct, so dim, Chanting a mystic hymn, His fancy hovers, hardly form-endowed, As yonder westering moon About the harvest noon Floats in the mid-day sky, like a blown wisp of cloud Anon in white-winged race The clouds blot out her face, Upsprung from westward seas with jealous fear; And wind and windy rain Usurp the listening brain, And drown the melodies that have but touched his s Take courage, heart, and on! The wild wind's clarion Shall blow soul-thrilling notes or it be long; They sing their own refrain, If thou hast ears attuned to echo back their song. For wind and rain together Sing to the freshened heather Of quickened life, of dew-born health and glee; Thousands of dancing lights set in an emerald sea |
