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the converse is equally true: le comique, le vrai comique, n'est jamais méchant. As instances of the assertion that some of those who have been richest in wit and humor, have been among the simplest and kindest-hearted of men, Archdeacon Hare mentions the names of Fuller, Bishop Earle, La Fontaine, Matthes Claudius, Charles Lamb. A laugh, he justly contends, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart; and without kindness there can be no true joy. And what a dull, plodding, tramping, clanking, as he says, would the ordinary intercourse of society be, without wit to enliven and brighten it! "When two men meet, they seem to be kept at bay through the estranging effects of absence, until some sportive sally opens their hearts to each other. Nor does anything spread cheerfulness so rapidly over a whole party, or an assembly of people, however large. Reason expands the soul of the philosopher; Imagination glorifies the poet, and breathes a breath of spring through the young and genial: but, if we take into account the numberless glances and gleams whereby Wit lightens our everyday life, I hardly know what power ministers so bountifully to the innocent pleasures of mankind."

Hume once examined a French manuscript, containing accounts of some private disbursements of our King Edward II. There was one article, among others, of a crown paid to somebody for making the king laugh. Cheap at the money, too. Many a man, far below royal rank, would give, has given, as much and more, merely to hear the laugh of another. Some of us would not grudge the sum-change in the value of money fully allowed for-to hear Mrs. Jordan's laugh, for instance, which this generation has only heard of, by the second-hand hearing of the ear. There is a pièce d'occasion we must quote from Clement Marot, as Englished by Leigh Hunt-on the laugh of Madame d'Albert:

"Yes, that fair neck, too beautiful by half, Those eyes, that voice, that bloom, all do her honor:

Yet after all, that little giddy laugh

Is what, in my mind, sits the best upon her.

"That laugh! 'twould make the very streets and ways

Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure!

Did melancholy come to mar my days,

And kill me in the lap of too much leisure, No spell were wanting, from the dead to raise me,

But only that sweet laugh, wherewith she slays me."

and health-restoring powers of a hearty Marvels are told of the health-giving laugh. Rabelais justifies himself in his dedication to Cardinal Chatillon, for his farcical phrases, by representing the ease which many sick and disconsolate persons had received by them; and prefaces his first book with a copy of verses ending, Le rire est le propre de l'homme. Though Lycurgus himself, Plutarch tells us, was immoderately severe in his manner, he consecrated a little statue to the god of laughter in each of the public halls erected by him; for "he considered facetiousness as a seasoning of his Spartan's hard exercise and diet, and therefore ordered it to take place on all proper occasions, in their common entertainments and parties of pleasure." We all know its real or reputed efficacy in the cure of the spleen:

"To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;
Some hilly walks; all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies;
Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kitten, if the humor hit,
Has harlequin'd away the fit."

Though, by the way, Shakspeare seems to attribute just the opposite effect to excessive laughter, where he makes Maria exclaim, in summoning Sir Toby and his compotators all to come and see Malvolio play the fool: "If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself into stitches, follow me." But the discrepancy is noway radical; Shakspeare and Matthew Green are at one, construe their words as you may. Here is corroborative testimony to the main plea, from Beaumont and Fletcher:

""Tis mirth that fills the veins with blood,
More than wine, or sleep, or food;
Let each man keep his heart at ease;
No man dies of that disease.
He that would his body keep
From diseases, must not weep;
But whoever laughs and sings,
Never he his body brings
Into fevers, gouts, or rheums,
Or lingeringly his lungs consumes;

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Ar the present moment, a large share | of the world's attention is directed to Italy, and more especially to Naples, where the atrocities committed by the Government in the name of order and the divine rights of kings, are loudly calling for redress; while naval squadrons are assembled in the Mediterranean to awe the tyrant, and reduce him to policy more just and humane. We purpose to give a short sketch of the state of things there, and leave to our readers the task of drawing their own conclusions from the facts.

It will be remembered that, in eighteen hundred and fifty-one, Mr. Gladstone

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NAPLES.

published two letters to Lord Aberdeen, giving an account of four months' inquiry into the condition of affairs at Naples. His statements were first privately communicated to the Neapolitan government, but remained unnoticed by it.. He had no alternative, therefore, but to publish them for the sake of common humanity. An official reply emanated from Naples; but like many other official documents, it was full of mystification and untruth. Mr. Gladstone rejoined, and the correspondence dropped; but the events of the succeeding five years have more than confirmed his assertions. With an alteration of names in a few cases, and with no alteration at all in others, events recorded in eighteen hundred and fiftyone, are true of eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Thus the letters may be safely taken as the basis of our account; and being now out of print, a resumé of them may not be unacceptable.

The acts of the Neapolitan Government are objected to as contrary to the laws both of the State, and of natural justice. In January, eighteen hundred and fortyeight, the king voluntarily gave a constitution to his subjects, providing, among other things, that the monarchy was to be limited, constitutional, and under representative forms, with the legislative

months is the shortest time Mr. Gladstone ever heard of as elapsing before the accused is put on his trial; and in the present year, Mignona and his fellows have been condemned fifteen months after arrest. The cells in which these unfortunate detenuti are confined, are so loath

power residing jointly in the king and the | to the letter of the law. Were the process national parliament. But, chiefly, article speedy, and a fair trial possible in the end, twenty-four declared that "personal liber- the evil would be less. But sixteen ty is guaranteed. No one can be arrested except in virtue of an instrument proceeding in due form of law from the proper authority-the case of flagrancy or quasi-flagrancy excepted. In the case, by way of prevention, the accused must be handed over to the proper authority, within the term, at farthest, of twenty-some that the surgeons will not enter four hours; within which also the grounds of his arrest must be declared to him." In May of the same year, a struggle occurred between the king and his people, in which the former gained a complete victory. But he renewed the constitution and declared it irrevocable, nor has it ever been formally abolished. How he has kept the promise made under the most solemn oaths, we are now about to inquire.

them; and the sick and half-dead patient is made to toil up stairs to receive medical advice. The food allowed is also nauseous; and common felons are crammed with political offenders at night, to sleep as they can, in a low, dark, unventilated room. Judge Peronte was treated even worse, for he and two other men were kept for two months in an underground cell, eight feet square, and with one small grating through which it was impossible The great instrument of tyrannical to look out; nor were they allowed to government is the police; not the res- leave the cell for any purpose whatever. pectable and trusty force which exists in Similiarly, the Baron Poccari was immurour own land, but one which is feared and ed till his trial in a dungeon twenty-four hated by all who come in contact with feet below the level of the sea. And, but it, and which sometimes even despises it- a few weeks ago, I heard Captain Acutí self. An anecdote will best confirm this. declare that he had flogged uncondemned Bolza, a well-known police-agent at Milan, prisoners by order of the government; died a year or two ago. In the revolu- yet such treatment is expressly forbidden tion of eighteen hundred and forty-eight, by law. Now, it must be distinctly rethe private notes of the government were membered that the victims selected for discovered; which, after a number of not this terrible persecution are not a number very flattering epithets, described him as of violent low-born republicans, but the understanding his business, and being middle class, the strength of the state; right good at it. In his will, however, he and as few of them have independent forbids any mark to be set over his property, and confiscations sometimes grave, his sons to enter the police force, take place on arrest, each prisoner or or his daughters to marry any member of refugee becomes to his friends the cenit. Let it also be borne in mind that at ter of a circle of misery. Out of one Naples the head of the service is a cabi- hundred and forty deputies who came net minister; and as shown in the instance to the Parliament at Naples, seventy-six of Mazza-who lately, in his official capa- were in confinement or exile in eighteen city, insulted a member of our embassy-hundred and fifty-one; and the rest only of great influence, and on intimate terms with his royal master.

purchased liberty by absolute submission to the royal will. On the other hand, the lazzaroni, the lowest class in the state, and probably in the world, are flattered and caressed, and were slipped like bloodhounds, in eighteen hundred and fortyeight, on their unfortunate countrymen. An occasional largess, and in great crises the promise of plunder, suffices to repress their strength, or to arouse it when

How does the police act? So far from an arrest being made according to law, upon depositions and a warrant, it is a purely arbitrary seizure of all whom the Government wishes to get rid of. The victim is brought to the police-office, questioned and bullied till he utters something which can be wrested against him; false witnesses are employed; counter-required on the side of the king; while evidence refused; and, at last, a statement thus obtained is embodied in a warrant, and the arrest becomes legal-at least as

VOL. XL.-NO. II.

those orders whose intelligence and moral force the government not unnaturally dreads, are specially thinned out and in

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258

timidated. A system like this is evident- | eighteen months and upwards awaiting
ly suicidal, but it is, nevertheless, one their trial.
which calls for the serious attention of all
who have the power to abolish or restrain
its excesses.

Carlo Poerio is the son of a distinguished lawyer, an accomplished man, and of unblemished character. Under the conThe prisoner is next brought before his stitution he was a minister of the crown, judges; and here we may shortly describe enjoying the king's full confidence, his the Neapolitan Bench. In the trial just advice being asked even after his resignaconcluded at Naples, the judges are said tion. His principles were certainly not to have behaved more kindly and inde- more liberal than those of Lord John pendently than usual. But, on the whole, Russell; but when the king determined to the courts are as servile and untrust- over-ride the constitution, it was necesworthy as when Mr. Gladstone attended sary to get rid of him. In July, eighteen them. English judges are models of hundred and forty-nine, therefore, an anlearning and integrity, selected from the onymous letter warned him to fly; which, highest ranks of the bar. Neapolitan if he had done, it would have been taken judges, on the contrary, are under-paid, at once as an acknowledgment of guilt. of an inferior grade of the bar, and hold He remained at his house, and next day office during the royal pleasure. Thus, was arrested. His offence was not told they are mere creatures of the court; and him, as it should legally have been, alin several instances have been summarily though, in a week's time, he was brought dismissed for presuming to acquit men up for examination. A letter was put into whom the government had accused. Na- his hand, alleged to have been received by varro, who was President at Poerio's him from the Marquis Dragonetti, and trial, induced the other judges by such containing of course the most treasonable threat to convict the ex-minister and his expressions. The Marquis is an accomfellow-prisoners, though one of the charg-plished man; but in this letter, had been es against them was conspiring to kill guilty of mis-spelling and of ungrammatiNavarro himself; a fact which in any cal sentences. Besides, he had given all other country would have prevented him his names and titles in full, and commitfrom acting at their trial as chief judge. ted the strange imprudence of sending The same man also, when a witness was his treasonable document by the ordinary suspected of not even knowing by sight post. To confirm suspicion of forgery, the prisoner he was accusing, was accusing, and some real letters of his were found among was therefore asked by the counsel to Poerio's papers, and on being compared identify him, affecting not to hear the with the seditious letter, they proved it question, called out, "Signor Nisco, stand to be a forgery of the clumsiest kind. up! the court has a question to ask you ;" This being the only charge set up against and by this convenient interference ren- Poerio, he ought, in justice, to have been dered the desired proof of the witness's released, and his accuser committed in perjury impossible. On another occasion, his stead. But the document was simply the serious illness of a political prisoner laid aside, and Poerio remanded until ansuspended the sittings of the court for other accusation more successful could be some days; but Navarro compelled the prepared. Meanwhile, he lay for eight medical attendants to certify his conval-months in ignorance of his crime and fate, escence, and the poor creature himself to be carried on a chair into court, where he was brow-beaten and accused of feigning to be ill, until the surgeons insisted on the immediate danger to his life unless speedily removed to his cell. In a few days he was laid in his grave. Finally, special courts are held for the sake of dispatch; and on such occasion, many forms most valuable to a prisoner are dispensed with. This happened in the instance of Poerio; and thus about forty persons were deprived of valuable aid for the sake of expedition, after having been

in dungeons such as we have described, every effort being made to entrap him or other prisoners into statements which could be used against him at his trial. Pecheneda, chief of the police, and a cabinet minister, examined prisoners in secret and without witnesses for this purpose; and on one Carafa refusing to make a false charge against Poeria, though bribed by the promise of his own release, Pecheneda exclaimed: "Very well, sir, you wish to destroy yourself; I leave you to your fate." At last three witnesses were found willing to charge Poerio with treasonable acts.

At the present moment Poerio is in a cell so foul that bread turns green in twenty-four hours; his constitution is undermined; one of his companions has died of consumption, another is paralyzed, and Poerio himself has been operated upon for the tumors raised by his chains. Chains are a punishment introduced with special reference to his case, but with a transparent device to make it appear otherwise. An order was given to chain all prisoners at Nisida committed since a cer

The accusation was, that he was a chief changed was he from confinement and illof the Unita Italiana, a republican sect, health. and intended to murder the king. Margherita, one witness, incautiously deposed that Poerio had been expelled the society for proposing to keep up the monarchical constitution, so that his evidence was, of course, unavailable. Romeo, another witness, was chief of the sect; but that was in contradiction of the third witness, Jervolino; and, besides, Romeo's evidence inculpated Bozzelli and Torella, who were both cabinet ministers when that evidence was given. On Jervolino's statement alone, therefore, was Poerio to be condemn-tain date, by which Poerio and his fellows ed; no advantage being allowed him for the discrepancies in the evidence of other two witnesses, nor in that of Jervolino himself. This man had been refused some office by Poerio, and he now stated that the latter had helped him instead in getting enrolled in the Unita Italiana. But he could not recollect the forms or oath of the sect, or say anything as to the certificate of initiation alleged to be indispensable for every member to possess. After a number of other exposures on cross-examination, he stated that Poerio had made him a political confidant-among other occasions, on the twenty-ninth of May, eighteen hundred and forty-nine. Poerio produced a written report on himself, made by Jervolino, to the police, as their spy, and proved that it had fallen into his hands seven days previous to the alleged conversation-thus showing the absurd improbability of Jervolino's assertion. The evidence of the sole witness against him, in fact, had utterly broken down. Yet he gained no benefit from this circumstance, nor was he allowed to bring counter-evidence on his own side, except a single witness, who, if possible, added to the discredit of the infamous Jervolino.

All these facts are attested by Mr. Gladstone, who was present at the proceedings. Yet by such means it was that Poerio and his co-accused were condemned, and have since been made to undergo punishments of the severest and most degrading kind. Removed to the Bagno of Nisida, they were crammed, to the number of forty, into a room about thirteen feet long, nine wide, and eight in height, with a single small and unglazed window, one side of the apartment being under the level of the ground. Mr. Gladstone saw Poerio while here, but could scarcely recognise him, so

were included. The chains are double; one about six feet long connects the prisoners by their waists, around which a strong leathern girdle is worn, and from which also descends the other chain to the ancle, the combined weight being about thirty-five pounds for each man. Their felon's dress is arranged so as to be taken off without removing the chains, which, in fact, are never unfastened for any purpose whatever. Thus, no relief is obtained, except by shifting the girdle higher and then lower on the waist; a device which has not protected Poerio from tumors and sores, to say nothing of the mental distress a man of his education must feel at being treated worse than the vilest felon. Other indignities, which neither decency nor space will permit us to mention, are daily endured by him, and by others who are constantly meeting with a similar fate. Body and mind must at length give way under such treatment; a result as sure but more silent than a public execution, and one which the Neapolitan Government, perhaps, is not unwilling to produce.

In spite of all this tyranny and ill-usage, affecting thousands directly, and the whole nation indirectly, King Bomba is most strict in his religious duties (as was, occasionally, the wicked and superstitious Louis the Eleventh), and a firm supporter of the Church, which in its turn has supported him. The worst of men will, ‘if possible, give an appearance of right and justice to their actions; an involuntary homage paid to virtue by vice. Ferdinand the Second, therefore, defends his system on the grounds of order, and the divine right of kings; taking care that the rising generation shall be well instructed in such doctrines, and look upon constitutional government as blasphemy.

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