conscious pride in the idea of returning to their country possessed of education. They used to come between nine and ten o'clock at night, bringing their organs with them. We taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, simple geography, and the elements of drawing. On the Sunday evenings we gathered all our scholars together to listen to an hour's lecture upon Italian history, the lives of our great men, the outlines of natural philosophy; any subject, in short, that appeared to us calculated to elevate those unformed minds, darkened by poverty and their state of abject subjection to the will of others. Nearly every Sunday evening for two years, I lectured to them upon Italian history or elementary astronomy; a subject eminently religious, and calculated to purify the mind, which, reduced to popular phraseology and form, should be among the first subjects chosen for the education of the young. And upwards of a hundred discourses upon the duties of man, and various moral subjects, were declaimed by Filippo Pistrucci, once well known in Italy as an improvisatore, whom I had made director of the school, and who identified himself with his mission with unexampled zeal.

It was a second period of fraternal labor and love, refreshing to my own soul and to the souls of other weary exiles, fortifying them in serious thought and earnest purpose. It was indeed a holy work, holily fulfilled. Every assistance given was gratuitous. The director, the vice-director (Luigi Bucalossi, a Tuscan, who was most untiring and devoted), the masters, all who in any way aided in the education of our scholars, were unpaid. Yet they were all of them men who had families to support by their own

exertions. The drawing-masters were Scipione Pistrucci, the son of the director, and Celestino Vai (at present employed in the office of the "Unità Italiana,” at Milan), than whom I have never known a man more gentle and kindly to his scholars, or more deeply convinced of the duty that binds us to the poor and uneducated.

The reading and writing masters were workingmen, who not only subscribed to our school, but sacrificed the little time left to them after their hard day's work, in order to consecrate the evening to their self-imposed duty. On the 10th of November, every year (the anniversary of the opening of our school), we invited all our pupils, about two hundred, to a distribution of small prizes, which was followed by a modest supper, carved and served by ourselves, and enlivened by patriotic songs and the improvisations of the director. One of those evenings was equal in moral influence and effect to a whole year of mere instruction. Those unfortunate lads whom their masters treated like slaves, learned to feel that they were men, our equals, living souls. Many English friends, both men and women, came to our workmen's supper, and went away touched and improved themselves. I remember poor Margaret Fuller coming there when recently arrived from the United States, where for some reason she had learned to regard us with a certain distrust. But she had not been with us one hour, on the occasion of one of those suppers, before she was like a sister amongst us. Her pure and noble nature, responsive to every generous impulse, understood and felt the treasure of affection which had been disclosed amongst us by a religious sense of the holiness of our aim.

.

Our example bore fruit: first in London, where the priests of the Sardinian chapel, finding all their efforts to put down our school unavailing, were reduced to opening one themselves in the same street; then in America, where I, in the mean time, had formed some friendships. Schools like ours were established, in 1842, in New York by Felice Foresti and Giuseppe Avezzana; in Boston by Professor Bachi; and in Monte Video by G. B. Cuneo. The school, as I have said, afforded me a means of contact with the Italian workmen in London. I selected the best among these to help me in a work more directly national in its purpose. We formed an association of working men, and published a journal called the "Apostolato Popolare," bearing as a motto the words: "Work, and its proportionate recompense." During these years also the bonds of friendship formed in Switzerland between ourselves and the Poles were strengthened; but it is unnecessary to record here the details of the international labors we undertook together.

15

CHAPTER VI.

RECORDS OF THE BROTHERS BANDIERA.

1842-1844.

"But should I succumb beneath the tempest in the midst of which I am now struggling, let not my dear ones blush for the love they bore me, but plant one flower in remembrance of me, to purify my name from the infamy which our tyrants are certain to cast upon it." — Letter of Attilio Bandiera, November 14, 1843.

Adieu, adieu! Poor in all things, we elect you our executor, so that we may not perish in the memory of our fellow-citizens.". - Letter of Emilio Bandiera, March 10, 1844.

I WRITE these pages in obedience to the last wishes of the brothers Bandiera, and in order that the Italians may learn what manner of men they were who died for the liberty of their country at Cosenza. And I write them now, although for many reasons I should have preferred to fulfill my task a few years later, because the Austrian journals and the Italian police are diffusing a series of calumnies with regard to the Bandiera; calumnies which are echoed and repeated by numerous cowards, and numberless fools, in order to defame-I do not speak of the living, for what are such attacks to us? — the character and reputation of martyrs whose name every Italian should utter with head bowed down in veneration.

It is commonly said, in speaking of the Bandiera, that the liberty of Italy is ill attempted by twenty

men; that enthusiasm so unregulated by the calculations of reason touches the confines of madness, and injures the cause it is meant to serve. It is said that the brothers were drawn into the Italian conspiracy by others, and urged on to their attempt upon Calabria, as the first step of an insurrection which had been planned and brought about by exiles; more especially by myself, and an intimate friend of mine residing at Malta, Nicola Fabrizi. And this assertion, deliberately false, has been followed up by hastily assumed consequences, declaring Italy impotent to act alone; every attempt at action injurious, and all who preach or promote it, guilty of imprudence, or worse. Such things are a disgrace to the times, and to those who, not having the courage to be strong, yet unwilling to own themselves cowards, systematically spread discouragement, for fear of being called upon to act along with their fellow-countrymen.

The result is to strip the souls of our youth of every noble and generous affection, and of reverence for the more devoted few; instead of being bound together in a vast and potent unity of idea and aim, their minds are held asunder, or allowed to stray in a moral anarchy that ultimately leads to apathy and inertia, while our masters sneer at and despise us. The few whose opinion is dear to me well know that I should never order nor set on foot any armed expedition, the dangers of which I did not share in one way or another. As to the opinion of any others, the last ten years have taught me to value it no more than it is worth. I have too many real sorrows on my soul to be able to feel the stings of calumny, and I believe one may die without remorse,