Shortly afterwards, Panizzi’s interview with Ferdinand II. took place, on which occasion he was accompanied by Mr. Fagan. The day fixed was a Sunday, the hour twelve at noon. At ten minutes to twelve they arrived at the palace, “We are before our time,” said Panizzi, “Now the first question the King will ask, will be “Have you been to Church?” So they at once hastened into the Church opposite (San Francesco di Paolo), and remaining but a couple of minutes, came forth prepared to stand before the King and answer, with clear consciences, this expected question, which in fact was the first the King put to them.

It was quite clear that His Majesty was fully aware, through information obtained from spies, of all Panizzi’s movements. He received him, however, with the greatest courtesy, and almost before he himself had uttered a word, allowed him to talk on the subject of Poerio and Settembrini, and the prisons of Naples. On this theme Panizzi descanted uninterruptedly for full twenty minutes, when the King rose closing the interview with the remarkable words: Addio, terribile Panizzi.

During his stay at Lord Holland’s, the Neapolitan Government, in order that he should take his walks abroad with greater safety, kindly furnished him with constant attendance, in the shape of a pair of trusty followers or spies. It is painful to relate that Panizzi treated their delicate and unobtrusive attention with extremely bad taste, not to say ingratitude. He was never weary of playing tricks on his faithful attendants, of mischievously imposing on them; ably supported in this evil practice by his friend, and notably by Mr. Fagan, he made them deviate from the path in which it was their combined duty and pleasure to walk. Panizzi and his companions would get in and out of cabs, in the manner of a late well-known actor, though not with the intention of bilking the cab-driver. On one occasion, in trying to walk down their pursuers, they became involved in a cul-de-sac, and turning to come out, met their suite face to face. Pursuers and pursued burst into a hearty reciprocal laugh, the latter passed on, and the former fell to their place in the rear, and continued the chase.

Panizzi himself even allowed others to personate him. For example, in one instance he gave out, for the information of his retinue, that he was going on a shooting excursion in the neighbourhood of Naples. The person really bent on this errand was Lord Holland’s physician, Dr. Chepmell, who, in the character of Panizzi, was duly followed about the whole day. Let us hope that these honest members of the Police witnessed, though they had little chance of enjoying, a good day’s sport.

Like all truly great men, and in particular Henry the Great, of France and Navarre, Panizzi, when in the company of his friends, was devoid of all feeling of unofficial personal dignity, and delighted, when not seriously engaged, in little diversions as free, if not as innocent and touching, as those indulged in by that great monarch.

On one occasion—he was by nature so physically sensitive as (to use a common phrase) to be excessively ticklish—Dr. Chepmell, and another intimate friend, Signor Carafa, had got him on the floor and were subjecting him to the titillating operation. They were rolling him in the fire-place—his face was black with charcoal, his clothes white with ashes—when suddenly a servant announced the Duca di X.... who had come to pay his respects to the “Great Pan.” All the astounded Duke could do was to stand in the middle of the room and gaze, speechless, hat in hand, on the unexpected and inexplicable spectacle.

Meantime, leave had been obtained for Panizzi to visit the famous Vicaria. Of this he received information from Lord Feilding, who was to accompany him over the prison:—

Before visiting the “Vicaria,” he was careful to draw up a most elaborate précis of all the questions to be asked of officials, all portions of the prison worthy of note, and all such points of information as should render his inspection as thorough as possible.

To give, in our own words, an account of this visit would be too long for these pages, but Panizzi, on the following day that he inspected the prison, wrote down a few brief observations, in conjunction with Lord Feilding (November 20th, 1851):—

“The general impression on our minds was most unfavourable. The mixing together of criminals of every description (homicides excepted) without distinction, the total want of occupation for the prisoners, with the exception of about thirty shoemakers who worked in two cells apart, and the fact that prisoners before trial and prisoners after trial are huddled indiscriminately together, are facts which speak for themselves, as to the total unfitness of the Neapolitan prison discipline for the reformation of the offender. A criminal, when he has undergone his term of imprisonment here, must come out infinitely more savage and demoralized than when he went in. Humanity, policy, and religion call loudly for a reform in these sinks of horror.”

The following is Panizzi’s report:—“Yesterday, Wednesday, the 19th of November, 1851, I accompanied Lord Feilding to see the prisons of the “Vicaria.” We got permission through Father Costa, a Jesuit, who came with us, with another father whose name I never heard; the Chief Gaoler and the Inspector of the Police went with us through the gaol. We entered it at a quarter past two o’clock, and left it at three minutes past four by my watch.

“Near the stairs by which we entered there are prisons looking into the quadrangle of the “Vicaria.” As two of the judges, as we were told they were, came downstairs to get into their carriage, the shutters of the prison nearest the bottom of the stairs were closed, and opened immediately after the carriage had driven off.

“Having got upstairs, we entered a small room in which a person sat keeping some register or other, and were immediately ushered into a smaller room, where an inspector sat. On the table we found three different sorts of bread—i.e., common bread, bread for the sick, and bread which is given to the prisoners in the evening. The whole of this bread was good of its kind; the only objection to the evening bread might be its being heavy.

“We entered the first Camerone dei Nobili, which has only one window at the end of it. It is a long, vaulted, low room, very dull, and the atmosphere of which I should call very bad, had we not experienced worse. Off this room, on the left, are six smaller rooms, communicating with the Camerone by doors, some of them closing with railings, and others with oak shutters. In these rooms are kept such prisoners as can afford to pay for better accommodation—that is a small bed, instead of the common beds of the “Camerone.” The air of these rooms was better, because, by leaving the windows open, a thorough draft was created through them. But the air was cold and damp; there was no means of excluding the air and cold. Except in one or two of these rooms there was a paper window instead of glass; in the other there was nothing. So that you must either have the cold from without, or close the enormous oak shutters, and exclude both air and light, not only from each of these rooms themselves, but from the Camerone, which, to a certain extent, receives both, particularly air, from them. The atmosphere at night, when all those windows are closed, must be intolerable; and I am firmly persuaded that, were it not that the shutters are opened to try the soundness of the double row of iron bars by which each window is secured, the inmates would be smothered. These bars are tried five times during the night. Of course, every time this operation takes place, the inmates are roused from their sleep or slumber, and whilst the shutters are open a chilling draft must be created.

“In the Camerone sleep 120 persons.

“We saw no kitchen or infirmary, both being removed to San Francesco; but in the room which was the infirmary, and which is better than the others, we saw a poor fellow lying down asleep, but he seemed to me very ill, and looked like a dead person.”

Of this celebrated prison the writer of these “memoirs” is enabled, from personal observation and knowledge, to give some account.

The Vicaria, or Castel Capuano, was originally situated outside, but is now enclosed within the city of Naples. The first building was erected by William, the Norman, for a Royal Palace, and surrounded by fortifications. Here the Kings of Naples successively resided, until Ferdinand of Arragon demolished the fortifications, thereby rendering it useless as a stronghold.

In the year 1540 the Viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, rebuilt it in its present form, and gave it the name of “Vicaria.” The magnificent chambers (stained with many a crime) were converted into Law Courts, the smaller rooms were utilized as dungeons. For 310 years it remained a so-called “Palazzo di Giustizia.” Of the peculiar species of Justice and Law administered it is hardly necessary to speak, except perhaps to call them by their proper names of cruelty, chicanery, and oppression. Nor is it surprising that during these centuries, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny should have had equal sway within the walls of the “Vicaria.”

In 1848 this vast and gloomy edifice, which stands at the end of the Strada dei Tribunali, bore, carved in stone, in bold relief, over its one heavily barred entrance, that badge of Italian servitude, the Austrian double headed eagle. Near the dungeons were stationed Swiss guards. Inside the gate, and arranged around a circular court-yard, were the houses inhabited by the guardians of the courts, and, in addition to these, the residence of the executioner, whose implements, the scaffold and gallows, and all their appurtenances were displayed outside. Three broad staircases led respectively to the Civil and Criminal Courts and to the cells. As regards these, one door afforded access to the prison reserved for nobility, another to that set apart for the lower orders. Over the last was a picture of the Virgin and Child.

With the Vicaria Vecchia had disappeared many a secret chamber and loathsome living tomb, the remains of Spanish barbarity. According to Celano, 4,000 human beings were at one time immured in these dens, but in the building as it now stands there would not be room for more than 1,500.

Many famous productions have cheered the solitude of these sombre walls. In one of these cells Antonio Sella wrote his first essay on political economy; in another Mattia Prete, the famous Calabrese painter, 1613-1699, was a prisoner and condemned to death. Him, however, the Viceroy reprieved in these graceful words: Vita excellens in arte non debet mori.

Even so late as 1859 the present writer has himself seen the eleven wire cages, swinging between the windows of the buildings, each containing human heads.

The horrors of the Vicaria have been fully dwelt upon here and elsewhere; but we may mention that, on the 22nd of November, Panizzi paid a second visit to the prison with the view of more fully examining certain matters which had either been omitted or superficially surveyed during his first inspection. We forbear, however, from entering further into the horrible details connected with the place, which deserved no better appellation than the one given to it by Mr. Gladstone—a very hell upon earth.

In December Panizzi took his departure for England. He was accompanied to the last by his never failing followers, the spies, who had comecome to do him the final kind office of seeing him on board. Signor Lacaita, who was also present to bid him adieu, took the liberty of asking them what they wanted and whom they were watching? Quel pezzo grosso (that big fellow), replied they, “and to see that he is safely off.”

In conclusion, an extract from a letter of Lord Shrewsbury’s, after Panizzi’s return, may possibly be read with interest:—

Legion of Honour; Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; Serjeant Shee’s Bill; Concordat of 1855.

It was remarked of Panizzi, when in Italy as a proof of his general unobtrusiveness and lack of desire for distinction, that his visiting card bore only the simple inscription ‘Mr. Panizzi.’ As in early years his soul had been vexed by the mild constitutionalism of Parma and Modena, so in riper age he showed himself perversely antagonistic, not only to the sway of the King of Naples, but to every Government of Europe which bore in his eyes the slightest tinge of that especial object of his hatred—absolutism. Yet there were some, and amongst them one which would hardly have been accepted by Panizzi as the most disinterested supporter of liberty, that deemed this would-be liberator of the oppressed, this ex-Carbonaro, this revolutionary firebrand, worthy of notice, and even of some outward and visible sign of distinction and esteem. It was a real shock to his modesty when he was presented with the cross of the Legion of Honour by the President of the French Republic.

Letters to Lord Rutherfurd and to Mr. Haywood, which are subjoined, clearly show how surprised Panizzi was at this unexpected honour:—

A second decoration, the Royal order of “Saint Maurice and Lazarus” of Sardinia, was presented to him a few years later, in December, 1855, in which year Victor Emmanuel visited London with Cavour. Of this last honour, considering by whom it was conferred, Panizzi may possibly have been prouder than of his first, but, with innate modesty, he forbore to ask the requisite permission to accept either, and preferred to remain almost to the end of an honourable life undecorated;—despising medals, orders, and unreal designations which, he well knew, could not add to his reputation.

In the year 1851, shortly after his return to England, there landed on these shores the bugbear of Popery in its most appalling form, which scared the natives of the island into a state of mind bordering on temporary imbecility. Those who remember the Papal Aggression^[C] will also, with shame, remember the foolish fanaticism that burst forth in every quarter, the undignified terror of many who should have known better than to put so little confidence in their own cause, and the extravagant and senseless rumours with which the air was filled. To this unseemly panic Lord John Russell’s notorious Durham Letter materially contributed; but although there was no ground for alarm, there was, it cannot be denied, abundance of room for indignation. Many men of the most tried judgment and unquestionable moderation (albeit their voices were well nigh drowned in the general clamour), who treated the abrogation of the ancient sees by the Pope, and all other his bruta fulmina with the contempt they deserved, were, nevertheless, not disposed to sit down calmly under an insult to the Church and people of England, aggravated by the studied offensiveness with which it was offered. Such as these were the last, however, to see the necessity for, and did their best to oppose, the construction of such a steam-engine to crack a cockchafer as the notorious “Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.” Happily, this clumsy machine has been rarely, if ever, set in motion, and after some years of useless existence has, as all know, been finally broken up. It was impossible that Panizzi, as a moderate Roman Catholic, should have joined in the general outburst, or lent himself to swell the ranks of the crew around him. But he had been brought up in a country where the power of the priesthood has something of reality, and wherein the behests of the Pope are of a little more importance than they ever have been, or ever will be, in this realm. He was thoroughly imbued with that dislike and horror of clericalism which those of the Latin branch of the Church, when once they have broken free, yea, but a little, from the more rigorous bonds of their religion, seldom fail to show. It would be hard, then, to judge Panizzi severely, if he seems to have shared the alarm prevalent at the time, and to have betrayed some dread of the consequences of the Pope’s invasion of England. Let it be remembered, too, that he was an Italian before he was an Englishman; and that nothing could more effectually have roused his ire, than the insensate conduct of Pius IX., “the most foolish man,” as some one has well said of him, “that ever sat in the Papal chair.”

With this apology for any seeming weakness, or extravagance, in Panizzi’s judgment of the Papal Aggression, the following letter on the subject is laid before the reader:—

Probably, Panizzi, before the day of his death, learnt to understand why the events in other countries should not be considered a precedent in this, and how the case of Santa Rosa would be hardly likely to occur in the British Parliament. His underestimate in this letter of the numerical superiority of the Anglican body to the Roman Catholics in England is manifestly due to his mixing up the three kingdoms together; a confusion especially misleading in any consideration of the Papal Aggression, inasmuch as that movement was not extended to Scotland (where, however, it has a short time since been carried out peaceably and quietly enough), and in Ireland the titles of the Romish prelates have been always the same with those borne by their rivals of what may be called, without offence, the Colonial Church.

More interesting, perhaps, than this letter, is another document put forth by Panizzi on the same matter; its length, we regret, must prevent us from offering it to our readers; however, he recommends a curious if not altogether original prophylactic against ecclesiastical invasion from abroad. His remarks on the foreign character assumed by an Englishman who takes Roman orders, and of the allegiance (it can hardly be called divided) by which he thereby becomes bound are remarkable. The remedy which he proposes for ecclesiastical defection from patriotism would be, if carried thoroughly into effect, a little too drastic; and, if used short of thoroughly, might work a little more to the disadvantage of those who applied it than of those on whom it should be inflicted.

It has been thought best, at the risk of interrupting the proper sequence in order of time of this history, to continue and finish in this place the account of Panizzi’s connection with and views on the Ecclesiastical questions which sprang up at home and abroad in his time. For this purpose a few years must be skipped, and the reader referred to the year 1854. Perhaps some apology should be offered for the introduction here of a correspondence in that year on Serjeant (afterwards Justice) Shee’s Bill on the Temporalities of the Irish Church, inasmuch as that Bill obtained but little notoriety at the time, and the Serjeant’s proposed reforms were never carried into effect by legislation. But the following letters bear witness to the variety of questions on which Panizzi was habitually consulted, and the frequency with which his opinions were sought by his friends and acquaintances, and it may be interesting to some to know what judgment he may have formed upon a point relating to the much vexed question of Irish Church property, a question which even yet remains to be thoroughly solved. Moreover, to those who knew Justice Shee, the tone of the letter first quoted may serve to recall the unaffected modesty and simplicity which distinguished the character of him who may truly be called one of the best of men:—

To this Panizzi answered thus:—

Lord John Russell’s opinion of the Bill was expressed no less decidedly, though a little more curtly than Panizzi’s:—

On the 18th of August, 1855, a Concordat between the Courts of Austria and Rome was signed. This compact, by which a great deal of the liberty of the Austrian Church was given up to the Papacy, caused much dissatisfaction. In 1868, it was virtually abolished by the Legislatures of Austria and Hungary. To none was it more distasteful than to Panizzi, in whom, as will have been already seen, there was a wholesome dread of the Roman Church (a dread not altogether unreasonable, when certain countries and Governments had to be taken into account), and this was strongly expressed in two letters from him to Mr. Gladstone and to Mr. Haywood respectively. In the last of these, it must be granted that Panizzi very accurately estimates the opposition likely to be offered by disunited Sceptics and Freethinkers, void of combativeness and enthusiasm, to the disciplined forces of the Pope and the Curia.

Having now completed this ecclesiastical episode of Panizzi’s life, it behoves us to return to our interrupted narrative and to the relation of the results of his expedition to Italy, as well as his further action in the liberation of his suffering friends and countrymen.

Devising Means for Escape of Settembrini; Mode of Carrying on Correspondence; Senesi Collection; Mazza Affair; Loss of the ‘Isle of Thanet.’

No sooner had Panizzi arrived in London than he began devising means of escape from the dungeons of the Neapolitan Government for his unhappy friends. His first efforts were for the deliverance of Settembrini, in captivity at San Stefano, the relief of Poerio, more closely watched in an inland prison, being of secondary consideration. That the work was both arduous and hazardous may be conceived, and that as yet no very palpable improvement in the state of Naples had resulted, notwithstanding Panizzi’s exertions during his visit, may be gathered from a letter by Sir William Temple:

On the subject of poor Settembrini and his family, Panizzi wrote in these terms to Mr. Haywood:—