indefinite
aspiration to be the keystone of a political system, may be traced in
the life of the man who gave to it the element in which its strength
resides,--Giuseppe Mazzini. He found Carbonarism impotent against the
measures of the governments, and resolved to give new life to the
liberal movement by transferring it to the ground of nationality. Exile
is the nursery of nationality, as oppression is the school of
liberalism; and Mazzini conceived the idea of Young Italy when he was a
refugee at Marseilles. In the same way, the Polish exiles are the
champions of every national movement; for to them all political rights
are absorbed in the idea of independence, which, however they may differ
with each other, is the one aspiration common to them all. Towards the
year 1830 literature also contributed to the national idea. "It was the
time," says Mazzini, "of the great conflict between the romantic and the
classical school, which might with equal truth be called a conflict
between the partisans of freedom and of authority." The romantic school
was infidel in Italy, and Catholic in Germany; but in both it had the
common effect of encouraging national history and literature, and Dante
was as great an authority with the Italian democrats as with the leaders
of the mediaeval revival at Vienna, Munich, and Berlin. But neither the
influence of the exiles, nor that of the poets and critics of the new
party, extended over the masses. It was a sect without popular sympathy
or encouragement, a conspiracy founded not on a grievance, but on a
doctrine; and when the attempt to rise was made in Savoy, in 1834, under
a banner with the motto "Unity, Independence, God and Humanity," the
people were puzzled at its object, and indifferent to its failure. But
Mazzini continued his propaganda, developed his _Giovine Italia_ into a
_Giovine Europa_, and established in 1847 the international league of
nations. "The people," he said, in his opening address, "is penetrated
with only one idea, that of unity and nationality.... There is no
international question as to forms of government, but only a national
question."

The revolution of 1848, unsuccessful in its national purpose, prepared
the subsequent victories of nationality in two ways. The first of these
was the restoration of the Austrian power in Italy, with a new and more
energetic centralisation, which gave no promise of freedom. Whilst that
system prevailed, the right was on the side of