eir
primitive glory, on professions of repentance, depicts the actual
conduct of the Neapolitan Bourbon when he attained to power, after being
spared by his subjects the humiliation so generally the lot of European
princes in the great year of revolutions--

"Height would recall high thought, and ease recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void."

A pamphlet, written by Mr. Gladstone, roused intelligent persons in
England, and in Europe generally, to the atrocities perpetrated upon
virtuous, loyal, and even illustrious subjects, in sheer wantonness
of power, by the Neapolitan king. Lord Palmerston, then at the head of
foreign affairs, sent a copy of the pamphlet to the English minister at
every court of Europe, with the design of calling the attention of all
civilized nations to the oppression with which the people of the kingdom
of Naples were overwhelmed by their perjurious prince. This announcement
was received by enthusiastic cheers in the House of Commons. Lord
Palmerston, however, was disappointed in his expectation that the
moral influence of Europe would be brought to bear upon the Neapolitan
government, in favour of humanity. Some of the European states upheld
the conduct of the King of Naples, and the pope especially lent him his
moral support, although twenty thousand citizens of the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies were incarcerated for expressing liberal opinions, or
demanding the institutions which the king had sworn to respect. Thus
supported by the despotic states, and the sovereign pontiff, he bid
defiance to the constitutional states of Europe, and even increased the
cruelties of his stern absolutism.

DIPLOMATIC DISPUTE WITH AUSTRIA AND TUSCANY, ARISING FROM AN OUTRAGE
UPON A YOUNG ENGLISH GENTLEMAN AT FLORENCE.

It was early in January, 1852, that the tidings arrived in England of
one of the most unprovoked and barbarous outrages ever perpetrated upon
one of her sons, but the event itself occurred in 1851. The events of
this chapter relate to that year, but as the transactions at Florence,
in which England suffered so much humiliation, extended into 1852, it is
proper the narrative should also extend into that year, so far as they
are concerned.

It appears that a young English gentleman, Mr. Erskine Mather, about
nineteen years of age, and his younger brother, Mr. Thomas M. Mather,
about sixteen, had been for some time in Paris, where their parents
had placed them to promote their