per issued by the
revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of Lugano, was enough to
send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed leaflets, with no
name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly written in the
unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in the little
booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to look at
them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks were
run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they not
the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his
own house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and
make him accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would
reveal the names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda.
'Tiremm innanz!' ('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese
dialect, and marched incorruptible to death. On a similar charge,
Dottesio and Grioli, the latter a priest, suffered in the same year,
and early in 1852 the long trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty
patriots whose names had been obtained by the aid of the bastinado
from one or two unhappy wretches who had not the fortitude to endure.
Of these fifty, nine were executed, among whom were the priests
Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and Tito Speri, the
young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling part in the
propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured his
condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to
the calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been
unable to do more for his country; but here too his simple faith
sustained him. Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen
to the prayers of the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom.
'To-morrow they lead me forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this
world, but, in the bosom of God, I promise you I will do what I can.'
So did this clear and childlike spirit carry its cause from the
Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.

In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it
till it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified
from any point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on
Mazzini; but though he kne