656 M A Z M E A The surrender of the city on June 30 was followed by Mazzini s not too precipitate flight by way of Marseilles into Switzerland, whence he once more found his way to London. Here in 1850 he became president of the National Italian Committee, and at the same time entered into close relations with Ledru-Rollin and Kossuth. He had a hand in the abortive rising at Mantua in 1852, and again, in February 1853, a considerable share in the formidable insurrection which broke out at Milan ; once more, in 1854, he had gone far with preparations for re newed action when his plans were completely disconcerted by the withdrawal of professed supporters, and by the action of the French and English Governments in sending ships of war to Naples. The year 1857 found him yet once more in Italy, where, for complicity in short-lived emeutes which took place at Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples, he was again laid under sentence of death. Undiscouraged in the pursuit of the one great aim of his life by any such incidents as these, he returned to London, where he edited his new journal Pensiere ed Azione, in which the constant burden of his message to the overcautious practical politicians of Italy was "I am but a voice crying Action ; but the state of Italy cries for it also. So do the best men and people of her cities. Do you wish to destroy my influence] Ad." The same tone was at a somewhat later date assumed in the letter he wrote to Victor Emmanuel, urging him to put himself at the head of the movement for Italian unity, and promising republican support. As regards the events of 1859-60, however, it may be questioned whether, through his characteristic inability to distinguish between the ideally perfect and the practically possible, he did not actually hinder more than he helped the course of events by which the realization of so much of the great dream of his life was at last brought about. As has been said else where (vol. xiii. p. 487), if Mazzini was the prophet of Italian unity, and Garibaldi its knight errant, to Cavour alone belongs the honour of having been the statesman by whom it was finally accomplished. After the irresistible pressure of the popular movement had led to the establish ment not of an Italian republic but of an Italian kingdom, Mazzini could honestly enough write, " I too have striven to realize unity under a monarchical flag," but candour compelled him to add, "The Italian people are led astray by a delusion at the present day, a delusion which has induced them to substitute material for moral unity and their own reorganization. Not so I. I bow my head sorrowfully to the sovereignty of the national will ; but monarchy will never number me amongst its servants or followers." In 1865, by way of protest against the still uncancelled sentence of death under which he lay, Mazzini was elected by Messina as delegate to the Italian parlia ment, but, feeling himself unable to take the oath of allegiance to the monarchy, he never took Iflk seat. In the following year, when a general amnesty was granted after the cession of Venice to Italy, the sentence of death was at last removed, but he declined to accept such an " offer of oblivion and pardon for having loved Italy above all earthly things." In May 1869 he was again expelled from Switzerland at the instance of the Italian Government for having conspired with Garibaldi ; after a few months spent in England he set out (1870) for Sicily, but was promptly arrested at sea and carried to Gaeta, where he was imprisoned for two months. Events soon made it evident that there was little danger to fear from the contem plated rising, and the occasion of the birth of a prince was seized for restoring him to liberty. The remainder of his life, spent partly in London and partly at Lugano, presents no noteworthy incidents. For some time his health had been far from satisfactory, but the immediate cause of his death was an attack of pleurisy with which he was seized at Pisa, and which terminated fatally on March 10, 1872. The Italian parliament by a unanimous vote expressed the national sorrow with which the tidings of his death had been received, the president pronouncing an eloquent eulogy on the departed patriot as a model of disinterestedness and self-denial, and one who had dedicated his whole life un grudgingly to the cause of his country s freedom. A public funeral took place at Pisa on March 14, and the remains were afterwards conveyed to Genoa. The published writings oF Mazzini, mostly occasional, are very voluminous, and have nowhere been exhaustively collected. The fullest edition of them is that begun by himself and continued by Satti (Scritti cditi einediti diGiuseppc, Mazzini, lOvols., 1861-80); many of the most important are found in the partially autobiographi cal work already referred to (Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini, 6 vols., 1864-70), and the two most systematic "Thoughts upon Democracy in Europe," a remarkable series of criticisms on Ben thamism, St-Simonianism, Fourierism, and other economic and socialistic schools of the day, and the treatise " On the Duties of Man," an admirable primer of ethics, dedicated to the Italian working class will be found in a volume entitled Joseph Mazzini, Memoir, by Mrs E. A. Venturi (London, 1875). Mazzini s "first great sacrifice," lie tells us, vas "the renunciation of the career of litera ture for the more direct path of political action," and as late as 18G1 we find him still recurring to the long-cherished hope of being able to leave the stormy arena of politics and consecrate the last years of his life to the dream of his youth. He had specially contemplated three considerable literary undertakings, a volume of Thoughts on. Religion, a popular History of Italy, to enable the working classes to apprehend what he conceived to be the "mission" of Italy in God s providential ordering of the world, and a comprehensive col lection of translations of ancient and modern classics into Italian. None of these was actually achieved. No one, however, can read even the briefest and most occasional writing of Mazzini without gaining some impression of the simple grandeur of the man, the lofty elevation of his moral tone, his unwavering faith in the living God, who is ever revealing Himself in the progressive develop ment of humanity. His last public utterance is to be found in a highly characteristic article on Kenan s Reformc Morale et Intel- IcctuMe, finished on March 3, 1872, and published in the Fortnight lij lle-cicw for February 1874. (J. S. BL.) MAZZOLA. See PARMIGIANO. MEAD, FI.ICHARD (1673-1754), physician, was born on August 11, 1673, at Stepney (near London), where his father, at one time minister of the parish, had been ejected for nonconformity in 1662. He was sent to Utrecht, where he studied for three years under Grosvius ; having decided to follow the medical profession, he then went to Leyden and attended the lectures of Hermann and Pitcairn. In 1695 he graduated in philosophy and physic at Padua, and in the following year he returned to his native place, entering at once on a successful practice. His Mechanical Account of Poisons appeared in 1702, and in 1703 he was admitted to the Royal Society, to whose Transactions he contributed in that year a paper on the parasitic nature of scabies. In the same year he was also elected physician to St Thomas s Hospital, and appointed to read anatomical lectures at the Surgeons Hall. On the death of Radcliffe in 1714 Mead became the recognized head of his profession ; he attended Queen Anne on her death-bed, and in 1727 was appointed physician to George II., having previously served him in that capacity when he was prince of Wales. He died on February 16, 1754. For his place in the annals of medical science see MEDICINE, p. 811 of the present volume. Besides the Mechanical Account of Poisons, of which a second edition appeared in 1708, Mead published a treatise De Impcrio Solis et Lunsc in Corpora Humana ct Morlis indc Oriundis (1704), A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and Ihc Method Monita ct Prxcepta Mcdica (1751). A Life of Mead by Dr Maty appeared in 1755. MEADVILLE, a city of the United States, county seat of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, on the left bank of
French Creek, a tributary of the Alleghany river, and atPage:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/688
This page needs to be proofread.
ABC—XYZ