betta Farnese, second wife of Philip V. of Spain, availing herself of the opportunity which was offered by that contest, managed to obtain as an independent kingdom for her son Charles, Naples and Sicily, whilst her second son Philip was appointed heir to the house of Farnese in Parma. Charles took possession of Naples in 1734; and when he succeeded in 1759 to the throne of Spain, he named his third son, Ferdinand, then eight years old, king of the Two Sicilies under a regency, at the head of which was the celebrated Tanucci, who had formerly been his prime minister. During the long administration of this enlightened man, the people were freed from feudal and ecclesiastical privileges; and through a more equal distribution of civil rights, a way was opened for the progress of modern civilization. Unhappily, the influence of Tanucci was destined to be destroyed by the germs of evil which subsequently came into play. Ferdinand had grown up as weak in mind as he was strong in body, and he was wholly given to vulgar sports. When he married in May, 1768, Caroline of Austria, the daughter of Maria Theresa, he gave up the government of his states to his wife. Still, as Austria was then following a liberal policy, the influence of the queen proved at first beneficial. Her brothers Leopold and Joseph—the imperial reformers of the eighteenth century—went on a visit to Naples, and lived as philosophers in familiar intercourse with the intellectual celebrities of the kingdom. It was the time of Filangieri, Genovesi, Palmieri, Pagano, &c., and Caroline then prided herself in the patronage of those men, against whom she was soon to turn all the cruelty of her nature. The misfortunes of the Bourbonian dynasty at Naples began with the fall of Tanucci, which was caused by a palace intrigue in 1777. John Acton, an Englishman and an adventurer, was raised to the office of minister in the department of the army and navy, and became the uncontrolled monopolizer of the feelings of the queen and the fortunes of the state. The dread subsequently produced by the French revolution ripened the seeds of evil which had been sown in the heart of the queen by her new councillors; and when the fate of Louis XVI. and the Reign of Terror in France augmented the fears and kindled the spirit of revenge in the sister of Marie Antoinette, a violent persecution took place at Naples. The educated classes who had led the movement of reform previous to the popular outbreak in France, although adverse to the excesses, accepted the doctrines of the Revolution, and were dissatisfied with the blind policy of the court at home and abroad. The Neapolitan government, whilst causing the best of their subjects to become domestic enemies, followed a system of foreign policy which authorized French invasion. Apparently at peace with France, and having bound themselves to the conventions of the treaty of Leoben, they secretly signed an alliance with Great Britain and Austria; and before the allies were ready for action, they indulged in open demonstrations against France. Lady Hamilton, of unenviable celebrity, was the intimate friend of the queen, and Acton the ruling mind of the state. The king was not roused from his apathy by the dangers of the monarchy. Hunting, horse-taming, and fishing, were his favourite occupations; and his days were spent in riotous games and revelries with the lowest of the rabble, whose manners and fashions it was his delight to assume.—(See the admirable description of his character in Colletta's History, vol. i., book ii.). If he took any part in public matters, it was only to approve of the iniquitous proceedings of Acton, Vanni, and Castelcicala, against the noblest among his subjects; "for, from his childhood to his old age," as Schlosser says, "one feeling of humanity never entered his heart."—(History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vii.) It was by those men that a system of repression was organized, which had for its instruments the spy, the police, and the exceptional tribunals. The spy—rewarded with rank and honours by the queen, who declared this vile function to be a patriotic virtue—destroyed the very foundations of social confidence; the police-agent and the exceptional tribunals set at nought every law of justice in their proceedings. Vincenzo Vitaliano, Emanuele de Deo, and Vincenzo Galiani, all three in the prime of life, of noble birth, and adorned with every gift of nature and education, were the first victims of tyranny. Such was the state of things at Naples when the war against the French, who were then masters of the papal states, was resolved upon; but after a short occupation of Rome, the Neapolitans were obliged to retire on all points. King Ferdinand fled the first, terror-struck and in disguise, from Albano. The French general, Championnet, easily conquered a disorganized army; and having overcome, not without heavy losses, the more formidable resistance of the populace of the capital, he established in January, 1799, amidst the good wishes of the Neapolitan patriots, the Parthenopeian republic; which, being connected with the fortunes of the French armies in Southern Italy, fell with their reverses in the same year. The Bourbons gave free scope to their revenge, and involved the name of England in their foulest deeds. Through the connivance of Lady Hamilton with the queen, and the compliance of Nelson, who on that occasion sullied his nobly-earned fame, the capitulations with the patriots were broken through. Admiral Caracciolo was condemned to death by Nelson himself, on board the British flag-ship. Conforti, Pagano, Cirillo, Eleonora Pimentel, and others equally high in talent and character, died on the scaffold; many were murdered by the mob. It was the reign of terror of the reaction, of longer duration than the saturnalia of liberty in France. Napoleon put an end to it when, after the battle of Austerlitz, he sent a French army to the conquest of Naples. The royal family took refuge in Sicily. The islanders, whose old franchises had till then been respected, had remained faithful to their masters, and received them with open arms; they fought in their cause against Murat with the insurgents of Calabria, and were rewarded for their loyalty on the part of the king by an attempt to deprive them of their constitutional rights. Another English officer, Lord Bentinck, made amends in Sicily for the complicity of Nelson in the crimes at Naples. He for a while kept off from that country slavery and judicial murder. The reformed constitution of 1812, solemnly sworn by King Ferdinand in Palermo, was inaugurated under the auspices of England. But when, after the fall of Napoleon, and through the treaty of Vienna, Italy was again given over to Austria and to the old dynasties, the restoration proved equally faithless to friends and foes. The king returned to Naples with the promise of granting a constitution; but he was no sooner in power again than he broke through all his engagements with both Neapolitans and Sicilians. By a secret convention with Austria he bound himself to enforce an absolute system of government, whilst he was proclaiming to his subjects his liberal intentions. All that was profligate and violent in the dominant faction, headed by Canosa—a name of European infamy—ruled the state by the scourge and the scaffold. The consequence was the revolution of 1820. Ferdinand again swore to the constitution, and offered to go to Leybach to plead the cause of his subjects before the councils of the holy alliance. He returned soon after in the rear of seventy thousand Austrians, to put down freedom. General Nugent, the chief of the expedition, and the Austro-Sanfedistic camarilla, then re-established that system of espionage and police-government which has, from 1821 down to the present day, oppressed the people of the Two Sicilies. The noble protests of Lord Bentinck, of Mackintosh, and others in the British parliament, were of no avail. The destruction of free constitutions in Sicily and Naples was remorselessly acquiesced in as a fait accompli. Ferdinand died of apoplexy, despised and hated by Italy and the world, in January, 1825.—A. S., O.
Ferdinand II., King of the Two Sicilies, grandson of Ferdinand I., was born 12th January, 1810. He succeeded his father, Francis I., in 1830, soon after the French revolution. The beginning of his reign was promising, as in his first measures he seemed inclined to put an end to the hereditary misgovernment of his house, to the malversation of public money in all administrative departments, and to political prosecutions. But when the Austrians were allowed by France, in spite of the principle of non-intervention proclaimed by the French government, to put down the revolution in the Romagna in 1831, the king of Naples was prevailed upon by Metternich to persevere in the old system of tyranny. He married in 1832 Maria Christina, daughter of Victor Emanuel, king of Piedmont; but at her death in 1836 he turned to Austria for a new alliance, and, a year after, took for his second wife Maria Theresa, daughter of the Archduke Charles. Austrian influence has been ever since dominant at Naples, and history has but to record a succession of conspiracies and violent reactions. The principal attempt at insurrection took place in Sicily in 1837, then in the Abruzzi in 1842, but without success. Two years afterwards, 1844, Cosenza was the scene of the heroic death of the brothers Bandiera, who fell victims to their patriotism and to diplomatic espionage. Through the opening of their letters at the British post-office, their plans were discovered and made known to
