any influence in blunting his intellectual curiosity or impairing the energies of his will. One of those elastic natures “who ever with a frolic welcome take the thunder or the sunshine,” his whole existence was wedded to action, and he was always ready to suffer everything, if he could thereby do anything.
We have no space to follow Dr. Elder in his minute and interesting account of a life so short, yet so crowded with events, as that in which the character of Dr. Kane was formed, manifested, and matured. The character itself—so gentle and so persistent, so full at once of self-reliance and reliance on Providence, so tender in affection and so indomitable in fortitude— is now one of the moral possessions of the country, worth more to it than any new invention which increases its industrial productiveness or any new province which adds to its territorial dominion. That must be a low view of utility which excludes such a character from its list of useful tilings; for the great interest of every nation is, to cherish and value whatever tends to prevent its forces of intelligence and conscience from being weakened by idleness or withheld by timidity and self-distrust; and certainly the example of Dr. Kane will exert this wholesome influence, by the unmistakable directness with which it gives the lie to that lazy or cowardly skepticism of the powers of the will, which furnishes the excuse for thousands to slink away from duty on the plea of inability to perform it. To the young men of the country we especially commend this biography, in the full belief that it will stimulate and stir to effort many a sensitive youth who feels within himself the capacity to emulate the spirit which prompted Dr. Kane’s actions, if he cannot hope to rival their splendor and importance.
Beatrice Cenci: A Historical Novel of the Sixteenth Century, by F. D. Guerrazzi. Translated from the Italian by Luigi Monti, A. M., Instructor of Italian at Harvard University, Cambridge. New York: Kudd & Carleton, 810 Broad way. 1858, Two vols. in one. pp. 270 and 292.
Three contemporary Italians, Mariotti, (Gallenga,) Mazzini, and Ruffini, have afforded extraordinary examples of entire mastery over the English language in original composition, and Mr. Monti has attained an almost equal success in the translation before us. We have remarked, in reading it, a few solecisms and one or two trifling mistranslations,—but none of them such as either to affect the essential integrity of the version or to render it difficult for the least intelligent reader to make out clearly the sense of the original. We should not have alluded to them at all, had we not thought that they redounded rather to the credit of the translator; for they seem to prove that the work is entirely his own, and has not been subjected to that supervision which any one of Mr. Monti’s numerous friends would have been glad to offer.
Guerrazzi, the author of the book, played a conspicuous part during the Italian Revolution of 1848-9. An advocate, we believe, by profession, he was one of the chiefs of the moderate liberal party in Tuscany, who, after the breaking out of the Revolution, wished to avoid any sudden overturn by carrying out such reforms as public sentiment demanded by means of the existing powers and forms of government. As head of the ministry called to inaugurate and administer the new Constitution granted and sworn to by the Grand Duke, he became involuntarily the Regent and in fact the Dictator of Tuscany, after the Grand Duke’s treacherous flight to Santo Stefano. There is no evidence that he abused his power, or that he assumed any responsibilities not forced upon him by the necessities of his position. Indeed, the best proof that he did not is, that, after the Grand Duke had been forced again on his unwilling subjects by the bayonets of his Austrian cousins, it was found impossible to obtain Guerrazzi’s conviction on a charge of high-treason, and that in a city garrisoned by Austrian soldiers and still under martial law. He was, however, incarcerated for several years before being brought to trial, and finally sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. But even this was such an outrage on public opinion that it was commuted to banishment. He is now living in exile near Genoa, and enjoying those blessings of constitutional government which he had desired to confer on his own country, and which we fervently hope may survive the misguided assaults of a fanatic liberalism, and con-
