Occult Imperium: Arturo Reghini,

Roman Traditionalism, and the

Anti-Modern Reaction in Fascist Italy
Christian Giudice
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/occult-imperium-arturo-reghini-roman-traditionalism-a
nd-the-anti-modern-reaction-in-fascist-italy-christian-giudice/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Anti-Dunia Modern John Zerzan

https://ebookmass.com/product/anti-dunia-modern-john-zerzan/

Roman Imperial Portrait Practice in the Second Century

AD Christian Niederhuber

https://ebookmass.com/product/roman-imperial-portrait-practice-
in-the-second-century-ad-christian-niederhuber/

The Palgrave Handbook Of Anti-Communist Persecutions

1st Edition Christian Gerlach

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-anti-
communist-persecutions-1st-edition-christian-gerlach/

Roman Imperial Portrait Practice in the Second Century

AD: Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger Christian.
Niederhuber

https://ebookmass.com/product/roman-imperial-portrait-practice-
in-the-second-century-ad-marcus-aurelius-and-faustina-the-
younger-christian-niederhuber/
The Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook for the
Modern Mystic S. Elizabeth

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-art-of-the-occult-a-visual-
sourcebook-for-the-modern-mystic-s-elizabeth/

Anticorruption in History: From Antiquity to the Modern

Era (Anti-Corruption in History) 1st Edition Ronald
Kroeze

https://ebookmass.com/product/anticorruption-in-history-from-
antiquity-to-the-modern-era-anti-corruption-in-history-1st-
edition-ronald-kroeze/

Sociology of the Arts in Action Arturo Rodríguez Morató

https://ebookmass.com/product/sociology-of-the-arts-in-action-
arturo-rodriguez-morato/

Mordecai Would Not Bow Down: Anti-Semitism, the

Holocaust, and Christian Supersessionism Timothy P.
Jackson

https://ebookmass.com/product/mordecai-would-not-bow-down-anti-
semitism-the-holocaust-and-christian-supersessionism-timothy-p-
jackson/

Roman Urbanism in Italy: Recent Discoveries and New

Directions (University of Cambridge Museum of Classical
Archaeology Monographs) Alessandro Launaro

https://ebookmass.com/product/roman-urbanism-in-italy-recent-
discoveries-and-new-directions-university-of-cambridge-museum-of-
classical-archaeology-monographs-alessandro-launaro/
Occult Imperium
 OX F O R D S T U D I E S I N W E S T E R N E S O T E R IC I SM
Series Editor
Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg

Editorial Board
Jean-​Pierre Brach, École Pratique des Hautes Études
Carole Cusack, University of Sydney
Christine Ferguson, University of Stirling
Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark
Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam
Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol
Jeffrey Kripal, Rice University
James R. Lewis, University of Tromsø
Michael Stausberg, University of Bergen
Egil Asprem, University of Stockholm
Dylan Burns, Freie Universität Berlin
Gordan Djurdjevic, Siimon Fraser University
Peter Forshaw, University of Amsterdam
Jesper Aa. Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
CHILDREN OF LUCIFER GURDJIEFF
The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises
Ruben van Luijk Joseph Azize

SATANIC FEMINISM INITIATING THE MILLENNIUM

Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in The Avignon Society and Illuminism
Nineteenth-​Century Culture in Europe
Per Faxneld Robert Collis and Natalie Bayer

THE SIBLYS OF LONDON IMAGINING THE EAST

A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of
Georgian England
Susan Sommers
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE DEAD?
Near-​Death Experiences, Christianity,
and the Occult
Jens Schlieter
AMONG THE SCIENTOLOGISTS
History, Theology, and Praxis
Donald A. Westbrook
RECYCLED LIVES
A History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky's
Theosophy
Julie Chajes
THE ELOQUENT BLOOD
The Goddess Babalon and the
Construction of
Femininities in Western Esotericism
Manon Hedenborg White
The Early Philosophical Society
Tim Rudbog and Erik Sand
SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY
From the Age of Jacob Boehme to
Mary Anne Atwood, 1600–​1910
Mike A. Zuber
MYSTIFYING KABBALAH
Academic Scholarship, National
Theology, and
New Age Spirituality
Boaz Huss
OCCULT IMPERIUM
Arturo Reghini, Roman Traditionalism,
and the
Anti-​Modern Reaction in Fascist Italy
Christian Giudice
 Occult Imperium
Arturo Reghini, Roman Traditionalism, and
the Anti-​Modern Reaction in Fascist Italy

C H R I S T IA N G I U D IC E

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–​0–​19–​761024–​4

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197610244.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by
the frost.
—​J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
 Contents

Acknowledgments  xi

1. The Anti-​Modern Side of Modernity  1

1.1. Anti-​Modern Sentiments in Modern Italy  1
1.2. The Metaphysics of Dunces?  6
1.2.1. Occultism and Modernity: Strange Bedfellows?  6
1.2.2. From Yates to Eternity  11
1.2.3. Enter Tradition and Traditionalism  13
1.2.4. Paganism versus Christianity in Traditionalism  16
1.3. Reghini through the Modern Looking Glass  18
1.3.1. Multiple Modernities and Occultism  18
1.3.2. The Invention of Sacred Traditions and the Occult  20
1.4. Overview of the Book’s Chapters  21
1.4.1. The Italian Occult Milieu at the Turn of the Century  21
1.4.2. The Early Years (1898–​1910): Avant-​Garde, Theosophy, and
Modernity  21
1.4.3. Schola Italica and the Rito Filosofico Italiano (1910–​1915)  22
1.4.4. The Great War and Imperialismo Pagano: A Clash between the
Modern and the Traditional (1915–​1920)  23
1.4.5. Fascism and Traditionalism (1920–​1925)  24
1.4.6. The Ur Group and the End of a Dream (1925–​1929)  24
1.4.7. Silentium post Clamores: The Final Years (1930–​1946)  25
1.5. Conclusion  26
Appendix: Imperialismo Pagano  26
2. Risorgimento Italy: Occultism, Politics, the Rise of the Nation State,
and Roman Traditionalism  27
2.1. A Historical Overview of the Risorgimento  27
2.1.1. A Brief Outline  27
2.1.2. Risorgimento as Roman Tradition and the Role of Freemasonry
in the Unification Process  32
2.1.3. Freemasonry in Italy in the Second Half of the Nineteenth
Century  33
2.2. Pope Pius IX and the Roman Question  35
2.3. Italy and Nineteenth-​Century Occultism  36
2.3.1. The Origins and Spread of Spiritualism  37
2.3.2. Spiritualism and Spiritism among the Risorgimento Elite  40
viii Contents

2.4. The Naples School and the Occult Italo/​Roman Primacy  42

2.4.1. The Metanarrative of Primacy: Mazzoldi and Mengozzi  42
2.4.2. Occultism in Nineteenth-​Century Naples  44
3. The Early Years (1902–​1910): Avant-​Garde, Theosophy,
and Anti-​Modernism  49
3.1. Reghini’s Early Life and the Reghini Di Pontremoli Family  50
3.2. The Crisis of Positivism and the Rise of Neo-​Idealism  51
3.2.1. Italian Philosophy in the Late Nineteenth Century  51
3.2.2. Benedetto Croce and Idealism as Counterpositivism  53
3.3. The Florentine Avant-​Garde: The Case of Leonardo  56
3.3.1. Birth and Characteristics of the Florentine Avant-​Garde  56
3.3.2. The Three Lives of Leonardo and Its Occultist Phase  57
3.3.3. Rehnini and Leonardo  60
3.4. Reghini between Avant-​Garde and the Theosophical Society  60
3.4.1. The Theosophical Society in Italy  61
3.4.2. The Theosophical Library  62
3.4.3. The Roots of Roman Traditionalism in Theosophy  64
3.4.4. Reghini’s Theosophical Writings  66
4. The Schola Italica and the Rito Filosofico Italiano (1910–​1914):
Initiation and Invention of Tradition in Modern Italy  70
4.1. The Role of Freemasonry in Modern Italy  71
4.1.1. A Brief History of Italian Freemasonry (1861–​1914)  71
4.1.2. Anti-​Clericalism within Italian Freemasonry  73
4.1.3. Nationalism and Irredentism within Freemasonry  75
4.1.4. Fringe Masonry in Italy  77
4.2. Meeting Ara and Reghini’s Masonic Past  78
4.2.1. Enter Freemasonry: From Rigeneratori to Lucifero  78
4.2.2. A Mysterious Gentleman: Amedeo Rocco Armentano  80
4.2.3. Reghini’s Initiation into the Schola Italica  82
4.2.4. Invented Traditions as an Epistemological Strategy  84
4.3. Enter Frosini: A Singular Ally  86
4.3.1. The Rito Filosofico Italiano  86
4.3.2. Changes within the Rito Filosofico and the Its Short Life  88
5. The Great War and “Pagan Imperialism” (1914–​1920): A Clash
between the Modern and the Traditional  91
5.1. Interventionism and Nationalism in Italy (1910–​1914)  91
5.1.1. The Larger Picture: Italy and Nationalism  91
5.1.2. Reghini and Roman Traditionalist Volunteers  93
5.2. 1914: Pagan Imperialism: A Textual Analysis  96
5.2.1. The Context of “Imperialismo Pagano”  96
5.2.2. “Introduction”  99
5.2.3. “Impero e Cristianesimo” (“Empire and Christendom”)  101
 Contents ix

5.2.4. “La Tradizione Imperiale Romana” (“The Roman Imperial

Tradition”)  104
5.2.5. “L’Idea Imperiale Dopo Dante”
(“The Imperial Idea after Dante”)  107
6. Fascism and Traditionalism: Modernity and Anti-​Modernity
(1920–​1925)  111
6.1. The Larger Picture: A Historical Overview  111
6.1.1. Benito Mussolini and the March on Rome  111
6.1.2. Fascism and Roman Traditionalism: Anti-​Modern or Modern?  114
6.1.3. Social Occult Modernism  118
6.2. Occultism and Fascism: A Real Partnership?  120
6.2.1. The Fascist Link with Occultism: The 1920s  122
6.3. Guénonian Traditionalism  125
6.3.1. Guénon and the Birth of Traditionalism  125
6.3.2. Guénon and Traditionalism in 1920s Italy  130
6.3.3. The Reghini-​Guénon Correspondence (1923–​1926)  133
6.4. Roman Traditionalism from 1920 to 1925  138
6.4.1. The End of the Beginning  138
6.4.2. The Beginning of the End  141
7. The Ur Group and the End of a Dream (1923–​1929)  142
7.1. Le Parole Sacre Di Passo Published by Atanòr (1922)  142
7.1.1. Meeting Ciro Alvi and the Atanòr Publishing House  142
7.1.2. Le Parole: Reghini’s First Monograph (1922)  144
7.2. The Journals Atanòr (1924) and Ignis (1925)  150
7.2.1. Reghini’s First Journal: Atanòr  150
7.2.2. Ignis  155
7.3. Ur and the Ur Group: Practical Occultism  158
7.3.1. The Ur Journal (1927–​1928)  158
7.3.2. The Ur Group and the Break with Evola  160
8. Silentium Post Clamores (1930–​1946)  163
8.1. Troubles in the Capital: 1929–​1938  163
8.2. Reghini’s Works in the 1930s and 1940s  166
8.2.1. “Il Fascio Littorio” (1934)  166
8.2.2. Per La Restituzione Della Geometria Pitagorica (1935)  170
8.2.3. Dei Numrti Pitagorici (1936–​1944)  172
8.3. The Final Years (1939–​1946)  179
9. Concluding Remarks  183

Appendix: English Translation of Imperialismo Pagano  193

Notes  203
Bibliography  285
Index  317
 Acknowledgments

First of all, my foremost thanks go to two scholars, without whom this book
would not be in your hands right now: the late professor Nicholas Goodrick-​
Clarke, who encouraged me to take my first uncertain steps in the world of ac-
ademia, after having marked my master’s thesis on post-​Crowleyan magic and
having suggested I didn’t waste my “academic potential on petty chaos magic.”
To him I owe more than I was ever able to tell him. Great thanks go to my super-
visor Professor Henrik Bogdan (University of Gothenburg), who, first welcomed
me to Göteborg and made me feel at home in my new working environment,
and then consistently supported my efforts throughout these four years, with his
knowledge of Western esotericism and his helpful comments on my book.
I also would like to acknowledge Professor Marco Pasi (UvA), for his inval-
uable help throughout the writing of the book, which would become this book,
and Professor Mark Sedgwick (Aarhus University) for reading the draft version
of my book and giving me his feedback and welcome comments on the subject of
Traditionalism and Western esotericism in general.
Spending four years at the Department of Literature, History of Ideas and
Religion means that feedback, suggestions, and constructive criticism came
to me from scholars in the most disparate fields. I therefore want to thank my
colleagues for their generous input of ideas: Professor Göran Larsson; PhD
candidates Giulia Giubergia, Jonatan Bäckelie, and Per Ahlström; Lisa Schmidt,
PhD; Wilhelm Kardemark; and Jessica Moberg. Special thanks go to Department
Head Cecilia Rosengren for her continued support and Department Secretary
Pernilla Josefson for her assistance.
Many thanks are due to those interested in Italian occultism who have helped
me with their suggestions and criticism, sometimes unearthing literary material
I had lost all hope of finding: independent scholar H. T. Hakl, Sandro Consolato,
Dr. Michele Olzi, Dr. Francesco Baroni, and Luca Valentini. Friend and expert on
Roman Traditionalism Francesco Naio, especially, has been a veritable goldmine
of suggestions and information.
Heartfelt thanks also go to Antonio Girardi of the Italian section of the
Theosophical Society, for providing me with some of Reghini’s early articles on
Theosophical matters; Professor Lidia Reghini di Pontremoli, for sharing some
family memories of her great-​uncle Arturo; the heirs to the Guénon Estate for
providing me with unpublished correspondence between Guénon and Reghini;
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Dr. Letizia Lanzetta at the Instituto Nazionale di Studi Romani; and the staff at the
Archivio di Stato in Rome for their invaluable help.
To Maria Liberg, Peter Olsson, and Daniel Abrahamsson, fellow students of
Western esotericism at the University of Gothenburg, who welcomed me since
my first day in Sweden and helped me through the toughest periods, my sincere
thanks.
Last, but certainly not least, to Margaret Jessop, the only Mahātmā I have ever
encountered, and Vincenzo Giudice, who transmitted his love for twentieth-​
century Italian history to me. This book is dedicated to them.
 1
The Anti-​Modern Side of Modernity

Progress is equivalent to non-​being.1

—​Amedeo Rocco Armentano

1.1. Anti-​Modern Sentiments in Modern Italy

In 1914, one year before Italy’s involvement in the Great War, an article appeared
in Salamandra (Salamander, est. 1914), a cultural publication with a small fol-
lowing of enthusiasts, signed by a then relatively obscure occultist, mathemati-
cian, essayist, and self-​avowed neo-​Pythagorean: Arturo Reghini (1878–​1946).
The author’s contribution to the literary periodical was entitled “Imperialismo
Pagano” (“Pagan Imperialism”), and it vividly contrasted the positivist, pro-
gressive worldview, which permeated a vast section of the Italian modern
culture of the day.2 The article denounced some of the very staples of what
sociologists, from Max Weber to Anthony Giddens, have, through the decades,
judged to be intrinsic to modern culture: mass democracy, secularization, the
detraditionalization of society, and the idea of a “disenchanted West,” to name
but a few.3 Modern society as “a progressive force promising to liberate human-
kind from ignorance and irrationality” was by no means the weltanshaaung
advocated by the article.4 In it Reghini vehemently attacked the Vatican and the
Catholic nationalists, guilty of wielding too much political power, and deplored
the “universal suffrage,” which had “granted access to active politics to almost
all of the illiterate and malleable mass of the nation.”5 More importantly, and
relevant for the purposes of my book, Reghini wrote about the existence of an
uninterrupted chain of initiates, from King Numa Pompilius (753–​673 bce)
to Vergil (50–​19 bce), from Dante Aligheri (1265–​1321) to Giuseppe Mazzini
(1805–​1872), who had been the custodians of a Pagan Roman Tradition, from
the foundation of the Eternal City right up to the early twentieth century.6 This
Tradition, secretly handed down through the generations, would prove essential
to the twentieth-​century alleged manifestation of the institution that has been
called by its advocates the Schola Italica (Italic School), an anti-​modern, neo-​
Pythagorean, initiatory order, which sought to restore order to what was per-
ceived as a modern chaotic Italian society, through a return to the traditional
ideals of Ancient Rome to be applied in the early twentieth century.7

Occult Imperium. Christian Giudice, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197610244.003.0001
2 Occult Imperium

But who was Arturo Reghini, a self-​proclaimed anti-​modern intellectual?

What were his links to the Traditionalist movement called Schola Italica, which
he wrote about in many articles and publications? Was he a lone Don Quixote
in his fight against the windmills of modernity, and was he alone, in days when
most sought occult wisdom in foreign authors and Eastern texts, to crave for a
return to a pristine autochthone tradition in order to escape from Weber’s infa-
mous stahlhartes Gehäuse?8 Contemporary studies on the interaction between
modernity and occultism have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that, indeed,
occultism cannot be simply seen only as a reaction by alienated individuals who
resented objective reality and “try to elicit meaning from it by saying abraca-
dabra,”9 thus culminating in James Webb’s definition of occultism as a “flight
from reason.”10 Yet, however well the theories may fit one author’s agenda, such
claims are not universal and must not lead to a pernicious tendency to over-
generalize, since the impact of modernity on occultism, as will be seen, varied
sensibly from country to country, from one occult milieu to another. To quote
sociologist Jeffrey Herf, “[t]‌here is no such thing as modernity in general. There
are only national societies, each of which becomes modern in its own fashion.”11
Therefore, it will be up to this volume to demonstrate that some aspects seen to
be thoroughly compatible with modernity in an occult order in Great Britain, the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (est. 1888), for example, do not apply to a
country like Italy and an esoteric Tradition like the one represented by Reghini’s
writings.12
Contemporary scholars, such as Alex Owen, Marco Pasi, Corinna Treitel,
and David Harvey, to cite the most prominent who have analyzed the complex
relationship between the surge of interest in occultism and the allegedly posi-
tivist, secularist, Enlightenment-​inspired qualities of modernity, pace Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer, have almost unanimously viewed occultism as a
progressive, integral aspect of the modern world, and indeed as a forum in which
new social conquests (emancipation of woman and democratization of access
to knowledge, to name but two key factors) would make their first appearance,
before slowly trickling down to mass society:13 the reason for this trend is rela-
tively straightforward, if one only considers the extremely multifaceted nature
of the terms used and the malleability of these concepts (in contrast to Zygmunt
Bauman’s idea of a rigidly characterized heavy modernity opposed to a post-
modern, fragmented, and liquid one) have allowed authors to describe moder-
nity as everything and its opposite.14
Sociologist Marshall Berman, acutely aware of this conundrum, has attempted
a description of the slippery, almost intangible qualities of modern life, which
may aid the reader not only in his comprehension of modernity’s qualities per
se but also in acknowledging the existence of individuals and groups of people
strongly opposed to the effects of modernity: Berman describes the “maelstrom
 The Anti-Modern Side of Modernity 3

of modern” life as being characterized by scientific discoveries; a massive in-

crease of industrialization; the creation of new human environments which end
up phagocytizing old ones; demographic upheavals (which, as I have written ear-
lier, were a strong concern for Reghini); and the rise of national states and of a
capitalist world market, for example.15 Berman’s depiction of twentieth-​century
modernity as a world in which “everything is pregnant with its contrary” will be
crucial in trying to understand certain underlying tensions, between the pro-
gressive and the reactionary, in Reghini’s writings:16 if all contains a germ of its
opposite, it is also quite true that early twentieth-​century modernity, in Berman’s
view, is either accepted wholly with enthusiasm or else is “condemned with a
neo-​Olympian remoteness and contempt.”17 Although this may seem an extreme
position to hold, it does help bolster a critical assumption in this book: my hypo-
thesis is that elitist, anti-​modern, Traditionalist milieus, sometimes even prone to
totalitarian political ideas, obviously did actually exist in modern times and that
a balance must be struck between the older theoretical constructs which bound
occultism to a one-​way journey to irrational and totalitarian ideas a priori, and
the newer, more nuanced, scholarship which views occultism as an integral part
of modernity, but seems to ignore some facets of modern expression, since even
anti-​modernism, in this case, must be seen as a modern phenomenon, albeit less
congenial to its theses. Another useful distinction is given by Roger Griffin, in
his division between epiphanic and progressive modernism: the first is seen as
a revolt against modernity merely confined to “aesthetic, religious and spiritual
quests, articulated in both literature and painting, for ephemeral experiences.”18
Griffin’s description of programmatic modernism resembles the spirit found in
Reghini’s writings in a much more potent way:

A quite different face of modernism manifests itself when the creative élan
towards a higher subjectively perceived plane of existence becomes sufficiently
intense to break free from the modern “slough of despond” altogether, and
mutates into the sustained aspiration to create a new objective, external world,
a new future premised on the radical rejection of and opposition to prevailing
reality.

Est modus in rebus, quoth Horace (65–​8 bce) in his Satires (35 bce), and it
is my firm conviction that the study of anti-​modern writings like Reghini’s will
help paint a clearer picture of this intricate relationship than has been presented
to date.19 In attempting to provide a definition of reactionary modernism in
Weimar Germany, Herf writes of “nationalists who turned the romantic capi-
talism of the German Right away from backward-​looking pastoralism, pointing
instead to the outline of a beautiful new order replacing the formless chaos due to
capitalism in a united [ . . . ] nation.”20 Reghini was acutely aware of the modern
4 Occult Imperium

world he lived in and, through his writings, conveyed a sense of modernity it-
self providing the opportunity of a new beginning, which had been building up
since the final years of the Risorgimento, an historical phase in Italian history
culminating in the unification of the peninsula, and which would manifest it-
self, on the political plane, with the rise of the Fascist regime.21 What marked
the difference between his Traditionalist brand of occultism and other occultist
movements was not a mere, irrational rejection of modernity tout court, but
the deep-​felt need to employ traditional tools for the spiritual reconstruction of
modern Italy. Hence, the core question of my work can be thus formulated: How
and why did Arturo Reghini and his circles of friends react so vehemntly against
the Modern, and what can the analysis of his life and writings offer to the ongoing
debate regarding the intricate relationship between occultism and modernity?22 It
is my hypothesis that Reghini’s writings are not only a way to penetrate the oft-​
neglected anti-​modern occultist Italian milieu specifically, but will prove to be
of great relevance in the wider study of that section of population, which indeed
opposed notions of progress and modernization, and acutely felt the seemingly
nefarious effects to be found in what scholar Jeffrey C. Alexander has defined
“the dark side of modernity.”23
As discussed, my work will focus on Italian occultism, specifically on Arturo
Reghini and, to a lesser degree, on his mentor Amedeo Rocco Armentano
(1886–​1966). The chapters of the dissertation will have a triple function: first,
the study of Reghini’s writings will help flesh out a solid biographical account,
whose main purpose will be that of providing a fil rouge for the reader to follow;
second, in each chapter I will endeavor to intertwine Reghini’s life with some
of modernity’s major elements, opening up to the wider field of sociology of
religions, and therefore focusing on the “dark-​side” elements of modern, or
anti-​modern, life of the early twentieth century: the reaction to positivism, the
rise of avant-​gardes, the relationship between occult orders and the Vatican,
and the Fascist regime’s repression of occultism. In this way I will paint a wider
picture of the many nuances in which Italy differed from other European coun-
tries when analyzing how anti-​modernists may have experienced what philoso-
pher Charles Taylor defined as the “malaise of modernity.”24 Through Reghini’s
biography and writings, I will thus aim to typify the discomfort caused by mo-
dernity, suffered not only by the Florentine thinker himself, but by some of
his close associates belonging to nonoccult wider intellectual circles, whether
members of the countercultural Florentine Scapigliatura such as journalists and
writers Giovanni Papini (1881–​1856) and Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882–​1982) or
Freemasons battling against Fascist censorship. Third, it is my belief that such
an approach to Reghini’s writings will help me better shed light on a segment of
occultism which has yet to receive due attention in the smaller field of Western
esotericism: that of Traditionalism, in general, and Roman Traditionalism in
 The Anti-Modern Side of Modernity 5

particular. In the study of Italian esotericism, the last century witnesses a de-
pressing dearth of scholarship in the English language.25 Whether the reason
might be found in the vitality and progressive nature of other contemporary
occult expressions abroad, or to some links to Fascism, which still looms over
Italian history as a menacing taboo, I am nevertheless convinced that an etic
approach to the subject material will be found to be vital for a better under-
standing of the idea of anti-​modernity in Reghini’s private dimension, in the
more contained domain of Western esotericism, and in the wider field of reli-
gious studies.
Aside from the wide-​ranging approaches that my work will employ, it is my
intention to focus on the relevance of the writings of Arturo Reghini to the
English-​speaking world, since only a handful of articles, which are completely
devoted to him, to date, have been published in foreign academic journals.26
Both academic and nonscholarly studies of Reghini’s writings have been severely
lacking in Italy, too. While the right-​wing culture, which in the postwar period
hailed Julius Evola (1898–​1974) as its main philosophical referent, rejected
Reghini because of his Masonic ties, Freemasonry dismissed his work because
of his neo-​Pagan and anti-​clerical stance. An anti-​Christian approach, writes
historian of Freemasonry Natale Mario Di Luca, “inevitably brought him to an
ideological anti-​Semitism,” since Reghini had given Christianity the definition
of “semitic disease.”27 This caused Reghini to be completely forgotten until the
turn of the century, when his works started to enjoy increasing success and two
biographies have been devoted to him. But while Di Luca takes a reductionist
stance when judging Reghini’s occult writings, lamenting “a marvelous mani-
festation of collective narcissistic pathology [ . . . ] on the verge of delusions of
grandeur,”28 Roberto Sestito, a neo-​Pythagorean follower of Reghini’s Roman
Traditionalism, employs an overtly religionist stance that mars an otherwise
well-​researched work.
As independent scholar Dana Lloyd Thomas argues, Reghini “was a key figure
in 20th century Italian esotericism.”29 His first-​hand experience in the estab-
lishment of one of the first groups of the Theosophical Society in Italy, his role
in attempting to restore the spiritual traditions of Freemasonry, his revival of
neo-​Pythagorean philosophy, and his deep interest in occult matters definitely
make Reghini a key figure, with ties to almost every aspect of the Italian eso-
teric environment of his time. By studying Reghini’s life and writings, we also
study the developments of the esoteric discourse in Italy at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Through his journals, “a landmark in Italian esoteric litera-
ture,”30 Reghini drew together the most varied fringes of occultist expression,
from the therapeutic masonic circle gathered around Giuliano Kremmerz
(1861–​1930) to Italian exponents of anthroposophy such as Giovanni Antonio
Colonna di Cesarò (1878–​1940) and Giovanni Colazza (1877–​1953); from the
6 Occult Imperium

Traditionalists Julius Evola and Guido de Giorgio (1890–​1957) to neo-​Pagans

and neo-​Pythagoreans Amedeo Armentano and Giulio Parise (1902–​1970).31
Before moving on to an analysis of the previous research available to me,
I would briefly like to list the different elements that form the Corpus Reghinianum.
The first part of his career is focused mainly on articles written on journals, the
Florentine La Voce (1906) and Leonardo (1906–​1907), the Futurist Lacerba
(1913–​1915), the more politically oriented Salamandra (1914) and Patria (1914),
the theosophical journal Ultra (1914), the masonic Rassegna Massonica (1923–​
1924), and his 1907 and 1908 lectures at the Biblioteca Filosofica in Florence; his
substantial introduction to Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia (1927)
will no doubt offer a new insight to the interrelationship between science, reli-
gion, and magic in modern-​day Italy, as will his works on occult journals edited
by him such as Atanòr (1924), Ignis (1925), and Ur (1927–​1928). His book Le pa-
role sacre di passo dei primi tre gradi ed il massimo mistero massonico (The Sacred
Passwords of the First Three Grades and the Greatest Masonic Mystery, 1922), will
provide a less thorough approach to political and social issues but will prove to
be a veritable gold mine when analyzing the author’s Traditionalist views. Private
correspondence between Reghini and some of his colleagues will be priceless
when trying to come to terms with Reghini as an anti-​modern thinker living in a
modern world. Such correspondence includes hitherto unpublished letters sent
to the putative father of the Traditionalist School: René Guénon (1886–​1951).

1.2. The Metaphysics of Dunces?

1.2.1. Occultism and Modernity: Strange Bedfellows?

Right up to the mid-​1980s, occultism in the light of modernity had been per-
ceived as a nuisance, which bothered most sociologists and historians of
religions: described as an irrational yearning caused by the rational and progres-
sive nature of modernity itself, occultism was perceived to be an unsound ele-
ment, worthy of being readily tossed in the “conceptual waste-​basket of rejected
knowledge.”32 In three sentences, in his Theses, Theodor Adorno had summed
up his ideas on the irrationality within the discourse between occultism and
modernity:

Occultism is the metaphysic of dunces. The mediocrity of the mediums is no

more accidental than the apocryphal triviality of the revelations. Since the
early days of spiritualism the Beyond has communicated nothing more signif-
icant than the dead grandmother’s greetings and the prophecy of an imminent
journey.33
 The Anti-Modern Side of Modernity 7

It must be stressed that Adorno’s, or Marcello Truzzi’s, knowledge of occultism

was almost nonexistent. Adorno’s approach to the subject matter was never that
of a rigorous scholar, but that of a theorist who needed an element of ridicule
in order to prove his theories, and found it in the horoscopes of mainstream
newspapers, or, in Truzzi’s case, in the 1960s boom of sales of Ouija boards, which,
according to him, for a period of time, outsold the board game Monopoly.34 This
trend witnessed a change in the seriousness of the approach to it when the inde-
pendent scholar James Webb’s published his Flight from Reason. Despite being a
well-​researched and scholarly work, from the first sentence of the first chapter,
the author elucidated his beliefs on occultism with a statement that almost reads
as an epitaph: “[a]‌fter the Age of Reason, came the Age of the Irrational.”35 But in
the eyes of cultural critics, Italy’s Fascist regime did not possess the same connec-
tion to occultism that Nazi Germany provided, and the anti-​esoteric rhetoric in
Italy was sensibly less present in the postwar period.36 Thus postwar Italy, while
witnessing an obvious backlash against all things that remotely drew the mind to
the Fascist period, definitely lacked the brand of sensationalist authors such as
Louis Pauwels, Jacques Bergier, or Trevor Ravenscroft, an ominous presence with
their writings on the Third Reich, willing to perpetuate the idea of occult ties be-
tween occultists and politics:37 to quote author Gianfranco de Turris, “we cannot
speak—​no matter what some people may think—​of a ‘fascist esotericism,’ that is
to say, neither an official or off-​the-​record esoteric dimension of fascism.”38
In recent scholarship, occultism has been defined with a wide array of
definitions, although I will be using Wouter J. Hanegraaff ’s definition of oc-
cultism, seen as comprising

all attempts by esotericists to come to terms with a disenchanted world, or, al-
ternatively, by people in general to make sense of esotericism from the perspec-
tive of a disenchanted world.39

Marco Pasi characterizes occultism by some distinguishing traits that may be

found in Reghini’s theories, such as the overcoming of the conflict between sci-
ence and religion, an anti-​Christian stance that led occultists to fulfill their spir-
itual needs in pagan traditions, and the great relevance played by the “spiritual
realization of the individual.”40
Since the beginning of the new millennium, studies have mostly provided
a more sympathetic approach to the subject matter: academics have striven to
swing the pendulum between the rational and the irrational as far away from
Adorno and other postwar theorists as possible, creating, in my opinion, an even
greater imbalance of judgment when dealing with the occultism-​modernity
connection. In scholar Alison Butler’s words, “most of the recent scholarship
on ninetenth-​century occultism in Britain, France and Germany contribute to
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill
Magazine, February, 1860 (Vol. I, No. 2)
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Cornhill Magazine, February, 1860 (Vol. I, No. 2)

Author: Various

Release date: May 26, 2022 [eBook #68175]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Smith, Elder and Co, 1860

Credits: hekula03, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book
was produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY, 1860 (VOL. I, NO. 2) ***
 Transcriber’s Note
Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-
clicking them and selecting an option to view them separately,
or by double-tapping and/or stretching them.
Cover image created by Transcriber, using an illustration
from the original magazine, and placed into the Public Domain.
 THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1860.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Nil Nisi Bonum 129
Invasion Panics 135
To Goldenhair (from Horace). By Thomas Hood. 149
Framley Parsonage 150
Chapter IV.—A Matter of Conscience.
„ V.—Amantium Iræ Amoris Integratio.
„ VI.—Mr. Harold Smith’s Lecture.
Tithonus. By Alfred Tennyson 175
William Hogarth: Painter, Engraver, and Philosopher.
Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time 177
I.—Little Boy Hogarth.
Unspoken Dialogue. By R. Monckton Milnes. (With an
Illustration) 194
Studies in Animal Life 198
 Chapter II.— Ponds and rock-pools— Our necessary tackle
— Wimbledon Common— Early memories— Gnat larvæ—
Entomostraca and their paradoxes— Races of animals
dispensing with the sterner sex— Insignificance of males—
Volvox globator: is it an animal?— Plants swimming like
animals— Animal retrogressions— The Dytiscus and its
larva— The dragon-fly larva— Molluscs and their eggs—
Polypes, and how to find them— A new polype, Hydra
rubra— Nest-building fish— Contempt replaced by
reverence.

Curious, if True. (Extract from a Letter from Richard

Whittingham, Esq.) 208
Life among the Lighthouses 220
Lovel the Widower 233
Chapter II.—In which Miss Prior is kept at the Door. (With
an Illustration.)
An Essay without End 248

LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO.,

65, CORNHILL.
 THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1860.

Nil Nisi Bonum.

Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, his
biographer, were, “Be a good man, my dear!” and with the last flicker
of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and
passed away blessing them.
Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the
Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time. Ere a few weeks are over,
many a critic’s pen will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing
judgment on their works. This is no review, or history, or criticism:
only a word in testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters,
who owes to his own professional labour the honour of becoming
acquainted with these two eminent literary men. One was the first
ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old. He was
born almost with the republic; the pater patriæ had laid his hand on
the child’s head. He bore Washington’s name: he came amongst us
bringing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling goodwill. His
new country (which some people here might be disposed to regard
rather superciliously) could send us, as he showed in his own
person, a gentleman, who, though himself born in no very high
sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty, quiet; and, socially,
the equal of the most refined Europeans. If Irving’s welcome in
England was a kind one, was it not also gratefully remembered? If
he ate our salt, did he not pay us with a thankful heart? Who can
calculate the amount of friendliness and good feeling for our country
which this writer’s generous and untiring regard for us disseminated
1
in his own? His books are read by millions of his countrymen, whom
he has taught to love England, and why to love her. It would have
been easy to speak otherwise than he did: to inflame national
rancours, which, at the time when he first became known as a public
writer, war had just renewed: to cry down the old civilization at the
expense of the new: to point out our faults, arrogance, shortcomings,
and give the republic to infer how much she was the parent state’s
superior. There are writers enough in the United States, honest and
otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the
peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness in his heart, and no
scheme but kindness. Received in England with extraordinary
tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, a hundred others
have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a messenger of
goodwill and peace between his country and ours. “See, friends!” he
seems to say, “these English are not so wicked, rapacious, callous,
proud, as you have been taught to believe them. I went amongst
them a humble man; won my way by my pen; and, when known,
found every hand held out to me with kindliness and welcome. Scott
is a great man, you acknowledge. Did not Scott’s king of England
give a gold medal to him, and another to me, your countryman, and
a stranger?”
Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the
feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native
country from Europe. He had a national welcome; he stammered in
his speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people loved him all
the better. He had worthily represented America in Europe. In that
young community a man who brings home with him abundant
European testimonials is still treated with respect (I have found
American writers of wide-world reputation, strangely solicitous about
the opinions of quite obscure British critics, and elated or depressed
by their judgments); and Irving went home medalled by the king,
diplomatized by the university, crowned, and honoured and admired.
He had not in any way intrigued for his honours, he had fairly won
them; and, in Irving’s instance, as in others, the old country was glad
and eager to pay them.
In America the love and regard for Irving was a national
sentiment. Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are carried
on by the press with a rancour and fierceness against individuals
which exceed British, almost Irish, virulence. It seemed to me, during
a year’s travel in the country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at
Irving. All men held their hand from that harmless, friendly
peacemaker. I had the good fortune to see him at New York,
2
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, and remarked how in
every place he was honoured and welcome. Every large city has its
“Irving House.” The country takes pride in the fame of its men of
letters. The gate of his own charming little domain on the beautiful
Hudson River was for ever swinging before visitors who came to
3
him. He shut out no one. I had seen many pictures of his house,
and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated with a not
unusual American exaggeration. It was but a pretty little cabin of a
place; the gentleman of the press who took notes of the place, whilst
his kind old host was sleeping, might have visited the whole house in
a couple of minutes.
And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving’s
books were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, when his
profits were known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old
bachelor were notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in
his life. The lady he loved died; and he, whom all the world loved,
never sought to replace her. I can’t say how much the thought of that
fidelity has touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after
life add to the pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not
in his nature; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to
condole with him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of
his heart, and buries it; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred
ground in due time.
Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because
there was a great number of people to occupy them. He could only
afford to keep one old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was,
managed once or twice to run away with that careless old
horseman). He could only afford to give plain sherry to that amiable
British paragraph-monger from New York, who saw the patriarch
asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and fetched the public into
his private chamber to look at him. Irving could only live very
modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had a number of
children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine
nieces, I am told—I saw two of these ladies at his house—with all of
whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labour and
genius.
“Be a good man, my dear.” One can’t but think of these last
words of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the
value of worldly success, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not
good, and, of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family,
gentle, generous, good-humoured, affectionate, self-denying: in
society, a delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; quite
unspoiled by prosperity; never obsequious to the great (or, worse
still, to the base and mean, as some public men are forced to be in
his and other countries); eager to acknowledge every
contemporary’s merit; always kind and affable with the young
members of his calling; in his professional bargains and mercantile
dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the most charming
masters of our lighter language; the constant friend to us and our
nation; to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius
merely, but as an exemplar of goodness, probity, and pure life:—I
don’t know what sort of testimonial will be raised to him in his own
country, where generous and enthusiastic acknowledgment of
American merit is never wanting: but Irving was in our service as well
as theirs; and as they have placed a stone at Greenwich yonder in
memory of that gallant young Bellot, who shared the perils and fate
of some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear of some memorial
raised by English writers and friends of letters in affectionate
remembrance of the dear and good Washington Irving.
As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some few
most dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring readers
deplore, our republic has already decreed his statue, and he must
have known that he had earned this posthumous honour. He is not a
poet and man of letters merely, but citizen, statesman, a great British
worthy. Almost from the first moment when he appears, amongst
boys, amongst college students, amongst men, he is marked, and
takes rank as a great Englishman. All sorts of successes are easy to
him: as a lad he goes down into the arena with others, and wins all
the prizes to which he has a mind. A place in the senate is
straightway offered to the young man. He takes his seat there; he
speaks, when so minded, without party anger or intrigue, but not
without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still
he is poet and philosopher even more than orator. That he may have
leisure and means to pursue his darling studies, he absents himself
for a while, and accepts a richly-remunerated post in the East. As
learned a man may live in a cottage or a college common-room; but
it always seemed to me that ample means and recognized rank were
Macaulay’s as of right. Years ago there was a wretched outcry raised
because Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where he
was staying. Immortal gods! Was this man not a fit guest for any
palace in the world? or a fit companion for any man or woman in it? I
daresay, after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court officials and footmen
sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schönbrunn. But that miserable
“Windsor Castle” outcry is an echo out of fast-retreating old-world
remembrances. The place of such a natural chief was amongst the
first of the land; and that country is best, according to our British
notion, at least, where the man of eminence has the best chance of
investing his genius and intellect.
If a company of giants were got together, very likely one or two
of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable
superiority of the very tallest of the party: and so I have heard some
London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay’s superiority, complain that
he occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful
tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no
longer has the chance to listen? To remember the talk is to wonder:
to think not only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the
trifles he had stored there, and could produce with equal readiness.
Almost on the last day I had the fortune to see him, a conversation
happened suddenly to spring up about senior wranglers, and what
they had done in after life. To the almost terror of the persons
present, Macaulay began with the senior wrangler of 1801–2–3–4,
and so on, giving the name of each, and relating his subsequent
career and rise. Every man who has known him has his story
regarding that astonishing memory. It may be he was not ill-pleased
that you should recognize it; but to those prodigious intellectual
feats, which were so easy to him, who would grudge his tribute of
homage? His talk was, in a word, admirable, and we admired it.
Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Macaulay,
up to the day when the present lines are written (the 9th of January),
the reader should not deny himself the pleasure of looking especially
at two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles as these (I
mean the articles in The Times and Saturday Review) appear in our
public prints about our public men. They educate us, as it were, to
admire rightly. An uninstructed person in a museum or at a concert
may pass by without recognizing a picture or a passage of music,
which the connoisseur by his side may show him is a masterpiece of
harmony, or a wonder of artistic skill. After reading these papers you
like and respect more the person you have admired so much
already. And so with regard to Macaulay’s style there may be faults
of course—what critic can’t point them out? But for the nonce we are
not talking about faults: we want to say nil nisi bonum. Well—take at
hazard any three pages of the Essays or History;—and, glimmering
below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader,
see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts,
characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is
this epithet used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he
manage, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a
landscape? Your neighbour, who has his reading, and his little stock
of literature stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points,
allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory
and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful industry, the
honest, humble previous toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty
books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line
of description.
 Many Londoners—not all—have seen the British Museum
Library. I speak à cœur ouvert, and pray the kindly reader to bear
with me. I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia,
Pantheon,—what not?—and have been struck by none of them so
much as by that catholic dome in Bloomsbury, under which our
million volumes are housed. What peace, what love, what truth, what
beauty, what happiness for all, what generous kindness for you and
me, are here spread out! It seems to me one cannot sit down in that
place without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my
grace at the table, and to have thanked heaven for this my English
birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books, and to speak the
truth I find there. Under the dome which held Macaulay’s brain, and
from which his solemn eyes looked out on the world but a fortnight
since, what a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of learning was
ranged! what strange lore would he not fetch for you at your bidding!
A volume of law, or history, a book of poetry familiar or forgotten
(except by himself who forgot nothing), a novel ever so old, and he
had it at hand. I spoke to him once about Clarissa. “Not read
Clarissa!” he cried out. “If you have once thoroughly entered on
Clarissa, and are infected by it, you can’t leave it. When I was in
India, I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the
governor-general, and the secretary of government, and the
commander-in chief, and their wives. I had Clarissa with me: and, as
soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a passion of
excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
scoundrelly Lovelace! The governor’s wife seized the book, and the
secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
tears!” He acted the whole scene: he paced up and down the
Athenæum library: I daresay he could have spoken pages of the
book—of that book, and of what countless piles of others!
In this little paper let us keep to the text of nil nisi bonum. One
paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says “he had no heart.”
Why, a man’s books may not always speak the truth, but they speak
his mind in spite of himself: and it seems to me this man’s heart is
beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of
revolt and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers
heroic resistance; how he backs and applauds freedom struggling for
its own; how he hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful;
how he recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it! The
critic who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had
none: and two men more generous, and more loving, and more
hating, and more partial, and more noble, do not live in our history.
The writer who said that Lord Macaulay had no heart could not
know him. Press writers should read a man well, and all over, and
again; and hesitate, at least, before they speak of those αἰδοἴα.
Those who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably tender, and
4
generous, and affectionate he was. It was not his business to bring
his family before the theatre footlights, and call for bouquets from the
gallery as he wept over them.
If any young man of letters reads this little sermon—and to him,
indeed, it is addressed—I would say to him, “Bear Scott’s words in
your mind, and ‘be good, my dear.’” Here are two literary men gone
to their account, and, laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair, and
open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or
explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for
unavoidable &c. Here are two examples of men most differently
gifted: each pursuing his calling; each speaking his truth as God
bade him; each honest in his life; just and irreproachable in his
dealings; dear to his friends; honoured by his country; beloved at his
fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give uncountable
happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with
an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It may not be our chance,
brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or rewarded with such
fame. But the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our service.
We may not win the baton or epaulettes; but God give us strength to
guard the honour of the flag!

FOOTNOTES:
1
See his Life in the most remarkable Dictionary of
Authors, published lately at Philadelphia, by Mr.
Alibone.
2
At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the
writer, which Mr. Filmore and General Pierce, the
president and president elect, were also kind enough to
attend together. “Two Kings of Brentford smelling at one
rose,” says Irving, looking up with his good-humoured
smile.
3
Mr. Irving described to me, with that humour and good
humour which he always kept, how, amongst other
visitors, a member of the British press who had carried
his distinguished pen to America (where he employed it
in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside,
introduced himself to Irving, partook of his wine and
luncheon, and in two days described Mr. Irving, his
house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner of dozing
afterwards, in a New York paper. On another occasion,
Irving said, laughing: “Two persons came to me, and
one held me in conversation whilst the other miscreant
took my portrait!”
4
Since the above was written, I have been informed that
it has been found, on examining Lord Macaulay’s
papers, that he was in the habit of giving away more
than a fourth part of his annual income.
 Invasion Panics.
When, about the year 1899, Field-marshal Dowbiggin, full of years
and honours, shall edit, with copious notes, the Private
Correspondence of his kinsman, Queen Victoria’s celebrated War
Minister during England’s bloody struggle with Russia in 1854–5, the
grandchildren of the present generation may probably learn a good
deal more respecting the real causes of the failures and
shortcomings of that “horrible and heartrending” period than we, their
grandfathers, are likely to know on this side our graves.
And when some future Earl of Pembroke shall devote his
splendid leisure, under the cedar groves of Wilton, to preparing for
the information of the twentieth century the memoirs of his great
ancestor, Mr. Secretary Herbert, posterity will then run some chance
of discovering—what is kept a close secret from the public just now
—whether any domestic causes exist to justify the invasion-panic
under which the nation has recently been shivering.
The insular position of England, her lofty cliffs, her stormy seas,
her winter fogs, fortify her with everlasting fortifications, as no other
European power is fortified. She is rich, she is populous, she
contains within herself an abundance of coal, iron, timber, and
almost all other munitions of war; railways intersect and encircle her
on all sides; in patriotism, in loyalty, in manliness, in intelligence, her
sons yield to no other race of men. Blest with all these advantages,
she ought, of all the nations of Europe, to be the last to fear, the
readiest to repel invasion; yet, strange to say, of all the nations of
Europe, England appears to apprehend invasion most!
There must be some good and sufficient reason for this
extraordinary state of things. Many reasons are daily assigned for it,
all differing from each other, all in turn disputed and denied by those
who know the real reason best.
 The statesman and the soldier declare that the fault lies with
parliament and the people. They complain that parliament is
niggardly in placing sufficient means at the disposal of the executive,
and that the people are distrustful and over-inquisitive as to their
application; ever too ready to attribute evil motives and incapacity to
those set in authority over them. Parliament and the people, on the
other hand, reply, that ample means are yearly allotted for the
defence of the country, and that more would readily be forthcoming,
had they reason to suppose that what has already been spent, has
been well spent; their Humes and their Brights loudly and harshly
denounce the nepotism, the incapacity, and the greed, which,
according to them, disgrace the governing classes, and waste and
weaken the resources of the land. And so the painful squabble
ferments—no probable end to it being in view. Indeed, the public are
permitted to know so little of the conduct of their most important
affairs—silence is so strictly enjoined to the men at the helm—that
the most carefully prepared indictment against an official delinquent
is invariably evaded by the introduction of some new feature into his
case, hitherto unknown to any but his brother officials, which at once
casts upon the assailant the stigma of having arraigned a public
servant on incomplete information, and puts him out of court.
But if, in this the year of our Lord 1860, we have no means of
discovering why millions of strong, brave, well-armed Englishmen
should be so moved at the prospect of a possible attack from twenty
or thirty thousand French, we have recently been placed in
possession of the means of ascertaining why, some sixty years ago,
this powerful nation was afflicted with a similar fit of timidity.
The first American war had then just ended—not gloriously for
the British arms. Lord Amherst, the commander-in-chief at home,
had been compelled by his age and infirmities to retire from office,
having, it was said, been indulgently permitted by his royal master to
retain it longer than had been good for the credit and discipline of the
service. The Duke of York, an enthusiastic and practical soldier, in
the prime of life, fresh from an active command in Flanders, had
succeeded him. In that day there were few open-mouthed and vulgar
demagogues to carp at the public expenditure and to revile the
privileged classes; and the few that there were had a very bad time
of it. Public money was sown broadcast, both at home and abroad,
with a reckless hand; regulars, militia, yeomanry, and volunteers,
fearfully and wonderfully attired, bristled in thousands wherever a
landing was conceived possible; and, best of all, that noble school of
Great British seamen, which had reared us a Nelson, had reared us
many other valiant guardians of our shores scarcely less worthy than
he. But in spite of her Yorks and her Nelsons, England felt uneasy
and unsafe. Confident in her navy, she had little confidence in her
army, which at that time was entirely and absolutely in the hands and
under the management of the court; parliament and the people being
only permitted to pay for it.
Yet the royal commander-in-chief was declared by the general
officers most in favour at court to know his business well, and to be
carrying vigorously into effect the necessary reforms suggested by
our American mishaps; his personal acquaintance with the officers of
the army was said to have enabled him to form his military family of
5
the most capable men in the service; his exalted position, and his
enormous income, were supposed to place him above the
temptation of jobbing: in short, the Duke of York was universally held
up to the nation by his military friends—and a royal commander-in-
chief has many and warm military friends—as the regenerator of the
British army, which just then happened to be sadly in need of
regeneration.
A work has recently been published which tells us very plainly
now many things which it would have been treasonable even to
suspect sixty years ago. It is entitled The Cornwallis
Correspondence, and contains the private papers and letters of the
first Marquis Cornwallis, one of the foremost Englishmen of his time.
Bred a soldier, he served with distinction in Germany and in America.
He then proceeded to India in the double capacity of governor-
general and commander-in-chief. On his return from that service he
filled for some years the post of master-general of the Ordnance,
refused a seat in the Cabinet, offered him by Mr. Pitt; and, although
again named governor-general of India, on the breaking out of the
Irish rebellion of 1798 was hurried to Dublin as lord-lieutenant and
commander-in-chief. He was subsequently employed to negotiate
the peace of Amiens, and, in 1805, died at Ghazeepore, in India,
having been appointed its governor-general for the third time.
From the correspondence of this distinguished statesman and
soldier, we may now ascertain whether, sixty years ago, the people
of England had or had not good grounds for dreading invasion by the
French, and whether the governing classes or the governed were
most in fault on that occasion for the doubtful condition of their native
land.
George the Third was verging upon insanity. So detested and
despised was the Prince of Wales, his successor, that those who
directed his Majesty’s councils, as well as the people at large, clung
eagerly to the hopes of the king’s welfare; trusting that the evil days
of a regency might be postponed. And it would seem from the
Cornwallis Correspondence, that the English were just in their
estimation of that bad man. H. R. H. having quarrelled shamefully
with his parents, and with Pitt, had thrown himself into the hands of
the Opposition, and appears to have corresponded occasionally with
Cornwallis, who had two votes at his command in the Commons,
during that nobleman’s first Indian administration. In 1790, Lord
Cornwallis, writing to his brother, the Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, says: “You tell me that I am accused of being remiss in my
correspondence with a certain great personage. Nothing can be
more false, for I have answered every letter from him by the first ship
that sailed from hence after I received it. The style of them, although
personally kind to excess, has not been very agreeable to me, as
they have always pressed upon me some infamous and unjustifiable
job, which I have uniformly been obliged to refuse, and contained
much gross and false abuse of Mr. Pitt, and improper charges
against other and greater personages, about whom, to me at least,
6
he ought to be silent.”
The intimacy which had existed from boyhood between General
Richard Grenville, military tutor to the Duke of York, and Lord
Cornwallis, and the correspondence which took place between them,
to which we have now access, afford ample means of judging of the