The most memorable episode in his life during the same period was perhaps that which arose out of the conduct of Sir 'James Graham, the home secretary, in systematically, for some months, opening Mazzini's letters as they passed through the British post office, and communicating their contents to the Neapolitan gov ernment—a proceeding which was believed at the time to have led to the arrest and execution of the brothers Bandiera, Austrian subjects, who had been planning an expedition against Naples, although the publication of Sir James Graham's life seems to exonerate him from the charge. In this connection Thomas Carlyle wrote to The Times: "I have had the honour to know Mr. Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great free dom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who in silence, piously in their daily life, practise what is meant by that." Towards the end of 1847 Mazzini published a letter addressed to the new pope, Piux IX., indicating the nature of the religious and national mission which the Liberals expected him to under take. The leaders of the revolutionary outbreaks in Milan and Messina in the beginning of 1848 had long been in secret cor respondence with Mazzini ; and their action, along with the revolu tion in Paris, brought him early in the same year to Italy, where he took a great and active interest in the events which dragged Charles Albert into a war with Austria; he actually for a short time bore arms under Garibaldi immediately before the reoccu pation of Milan. In the beginning of the following year he was nominated a member of the short-lived provisional government of Tuscany formed after the flight of the grand-duke, and almost simultaneously, when Rome had, in consequence of the with drawal of Pius IX., been proclaimed a republic, he was declared a member of the constituent assembly there. A month afterwards, the battle of Novara having again decided against Charles Albert in the brief struggle with Austria, into which he had once more been drawn, Mazzini was appointed a member of the Roman triumvirate, with supreme executive power (March 23, Rome was now invested by the French, and that Mazzini suc ceeded: however, for so long a time, and in circumstances so adverse, in maintaining a high degree of order within the turbulent city is a fact that speaks for itself. The surrender of the city on June 3o was followed by Mazzini's not too precipitate flight by way of Marseilles into Switzerland, whence he once more found his way to London. He had a firm belief in the value of revolu tionary attempts, however hopeless they might seem; he had a hand in the abortive rising at Mantua in 1852; and again a con siderable share in the ill-planned insurrection at Milan on Feb. 6, 1853, the failure of which greatly weakened his influence.
The year 1857 found him yet once more in Italy, where, for complicity in 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, he returned to Lon don, where he edited his new journal Pensiero 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? Act." 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 be tween 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. After the irresistible pressure of the popular
movement had led to the establishment 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 ; . . . but monarchy will never number me amongst its servants or followers." In 1865, as protest against the uncancelled sentence of death under which he lay, Mazzini was elected by Messina to the Italian parliament, but, feeling unable to take the oath of allegiance to the monarchy, he never took his 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. 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 (187o) for Sicily, but was promptly arrested at sea and carried to Gaeta, where he was imprisoned for two months. The occasion of the birth of a prince was seized for restoring him to liberty. In the last years of his life he attempted to organize the working classes of Italy on a democratic semi-mystical basis, and he entered into relations with the leading internationalists such as Marx and Bakunin. But he could not work with them and soon lost all touch with working class circles and was deeply disappointed at the growing influence of the Socialists. He died at Pisa on March 1 o, 1872. The Italian parliament, by a unanimous vote, expressed the national sorrow with which the tidings of his death had been received. A public funeral took place at Pisa on March 14, and the remains were afterwards conveyed to Genoa.
For Mazzini's biography see Jessie White Mario, Della vita di Giuseppe Mazzini (Milan, 1886), a useful if somewhat too enthusiastic work ; Bolton King, Mazzini (19°3) ; A. Luzio's Giuseppe Mazzini (Milan, 1905) contains a great deal of valuable information, biblio graphical and other, and Dora Melegari in La giovine Italia e Giuseppe Mazzini (Milan, 'goo) publishes the correspondence between Mazzini and Luigi A. Melegari during the early days of "Young Italy." Nello Rosselli, Mazzini e Bakounini (Turin, 1927) is important for the last phase of his life. For the literary side of Mazzini's life see Peretti, Gli scritti letterarii di Giuseppe Mazzini (Turin, 1904).