GLADSTONE AND PANIZZI

M, R. D. FOOT

T H E R E were several strands in Gladstone's relation with Panizzi, whom he came to call'this very true, trusty, hearty friend'.' Panizzi made his English debut in the 1820s inLiverpool, where John Gladstone was a merchant prince, and he made it under thepatronage of William Ewart the future Prime Minister's godfather; but at that time theyoung W. E. Gladstone was a boy at Eton, and there is no indication that he and Panizzithen met. They first encountered each other over official and literary business in the early1840s, when Gladstone was a rising Tory politician and Panizzi—twelve years his senior-was Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum. Italian poetry drew them together,and they became closer still through the work they did—all of it arduous and some of itsecret—for the benefit of victims of the Neapolitan police, in the 1850s. They then hadseveral years' close official co-operation while Gladstone was a Museum Trustee andPanizzi was Principal Librarian. After Panizzi resigned, Gladstone was one of the friendswith whom he kept in touch, and was a frequent visitor when Panizzi was ill.

Friendship does not always leave traces on paper, but in this case their letters to eachother give some clues to their feelings. Gladstone after all was brought up politically atthe knee of Peel, of whom he once said that 'no man among our great statesmen has moreprofoundly revered or more closely followed Duty\^ A minor point of duty to whichGladstone held true was Peel's principle, 'Never destroy a letter. No public man whorespects himself should ever destroy a letter',^ Panizzi's letters to Gladstone fill almost allof a volume of nearly 400 pages in the Gladstone papers, and Gladstone's to Panizzi arescattered through most of the fifteen volumes of the librarian's correspondence, both inthe care of the Department of Manuscripts.'^ A few extracts may show the sort of friendsthey were.

The first surviving trace of contact between them dates from 1842, On 4 Novemberthat year Gladstone—then a busy junior minister, much preoccupied with his wife andwith his three-week-old daughter Agnes—recorded in his diary that he 'FinishedMacaulay's "Lays'" of ancient Rome, which had just come out, and besides minutes andfour other letters 'Wrote to . , , Panizzi',"^ Unluckily neither did Panizzi keep the letter,nor did Gladstone keep a copy. Caprin states that it was Gladstone who put Panizzi intouch with the Foreign Office, but quotes no source. Negotiations between Panizzi andthe Foreign Office were already in train in the spring and summer of 1842; Caprin may

W. E. Gladstone, c. 1847. (Reproduced by courtesy of The Radio Times Hulton Picture Library)

have made a slip.^ Certainly before long, if not from the start, Panizzi enlisted Gladstoneas an intermediary with Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign Secretary. Gladstone and Aberdeenhad been fast friends from their first official meeting, in the Colonial Office in January1835,^ and Gladstone willingly pressed Panizzi's case for being allowed reasonable accessto Italian soil, where he was suspect to several despotic governments. Nothing came at thetime of long protracted negotiations;^ but already while they were in progress Gladstone'sacquaintance with Panizzi had blossomed far enough for him to be able to write on4 June 1844, 'I only wish the Austrian Government knew you as well as we do—none ofthese difficulties would then occur.'^

A few weeks later, on 13 July, Panizzi drew Gladstone's attention to the offer, in theDuke of Sussex's sale, of the duke's copy of Gladstone's first book. The State in its Rela-tions w i t h the Church { 1 8 3 8 ) , ' w i t h numerous manuscript notes . . . I w r i t e a s p r o b a b l yyou have no time for reading catalogues on which I grow fat\^^ Gladstone declinedPanizzi's proposal that the Museum should back down in his favour, and the copy is nowwith the Department of Printed Books.

Their fondness for Italian literature provided bond enough to hold them together. AsDr, Dennis Rhodes has shown in a detailed study of Gladstone and Leopardi," Gladstone'sarticle on Leopardi in the Quarterly Review for March 1850 depended largely on Panizzi'ssupervision and advice. By this time they had reached the stage of looking over each others'articles for the heavy quarterlies before they went to press. Yet in that era Itahan literatureand politics were hardly to be kept in separate compartments; as witness Gladstone'svisit to Manzoni, when on a voyage to Italy for his health's sake in 1838.^- What politicalinterest on earth could a virtual ex-carbonaro and a dyed-in-the-wool conservative—asGladstone still was in the 1840s—have in common ? Gladstone was not going to remain aConservative for ever, at least on the surface; indeed, dare one say that the photograph whichaccompanies this article, probably taken in 1847, shows a carbonarist countenance? Itcertainly gives a sense of fires smouldering beneath the iron control of the sitter's will.Already in October 1849 Gladstone, back from a journey that had taken him through Romea few days after the republican revolution there had been put down, could write to Panizzithat he was 'no great revolutionist elsewhere', but was certain that the papal states shouldnot be governed by priests.'-'' This journey, touching Genoa, Leghorn, Rome, Naples,Milan, and Como, had been made purely for a private reason: to attempt to persuadeLady Lincoln, an old friend of Mrs. Gladstone's, to return to her husband who had beenup at Christ Church with Gladstone—to whom indeed Gladstone owed the introductionto Lincoln's father, the Duke of Newcastle, which had first launched Gladstone on hisparliamentary career, as a member for a virtual pocket borough, Susan Lincoln figures alsoamong Panizzi's correspondents—she wrote to him from Rome late in 1848, to complainthat the Pope 'has alas! shown great weakness of character',•'^ a remark in dubious tastefrom her. By the time Gladstone caught up with her she was visibly pregnant, not by herhusband.

Morley, not always the best of sources,^^ indicates that it was ^doubtless' Panizzi whofirst got Gladstone interested in the plight of the political prisoners incarcerated, alongside

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the scum of the city, in noisome gaols in Naples.'^ If this is so, Panizzi can claim credit fora significant turn in Gladstone's life. The Gladstones went to Naples in the winter of1850-1, for the sake of their two-year-old daughter Mary's eyes; probably also in order totry to console themselves for the loss a few months earlier of another daughter, theirfavourite Jessy, whose death in April 1850 from meningitis had almost unhinged herfather's reason.•' The young ex-minister's Letters to Lord Aberdeen on the conduct of theNeapolitan regime—'the negation of God erected into a system of Government'—'^were, as Hammond pointed out a generation ago, an appeal to European conservatives tooppose conduct that brought all systems of government into discredit. ̂ ^ Europeanconservatives did not want to know, and their silence and disdain started Gladstone onthe road that took him eventually to the leadership of the Liberal movement in British andindeed in European politics.

Negations of God erected into systems of government have become more common inthe present century, usually in regimes that do not allow visitors from outside into theirchambers of horror. Panizzi, like Gladstone, burned with a fierce indignation at what theNeapolitans were doing to professional men of intense respectability. Even the blamelessLacaita, whom Gladstone first met on 13 November 1850,̂ ° was arrested in the street inNaples on 3 January 1851. Next day Gladstone 'Saw Mr Fagan & others about Lacaita:how fruitlessly! One grows wild at being able to do nothing';'' and it was Lacaita's arrestthat drew Gladstone's attention more forcibly than ever to the internal state of Naples.Lacaita was released on 12 January, well enough to visit Leopardi's tomb with Gladstoneon the 17th;" while a highly personal incident altered all Gladstone's plans. Just beforeChristmas 1850 an unknown horseman rode past the house which the Gladstones had takenfor the winter at 5 Chiatamone, west of the naval harbour. He rode so fast that he gave Mrs.Gladstone, who happened to be out of doors, a severe shock, 'very nearly knocking herdown'. As a result, she miscarried on 7 January.-^ Her husband felt he really could notleave her ill in a foreign country—she was 'still on her back' on the 24th, and was in bothphysical and nervous trouble in mid-February—to take the nine-day journey back toLondon as he had intended for the opening of Parliament on 4 February. On 7 February herelder brother Sir Stephen Glynne reached Naples to stay, and on the i8th Gladstone wasat last able to set out for London.^ It was not till 13 February that he had his most im-portant prison visit, a talk in the forecourt of Nisida with Carlo Poerio and MichelePironti—the two of them heavily manacled together, for a twenty-four-year sentence;'The words that the chains are never loosened are to be understood strictly.^^^

It seems that Panizzi and the unknown horseman can claim joint credit for having givenGladstone the opportunity to see enough of Ferdinand of Naples's treatment of his politicalprisoners for momentous consequences to ensue. Gladstone returned to London on26 February to find a major government crisis running. He was offered any post he caredto name, except the lead, in a new Conservative ministry, and only escaped because theprojected government intended to reimpose a corn law.̂ ^ He faced a major personal crisisalso: Hope and Manning, his two closest friends, 'my two props',^^ were about to go overto Rome. So it was not till 15 March that he recorded a talk with Panizzi. By the end of

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March they were in frequent touch. Panizzi was commenting on proofs of Gladstone'stranslation of Luigi Farini's Stato Romano (Turin, 1850), which he found on 25 March'better than the original because it is not on stilts',^^ and helping in constructing the twofamous Letters to Lord Aberdeen. Much of their work on both subjects they did in theMuseum,-^

Gladstone said to his own old chief in private much what he also said to Lord Palmerstonthe current Foreign Secretary, who told his brother on 3 April that 'Gladstone says theNeapolitan is a Governo infernale, and that, as a gentleman and a Christian, he feels it hisduty to make known what he has seen of its proceedings'.^^ But Aberdeen was hard to stir;havered, dithered even; and in mid-July Gladstone, unable to bottle up his indignation anylonger, published," The letters made a European sensation. Palmerston distributed themto every continental court, and they could not help making Gladstone's name as a friend ofliberty. But they did no immediate good to the 20,000 prisoners. Panizzi decided to go toNaples and see for himself, particularly in the case of his friend Settembrini.

Louis Fagan's account of the journey hardly needs amplification. Gladstone providedPanizzi with a most detailed list of points into which he should inquire, and Panizzi dealtwith it item by item.^- He even bearded the King himself, who listened to him attentively,and broke off while the librarian was still in mid-flow, dismissing him with a cry of'Addio,terribile Panizzi'.-̂ -̂ The Neapolitan government then moved Settembrini away to theisland of San Stefano, forty miles out in the gulf of Gaeta. That Panizzi tried to cutSettembrini out from this island, in a boating operation in which Garibaldi himself mighthave taken the lead, is also well enough known from Fagan, who mentions that Mrs.Gladstone put up (̂[300 to help the project along.̂ -̂ What is much less well remembered isthat £500 more came from the British secret service fund; and this can only have comebecause Gladstone—by this time Chancellor of the Exchequer in a government headed byPalmerston—had put in a word with his chief, who instructed Lord Clarendon theForeign Secretary accordingly. As Gavin Henderson who made the fatal discovery inClarendon's papers remarks—writing in 1937, before the shadows closed right in—'It isindeed difficult to conceive a more flagrant violation of the canons of conduct betweencivilized states';-^5 the more so because Palmerston's own brother headed the British lega-tion in Naples at the time. Perhaps fortunately, all things considered, the only ship thatcould be bought for £1,000 during the Crimean war was ill found, and went down in astorm off Yarmouth.

Of the work Panizzi and Gladstone did together for the Museum, this is not the placeto write; this article deals with friendship rather than formalities. It is just worth noticingthat on 14 January 1856, two days after Goulburn died, Panizzi wrote to Gladstone 'Now,between us, you ought to be his successor in the Trust\-^^ a hope fulfilled. They werefaster friends than ever in the early sixties; indeed it was through Panizzi that Gladstonewas able to drop a heavy hint to Garibaldi, when that hero was making a triumphaltour of England in 1864, that it was high time—for the sake of the hero's health and ofpublic calm alike—for the tour to come to an end.̂ "̂

In the summer of 1865 the friendship was at its warmest. Panizzi wrote on 21 July that

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the University of Oxford had 'committed such an egregious act of folly as to discard sucha son' as Gladstone, who had at last been beaten in his precarious university seat;^^ aninvitation to visit the Gladstones at Hawarden followed. Panizzi replied, in Italian, thatthe results of a fire in the bindery would keep him pinned in the Museum on the day theGladstones had proposed.^^ At the same time, Gladstone heard officially that Panizzi wasabout to resign. He replied on 7 August in fourteen stanzas of Italian comic verse, a few ofwhich are worth reprinting:

Uom, fiore del mondo.Per amore e per te,

Che costrusse un RotondoPiu grande di se!

II Museo ha perdutoUom che fu teste

Suo Capo, suo Duca,Suo Papa, suo Re.

E senza il Panizzi(Come un' Euridice,)

Che fara ii Museo?Che faramo i Truste?

Most of the rest repeated the invitation, and he concluded:Venga caro Panizzi,

Caro, anzi carissimo:Venga come ti piaccia,

Ma vengo al prestissimo.

Erroribus innumerabilibus exceptis: d'arrezione e di surrezione, e che so io.Dalla parte del aff"'" e div"'° vostro amico

WEGladstoneSi soggiunge una preghiera alPesimio Merimee: che t'accompagni, e chi faccia una graziaimmensa."*''That fetched them. Panizzi and Merimee stayed at Hawarden on Monday and Tuesdaynights, 14 and 15 August. 'P. examined my old books &c. which are but very insignificant',Gladstone noted in his diary on Monday night; 'Bibliographical & other conversationwith Panizzi: also with M. Merimee' next day; and 'Conversation with Mr Panizzi—onthe franchise & on my own future' before they left.'̂ ^ Among the books they discussed wascertainly Gladstone's brother-in-law Lord Lyttelton's admirable Glynnese Glossary.Contributions towards a Glossary of the Glynne Language, to give it its full title, which wasprinted for private circulation in 1851, and has still never been published; though many ofthe gems in it can be found in Lucy Cavendish's diary.-*- Hence the following:

HawardenMy dear Panizzi Aug. 18. 65.

You labour under suspicion ofa great crime. Where is my 'Glynnese Glossary'? Five minutesafter you were gone I remembered it. My first thought was to telegraph to London & have you

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arrested at Euston as you arrived. But I thought 'perhaps he will repent'—Eheu! nimiumcredulus. Here is Friday morning—and no book, no word, no sign. Yet I still hope against hope,& please myself with thinking you mean to return it to me.

And now I shall with breathless anxiety await your reply, to know whether you are to fall likeLucifer from the top of my estimation to the very bottom of it—if you know where that is

With kind remembrances to M. MerimeeEver (if you behave well in this matter) yours

By Monday, 21 August, all was well. 'My dear Panizzi', Gladstone's next letter began,'I have received the Glossary: & on the whole my confidence in your character is quitereestablished.' He went on to discuss Francesco da Bologna the early type-cutter, andAldus's rare use of Hebrew types, and concluded with an odd request—could Panizzigive him any news of Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister? 'I have found him just oflate so slack in writing.'+* The request shows both how scattered the Whig aristocracyinto which Gladstone had married was during the long summer recesses, and how close hewas to Panizzi. Panizzi got a sighting of Palmerston a fortnight later, and reported gloomily;Palmerston had indeed only a few more weeks to live.

Then there was the affair of the K.C.B. In 1861 Sir George Cornewall Lewis, then HomeSecretary, indicated to Panizzi that the Queen was ready to make him a knight; an honourwhich Panizzi 'humbly but earnestly beg[ged] to be excused' from accepting, 'as farbeyond my deserts . . . I feel an instinctive shrinking from all distinctions of this nature'.^^Five years later Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, offered him the lesser recognitionof a C.B., and Panizzi again declined. In 1869, in his own first summer as Prime Minister,Gladstone was surrounded—as people in that post always are—by a horde of clamourersfor titles. On top of all his other distractions he had a dispute with the Queen in earlyJune; she would not open Blackfriars bridge, ostensibly because it might be tiring,actually because she could not bear to have her arrangements disturbed.'*^ He determinedfor once to reward real merit, and to honour an old friend; and on 16 June wrote humblyto recommend 'that in acknowledgement of his long and very distinguished services,Mr Panizzi, late of the British Museum' should receive a K-CB."**̂

On the back of this letter, which bears an undated 'App^ V.R.', is a note which will strikean answering chord in anyone who has ever been concerned in a similar imbroglio:

Immediate

Mr Panizzi (who never meant to accept) is under dread that this has gone forward—I tell himI stopped it on finding the hitch—please assure me.

WEG Jun 24

Algernon West his principal private secretary replied at once: 'It has never gone on, butI know not how, was announced in yesterday's "Owl" A.E.W. 24 June 69.' The OH?/wasa Birmingham-based satirical weekly, and it is a sign of how well Gladstone was servedthat West should have kept abreast of it. Next day Panizzi wrote to Lacaita that the veryidea of his accepting a K.C.B. remained a mystery to him; he wanted to remain 'plain

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Master o[r] Mister P'.^s Gladstone must have found a few minutes to call on him, orotherwise to persuade him, during the next few days, for a third and less agitated minutejoined the other two on the back of the formal recommendation: This is to go forwardimmediately: the name ^(> Antony not Antonio. WEG Jul. 3.' The old librarian acceptedthat it had become his duty to be a knight,'*'' and the honour was formally granted to himon 27 July, in company with General Sabine the gunner and scientist, who was one of theMuseum's Trustees.^^

Hardly a word has yet been said about God, the central figure in Gladstone's life.Panizzi's priest-hating was no secret to his friends,^' and Gladstone was well aware of it;he was aware too that in spite of hating priests and priestly ceremonies, Panizzi had inhim a firm devout strain. Once, on 8 February 1874, no doubt after some protractedwrangle, Gladstone sent him a reasoned defence of Christianity, which is still worthturning up in print.^^

In Panizzi's final illness, Gladstone was one of his most assiduous visitors. He lived at thetime in Harley Street, an easy walk from Bloomsbury Square for a man of his sturdy frameand habits, and when in London he frequently looked in for a talk. Gently, he led Panizziinto the habit of saying the Lord's Prayer with him in the course of each conversation.He knew the end was near when one day Panizzi, who had lain abstracted and inattentivein bed, answered his question 'Well, shall we say our little prayer ?' with a glare and 'Whatthe devil do you mean.'̂ '̂ ^ He last called on Friday, 4 April 1879, on his way to Eustonstation; next Tuesday, Panizzi died.

1 In a letter to the Duchess of Sutherland, writtenfrom Panizzi's house overlooking the Museumon 3 January 1868. See J. Morley, Life of Glad-stone (London, 1903), vol. ii, pp. 196-7.

2 W. E. Gladstone, Cleanings of Past Years (Lon-don, 1879), vol- iii P- •̂QQ note.

3 Lord Rosebery, Miscellanies (London, 1921),vol. i, p. 187.

4 Add. MSS. 44274 (394 fols.) and 36715-36728.5 (Sir) G. O. Trevelyan, Life and Letters of Lord

Macaulay (London, 1877), vol. ii, pp. 112-23;M. R. D. Foot and H. C. G. Matthew (ed.), TheCladstone Diaries., vol. iii (Oxford, 1974), p. 235.

6 G. Caprin, VEsule fortunato (Florence, 1945),p. 154; L. Fagan, Sir Anthony Panizzi (London,1880), vol. i, p. 179.

7 Sir A. Gordon, The Earl of Aberdeen (London,1893), p. 111; M. R. D. Foot (ed.). The CladstoneDiaries., vol. ii (1968), p. 151 (for 26 Jan. 1835).

8 E. Miller, Prince of Librarians (London, 1967),p. 229.

9 Italicized version in Fagan, Panizzi., vol. i, p. 181;Add. MS. 36715, fol. i 96 \

10 Add. MS. 44274, fol. 6.

11 'The Composition of Mr. Gladstone's Essay onLeopardi', Italian Studies, vHi (1953), p. 59.

12 Barbara Reynolds,, 'W. E. Gladstone andAlessandro Manzoni', ibid, vi (1951), p. 63, andCladstone Diaries^ vol. ii (1968), pp. 411-12,

13 Add. MS. 36716, fol. 55, Gladstone to Panizzifrom Fasque, 6 Oct. 1849. Italian version ofpassage in Caprin, I'Esule fortunato, pp. 215-16.For the journey, see Gladstone Diaries, vol. iv(1974), pp. 136-47, esp. pp. 138-9.

14 Add. MS. 36715, fols. 537-8, dated 12, post-marked 14 Dec. 1848,

15 See Bulletin of the John Rylands Library., Ii (Man-chester, 1969), pp. 368-80.

16 Morley, Cladstone, vol. i, p. 389.17 Cladstone Diaries, vol. iv (1974), pp. 200-2;

Add. MS. 44738, fols. 122-46; Sir P. Magnus,Cladstone (London, 1954), p. 94.

18 Gladstone, Cleanings., vol. iv, p. 7.19 J. L. Hammond and M. R. D. Foot, Cladstone

and Liberalism (London, 1952), pp. 60-3.20 Cladstone Diaries., vol. iv (1974), p. 270 (entry for

that day). Lacaita misremembered their first

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meeting as three days later, according to his son,Charles's An Italian Engltshman {London, 1933),p. 25.

21 Gladstone Diaries, vol. iv (1974), p. 297. This wasGeorge Fagan, father of Panizzi's friend and bio-grapher Louis; he was then clerk at the Britishlegation.

22 Ibid., pp. 299-300.23 Ibid., p. 298.24 Ibid., pp. 301, 304, 308.25 Ibid., p. 305.26 Ibid., pp. 310-11.27 Ibid., p. 322 (7 Apr. 1851).28 Add. MS. 44274, fol. 23.29 e.g. Gladstone Diaries, vol. iv (1974), pp. 330-1.30 Palmerston to Sir William Temple in E. Ashley,

Life of Palmerston (London, 1876), vol. i, p. 257.31 Gleanings, vol. iv, pp. i ff.32 Add. MS. 44274, fols. 90-5.33 Fagan, Panizzi, vol. ii, p. 103.34 Panizzi to Lacaita, 3 Aug. 1855, ibid., p. 132.35 English Historical Review, liii (1938), p. 486, in a

brief article reprinted after his death, in a volumeed. by his brother, W. O. Henderson, CrimeanWar Diplomacy (Glasgow, 1947), pp. 238-41.

36 Add. MS. 44274, fol. 153.37 Fagan, Panizzi, vol. ii, p, 256.38 Add. M S . 44274, fol. 263,39 Ibid., fol. 265.40 Add. MS. 36723, fols. 171-2. Gladstone, Hke

lesser intellectuals, had trouble in throwing awaypieces of paper. The rough draft of these lines,and two fair copies—one made at least four yearsafter the event—are preserved in his papers, allin holograph: Add. MSS. 44793, fols. 196-7,44754, fol. 114, and 44770, fols. 28-9. Gratefulthanks are due to Sir William Gladstone ofFasque for his leave to reproduce both the poemand the letter that follows; both are his copyright.

41 H. C. G. Matthew (ed.), Tke Gladstone Diaries,vol. vi (1978), p. 378.

42 J. Bailey (ed.). The Diary of Lady ErederickGavendish (London, 1927), vol. ii, pp. 335-44.

43 Add. MS. 36723, fols. 183-4,44 Add. MS. 36723, fols. 185-6.45 Fagan, Panizzi, vol. ii, p. 305.46 P. Guedalla, The Queen and Mr. Gladstone (Lon-

don, 1933), vol. i, pp. 178-85.47 Loan MS. 73/5.48 Add. MS. 36725, fol. 103, 25 June 1869, copy.49 Constance Brooks, Antonio Panizzi. Scholar and

Patriot (Manchester, 1931), p. 147.50 W. A. Shaw, The Knights of England (London,

1971), vol. i, p. 284.51 See Fagan, Panizzi, vol. ii, pp. 300-1, for a

famous and relevant example.52 D. C. Lathbury (ed.). Correspondence on Church

and Religion ofW. E. Gladstone (London, 1910),vol. ii, p. 99.

53 Private information.