Chapter VI, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 3

"In the name of Britain's sons and daughters of toil, we bid you welcome to this metropolis," said the address of the working men, high-flown indeed, but, unlike most addresses, sincere. " We hail you as the representative of a regenerated and united Italy, and for the love we bear to that beautiful land and its noble people - so long oppressed, but now, thanks to your devoted patriotism and indomitable courage, almost freed from the foreign oppressors - we bid you welcome. Your name is to us & household word, the symbol of liberty, associated with lofty daring, bold enterprise, and unselfish devotion to the cause of human progress. For your noble deeds we thank, love, and welcome you; and in the name, the sacred name, of that liberty for which you have fought and bled, and which you have finally won for an oppressed people, we give you a place, the first place, in our hearts; and, while doing so, we cannot forget that there are many who have been associated with you in your glorious enterprises who are also deserving of our admiration and esteem, especially the illustrious Joseph Mazzini, who has done so much for Italy, freedom, and humanity.... Accept, then, dear brother, our heartfelt delight at seeing you in our midst; and expressing a fervent desire for the full realisation of your hopes, namely, your country's and the world's freedom, once more - welcome! "

To this the General, leaning upon his stick, and evidently much moved, replied in a few broken sentences. His knowledge of English, never great, was apt to fail him in moments of excitement, and he was obliged to content himself with a few disjointed expressions of gratitude and pleasure. His presence, however, was enough, and his speech was lost in the cheering. A carriage drawn by four horses was waiting for him outside the station, to which the eager crowd inside at last allowed the Duke of Sutherland, whose guest he was to be, to carry him away. As it passed through Nine Elms, crowds, kept in order by mounted policemen, lined the roads, the front ranks of which pressed forward to shake the General's hand. At Wandsworth Road a halt was made while a monster procession of trades unions filed past. Upwards of 30,000 men took part in it, and as they passed the General one and all broke out in cheers and cries. Thirty thousand English workmen are a fine sight at any time, but London had more still to offer Garibaldi. To the dense multitude gathered at Vauxhall and Kennington, 30,000 men would have been as nothing. As far as the eye could see, road, windows, roofs were black with human beings, while down the closely-packed j ranks ran one huge continuous cheer as the carriage j approached. In Lambeth Road farther progress became for a time impossible, in spite of the efforts of the band of Italians preceding the carriage to clear the way. Nor was the enthusiasm less in the richer and more aristocratic portions of the city. Courage and sincerity found their meed here as elsewhere. The sunset on Westminster Bridge over the struggling crowds, and the calm river dotted with shipping beyond, was a sight not easily forgotten. It must have been a proud moment for the man thus welcomed by surging thousands of his fellow creatures. Such an experience may well send the subject of it on his way encouraged and heartened for the future. And yet, perhaps, there is something sad about the unmeasured, unreasoning homage which humanity pays to those whom it holds to be its benefactors. Are there so few in the world, and is self-devotion so rare a virtue, that it must be acknowledged by such passionate gratitude?

Trafalgar Square was one vast sea of faces as the procession entered it, while along Pall Mall the clubs were lit up, and the windows and balconies filled with spectators. Ladies in gay dresses made bright spots of colour along the house-fronts, and every successive monument and statue was covered with gazers - boys found precarious seats among the medallions at the foot of the Nelson Column, while Charles I. and his horse were almost hidden from view by a band of adventurous spirits bestriding the animal's back, or perched upon the shoulders of the king himself. At last Stafford House was reached, and the long, fatiguing, exciting journey came to an end. Garibaldi was hoarse and wearied; the excitement had been almost too much for him, and after his introduction to the Duchess of Sutherland, his friends saw his retirement in the care of his host with relief. So far his visit had been an unexampled success; London had given him a noble welcome, as the most cynical confessed. Of the greater part of Garibaldi's stay in the capital little need be said here. He was feted by the aristocracy, the best houses in London were open to him, while the leaders of society vied with one another in efforts to please and amuse him. Throughout it all he remained his simple unconscious self, unfeignedly pleased by the admiration and attention shown him, but always glad when lie could escape the throng round him for a minute or two, and chat in a corner with a friend. He went one evening to the Opera, and the Royal Italian Opera Company celebrated his visit by performing the two great acts of " Masaniello," the fisher-patriot. Two days were spent in going over the Woolwich Arsenal, and in inspecting the great steam-plough manufactory of Messrs. Howard at Bedford. His visit to the Crystal Palace was the most striking event, however, of this period of his stay. From 25,000 to 30,000 people were congregated in the nave and centre transept of the Palace to bid him welcome. All ranks and professions were represented among them, and the great building crowded to the roof was an imposing sight. Garibaldi was received at the north wing of the Palace by the various officials of the Crystal Palace Company, by Mr. Grove, whose versatile genius has done so much for music at Sydenham, in the development of the Saturday Concerts, and by representatives of the Italian committees in London, wearing the scarf of the tricolour. The General addressed these last in Italian, and it was then seen with what vigour and ease he could speak when unshackled by the half-understood forms of a foreign tongue. Afterwards, wheeled along the gallery in a Bath chair, he was taken to the nave, where the assembled thousands of spectators were eagerly waiting. When he appeared the enthusiasm was tremendous. The great Handel orchestra, crowded from top to bottom, was one mass of waving handkerchiefs. Again and again the cheers re-echoed along the nave, to be drowned at last in the " Garibaldi Hymn," which was now familiar to all London. The hymn was the prelude to an Italian concert, performed by Italian singers. The inspiriting tuneful melodies of Italy suited the scene well. In every Italian's face shone that love of and profound admiration for the music of his country with which the followers of classical and German art find it so hard to sympathise. A German orchestra would have broken out in the " Choral Symphony," and so have lent a colossal voice and meaning to the scene; but perhaps the well-known love-songs and battle-airs of Italian opera were, independent of the compliment to the "Liberator," the best exponents of this gay, pretty scene, and suited best with the red shirts, the flags, the flowers, and the pleased faces of the holiday-making crowd. When the " National Anthem" had brought the concert to an end, Signor Rossini, the best and most original of Italian musicians, accompanied by other members of the Italian Committee, presented Garibaldi with a beautiful sword in the east transept. " Accept, General," said Rossini, " this sword, which the Italians resident in London present to you as a mark of their admiration, and in memory of the reception given to you by free and noble England. May this sword, handed to you in this temple of peace by an exile of Venice, be destined to accomplish the independence of our beloved Italy." "I promise you," said Garibaldi in answer, " that I will never unsheath it in the cause of tyrants, and will draw it only in support of oppressed nationalities. I hope yet to carry it with me to Rome and Venice." After the fountains had played their best for his amusement, to the music of Italian patriotic airs, Garibaldi took his leave, amid the same uproarious cheering which had welcomed him. On the 20th, when he went to receive the freedom of the city of London, the same unmixed enthusiasm greeted him. We need not describe the multitudes in the City, or the great luncheon at the Mansion House. We have said enough to show how warm was the reception which England gave to the man whom she honestly believed to be the deliverer of Italy. The best side of popular feeling - its most sincere and generous side - was undoubtedly brought out, and all classes felt aggrieved when the enthusiasm evinced by the lower orders in the reception of Garibaldi was set down in certain quarters to revolutionary motives and tendencies. It began to be said, at the end of the General's visit, that the red shirt was an emblem of revolution, and that if he stayed longer in England a dangerous temper might be developed among the workmen who cheered him so lustily. That his visit, however, was shortened by a hint from the Government is doubtful - let us hope, for the sake of English common sense, that the explanation drawn from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons, of Garibaldi's hasty departure, was the true one, and that it was really the enfeebled state of the General's health which hurried him away before he had time to fulfil half of his numerous engagements. But for this rumour, and the ill- feeling to which it gave rise, his visit was an unexampled success; and when the Undine, with the illustrious Italian on board, sailed out of Plymouth, on the 27th, she carried with her the good wishes of England, not only for himself, but for the great cause which once more claimed his undivided efforts, when a few days later he landed on the shore of Caprera.

Few of those who departed in the course of this year from their wonted places among men awakened in the hearts of the mourning survivors more sad and sympathetic regrets than Henry Pelham Clinton, fifth Duke of Newcastle. But fifty-three years old, and endowed by nature with an eager and buoyant temperament, he was just the man who might have been expected to pass a long life in doing good and faithful service for his country, and then to die in harness. But the gloom of a ghastly private sorrow had long hung over him; the incurable wound of an intolerable injury rankled in his soul -

Taciturn vivit sub pectore vulnus!

At Oxford, he, the heir to one of the great Nottinghamshire " dukeries," the descendant of a long line of Barons of Clinton, who were nobles under William the Conqueror, was known as the warm and intelligent friend of Gladstone and Ruskin, and as a constant speaker at the " Union." He first entered Parliament as a member for the southern division of Nottinghamshire so far back as 1832, just after the passing of the Reform Bill. Adhering closely to Sir Robert Peel, he witnessed and rejoiced in the gradual reconstruction of the Tory party by that great statesman, under the new name of Conservatives. When Peel came into power for a short time in 1834, he appointed Lord Lincoln one of the Lords of the Treasury; and on his taking office at the head of that memorable administration which arose out of the Conservative triumphs in the elections of 1841, Lord Lincoln was sent to the Woods and Forests, and afterwards to the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland. He was a sensible and ready speaker, and a hard worker, but without possessing either eloquence or genius. The influence of his great chief converted Lord Lincoln to a belief in Free Trade, and it was with a full understanding that the Corn Laws were doomed by the statesman who came into power to uphold them, that the farmers of Nottinghamshire, when, in the early part of 1846, Lord Lincoln vacated his seat for the county in consequence of accepting the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, were solicited by him for a renewal of their confidence. The vast territorial influence which the Duke of Newcastle, as the lord of Clumber, exercises in that county is well known; and on the present occasion all that influence was exerted to prevent the return of his son and heir. The eyes of all England were turned for the time towards this singular spectacle of the heir to the estates travelling, canvassing, haranguing, among those who would some day be his tenants, and of the father, the peer in possession, maintaining a dignified serenity, but writing one letter from Clumber to warn his faithful tenantry against the vicious and ruinous theories of his misguided son:

Verbosa et grandis epistola venit A Capreis.

Possession proved stronger than expectancy; but even had the positions been reversed, the alarm of the farmers at the prospect of the free admission of foreign corn was too sincere to have permitted them to vote for a supporter of Free Trade. Lord Lincoln lost the seat by a majority of 700 votes; but he was not long out of Parliament, coming in for the Falkirk Burghs. From this time to his death he was one of the leading members of the Peelite party. He joined the coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen in 1853, with the office of Colonial Secretary, whence he was transferred to the War Office on the breaking out of war with Russia. He laboured hard to remedy the defects and shortcomings which forty years of peace had produced in our military system; nor were his labours unavailing; but after bearing up for some time against the torrent of censure and detraction of which his department was the object, he resigned the thankless office, giving place to Lord Panmure. Lastly, he took office under Lord Palmerston in 1859, accepting the post of Colonial Secretary, which he held till a few months before his death. He had studied colonial questions deeply, and none would deny him the praise of having administered the affairs of the department with firmness and justice, in a spirit of conciliation towards the colonists, yet with a due regard to the interests and dignity of the mother country. His judgment and political tact were seldom at fault, and were notably exemplified on the occasion of his accompanying the Prince of Wales to America in 1860, when he steadily refused to allow the demonstrations of welcome to the heir apparent to be made the vehicle for the gratification of national or religious rancour, telling the Mayor and Corporation of Kingston that he could not advise the Prince of Wales to accept their proffered hospitality, on account of the extent to which they had permitted their Orange zeal to interfere with the invitation.