Great, good & guilty

By R. G. D. Laffan
GARIBALDI, by Peter de Polnay (Hollis and Carter, 25s.).
GARIBALDI has been described as " great, good and guilty ": because he could rouse masses of men to enthusiasm, he fought against apparently hopeless odds and produced victories out of rebuffs and defeats; good, because he was courteous and kind, and because, Furrounded by doubledealing and self-interest, he was utterly and patently honest, with a childlike simplicity and unsmeared by any hint of corruption; guilty, because he never saw how limited and over-simplified was his outlook-he poured abuse upon those who also aimed at Italian unity but by different and better calculated methods, and. against his intentions, he again and again let loose on the indignant Italian peasantry his bands of marauding ruffians.
Our hero
HE stood for nationalism by popular rebellion, in Italy or elsewhere. for the downfall of kings (except Victor Emmanuel), and the extirpation of the Church. So he exactly suited British Liberal opinion, and nowhere was he a greater hero than here.
Yet united Italy was unlike Garibaldi's dreams. It was a victory for the Liberal middle class, for intellectuals, for big business. For the poor it meant higher taxes, conscription, spoliation of the Church, fierce competition in which the weaker went to the wall, in place of a paternal, protective order of society.
Mr. de Polnay is an expert journalist, and knows how to present his picturesque story. He writes a somewhat peculiar English, which is most engaging. He shows its the noble, simple man, temperate in food and drink, indifferent to poverty and discomfort, in love with the sea and with many women, having frequent affairs in South America, proposing marriage to well-born ladies. but marrying fat, uneducated and unprepossessing girls. He shows what a nuisance Garibaldi was under any one's orders, how incredibly successful when in sole command. And he quotes some interesting records written by two of the Irish volunteers who fought for the Pope at Spoleto in 1E60. Altogether a most attractive hook.