



Produced by David Widger






RULE OF THE MONK

OR, ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

By General Giuseppe Garibaldi

1870.




INTRODUCTION.

The renowned writer of Caesar's "Commentaries" did not think it
necessary to furnish a preface for those notable compositions, and
nobody has ever yet attempted to supply the deficiency--if it be one. In
truth, the custom is altogether of modern times. The ancient heroes
who became authors and wrote a book, left their work to speak for
itself--"to sink or swim," we had almost said, but that is not exactly
the case. Caesar carried his "Commentaries" between his teeth when he
swam ashore from the sinking galley at Alexandria, but it never occurred
to him to supply posterity with a prefatory flourish. He begins those
famous chapters with a soldierly abruptness and brevity--"Omnia Gallia
in tres partes" etc. The world has been contented to begin there also
for the last two thousand years; and the fact is a great argument
against prefaces--especially since, as a rule, no one ever reads them
till the book itself has been perused.

The great soldier who has here turned author, entering the literary
arena as a novelist, has also given his English translators no preface.
But our custom demands one, and the nature of the present work requires
that a few words should be written explanatory of the original purpose
and character of the Italian MS. from which the subjoined pages are
transcribed. It would be unfair to Garibaldi if the extraordinary
vivacity and grace of his native style should be thought to be here
accurately represented. The renowned champion of freedom possesses an
eloquence as peculiar and real as his military genius, with a gift of
graphic description and creative