As for Orsini, he met his death like a hero; but it is well known that before dying he succeeded, as a leading member of the Carbonari, in extracting from the French Emperor, who had himself belonged to that society, a promise that he would free Italy from Austrian oppression. By giving that promise, Louis Napoleon was delivered from the fear of violent death at the hands of the Carbonari, whilst his fulfilment of it in the war of 1859 gave Italy her first great step towards unity and freedom. Even the romantic page of history has never recorded a more notable transaction than that which thus took place in a condemned cell between an assassin lying under sentence of death and a reigning Emperor; nor would it be possible to denounce regicide so absolutely as most of us do if there were many instances in which it had proved so successful as it did in the case of Orsini. I have dwelt at undue length on an episode which my readers probably think altogether outside the scope of this narrative, but it does not lie quite so far apart from it as they may imagine. It was my association as a boy with Mr. Cowen's enthusiastic assertion of the rights of oppressed nationalities, and the stirring of my spirit which necessarily resulted from contact, however slight, with men like Kossuth and Orsini, that first made me a real Liberal in politics. As I have mentioned the Lecture Room--a dismal, stuffy, ill-lighted little theatre--I may refer to two meetings unconnected with foreign politics which I remember in it. One was in 1857, when the Dissenters of Newcastle had revolted against the domination of the Whig clique, and at the general election had set up a candidate of their own. They had great difficulty in finding one, for they required a man who would pay his own expenses (in those days a very serious item), and the chance of success was by no means brilliant. At last, however, they secured a rich retired Bombay merchant, and he came down to Newcastle forthwith to address his first meeting. The Lecture Room was crowded with enthusiastic Nonconformists, and these were the words with which the unhappy candidate began his speech: "Gentlemen, four-and-twenty hours ago, if anybody had asked me where Newcastle-on-Tyne was, I could not have told them." This, to an audience full of the local pride which possessed the soul of every genuine Newcastle man! I need hardly say that, having ascertained where Newcastle was, Mr. C. speedily departed from it, amid a storm of indignation, never again to be seen in its streets.