tenets of their religion, without being the enemies of almost everything that constitutes or nourishes popular freedom; and they cannot be the friends of these without being the enemies of themselves.

The continental revolutionists had the sagacity to perceive that the Catholic Church was their most deadly enemy, and they first endeavoured to conquer it by inculcating infidelity. The people were to be induced to throw off its yoke, by being taught to regard religion as a fable. The scheme was worthy of its idiotic authors, and it had a very natural termination. It converted the dregs of the people into godless, lawless ruffians, and it converted the great body of the people into the bitter enemies of the revolutionists. Infidelity may for a moment have great success; if it be suffered to be openly taught, it may enable the scum of a community to establish atheism by law, as the history of France abundantly proves, but it still must ultimately be put down by religion. A nation will change its religion, but however false and pernicious this may be, it will cleave to it, if the alternative be no religion at all. When the revolutionists found that the Catholic Church was too strong for them, they then, after robbing it, exasperating it, suffering it to know that they were deists, and that they hated it, granted it a monopoly of conscience. They actually granted such a monopoly to such a church, at the very time when they pretended to establish liberty. Of course, they only raised a gimcrack, lying, impracticable thing, called a free constitution, in one moment, for it to be crumbled to ruins the next.

In our judgment, the spread of the reformed religion must precede all successful attempts to establish liberty on the Continent. The ecclesiastical tyranny of the Catholic Church must be destroyed before civil liberty

can take root, and this can only be effectually destroyed by Protestantism. The creed and discipline of our church allow and sanction the full exercise of civil and religious freedom, those of the Catholic Church jealously prohi bit it; and while this is the case, the followers of the one may be free, but the followers of the other must be slaves. When the people of the Continent shall be taught the practice of genuine Christianity-when they shall be taught to purge their religion of its errors-when the influence of their religious teachers shall be duly restricted to religious matters-and when they shall be as free from clerical despotism as the people of England-then, and we think not before, they may be endowed with liberty. The practice of Christianity must, on the one hand, form the foundation of freedom; and on the other, a people never can be free, when the discipline of the church amounts practically to religious and civil despotism. We find abundant proof in Ireland, that it is idle for the government and the law to tell a man that he may do this, that, or the other, if his priest forbid it. We quarrel not with names, but things; any body of men that might hold the opinions and possess the influence and authority of the Catholic clergy of Catholic states, would assuredly wish to render the government despotic for its own_security, and it would possess abundant power for doing it. If Ireland were to be at this moment converted into a distinct, independent kingdom, the government, whatever might be its wishes, would be irresistibly compelled to become despotic, both in shape and operation.

The Catholic Church has lately most unceremoniously and decisively given the lie to those who have so long descanted on its change of doctrine and feeling, but, alas! it has done this to little purpose. Our Earl Greys, and Broughams, and Burdetts-would to

God that the list ended here!-can calmly look upon the conduct of this church in Portugal, in Spain, and in Italy-they can coolly read the late epistle of the Pope-and then they can stand up in Parliament and demand that this church may be entrusted with political power in our own country! They can demand this when the fact stares them in the face, that the Catholics comprehend one-third of our population, and are as ignorant, as bigotted, as much infuriated against Protestantism and civil liberty, as those of any nation in Europe! At the very moment when the Catholic Church is solemnly proclaiming throughout the world, that the least vestige of popular freedom is incompatible with its existence, our public men seem more resolutely determined than ever, to bring it, with the tremendous means which it possesses among us, into full operation against our Constitution! This may be called

conciliation, it may be called liberality, it may be called political wisdom, and those who support it may call themselves the only knowing and sagacious statesmen in the kingdom; but if cause can produce effect, if fire can burn and water can chill, if that which is hostile to freedom can injure freedom, its success would give the most deadly wound to British liberty, that it ever received since it recovered from its last overthrow, and would surround the Constitution with dangers from which it could only escape by miracle. Heaven preserve our country! when its children are taught to strip themselves naked, that their enemies_may obtain their clothing; and to throw themselves into the flames, that they may avoid the pinching but invigo rating influence of the northern blast, and when they are, moreover, taught that this alone is " knowledge," light," and "wisdom." Y. Y. Y.

It is a long time since the world was treated with a history like this, so naïve, so simple, so free at once from the prejudices and the jargon of the times. Italian critics, it seems, all exclaim against Mr Botta for his oldworld thoughts and antiquated style, and they think him beneath consideration, because he is not, like Sismondi, immersed in the speculative liberalism that pervades the literary coteries of the continent; and because, despising the emasculated and worn-out tongue of the Italians of his day, he has recurred to the pages of Machiavelli and Guicciardini for virility both of style and thought. M. Botta certainly is not an historian of supereminent genius-his History of the American War is cold and meagre, alike devoid of interest and information; indeed, such grave, declamatory historians, are quite at fault and out of character, when they attempt to narrate the unclassic causes that are so prominent in every modern history: taxes, courtintrigues, and paper-war, are elements too subtle for those imitators of the classic historians, whose forte is describing the picturesque in act or in individual character, and who are by no means equal to grasp or compre

hend the mighty and manifold springs of action in the great world of moderu civilization. But Italy presents not yet so involved and difficult a subject to the historian-the daring violence with which its peace was violated, and its hopes of prosperity blasted, (we aver what the impartial history before us plainly proves,) presents but one bold outline of injustice, easily seized, and to pourtray which with the passion of just indignation, leads not to partiality or misrepresentation. In that country there were no opposite powers and parties, whose conflicting interests render history, as with us, a problem of most difficult solution: there the historian has little need of secret memoirs and state-papers to throw light upon the unaccountable course of eventsthere all is plain, violence on one side, and submission on the other—the revolutions that are produced by the sword, require the portraiture more of a feeling than of a knowing pen.

Hence we think M. Botta has chosen for the subject of his history, not only the times and country with which he was necessarily best acquainted, but has also chosen that which most befitted his simple character and limited talents. His personal rank and im

portance, for he was one of the three governors of Piedmont, must render M. Botta's work, even if it were far inferior to what it is, most interesting as cotemporaneous history; add to this the known probity of the man, who retired poor from a situation, in which others gleaned enormous fortunes, to become an humble instructor of youth in a provincial town. M. Botta held the chair of some professorship at Rouen, till the anti-laic regulations of the Bishop of Hermopolis lately ejected him from it. With respect to the historian's style, for we think it better to discuss our author's merits previous to entering on the more absorbing topics of which his history treats -it was to us at first somewhat difficult, on account of its antiquated terms and expressions, and it may appear affected for the same reasons to those (and we don't envy them) whose vernacular tongue is the modern Italian. Avowing ourselves extremely bad judges on this point, still we must declare we find a great charm in this antiquated style-it is as though Machiavel had re-arisen to lay hold of his pen, and moralize as sedately and as straight-forward as he did of old; for, with the good leave of our readers' prejudices, we know no simpler moralist than Machiavel. The adoption of this much reprobated style, is no small proof of the historian's true grandeur of mind. He disdains to herd with the cotemporary writers of his country, or to be classed at a future day with the grammarians and dilettanti, that usurp the name of literary characters, forsooth, in Italy. With prophetic discernment he has foreseen that future ages can afford to study and become acquainted but with one dialect, one phase of a land's language; and since fate has denied him birth in the days of Guicciardini and Machiavel, he is resolved to retrocede as much as possible into their fraternity, and so pass to future ages in their company, rather than as one of the all-prostituted penmen of modern Italy. The effect of this resolution, too, has been more ennobling than perhaps the historian could have hoped, for the adoption of style has, in a great measure, induced a similarity of ideas and views; and so it is, that M. Botta, instead of writing in the hackneyed vein of either revolutionism, or anti-revolutionism, seems to contem

plate tranquilly and describes impartially, as with a century's interval between him and them, the events and scenes amongst which he lived, and of many of which he was himself a spectator.

The first chapter of M. Botta's history commences with a description of the state of Italy previous to the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine. The account he gives of the spirit in which each country was governed, is far other than that which the inisrepresentations of our travellers would lead us to suppose. With them the coming of Napoleon into Italy, was the descent of an Avatar to rescue it from ignorance, superstition, and slavery: in opposition to this opinion, let us consider with so able and enlightened a guide as the historian under review, the very wretched and illiberal ideas which are said to have prevailed universally amongst the governors of this proverbially ill-governed country. First of all, Rome-The philosophic Ganganelli had not long ceased to occupy the pontifical throne, and Braschi, who succeeded him, still adhered in the main to the liberal politics of his predecessor. The Jesuits were not restored to their influence, not even to their rights, and even if money was raised by exorbitant taxes on the Roman people, the mode of its expenditure at least was such as could scarce be censured by the pioneers of philanthropy.-Tuscany was governed by Leopold, in a more liberal and popular spirit than ever republican assembly was known to sway a realm; and not only were his views of reform directed against actual oppression, feudal or ecclesiastical, they were even directed against the spiritual supremacy of Rome. The doctrines of the Port Royal professors, merged amongst the French in deism, were extremely popular throughout all Italy, and were especially cherished and propagated by the successive Archbishops of Pistoia, the heads of the Tuscan Church. And no ecclesiastical synod has ever made a more rational stand against the corruption and usurpations of the Romish church than that of Pistoia, commenced under the influence of Leopold, and Ricci, their archbishop. But the French invasion soon inundated the country, and choked those noble germs of religious independence, which, had their growth been allowed in quiet

to mature, might now have been producing the fruit of moderate and rational principles in religious govern

ment.

To continue our review of Italian governments at this period. The house of Bourbon, now declared so necessarily hostile to the progress of liberal ideas, reigned in Parma and in Naples. In the former state, Dutillet, a Frenchman of active and enlightened mind, managed state affairs beneath two succeeding princes, and followed all along the generous impulse, which the reigning princes of the house of Austria (another anti-liberal house) had given to popular and philanthropic ideas. In Naples, Ferdinand, the present tyrant, or quasher of revolutions, and imprisoner of his subjects, amused himself-how? in an Utopian scheme of founding a republic at Santé Sencia, to be governed according to the primitive ideas of the philanthropic Filangieri. So that in those times we find this most terrific of all despots, a very Quixote, in pursuit of civil reform and perfection. The mania of liberty and philanthropy seems to have laid hold of every Italian sovereign; the last of the D'Estés was not behindhand in these new ideas. Venice and Genoa were old, staunch, self-governed republics. Lombardy was ruled by Joseph the Second, a very patriarch of liberal monarchs, and by Count Firmian, a viceroy more liberal and philanthropic even, if that were possible, than his master. And Piedmont, much as the rage of its princes for military glory prevented them from being foremost in the political quixotism of the age, joined in the task of self-amelioration, in which it beheld its neighbours so zealously employed.

Now we would ask, when or where was there ever displayed such a disposition towards liberty, in both ruled and rulers, as was manifested in Italy at this period? Where has all this phílanthropy vanished to, and how have all its dreams been overthrown?-By the boasted revolution and liberty of France. Well might Alfieri exclaim, in indignant astonishment,

"Di liberta maestri i Galli ?"

Italy stepped forward gradually, 'tis true, but surely, towards the glorious boon, when the fraternizing French appeared, overran that wretched and

divided country, with promises of speedy liberty and independence, and finally dragged it down along with itself into the lair of bondage, and finally of disgrace, into which it fell.

It may be too fantastic a mode of reviewing human events, to consider that at this time the spirit of liberty was allowed its full scope, by way of a moral experiment, to shew how far it would proceed, and to what good end. It has had its day, has enjoyed its reign, and an ill use, Heaven knows, it made of its ascendancy. If, at this moment, the contrary principle is allowed its turn and trial, say in the person of the Holy Alliance, (for we are here amusing ourselves with suppositions,) if it does go too far at times in its due reaction, is it not fair? And would not an unbiassed beholder of the strife between these two adverse principles-the liberty and slavery of mankind-would he not say, that the alternate ascendancy of each was just, and that the beings, who could make no better use of the one than mankind, or at least than the French have done, deserved most richly to be driven to endure the extremities of the other?

But to return to the history before us. As soon as the French Revolution had gathered some confidence in its military force, Italy seemed marked out by its chiefs as the channel into which the stream of ferocity and violence that then inundated France was to be turned. Belgium, often overrun, was looked upon as an easy and a certain conquest. The countries on the Rhine were too near the heart of Austria, and too well guarded by her numerous armies, to render invasions on that side either tempting or feasible; whilst the phlegmatic character of the inhabitants offered little hopes that they would join in the wild principles of democracy that had excited the French. The known national character of the Italians offered all the temptations that were denied by that of the Germans; the ancient associations, too, connected with the classic land of liberty, could not but be supposed still to influence her sons, and incline them to grasp at an opportunity of recovering their ancient liberty, and of vindicating their former fame. Popular as were the wars of Belgium and that on the Rhine, still the volunteers that flocked thither were of the lower orders; whilst, as soon as an

army was formed for the conquest of Italy, the scholar left his college, and the concealed young noble his hidingplace, that they might partake in the pleasure of not only beholding the Roman land, but of beholding it as conquerors and liberators. The same motives urged on the French to invade Italy that had done so in all ages of the monarchy, in spite of the continued and manifold disasters which it was their fate, according to the proverb, to meet with in that country. Thither, then, was bent the principal force of the republican armies.

Of the princes of Italy, who all could not fail to watch with anxiety the intentions and acts of the French, the most exposed was naturally the first proposer of a general league of the Italian powers; and to this intent the court of Turin early addressed the powers of the peninsula, and received in return promises of alliance and assistance from all of them, Venice alone excepted, who from the beginning was resolved to adhere to the fatal principles of unarmed neutrality. The powers in consequence began to arm, rendered confident by their own union, and the alliance of Austria. Semonville, dispatched by the Directory to Victor Amadeus, to entreat a passage for their troops through Piedmont, was stopped at Alexandria, and ordered to retire. This was in September 1792. The consequence was a declaration of war on the part of France against the King of Sardinia; and in a few months General Montesquieu was master of Chambery, and Anselm of Nice, without one act of defence worth recording having been performed by the Piedmontese troops, by the way, that at the time bore almost the highest reputation of any in Europe, and who commenced the campaign with the greatest contempt for their republican enemies.

This is not the place to write a history of Italy, or give a detailed account of the French invasion and conquest of that country: the utmost we aim at is to offer to our readers some connecting and obscure facts, that have not as yet found place in the military annals and memoirs of campaigns, which have alone hitherto formed the materials for modern Italian history. One of those curious facts certainly is the mode in which the court of Rome sought to turn revolutionary princi

ples, then disseminating so rapidly, to its own advantage. We translate an account of this from the Italian of Signor Botta :

"As this was a war not only of arms but of opinions, Rome bethought itself of a singular method to turn to its own advantage those spreading principles that threatened so dreadful a destruction to all princes. Fearing the entry of these doctrines into Italy along with the French themselves, it was deemed advisable to pre-occupy men's minds; to pretend that religion itself sanctified those very principles, in order that they might never be used against her, and at the same time to shew that she was the most efficacious, or rather the only means of preventing the abuses which necessarily followed the insurrections of the people against their sovereigns. For this purpose, therefore, it was so managed that a certain Spedalieri, a man learned, and of no despicable talent, published at Assisi, in 1791, a book, entitled I Diritti dell' Uomo- The Rights of Man.' It was dedicated to Cardinal Rabrizio Ruffo, then treasurer of the Apostolic Chamber, and Pius the Sixth rewarded the author with a benefice in St Peter's. In this official work, Spedalieri upholds that human society, or the compact by which men are united in the civil state, was formed originally and directly by men themselves; that all is their work, and that the Deity had no part in producing such a state but as first being or cause; in other words, that the social compact comes from God, but in the same manner as all other natural effects are said to proceed from him. He farther affirms, that despotism is no legitimate government, and that the nation has a right to declare the sovereign dethroned, &c. in case he violates the compact. These propositions he corroborates by the authority of St Thomas, who, it seems, in his work, De Regimine Principum ad Regem Cypri,' has fully demonstrated the truth of them."

To this, then, was the Romish church reduced. Here is another sample of her infallible principles. It is a wonder that Jacobinism was not more grateful to her Papal votaries for such unheard-of condescension; and had Napoleon not proved an apostate to the democracy that engendered him, he, or his friend Lepaux, might with ease have converted the Pontiff into the