absence of all distinct records relating to the remote annals of the Italian states. M. Micali, a Florentine savant, is said to have taken up the inquiry; but we have not yet heard of the actual publication of his work, and we cannot say that we feel any urgent anxiety for its appearance. The facts of the investigation are few and insulated; and we have had so much of speculation and hypothesis in these departments of historical labour, that we rather prefer the ignorance which is simple and easy, to that which is complicated and fatiguing.

The institutions of Rome were nearly all of a military character; and the exclusive direction of her tremendous energies was in the track of conquest. Much of this arose from the policy of the Patrician order, always anxious, by providing an external object for the excitement of the passions of the people, to divert their attention from the defects and oppressions, of their domestic government. A nation whose political system has so much of the warlike cast, will seldom be in durable, possession of civil liberty. When its own safety is endangered by the superiority of its enemies, it will feel the necessity of entrusting its fortunes to some supreme command; and when its victorious arms have pushed its frontiers beyond the reach of constant inspection and ready management, the result is, invariably, the contention of rival chiefs, and the assumption of uncontroled dominion by the successful competitor. It would not be difficult to shew, that the vicissitudes of the Roman history had been gradually preparing that combination of circumstances which brought on the civil wars, the triumvirate, and ultimately the complete prostration of the freedom of Rome under the sceptre of Octavius. The vaunted honours of the Augustan reign, were but the ripe and plenteous gleanings of centuries of republican glory and genius; and a long interval of subsequent suffering and degradation terminated in the entire extinction of intellectual light. Ages of barbarism passed away before the withering effects of despotism could be effaced, and the mind of Italy be restored to its native elasticity and energy. Lux demum adfulsit-Freedom, Science, Art, again visited those majestic regions; again to be crushed by the iron mace of violence and lawless power. Not that we are quite so enthusiastic as M. de Sismondi seems to be, in our admiration of the scheme of policy and administration which regu lated the republics of Italy. There appears to us to have been more of treachery, ferocity, und intolerance, both in their interior regulation, and in their conduct towards each other, than he is willing to acknowledge. Still, they were noble exceptions to the general system of European government; they brought into intense activity mind's unwearied spring;' they

were nurseries of intellectual and moral vigour; and their history forms a bright spot in the dark annals of the middle ages.

Of such a subject for historic narrative, it must be obvious, that the difficulties are in full proportion to its attractions: its variety, its complication, and, not unfrequently, its deep obscurity, renderit inaccessible to ordinary powers of analysis and combination. In the history of the Grecian States, there usually occurs some strong and leading feature to which all the minor points may be made to refer. The ascendancy of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, or Sicyon, gave them a station which enables the narrator of their story to make them convenient and commanding centres of observation. But the annals of the Italian States seldom afford such assistance. They often present an entangled and incoherent mass of events, frequently of transcendent interest, but without any pervading principle to give combination and unity to historical investigation. The difficulties, however, of whatever kind they may be, whether arising from defective, contradictory, or redundant materials, or from the extent and perplexities of the subject, have been vigorously met by M. de Sismondi; and the following passage will shew the enlightened and persevering exertions which he has made, to enable himself to triumph over them.

The greater the complication of an historical subject, the greater is the labour necessary for obtaining the materials which are connected with it. Each State has its peculiar history and documents each demands a separate investigation. At the foot of my pages, I have cited the books and original papers to which I have had recourse, and the authorities on which I rely. I found it difficult to collect them; to accomplish it, I took up my residence for five years in Tuscany, the country of my ancestors. Three times since, I travelled through nearly the whole of Italy, and examined every spot which had been the scene of any signal achievement. I have explored almost all the great libraries; I have searched the archives of many towns and many monasteries. The history of Italy is intimately connected with that of Germany. I have also traversed this latter country in quest of historical monuments; and I have procured, at any cost, all the works which tend to illustrate the times and the people which I have undertaken to describe. I am induced to give this statement of my exertions, by my anxiety to prove my claim to the confidence of my readers.'

And yet, of the highly gifted individual who, in the execution of this formidable task, has obtained the admiration 'of Europe, Mr. Roscoe has permitted himself to speak in con-temptuous language. M. de Sismondi having made an assertion, respecting a particular period of Florentine history, at variance

with the opinions of Mr. R., the latter inflicts on him the following chastisement.

M. de Sismondi has only given a proof of the confidence with which writers of general history too often assume their own presumptions as matters of fact, and the negligence and contempt with which they treat any investigations and inquiries which lead them out of the common track. Their business is to give a general idea of the course of events, and to leave the outline to be filled up by those who may find disposition and leisure for such employment; but at all events they should be careful that this outline be correct, and that their representations should not be inconsistent with the real state of the

case.'

Does Mr. Roscoe imagine that his own claims to critical and historical pre-eminence are such as entitle him thus to characterise M. de Sismondi as a common-place writer of history? He is assuredly mistaken. He has, indeed, himself been compelled' elsewhere to stultify his own censures, by the praise bestowed on the work to which the above extract refers. But of this, more hereafter.

The subject which M. de Sismondi has so ably treated, comprises the history of the Italian Republics, from the events which led to their constitution, down to their entire extinction. A wider or a nobler field of enterprise he could not easily have found; and he has accomplished his undertaking in a way which leaves little to desire. The skill with which he has sifted different authorities and statements, without the formal apparatus of critical and dissertatory notes, appears to us one of the most striking excellences of his production. Since it was impossible to append the enormous mass of piéces justificatives which would have been necessary to support and verify all his details and inferences, it remained that he should give proof of his labour and ability by clearness of narrative, by dexterity and compression in the use of his materials, and by specific and continued reference to general principles. In all these respects he has been perfectly successful; he writes with vigour and distinctness, sometimes with eloquence; and, while his admirable system of selection and connexion gives to his work the interest of romance, there is a manly and decided character in his habits of reasoning and expression, which commands our confidence. Sismondi is a firm republican, and we admire the consistency with which he maintains and illustrates his convictions. If this be a prejudice, it is a most pardonable one; and, though it may have some influence on the colouring of his descriptions, on the substantial accuracy of his facts we are satisfied that it has never encroached. The volume which

has been published by Mr. Roscoe, chiefly for the purpose of invalidating the authority of M. Sismondi, has produced on our minds an opposite effect.

From the destruction of the Empire of the West towards the close of the fifth century, Italy became the miserable theatre of invasion and oppression. Successively subjugated by the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, and the Franks, it experienced the sufferings consequent on such conflicts and vicissitudes. The cessation of tumult and violence during the reign of Charlemagne, was little more than a breathing-time amid the visitations which it followed and preceded. When the Lombards became masters of Italy, they divided their new possessions into thirty principal fiefs, which, from various causes, had become much diminished in number, when the temporary absence of foreign invaders set the native princes at liberty to quarrel among themselves for a troubled and precarious supremacy, which was eventually obtained by Berenger, marquis of Friuli. During his dubious reign, in addition to the scourge of civil war, Italy was visited by the ravages of barbarian irruption. The Hungarians, after defeating Berenger in a battle which he hazarded without necessity, ravaged the northern and central provinces, while the Saracens extended their excursions over Naples and Piedmont. These marauders consisted altogether of light cavalry: their incursions were sudden, and their retreat rapid. Their movements were of so desultory and irregular a kind, as to render ineffectual the efforts of a heavy gendarmerie, and of the burgher infantry, to bring them to close action. But, though the immediate effects of this partizan warfare were distressing, its remote consequences were beneficial. Before these harassing and destructive expeditions had excited continual alarm, the towns of Italy had been open and defenceless. But these events enforced the necessity of precautionary measures: walls were built, the militia-system was adopted, magistrates were chosen, and the inferior orders of the people, called into action, acquired the rights and patriotic feelings of citizens. Berenger, a man of excellent qualities, being foully assassinated by men on whom he had conferred the greatest benefits, was succeeded by Hugh, Count de Provence; whose atrocious tyranny excited revolt, and ultimately transferred the crown of Italy to Otho the Great, Emperor of Germany. This revolution occurred about the middle of the tenth century; and never did any change produce a more favourable effect on the character of a people. To the liberal policy of that prince and his immediate successors, the cities were indebted for their municipal privileges, and for the origination of their republican spirit. The distance

of the court gave them the habits of independence; and after the extinction of the race of Otho, the wars between the different aspirants to the succession, introduced military discipline and character, and procured for the towns the right of marching under their own banners. Were not the minute detail of events so multiplied absolutely inhibited to our contracted limits, we should have much pleasure in tracing the noble struggles of the Romans in behalf of their liberties, until the machinations of the Popes, and the intervention of foreign potentates, established the sacerdotal power on the ruins of popular freedom. The excesses of the ambitious Hildebrand, and the fierce contests between the Emperors of Germany and the Popes, have but an incidental connexion with this part of history, but they are related with great spirit in the work before us.

Among the republics which have flourished in Italy, Venice is the most illustrious: it is almost the only one of which the history is known out of that country; and it had a longer existence than any of the rest. Its origin precedes, by seven centuries, the emancipation of the Lombard cities: its fall, of which we have been witnesses, is posterior, by nearly three hundred years, to the subjection of Florence, the most interesting of the republics of the middle ages. The republic of Venice was, a few years since, the most ancient state in Europe. The same nation, always independent, always free, had observed, like the scenes of a drama, the revolutions of the universe; had witnessed the long agony, and the termination of the Roman empire; in the West, the birth of the French power, when Clovis conquered Gaul, the rise and fall of the Ostrogoths in Italy, of the Visigoths in Spain, of the Lombards who succeeded the first, of the Saracens who dispossessed the second. Venice saw the empire of the califs rise, threaten to invade the world, divide, and decay. Long the ally of the Byzantine emperors, she, by turns, succoured and oppressed them; she carried off trophies from their capital, she shared their provinces, and joined to her other titles that of the mistress of a fourth and a half of the Roman empire. She saw that empire fall, and the ferocious Mussulmans rise on its ruins; she saw the French monarchy give way; and, alone immovable, this proud republic contemplated the kingdoms and the nations which passed before her. But, after all the rest, she sank in her turn; and the State which linked the present to the past, and joined the two epochs of the civilization of the universe, has ceased to exist.

The very nature of the country which the Venetians inhabited, was the cause of their long independence. The Adriatic Gulf receives, in its higher part, all the waters which flow from the southern descent of the Alps, from the Po, which has its rise on the declination of the mountains of Provence, to the Lisonzo, which springs from those of Carniola. The estuary of the most southern of these rivers, is about thirty leagues distant from that which lies farthest