On the first of April the tribes affembled, and Waldman re-paired to each of them feparately, and attempted to perfuade them of his innocence, and of the neceffity of reftraining the unruly fpirit of the peasantry. His enemies, perceiving that he was gaining ground, fuddenly called together the fenate, which his office obliged him to attend. Here the deliberations were foon interrupted by a riotous multitude, who demanded the perfons of the burgomafter and some of his adherents. These being delivered to them, the multitude proceeded to depofe the fenate, and to appoint a new magiftracy, which, from its callous feverity, was called the Horny Senate. Before this tribunal Waldman was charged with various plots against the state, and, in particular, with a defign to surrender the city to the emperor; and though no proof could be adduced of thefe accufations, yet so much were people's minds prepoffeffed againft him, that orders were given to extort a confeflion by the torments of the rack. These he firmly bore during three days, with-out acknowledging any guilt; but whilft his judges were deliberating concerning the fentence, a meffenger came haftily, and reported that the emperor had croffed the Rhine, and was in full march towards the city. Waldman's doom was now pronounced: he was led out of the town, and publicly beheaded. He purposed to declare his innocence on the fcaffold, but was prevented by the perfuafion of his confeffor, who it was fince fufpected had been gained over by his enemies. No fooner had his head been struck off, but the magiftrate who attended the execution declared to the affembled multitude, that they need be under no apprehenfion concerning the Imperial forces, there being no truth in the report of an invalion. Many faw now through the malicious artifices which had impelled this diftinguished character to his final deftruction; and several of his enemies foon after expiated their treachery by capital punishe ments. Vol. ii. P. 49.

The valour of the Swiss continued to fhine with peculiar luftre in their conflicts with the Suabians; and the event terminated in giving additional firmnefs and confiftency to the confederate powers. The wars with the Milanefe are of lefs confequence; but even the battle of Marignan, in which the Swifs were defeated, impreffed all Europe with a fupreme idea of Helvetian valour. In Mr. Planta's account of this memorable engagement we could point out fome mistakes; but the topic would not be interefting to our readers.

The author thus introduces the account of the Reformation.

Of the inconfiftency of human nature no inftance more firiking and extravagant can perhaps be given, than that men, who in general are fufficiently remifs in the performance of their religious duties, fhould yet, whenever the myfteries they profefs to believe are controverted or denied, not only moft willingly, but often with impatient ardour, facrifice their lives and fortunes in fupport of

them; and that the measure of their zeal fhould for the most part be proportionate to the abftrufeness or fallacy of the tenets which are the fond objects of their bigotry. While this may be viewed as a matter of mere furprise, or perhaps.commiferation, it must be feriously lamented that a mistaken fervour for the glory of God should at any time have become the cause of bloodshed, cruelty, and a variety of atrocious crimes; and that in particular the Christian dif- penfation, the diftinguishing characteristic of which is peace, forbearance, and good will to all, and which, among innumerable obftacles, rofe by the patient refignation and heroic felf-denial of its first votaries, fhould at any period have fomented and authorised cruel perfecution, relentless war, and irreconcileable enmity. Such a period is now at hand, when religious diffenfions unsheathed the fword, and gave rife to animofities and calamities, which for many years perplexed and tormented a large portion of the human race; and armed men against each other, who, had they been influenced by the charity which was the basis of their faith, would have reconciled their jarring opinions with soothing toleration, and left the world at peace.' Vol. ii. P. 120.

Among the charges against the Roman catholic clergy in Swifferland, we find falfe miracles, the wounding of adverfaries even in churches, walking the ftreets by night, and infulting the inhabitants, and even that fome of the houfes of the canons were converted into brothels, to the great lofs of the licensed brothels of the towns. The term Huguenots, Mr. Planta ingenioufly, and we believe truly, derives from the Swifs term eignots, which was given to the proteftant friends of freedom in Geneva, itself a corruption of the German eidgenoffen, which fignifies confederates. The origin and progrefs of the Reformation form an interefting portion of the work, which we muft, however, pafs over without further notice, for reafons already affigned. The war with the peafants in the middle of the feventeenth century, which terminated in their defeat, forms a curious feature in the history of this pretended republic. Under the democratic governments of antiquity the flaves fometimes rebelled; but it would be difficult to recollect a fimilar example, except during the oppreffion of the Roman fenate. The war with the abbot of St. Gallin was not finally appeafed till the year 1718; but as Mr. Pianta confiders it as the laft gradual ftep towards the final fettlement of the Helvetic conftitution,' it follows that the French have deftroved no very ancient fabric.

The statistical view of the Helvetic confederacy prefents few features which are not familiar to our readers, from the pages of Coxe. The ariftocracy of Berne our author attempts to defend, becaufe it is ancient. By parity of reafoning we fhould continue the flaves of the Normans, and fhould, in the

Spirit of the conftitution, have imported fresh breeds to maintain the race of our conquerors. The antiquity of abuse is the moft inconfequent of fophifms. Every thing in nature, phyfical or civil, is in a ftate of perpetual and unavoidable change, and the effence of government confifts in its adaptation to the exifting state of the people. We by no means allude to the idle theory, that a republic is the beft form for a refined and corrupted nation, but only infinuate that adminiftrations ought to be affimilated with the period to which they belong; and that even allowing they might be ftern and tyrannic in a dark and barbarous age, it is by no means a fufficient argument why they fhould be the reverse at an epoch of oppofite character. Mr. Planta is, however, constrained to acknowledge, that the ariftocracy of Berne, by the gradual di-' minution of the patrician families, tended towards an oligarchy, confeffedly the worst form of government which can be exhibited.

The various difturbances at Geneva, in the courfe of the eighteenth century, Mr. Planta inclines to afcribe to the activity and ingenuity of the inhabitants. In general such events are frequent in democracies, where the factious change the government, while, under a monarchy, they would only change the miniftry. This ftability, this abfolute fecurity of person, property, and inheritance, will ever, in the eyes of candid ob fervers, afford a cogent reafon in favour of mild hereditary monarchy. The commotions of Geneva have been wittily compared to a puddle in a tempeft; nor can even the geniusof Rouffeau render them interesting; and it is no wonder that Mr. Planta has fallen into tedious minutenefs. But the tyranny of the ariftocracy of Berne cannot be better illuftrated than by the detail here given of Henzi's confpiracy in 1749; and our author has unwittingly prefented the best apology that could have been offered for the French invafion.

We now arrive at the last chapter, which contains an account of the diffolution of the confederacy by the French arms. Mr. Planta's reafonings on the caufes of the French revolution we fhail not stop to examine. He proceeds to state the confequent change of public opinion in fome parts of Swifferland, and the treatment of the Swifs troops in France, which amounted to eleven regiments, or about 14,000 men. One of these regiments being fufpected of favouring the ariftocrats, was furrounded by the Marseillais, at Aix in Provence, and furrendered without a blow. The flaughter of the Swifs guards at the Thuilleries forms a more impreffive cir-: cumstance; and many who were taken captives were afterwards maffacred on the fecond of September. Instead of reflecting that fome French regiments had alfo been difarined, and that the flaughters of September chiefly involved mult

tudes of French, our author affects to confider it as almoft-incredible that Swifferland fhould have preferved her neutrality. Certainly there is here a fingular confufion of ideas; for thefe men were neither difmiffed nor flaughtered as being natives of Swifferland, nor as being fubject to the Swifs government, but, on the contrary, from long refidence in France, and from being in the pay of that country, are to be confidered as Frenchmen engaged on the fide of a vanquished faction. Had they been French troops, of equal fidelity, to the ancient government, their fate would have been equally certain; nor could those events excite the juft enmity of the Swifs rulers any more than if their troops in France had been swallowed up by an earthquake. When Mr. Planta, therefore, holds out the neutrality of Swifferland as an argument to difplay the fhoeking injuftice of the French country towards that country, the fallacy is open to every reader of common difcernment, who will rather incline to impute the Swifs neutrality to the fecret consciousness of the rulers, that their abusive monopoly of power had alienated the hearts and hands of the great mass of the people. That the Swifs ariftocracy would otherwife have cordially joined the coalition, we are little inclined to doubt. We have repeatedly execrated the conduct of the French towards this unhappy country, not as a political question between the French rulers and thofe of Swifferland, but because what might have been effected by an embaffy, by menaces, by advancing an army to the frontiers, was cruelly completed by conqueft, by rapine, by the effufion of a great quantity of pure and innocent blood."

Our author then refumes the confideration of the progrefs of difaffection in the Pays de Vaud. His chain of ratiocination we cannot always difcern; and while he blames the Swifs for their neutrality, we fhould, on the contrary, infer, that if they had joined the coalition, their country would at an earlier period have become a province of France, inftead of remaining, as now, a feparate and detached power, which may eventually gather together the fragments of former fame, and refume the dignity of an ancient feat of virtue. Mr. Planta alfo, in this chapter, frequently deferts the foher ftrain of hiftory for the rant of panegyric, and the accufation of an adverfary. Nor can we help fmiling at the declaration, p. 392, of a Bernese itatefman, that, if Swifferland had entered into the coalition, it must have proved fatal to the French republic! Nationality and patrotifin are very different things. Could' this intelligent ftatefman ferioufly imagine that a power which baffled all the troops and tactics of Auftria, Ruffia, and Pruffia, the obftinacy of the Dutch, the ardour of the Italians and Spaniards, and all the gold of England, would have yielded to a few train-bands from Swifferland, who would, in truth, have

been unfelt, unnoticed, invifible, amid the confluence of more important powers?

Before the conclufion of the treaty of Campo Formio in the Friuli, Mr. Planta informa us, Buonaparte annexed a con fiderable part of the Swifs dominions in Italy to the Cifalpine republic; and that able general is loudly blamed for his neglect of the Swifs rulers, when he was magnificently treated by them in his paffage through their country. The fact is that he knew them, and was not fo weak as to be dazzled with plaufible appearances in fituations in which he was aware their heart was with his opponents. We fhall not follow Mr. Planta's steps in the minute circumftances which preceded this revolution. His want of candour blazes forth fo confpitu oufly in. p. 408, as to blame a Swifs profeffor for publishing a work tending to political reformation; while, with far more juftice, might he have cenfured the felfifh rulers, who had alienated the minds of the people, and thus kindled the conflagration that enfued. It was natural that Berne should take the lead in the oppofition to the French. After vain negotiations, the French army, under the command of general Brune, amounting, according to our author's computation, to not lefso than 40,000 men, entered Swifferland, and most of the fubsequent events are familiar to our readers. Mutinies and de fertions among the Swifs troops forcibly befpeak the defects of the government, which could fcarcely, it feems, overawe the timidity of unarmed peasants, and was totally incompetent to controul the decifion of men accoutred for war. The events, of what Mr. Planta ftyles the laft day of the confederacy, in March, 1798, are thus detailed.

• On the fifth, at one in the morning, general Rampon, who commanded the French on the right of their army, began a cannonade against, and foon after attacked, the pofts at Laupen, Neweneck, and St. Gines. He not only experienced a vigorous refiftance, but was even repulfed at the latter place. The other pofts, indeed, yielded a-while to fuperior numbers; but, being reinforced by fifteen hundred men, they renewed the action with an ardour worthy of the glorious times of the confederacy. They rufied headlong among the foe, and in a short time compelled them to repass the ravin of Neweneck, and to retreat near ten miles, with the lofs of two thousand men, and the whole of their artillery. The Berners loft about eight hundred men in this encounter; and among the flain were found feveral women, who fcorned to fhun the perils to which their fathers, husbands, friends, and countrymen, expofed themselves. This victorious column was now preparing to advance towards Friburg, when the events of the day, in another quarter, retarded its progrefs; and colonel Graffenried, who had fought with