middle ages with whom we are most familiar. Our annalists are loud in the praises of those districts, which yielded the most plentiful harvests. Our ecclesiastics (in those days the most refined class of society) fixed on similar spots for their habitation. Our minstrels celebrate the richness and verdure of the spring, the joyous singing of birds, the pleasant orchards and gardens, and vineyards, but never introduce woods and rocks, and mountains, but for the sake of inspiring terror. Froissart, who was a poet as well as an historian, upon whose mind everything that he saw made a vivid impression, and whose pictures are therefore faithful copies of natural objects, often seems to be transported with the beauty of a fine summer's day, when the sun sparkles upon the arms of his knights gallantly accoutred for the lists or the battle, when the earth is green under their feet, and the sky blue and clear over their heads. But, to view the scenes of nature with the eye of a painter is a gift exclusively appropriated to more civilized times and people. This gift the Italians of the thirteenth century had already attained. Dante, in several parts of his extraordinary poem, employs it with great poetical advantage. Nor is it to be discovered only in works of imagination. In the Cronica del Morelli, a short history annexed to that of Ricordano and Giacchetto Malespini, which happens to be lying before us, we find a description of a certain spot in the delightful region of Tuscany, in which, if we substituted the terms' picturesque' and 'beautiful' in the room of those which are evidently their correllatives, selvatico' and 'dimestico', we might suppose ourselves to be accompanying Price and Gilpin through the intricate and romantic passes of the Appenines. For the sake of confirming our own observations and of presenting our readers with a specimen of that purity to which the Italian language had attained, we subjoin the entire passage. The author has been painting in very bright, perhaps flattering, colours the manners, customs, and persons of the inhabitants of his native valley of Mugello. He thus proceeds to delineate the principal features of the country itself.

Appresso vedrai il paese, in quanto al terreno, tanto vago, e piacevole con tutti i diletti, che saprai domandare; e prima, egli è situato nel mezzo d'un bellissimo piano dimestico, adorno di frutti belli e dilettevoli, tutto lavorato, e ornato come un giardino: appresso vedi pel mezzo un corrente fiumicello tutto dilettevole, e più altri vivai, e rivoli, i quali con diletto discendono da vaghi monti, da' quali il detto piano è accompagnato d'intorno, come una bella ghirlanda. Sono situati di piaggette, e colli alti al montare; simile v'ha de' grandi, alti, e

The date of the Cronica di Morelli' is later indeed than that of the histories we have before spoken of, but very little subsequent to the time of Froissart,

nondimeno

nondimeno dilettevoli, e tengono parte di salvatico e parti di dimestico; e certi nè salvatichi, nè dimestichi, ma tra l'uno, e l'altro, con molta bellezza. Intornovi presso all'abitazioni vedi dimestichi ben lavorati, adorni dị frutti, e di bellissime vigne, e molto copiosi di pozzi e fonti d'acqua viva. Di più, fra' poggi, vedi il salvatico di gran boschi, e selve di imolti castagni, i quai rendono grande abondanza di castagne, e di marroni grossi e buoni, e per essi boschi usa gran quantità di salvaggina, come porci salvatichi, cavrioli, orsi, ed altre fiere. Più d'appresso all' abitazioni vi è gran quantità di boschetti, di be' quercioli, e molti ve n'è acconci per diletto, netti di sotto, cioè il terreno a modo di prato d'andarvi scalzo sanza temere di niente che offendesse al piè. Appresso vedrai grandi scopettini, e ginestrati, dove usano lepri in quantità grande, fagiani, e altre selvaggine. Più di presso seguente i sopradetti, vedi grandi scoperti, adorni d'olorifiche erbe, serpillo, sermollino, tignamica, e ginepri, con vaghe fontane, le quai si spandono per tutto, e questo è ben copioso di starne, di coturnici, e di fagiani, quaglie, e molte lepri, dilettevole, e vago da cacciare, e da uccellare, dà sommo diletto, e piacere.-Istoria Fiorentina di Malespini, Fior. 1718, p. 219.

To finish the picture, as many gothic castles enter into the description as Mrs. Radcliffe herself could desire; but as these are 'delineated more with a view to their military than to their picturesque importance, we think it unnecessary to carry our quotation farther.

It is now our duty to attend somewhat more particularly to the work itself. M. Sismondi is, as the title-page imports, sufficiently known on the continent as a member of several learned institutions, and, unless we have mistaken the individual, as the author of several treatises on finance and political economy. He is an inhabitant (we believe, a native) of Switzerland; but he probably traces his origin to the family of Sismondi, which long enjoyed a distinguished rank among the principal citizens of the republic of Pisa. His name sufficiently assures us that he is of Italian descent; and this circumstance contributes, jointly with an ardent love of free, if not of republican, principles of government, to qualify him especially for the historian of a nation of which, however long his ancestors may have been separated from it, he proves himself by his writings to be no neglectful or degenerate offspring. Indeed, the quality which most forcibly characterizes his history, is the zeal which it displays in the cause of national independence, the abhorrence of tyranny and of the lust of dominion. Many of the reflections, with which it is interspersed, although naturally arising from the subject, convey an impression (perhaps unintentionally) of implied and covert censure on the principles and conduct of the Gallic emperor. In others, the pride of Englishmen will probably induce them to imagine a designed compliment to our happy constitution and to the national spirit which has hitherto kept us

inviolate

inviolate from the unhallowed touch of the usurper. Perhaps Buonaparte himself may have formed similar conclusions from the perusal of what is already published. However, if it be true (as we have been assured) that the work is prohibited at Paris, it is not necessary to suppose that this is on account of any suspected allusion to present politics. The general spirit with which it is composed, is too repugnant to the passive obedience which a tyrant demands; and the continental press is reduced to too abject a servitude to admit of our being surprized, that the new censors of literature should have fulminated their interdiet against the farther circulation of so dangerous a poison.

Of the volumes before us, the first, which is merely introductory, gives a summary account of the revolutions of Italy from the fall of the western empire to the commencement of the twelfth century and the celebrated war of Como, the first in which any of the Lombard republics, in their individual capacity, were engaged. The seven succeeding volumes furnish us with the history of the Lombard, Tuscan, Romanian, and maritime republics, from that period to the year 1432, the era of the military greatness of Sforza, and the influence of Cosmo de Medici. According to the author's intention, the events of another century still remain to be related; and the history will conclude with the capture of Florence by the united forces of the Pope and Emperor in 1530, the epoch, as he justly considers it, of the extinction of the liberties of Italy.

The authorities upon which M. Sismondi has principally relied as his guides through the dark and unfrequented regions of the history which he has illustrated, are, for the most part, those contained in Muratori's collection of the Scriptores Italici Medii Ævi, a magnificent monument, which reflects no slight degree of honour on the nation by whom it was raised. Fully aware of the true value of contemporaneous documents, our author has collected his materials at the source, and his work therefore claims that high portion of interest which results from the appearance of this stamp of truth and authenticity. There is only one particular in which we can accuse him of being too sparing of his labour,in speaking of other nations he seldom takes the trouble of making any reference out of the usual course of his consultations. We have accordingly noticed several errors, (of minor importance certainly in a history of Italy, but yet errors, and therefore to be avoided,) into which he could hardly have fallen with Froissart or Matthew Paris by his side, and which he has solely contracted by too indolent an adherence to the authority of writers who, however well acquainted with the affairs of their native cities and provinces, can hardly be expected, in those illiterate ages, to have possessed much accurate knowledge of those of other countries.

The

The influence of government in forming the character and habits of a nation can scarcely be estimated too highly; and yet, the author appears to have carried his fondness for the theory too far when he lays down, as a preliminary maxim, that everything which we call national character depends upon political constitution, and that this is the most important conclusion which can be derived from the study of history.

'Que les vertus ou les vices des nations, leur énergie ou leur mol lesse, leurs talens, leurs lumières ou leur ignorance, ne sont presque jamais les effets du climat, les attributs d'une race particulière, mais l'ouvrage des loix; que tout fut donné à tous par la nature, mais que le gouvernement enlève ou garantit aux hommes qui lui sont soumis l'héritage de l'espèce humaine.'-Introd. p. i.

He adds, that the history of no nation presents so strong a confirmation of this truth as that of Italy, and bids us compare the simple virtues of the primitive Etruscans, the masculine courage of the contemporaries of Cincinnatus, the rapacity and ostentation of Verres, the abject baseness of the subjects of Tiberius, the ignorance and insignificance of the Romans under Honorius;' and, again, the barbarism of Lombard Italy, the virtue of the twelfth century, the lustre of the fifteenth, and the degeneracy of the modern Italians.'

'Le même sol a nourri ces êtres de nature si différente, et le même sang circule dans leur veines. Le mélange de quelques peuplades barbares, perdues au milieu des flots d'indigènes, n'a point suffi pour changer la constitution physique des hommes qu'enfantoit la même région. La nature est restée la même pour les Italiens de tous les âges; le gouvernement seul a changé; ses révolutions ont toujours précédé ou accompagné l'altération du caractère national.'

We have been accustomed to refer the constitution of modern governments to those of Roman and Grecian antiquity; and, in so doing, have certainly overlooked the history of others, to which we owe, if not the origin of all our advancement in this difficult and important science, at least the faithful transmission, through ages of barbarous confusion, of political principles which, but for the energies of the Italian republics, would have been lost in the chaos of vice and ignorance. M. Sismondi appears to think that a principal cause of this unmerited neglect is that want of unity of action, which renders it equally difficult to follow the course of events in reading, and to compose any thing like a connected work. Every different state (he says) has its separate history and its separate documents, and demands a separate study.' In order to make his work the more complete, and to give something like consistency to the confused mass of materials from which he had to draw his authorities,

'J'ai séjourné,' adds our author, cinq ans en Toscane, patrie de mes ancêtres; trois fois, depuis, j'ai parcouru l'Italie presqu' entière, et j'ai reconnu tous les lieux qui furent le théâtre de quelque grand événement. J'ai travaillé dans presque toutes les grandes bibliothéques; j'ai visité les archives de plusieurs villes et de plusieurs couvens. L'histoire de l'Italie est intimément liée avec celle de l'Allemagne ; j'ai fait aussi le tour de cette dernière contrée, pour y rechercher les monumens historiques: enfin, je me suis procuré, à tout prix, les livres qui répandent quelque lumière sur les temps et les peuples que j'ai entrepris de faire connoître., Il doit m'être permis de parler de tout le travail que j'ait fait, si je puis aussi engager le lecteur à m'accorder sa confiance.'

We can sincerely add, after an attentive perusal of the whole work, that these honourable labours (of which the author may well be indulged in making his boast) have been attended with all the advantage that could be expected to be derived from them. The difficulties of the subject are, to our apprehension, altogether surmounted; and the history of Italy will, if we have any skill in prophecy, henceforth become an object of much more general attention than heretofore. An abridgment of that history, or such a general view as our limits would enable us to furnish of the contents of this work, the merits of which, in great measure, consist in its minute, though luminous, details, would afford little either of instruction or amusement to our readers; but we shall devote the remainder of our pages to a short exposition of the manner in which the great principle of historical, as well as poetical interest has been preserved, without any injury to the fidelity of narration. This object has been chiefly effected by keeping in constant view the rise, progress, decline, and destruction of liberty and national independence throughout Italy, from the downfal of the Roman empire; so that it is less a history of Italy than of Italian liberty, that is presented to our contemplation.

The conquest of Italy by Theodoric is the first great epoch of a total change in the manners and character of the nation. Unlike the barbarous hordes which preceded them, who contented themselves with overrunning the country and carrying off its spoils, who (even under Odoacer, the subverter of the throne of the Cæsars) effected no change except in the substitution of the real for a nominal master, the Goths gradually incorporated themselves with the people whom they had subdued, introduced their own laws and form of government, and founded the Italian on the ruins of the Roman name. The temporary restoration (as it is called) of the authority of the empire by the victories of Belisarius, produced no considerable effects, until the irruption of the Lombards, and the establishment of their sovereignty over all the Transpadane, and the

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greatest