tory nerves had been tickled by some villanous odour,-"Oh, fie! Messrs Constable and Co.!" and then, after you are composed a little, by hunting for a quotation, you turn round and exclaim, "What! has he read nothing on (of) the early story of Italy? Well, then, let him look into Virgil, Macrobius, Micali, Pignotti," &c. This is rather a wholesale fashion of answering a simple matter-of-fact question: but it is as plain as a pikestaff, that your Ladyship feels you are caught, and that you wish to get out of the scrape by flinging a whole muster-roll of high-sounding names in my

face:

But I will delve-below your mines,

And blow you to the moon.

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With respect to Virgil, of whom your Ladyship has not the effrontery to assert that you know any thing at all, it is perfectly true that he does describe the state of Italy anterior to the arrival of Eneas, for the obvious purpose of rendering the narrative of his poem consistent and intelligible; but all the world (except Lady Morgan) knows, that the incidental notices thrown out by "honey-tongued Virgilius," so far from stating any thing that can, by any perversion of language, be called "a golden age," rather adumbrate Italy as parcelled out amongst a vast number of warlike and barbarous tribes, who, like the Highland clans before Forty-Five, lived in continual strife, labouring incessantly in the laudable work of exterminating one another. Hence Eneas and his Trojans no sooner landed in the "Ausonian strand" than a conspiracy was formed for their destruction. But probably your Ladyship has heard, par accident, of the fourth Eclogue, inscribed to Pollio, and beginning "Sicelides Musa," &c., and been informed that it contained something about a golden age." I say probably, for I am willing to give your Ladyship the benefit of every supposition that can be made in your favour-yet I am ashamed to state, what every schoolboy knows, that the inimitable Eclogue in question is descriptive of any thing but the aboriginal state of Italy-the aurea prima atas: on the contrary, it contains a prediction of the advent of a golden age" (" redeunt Saturnia regna,") when the "vestigia sceleris" would be obliterated from the earth, under the benignant sway of the "Nova Progenies" which was to descend from heaven to rule over the world. Surely Sir Charles could have told you that it would have answered your purpose better to have quoted Ovid, Lib. I. Fab. III. who really says something about a golden age, which would have done you service in your need: but his, perchance, like your Ladyship's, is only " Irish bog Latin." Lest Virgil should not satisfy me, however, your Ladyship hands me over to an authority never before quoted in such a controversy as this-Macrobius. Now, it may be proved, to the conviction of all mankind, that your Ladyship never saw or read a line of the author to whom you refer in justification of the nonsense quoted above. Macrobius, who is believed to have been chamberlain to the Emperor Theodosius II. wrote, in barbarous Latinity, his Saturnalia, filled with verbal criticisms on the two great Epic Poets of antiquity, and interspersed with some tolerable remarks on Antiquities for the illustration of incidental questions in grammar. He also composed a commentary on the Somnium Scipionis. Macrobius, therefore, is a granimarian, and nothing else; nor is there a line in all his writings that has the remotest reference to the subject in controversy!! I am aware that all this might have been

* In Chandler's Vindication of the Defence of Christianity, Book II. ch. 2. sect. 2. and Vol. II. Postscript p. 44; in Whiston's Supplement to the Literal Accomplishment of the Scripture Prophecies, p. 94. sq.; and in Cudworth Systema Intellect. c. iv. sect. 16.; the prophecy contained in this Eclogue is referred to the birth of Jesus Christ, " quam Virgilius ingeniose ad natales nobilis pueri transtulerit." The same opinion is entertained by Lactantius, Instit. VIII. 24; by Constantius M. in Orat. ad Sanctorum coetum; and by Eusebius in his books De Vita Constantini, c. 19. sq. The learned Heyné dissents from this opinion, but suggests no explanation more tenable or more satisfactory.

spared, as all I asserted was merely the unparalleled absurdity of the metaphorical dialect in which your Ladyship has thought proper, for want of a better, to write; but I am unwilling the public should be ignorant that your Ladyship, like sundry other celebrated travellers, can describe what you never saw, and quote what you never read! I shall allow your Ladyship the full benefit of your Italian authorities *.

The next passage on which your Ladyship has fastened your talons→→→ which you have most shamefully garbled--and from which you have very properly expunged the clause where I express my contempt for your understanding, is as follows: "In p. 3,' adds this Captain O'Blunder of the Edinburgh, (bravo! Florence Macarthy!)-in p. 3. conquest is said to be consolidated by usurpation;' but I beg to inform Miladi, that conquest consolidates usurpation?" This allegation is thus refuted: Oh, my chronomastix, you may 'tell that to the marines,' but the Casars and Napoleons would never have believed you!" Now, referring my readers to p. 57. of the Edinburgh Magazine for July, for the passage which you have manu

The impudence of this woman is only to be paralleled by her ignorance. Leaving the Quarterly Review to put forth its own defence, (and it is well able to do so, if it deem Miladi likely to afford sport worth the trouble of a castigation), I cannot pretermit the extraordinary assertion, that "Ha lei qualche cosa per la dogana ?" is a form of expression never used by the custom-house officers in Italy; that "the gruff, smoky Doganiero, who presents himself at the carriage window, and raises his hand, without taking the trouble of raising his eyes, frequently permits nothing more than an interrogating "niente ?" to "slide out of the corner of his mouth;" and that "his Italian never reaches the elegant Tuscan ha lei." (So I am ignorant of "modern languages," because I put "ELEGANT TUSCAN" into the mouths of the Doganieri!) This criticism, however, does not rest on the authority of the Reviewer, but is given as the identical form of interrogation in the lately published "Recollections of a Classical Tour through various parts of Greece, Turkey, and Italy, by P. E. Laurent.” (London: G. & W. B. Whittaker, 1821.) "We had been in the custom," says this author, "of answering the usUAL question of ha lei qualche cosa per la dogana ?' by throwing into the uplifted hat an half-franc piece;" (p. 1.) Next, as to the French phrase, “Coup de plat de sabre;" I still maintain, that, in the passage where it occurs in Lady Morgan's book, it ought to be "Des coups du plat de sabre ;" and, what is remarkable enough, the authority of the nameless vicux militaire, (probably an ex-sergeant of Bonaparte's Voltigeurs), which was meant to overwhelm me, is pat to my purpose. "Si l'on voulut dire, qu'un personne a reçu le coup d'un autre, en disant, il lui a donné un coup avec le plat du sabre, cela voulut exprimer que ce n'etoit pas avec le tranchant, que l'individu fut frappé; mais avec le plat du sabre." Certainly, mon bon vieux militaire, I never imagined that the hapless Prussian recruit was smitten "avec le tranchant," but "avec le plat du sabre." There is certainly a great difference between describing a kind of "châtiment militaire," in a general or abstract form, and stating that the "awkward recruit" received for his blunders-what Lady Morgan so richly deserves for hers" des coups du plat de sabre." Turning over Chambaud's French Dictionary, (London, 4 vols. 8vo. 1815,) to the word "Plat," I accidentally hit on the following phrase, which is perfectly analagous to that "dont il est question:" "Il lui donna un coup du plat de la main." “He struck him with his open hand." Lastly, with regard to Hannibal's Passage of the Alps, I am quite satisfied that Lady Morgan never read a word of either Livy or Polybius on the subject. But, by the passage immediately following the quotation from p. 25 of her Italy, which, as usual, she garbles, to suit her purpose, it appears that Napoleon, according to her, crossed the Alps by Mount Cenis, (which, by the bye, is not the fact); and she asserts, or conveys in terms tantamount to an assertion, that Hannibal and Napoleon crossed by the same route! Another specimen of her extreme ignorance is also to be found at the same place of her work. She obviously confounds the two St Bernards, (Great and Little, anciently the Alpis Penina, and Alpis Graia,) and slinks out of the lurch on the shoulders of an unappropriate quotation. If there be any faith in ancient history, and in proofs as strong as those of Holy Writ, her Ladyship will find it demonstrated in Art. II. of No. I. of the New Edinburgh Review, that Hannibal did not cross either by Mount Cenis, Mount Genèvre, or the Great St Bernard's, but by the Alpis Graia, or the Little St Bernard's. She has obviously never heard either of M. De Luc's admirable treatise, or of the Observations and Discoveries of the late General Melville.

factured to answer your own honest purposes, I beg leave to ask you, if you have sense enough to comprehend the question, What enabled Cæsar to usurp the Dictatorship? Was it not conquest? What consolidated his usurped power? Was it not the battle of Pharsalia and the defeat of Pompey? What paved the way of Cromwell to the Protectorship? Still the same answerConquest. What consolidated his usurpation? The battle of Worcester, which left him no enemy to contend with, and put the finish to his military reputation. What made Napoleon First Consul? His successful campaigns in Italy? What consolidated his usurped authority? The battle of Marengo. What subsequently enabled him to assume the purple? His conquests. What fixed his power on a solid basis? The battles of Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Austerlitz, and Wagram. Now, without saying a word of the matter to the marines,' let your Ladyship ransack the whole of ancient and modern history, and if you find a single example of usurpation not founded on, and consolidated by conquest, I shall henceforth believe that the Countess of Albany is no adulteress-that your Ladyship is neither infidel nor jacobin-that your works are models of chaste description and correct feeling, fit to be put into the hands of young ladies and unmarried gentlewomen!-and that every peasant in France requires one hundred and fifty pair (pairs) of sheets for the use of his family!" (See Lady Morgan's France, Vol. I. 29. 8vo edit.)

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In adverting to the frightful story told by your Ladyship of the "alliance between Eugenius III. and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa," which, you say, was ratified by whole hecatombs of Roman lives offered up on the feast of St Peter and St Paul," I was, in the simplicity of my utter astonishment, led to exclaim, "What! was this alliance ratified by HUMAN SACRIFICES?" To destroy the point and pertinence of this interrogatory, however, your Ladyship, who complains so bitterly of the reviewing craft, very properly expunges the words "by human sacrifices," and substitutes in their room by blood." But this dishonest trick shall not serve your turn. What is the meaning of "whole hecatombs of human lives offered up at a feast, to ratify an alliance," if it be not that the alliance was ratified" by human sacrifices?" Oh, but says your unfortunate Ladyship, the story is to be found not in the History of Jack the Giant Killer," (where it would have been quite in place), but in Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics, and IN ALL OTHER HISTORIES!!! Now, it would really have been very desirable, had Miladi, instead of referring to an author by the gross, followed the example of her reviewer, and produced a confirmatory and corroborative extract from an accredited work, with the chapter and verse annexed. That Sismondi never hinted at such a monstrous and extravagant piece of nonsense as that just alluded to, is what I boldly and confidently affirm; at the same time defying the author of " Italy" to bring a solitary line calculated to give countenance to the absurd falsehood which occupies so prominent a place in her pages. But the story is to be found" IN ALL OTHER HISTORIES!" This is an assertion quite natural to a blustering virago, reckless of truth, sore at being exposed to public derision, and reduced to the last shift of miserable authorship, that of being compelled at once to defend nonsense and falsehood.

But I must proceed with my ungrateful task. The next passage which your Ladyship garbles and tries to answer is this: "In page 17 we meet with the following passage: For while the classical annals of Italy, with all their vices and crimes,' (THE VICES AND CRIMES' OF ANNALS!) make a part of the established education in England, the far nobler history of the Italian republics, les siècles des merites ignorées, remains but little known,' &c. It is impossible to determine whether ignorance or nonsense PREDOMINATE in this passage. The classical annals of Italy,' of which Lady Morgan knows about as much as the man in the moon, do certainly make a part of the established education in England,' and we rejoice that this is the case, and pray that it may long continue so; but we should certainly insult the understandings of our readers were we to attempt to vindicate the study of the classical annals of Italy,' teaming, as they do,,with great and

immortal examples of patriotism and virtue, or to expose the prodigious ignorance which could describe the study of the history of the puny, ferocious, and sanguinary republics of MODERN Italy-of the crimes of such men as Duc di Valentino and Popes Alexander and Clement, as far nobler' than that of Numa, of Tarquin, of Brutus, of Cæsar, of Pompey, of Augustus, or of Cicero." Now, in quoting this short passage, your Ladyship has been guilty of three deliberate acts of falsification: first, you have suppressed the parenthesis printed in small capitals; secondly, you have printed "predominates" for "predominate," and thereby made the passage false grammar; and, thirdly, you have entirely omitted the word "modern" in the clause which runs thus: "the puny, ferocious, and sanguinary republics of modern Italy!” Having performed this three-fold operation on the passage you quote, you then proceed, as your manner is, to exclaim, (for no mortal will so far libel your understanding as to accuse you of the capacity of reasoning,) "the pany republics of Italy!! What then, I ask, was the state of Rome in the times of the Numas and Tarquins? A cluster of wicker huts, resembling the miserable creaghts of the Irish Rapparees." Now, were honesty and plain-dealing qualities peculiar to the mind of a petticoated ultra-radical," your "Rapparee" Ladyship must have seen, with half-an-eye, that the defence of the study of the Classical Annals of Italy" was the sole object aimed at in the passage with which, to serve your own wretched purposes, you have dared to make so free. Supposing it for a moment to be true, (and I shall presently show that it is not, that the "state of Rome in the time of the Numas and the Tarquins" was 66 a cluster of wicker huts, resembling the miserable creaghts of the Irish Rapparees," what has all this to do with the point under consideration, if, in these "wicker huts," I shall be able to discover "immortal examples of patriotism and virtue?" Or, would the stern unyielding virtue of the elder Brutus suffer in the estimation of posterity, because Rome could not, in his day, boast of the Coliseum, of the Vatican, or of St Peter's? In the passage above quoted I did not speak of buildings, architects, statuaries, or painters, but-will your Ladyship believe it?of "patriotism and virtue," to which the "jacobinal crania" of certain "Irish Novelists" and bungling politicians seem to be such utter strangers. My main object was to vindicate the study of the classics from the mad aspersion of a wholesale blunderer and reviler: nor have I said one syllable on the subject to which your bitter Ladyship has directed your reply. Besides, no woman who had not become maudlin, from an extra tumbler of negus in the forenoon, would have ever classed the peaceful Numa (Inclyta justitia religioque eâ tempestate Numa Pompilii erat. Liv. lib. I. c. xviii.) with such a blood-thirsty ruffian as Cæsar Borgia, (Duc di Valentino), or with the ravisher Tarquin*. But to return to the "wicker huts" and the "Rap

"I should like to know, (says the author of France' and 'Italy,') par parenthese, which of the Tarquins is the Tory Reviewer's favourite, and model for the study of British youth." I will tell her not one of them; neither the murderer of Servius Tullius, (the murderer of a king ought to have been a favourite with a jacobin : but she had obviously not heard of this fact when she uttered her maledictions,) nor the ravisher of Lucretia! She goes on to call Numa "an impostor and a tyrant, affecting a divine right to trample on the liberties of mankind." This was very bold certainly in a king who only ruled over" wicker huts," and a parcel of as great blackguards as the "Irish Rapparees." If this infatuated woman would only read Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanzas 114 and 115, we should hear no more of Numa as "an impostor and a tyrant." I shall give no other more learned reference that might puzzle "her Irish bog-Latin!”

It is, however, amusing enough to observe, that all those individuals who, like myself, have expressed their abhorrence of the nonsense, ignorance, obscenity, and impiety which this woman is encouraged by her publisher to disgorge on the world, are set down as Tories. Now, if it be an infallible criterion of Toryism to hate and eschew such odious vices, I trust in God I shall always be found enrolled in that moral, political, and religious category. But our readers know full well that there is not one word of politics in the whole of the review of "Italy." Whigs and Tories equally united to

6

parees." "The few works of the kings," says Mr Forsyth," which still remain, were built in the Etruscan style, with large uncemented but regular blocks." -" Though insufficient for retracing the architectural designs of the first Romans, enough remains to show us their public masonry, and their early ambition, which thus projected from its very infancy an eternal city-the capital of the world." "Some of the kings, particularly the last, (Tarquin the Rapparee,' who dwelt in a wicker hut!') turned architecture to objects connected with their personal glory." (Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters, during an Excursion in Italy. By Joseph Forsyth, Esq. 2d Edition. London: 1816, p. 131.) As a splendid instance of the taste for architecture displayed by the "first Romans," Mr Eustace * refers to the early glories of the Capitol :-"Romulus began the grand work by erecting the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius; Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Turquinius Superbus, continued; and the consul Horatius Pulvillus, a few years after the expulsion of the kings, completed it with a solidity and magnificence which the riches of succeeding ages might adorn, but could not increase. (Classical Tour, Vol. I. p. 362. 4th edition, London: 1817.) But these, it may be said, are only the statements of modern authors: I am anxious to leave your Ladyship no grounds to complain of me, so here is the corroborative authority of Tacitus: "Vorerat Tarquinius Priscus rex, bello Subino; jeceratque fundamenta (Capitolii), spe magis futurae manitudinis, quam quò modica adhuc populi Romani res sufficerent. Mox Servius Tullius, sociorum studio; deinde Tarquinius Superbus, captâ Suessâ Pometiâ, hostium spoliis extruxêre. Sed, pulsis regibus, Horatius Pulvillus, iterum consul, dedicavit, EA MAGNIFICENTIA, QUAM IMMENSÆ POSTEA POPULI ROMANI OPES

execrate the blood-thirsty demons of the French Revolution, and the military tyranny of Napoleon,-(I mean the moderate and respectable Whigs): it cannot, therefore, be a sure and certain index of a Tory to express an unqualified hatred and detestation both of the one and the other. But the Morning Chronicle and the Scotsman, the leading Whig journals of both kingdoms, praised my "Italy;" and the Edinburgh Magazine abused and exposed it! 66 Aye, there's the rub." Of the Scotsman I shall say nothing, because I know nothing, although I have heard it stated, on what I conceive good authority, that this latter Journal is as jealous of its literary as of its political independence; but it is pretty generally known, that the puffs which appeared in the Morning Chronicle were manufactured in Conduit Street, by some hireling scribbler of Colburn's, (probably by Lady Morgan herself,) and regularly paid for the same as a common advertisement!!! This practice is not confined to London.

The work of this ingenious and accomplished scholar, which Lady Morgan had described as "false," "flimsy," and "pompous," was very keenly vindicated from this base attack, and the charge of "premeditated perversion of facts" brought against its amiable and accomplished author, “because"-to use her own words"his car was no longer alive either to praise or censure," hurled back, with accumulated indignation, on her own mendacious head. Of the first part of this she takes no notice whatever, and also passes over the blunder of ascribing the note of J. C. Hobhouse to Lord Byron-the villanously false and absurd story of Mr Windham-the sweet scrape into which she had got about the "Insubrian Athens”. the whole of her blasphemy against the early Christians, proved to be as false as malevolent, on the joint testimony of Tacitus, Pliny, and Gibbon-the new canonical bock yclept the "Canticles of Job"-the line of Paradise Lost, which she so politely bestowed on Mr Pope-the whole of the series of blunders committed relative to the battle of Trasymenus, in which (in opposition to Livy, who, (Lib. XXII. c. 7.) gives 15,000) she boldly avers only 10,000 Romans fell-and nearly all the examples arranged under the heads Nonsense and Jacobinism :-In one word, nearly four-fifths of the whole article. I may further notice here as proofs, that she can quote what she never saw, her reference, in p. 10 of the present "Letter," to a "note in the Edinburgh Magazine," on " Italy," although there is no note appended to that article ;—and her accusing the Guardian Newspaper of quoting our Review, not one line of which ever appeared in its columns! Vide Guardian, October 7, 1821. For farther samples of the same quality, sce Literary Gazette for October 6.