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tenance of their proscribed historian, has met with less animosity, as it relates to an epoch not so intimately connected with the wants and feelings of the country at the present day. Nevertheless, the fondness of the author for an aristocratic or patrician form of government, such as, according to his ideas, principally contributed to the long prosperity of the Roman, Venetian, and Genoese republics, does not agree with the wild doctrines of democratic equality, of which the French revolution has spread the seeds throughout Europe. Italy is eminently a republican country. Wherever her different people, by any happy circumstance, have been masters of themselves, they have never made choice of any but a popular government. All the reigning families in the peninsula have erected their thrones on violence; none has ever been defended with such beautiful examples of devotion as we read of in the histories of the northern countries. God save the King, and Vive le Roi, are shouts which find no echo in Italian hearts. On the other hand, no republic is able to hinder true merit from shining, or people from valuing and rewarding it; nor can a man be put so high, that he may not aim still higher; nor can he enjoy consideration and power, without endeavouring to forward his descendants in the same career; nor can nations be prevented from looking with partiality and expectation towards the descendants of a man, who has bequeathed to them high claims to public gratitude. Aristocracy is innate in society; it is inherent in our best feelings. The republic is wise which provides against its abuses, and prevents this system from becoming injurious to the common interests. The republic is wise, that leaves aristocracy to public opinion, without sanctioning it by law; but even this is perhaps more than human foresight can do ; as we generally see, where laws oppose aristocracy of birth, a new and more offensive kind of aristocracy arises, that of wealth. Such are the ideas of Botta. He regards aristocracy as the conservative principle of a free state, as the source of all that is really noble and disinterested in public life; and such principles are quite as likely to be willingly listened to in the democratic states of North America, as among the innovators of old, aristocratic Europe. Among the latter, at all events, they have destroyed Botta's reputation.

So much provision has been already made for the history of Italy. But the example of Botta has excited a noble

emulation among his countrymen; and, since his death, history has taken in Italy a significant step. Among the writings in which have been more ostensibly adopted the stern and melancholy maxims, the grand and classic manner, the lofty and affected style of Botta, are to be ranked especially two histories of Genoa; the one, from the earliest foundation of the city down to the year 1483, published in 1834, by Girolamo Serra, a man of noble birth, deeply implicated in the events that brought about the total extinction of his native republic; the other, from the origin of the republic to the year 1814, by Carlo Varese, a work now in course of publication, which has excited the highest expectation. Another work, received with equal applause, is the history of Naples by General Colletta, who died an exile at Florence, in 1830. His history, published soon after his death, in continuation of one of the most illustrious works in Italian history, the "History of Naples" by Giannone, taking up the subject from 1734 to the present day, gives a faithful account of the revolution of Naples in 1820, an event in which General Colletta played a most distinguished part. In like manner, each province or city is now republishing its annals; and the history of Como, by Cesare Cantu; of Saluzzo, by Muletti; of Pavia, by Robolini; and essays on the ancient laws of Piedmont, by Sclopis; on the commerce of Venice, by Mutinelli; on the Genoese colonies in Asia, by Sauli; would prove highly interesting in this country, if they could be introduced and circulated. But works written with more general views, and more worthy of the attention of American readers, such as the history of the celebrated families of Italy, by Litta, that of the Italian municipalities by Morbio, both now in course of publication, and the promised history of the house of Swabia, by Nicolini, one of the greatest poets of the age, are destined to be the forerunners of the great work, that, after so many generous efforts, still remains to be written, a general history of Italy.

Conspicuous among the different attempts that have been made towards a general compilation of the memorials of the country, is "The Revolutions of Italy," by Denina, published at Turin, in 1769, a work in three volumes, written with sufficient discernment and skill, but not with that wide power of genius, that embraces an immensity of objects, apparently unconnected, and presents them in their mutual rela

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tions, with that proportion and symmetry, which make of history an edifice obedient to the laws of architecture. Nor did the immense work of Luigi Bossi, on the "History of Italy, Ancient and Modern," published at Milan, in 1819, in nineteen volumes, better answer the purpose. Bossi, rather an antiquary than an historian, lost himself in dissertations and conjectures, which are incompatible with the highest aims of a philosophical history. His work is one of erudition, and it may be added to the vast amount of historical materials from which the history of Italy is to be framed. Among his most valuable productions, Botta has left the outlines of Italian history, in a work in three volumes, which he published in 1825, in French, for the Historical Society of Paris, under the title, "Histoire des Peuples d'Italie," embracing the whole period from the days of Constantine to the fall of Napoleon. It has been several times translated into Italian as well as into other languages. The depth of the master-mind of Botta is especially visible in this great effort, and his is, in consequence, thus far, the best essay on so arduous a subject; but what he has given, only exhibits the outlines of the great picture for which the artist has not yet appeared. Some praise is due to Sforzosi, who has condensed into one volume the whole history of Italy, ancient and modern. His work has been happily translated into English by a competent scholar in this country. It however had no higher aim than to be an elementary book, and is only to be recommended in that character. The great secret motive which deprives Italy of a work, of which the need is so generally felt, will be easily explained by the success that Cesare Balbo met with in an attempt of a similar nature. He published at Turin, in 1830, three volumes of a history of the Gothic and Lombard dominion, to which it was his intention to add a history of Italian Freedom, and of modern times down to our days; but he was forced to abandon his enterprise at the third volume. Such a work cannot be safely attempted under the iron rule of the Italian governments; but the ancient and modern works which we have noticed, furnish ample means of writing, to such of the sons of Italy, as are placed out of the reach of their enemies' power.

The office of erudition has been completed; the foundations have been laid, and important monuments have already risen, with shining success. A man of genius is

wanted, to take advantage of the efforts of such illustrious workmen, and raise an edifice, which will be the harbinger of union, independence, and regeneration, to that unfortunate people. The efforts the Italians of our days are making for a unity of language, literature, and history, are the best pledge they can give, of their being fitted for their emancipation. It is always by such a wise gradation, that the productions of arts, letters, and science, as well as the works of nature, are advanced to their greatest results.

The plan for the erection of the greatest of temples had long since been modelled and remodelled; the treasures of more than one Pope had been lavished; winters and summers had revolved over the rising aisles for more than half a century, before the Vatican felt the first impulse of that hand that was to start it into existence, before, leaning upon the unwieldy piles heaped up by his predecessors, and taking his model from the works of creation, Michel Angelo raised to the firmament a firmament of marble.

ART. II. The Poetical Works of ROBERT SOUTHEY, collected by Himself. In Ten Volumes. 16mo. London. 1837, 1838.

NONE of the elegant republications of the day have given us greater pleasure than this; the rather, as it is not a monument to the memory of its eminent author, but has been undertaken by himself, at the beginning of his old age, as a suitable close of his long literary life. "At the age of sixtythree," he says, "I have undertaken to collect and revise my poetical works." Of those sixty-three years, he has passed forty-four in the public presence, as an active and voluminous author. His literary life thus covers more than a complete generation of men, and has witnessed the beginning and the ending of more than one of those distinguished lives, which have made the nineteenth century famous. During this period, Byron and Mrs. Hemans, to name no more, achieved their whole work of immortality, and even Walter Scott ran his entire race, having made his first publication some years after Southey's reputation was established.

So the laureate has stood, like some steady light in the heavens, while stars and meteors have risen and fallen around him. The older and the younger are gone, and he still lives, with a smooth brow and untremulous hand, not an old man though an old author, to set his works in order by a leisurely revision, and bring his poetical existence to a dignified conclusion.

It is a spectacle of peculiar interest. Excepting Scott, Southey has been the most prolific of the distinguished writers of his time, and, perhaps without exception, the author who has written successfully on the greatest diversity of subjects, from the most trivial to the most important, from the lightest to the most grave. Equally at home in literature, theology, and politics; an historian, biographer, critic, poet, essayist, and polemic; allowed on all hands to be one of the few masters of English prose, and second to few of the great names of modern English poetry; often offending in matters of taste, but never untrue to moral purity and religious faith; bigoted as a politician and a theologian, in both which characters he had forsaken the opinions and connexions of his youth, but liberal as a man, notwithstanding his violence ast a partisan; always before the public eye as an author, but living in beautiful retirement from the world, in his own domestic and scholarly retreat; he is a man whom, in some features of his character, we could wish other than he is, but whose intrinsic worth commands respect. We cannot refuse to see that he is unequal, inconsistent, often puerile, sometimes absurd; but he is always conscientious, never forgetful of moral obligation, and occasionally great. If it were inquired who, among the distinguished men of modern letters, has written the silliest things, we should answer, with little hesitation, Southey; if asked, who among them has written the greatest, it would not be without a pause and a struggle, that we should prevail on ourselves to dismiss his claim. We are confident, that he has not yet received the measure of reputation which is his due. In the crowd of admirable works, which, during his career, have jostled each other in their claims for regard, the reading public have allowed their impatience at the littlenesses and the vexatious violations of good taste, which annoyed them in the self-complacent volumes of the bard of Keswick, to divert their attention from his sterling merits. Yet he has not wanted readers and ad

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