that they should first initiate them in his preliminary matter, in order to prepare their visual organs for that full blaze of light which is at length to be let in on them. We presume our merit to be great for the respectful compliance with this caution which has marked our conduct; and now, as we conclude that our readers are prepared to learn the mysteries of the new po litical gospel, let them listen with all due reverence and attention.

Know, then, that

A small number of people in the European states have first got possession of the land, the stock on it, and every thing that it produces; and then, by the means of these, have obtained the command of the labour of the people.

This comparatively small part of the people being thus in possession of those things, and the power connected with them, are naturally desirous of securing those their great advantages over the rest of the people; and to put it out of the reach of those people to recover them.

The power they are in the possession of furnishes them with the means of securing itself, as well as the wealth which is the foundation of it. To avail themselves of this power, the first step is to take the right of making laws, exclusively of the people, but which shall bind the whole people into their own hands, i. e. to assume the legislative power. This they do by means of their wealth.

Having gained this important point, the next step was to make use of, and exercise this legislative power, by enacting such laws as would effectually secure to them the objects in view, i e. to enact laws to secure property. The things of which the people are destitute, namely, the land and its produce, being such things as are in a high degree necessary to the comfort and very existence of the peopleto enable the rich to retain these, must require strong and severe laws. This we find was done. The laws securing property in most civilized nations are of the most severe kind severe in the penalties and punishments inflicted; severe in their long duration; severe by their pain and torture; horrid by the terrors and agonies by which the minds of the unhappy sufferers are agitated and distracted, for many months, under their dreadful sentences.

These few, i. e. the aristocracy, being possessed of the property of the whole people, and having power of claiming almost the whole labour of them; and having also, by the means above mentioned, secured it firmly to themselves; their next consideration is to make use of and apply this labour in such a manner as that it shall produce such things as will most gratify their desires and inclinations, and administer to their case and pleasure. This is done by the manufactures of various kinds. These therefore are introduced, and forced on the people by all the means that artifice and power can furnish; notwithstanding the employments are such as include every thing that human nature, till by long habit it is broke to it, feels irksome, nau. scous, painful and notwithstanding they are unwholesome, debasing, 2nd destructive of mind and body, to such employments ninteentwentieths

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twentieths of the men, their wives and infants, are condemned, during all the years, months, and days of their lives; enjoying a very small part of what their labour yields. These employments, together with their poverty and want, occasion the miseries and mortality before stated.'

The sum therefore of the effects of civilization, in most civilized states, is to enable a few of mankind to attain all possible enjoyments both of mind and body, that their nature is susceptible of; but at the expense, and by depriving the bulk of mankind of the neces saries and comforts of life, by which a great proportion of them is destroyed, and the remainder reduced both corporally and mentally far below the most savage and barbarous state of man. All these things being brought about in a regular, orderly, silent manner; under specious forms, with the external appearance of liberty, and even of charity; greater deprivations are submitted to by the poor, and more oppression is exercised over them, by this cool, deliberate, systematic junction of art and force, than force alone was ever known to accom. plish.'

If we consider the author's doctrines, and compare with them the reforms which he proposes as immediately to be adopted, we must highly extol his moderation. We had expected that he would have inculcated the sacred duty of burning our cities and all that they contain, all our palaces and our comfortable mansions, in order to introduce his Agrarian division of the lands, viz. three or four acres to each family: thus would the poor be most completely emancipated, and the power (namely wealth), under which they groan, completely annihilated: but learn the marvellous temperance of the great reformer. Abolish primogeniture, prohibit by law or subject to a heavy tax the refined manufactures, and he will be content! He is confident that this commencement will finally lead to the establishment of that civil dispensation of freedom and equality, which he has a mission to preach up and to recommend. These, it is true, are not light matters: but we certainly were agreeably surprized to find that they would sa tisfy so bold and sublime a projector.

It was undoubtedly in a fortunate interval that this writer penned those parts of his work which respect artificial scarcity, monopoly, forestalling, and regrating since it would be impossible, in the same compass, more effectually to refute the errors, and expose the clamours, which have unhappily prevailed in regard to these matters. It it scarcely in our power to believe that the scheme of political regeneration here proposed, and these sensible observations, were the product of the same pen.

In this age of puny and abortive literary efforts, it may be thought that gigantic extravagance is intitled to some tribute;

and

and if that opinion be admitted, the author before us is not without respectable claims to distinction. If he be in possession of his right mind, as some of his observations incline us to think he may be, let him apply the doctrines of Dr. Adam Smith to each of his paradoxes, the employment will be in the nature of school exercises, and will prove most instructive; let him, if he pleases, communicate the result to the public,and we believe that it will be deserving of attention. Were our province that of controversialists and commentators, instead of that of critics, and had our boundaries allowed, we should have ourselves attempted the task which we invite him to undertake.-If we err not in our judgment of the author, if he has no suspicion that he has been dealing in paradoxes, but thinks that he is the apostle of important and sublime truths, we would exhort him to abandon the economy of civil society, and to direct his great talents to the economy of nature herself; to adopt a hint of the late ingenious Dr. Darwin, and to instruct mankind how to dissolve the eternal ice which binds up the poles, to qualify the ardent heat of the torrid zone, and to diffuse an equable temperature over the terrestrial globe! Let him teach men how to level alpine heights, and to array in verdure sandy deserts! These are speculations fully as worthy of his grand genius as those on which he has employed it, and they have the singular advantage of being at least innoxious.

ART. III. A Description of Latium; or, la Campagna di Roma. 4to. pp. 268. and Plates. Il. 118. 6d. Boards. Longman and

Co.

LATIUM, or according to its modern name La Campagna di Roma, is a district of extreme interest to the classical and antiquarian scholar; perhaps, with the exception of Attica or the Troad, in a higher degree than any other which is marked out in the geography of the antients. A region so fertile in discovery, and affording still more room for conjecture, so vast a mine of sculpture, and a surface universally distinguished by architectural remains, has employed the industry and erudition of the most eminent among the Italian antiquaries; and the learned labours of Ficoroni, Venuti, and Zanchi, have been peculiarly directed to these investigations. As none of their works, however, have been translated into our language, little was generally known by the English reader relative to the cities and villas by which imperial Rome was once surrounded to a considerable extent. very In the short descriptions prefixed to Smith's accurate and highly finished views in

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Italy,

Italy, partial information is given: but a very satisfactory though concise account of these Roman antiquities may be found in the Appendix to Lumisden's entertaining survey of antient Rome and its environs. (See Rev. Vol. xxiv. N.S. p. 278.) The writer of the work before us is intitled to considerable praise for conveying much agreeable information in polite and easy diction; and for having collected from preceding authors, with an air of originality, much of the history of these fallen and dilapidated monuments of the former splendor of the mistress of the world, and her magnificent satellites. We have first a vindication of the Campagna from the careless and ignorant censure of certain travellers, who have impressed their readers with the idea that it is a desolate and unhealthy region; and the soil, the water, and the winds, which here prevail at the different seasons of the year, are asserted to be comparatively more congenial to man and more favourable to residence, than in other parts of Italy.

After researches into antiquity respecting the foundation of Roman cities, and a view of the principles on which they were laid out and constructed, narrated in a pleasing style, we are presented with a minute picture of the house of a Roman citizen in the consular or early imperial times:

The houses for private individuals, and even for those who had considerable employments in the state, were of a very moderate size. In the early ages of architecture they consisted of only one floor, and the rooms were small.

It seems apparent that the ancients lived much in the open air, or at least in vestibules, porticos, and peristyles. At a later period, when two or more stories were added to the house, the upper apart ments were inhabited by servants and dependants; and, we have reason to believe, that the stairs were high, and generally inconvenient.

The houses were insulated, to avoid the danger of fire, as also to render them more airy; which appears to have been one of the first considerations of the Latins. Towards the street they had, indeed, as few windows as possible; the light and air introduced through these apertures coming chiefly from the inner courts, or, if the house was situated near the walls, from the circumjacent country. This practice not only made their dwellings more private, but also less subject to be infected by the noxious air, from which even the best regulated cities cannot be entirely exempt.

The larger houses had a grove behind them, or a few trees in the middle of the court, with a garden, in which herbs and other vegetables were cultivated for the use of the table.

It is needless to say with what solidity the walls were constructed, as the numerous remains of them clearly evince it: the modern Italians yet persist in this custom, so essential to the salubrity and comfort of their habitations; and, it is much to be regretted, that it is not generally adopted in countries, where a less favourable climate seems to render it absolutely necessary.

The

< The roofs were as light as possible, and, at the same time, very strong; which advantages they united by the introduction of volca nic scoria, or vases and tubes of "terra cotta."

"It is believed, and indeed almost proved to a certainty, that the ancient inhabitants of Etruria had conductors to prevent the destruc tive effects of lightning; and, if so, it is more than probable, that this beneficial invention was adopted in many parts of Latium, where Tuscan manners and customs prevailed.

'Some notion of the distribution of the apartments in the houses of the ancients, may be acquired from an inspection of convents and monasterics. These buildings are in general very old, though not of the times which now engage our attention; but they were evidently constructed so as, in some measure, to resemble the fabrics of better ages; as the dresses of their inhabitants give us no very imperfect idea of those worn by their ancestors, their form not having varied for many centuries.

What constitutes the principal resemblance between the religious houses of modern Italy, and the dwellings of ancient Latium, is the mode of having rooms with only one door, which communicates with the passage, gallery, or court. The Latins in this manner had in each room a door, which led to the portico surrounding the inner court, denominated "peristyle," or, in humbler dwellings, to an open space, called "impluvium;" which, in both cases, formed the centre of the habitation.

'It does not appear that the rooms communicated with each other, and, it is rather remarkable, that, in this instance, the modern Italian houses (convents excepted) seem to be constructed on a plan diametrically opposite; for they consist of a suite of rooms, few of which, perhaps not more than two, can be entered from the staircase or passages. The moderns are also fond of inhabiting the second and third stories, and their staircases are consequently excellent.

'Lions' heads, of "terra cotta," or similar inventions, conveyed the water from the roof, which, falling into the court, was carried off by channels.

The galleries, eating and sitting rooms of the ancients, were of a size proportionate to the edifice; but the bed rooms were usually small, and had rarely more than one window, which was near the ceiling, to preclude observation, and also, in the first ages, to keep off too much air; as before the introduction of talc and glass, the wind could only be kept out by curtains or blinds, called " carbasa," without side window shutters.

The windows appear to have beeen nearly square, except those which came down to the ground, styled "Valvæ ;" and Pliny mentions his gallery having them on each side. He also speaks of a sleeping room which had one window to the cast, and another to the

west.

'Sometimes the rooms, constructed at the end of the house, were curved, so as to admit the rays of the sun at all times of the day and, it is certain, that the ancients perfectly understood the method of rendering their apartments comfortable, by adapting their aspect to the different directions of the sun, according to the seasons in which they intended to inhabit them. • The