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wolf to represent government. There was also a mystical catechism, or rather signs, with a meaning; for example, the cross 'meant to crucify the tyrants; the crown of thorns, to pierce their 'heads; the ladder, to mount upon the scaffold. The oath of secrecy was taken over a bottle of poison, and a burning iron, to mean, if they should waver or betray, that the poison might be ' their drink, and the hot iron burn their flesh. They were active'ly employed from the autumn of the year 1816. The central 'committee was in Bologna, which was the chief camp of the first division; Ferrara of the second, and Ancona of the third. The 'language employed in correspondence was an alphabet invented 'by the Guelfi.' These societies were very numerous in Lom'bardy, and the eastern side of the Pontifical and Neapolitan 'States.' They have not found that constitutional independence in their restored monarchy, which they expected to see established on the expulsion of the French, and they have voluntarily bound themselves to seek it, under the most terrific sanctions. We apprehend, therefore, that although the military have been the immediate agents in effecting the recent revolution, its seeds were of deeper planting and more certain growth, than any transient excitement to military insubordination; and that the king of the two Sicilies, will find, like his "cousin of the Peninsula," that his subjects must be allowed something more than a passive interest, in the civil and political affairs of his kingdom. The declaration of the court of London, disclaiming the principle of interference in the internal affairs of states, which "the alliance" had adopted in relation to Naples, will, we think, counterbalance the imposing attitude taken by Austria; unless the revolution is— what we do not suspect it to be-the work of restless ambition, and at variance with the interests and feelings of the great body of the people. Our author's chapter on the Influence of the Austrians in Italy,' does nevertheless cast a shade on the hopes in which we are anxious to indulge for Naples. Although the Austrians have no power of opinion in their favour, and no intercourse or sympathies with the inhabitants, yet, he says, in reference to the degraded state of the Italians generally—with feeling and with eloquence-' that it would require many years of ex'cellent government, to teach them properly to value and to de'fend their country. It is not sufficient to love one's country, 'because it has been the scene of half the epic poems, and the birthplace of half the demi-gods, heroes, poets, orators and ❝ statesmen in the world-one ought to love it for its present com⚫forts and protection. But we do wrong in supposing that the • Italians can be made in one year, nay, even in a score of years, wholly worthy of that country to which so many great associations belong; and worthy, too, of enjoying and maintaining VOL. II.

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'that free, constitutional form of government-which every friend 'to the happiness and better civilization of his fellow creatures, and to virtuous liberty and independence, ought to pray to 'heaven, might descend upon the suffering and degraded in'habitants of the despotic portions of Europe.'

There is nothing in the work before us, which gives so unfavourable an impression of the state of feeling and moral sensibility prevailing in Italy, as the account contained in the chapter on "Funerals and manner of burying the dead." When the grave loses its power to chasten and refine the feelings, and its sublime behests are rendered loathsome and disgusting, by the heedless and cold-blooded manner in which the remains of a fellow being are committed to the dust, we can scarcely believe that the heart is less callous than the marble of the tomb. We shall only copy a part of the revolting description which our author gives of the burial of the poor. The poor, and all who die in charitable ' establishments, are thrown into pits, naked, and without coffins. 'I went to see three pits in a small cloister.'....' In the last pit, 'they were then burying; and a wretched, emaciated body, 'that had been thrown in that morning, was lying across the 'pile, with the top of its head cut off by the surgeons, and the eyelids hanging back in a frightful manner.' A yearly average of 2947 individuals are thus buried in pits, and without coffins, in the "holy city ;" and, with a small charge for wax lights and the mass, it is called christian burial!

6

The Universities of Italy are enumerated by Mr. L. but without going into many particulars concerning them, further than to state their initiatory requisitions, the number of the students, and the salaries of the professors. Of Morghen, the celebrated engraver, and one of the professors in the academy of fine arts in Florence, who has under his charge a very promising American pupil, in the person of Mr. William Main, Mr. L. states the following facts-which show, that excellence in the fine arts maintains its distinction, and is not without its rewards:

'He lately finished a small plate representing our Saviour, the 'head of which very little exceeded the size of one of the same 'figure engraved by him in his transfiguration by Raphael, with 'two hands in proportion, and a few clouds by way of back

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ground, for which he was paid thirteen hundred dollars. He is 'now engaged, engraving a portrait-a head, (which could be 'covered with a dollar,) two hands, and a small piece of white drapery, for which he receives two thousand dollars. The dra'pery is done by others, directed by him, at the expense of the 'proprietors of the plate.'

In a work, which in treating of the political state of Italy embodies so large an amount of its statistics, we looked for

some interesting statements respecting its agriculture-and were disappointed in finding nothing but a brief notice on the cultivation of rice. The subject of farming, has, for several years, occupied the attention of some of the most distinguished men in Tuscany, among whom is the grand Duke Leopold. They compose a society in Florence, and are advantageously known even "on this side of the water," by several scientific and valuable publications on the various branches of rural economy. This deficiency, however, is the less sensibly felt, as the state of Italian agriculture has been so well illustrated by Sismondi and Chateauveaux.a

A short chapter is devoted to "The Bonaparte family in Italy." As the name is one 66 at which the world grew pale," and which, in the course of the reverses that ambition must encounter, serves now only "to point a moral and adorn a tale," we like to gather up the incidental information connected with its talent, its pride, its despotism, and its misfortunes. Lucien Bonaparte, it will be recollected by our readers, had a commanding agency in placing the government of France in the hands of Napoleon, on his return from Egypt. He subsequently fell under his brother's displeasure, and retired to Rome. His conduct, on the Emperor's return from Elba, is presented to us in the following extract-which illustrates the principle on which adulation is paid, in other countries, as well as in France.

It is impossible to deny, that Lucien Bonaparte is equally distinguished by talents, manners, accomplishments, and appearance; and if he had had less ambition, or his brother less jealousy, he would doubtless have made one of the most eminent statesmen and princes in Europe. The estate of Canino, together with the title, cost 200,000 dollars; he also owns Tusculum, where he has made many excavations, and sold an Antinous and a Minerva Medicea, there discovered, for 15,000 dollars. In the chapel of this house, at Tusculum, named in the inscription over the gate, “ Villa Tusculana❞—and it is difficult to think of a word which bears more agreeable associations-he has erected a tomb to his father, Charles, another to his first wife, and a third to a little boy, called Joseph Lucien.'

The following is the account of one of the parties concerned, of the celebrated conduct of the prince in 1815. When the arrival of Napoleon in France was known in Rome, Lucien, accompanied by his secretary and the father Maurice, went to Switzerland, where he remained for some weeks in a small house upon the lake of Geneva. During this time, he saw no one but Madame de Staël. The friar

a Of Chateauveaux, whom we have not had an opportunity of perusing, we form our opinion from a well-written article on the state of agriculture in Italy, published in the North American Review, July, 1820.

was sent forward to Paris; and after much delay and difficulty, negotiated a treaty with the emperor, by which the states of the Pope were guaranteed to him in all events. When this treaty had been received and forwarded to the Pope, Lucien went to Paris and was lodged in the Palais Royal in great splendour. There begun that system of homage and adulation, for which the French are justly so remarkable, and into which they plunge without thought or scruple, at any change of the cockade. He received a hundred letters a day, expressing profound admiration for him-the great statesman, poet, and philosopher-the hope of the liberty, honour, and peace of France. The Institute, in particular, heard with great complacency a long poem concerning Homer, which the prince condescended to read at one of their meetings, though a few years before many members of this very Institute had had the base and hateful indecency to oppose answering a letter, in which Lucien, then in exile and disgrace, had made an offering of Charlemagne to the library, and solicited the counsels and criticisms of his brother Academicians. He proposed and arranged the Champ de Mai, the idea of which was taken from his Charlemagne, and recommended to the emperor the dress of the national guards as a suitable costume; but the emperor insisted to the last moment in going in imperial robes, and Lucien, having no prince's embroidered coat, was forced to have a white taffeta cut for the occasion.'

We have already extended this article beyond the limits we had prescribed for ourselves, and must therefore leave, without any particular notice, a number of subjects on which Mr. L. has collected a variety of interesting information-taking it for granted that a work from the pen of an American, which has evidently cost much labour in its preparation, and, although in many respects offensive to taste, is upon the whole quite creditable to our literature, will be very generally perused by our reading countrymen.

Boston. Wells and

ART. VIII. Melmoth the Wanderer; a Tale. By the Author of "Bertram," &c. 4 vols. in 2. 12mo. Lilly. 1821.

2. Precaution, a Novel.

Goodrich, & Co. 1820.

2 vols. 12mo. New-York. A. T.

We have now before us the last English, and the last American novel; and, startling as it may appear to some of our readers, who are inclined to think nothing praiseworthy that is native, we mean to examine their merits comparatively. We hope to see the day arrive, when an American author will not have to

send his book to England, causing it to make a double voyage, ere his countrymen will receive it with impartiality,-when, instead of sneering at the pretensions of a native writer, it may become fashionable to treat him with civility; or, at least, not to condemn his book before its leaves have been cut.

Mr. Maturin has been long before the public: he is at once the writer of tragedies, the author of novels, and the publisher of sermons. We are not so fastidious as to assert that a clergyman should not indulge his genius, and write novels-even plays; but we do contend that those productions should, but for the sake of consistency, be moral, or not subversive of moral principles. The author has introduced into Melmoth blasphemous expressions, which a christian would not wish to hear-how much less should he repeat and give them circulation; and in his strictures against priests, he has betrayed an irreverence, to use the mildest term, of their religion. We do not mean to say that Mr. Maturin's intentions were evil; but we must assert that he does indeed "lack much discretion.' If he has not decked vice in false brightness, he has brought her too near us, and made her features too familiar. Montorio was fairly criticised in the Review of its day; the errors were dispassionately pointed out, and the merits liberally praised. In his succeeding work, the Wild Irish Boy, the author evinced his neglect of the critic's advice; in Women he seemed to have forgotten it; and in Bertram and Melmoth he has defied it.

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In the preface to Melmoth, Mr. Maturin states, as a sort of apology for publishing a romance, the insufficiency of his profession towards his support. This circumstance is certainly to be regretted, though we think a proud or delicate mind would have shrunk from so broad an appeal to the public. But the author mentions a more surprising fact, that his romance is founded on a passage in one of his own sermons, and is an exemplification of the sentence in holy writ, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." readers will perceive that this was treading on dangerous ground; that it required the author to bring to the task reverential and delicate feelings,—a strong inventive genius in conducting, and a powerful hand in describing the narrative. In what degree (in our opinion) Mr. M. possessed these requisites, will appear in the course of these remarks. It is granted that an author may presume any fact he pleases; that is to say, that his reader consents to accompany him beyond the bounds of probability, as long as he preserves the unity and keeping of his work. The impossible, therefore, which pervades Melmoth, would be no objection, did it not so often mingle with realities which destroy the

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