their fashions are to be the standard of civilization; and Paris is the destined metropolis of the universe. Italy is to be degraded into a province, her sons are to be the slaves and the instruments of the Great Nation, to recruit its armies and to labour for its greatness. With such views they will inevitably drain Italy of its population; they will strip it of its ornaments and its riches; they will break its spirit, and consequently they will stifle its genius; that is, they will deprive it of all its proud distinctions, of all its glorious prerogatives, and reduce it to the state of Greece under the Turks, that of a desolated province, the seat of ignorance and of barbarism, of famine and of pestilence. Thus these golden days will be followed, as the Augustan age was, by years of darkness and of disorder; the magnificent remains of its palaces and its temples will strew its surface in their turn, and perhaps excite hereafter the interest and exercise the ingenuity of future travellers. The seven hills will again be covered with shattered masses, and the unrivalled Vatican itself only enjoy the melancholy privilege of presenting to the astonished spectator a more shapeless and a more gigantic ruin!

But we had now reached the northern brow of the mountain; we had passed the boundaries of Italy, and left the regions of classic fame and beauty behind us. Nothing occurred to attract our attention, or to counterbalance the inconvenience of delay. England rose before us with all its public glories, and with all its domestic charms: England, invested like Rome with empire and with renown, because like Rome, governed by its senate and by its people. Its attractions, and our eagerness increased as we approached; and the remaining

part of the journey was hurried over with indifference, because all our thoughts were fixed on home and on its endearments*.

* Not only tost on bleak Germania's roads,
And panting breathless in her fumed abodes,
Not only through her forests pacing slow,
And climbing sad her mounts of driv'n snow:
All dreary wastes, that ever bring to mind
The beauties, pleasures, comforts left behind :
But in those climes where suns for ever bright,
O'er scenes Elysian shed a purer light;

And partial nature with a liberal hand,
Scatters her graces round the smiling land.
On fair Parthenope's delicious shore,
Where slumb'ring seas forget their wonted roar,
Where Ocean daily sends his freshening breeze,
To sweep the plain and fan the drooping trees;
And evening zephyrs springing from each grove,
Shed cooling dews and incense as they rove.—
And there, where Arno curled by many a gale,
Pours freshness o'er Etruria's vine-clad vale;
Where Vallombrosa's groves, o'er-arching high,
Resounding murmur through the middle sky-
Even there, where Rome's majestic domes ascend,
Pantheons swell, and time-worn arches bend;
Where Tiber winding through his desert plains,
Midst modern palaces and ancient fanes,
Beholds with anguish half, and half with pride,
Here ruins strew, there temples grace his side;
[Unhappy Rome! though once the glorious seat
Where empire throned saw nations at his feet,
Now doom'd once more by cruel fate to fall
An helpless prize to treacherous pilfering Gaul.]

Even in these scenes, which all who see admire,
And bards and painters praise with rival fire,
Where memory wakes each visionary grace,
And sheds new charms on nature's lovely face;
Even in these sacred scenes so fam'd, so fair,
My partial heart still felt its wonted care,
And melted still to think how far away,

The dearer scenes of lovely Albion lay.

DISSERTATION.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE GEOGRAPHY ---CLIMATESCENERY-HISTORY----LANGUAGE----LITERATURE----AND RELIGION OF ITALY----AND ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ITALIANS.

THE following reflections are the result of the author's observations and researches while in Italy, and may, in part, be considered as a recapitulation of the whole work, and as the summary of an Italian tour. We will begin with its geography, because from its situation and climate it derives that beauty and fertility which render it the garden of Europe, and mark it out as perhaps the most delicious region on the surface of the globe.

GEOGRAPHY.

In geography, there are two modes of division to be considered; one natural, the other artificial. The former is generally permanent and unalterable; the latter being factitious, is liable to 3 к

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change, and seldom indeed outlasts the cause that produced it. The former, interests us where its lines are bold and magnificent; the latter, when connected with great events and with the history of celebrated nations*. In both these divisions Italy is peculiarly fortunate, but transcendently so in the former. The Alps, the highest ridge of mountains in the ancient world, separate it from the regions of the north, and serve as a barrier against the frozen tempests that blow from the boreal continents, and as a rampart against the inroads of their once savage inhabitants. Annibal justly calls these mountains, Mania non Italiæ modo sed etiam urbis Romana †.

The Adriatic Sea bathes it on the east; the Tyrrhene on the west; and on the south the Ionian opens an easy communication with all the southern countries. Numberless islands line its shores, and appear as so many outposts to protect it against the attacks of a maritime enemy; or rather as so many attendants to grace the state of the queen of the Mediterranean. Such are its external borders. In the interior, the Apennines extend through its whole length, and branching out into various ramifications divide it into several provinces materially differing in their climates and productions.

* Most of the provinces still retain their ancient names, such as, Latium (Lazio), Etruria, Umbria, Sabina, Campania, Apulia (La Pulia), Calabria, Samnium, &c. names blended with the fictions of the fabulous ages, as with the first events recorded in the infancy of history.

+ Liv.