is in dimensions, proportions, materials, and workmanship, confessedly the finest of Gothic structures, it naturally leads the author into a discussion on the comparative merits of the Grecian and Gothic styles, as they are exemplified in the two most famous structures of Rome and Milan. Among the statues crowded in and around this edifice, that of St. Bartholomew is the most esteemed. It represents the Saint holding his own skin, which had been drawn off like drapery from his shoulders: but the irritated play of the muscles is shewn with an accuracy that rather disgusts and terrifies than pleases the spectator. Here, as in every other country in which the French have domineered, appearances of irreligion begin to strike the eye,-neglected churches and plundered hospitals,

"Edesque labentes Deorum, et

Fada nigro simulacra funo;"

to which may be added the suppression of antient establishments, and the early depravation of youth thence resulting. Even the Ambrosian library has not been exempted from the ruin of the schools, churches, and hospitals: the works of Leonardo da Vinci have been tost into the common mass of French plunder; and the celebrated Last Supper of that consummate painter was used as a target by French soldiers. The heads,' says the author, were their favourite marks, and that of our Saviour in preference to others.' Ramparts, convents, and houses were involved in one common ruin, to make way for a projected forum of Bonaparte, intended doubtless to eclipse that of Trajan itself: but, worse than every other ravage, the simple and manly manners of the Milanese,

were in danger of being lost in one undistinguished mass of violence and fraud.

These injuries are the more to be deplored in Italian cities, because no people are so sensibly alive to their antient glory. Pliny was the benefactor of Comum. Could he return to the earth, with what complacency would he look on the honors paid to him in his beloved Como! "Tua meæque delicia," says he to his friend, speaking of this their common town and country; and, indeed, if in his time it was adorned with temples, statues, porticos, pillared gates, and splendid villas, Mr. Eustace is persuaded that, in these respects, the modern does not yield to the antient city. Its lake retains its antient dimensions; it is vast and deep; and the mountains, which border it, enrich with their fertility the scene which they ennoble with 3 their

their stateliness. The schools, however, the literary establishments, and the religious houses, which diffused civilization and religion over these grand and mountainous tracts, had begun to share in the general ruin of all things that were subject to the continental despot.

At Lugano, the inhabitants were in open but ineffectual rebellion against French oppression. The author found the French engaged in making a road over Mount Sempione, in order to open a communication with Milan, and thus secure the dependance of the Italian republic. Here the face of nature resigns the warm features of Italy. Not far beyond the village of Gondo, the language also alters; and German, more conformable to the ruggedness of the situation, assumes the place of Italian. On returning for the purpose of visiting Turin, Mr. Eustace institutes a comparison between the Italian and the British lakes; which is the more unreasonable because, by his confession, those of Britain almost sink into insignificance when compared to similar objects in Alpine regions,' and to a traveller lately returned from Italy, Windermere appears a long pool, and Skiddaw shrinks into a hillock;' and the heavy lumpish form of Benlomond, its heathy sides and naked brow, with the lifeless masses around it, are very indifferent substitutes for the noble Alpine ridge that borders the Benacus, and presents every mountain-form, from the curve to the pinnacle, from the deep tints of the forest to the dazzling brightness of

snow.'

• When to these conspicuous advantages we add the life and interest which such scenes derive from churches, villas, hamlets, and towns, placed as if by the hand of a painter in the most striking situations, so as to contrast with and relieve the horror of the surrounding picture, we describe the peculiar and characteristic features which distinguish the lakes of Italy, and give them an undisputed superiority.

" "Adde lacus tantos te Lari maxime, teque

Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens Benace marino."

VIRGIL.'

The greatest of the Italian lakes are in Gallia Cisalpina ; which, as it had not become, in the time of the most distinguished poets, the seat of the Muses or of glorious atchievements, was the country of scenery inanimate and mute.

Its

The Roman name of Turin was Augusta Taurinorum. glories have been long secured to it by a succession of good sovereigns; and its vicinity to France has been its only misfortune. Its court was equally remarkable for politeness and regularity; and its academy enjoyed a long and merited reputation, since it answered the two great purposes of educating and introducing young men into elegant society. Here the

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author

author endeavours to correct an error which is common to his countrymen, who are too much addicted to admire the Helvetian and to vilify the Italian character. A certain broad-faced exterior of simplicity has at all times introduced the Swiss into the menial employments of mercenary and porter to the great houses of France and Italy. They were formerly good private soldiers, and possibly, in spite of a certain self-interested leaven, not bad servants; whose good offices were secured by every high and transferred to every higher bidder. Point d'argent, point de Suisse. In later days, they have patiently done the dirty work of France; have been very Arguses in the French police; and have, in this country, yet maintained their character of a simple people. The Italian is fitted to act in a higher sphere; has usually a character more confirmed; is superior in capacity; and, with a countenance that says more, and a mind better stored, has a heart more simple than his ultramontane neighbour. The present author's opinion of the comparative merits of the two universities of Geneva and Turin may be worthy of reflection:

A year passed in the latter, with the least application, enabled its members to prosecute their travels with advantage, not only by supplying them with the information necessary, but by procuring them such connections with the first families in all the great cities as might preclude the formalities of presentation, and admit them at once into the intimacy of Italian society. Without this confidential admission (which few travellers have enjoyed for many years past,) the domestic intercourse of Italians, and consequently the character of the nation, which is never fully and undisguisedly unfolded unless in such intercourse, must continue a mystery. Now, the academy of Turin, where the young students were considered as part of the court, and admitted to all its balls and amusements, placed this advantage completely within their reach, and was in this respect, and indeed in every other, far superior to Geneva, where the British youth of rank were too often sent to learn French and scepticism from the disciples of Rousseau, and familiarity, insolence, and sickly sentimentality, from the vulgar circles of citizens?' *

Turin, lately the capital of a large and populous territory, and long the residence of a race of active and magnanimous princes, furnished with all the establishments, literary and civil, that usually grace the seat of royalty, - enlivened by a population of one hundred thousand souls, and frequented by crowds of strangers from most distant countries,was now degraded into the chief town of a French depart

It should be remembered, however, that Geneva was a Protestant and Turin a Catholic seminary. Rev.

ment,

ment, and had become the residence of a petty tyrant called a Prefect. Stripped of all its former distinctions, it was reduced to one half of its population, and mourned in vain its slavery and impoverishment.

From this city, Mr. Eustace pursued his route to Susa and to Novalese; and, on the northern brow of Mount Cennis, he bade an eternal farewell to the boundaries of Italy, and the regions of classic fame and beauty.

In perusing and reflecting on the work of this learned, dispassionate, and energetic writer, we know not whether to bestow the greatest share of commendation on those talents for description which place the reader on the very spot, and surround him by every admonitus locorum, or on the many profound remarks and discussions respecting historical, political, literary, and religious subjects, which are scattered in different parts of his volumes.

If we cannot enter into the author's view of the church of Rome, we must acknowlege that he admits the necessity of a reformation to bring back that church to its primæval majesty and simplicity; and if certain ceremonies revolt us, the explanation which he has given of others undoubtedly presents to us the Papal court and discipline in a light different from that in which it is usually beheld through the medium of prejudice and misrepresentation. The Popes, he observes, were simply the bishops of Rome, subject at first to Pagan and afterward to Christian Emperors. The greater part of their powers, and especially those acts which have been most offensive, he allows to be of human institution. Under the former line of Emperors, the Popes were more popular in Rome than their masters, because they were native Romans, patricians, better informed, and more humane; in a word, because they were Christians. Under the Christian line, they became friends, confidents, and spiritual guides to the Emperors themselves; and they were enriched with grants of land, with plate and jewels, by their sovereigns and by foreign princes. The barbarians themselves appear to have been awed by their sacred character, and

* Mr. Eustace apologizes for the table of Errata, which certainly is rather large; and, although he is evidently versed in classic lore, by a strange fatality the errors are of a description that should seem to indicate an inattention to prosody: such as rosca, corrected to rosea, when the metre demanded roscida:- - Privatus illis census brevis erat, for census erat brevis : :- magna mater frugum, magna virum, &c. for magna parens; and very many more. These metrical inaccuracies are the more worthy of correction, as the tour is professedly classical.

left their accumulated riches untouched. This fact we learn from the epistles of Gregory the Great; who employed the vast income, of which he was the administrator, in supporting many illustrious families that had been reduced to misery, and in relieving the distresses of the people who were labouring under the accumulated pressure of war, famine, and pestilence. Meanwhile, the Emperors were usually also barbarians, and absent from the capital; in which they took no interest beyond that of conquest or of plunder. It is not surprizing, therefore, if the people were anxious to withdraw their allegiance from a foreign despot; and to grant it to a pontiff who employed his riches so much to their advantage, who was himself a Roman patrician, who saved them from the intrigues of the imperial court, and from the fury of the Longobardi. Gregory had been early employed in the management of affairs, and had acquired the address of a courtier with the experience of a statesman. In those disastrous times, the Romans were in need of some powerful mind that should draw, as it were, a magic circle around them, to secure them from assault and plunder. Neither bishop nor prince, however, it is asserted, would have been singly able to protect them but the assumption of a character which combined the temporal and spiritual authorities, to their utmost, was at that fearful period their only bulwark and defence. Gregory was a Roman, and regarded all beyond the Alps as barbaric; and it is considered as probable that the claims to universal supremacy, which he first established, originated rather in the pride of a Roman than in that of a pontiff. From the period of his interference, the Greek Emperors were the nominal, but the Popes became the real and effective sovereigns of Rome. Attached to it generally by birth, and always by residence, duty, and interest, they promoted its welfare with unabating and often with successful efforts; and on the merit of these services, and the voluntary submission of a grateful and admiring flock, rests the original and best claim to temporal sovereignty which the Roman pontiffs possess. This sovereignty was long enjoyed by them before it was allowed on the part of the Emperor; and many ages elapsed before it was established on a solid and unshaken basis. Their conduct is represented as honourable to themselves and their country until the tenth century; from which period, for five succeeding centuries, they seem to have lost all the sacredness of their character in intrigue, and but too often in guilty encroachments on the rights of other princes and other nations. In the meanwhile, new pomps, new ceremonies, new dresses, new relics, and new absurdities of every kind, appear to have been devised for the purposes