scribes the state of Italy at that period:-Ri- of society which facilitated the gigantic con- "Le donne, e cavalier, gli affanni, gli agi, A time was at hand, when all the seven vials In the Italian States. as in many natural bodies, untimely decrepitude was the penalty of precocious maturity. Their early greatness, and their early decline, are principally to be attributed to the same cause-the preponderance which the towns acquired in the political sys tem. But, when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish, a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The occupations of traders and artisans require their constant presence and attention. In such a community, there is little superfluous time; but there is generally much superfluous money. Some members of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest from a task inconsistent with their habits and engagements. The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the__best_commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years before the Christian era, the citizens of the republics round the Egean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed. As wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which commerce and the arts were cultivated,-and the first in which the ancient discipline decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Platea, mercenary troops were everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to persuade or compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service. The laws of Lycur gus prohibited trade and manufactures. The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force, long after their neighbours had begun to hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In the second century, Greece contained only one nation of warriors, the savage highlanders of Etolia, who were at least ten generations behind their countrymen in civilization and intelligence. All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks acted still more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are numerous slaves, ever freeman is induced by the strongest motives Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the bargain, was to him a matter of perfect indifference. He was for the highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for which he had contracted was finished, there was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him from instantly_turring his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the citizen and from the subject. familiarize himself with the use of arms. The | the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm with thousands of these household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which military operations were conducted, during the prosperous times of Italy, was peculiarly unfavourable to the formation of an efficient militia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the largest breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The infantry was regarded as comparatively worthless, and was neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained their ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That foot soldiers could withstand the charge of heavy cavalry was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth century, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved the spell, and astounded the most experienced generals, by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest of pikes. The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men who neither loved those whom they defended, nor hated those whom they opposed-who were often bound by stronger ties to the army against which they fought than the state which they served-who lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its prolongation, war completely changed its character. Every man came into the field of battle impressed with the knowledge that, in a few days, he might be taking the pay of the power against which he was The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman then employed, and fighting by the side of his sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquir-enemies against his associates. The strongest ed with comparative ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the man at arms to support his ponderous panoply and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe, this most important branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. It was the duty and the amusement of a large class of country gentlemen. It was the service by which they held their lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence of mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But, in the Northern States of Italy, as we have already remarked, the growing power of the cities, where it had not exterminated this order of men, had completely changed their habits. Here, therefore, the practice of employing mercenaries became universal, at a time when it was almost unknown in other countries. interest and the strongest feelings concurred to mitigate the hostility of those who had lately been brethren in arms, and who might soon be brethren in arms once more. Their common profession was a bond of union not to be forgotten, even when they were engaged in the service of contending parties. Hence it was that operations, languid and indecisive beyond any recorded in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expeditions and blockades, bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless combats, make up the military history of Italy during the course of nearly two centuries. Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A great victory is won. Thousands of prisoners are taken; and hardly a life is lost! A pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous than an ordinary civil tumult. The Courage was now no longer necessary even to the military character. Men grew old in When war becomes the trade of a separate camps, and acquired the highest renown by class, the least dangerous course left to a their warlike achievements, without being government is to form that class into a stand-once required to face serious danger. ing army. It is scarcely possible, that men can pass their lives in the service of a single state, without feeling some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their victories. Its defeats are their defeats. The contract loses something of its mercantile character. The services of the soldier are considered as the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute of national gratitude. To betray the power which employs him, to be even remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and degrading of crimes. When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest course would have been to form separate military establishments. Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary warriors of the Peninsula, instead of being attached to the service of different powers, were regarded as the common property of all. The connection between the state and its defenders was reduced to the most simple naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience into the market. Whether political consequences are too well known. The richest and most enlightened part of the world was left undefended, to the assaults of every barbarous invader-to the brutality of Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the fierce rapacity of Arragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things were still more remarkable. Among the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valour was absolutely indispensable. Without it, none could be eminent; few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally considered as the foulest reproach. Among the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to literature, every thing was done by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific than the peace of their neighbours, required rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point of honour in other countries, ingenuity became the point of honour in Italy. From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two opposite sys tems of fashionable morality.-Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which peculiarly belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians regarded with corresponding lenity those crimes which require self-command, address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge of human nature. of his victim. Something of interest and respect would have mingled with their disapprobation. The readiness of his wit, the clearness of his judgment, the skill with which he penetrates the dispositions of others and conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain portion of their esteem. So wide was the difference between the Italians and their neighbours. A similar difference existed between the Greeks of the second century before Christ, and their masters the Romans. The conquerors, brave and Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would resolute, faithful to their engagements, and have been the idol of the North. The follies strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, of his youth, the selfish and desolating ambi- at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and tion of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at cruel. With the vanquished people were deslow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field posited all the art, the science, and the literaof battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft re- ture of the Western world. In poetry, in newed for another century, the dreadful legacy philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in of a causeless and hopeless war, bequeathed to sculpture, they had no rivals. Their manners a people who had no interest in its event, were polished, their perceptions acute, their every thing is forgotten, but the victory of invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, 'Agincourt! Francis Sforza, on the other hand, humane. But of courage and sincerity they was the model of the Italian hero. He made were almost utterly destitute. The rude warhis employers and his rivals alike his tools.riors who had subdued them consoled themHe first overpowered his open enemies by the help of faithless allies; he then armed himself against his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incomparable dexterity, he raised himself from the precarious and dependent situation of a military adventurer to the first throne of Italy. To such a man much The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was was forgiven-hollow friendship, ungenerous the Greek of the time of Juvenal, and the Greek enmity, violated faith. Such are the opposite of the time of Pericles, joined in one. Like errors which men commit, when their morality the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and is not a science, but a taste; when they abandon | unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had a eternal principles for accidental associations. We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken from history. We will select another from fiction. Othello murders his wife; he gives orders for the murder of his lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of * Northern reader-his intrepid and Qdent spirit redeeming every thing. The unsuspecting confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary interest to his character. Iago, on the contrary, is the object of universal loathing. Many are inclined to suspect that Shakspeare has been seduced into an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now we suspect, that an Italian audience, in the fifteenth century, would have felt very differently. Othello would have inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he trusts to the friendly professions of a man whose promotion he had obstructed the credulity with which he takes unsupported assertions, and trivial circumstances, for unanswerable proofs-the violence with which he silences the exculpation till the exculpation can only aggravate his misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of the spectators. The conduct of lago they would assuredly have condemned; but they Would have condemned it as we condemn that selves for their intellectual inferiority, by remarking that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men atheists, cowards, and slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, and furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasm of Juvenal. country. Its independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his character were degraded by some mean crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an honourable ambition. A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady, the latter a constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remains of his virtue after it in despair. The Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived by taking black mail from his neighbours, committed the same crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of two hundred thousand people. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing, when compared with the conduct of the Roman who treated the public to a hidred pair of gladiators. Yet we should probably wrong such a Roman if we supposed that his disposi tion was so cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own country, a woman forfeits her place in society, by what, in a man, is too commonly considered as an honourable distinction, and, at worst, as a venial error. The consequence is notorious. The moral principle of a woman is frequently more impaired by a single lapse from virtue, than that of a man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical antiquity would furnish us with instances C stronger, if possible, than those to which we have referred. is insensible to shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to We must apply this principle to the case be- be shameful. To do an injury openly is, in his fore us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly, and no doubt, mark a man of our age and country far less profitable. With him the most honouras utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by able means are-the surest, the speediest, and no means follows that a similar judgment the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a would be just in the case of an Italian of the man should scruple to deceive him whom he middle ages. On the contrary, we frequently does not scruple to destroy. He would think find those faults, which we are accustomed to it madness to declare open hostilities against consider as certain indications of a mind alto- a rival whom he might stab in a friendly emgether depraved, in company with great and brace, or poison in a consecrated wafer. good qualities, with generosity, with benevo- Yet this man, black with the vices which we lence, with disinterestedness. From such a consider as most loathsome-traitor, hypocrite, state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable coward, assassin-was by no means destitute dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustra- even of those virtues which we generally contions of his theory as striking as any of those sider as indicating superior elevation of charac with which Fourli furnished him. These are ter. In civil courage, in perseverance, in prenot, we well know, the lessons which historians sence of mind, those barbarous warriors who are generally most careful to teach, or readers were foremost in the battle or the breach, were most willing to learn. But they are not there- far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he fore useless. How Philip disposed his troops avoided, with a caution almost pusillanimous, at Charonea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, never confused his perceptions, never parawhether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier shot|lyzed his inventive faculties, never wrung out Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand other one secret from his ready tongue and his inquestions of the same description, are in them-scrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, selves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse and a still more dangerous accomplice, he was us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He a just and beneficent ruler. With so much unalone reads history aright, who, observing how fairness in his policy, there was an extraordi powerfully circumstances influence the feel-nary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indif ings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature, from what is essential and immutable. ferent to truth in the transactions of life, ho was honestly devoted to the pursuit of truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political object was at stake, his dis In this respect no history suggests more im- position was soft and humane. The susceptiportant reflections than that of the Tuscan and bility of his nerves, and the activity of his Lombard commonwealths. The character of imagination, inclined him to sympathize with the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a the feelings of others, and to delight in the chacollection of contradictions, a phantom, as rities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half descending to actions which might seem to divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, above, grovelling and poisonous below. We he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility both see a man whose thoughts and words have no for the natural and the moral sublime, for connection with each other; who never hesi- every graceful and every lofty conception. tates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation never wants a pretext when he is inclined to might have rendered him incapable of great betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat general views; but that the expanding effect of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, of his philosophical studies counteracted the but from deep and cool meditation. His pas- narrowing tendency. He had the keenest ensions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous joyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The by rule, and in their most headstrong fury fine arts profited alike by the severity of his never forget the discipline to which they have judgment, and the liberality of his patronage. been accustomed. His whole soul is occupied The portraits of scrie of the remarkable with vast and complicated schemes of ambi- Italians of those times are perfectly in harmo tion. Yet his aspect and language exhibit no-ny with this description. Ample and majestic thing but philosophic moderation. Hatred and foreheads; brows strong and dark, but not revenge eat in his heart: yet every look is a frowning; eyes of which the calm full gaze, cordial smile very gesture a familiar caress. while it expresses nothing, seems to discern He never excites the suspicion of his adver-every thing; cheeks pale with thought and se sary by petty provocations. His purpose is disclosed only when it is accomplished. His face is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken; and then he strikes for the first and last time. Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, the frivolous and prating Frenchman, the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger, not because he me dentary habits; lips formed with feminine deli cacy, but compressed with more than mascu line decision, mark out men at once enterpris ing and apprehensive; men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others, and in con cealing their own; men who must have been formidable enemies and unsafe allies; but men, at the same time, whose tempers were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety of mind, which would have rendered them eminent either in active or in contempla- | from it. But they no longer produce their tive life, and fitted them either to govern or to wonted effect. Virgil advises the husbandmen instruct mankind. who removes a plant from one spot to another Every age and every nation has certain to mark its bearings on the cork, and to place characteristic vices, which prevail almost uni- it in the same position with regard to the dif versally, which scarcely any person scruples ferent points of the heaven in which it for to avow, and which even rigid moralists but merly stood. A similar care is necessary in faintly censure. Succeeding generations poetical transplantation. Where it is neglectchange the fashion of their morals, with their ed, we perpetually see the flowers of language, hats and their coaches; take some other kind which have bloomed on one soil, wither on of wickedness under their patronage, and won-another. Yet the Golden Ass is not altogether der at the depravity of their ancestors. Nor is destitute of merit. There is considerable inthis all. Posterity, that high court of appeal genuity in the allegory, and some vivid colourwhich is never tired of eulogizing its own jus-ing in the descriptions. tice and discernment, acts, on such occasions, The Comedies deserve more attention. The like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Mandragola, in particular, is superior to the Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best punished, it selects some of them at hazard to of Molière. It is the work of a man who, if bear the whole penalty of an offence in which he had devoted himself to the drama, would they are not more deeply implicated than those probably have attained the highest eminence, who escape. Whether decimation be a con- and produced a permanent and salutary effect venient mode of military execution, we know on the national taste. This we infer, not so not: but we solemnly protest against the intro- much from the degree, as from the kind of its duction of such a principle into the philoso- excellence. There are compositions which phy of history. indicate still greater talent, and which are In the present instance, the lot has fallen on perused with still greater delight, from which Machiavelli : a man whose public conduct was we should have drawn very different conclu upright and honourable, whose views of mo- sions. Books quite worthless are quite harm. rality, where they differed from those of the less. The sure sign of the general decline of persons around him, seem to have differed for an art is the frequent occurrence, not of de the better, and whose only fault was, that, hav-formity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, ing adopted some of the maxims then generally tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and comedy received, he arranged them more luminously, by wit. and expressed them more forcibly than any other writer. The real object of the drama is the exhibition of the human character. This, we conHaving now, we hope, in some degree ceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in cleared the personal character of Machiavelli, local and temporary associations, like those we come to the consideration of his works. which regulate the number of acts in a play, As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high or syllables in a line. It is the very essence place. The Decennali are merely abstracts of of a species of composition, in which every the history of his own times in rhyme. The idea is coloured by passing through the mestyle and versification are sedulously modelled dium of an imagined mind. To this fundaon those of Dante. But the manner of Dante, mental law every other regulation is suborlike that of every other great original poet, was dinate. The situations which most signally suited only to his own genius, and to his own develope character form the best plot. The subject. The distorted and rugged diction mother tongue of the passions is the best style. which gives to his unearthly imagery a yet The principle, rightly understood, does not more unearthly character, and seeins to pro-debar the poet from any grace of composition. ceed from a man labouring to express that There is no style in which some man may not, which is inexpressible, is at once mean and under some circumstances, express himself. extravagant when misemployed by an imitator. There is therefore no style which the drama The moral poems are in every point superior rejects, none which it does not occasionally That on Fortune, in particular, and that on Op-require. It is in the discernment of place, of portunity exhibit both justness of thought and time, and of person, that the inferior artists fertility of fancy. The Golden Ass has no fail. The brilliant rodomontade of Mercutio, thing but the name in common with the Ro- the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, mance of Apuleius, a bock which, in spite of where Shakspcare has placed them, natural its irregular plan and its detestable style, is and pleasing. But Dryden would have made among the most fascinating in the Latin lan-Mercutio challenge Tybalt, in hyperboles as guage, and in which the merits of Le Sage and Radcliffe, Bunyan and Crébillon, are singularly united. The Poem of Machiavelli, which is evidently unfinished, is carefully copied from the earlier Cantos of the Inferno. The writer loses himself in a wood. He is terrified by monsters, and relieved by a beautiful damsel. His protectress conducts him to a large menagerie of emblematical beasts, whose peculiarities are described at length. The manner as well as the plan of the Divine Comedy is carefully imitated. Whole lines are transferred fanciful as those in which he describes the chariot of Mab.-Corneille would have represented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with all the measured rhetoric of a funeral oration. No writers have injured the Comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily they made all their charac ters in their own likeness. Their works bear the same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a paintirg; no |