viceroys had shown what must be the condition of the foreign subjects of a distant monarchy. The question for Italy was, whether Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Lombardy, and Parma, were to have their own governments or be Spanish, French, or Austrian, as they had been till then? This question, of course, materially affected also the independence of the other Italian states which had retained their native governments, such as Piedmont, Genoa, Venice, Tuscany, Modena, and Rome. Luckily, the mutual jealousy of foreign powers favoured the emancipation of Italy. Naples and Sicily again became a nation, the crown of which could never more be united with that of Spain. Sardinia was given to an Italian prince, with the rank of king, and with a considerable increase of territory on the side of Lombardy. Parma had its own resident duke. Tuscany was secured to the younger son of Maria Theresa, not to be united with the Austrian dominions. The other Italian states, Genoa, Venice, Lucca, Modena, and Rome, retained their independence. Milan and Mantua alone remained under a foreign power, and that power Austria. But the Austrian influence in Italy was thereby much more circumscribed than it has been since the overthrow of the Venetian republic by Buonaparte. The sweeping policy of the Revolution removed the landmarks of Italian nationality, and destroyed the two North-Italian powers, Piedmont and Venice. The work of the treaties of Utrecht and of Aix-la-Chapelle was undone. By the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the first only of those two powers has been restored and even enlarged. But another of the great advantages gained by Italy in the first part of the eighteenth century has been preserved, Naples and Sicily having retained their national independence. Upon the whole, the first half of the eighteenth century was for Italy an epoch of emancipation from foreign thraldom, and of national consolidation. One loss only was incurred; Corsica was detached from Italy, and became a province of France. That island, rugged and poor, inhabited by a wild but spirited race, had long baffled the declining power of Genoa. The Genoese engaged French auxiliary troops to reduce it to subjection, and at last, rather than consent to see Corsica independent, they made it over to France by the treaty of Versailles, in May, 1768. Such was the narrow policy of the Genoese republic. The Corsicans, headed by De Paoli, fought bravely against the numerous and disciplined troops of France, but the odds against them were too great. The more ardent patriots emigrated, and Corsica submitted to France in June, 1769. In the following August, Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio: he was, therefore, by birth, a subject of the crown of France.-Botta, book xlvi. The next two books of Botta's History chiefly relate to the state of ecclesiastical discipline in Italy; the reforms made in most of the Italian states, Naples, Venice, Parma, Tuscany and Lombardy; the suppression of superfluous convents; the restrictions laid on the immunities claimed by the clergy; on the asylums, &c.; the disputes about the jurisdiction claimed by the court of Rome in foreign states; and lastly, the suppression of the famous order of the Jesuits. All these matters are extremely interesting, and in general very imperfectly known. The result of these controversies was that a more distinct line of separation was traced between the temporal and the spiritual authorities; that the latter was restricted within its proper limits; the ecclesiastical courts no longer exercised their authority over laymen; and the temporalities of the church, and the regulations concerning matters of discipline or affecting public morality, were subjected to the sovereign authority of each respective state. The great distinction between matters of faith and regulations of church discipline began to be clearly understood and enforced. The two brothers, Joseph II. and Leopold, one in Lombardy and the other in Tuscany, were foremost in these reforms. The forty-ninth book contains an impressive account of the destructive earthquakes of Calabria and Sicily in 1783. The fiftieth, or concluding book, gives a sketch of the social and intellectual state of Italy just before the great moral convulsion caused by the French revolution. The author notices the principal men of science living in Italy at that epoch-Spallanzani, Father Beccaria, Volta, Galvani, Guglielmini, Galiani, Genovesi, Fabbroni, &c. "With regard to the moral sciences, the inquisitive and free spirit of the age manifested itself in Italy as elsewhere, with this difference, that those who were most intent on reforming the abuses which men had engrafted upon the stem of the Church, remained firm in the faith of that Church, and kept aloof from the sarcasms and indecencies of foreign infidels. The Italians wished to correct, but not to destroy." And here is the great distinction between the revolution in France and the abortive attempt to force the same upon Italy, where the public mind was in a different and more healthy condition, where ample reforms had been effected during the previous half-century, and others would have taken place without any social catastrophe, had they been left to the hands of the natives themselves. No doubt the French invasion effected reforms at a much quicker rate. Instead of pruning, it cut down the tree at once: it destroyed all remains of feudality, but it also swept away manorial and other patrimonial rights upon land at the expense of justice: it abolished the convents, but squandered away most of their wealth, and threw thousands of innocent individuals into unmerited distress: it swept away communal property, church tithes, charitable foundations, public as well as fiscal treasuries: it stripped the palace of the noble and the cottage of the peasant, the altars of the church, and the museums and libraries of the nation. And all this was done, not as in France, by the impulse of any great class or portion of the people; it was done against the wish of the immense majority of the Italian populations, whose opposition was overcome by foreign bayonets. The revolution was not spontaneous in Italy; it was forced upon the country. Even the more sincere among the Italian republicans exclaimed, Volevo pioggia, ma non tempesta - We wanted a shower, but not a hurricane." The hurricane has long since passed away; its victims lie mute and forgotten in the grave, and no complaint of their's now disturbs the complacency of those who, remote from those times of violence and danger, coolly calculate the advantages which have resulted from the revolution. That the present generation has derived some advantages from past convulsions we readily admit. The most important of these advantages is the improvement effected in the judicial system. Instead of the former multifarious local statutes in almost every province or district, of the barbarous and often clashing laws and edicts of Goths and Lombards, German emperors and Spanish viceroys, every Italian state has now a uniform code, printed and published, so that every individual may be acquainted with the laws under which he lives. This is no small advantage, compared with the former obscurity and uncertainty. The compilation of the laws began in the last century in Tuscany, Piedmont, and other states. Napoleon, however, extended the principle to all Italy. The French civil and commercial codes have remained in force, with some modifications, at Naples and Genoa. The Austrian code is in vigour in Lombardy, and that of Leopold in Tuscany; the Sardinian code in Piedmont, &c. The registry of mortgages has been maintained. As to criminal matters, the publicity of trials exists in several states, such as Naples and Tuscany; and everywhere the courts of justice have been established upon a uniform system, one in every province, and courts of appeal in the respective capitals. Torture has been abolished. The principle of * In the ex-kingdom of Italy alone, which was about one-fourth of the whole Peninsula, church property was sold to the amount of 200 millions of francs, and an equal quantity was annexed to the national domain. The amount of the sales in the rest of Italy is not ascertained. In Tuscany alone there were five hundred municipal statutes previously to the reform made by Leopold. equality in the eye of the law is universally acknowledged. Every relic of feudal servitude or feudal jurisdiction has been removed. The numerous fidei-commissi, and other mainmorte property, have been unshackled and restored to circulation. The laws of inheritance are in most of the Italian states upon a more equitable footing than formerly. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction no longer interferes in temporal matters. The progress of education, of tolerance of opinions; the extension of the arts of industry; the many material improvements both in town and country, the roads, canals, draining of marshes, new harbours, manufactories, houses of industry, &c.-these are matters of common notoriety. Suchto say nothing of a corresponding intellectual and moral progress among the people-are the advantages which Italy has gained during the five-and-thirty years that have elapsed since the beginning of the present century. It were an error to suppose that the restoration has stopped this progress. The restoration, to use the words of a discerning Italian writer, " has restored old names rather than old things." Few universally acknowledged abuses have been restored. And here the work No. 3 on our list becomes of particular use to the reader of Italian history. It is a continuation of the worthy Muratori's Annals of Italy, which closed with the year 1750. Coppi has continued the series down to 1819. Muratori's and Coppi's together constitute a work chiefly for reference, in which facts are registered by order of dates, and they are written upon a different plan from that of a general comprehensive history, like those of Guicciardini and Botta. But many minute facts and details are more clearly and quickly found in a book of annals than in one of general history. Each work has, therefore, its peculiar merit, and both together may be considered as forming a tolerably complete course of modern Italian history. Botta's contemporary History ends with 1814; Coppi brings his Annals down to 1819, and thus registers many important occurrences of the various Italian states after the restoration. Coppi has carefully collected the official documents, treaties, general laws, and public institutions, as well as the military or civil facts, which occurred in the various parts of Italy during the eventful years 1796-1819, with honest sincerity, taking care to refer the reader to the original authorities. ART. IV.-1. Roman de la Violette, ou de Gerard de Nevers, en vers du xiiime Siècle, par Gibert de Montreuil; publié pour la première fois, d'après deux Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale. Par Francisque Michel. Paris, 1834. 8vo. 2. Roman d'Eustache le Moine, Pirate Fameux du xiiime Siècle; publié pour la première fois, d'après un Manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Royale. Par Francisque Michel. Paris et Londres, 1834. Svo. 3. La Riote du Monde. Le Roi d'Angleterre et le Jongleur d'Ely (xiiime Siècle); publié d'après deux Manuscrits, l'un de la Bibliothèque Royale, l'autre du Musée Britannique. Paris, 1834. Svo. 4. Tristan: Recueil de ce qui reste des Poëmes relatifs à ses Aventures, composés en François, en Anglo-Normand, et en Grèc, dans les xiime et xiiime Siècles; publié par Francisque Michel. Paris et Londres, 1835. 2 tomes. 8vo. SIR Robert Walpole pronounced "History a fiction:" we shall not here stop to inquire into the validity of the principles upon which his assertion was founded, but, believing the converse of the proposition, namely, that all fiction is history, to be nearer the truth, we purpose recommending to our readers the curious specimen of early Romance, the title of which heads the list of works arranged at the commencement of this article, as deserving of their attention in a two-fold manner-firstly, with regard to its character as a work of fiction; and secondly, with reference to the historical illustrations of contemporary manners with which the narrative is interspersed. The Roman de la Violette, by Gibert or Gyrbert de Montreuil, and which appears to have been written about the year 1225, was long since pronounced by Roquefort to be one of the most agreeable productions of the thirteenth century; and the perusal of it justifies, in the fullest, this eulogium. The plot, which resembles that of Cymbeline, is ingeniously contrived and clearly developed, while it is at the same time related in a style which adds new charms to it, the narrative never being interrupted, as is too frequently the case in compositions of this period, by long digressions on theology or love. Although the subject of the romance is not historical, for there never existed a Count of Nevers of the name of Gerard, or of any other name, to whom the adventures related by our poet can possibly be referred, yet the work, from the admirable delineations of ancient manners which are scattered over its pages, is of great historical value. En outre, cet ouvrage," says M. Michel, in his admirable introductory notice," indépendamment du plaisir qui peut procurer sa lecture, nous VOL. XVII, NO. XXXIII. H |