glazed apertures in the wall, which are closed when necessary by slight shutters. It appears that the traveller in Greece, who meets with a good room with glass windows, not one of which is broken, generally stays in it for some time on account of the rarity of such a luxury. In some of the islands, the houses are more carefully built, and are altogether better than on the continent; and in Candia, upholstery has been generally introduced, at any rate to the extent of tables and straw-bottomed chairs. In Syra, the richest as well as the largest Grecian city, the Prince lodged in a beautiful house belonging to a citizen; its staircases were of marble; the rooms, with carved ceilings, were sixteen feet high; the furniture, including lofty pier-glasses and other ornamental articles, was of English manufacture; and the general construction of the building was excellent.

With respect to the Greeks themselves, the impression conveyed by the work before us is, that they are a careless, dirty, ignorant, semi-barbarous people-that their national character is a light soil, in which cunning often thrives more prosperously than any better quality-but that they still, like most children of the south, are not devoid of a certain attractive bonhommie, and native simplicity; that they are in general very obliging to travellers, who are not in much danger from predatory violence in Greece, except in some parts of the Morea, but who must no where expect to meet with comforts or conveniences. The Prince in his travels in various weathers was caught by no storm of rebellion; but, as such are of about half-yearly occurrence in one part or other of the country, the traveller must be fully prepared for an emergency of this kind. The prospects of Hellas are evidently dark and unsettled.

Our author's larger work on Greece, an account of which, when it appears, we shall not fail to lay before our readers, will doubtless contain a sketch of the political and educational institutions of the country, and of its religious and moral condition; details on which subjects would have been out of place in a lively, gossiping, personal narrative, like that which constitutes the "Precursor.”

ITALY AND ITS ISLANDS.

Corografia Fisica, Storica, e Satistica, dell' Italia, e delle sue Isole, corredata di un Atlante di Mappe Geografiche e Topografiche, e di altre Tavole illustrative. (Physical, Historical, and Statistical Chorography of Italy and its Islands, accompanied with an Atlas of geographical and topographical maps, and other illustrative plates.) By Attilio Zuccagni Orlandini. 8vo. Florence, 1835-1838.

This is, in every sense of the word, a very valuable work, or rather it promises to be so when completed, for as yet but a small

part of it is before us-not quite half of the Atlas, and scarcely a quarter of the Chorography itself. The matter of the book is important, and appears to have been collected with great industry, favoured by great advantages; the maps display an actual superfluity of bibliopolist splendour, a large sheet being allotted to every separate province, however small, thus often presenting us, to alter Sheridan's witty description, an island of map floating on an ocean, if not of margin, at least of blank paper, that could well have accommodated two or sometimes three such provinces together. The engravings, landscapes, buildings, and ruins, are calculated to convey a better idea of Italy to those who have not visited the fair Ausonian peninsula, if such there are, than any thing we have before met with; and in the vulgar signification of the word valuable, this Chorography, which deserves a place in every library, is, with good reason, abundantly valuable, being intended to consist of 72 or 80 parts, at the rate of twelve shillings each.

We do not know that we can better describe the nature and purpose of these volumes than by extracting what the author calls the Argomento dell' Opera, or argument of the work.

In the separate descriptions of the several Italian states, the co-ordination of the materials shall be such as that the physical part may always precede the historical, and this be regularly followed by the topographical, and lastly, by the statistical. The general aspect of the state will first be made known; to this will succeed its physical description, shewing its astronomical position, and its superficies; its physical or natural frontiers; the mountain-chains and their ramifications; then the valleys, plains, hills, and volcanoes, if it contain any. The hydrography will be the next subject; when the rivers that water the country will be pointed out, also its lakes and swamps, and its sea coasts; then the gulphs, straits, capes, bays, natural harbours, roadsteads, sauds, &c. Finally, a geological sketch will preface the enumeration of its natural productions, and its meteorology; and the aggregate of all these details will serve as a guide to a physical division of every state, as the simplest, the least variable, the most certain.

The historical description will record all traditions respecting the primitive Italians, who inhabited the district under consideration. Next their political condition will be made known, first during the Roman sovereignty, then under the yoke of the Goths, Lombards, Franks, and Emperors of the East. To this will succeed a summary exposition of the causes which severally led to the foundation of the Republics and of the hereditary monar chies. The review of the modern revolutions will end with the historical passages of the present times; and such illustrious men as have distinguished themselves either in our own days, or in past ages, will be honourably

recorded.

The form of government and administration of every state will precede its topography, as an introduction to the local description of the cities, the fortified towns, the principal castles, and the most celebrated places, according to the plan of political division, adopted by the respective governments.

The last subject to be treated will be that of Industry, divided into agriculture, manufactures, and trade; and, in describing the condition of this last, mention will be made of canals, mercantile navigation, roads, the post, weights, measures, money, &c.

For the completion of the descriptive part, will be published an atlas of copper-plate engravings, divided into two classes, the one consisting of

geographical maps, the other of illustrative prints. With respect to the first, it is to be observed that the physical description of every state will be accompanied by an hydrographic and orographic map, showing merely the natural aspect of the country. So will every principal historical epoch have its proper geographical map, showing the names of the localities and the political divisions of that epoch. The general geographical division of every modern state will then be given; afterwards separate maps of the provinces, and plans of the chief cities and provincial capitals. At the close, and as the complement of the work, will be published a general map of Italy in fifteen large sheets, upon the scale adopted by P. Cassini, and recently by Signor Van der Maelen.

The prints destined to illustrate the work, and constituting the second class, will represent some of the most picturesque natural views; others the most celebrated monuments of antiquity; and others again the most beautiful and most celebrated modern edifices, (modern here includes the middle ages,) sacred and profane, public and private.

After an Introduction, furnishing information, physical, historical, and political, respecting Italy in general, the states of which it is composed will be treated of in twelve parts in the following order :

UPPER OF NORTHERN ITALY. Part 1. Principality of Monaco. 2. Continental Dominions of the King of Sardinia. 3. Districts of Italy incorporated with the Helvetic Confederation and the Austrian Empire. 4. Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. 5. Duchy of Parma. 6. States of the House of Este.-CENTRAL ITALY. 7. Duchy of Lucca. 8. Grand-duchy of Tuscany. 9. States of the Church. 10. Republic of San Marino.-LowER or SOUTHERN ITALY. 11. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies-Continental Dominions. ISLANDS BELONGING TO ITALY. 12. Mediterranean Islands—Adriatic Islands.

This mighty plan it is that Signor Zuccagni Orlandini proposes to complete in from 72 to 80 Distribuzioni, (answering to the French Livraisons,) of certain definite portions of the Atlas, and of the letter-press; viz. of the former, two single maps, or one double map, and three plates, each containing two prints; of the latter, ten octavo sheets. Thirty-two of these deliveries are now before us, the Atlas portion complete, but that of letterpress seldom containing more than six sheets. The publication has, moreover, begun with the second volume; because, as the general views of the Introduction, which is to fill the first volume, must be the result of the specific information respecting the several divisions and subdivisions, it cannot be written till all the others are complete.

The work, such as we yet have it, begins therefore with the second volume, which, with the third and still unfinished fourth, is altogether devoted (the first distribuzione alone excepted,) to Part 2, the Sardo-Italian Continental States. Of these the historical, physical, and topographical descriptions are com

• Need we explain that this means a map of the mountains?

pleted; but the statistical, the Industry, containing the most important information, is merely begun. For this reason, we have little new matter touching the actual state of Italy to place before our readers. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with giving a few extracts, illustrative of history, manners, and customs, which the general reader will prefer to a dry detail of the heads of divisions, chapters, and sections.

Respecting the petty sovereign principality of Monaco, we are told that the Grimaldi, Lords of Monaco, were in early times great warriors, displaying their prowess in the service of their mightier neighbours, and usually in that of France. But the Bishop Agostino Grimaldi, regent of Monaco for his infant nephew, joined the Emperor Charles V. against Francis I.; he appears to have been recompensed with the title of Prince for his nephew. The Princes of Monaco now adhered to the empire, until Onorato II. was bribed back to the French connexion by Louis XIII. with a French duchy, that of Valentinois, created for the occasion. The princes of Monaco thenceforward remained sovereign princes, under the military protection of France, until the French revolution, when the National Convention robbed Onorato III. of his principality, incorporating it with the department of the Maritime Alps. In 1814, Onorato IV. was restored, in despotic sovereignty, to his patrimonial dominions, as before the revolution; but, in 1815, the treaty of Paris transferred the military protection of Monaco to the King of Sardinia, whose troops now garrison the forts of the independent principality, although the Prince Onorato V., who succeeded his father in 1819, is, as Duc de Valentinois, actually a Peer of France-the judicial functions being separated from the executive.

From the sections treating of the Sardinian States, we make an extract or two, illustrative of the manners of the Alpine districts of Aosta, and of the long wealthy commercial Genoa. Our readers will, like ourselves, regret to learn that provincial peculiarities are fast disappearing before the dull uniformity of modern civilization, and that the dance is giving place to the bottle. The following account of courtship and marriage in the rural comuni, or parishes, of Aosta, does not, however, bear the stamp of common-place civilization.

In these comuni, the youth dedicate the nocturnal hours to wooing the virgin chosen by the heart, or for motives of convenience. When a young man has pitched upon a maiden for his future wife, he repairs between nine and ten o'clock at night to the house where she lives, and, with a gentle knock, well known to the Alpine lasses, invites his favourite fair to appear at the window, and listen to his suit. On recognizing her lover, she hastens to open the house-door, but he discreetly forbears to enter until he can suppose her fairly in bed again. He then proceeds to her room, seats himself upon her lowly pallet, and passes hours in tender colloquy. This is called aller par fille. For the day of the wedding, both bride and bridegroom invite their respective relations and friends, not omitting their godfathers and godmothers,

if alive, and, if dead, friends are solicited to act as their substitutes; this is a point never neglected, because the gossips are conventionally bound to offer presents. The evening before the ceremony, the youths who are invited assemble near the dwelling of the young couple, and express their joy at the marriage by firing pistols. Upon the day of the celebration, the wedding guests, in their best clothes, the men with ribbons in their button-holes, accompany the bridal pair to the church, where the priest concludes the rite with a discourse upon the duties of matrimony. He then joins the train, and all repair to the bridegroom's house. On reaching it, the bridegroom kneels down at the entrance with his bride; his parents now come forward, and question him as to what he desires; when he modestly asks leave for his chosen maiden to form one of the family. The mother consents, but first hands her daughter-in-law a distaff or a broom, in token that she is to be active and a good mother of a family. The father then blesses the happy couple, affectionately takes their hands, and introduces them and their company into the house, where the table is already spread. During the banquet, the youth of the district are incessantly firing pistols. A dance is the usual termination of such domestic recreations. It is to be observed that, in some comuni, the severity of the police has succeeded in putting down the indecencies with which it was customary to insult widowers who married a second time; whilst, in others, efforts to attain this end have utterly failed...

It was the old custom for the youth to recreate themselves on holidays with dancing, cards, and gymnastic exercises, during the hours not devoted to divine service. The ecclesiastic authorities saw in this an outrage to public morality, and charged the parish priests rigidly to prohibit dancing. A stop has thus been put to this innocent amusement pretty nearly throughout the province, but the youth take their revenge by assembling in taverns, to feast, to the far greater detriment of good morals. However, on occasion of the annual solemnity in honour of the patron saint of the parish, the anathema against balls is seldom respected. On the eve of the saint's day, the youth give a serenade to the syndic and the priest; and, after vespers the following day, begin a dance on the public green, whence they withdraw to some large cottage, to which the young directors of the entertainment invite even such strangers as have attended mass.

We must add an extract from the manners and customs of the Genoese Military Government, or Duchy of Genoa, which will further shew the antipathy of the Ligurians and Lombards to second marriages, but in a more decorous form than we must suppose that practised in Aosta, which our author shrank from describing.

Let a widower or a widow appear at church to ask a blessing to consecrate the new tie about to be formed by a second marriage, and, in spite of the sacredness of the rite just celebrated, a swarm of boys and idle people will flock about the bridegroom's house, there keeping up a prolonged bacchanaliau uproar with the sound of cattle-bells, of large sea shells, and clattering and jingling together of kitchen utensils and agricultural implements. The newly married couple may, indeed, relieve themselves from this offensive sport, which is often repeated for two evenings, by the payment of a sum of money, or a donation of wine. . . . . In some comuni of the Ligurian Appenuines, if the bridegroom thus annoyed refuses to submit to the tax imposed upon him, all sorts of tricks are played to get hold of him, when he is forcibly set upon an ass, and dragged to a tavern, where the jeers and clamour are kept up, until he has paid for as much wine as the crew, who are insulting and harassing him, choose to drink.