In character, however, the martial Ligurians are described by the ancients as not more moral than their present representatives in Piemont are said to be,-of whose turn for extravagant fiction, a modern traveller alleges it to be a decisive proof that they have so many native stories beginning with the words "AN HONEST PIEMONTESE."

This part of Italy has but few classical monuments; but to interest the heart and imagination, it still has Genoa and her noble memory,— Genoa, that lent her mariners to our English Edwards-that was for a time, indeed, Queen of the Mediterranean-the rival of living Venice, and the likeness of departed Greece-and that still, even in our own days, had patriots courageous enough to execrate the infamous cession of their country to Sardinia by Metternich and Castlereagh.

II. Gallia Cisalpina sometimes meant all Northern Italy; but its limits, more strictly defined, correspond on the modern map only to part of Piemont, together with Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna.

In the reign of Tarquinius Priscus at Rome, the Gauls began their irruptions into Italy, and for seventy years new tribes continued to pour into it through the passes of the Alps. Driving the polished Tuscans out of the country which is now called Lombardy, they pushed on to the south, and at the end of two centuries were within the walls of Rome, from whence they were bought off and not beaten by Camillus. But the tide of destiny changed, the Romans in their turn attacked them; and the Gauls, forced back from the Adriatic to the Po, and from the Po to the Alps, had only a last chance for vengeance and recovery of losses, by attaching themselves to Hannibal. His fate sealed theirs; and twelve years after the second Punic war, Cisalpine Gaul was a Roman province.

At the fall of the empire, the Heruli, under Odoacer, established themselves on both sides of the Po, and made Ravenna their capital; but had scarcely finished their conquests when they were swept down by the Ostrogoths, whose power however was shaken by Belisarius, and destroyed by Narses. But Italy had no sooner been brought back under the power of the eastern emperors than the Longobardi, breaking in from Pannonia and the German forests, in 567, founded a powerful kingdom that bore their name, in the great valley of the Po. Stephen II. the Bishop of Rome, looked with jealousy on this foreign dominion he crossed the Alps to wait in person on Pepin, King of the Franks, and implored him to come and protect the church in Italy. Pepin accepted the invitation, and fought the enemies of the church. Charlemagne completed the work of his father, in whose house, when a boy twelve years old, he had seen the holy Pontiff. He subdued the Lombards, and on a memorable Christmas night was presented by the Pope with the Roman imperial diadem. Never was there a more dexterous throw of the fisherman's net, or a gift more productive to the giver. The church obtained a champion, the Bishop of Rome became a spiritual emperor, and the power of church and state was henceforth, with some casual exceptions, indissolubly united. Yet there was still a spirit of independence in Italy, and the emperors of Germany found it their interest to comply with it. Republican ideas sprang up, and were perpetuated. In the twelfth century all the Lombard cities chose their own magistrates, and deliberated on peace and war, as well as on their local interests. Frederic Barbarossa

was the first emperor who attempted to establish absolute power in Italy. Milan, at that time the head city of Lombardy, was besieged, famished, and reduced to a heap of ruins by that Imperial ruffian. After a truce of terror the oppressed Republics again confederated. Happily Barbarossa was so mad as to attack the Romans, and the Vatican for once launched its thunders on the side of Liberty. The excommunicated emperor was defeated by the Lombards, and with difficulty skulked out of the field. But the feuds of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the change of elective into hereditary magistrates, effected in those Republics more than external enemies could have done. The Milanese, in the thirteenth century, had eight thousand knights and two hundred and forty thousand men under arms. Into their subsequent history it is hardly interesting to inquire. On the death of the Sforza family, the Duchy of Milan fell to Spain, in 1700, and from thence was consigned to Austria.

Whilst the whole of that tract, the very garden of Italy, which is now called Lombardy, was in the power of the Etrurians, the blessings of its natural fertility must have been enhanced by considerable civilization. Its succeeding occupants, the Gauls, who drank hard, and frequently out of the skulls of their enemies, were unlikely to be scientific farmers, though the country is still described as rich in their possession. By the time of Polybius it was a Roman province, and its productiveness is represented by him as perfectly marvellous; for, making all allowance for the comparative value of money, a land where the traveller could be sumptuously entertained at an inn at the cost of less than a halfpenny a day, must have been blessed with cheapness, even according to ancient ideas.

Of the present state of Lombardy, under its Austrian masters, statements are different. Charles Pictet, a very recent writer, paints the happiness of its farmers, and the beauty of its farms, in the most enchanting colours. Other travellers, as well as Malte Brun the geographer, speak of it as a country exhibiting extreme contrasts of luxury and wretchedness; and it would be strange indeed, if things were otherwise under a government which, though it has not encouraged exactly the same drinking cups as those of the Gauls, has done its best to degrade and dishonour the skulls of the living. Yet, cursed as it is by a foreign yoke, it is clear that the land is still exuberant and lovely. The luxury of plantation, says Pictet, is so thick over all Lombardy that the eye of the traveller cannot pierce its depth. He journeys on through an horizon that is always veiled before him, and which unfolds itself only as he advances, thus raising a succession of pictures that raise as well as reward the imagination. The plains of Milan also present certain objects that pleasingly resemble the figures of ancient bas reliefs; such as the low-wheeled and massive rustic cars, the oxen adorned with garlands, the female peasants with their hair buckled up with a silver arrow, the sheep with pendent ears, and the shepherds with their mantles flung gracefully over the left shoulder-familiar and living reminiscences of classical antiquity, that I should think must touch the heart more agreeably than the most elaborate monuments.

III. The north-east angle of Italy, formed by the Alps and the head of the Adriatic Gulf, was the site of the Roman province of Venetia, corresponding, on the modern map, pretty nearly to the territory of the late republic of Venice, or to the eastern part of what Austria calls her

Lombardo Veneto Kingdom; only the Roman Venetia, from the time of Augustus, included Istria. The Heneti, or Veneti, who gave this region their name, were probably of Sclavonic origin; but their settlement in Italy was so ancient, that it cannot be ascertained whether they found this part of it unoccupied, or displaced the Tuscans. Their fifty cities which are known to bave flourished before the Romans came among them, one of which, Patavium, alone,-a place of cloth and other manufactures,-could bring 20,000 men into the field; their famous horses and wines, and their trade in amber, which was so plentiful that strings of it were worn by their poorest women as necklaces, -these, and other circumstances, mark them to have been considerably civilized; but of their language no monument remains.

Constantly fighting with the Gauls, the Veneti early attached themselves to the Romans, and made no opposition to the spreading power of that people in Italy. Rome, in turn, treated them as friends, and allowed them to retain their constitution and their free towns, whilst it delighted in grinding the Gallic hordes. The Venetians therefore prospered under the Roman Empire, but they suffered dreadfully during its fall, from their land being the main thoroughfare between Rome and her enemies; and many of their finest cities never recovered from the devastations of the Goth and the Hun.

In the fifth century, a remnant of the Veneti bad fled from the wasting sword of Alaric to some islands at the mouth of the Brenta, where they founded two small towns, Rivoalto and Malamocco. There they first eluded and then defied succeeding invaders; and in the year 697 those isles had become populous. From the Emperor Leontius they obtained authority to elect a Doge. Pepin, King of Italy, gave them territory on either side of the Adige; and Rivoalto, uniting itself to its dependencies, became modern Venice, with her 150 islands and 300 bridges. In the ninth century this Republic was great at sea; in the twelfth it equipped fleets for the Crusaders; in the thirteenth it shared in the capture and spoils of Constantinople: during several centuries it was the vanguard of Europe against the Turks; and for 1300 years never saw a conquering army within its walls, till the French entered it in 1797.

The appearance of Venice is still at once glorious and curious. Its churches, and palaces, and private buildings, have an air of magnificence truly Roman. Its school of painting excites the noblest recollections; and its rampart for protecting the city and port against the storms and swell of the Adriatic-a vast pile, formed of blocks of Istrian marble, running along the shore and connecting island with island for the space of nineteen miles-reminds us of the Piræus of Athens, and, if finished, would rival any work of human construction. Yet, proud as the story of Venice may be, it has nothing illustrative of permanence in human affairs, or in national character. Its government, originally popular and free, was ages ago crushed by the aristocracy, who finally organized a Constitution having oppression for its end, and espionage and assassination for its means. This gentle government was removed by the horrors of French invasion. Venice was then merged in the Cisalpine Republic, and, in 1805, in the kingdom of Italy. By the Congress of Vienna, it has been since made a part of the Lombard Venetian realm already mentioned.

The Venetian gentlemen draw well under the yoke of Austria; they

spend their days in gallantry, or in lounging at a casino, and never read any thing but a music-book. When we recollect that this was the land of Livy, and the mother of modern republics, Venice offers a melancholy and a monitory spectacle.

IV. Etruria. The three last-mentioned provinces fill up the whole of Northern Italy. Shortly below the western beginning of its Peninsular shape, the Roman province of Etruria stretched along the sea from Luna to the Tiber, and was bounded on its other sides by Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, Umbria, the Sabines, and Latium. It thus comprehended what is now the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the patrimony of St. Peter. The former territory fell into the power of the Goths at the dissolution of the Roman Empire. The Lombard Alboin made it a fief of his crown, and Charlemagne made it a county of his empire. In process of time the Tuscan cities asserted their municipalities, and assisted the Pope against the Empire. Pisa, Sienna, and Florence, were the most important of these Republics; their chiefs bore the title of Gonfalonier. In the fourteenth century they were grown rich by commerce, but the stronger began to oppress the weaker. Florence seized upon Pisa, but soon after lost her own liberty by permitting the power of the Medici to become hereditary. After the extinction of that family, in 1737, the Grand Duchy passed to the Duke of Lorrain. His house was dispossessed of it by Napoleon, who gave it to his sister Eliza. At last, in 1814, the ancient Archduke re-entered its government.

The ancient Etrurians-by the Greeks first called Tyrseni, then Tyrrheni-by the Romans Etrusci and Tusci-and by themselves Rasena, or Raseni-are, of all the nations that preceded the Romans in Italy, the most worthy of attention. Before the existence of Rome they had arts, arms, commerce, and political institutions, the memory of which Theophrastus and Aristotle thought worthy of preservation. The discoveries of their national monuments point out Etruria to have been their main and original Italian abode; but their colonies were at one time far spread over Italy, till want of union made them a prey to the Gaul, the Samnite, and the Roman; when their broidered carpets, their silver plate, and their richly-dressed and beautiful slaves, became a booty to soldiers.

Though their general greatness is known, their particular history has fallen into great obscurity. If I may touch on so thorny a subject as their origin, I would say that Mannert's theory on this subject appears to me the most simple and satisfactory. Niebuhr may be more original, but he has yet to learn Mannert's art of making his opinions intelligible. According to Mannert, the Etrurian breed was a mixture of early Pelasgi, who came by sea, and overpowered, or incorporated with the aboriginal Umbri; and of a second tribe of Pelasgic origin, who came from a settlement in Lydia. This mixture of Pelasgic comers made the nation maritime, which the Umbri had never been. It also gave a difference to the Etruscan language from that of the surrounding Italians, and a mode of writing from right to left that bespeaks an eastern source. Etruria had not only a language, but a literature of her own. Poems of different kinds, and tragedies, which were probably translated from the Greek, may be supposed to have been played in her gigantic theatre at Fæsulæ. The music of the Romans was derived from Etruria, so were the songs of their scenic stage, the badges of

their magistracy, and the ensigns of their army. Rules for interpreting the will of Heaven by lightning and otherwise, reached the Etruscans through the kindness of Tages, a wise subterraneous dwarf; and from Etruria they came to Rome. The Romans originally obeyed them as laws, and rather relaxed their ties than cast them aside.

Yet after all it is exceedingly probable that the intellectual character of the Etruscans has been exaggerated. The government of their confederated, but ill-united cantons, was aristocratic, defective in popular spirit, and enslaved by superstition. Their gigantic architecture itself, it is to be feared, could not have been produced without bondsmen and task-masters, and by this constitution Etruria fell.

Etrurian greatness had reached its summit in the third century of Rome. In the next the Campanian cities were lost beyond the Apennines, Veia, and Capena. The fifth century passed in an irresolute struggle with the prevailing star of Rome. After that time the Etrurians enjoyed a long repose, until their last but ineffectual resistance to Sylla.

V. The Province of Umbria lay between Etruria, on the west; Gallia Togata on the north, the Sabini on the south, the Adriatic on the east, and Picenum on the south-east. On the modern map it is represented by the Duchies of Spoleto and Urbino.

The Umbri were confessedly the most ancient inhabitants of Italy. After the arrival of the Pelasgi Tyrrheni, and the rise of Etruria, the Umbrian nation began to decline. Originally, their limits had been much wider than those marked out for them when they became a province; but the Tuscans, we are told, took from them three hundred towns, and dislodged them from the north of Italy. Both the Etrurians and Umbri, however, had soon to contend with the Gauls, who drove the latter from the Adriatic shores to their central mountains. On the ebb of Gallic power, that of Rome flowed fast upwards in Italy, and the Umbri seem to have offered but little resistance to the Romans, to whom they submitted in the fifth century of the city.

This part of Italy belongs at present to the Roman see, and the inhabitants still take a pride in believing themselves descended from the RoThe people of Spoleto glory in showing the gate and its ancient inscription, at which their ancestors repulsed Hannibal, when advancing, flushed with confidence as he was after his victory at Thrasymenus. Such ancient monuments seem to annihilate the antiquity of our own. Yet the pride of Umbria can only be said to exist in memory. Her blue skies, and her classic mountains, still remain to her; the breed of her snow-white heifers, that supplied victims of sacrifice in the time of Virgil, are still as spotless and fine as ever; and the identity of many of her olive-grounds that may have been planted by classical Roman hands, can be traced back for ten centuries. But man has degenerated here. Beggars in the day-time escort the traveller in large congregations; and on the road to Terni-Terni that gave birth to Tacitus the historian, and to the Emperors Florian and Tacitus-there is an entire village surrounded with walls, the whole inhabitants of which are mendicants, and nothing but mendicants unless they be robbers.+

In my next Letter I shall conclude this general sketch of Italian Antiquities, preparatory to entering on my more express subject of Roman Literature.

Another name for Gallia Cisalpina.

+ Voyage en Italie, par L. Simond, vol. i. p. 165.