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it is impossible confidently to predict; but of this we may be well assured, that it is not till the fountains of wickedness are closed by the seal of religion, and the stream of thought is purified by suffering, that the disastrous consequences of two successful convulsions can be arrested, or freedom established on a secure basis, or public felicity based on a durable foundation.

lief into that of imagination; from subduing | the triumph of the Barricades. Instead of the passions, or influencing the conduct, to these illustrious men has sprung up a host of thrilling the imagination, and captivating the minor writers, who pander to the depraved fancy. A people who entertained a sincere taste of a corrupted age; the race of Dumas's, and practical regard for religion of any sort, and Latouches, and Janins, men who apply great never could bear to see its incidents and cha- talent to discreditable but profitable purposes; racters blended with hobgoblins and demons, who reflect, like the cameleon, the colours of with the spectres of the feudal, or the mytholo- the objects by which they are surrounded, and gy of the classic ages. earn, like the opera-dancer, a transient liveliThis extraordinary change. in the lighter hood, sometimes considerable wealth, by exbranches of French literature is almost entirely citing the passions or ministering to the plea the result of the late Revolution. The romantic sures of a depraved and licentious metropolis. school of fiction, indeed, had been steadily Thus, on all sides, and in every department growing up under the Restoration; and ac- of government, religion, morals, and literature, cordingly, the dramatized tales of Sir Walter is the debasing and pernicious influence of the Scott had banished in all but the Theatre Revolution manifesting itself; the thin veil Français, the works of Racine and Corneille which concealed the progress of corruption from the stage. But it was not till the triumph | during the Restoration, is torn aside; governof the Barricades had cast down the barriers ment is settling down into despotism, religion of authority and influence, and let in a flood into infidelity, morals into licentiousness, liteof licentiousness upon all the regions of rature into depraved extravagance. What is to thought, that the present intermixture of ex-be the final issue of these melancholy changes, travagance and sensuality took place. Still this grievous and demoralizing effect is not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to that event, important as it has been in scattering far and wide the seeds of evil. It is not by a mere prætorian tumult in the capital that a nation is demoralized; Rome had twenty such urban and military revolutions as that which overthrew Charles X. without experiencing any material addition to the deep-rooted sources of imperial corruption. It was the first Revolution, with its frightful atrocities and crying sins, which produced this fatal effect; the second merely drew aside the feeble barrier which the government of the Restoration had opposed to its devastation. In the present monstrous and unprecedented state of French literature is to be seen the faithful mirror of the state of the public mind produced by that convulsion; of that chaos of thoughts and passions and recollections, which has resulted from a successful insurrection not only against the government, but the institutions and the belief of former times; of the extravagance and frenzy of the human mind, when turned adrift, without either principle or authority to direct it, into the stormy sea of passion and pleasure. The graver and more weighty works which were appearing in such numbers under the Restoration, have all ceased with the victory of the populace. The resplendent genius of Chateaubriand no longer throws its lustre over the declining virtue of the age: the learning and philosophy of Guizot is turned aside from the calm speculations of history to the turbulent sea of politics. Thierry has ceased to diffuse over the early ages of feudal times, the discriminating light of sagacious inquiry: the pen of Parente conveys no longer, in clear and vivid colours, the manners of the four teenth to the nineteenth century: Thiers, transformed into an ambitious politician, strives in vain, in his measures as a minister, to counteract the influence of his eloquent writings, as an historian: the fervent spirit of Beranger is stilled; the poetic glow of Lamartine is quenched; the pictured page of Salvandy is employed only in pourtraying the deplorable state of social and moral disorganization consequent on

The result of all this is, not only that no real freedom exists in France, but that the elements of constitutional liberty do not exist. Every thing depends on the will of the capital: and its determination is so much swayed at present, at least by the public press, and armed force in the capital, that no reliance on the stability of any system of government can be placed. The first Revolution concentrated all the powers of government in the metropolis; the second vested them in the armed force of its garrison and citizens. Henceforth the strife of faction is likely to be a mere struggle for the possession of the public offices, and the immense patronage with which they are accompanied: but no measures for the extension of public freedom will, to all appearance, be attempted. If the republican party were to dethrone Louis Philippe, they would raise the most violent outcry about the triumph of freedom, and in the midst of it quietly take possession of the police-office, the telegraph, the treasury, and begin to exercise the vast powers of government for their own behoof in the most despotic manner. No other system of administration is practicable in France. After the state to which it has been reduced by its two Revolutions, a constitutional monarchy, such as existed in Great Britain prior to the revolution of 1832-that is, a monarchy, in which the powers of sovereignty were reaily shared by the crown, the nobles, and the peo ple-could not stand in France for a week The populace of Paris and their despotic lead ers, or the crown, with its civil and military employers, would swallow up supreme power in a moment.

Every government, in the long run, must be founded on one of three bases: either the re presentation and attachment of all the great

interests of the state; or the force of a power- | ental, despotism; between the government of ful and devoted soldiery; or the influence of the Prætorian guards, and the servility of the power derived from the possession of all the Byzantine empire. They are perpetually depatronage and appointments in the kingdom. claiming about the new era which their RevoConstitutional monarchies, the glory of Eu-lution has opened in human affairs, and the ropean civilization, are founded on the first; | interminable career of modern civilization: Asiatic despotisms on the last. By the de- let them fix their eyes on the court of the Great struction of all the intermediate classes be- Mogul and the ryots of Hindostan, and beware tween the throne and the peasant, the French lest their changes afford a new confirmation have rendered the construction of a representa- of the old adage, That there is nothing new tive system and a limited throne impossible: under the sun; and the dreams of republican they have now to choose only between the fet- enthusiasm terminate at last in the strife of ters of a military, or the corruption of an ori- | eunuchs and the jealousy of courtesans.

ITALY.*

THE Scenery of Switzerland is of a dark and gloomy description. In the higher Alps, which lie between the canton of Berne and the plains of Lombardy, the great elevation of the mountains, the vicinity of perpetual snow, the tempests which frequently occur, and the devastations of the avalanches, have imprinted a stern and often dismal aspect on the scenery. As the traveller ascends any of those paths, which lead from the canton of Berne over the ridge of the central Alps to the Italian bailiwicks, he gradually approaches the region of eternal desolation. The beech and the oak successively give place to the larch and the fir, and these in their turn disappear, or exhibit only the stunted forms and blasted summits which are produced by the rigour and severity of the climate. Towards the summit of the pass, even these marks of vegetation disappear, and huge blocks of granite, interspersed with snow, or surrounding black and gloomy lakes, form the only features of the scenery.

point on which vegetation can grow, is covered with brushwood; and, instead of the gray masses of granite which appear on the northern side, the cliffs of the southern valleys seem to have caught the warm glow and varied tints of the Italian sky. Nor is the change less apparent in the agricultural productions of the soil. At the foot of the stupendous cliffs, which bound the narrow valleys by which the mountains are intersected, the vine, the olive, and the maize, ripen under the rays of a ver tical sun, while the sweet chestnut and the walnut clothe the sloping banks by which the wider parts of the valleys are surrounded. While sinking under the heat of a summer sun, which acquires amazing powers in these narrow clefts, the traveller looks back with delight to the snowy peaks from which he had so lately descended, whose glaziers are softened by the distance at which they are seen, and seem to partake in the warm glow by which the atmosphere is illuminated.

To the eye which has been habituated for a There is another feature by which these few days only to these stern and awful objects, valleys are distinguished, which does not octhere is no scene so delightful as that which is cur in the Swiss territories. Switzerland is a exhibited by the valleys and the lakes which country of peasants: the traces of feudal lie on the southern side of the Alps. The power have been long obliterated in its free and riches of nature, and the delights of a southern happy vallies. But on the Italian side of the climate, are there poured forth with a profusion Alps, the remnants of baronial power are which is hardly to be met with in any other still to be seen. Magnificent castles of vast part of Europe. The valleys are narrow and dimensions, and placed on the most prominent precipitous, bounded on either side by the most situations, remind the traveller that he is apstupendous cliffs, and winding in such a man- proaching the region of feudal influence; while ner as to exhibit, in the most striking point of the crouching look and abject manner of the view, the unrivalled glories of the scene. But peasantry, tells but too plainly the sway which though the vallies are narrower, and the rocks these feudal proprietors have exercised over are higher on the southern than the northern their vassals. But whatever may be the inside of the Alps, yet the character of the scene fluence of aristocratic power upon the habits is widely different in these two situations. The or condition of the people, the remains of larch and the fir form the prevailing wood in former magnificence which it has left, add the higher valleys to the north of the St. Go-amazingly to the beauty and sublimity of the thard; but the birch, the chestnut, and the oak, clothe the sunny cliffs which look to the Italian sun. Every crevice, and every projecting

* Blackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1818, and Supplement to Encyclopædia Britannica, article Italy.-Written when saavelling in that country in 1816 and 1818.

scenery. In the Misocco these antiquated remains are peculiarly numerous and imposing. The huge towers and massy walls of these Gothic castles, placed on what seem inaccessible cliffs, and frowning over the villages which have grown up beneath their feet, give

an air of antiquity and solemnity to the scene, | dren take care of the mulberries and the silk which nothing else is capable of producing; worms, which are here produced in grea for the works of nature, long as they have stood, are still covered with the verdure of perpetual youth. It is in the works of man alone that the symptoms of age or of decay

appear.

abundance; the husband dresses the vineyard, or works in the garden, as the season may require. On an incredibly small piece of ground, a numerous family live, in, what ap pears to them, ease and affluence; and if they can maintain themselves during the ear, and pay their rent at its termination, their desires never go beyond the space of their own em

In this simple and unambitious style of life, it may easily be conceived what the general character of the peasantry must be. Generally speaking, they are a simple, kind-hearted, honest people, grateful to the last degree for the smallest share of kindness, and always willing to share with a stranger the produce of their little domains. The crimes of murder and robbery are almost unknown, at least among the peasantry themselves, although, on the great roads in their vicinity, banditti are sometimes to be found. But if a stranger lives in the country, and reposes confidence in the people, he will find himself as secure, and more respected, than in most other parts of the world.

The Italian lakes partake, in some measure, in the general features which have been mentioned as belonging to the valleys on the southern side of the Alps; but they are charac-ployment. terized a.so by some circumstances which are peculiar to themselves. Their banks are almost everywhere formed of steep mountains, which sink at once into the lake without any meadows or level ground on the water side. These mountains are generally of great height, and of the most rugged forms; but they are clothed to the summit with luxuriant woods, except in those places where the steepness of the precipices precludes the growth of vegetation. The continued appearance of front and precipice which they exhibit, would lead to the belief that the banks of the lake are uninhabited, were it not for the multitude of villages with which they are everywhere interspersed. These villages are so numerous and extensive, that it may be doubted whether the population anywhere in Europe is denser than on the shores of the Italian lakes. No spectacle in nature can be more beautiful than the aspect of these clusters of human habitations, all built of stone, and white-washed in the neatest manner, with a simple spire rising in the centre of each, to mark the number and devotion of the inhabitants, surrounded by luxuriant forests, and rising one above another to the highest parts of the mountains. Frequently the village is concealed by the intervention of some rising ground, or the height of the adjoining woods; but the church is always visible, and conveys the liveliest idea of the peace and happiness of the inhabitants. These rural temples are uniformly white, and their spires are of the simplest form; but it is difficult to convey, to those who have not seen them, an idea of the exquisite addition which they form to the beauty of the scenery.

There is one delightful circumstance which occurs in spring in the vicinity of these lakes, to which a northern traveller is but little ac customed. During the months of April and May, the woods are filled with nightingales, and thousands of these little choristers pour fórth their strains every night, with a richness and melody of which it is impossible to form a conception. In England we are accustomed frequently to hear the nightingale, and his song has been celebrated in poetry from the earliest periods of our history. But it is generally a single song to which we listen, or at most a few only, which unite to enliven the stillness of the night. But on the banks of the lake of Como, thousands of nightingales are to be found in every wood; they rest in every tree,they pour forth their melody on the roof of every cottage. Wherever you walk during the delightful nights of April or May, you hear the unceasing strains of these unseen warblers, swelling on the evening gales, or dying away, as you recede from the woods or thickets where they dwell. The soft cadence and melodious swelling of this heavenly choir, resembles more the enchanting sounds of the Eolian harp than any thing produced by mortal organs. To those who have seen the lake of Como, with such accompaniments, during the serenity of a summer evening, and with the surroun ling headlands and mountains reflected on i's placid waters, there are few scenes in nature, and few moments in life, which can be the source of such delightful recollection.

On a nearer approach, the situation of these villages, so profusely scattered over the mountains which surround the Italian lakes, is often interesting in the extreme. Placed on the summit of projecting rocks, or sheltered in the defile of secluded valleys, they exhibit every variety of aspect that can be imagined; but wherever situated, they add to the interest, or enhance the picturesque effect of the scene. The woods by which they are surrounded, and which, from a distance, have the appearance of a continued forest, are in reality formed, for the most part, of the walnuts and sweet chestnuts, which grow on the gardens that The forms of the mountains which surround belong to the peasantry, and conceal beneath the Italian lakes are somewhat similar to those their shade, vineyards, corn-fields, and orchards. that are to be met with in the Highlands of Each cottager has his little domain, which is Scotland, or at the Lake of Killarney; but the cultivated by his own family; a single chest-great superiority which they possess over any nut, and a few mulberry trees, with a small thing in this country, consists in the gay and vineyard, constitutes often the whole of their smiling aspect which nature there exhibits. The humble property. On this little spot, however, base only of the Highland hills is clothed with they find wherewithal both to satisfy their wood; huge and shapeless swells of heath wants and to occupy their industry; the chil-form the upper parts of the mountains; and

The Isola Madre is the most pleasing of these celebrated islands, being covered with wood in the interior, and adorned round the shores with a profusion of the most beautiful flowering shrubs. It is difficult to imagine a more splendid prospect than the view from this island, looking towards the ridge of the Simplon. Numerous white villages, placed at intervals

the summits partake of the gloomy character | dener, is universally allowed to be ill adapted which the tint of brown or purple throws over to the scenery of real nature, and is more par the scene. But the mountains which surround ticularly out of place in the Italian lakes, the Italian lakes are varied to the summit with where the vast and broken ridge of the Alps life and animation. The woods ascend to the forms the magnificent distance, and gives the highest peaks, and clothe the most savage prevailing character to the scene. cliffs in a robe of verdure; white and sunny villages rise one above another, in endless succession, to the upper parts of the mountains; and innumerable churches, on every projecting point, mark the sway of religion, even in the most remote and inaccessible situations. The English lakes are often cold and cheerless, from the reflection of a dark or lowering sky; but the Italian lakes are per-along the shore, enliven the green luxuriant fectly blue, and partake of the brilliant colours with which the firmament is filled. In the morning, in particular, when the level sun glitters on the innumerable white villages which surround the Lago Maggiore, the reflec-of Alpine with the softness of Italian scenery. tion of the cottages, and steeples, and woods, in the blue and glassy surface of the lake, seems to realize the descriptions of the poets in their happiest and most inspired veins.

woods which descend to the lake; and in the farther distance, the broken and serrated ridge of the mountains, clustering round the snowy peaks of Monte Rosa, combines the grandeur

The buildings, which are so beautifully disposed along the shore, partake of the elegance of the scene; they are distinguished, for the most part, by the taste which seems to be the native growth of the soil of Italy; and the lake itself resembles a vast mirror, in which the splendid scenery which surrounds it is reflected, with more even than its original beauty.

The lake of Como, as is well known, was the favourite residence of Pliny; and a villa on its shore bears the name of the Villa Pliniana; but whether it is built on the scite of the Roman philosopher's dwelling, has not been ascertained. The immediate vicinity, however, of the intermitting spring, which he has so well described, makes it probable that the ancient villa was at no great distance from the modern one which bears its name. Eustace has dwelt, with his usual eloquence, on the interest which this circumstance gives to this beautiful lake.

The Lago Maggiore is the most celebrated of these lakes, because it lies most in the way of ordinary travellers; but, in variety of forms, and in the grandeur of the surrounding objects, it is decidedly inferior to the Lago Lugano, which is, perhaps, upon the whole, the most beautiful lake in Europe. The mountains which surround this lake are not only very lofty, from 4000 to 5000 feet high, but broken into a thousand fantastic forms, and split with chasms of the most terrific description. On one of the loftiest of these pinnacles, immediately above the centre of the lake, is placed the castle of St. Salvador; and the precipice, from its turrets to the surface of the water, is certainly not less than 2000 feet. Nevertheless, this stupendous cliff is clothed, in every crevice where the birch can fix its root, with luxuriant woods; and so completely does this soft covering change the character of the scene, that even this dreadful precipice is rather a beautiful than a terrific object. The great | characteristic and principal beauty of the Lago Lugano, arises from its infinite variety, occa- and woods, they present rather a beautiful sioned by the numbers of mountains which project into its centre, and by presenting an infinite variety of headlands, promontories, and bays, give it rather the appearance of a great number of small lakes connected together, than of one extensive sheet of water. Nor can imagination itself conceive any thing equal to the endless variety of scenery, which is presented by following the deeply indented shores of this lake, or the varied effect of the numberless villages and churches, which present themselves at every turn, to relieve and animate the scene.

Towards its upper end, the lake of Como assumes a different aspect from that by which it is distinguished at its lower extremity. The hills in the vicinity of Como, and as far to the north as Menagio, are soft in their forms, and being clothed to their summits with vineyards

than a sublime spectacle. But towards the upper end the scene assumes a more savage character. The chestnut woods and orange groves no longer appear; the oak and the fir cover the bold and precipitous banks which hang over the lake; and the snowy peaks of the Bernhardin and Mount Splugen rise in gloomy magnificence at the extremity of the scene. On approaching Chiavenna, the broad expanse of water dwindles into a narrow stream; the banks on either side approach so near, as to give the scenery the appearance of a mountain valley; and the Alps, which close it in, are clothed with forests of fir, or present vast and savage precipices of rock. From this point there is an easy passage over the Bernhardin to the Rheinthal, and the interesting country of the Grisons; and the Val de Misox, through which the road leads, is one of the most beautiful on the southern side of the Alps, and particularly remarkable for the

Foreigners, from every part of Europe, are accustomed to speak of the Boromean Islands with a degree of enthusiasm which raises the expectation to too high a pitch, and of course is apt to produce disappointment. They are laid out in the Italian style of gardening, with stiff alleys, marble fountains, statues, terraces, and other works of art. But this style, however curious or meritorious in itself, and as a magnificent castles with which its projecting specimen of the skill or dexterity of the gar-points are adorned.

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The tour which is usually followed in the Italian lakes, is to visit first the Lago Maggiore, and then drive to Como, and ascend to the Villa Pliniana, or to Menagio, and return to Como or Lecco. By following this course, however, the Lago Lugano is wholly omitted, which is perhaps the most picturesque of all the three. The better plan is to ascend from Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore, to the upper end of that lake; and after exploring its varied beauties, land at Luvino, and cross from thence to Ponte Tresa, and there embark for Lugano, from whence you reach Porlezza by water, through the most magnificent part of the Lago Lugano; from thence cross to Menagio, on the lake of Como, whence, as from a central point, the traveller may ascend to Chiavenna, or descend to Lecco or Como, as his time or inclination may prescribe.

reassumes its delicious blue, and the sun shines with renovated splendour on the green woods and orange groves which adorn the mountain sides. Perhaps the remarkable and beautiful greenness of the foliage, which characterizes the scenery of all these lakes, is owing to the frequent showers which the height of the surrounding mountains occasions; and if so, we owe to them one of the most singular and characteristic beauties by which they are distinguished.

ITALY comprises four great divisions: in each of which the face of nature, the mode of cultivation, and the condition of the people, is very different from what it is in the others.

The first of these embraces the vast plain which lies between the Alps and the Apennines, and extends from Coni on the west to the Adriatic on the east. It is bounded on the south by the Apennines, which, branching off from the Maritime Alps, run in a south-easterly direction to the neighbourhood of Lorretto, and on the north by the chain of the Alps, which presents a continued face of precipices from sea to sea. This rich and beautiful plain is, with the exception of a few inconsiderable hills, a perfect level; insomuch that for two hundred miles there is not a single ascent to be met with. Towards its western end, in the plain of Piedmont, the soil is light and sandy; but it becomes richer as you proceed to the eastward, and from Lodi to Ferrara is composed of the finest black mould. It is watered by numberless streams, which descend from the adjacent mountains, and roll their tributary waters to the Po, and this supply of water joined to the unrivalled fertility of the soil, renders this district the richest, in point of agricultural produce, that exists in Europe. An admirable system of cultivation has long been established in this fertile plain; and three successive crops annually reward the labours of the husbandman.

It is one most interesting characteristic of the people who dwell on these beautiful lakes, that they seem to be impressed with a genuine and unaffected piety. The vast number of churches placed in every village, and crowning every eminence, is a proof of how much has been done for the service of religion. But it is a more interesting spectacle, to behold the devotion with which the ordinances of religion are observed in all these places of worship. Numerous as the churches are, they seem to be hardly able to contain the numbers who frequent them; and it is no unusual spectacle to behold crowds of both sexes kneeling on the turf in the church-yard on Sunday forenoon, who could not find room in the church itself. There is something singularly pleasing in such manifestation of simple devotion. Whatever may be the diversity in points of faith, which separate Christians from each other, the appearance of sincere piety, more especially in the poorer classes, is an object of interest, and fitted to produce respect. We are too apt to imagine, in England, that real devotion is little felt in Catholic states; but whoever has travelled in the Alps, or dwelt on the Italian Lakes, must be convinced that this belief is without foundation. The poor people who attend these churches, are in general neatly, and even elegantly, dressed; and the Scripture pieces which are placed above the altar, rude as they may be, are distinguished by a beauty of expression, and a grace of design, which proves in the most striking way how universally a taste for the fine arts is diffused throughout the peasantry of Italy. While gliding along the placid sur-slopes of Tuscany and the Roman States; while face of these lakes, the traveller beholds with delight the crowds of well-dressed people who descend from the churches that are placed along their shores; and it is sometimes a most interesting incident, amidst the assemblage of forests and precipices which the scenery presents, to see the white dresses of the peasantry winding down the almost perpendicular face of the mountains, or emerging from the luxuriant forests with which their sides are clothed. The climate in these lakes is delightful. The vicinity of the mountain indeed attracts frequent rains, which has rendered Como proverbial in Lombardy for the wetness of its climate; but when the shower is over, the sky

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The second extends over all the declivities of the Apennines, from the frontiers of France to the southern. extremity of Calabria. This immense region comprises above half of the whole superficial extent of Italy, and maintains a very great proportion of its inhabitants. It everywhere consists of swelling hills, rapid descents, and narrow valleys, and yields spontaneously the choicest fruits. The olive, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the sweet chestnut, and all the fruits of northern climates, flourish in the utmost luxuriance on the sunny

in Naples and Calabria, in addition to these, are to be found the orange tree, the citron, the palm, and the fruits of tropical regions. The higher parts of these mountains are covered by magnificent forests of sweet chestnuts, which yield subsistence to a numerous population, at the height of many thousand feet above the sea; while, at the summit, pastures are to be found, similar to those of the Cheviot Hills in Scotland.

The third region comprises the plains which lie between the Apennines and the Mediterranean, and extends from the neighbourhood of Pisa to the mountains of Terracino. This dis trict, once covered by a numerous population,

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