tian, the statues on which the young during which the fields did not require eye of Michael Angelo glared with the the presence of the cultivators sufficed frenzy of a kindred inspiration, the gar- for a short inroad and a battle. These dens in which Lorenzo meditated some operations, too frequently interrupted sparkling song for the May-day dance to produce decisive results, yet served of the Etrurian virgins. Alas for to keep up among the people a degree the beautiful city! Alas, for the wit of discipline and courage which renand the learning, the genius and the dered them, not only secure, but forlove! midable. The archers and billmen of

In the Italian States, as in many na-able. The business of traders and tural 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 system.

When war becomes the trade of a separate class, the least dangerous course left to a government is to form that class into a standing army. It is scarcely possible, that men can pass their lives in the service of one 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.

behind their countrymen in civilisation | growing power of the cities, where it and intelligence. had not exterminated this order of All the causes which produced these men, had completely changed their effects among the Greeks acted still habits. Here, therefore, the practice of more strongly on the modern Italians. employing mercenaries became uniInstead of a power like Sparta, in its versal, at a time when it was almost nature warlike, they had amongst them unknown in other countries. an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are numerous slaves, every freeman is induced by the strongest motives to familiarise himself with the use of arms. 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 use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquired 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

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 and naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience, into the market. Whether the King of Naples or the Dake of Milan, the 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 turning his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the citizen and from the subject.

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| Among the polished Italians, enriched the army against which they fought by commerce, governed by law, and than to the state which they served, passionately attached to literature, every who lost by the termination of the con- thing was done by superiority of intelflict, and gained by its prolongation, ligence. Their very wars, more pacific war completely changed its character. than the peace of their neighbours, Every man came into the field of battle required rather civil than military quaimpressed with the knowledge that, in lifications. Hence, while courage was a few days, he might be taking the pay the point of honour in other countries, of the power against which he was then ingenuity became the point of honour employed, and fighting by the side of in Italy. his enemies against his associates. The From these principles were deduced, strongest interests and the strongest by processes strictly analogous, two feelings concurred to mitigate the hos-opposite systems of fashionable moratility of those who had lately been lity. Through the greater part of Eubrethren in arms, and who might soon rope, the vices which peculiarly belong be brethren in arms once more. Their to timid dispositions, and which are the common profession was a bond of union natural defence of weakness, fraud, and not to be forgotten even when they hypocrisy, have always been most diswere engaged in the service of con- reputable. On the other hand, the extending parties. Hence it was that cesses of haughty and daring spirits operations, languid and indecisive be- have been treated with indulgence, and yond any recorded in history, marches even with respect. The Italians reand counter-marches, pillaging expedi-garded with corresponding lenity those tions and blockades, bloodless capitu- crimes which require self-command, lations and equally bloodless combats, address, quick observation, fertile inmake up the military history of Italy vention, and profound knowledge of during the course of nearly two cen-human nature. turies. 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.

Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would have been the idol of the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish ambition of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field of battle, Courage was now no longer neces- the expiring lease of priestcraft resary even to the military character.newed for another century, the dreadful Men grew old in camps, and acquired legacy of a causeless and hopeless war the highest renown by their warlike bequeathed to a people who had no inachievements, without being once re-terest in its event, every thing is forquired to face serious danger. The gotten but the victory of Agincourt. political consequences are too well Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was 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.

the model of Italian heroes. He made his employers and his rivals alike his tools. He 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 advenAmong the rude nations which lay turer to the first throne of Italy. To beyond the Alps, valour was absolutely such a man much was forgiven, hollow indispensable. Without it none could friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated be eminent; few could be secure. faith. Such are the opposite errors Cowardice was, therefore, naturally which men commit, when their morality considered as the foulest reproach. is not a science but a taste, when they

abandon eternal principles for accidental associations.

faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the Western world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane; but of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. Every rude centurion consoled himself for his 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 sarcasms of Juvenal.

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 readers. His intrepid and ardent spirit redeems 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 The citizen of an Italian commonhas drawn a monster who has no arche-wealth was the Greek of the time of type in human nature. Now we suspect Juvenal and the Greek of the time of that an Italian audience in the fifteenth Pericles, joined in one. Like the forcentury would have felt very differently. mer, he was timid and pliable, artful Othello would have inspired nothing and mean. But, like the latter, he had but detestation and contempt. The a country. Its independence and prosfolly with which he trusts the friendly perity were dear to him. If his chaprofessions of a man whose promo-racter were degraded by some base tion he had obstructed, the credulity crimes, it was, on the other hand, enwith which he takes unsupported asser-nobled by public spirit and by an hotions, and trivial circumstances, for un-nourable ambition. answerable proofs, the violence with A vice sanctioned by the general which he silences the exculpation till opinion is merely a vice. The evil the exculpation can only aggravate his terminates in itself. misery, would have excited the ab- by the general opinion produces a perhorrence and disgust of the spectators. nicious effect on the whole character. The conduct of Iago they would assur- The former is a local malady, the latter edly have condemned; but they would a constitutional taint. When the re. have condemned it as we condemn that putation of the offender is lost, he too of his victim. Something of interest often flings the remains of his virtue and respect would have mingled with after it in despair. The Highland gentheir disapprobation. The readiness of tleman who, a century ago, lived by the traitor's wit, the clearness of his taking black mail from his neighbours, judgment, the skill with which he committed the same crime for which penetrates the dispositions of others and Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by conceals his own, would have insured the huzzas of two hundred thousand to him a certain portion of their esteem. people. But there can be no doubt that So wide was the difference between he was a much less depraved man than 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 resolute,

A vice condemned

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 hundred pair of gladiators.

Roman if we supposed that his disposition was as 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 intrigues. Classical antiquity would furnish us with instances stronger, if possible, than those to which we have referred.

Yet we should greatly wrong such a important reflections than that of the Tuscan and Lombard commonwealths. The character of the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below. We see a man whose thoughts and words have no connection with each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but from deep and cool meditation. His passions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their most headstrong fury never forget the discipline to which they have been accustomed. His whole soul is occupied with vast and complicated schemes of ambition: yet his aspect and language exhibit nothing but philosophical moderation. Hatred and revenge eat into his heart: yet every look is a cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. He never excites the suspicion of his adversaries 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, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger, not because he is insensible to shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to be shameful. To do an injury openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly, and far less profitable. With him the most honourable means are those which are the surest, the speediest, and the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a man should scruple to deceive those whom he does not scruple to destroy. would think it madness to declare open hostilities against rivals whom he might stab in a friendly embrace, or poison in a consecrated wafer.

We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man of our age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by no means follows that a similar judgment would be just in the case of an Italian of the middle ages. On the contrary, we frequently find those faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, in company with great and good qualities, with generosity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness. From such a state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as striking as any of those with which Fourli furnished him. These are not, we well know, the lessons which historians are generally most careful to teach, or readers most willing to learn. But they are not therefore useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Charonea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier shot Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand other questions of the same description, are in themselves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads history aright who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings 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.

In this respect no history suggests more

He