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tory in the middle ages-the long struggles of the Lombard cities for their emancipation. The first thought, as was the case with Schiller's Thirty Years' War,' was suggested to him while employed in his erudite researches on the subject of his tragedy Giovanni da Procida.

The Marquis Capponi is likewise completing his History of the Times of Peter Leopold, intended to give an idea of the slow but rational improvement that Italy was undergoing towards the close of the last century, before the country was involved in the disorders of the French revolution. The work has been continued by the author in the midst of a variety of engagements, and under the severe affliction of an ophthalmic disease.

Professor Rosini of Pisa, once a poet and a novelist, "having now," as he informs us, "reached that age in which "the fancies of youth must yield to more grave and mature "pursuits, wished no longer to defer the publication of a "work which has been for many years the continual object "of his meditation and researches. Having met at Paris "Count Leopoldo Cicognara, who was there engaged in print❝ing the first volume of his Storia della Scultura, he deter"mined to do for painting what the Count had done for "sculpture, hoping he might thus render the fine arts good "service and deserve well of his country."

The first two volumes of Rosini's Storia della Pittura Italiana have seen the light this year, and contain only a part of the first epoch, which is to embrace the period from Giunta da Pisa and Guido da Siena, (1200-1250), down to Masaccio and his contemporaries. To the engravings with which these volumes are embellished is annexed an atlas of beautiful plates, which are calculated to give us a more favourable idea than is generally entertained in this country of the merit of modern Tuscan engravers.

This work, and the I. e R. Galleria Pitti illustrata per cura di Luigi Bardi, and the Uffizi Gallery, also to be illustrated by a society of eminent artists, added to what has been previously done at Rome, Milan, and Bologna, will have the effect, if not of supplying the want of a complete history of art, at least of giving it order and unity, and rendering it a study of more easy access. In all the works above-enumerated, and

in others of an analogous nature, it is not, we believe, difficult to perceive the symptoms of that "animus immoderatus, nimis alta petens" inherited by the Italians from their Roman forefathers; but which, while it admirably beseemed the rulers of the world, in their present state of division and dependence speaks rather in favour of their magnificence and disinterestedness than of their prudence and rationality. "Fare il passo secondo la gamba" is however a phrase of their own. But the state of seclusion in which they are kept by that kind of literary quarantine established by the mean-spirited jealousy of their governments, hardly allows them to consider themselves as members of the great European family; so that of the headlong march of intellect so wonderfully changing the state of civilized societies, only a faint sound is heard on the sunny side of the Alps. Consequently, there is in Italy more daring of conception than power of execution; more energy of life, more want of exertion, than can be turned to profitable objects; more impatience and restlessness than real strength and serenity of mind. The Italian thinker sinks into despondency, as he sees the result at which he arrived, late and weary, after years of solitary efforts, thrown into utter insignificance by the wide and rapid attainments to which a wise distribution of labour has led the numerous scientific associations abroad. Southern peoples, since the spirit of chivalrous adventure spread among them a distaste for gregarious undertakings, have not yet learned thoroughly to understand the utter helplessness of individuals, and the consequent necessity of relying on the combined efficiency of masses. There is a jealousy, a self-sufficiency, a mutual disdainfulness and indocility, which have contributed to oppose literary good understanding in Italy scarcely less than the forbidding frowns of Austrian suspicion.

We hope therefore, more than we can positively assert, that the numerous works which we have announced as in course of publication, will be persisted in and brought to an end with as fervent a zeal as that in which they originated. We hope the pride generally felt among the most enlightened Italians for their country's name, will be no less powerful an incentive to the accomplishment of noble undertakings, than court patronage, or even popular encouragement.

Such efforts, even if they prove failures, will in the end lead to great results. Inaction and lethargy alone can be symptoms of the hopeless decay of a nation. The Italians have before them glorious examples to teach them perseverance. St. Peter's engrossed the thoughts of a whole age, from Julius II. to Sixtus V., and the cathedral of Florence was the work of two centuries. And truly it would seem that the Italians apply themselves to the compilation of their history as ancient artists raised their architectural monuments for the amazement of posterity. Muratori, like Bramante or Arnolfo di Lapo, gave the first model, and planned the foundation of a mighty edifice; each successive generation added its tribute of important materials; ambitious artists brought forward their abortive designs; summers and winters revolved upon the unroofed aisles, but the day is yet to come when the work shall feel the impulse of the hand of a Brunelleschi or a Michael Angelo; when it shall be said, as of the Roman and Florentine domes, "Time has done, but time shall not undo.”

ARTICLE VIII.

1. Convention concluded between the Courts of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia, on the one part, and the Sublime Ottoman Porte on the other, for the Pacification of the Levant, signed at London the 15th of July, 1840. 2. Papers presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, 1839, "relating to the arrangement "between Mehemet Ali and the Porte in 1833, and com"munications with Mehemet Ali, 1838."

THIRTEEN years have elapsed since the three greatest of the great powers of Europe, "animated with the desire of 66 putting a stop to the effusion of blood, and of preventing

"the evils of every kind which the continuance of such a "state of affairs may produce, resolved to combine their "efforts for the object of re-establishing peace between the "contending parties" in the East, "by means of an arrange"ment called for," as they expressed themselves, "no less by sentiments of humanity, than by interest for the tranquillity of Europe."

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The result of the benevolent aspirations of England, France and Russia, was the treaty of London of July the 6th, 1827, framed, as stated in the first article, "with the view of ef"fecting a reconciliation between the Ottoman Porte and the "Greeks," but evidently intended by the cabinet of Great Britain to prevent the separate and exclusive interference of Russia alone, or of Russia in the name of the four continental monarchies, in the internal affairs of the Ottoman empire, in furtherance of the system they had previously pursued, in destroying the independence of the Italian states and of Spain by the arms of the Holy Alliance, under the pretence of putting down the military revolts of Piedmont, Naples and the Isle of Leon.

The principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states had been previously held sacred by the statesmen of every political party in England, from the general adjustment at the Congress of 1815 to 1827; and Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Canning, had separately and successively protested against every endeavour of the cabinet of St. Petersburgh to obtain the concurrence of Great Britain in its departure from this recognized axiom of international justice. On referring to the official documents of that period, we find Lord Castlereagh, in May 1820, impugning the doctrine of " charging any ostensible conference "with commission to deliberate on the affairs of another "country," and maintaining " that the alliance of England "with the continental states was never intended as an union "for the government of the world, or for the superintendence "of the internal affairs of other states. That it would be a breach of faith were the ministers of the Crown to ac66 quiesce in such a construction of it, or were to suffer them"selves to be betrayed into a course of measures inconsistent

"with the principles which they assumed at the time, and "which they had since maintained both at home and abroad." On the death of Lord Castlereagh and the accession of Mr. Canning to the administration of our foreign relations, the principle laid down by Lord Castlereagh was adhered to by his successor, and every effort of Russia, Austria, Prussia and France was forthwith directed to the overthrow of a minister whose power was founded on the preservation of England from the contaminating influences of foreign diplomacy.

Every successive refusal of Mr. Canning to unite with the four continental monarchies in their unhallowed interposition in the concerns of other countries, had conferred on England an accession of influence and respect, and millions of allies. Her isolation from the "Union of Crowns," in the affairs of Spain, gained her the affections of every community in Northern, Central and Southern America,-of every friend of civil and religious liberty throughout the world. Her refusal to be a party to the conferences of St. Petersburgh in 1825, when the Emperor Alexander had inveigled Austria, Prussia and France into a joint proposition to the Sultan, to admit of their armed interference to put down the insurrection of his revolted subjects in Greece, secured to England the affections of both the contending parties in the East, of the co-religionaries of the Emperor and of the followers of Islam; and every independent state revered in Great Britain the protectress of national independence, and the only impartial umpire to whom sovereigns or their injured subjects could appeal. It was only when the ascendency of England through the maintenance of a neutral position became profoundly felt and feared, that Russia, perceiving in its stability the withering of her power, offered to Mr. Canning the renunciation of the Holy Alliance on condition of a concert of action between England and herself in the affairs of the East, and contrived, by this master-stroke of diplomacy, to draw England within the meshes of that very alliance which Prince Lieven had made her first statesman believe he had scattered to the winds.

From the moment of the signature of the protocol of St. Petersburgh of April 4, 1826, establishing the union of England and Russia, the power of Great Britain ceased to be at