what labour! Oh! Charles, whose device was so modest, how ill they honour thee! True, I read Humilitas' written every where on that drapery; but that drapery is all of purple worked with gold! Thy body, embalmed, reposes on a cushion of velvet, in a robe of gold, in a cage of the finest, of the most wonderful rock-crystal, attached to brilliant walls of the purest metal! Over thy mitred head hangs a crown worth alone the principality of Monaco, the republic of San Marino, and, perhaps, one or two of the ancient margravates whose sovereigns were so proud. See there a cross of emeralds, which excel in beauty and size those with which the poetic imagination of eastern storytellers embroider the robe of the calif beloved by fortune; a brilliant cross which the bankers of Europe would accept as a pledge for a loan for the benefit of a dethroned monarch, and which a royal hand deposited in thy sepulchre, dazzling as thy glory before God. The crozier which they have placed in thy left arm, would be sufficient for the endowment of an hospital for orphans: the altar on which thou reposest is of silver; the roof of thy little temple is of silver; the bas-reliefs which represent the incidents of thy life, sanctified by great works of an enlightened faith and of a never-failing charity, are in silver. There is over thee, under thee, about thee, the value of five or six millions of money, which gleams to my eyes by a magical effect of reflected light: and on the walls they have written Humilitas!

"At Milan and in the whole country, they speak with the greatest love and the most profound respect of Saint Charles and the Borromei, who were near having a second saint in their family; I allude to the Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, who missed his canonization because it costs dear to enter paradise by permission of the papal chancellery. It cost the Borromei too much for Saint Charles; they dared not undertake the same business for Saint Frederick." -vol. ii. p. 5-10.

Milan is celebrated, among many other things, for its Fantocchini.

6

"I was weary, and had need of rest for my eyes and head in the evening, I had recourse to a childish diversion, I went to see the fantocchini. The puppets of Milan are as celebrated as the Cathedral, the shrine of Saint Charles, the Supper' of Leonardo da Vinci, the gates of Saint Ambrose, and the arch of the Simplon-which I did not see, and I do not know why, but I have not the least regret ;—the burattini of Genoa, and all those with which we had been regaled at Paris, were truly quite another thing. The dolls of Girolamo perform the drama quite as well as our actors of the theatre of Saint Martin; they dance exquisitely. The piece which they declaimed this evening was a grand romantic drama, intitled, Prince Eugene of Savoy at the Siege of Temisvar. An amorous intrigue proceeds from catastrophe to catastrophe, and, divided into six acts-six acts, you understand, and not five, like the imperfect dramas of Moliere, of Corneille, and of Racine-gives all the interest to the action of the piece, in the midst of which Girolamo, the great buffoon, the famous Girolamo, moves, kicks about, and jokes in the costume of a corporal, half-killing the good people of Milan with laughter at his rough brogue. A ballet played between the acts astonished me most, although the eloquent speeches of Prince Eugene had tolerably surprised me. The dancing of these wooden Perrots and Taglionis is truly inconceivable; there is not one of these puppets whose talents would not excite emulation in many of the dancers of Naples, of London, or of Paris, who obtain lucrative engagements. Horizontal dance, side dance, vertical dance, all the dances possible, all the fioriture of feet and legs which you admire at the Opera, you will find also at the theatre Fiando; and when the doll has finished her dance, when she has been well applauded, when the st-st-st is heard in the pit, the slight whistle of admiration which precedes the enthusiastic cry of fori! fori! that recalls the artiste;

she comes from behind the scene, makes her bow with an air, places her little hand on her heart, and does not retire until she has completely parodied the great singers and the proud dancers of the Scala. If she is called again, she complaisantly returns. If she is not called again, she is more philosophical than Mademoiselle Malibran; she sheds none of those tears of pettishness which they say the illustrious artiste always sheds when she is not obliged, after a representation, to come forward again more than three or four times." -P. 43.

Before leaving Milan we cannot pass over the following account of the present aspect of its society and of the state of public feeling, which appears to us so just and so natural.

"It was never intended to be a part of my plan to see society; too many objects lead to too much loss of time, and my hours were, as I may say, numbered. Before one is really admitted, several days are necessary; the warmth of a first reception is no rule for the future; invitations do not come on one's first arrival, so that it requires a long residence in a town before we can form an idea of its society. I shall therefore have nothing to say about the domestic character of the Italians; all I know of it is from the account which was given me by Italians themselves, when their kindness was not scared by my curiosity. At Milan everybody's house is closed against the world; there is no visiting but within the range of the nearest intimacy; the Milanese fear to open their houses to others, lest they should no longer enjoy liberty at home; the Austrian occupation would extend itself from the city, where it has the character of mistrust which distinguishes every occupation by an enemy, to the parlours, where it would be more uneasy and not less tyrannical; there would be a German officer in every house, at the corner of the fire, as there is at the corner of each street a sentinel in a yellow and black sentry-box, so soon as the couvre-feu is rung. The effusions of friendship, political speculations, words of hope for a better future, the regrets of a patriotism always curbed, would not be more easy in the private circle, than in the public places, gossipings, or assemblies of people. They would have Austrian arguments in all liberal conversations as they have cannon in the public places; they would have spies, and that which is as fearful to a Milanese, witty and sprightly as he always is, they would have dull companions. Thus no one, opens his door, for fear that it should give passage to an Austrian; they abstain from social intercourse, in the apprehension that a German should immediately interpose himself between two friends, and between their thoughts. They see one another, and make their salutations to each other, on the public promenade; they converse together in the boxes at the theatre. Thus the Milanese seldom amuse themselves; it is true they oblige the Austrians to abstain altogether from amusement, and in this manner they take vengeance for the presence of their guards.

"I have often heard say in France, particularly since the revolution of July, that the Italians regret and desire the French; this has been imagined merely by our vanity. The Italians render justice to the passage of the French imperial administration over their provinces; they are grateful for the ameliorations which it introduced among them, but this is all; they are no more desirous of French at Milan, at Venice, and at Verona, than they are of Austrians. Perhaps they would disagree less with us than with the Germans, because the antipathies are less profound and the affinities of ideas more numerous, but they would not be our friends. The Germans are heavy rulers; we are insolent conquerors; we will make everything French where we place our foot, whether it be at Algiers or at Rome. The Austrians suffer the people to remain Italians beside them. They know that very well, at Milan; and thus if they desire the French there,

it is not to have them as military guests for twenty years; they would be glad if they would come and effect a constitutional revolution, if they would, defend and consolidate it, and then, as speedily as possible, quit the Italian territory. This, you may be assured, is the manner in which Italy Loves France, the manner in which she wishes for the French. Let us then, be less proud of the sympathies of people of whom we talk so much! People see in us good revolutionary instruments; we must go and deliver them, and make war for them; but always on condition that we pay the expenses: we are no doubt an excellent people, a chivalrous people, not at all selfish, loving liberty and running willingly after adventures; but it must be agreed, at the same time, that we are the people most used by others. We ruin ourselves by this noble Don-Quixotism, to which we have so well accustomed nations who suf fer and want the energy and unity with which revolutions are effected in three days, that I have heard the Italians say with all coolness, that after 1830, France failed in her duty in not conquering liberty for Poland, and Italy! As if we went to seek our neighbour to arrange our affairs! Let us then go and drive the Austrian from Lombardy and the Venetian States; let us go and oblige the Prince of Modena to be humane; let us go and deliver Genos from Sardinia, and the Marches from the yoke of the Church, and for our labour we shall not have a single thank you !' from the native of Ancona, from the Genoese, from the Modenese, from the Venetian, or from the Lom bard; we shall pay the costs of our interventions, and if, by chance, to repay ourselves, we take some little province, if, for example, we rejoin Nice to the old district of Provence, they will cry, Look to the conqueror! stop thief!', The trade of political gendarme, carrying the Ho there! wherever there is a quarrel between sovereign and people or between people and sovereign, appears to me a trade of sentimental dupes.It has been our trade quite long enough, I think."—vol. ii. p. 48-53.ño jibbc lroy & er dood aid :noit

Our space tells us that we must close our extracts from this really interesting book-though we had marked out for insertion some dozen more, out of which we have some difficulty in selecting one for our last. Venice by moonlight is a grand picture, but we pass it over to give a not less feeling picture of Venice by day-light.

"I traversed the canals for some time, to see by day that Venice which had so struck me by moonlight. My disappointment was great, I assure you; I felt an oppression of the heart like that with which one is seized at the view of a lofty fortune overthrown; the ruins of power are an afflicting sight. Venice is a queen who has lost her crown, a queen who weeps at the point of death. Her last days are sad; she has still beauties, but degraded beauties; we see that she was powerful, strong, magnificent; that her noble lovers had covered her with gold and with lace; but her lace is torn, and Sansovino and Titian, Minio and the Lombardi, no longer live to give her their fantastic embroideries, their elegant designs; but the gold has disappeared from her diadems, and her treasure can no longer give them the pomp of former days: but she is poor, weak, exhausted; and this faintness and this wretchedness who is there that can cure it? Alas! all those palaces which totter, all that marble which is crumbling to dust, all the remains of that ancient pomp which the East yielded to Italian Venice, all those cupolas on which lead appears where once glittered crowns of sequins, form a very deplorable spectacle! Rags hung at the balcony of Carlo Zeno or of Morosini, a truckle-bed under the cieling where Byron came to renew the orgies of another epoch, fortuneless and suffering families in the houses inhabited formerly by luxury and fortune! Think you not that this is something lamentable and disenchanting? And yet these comparisons of a present full of misery with a past full of grandeur, are not

without a melancholy charm which casts a very peculiar tint over this most original city. I have looked much at Venice, I have seen her under all shades of light, and I am confirmed in the thought which I always entertained, that Canaletto is the only one who has represented well the aspect and the tone of the waters, the sky, and the buildings of Venice. Almost all painters exaggerate them; they invent a colour to represent the quay of the Sclavonians, the palace of the Doges, or the great canal; they overstrain red, blue, yellow, orange, and violet. Antonio Canaletto on the contrary is simple, true; he appears a little grey to us Parisians, who only know the Venice of the romances and spirited paintings of Bonington; but he is natural, excellent. He is a faithful and scrupulous portraitist, and as poetical as he ought to be. M. Joyant, a young French artist, who lives at Venice, appears to have a real talent for painting this fallen majesty; his first attempts, which I reproach only with a little heaviness in the touch, are already very good. Another painter, who has fallen into the sin of exaggeration, M. Delacour, is seriously studying Venice, and will certainly take from it the mantle of purple with which he has dressed it in his first painting. He will understand that to go further than Canaletto is a falsehood, and that if he is permitted still to throw a few gems on the brow of the ancient mistress of the Adriatic, these last reflections of her glory ought to be handled with discretion. The sun on the bricks of the ducal palace is no longer red at the present day as it was three centuries ago; nature seems to take a part in the mourning of the city this is what now we cannot help observing."vol. ii. p. 140.

We must leave M, Jal, much against our inclination; for we would willingly have given his anecdotes of Don Miguel at Genoa, and many others. We leave him however with feelings of much satisfaction: his book is a real addition to our works on Italy. The descriptions of Toulon, with its convicts, of Genoa, with the remains of its republic, of Venice, with its sea and its gondolas and its palaces, are the best things of the kind which we have seen,

03 1970 31 2 9 tud ortoq ftem &

MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY NOTICES.

No. XXXIV.

DENMARK.

THE Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, founded for promoting the publication of ancient Northern, and more especially Icelandic monuments, and for the elucidation of northern antiquities, have commenced an undertaking which can scarcely fail to find numerous supporters in this country. It will be entitled Antiquitates Britannica et Hibernica, and consist of a collection of accounts elucidating the earlier history of Great Britain and Ireland, extracted from ancient Icelandic and Scandinavian manuscripts, and other historical sources; with a Latin translation, geographical and archæological notes, fac-similes, and maps. Among the contents of this work, which will extend to three or four royal 4to. vols., it is intended to include: Jatvardar Saga-a history of King Edward the Confessor; the Sugas of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Dunstan, Thomas, and Anselm; Orkneyinga Saga, history of the Orkney and Shetland islands, and partly of Scotland, from A. D. 865 to 1231; Snorre Sturlese's celebrated Heimskringla; those portions of the Landnama Bok, a history of the earliest colonists of Iceland, as relate to natives of Britain extracts from many other Sagas and Annals of the Kings of Norway and Denmark; also of Icelandic Warriors, Scalds, and other distinguished men, who, during the middle ages, were connected with the British islands. The impression will be restricted to 360 copies, and the work will be published by subscription.

The same Society is engaged in preparing, on a similar plan, a work relative to America, by the title of Antiquitates Americana, or a Collection of the Accounts extant in ancient Icelandic and other Scandinavian Manuscripts relative to Voyages made to North America by the Scandinavians, in the tenth and following centuries, with the Latin and Danish versions, notes, maps, and plates. This work, which has been in progress for several years, and will leave the press before the end of the present summer, will consist of one volume royal 4to. which will also be published by subscription. In the prospectus of this work it is remarked," What serves in no small degree to enhance the value of the ancient writings, is the great apparent probability, amounting indeed almost to a certainty, that it was a knowledge of these facts that prompted the memorable expedition of Columbus himself, which terminated in his discovery of the New World-for it is a well authenticated fact, that the great navigator visited Iceland in the year 1477, on which occasion he could scarcely fail to obtain some information from its inhabitants, particularly its clerical functionaries, with whom, according to the custom of the times, he probably conversed in Latin, respecting the voyages of their ancestors to those regions."

For some account of these carly Icelandic discoveries by Swedish literati, sec For. Qu. Rev. vol. xiii. p. 318, et seq.