With respect to the gentlemen in view, we have no reason to doubt of their veracity: however, that circumstance alone will not compensate for dry accounts, and observations frequently true, but seldom striking. In copying the Greek inscriptions, they seem frequently to have mistaken the letters, unless this defect is to be attributed to an error of the press.

as far as might be, of any arts peculiar to the East, and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, "Of all men Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement." In this sally there was more of sarcasm than of truth. The ambition of Goldsmith to profit by what he could find new in the East, could scarcely be deemed very absurd, when a contemplated scheme by Johnson to see the same country with more limited purposes, was viewed with complacency by himself, and applause by his friends. “At the time when his pension was granted to him," observes Mr. Langton," he said, with noble literary ambition,- Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick as Pocock did.'" Of merely mechanical arts, Goldsmith's knowledge probably was not great, neither perhaps so contemptibly small as represented; for the term embraces a wide range of objects. Having long revolved the project, he was not likely to be wholly unprepared for what he knew and stated to be a laborious task, and diligent attendance upon the London Society devoted to such pursuits, implied at least a taste for, if not acquaintance with, some of the objects contemplated in the journey. It is more than probable that his design had reference chiefly to certain processes in the arts connected in some degree with chemistry, a science with which he possessed considerable acquaintance. Thus, in the paper quoted on the occasion of his memorial to Lord Bute, he expressly mentions the extraction of spirit from milk, an improved mode of dyeing scarlet, and the refining of lead into a purer and more valuable metal, as matters for inquiry; an explanation which removes from his project that air of absurdity cast upon it by Johnson. See LIFE, ch. x.]

VIII.-GUICCIARDINI'S HISTORY OF ITALY.

[From the Critical Review, 1759. "The History of Italy, written in Italian by Francesco Guicciardini, a nobleman of Florence. Translated into English by the Chevalier Austin Parke Goddard, Knight of the Military Order of St. Stephen. In 10 vols. 8vo."]

NOTHING can be more just than the character given of Guicciardini by Lipsius, "Inter nostros summus est historicus; inter veteres mediocris:" if compared to modern historians, he will be found superior; if with the ancients, he must be contented with a subordinate situation. It is indeed a little extraordinary why the ancients, particularly the Roman historians, should still remain the uncontested and unrivalled masters of historical excellence. Their experience was then much more confined than ours, since, to their wisdom we can add that of an intervening space of almost two thousand years. The politics of their princes was not so confined, as the law of nations was scarcely attended to; and war, which with us is little more than a treaty written in blood, was with them the removing of empires, and the enslaving of millions: still, however, with such limited experience, and in countries governed by such rude masters, Sallust and Tacitus wrote their histories, and left their successors models which they may endeavour to imitate; but if their future efforts be not attended with better success, cannot hope to rival.

That, since the revival of learning the Italians have excelled the rest of Europe in history, is a fact so well known, that it hardly deserves to be insisted upon. Barely to mention the names of Machiavelli, Davila, Nani, Muratori, and several others, will serve to silence opposition: the fact is

notorious; the reason of their peculiar excellence is not equally so.

Italy is divided into a number of petty states, whose mutual security lies in their mutual jealousy and distrusts. Here then politicians are formed, and states governed in miniature; here a man may, and often has, exerted all the stratagems of war at the head of two hundred men, and exhausted all the chicanery of politics in the government of a petty corporation. This was the soil for an historian; here, as in a map, he perceived the excellence and the inconveniences of every species of polity; could point out, with precision, the ineffective attempts of democracy, or the headlong efforts of mistaken monarchy; this was a field for historical speculation; even he that ran might, if he pleased, be a reader.

In this country Guicciardini was bred, and at the time when its petty states might properly be said to be fermenting into form. He had all the advantages that could conduce to a thorough knowledge, both of the facts he relates, and the personages who were concerned in conducting them. He was at once (what seldom happens to be united in the same person), a scholar, a soldier, and a politician; and employed by his country at different times in all those three capacities, with advantage to it, and with honour to himself. His narrative is manly and grave, and his facts are made, as in a well-written play, to rise from each other. His impartiality appears manifest: even his own country, to which he owed so many obligations, is treated with historical justice, and its enemies treated with so much candour, that the reader can hardly say whether the author was of Florence or Pisa.

These are a part of his excellences; but it must not be concealed what critics have objected against him on the other hand. He is taxed with being tedious and particular; that

he now and then indulges reflection, and retards the events which, in history, should be ever hastening towards the catastrophe. "As for that part of his history,' says Montaigne," which he seems to be most proud of, I mean his digressions and discourses, it must be owned, that some of them have peculiar merit, and are adorned with eloquence and nature; but still he seems in love with them: for, desirous of omitting nothing, and his subject supplying him with more than sufficient manner, he becomes feeble by delay, and his history at length savours of pedantic trifling." Dr. Donne, when talking of the Creation, as delivered by Moses, objects the same faults to our author: "If the history of the beginning of the world," says he, were written by so prolix an author as Guicciardini, not even the world itself would be able to contain the books written upon its own creation." Yet, notwithstanding the objections of so great men, his history can seem tedious to none but the indolent; and in this class, perhaps, we may rank the two great men now quoted, at least the former confesses himself to be so. There is, through the whole work, especially the first five books, a preparation of incidents, that, instead of being prolix, the reader can scarce lay down the book without an ardent desire of knowing what follows next; and the worst that can be said of his speeches is, that they are fine political harangues, improperly placed.

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There is an objection of another nature, which carries more weight, because it unfortunately happens to be true; namely, his representing all the actions of his personages as arising from bad motives. "E fu anche sempre inclinato," says a countryman of his, " à le peggiori, come apare nella sua spessa maledicenza di ciascheduno; la quale appresso alla vulgare malignità gli lià guadagnata estimazion di veridico." He was ever leaning to the worst side of a character, as appears by his giving nobody a good word,

merely to appear in the eyes of the vulgar as a speaker of truth. Even the most enthusiastic admirer of Gucciardini must allow that this observation is just, since, in the representation of so many characters, he scarce describes one whose conscience is his motive to action. The persons who figure in his drama are almost all knaves or fools, politic betrayers, or blustering idiots. In short, the history before us may be styled a truly misanthropical performance. To a person inclined to hate the species, what ample matter will it not afford, both for ridicule and for reproach!

We see the history open with the account of a monarch immersed in pleasures, surrounded with flatterers, not only ignorant of the polite arts, but hardly acquainted with the figures of the letters, incapable of discovering merit, or what is as bad, incapable of directing it to its proper sphere. We see such a monarch-for so he represents Charles the Eighth of France-resolved to play the conqueror, and plunder kingdoms. Observe how pointed the ridicule is: imagine this man, with a body with a body as deformed as his intellects were contemptible, of a very short stature, bandy-legged, of a puny constitution and detestable visage, equipped like a hero, clothed in complete steel, mounted upon a mettlesome courser, marching into every town at the head of his army, looking fiercely, with his lance on his thigh, and calling upon the obsequious crowd for homage. To make the picture still more poignant, imagine such a figure in love, and acting the gallant! who can forbear smiling at an account like this, unless his mouth be repressed by considering, that the affairs of his fellow-creatures were subjected to the caprice of such a diminutive idiot?

On the other hand, the Italians, whom he came to conquer, are drawn in circumstances even of greater debasement they meet this army of France without head or conductor, with neither vigour, prudence, nor unanimity;