ence. History scarcely deigns to notice her after her peace of 1718 with the Turks, although in her naval combats with them, of the year preceding, she vindicated her ancient renown.-Laugier's History of Venice terminates at 1750. Sismondi speaking of her as she was at the close of the fifteenth, calls her "le plus puissant et le plus sage, des Etats Italiens:-elle seule gardoit contre l'empire ottoman l'Italie et tout l'occident," &c. (Historie des Repub: It: Vol. 13.) And Lord Byron— "In youth she was all glory;-a new Tyre,— The Planter of the Lion,' which through fire How proudly she bore the trident, and challenged the fears and the admiration of Europe before the sixteenth century! With what a grand array of resources and resolution she withstood the famous league of that century, and, notwithstanding all her disasters, re-appeared in the seventeenth to assert alone Italian independence! Her war of twenty-five years, begun in 1634, with the Sublime Porte, then the terror of Christendom, though unfortunate, is highly glorious. The second, of fifteen years, with the same enemy begun in 1684,-in which she retrieved her losses-is of a most brilliant and imposing character. By the degenerate policy into which she afterwards fell, of submitting to every wrong and outrage rather than resort to the sword, she had nearly forfeited all title to commiseration when Bonaparte "liberated" her in 1794, to throw her into the mass of equivalents at the treaty of Campo Formio. The extended husbandry and the peculiar agriculture of Tuscany and of Lombardy-the ingenuity, beauty, and productiveness of which, are so much and so justly celebrated, may be traced to their peasantry of the repub lican era. Stimulated into life and energy by the action of free institutions, this race of men was distinguished for intelligence and the spirit of improvement, while all of the same class throughout the rest of Europe, presented, in the thraldom of villanage, a totally opposite character. They substituted the rotation of crops to the old system of fallows; revived the practices of irrigation and terracing, and set generally the example of that persevering industry and picturesque neatness in tillage which are now displayed by their descendants, and not excelled in the best cultivated countries. We may pass from the agriculture of Tuscany and Lombardy, to everything that is majestic and beautiful, there and in Romagna, and will still find that all belongs to the age of Liberty. The nearly unbroken series of magnificent cities, churches, palaces, and villas, from Novara to Terracina-the master-pieces of art with which they are filled —the noblest productions in the various departments of literature-the statesmen and warriors, who make part of the "long array of mighty shadows," in Italian story, are of the era of Italian independence, which finished with the capture of Florence by the generals of Charles V., in 1530. "The truth is," says Eustace, "that the tide of prosperity which has left so many traces behind, not only in Florence, Pisa, and Sienna, but in almost every town in the northern parts of Italy, such as Mantua, Cremona, Vicentia and Verona, was the effect of republican industry, and most of the stately edifices which still adorn these cities, whether public or private, sacred or profane, were raised by republican taste and magnificence." Forsyth refers to the republican times of Lombardy, not indeed in so solemn a strain as Eustace, but with a view to the same striking lesson. 66 Though confined within narrow territories, and separated by the domains of barons who held them at defiance, the principal Lombard Republics, those ambitious apes of Athens and Lacedæmon, found means to flourish in the midst of continual hostility, and filled the annals of two centuries with their impertinent battles." These facts, taken in connexion with the history and condition of Italy since the sixteenth century, are to be deemed an important accession to the mass of inductive. proof in favour of popular government as the most fruitful source of natural prosperity. We, as American citizens, may contemplate such results with a double confidence in the future, since our institutions, besides combining all the beneficial principles and tendencies of the republican systems of Italy, provide the safeguards for civil liberty which they wanted. The Italians were protected in their persons, property, honour and opinions, by no direct guarantees, no formal legislation-they were secure in these points only so far as such security was incidental to their fundamental maxim of the sovereignty of the people, and to the eligibility of numbers to the supreme power. Their political magistrates were elected by the citizens at short intervals, and responsible to them at the expiration of the prescribed term of authority: but this authority had no precise limitations; the freedom of the press and of public debate, and all regular representation were equally foreign to their ideas and practice. Hence the domestic oppression and disorders which proved fatal to their liberty and national independence. We are inclined to yield assent to the opinion of Eustace that these Italian Republics of the Middle Ages may sustain, in nearly all respects, an advantageous comparison with the states of Greece; and that the history of the former is quite as eventful and instructive. Florence has annals so brilliant; exhibits relics of her meridian, so imposing; can unfold such a list of titles to the gratitude and admiration of the world; is seen at the commencement of the sixteenth century in such a blaze of geniuswith such a galaxy of magnanimous patriots, profound philosophers, and elegant scholars, that in surveying her under all aspects, we are as much dazzled, as by the glories of Athens. The commonwealth in which the greatest number of citizens may hope to get into the administration of affairs, will ever be the most active and intelligent, and, on the whole, the most ably administered. Florence exemplified this truth. Her councils were renewed by lot every two months, from a list consisting entirely of merchants and tradesmen-of the eighty thousand inhabitants whom she numbered in the days of her freedom, two or three thousand were thus called in quick succession to the first offices of state. Notwithstanding the rapidity of the rotation, and the description of the incumbents, "they conducted affairs," says Sismondi, "with such wisdom, dignity, and firmness as to secure their republic a rank among the powers of Europe, out of all proportion to her share of population, and wealth; they gave lessons of prudence and justice to the cabinets of kings and the senates of aristocracies." Might not this example teach the folly of that contempt which is too commonly entertained or affected in Europe, for the government of this country, on the ground of its being composed of bourgeois? BREACH OF PROMISE OF MARRIAGE. The SEVERAL cases of the kind have lately been detailed in the daily prints; striking examples of what may be the consequence of light courtship, without positive evidence of a formal promise of marriage. Instances are far more numerous than any public records would indicate. love of money, and the passion for a snug establishment, prevail in this country, even from an early age, perhaps more generally than in any other. They are often suffered to stifle the tender affections, after these have been indulged in a long reciprocation of virtuous fondness between young persons of equal condition and congenial temper. Parties are affianced; marriage appears assured; the female considers her destinies as fixed; her friends and acquaintance equally believe her lot to be definitively cast-on a sudden the husband-elect grows cool, estranges himself, and ere long breaks off his engagement. He has discovered, or his relatives have found for him, a more lucrative match; and sordid calculation overbalances all considerations of plighted faith, reciprocal regard, and public decorum. The confident bride is left to the cruel struggle between outraged pride and despairing love-to the anguish of the keenest of disappointments-to the exultation of rivals, and to the still more distressing pity of friends. In the bustle of business, in the pursuit of the usual objects of our ambition and desire, men may soon be relieved from the corrosion of blasted expectations and trampled attachments: but the other sex have not this chance of escape-almost everything in their subsequent life, for a considerable period at least, tends to probe and exasperate the wound of their stricken feelings: they have not even the resource of complaint:-dignity and the |