extensive, perhaps, in Italy, as it contains, at least, eight hundred and fifty parishes, became a model of decency, order, and regularity....... Many of his excellent institutions still remain, and among others that of Sunday schools.'

Few of our readers are probably aware that these admirable establishments are borrowed from a Roman Catholic bishop, and what is more from a saint.

'His immense charities exceeded the magnificence of sovereigns. In every city, in which he at any time resided, he left some monuments of useful munificence; a school, a fountain, an hospital, or a college..... He bestowed annually the sum of thirty thousand crowns on the poor...... The funds which supplied these boundless charities were derived partly from his own estates, and partly from his archiepiscopal revenue. The former, as he had no expensive tastes to indulge, was devoted entirely to beneficence; the latter he divided into three parts, one of which was appropriated to the building and reparation of churches, the second was allotted to the poor, and the third employed in his domestic expenditure.'-pp. 347-351.

We are sorry to see Mr. Eustace so much influenced by prejudice, as decidedly to declare that the academy of Turin was in every respect preferable, for the purposes of education, to Geneva, 'where the British youth of rank were often sent to learn French and scepticism from the disciples of Rousseau, and familiarity, insolence, and sickly sentimentality from the vulgar circles of its citizens. p. 405. The only excuse that can palliate an accusation so destitute of foundation, is to suppose that Mr. Eustace has taken up his opinion from the report of some bigoted friar, and that he never had an opportunity of personally judging how little that amiable and enlightened people resemble the portrait which he has inadvertently drawn. No city in Europe, of equal extent, possessed so much information as Geneva, and in none was know.

so generally diffused. The celebrity of Bonnet and De Saussure, of Mallet and Pictet, is not circumscribed, like that of the Neapolitan literati, to the walls of their native city, but has spread to every country where letters are cultivated, and talents esteemed, Neither do we know any town, where, previously to the French Revolution, a young Englishman, if properly recommended, was likely to meet with better society and more rational conversation, or where he would have been less exposed to the seductions of pleasure.

The work concludes with a Dissertation and Appendix, comprising together about two hundred pages, and containing much interesting matter. We could wish, however, that, in his remarks upon the language, literature, and character, of the Italians, Mr. Eustace had treated those important subjects with greater impar

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tiality;

tiality; because he frequently displays the zeal of an advocate, when he ought to have shewn the candor of a judge. Indeed so extravagant is his admiration of the Italian language, and his hatred of the French, that not satisfied with rendering the former the common medium of communication between nation and nation, he wishes, with something like the ferocity of Omar, to interdict the study of Pascal and Fenelon, of Corneille and Molière, because they wrote in a dialect, which has too often been used as a vehicle for scepticism and disaffection.

We might pardon an Italian for preferring the harmonious tameness of Tasso to the majestic sublimity of Milton, but are rather surprised to see from the pen of an Englishman, that the former, in the estimation of all candid critics, has an undoubted right to sit next in honour, and in fame, to his countryman Virgil.'-p. 481, We rather suspect that Mr. Eustace has formed his opinion of the merits of the Italian authors from the exaggerated praises of Abate Andres. For our parts, we willingly rest in the decision of Johnson, if the Paradise Lost be not the greatest of epic poems, it is only because it was not the first.'

Mr. Eustace appears to think theological composition the only branch of literature in which the French have excelled. Now without stopping to remark that this is a most singular pre-eminence for a nation of atheists, as he delights to term them, we must express our astonishment that he should have forgotten the variety and merit of their memoirs, as well as the excellence of their comic writers; for we can hardly imagine that he seriously intends to place the vulgar buffoonery of Goldoni upon a level with the wit and discriminating genius of Molière.

The reader may possibly experience some little difficulty in dis covering the resemblance of the following portrait, at which we believe the vainest Italian would startle.

'What then is the real character of the modern Italians? It will not, methinks, be difficult to ascertain it, when we consider the part that the modern Italians have acted in story, and compare it with the part which their ancestors performed. The latter were a bold and free people. Their love of liberty shewed itself in the various commonwealths that rose in every part of Ausonia, and at length it settled and blazed for ages in the Roman republic. The former have given the same proofs of the same spirit. They have covered the face of the same country with free states, and at length beheld with a mixture of joy and jealousy, the grand republic of Venice, the daughter, and almost rival of Rome, stand forward the bulwark, and glory of Italy. The ancient Romans by their arms, founded the most flourishing, the most extensive, and the most splendid empire, that ages ever witnessed in their fight. The modern Italians, by their wisdom, have acquired a more permanent, and, perhaps, more glorious dominion over the

opinions

opinions of mankind, and still govern the world by their religion, their taste, by their arts and their sciences.' (This we confess is to us an unexpected discovery, and somewhat miraculous for a people to effect, 'the treasures of whose literature are unknown.') To the ancient Italians we owe the plainest, the noblest, and most majestic language ever spoken; to the moderns, we are indebted for the softest and sweetest dialect, which human lips ever uttered. The ancient Romans raised: the Pantheon, the modern erected the Vatican. The former boast of the age of Augustus, the latter glory in that of Leo.-The former have given us a Virgil, the latter a Tasso.-In which of these respects are the modern Italians unworthy of their ancestors? We could almost anWhat follows is yet more extravagant, but we must hasten to a conclusion.

swer, IN ALL.

The Appendix abounds with judicious remarks, many of which we do not recollect to have met with before, respecting the nature of the papal government, the political functions and domestic habits of the sovereign pontiff, together with the duties and privileges of the cardinals.

It is hardly possible for any one to peruse this part of the work, without commiserating the condition of the unfortunate personage, who purchases greatness by the sacrifice of every thing that can alleviate the infirmities of age, or solace the ennui of retirement. In the silence and seclusion of a Carthusian convent, the monks enjoyed at least the comfort of a solitary walk; amid woods and mountains they were permitted to contemplate the beauties of nature, and to admire the bounty of Providence; but even this is. a happiness from which the man, who presumptuously styles himself the vicegerent of heaven, is precluded by the forms of etiquette. Around his person is drawn a magic circle, which he is not permitted to pass. These surely are conditions upon which one might imagine that ambition itself would hesitate to purchase even unbounded authority.

The account given of the forms observed during a conclave, and of the ceremonies practised at the inauguration of a pope, are curious and interesting. We believe the character drawn of the reigning pontiff to be perfectly correct. His virtues were calculated for a less turbulent era.

Mr. Eustace concludes with enumerating the many benefits said to have been conferred upon the world by the successors of St. Peter.

From this period (the ninth century) the Roman pontiffs assumed the character of the apostles and legislators, the umpires and judges, the fathers and instructors of Europe; and at the same time acted the most brilliant part, and rendered some of the most essential services to mankind on record in human history. Had their conduct invariably corresponded with the sanctity of their profession, and had their views

always

always been as pure and disinterested as their duty required, they must have been divested of all the weaknesses of human nature, and have arrived at a degree of perfection, which does not seem to be attainable in this state of existence. But notwithstanding the interruptions occasioned from time to time by the ambition and profligacy of some worthless popes; the grand work was pursued with spirit; the barbarian tribes were converted; Europe was again civilized, preserved first from anarchy, and then from Turkish invasion, and finally raised to that degree of refinement, which places it at present above the most renowned nations of antiquity. Thus, while the evils occasioned by the vices of the pontiffs were incidental and temporary, the influence of their virtues was constant, and the services which they rendered were permanent, and may probably last as long as the species itself...... To them we owe the revival of arts, of architecture, of painting, and of sculpture, and the preservation and restoration of the literature of Greece and Rome. One raised the dome of the Vatican; another gave his name to the calendar, which he reformed; a third rivalled Augustus, and may glory in the second classic era, the era of Leo. These services will be long felt and remembered, while the wars of Julius II, and the cruelties of Alexander VI, will ere long be consigned to oblivion. In fact, many of my readers may be inclined, with a late eloquent writer, (Châteaubriand,) to discover something sublime in the establishment of a common father in the very centre of Christendom, within the precincts of the Eternal City, once the seat of empire, now the metropolis of christianity; to annex to that venerable name sovereignty and princely power, and to entrust him with the high commis sion of advising and rebuking monarchs; of repressing the ardour and intemperance of rival nations; of raising the pacific crosier between the swords of warring sovereigns, and checking alike the fury of the barbarian, and the vengeance of the despot.'—pp. 648-650.

This is, indeed, a magnificent idea! but, unfortunately, it is about as difficult to realise as the visions of Plato, or of Sir Thomas More.

ART. XII. Mithridates, oder Allgemeine Sprachenkunde. Mithridates, or a General History of Languages, with the Lord's Prayer as a Specimen, in nearly five hundred Languages and Dialects. By J. C. Ádelung, Aulic Counsellor and Professor at Dresden. 8. Berlin; Vol. I. 1806; Vol. II. continued by Professor Vater, 1809; Vol. III. Part I. 1812. Pp. 1867. N a universal and philosophical history of languages, the critical scholar, the metaphysician, and the historian, are equally interested. The difficulty and magnitude of the undertaking has not discouraged a variety of learned men from attempting an approximation to its execution; but the present work is, perhaps, the first that can be denominated any thing more than an

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approximation

and

and even this requires to be studied with all the indulgence, to which so arduous and so important a task is justly entitled. Much indeed have the authors been indebted to a compilation but little known in this country, the Idea dell' Universo of Lorenzo Hervas, a Gallician Ex-jesuit, printed at Cesenna from 1778 to 1787, in twenty-one quarto volumes, the last five of which particularly relate to languages and their dialects: but it appears to be more in the preliminary and mechanical labour of accumulation, than in the ulterior and more intellectual departments of comparison and arrangement, that this work has rendered them material assistance.

The first general treatise on languages, which is now extant, bears the same title with that of Professor Adelung, the Mithridates, de Differentiis Linguarum, of Conrad Gesner. 8. Zurich, 1555. It contains twenty-two translations only of the Lord's Prayer as specimens: but nothing which bears the name of so industrious an author as Gesner can be wholly contemptible. In 1592, Megiser printed at Frankfort a Specimen 40 Linguarum: Duret soon afterwards published at Cologne his Thrésor de l'Histoire des Langues, of which it is enough to say, that it extends to those of animals and of angels. A great addition to the diversity of specimens was made by Müller, who published at Berlin, in 1680, under the name of Lüdeken, a collection of eighty, with their appropriate characters, and to these, thirteen were added in an Auctarium: the Alphabeta appeared after his death, which happened in 1694; and the specimens were afterwards copied by various printers in Germany and in London. The next original work was that of Chamberlayne, assisted by Wilkins, whose Oratio Dominica is exhibited in 152 different forms, mostly engraved in their proper characters: it was printed at Amsterdam in 1715. Some additions were made to Chamberlayne's materials in the Orientalischer und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister, edited by Schultz at Leipzig in 1748, containing also a hundred different alphabets. It was principally from this work that Bergmann copied his collection, published in 1789 at Ruien in Livonia. Fry, in his Pantographia, has neither employed the Sprachmeister nor Hervas. Marcel's specimens of 150 languages, printed at Paris, 1805, in compliment to Pope Pius the Seventh, are principally copied from Chamberlayne, with a very few original additions.

The Glossarium Comparativum, published at Petersburg in 1787, by order of the Empress Catherine, in two volumes quarto, affords us a very extensive collection of European and Asiatic words; the African and American languages were added in a second edition, which was printed in 1790, but which is very little known, and has indeed, in great measure, been suppressed. With respect to the literature of languages, the catalogue of dictionaries

and