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Like them, with firm will hold the right alone;
Be wisdom, virtue, courtesy thine aim:
If fortune grant thee not a kingly throne,
Be kingly blood in every action shewn-

Thy love, to me, stands surety for thy fame.
O heaven! when thou art arm'd with lance and shield,
That I might follow to Loire's martial plain;
A faithful squire, to tend thee in the field,

And fondly guard thy knightly arms from stain!
That may not be. Then, love, bethink thee still
The ties that bind us own a sweeter name,
That through all time and place, through good and ill,
Though tender fears, the while, my bosom fill,
Thy love, to me, stands surety for thy fame.

ENVOY.

Dying, once more to meet thy dear caress,
I sit and languish in my loneliness-

Return, sweet friend, secure from doubt or blame ;
One kiss, which seems even now my lips to bless,
Shall say thy love is matchless as thy fame.

R.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE

DEBASEMENT OF NATIONAL SPIRIT IN ITALY.

WHEN we revert to the circumstances under which Italy has been moulded into its present mishapen form, we shall perhaps cease to wonder at the deformity which the national character of the Neapolitan has recently exhibited and we shall be led to conclude, that the attitude he lately assumed, originated rather in the desperate intrigues of a faction, than in that staid wisdom of genuine patriotism, which moves not without a deep calculation of the aids, resources, and alliances, whence its efforts shall derive the assurance of success in the end, and of support and renovation under temporary miscarriages. This impression will strike with the more force when we contemplate the divisions, which have so long enslaved and de-nationalized the posterity of the illustrious Roman. In tracing our way through the continuous chain of vicissitudes which marks. Italian story, we shall not fail to discover the sinister causes that have contributed to debase and extirpate all national consanguinity between the distracted states of Italy. In our search for these causes, we must commence our enquiries with a remote period of the Roman annals.

The maxim of transforming men in one day from enemies into fellow-citizens, has been attributed to the first of the kings of Rome, whose necessities early impressed upon her its strengthen

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ing efficacy, and prompted her to provide for the safety of her institutions by gradually interesting the whole extent of Italy in their preservation. The result of this policy was, that, in the course of time, every Italian became entitled to participate in the administration of her affairs; indeed, it put so complete an end to the various distinctions of Quirites, Latins, allies, provincials, colonies, and municipal towns, that, from the Varo to the Arsa, there was not found a single people which did not lay claim to the Roman name. "All now are Romans," says Strabo, in speaking of the Italians: and Pliny calls Italy "rerum domina," in the same way as Rome first termed herself" the only Rome." Montesquieu remarks, that this very system was one of the causes which hastened the decay of Roman power: yet I must differ, and continue to differ, from him on this point, until I am shown what other expedient would have counteracted the influence of the great, (whose gold drew over the people to their side, and would have rendered them a ready footstool to dominion and power,) than the course which enabled their adversaries to increase the numbers of the voters in each tribe, and to counterbalance the corruption and partiality prevalent among the venal citizens of Rome, by extending the numerical quantity of the votes this very effect was insisted upon by Cicero himself, in the presence of Sylla, the dictator. Had such a policy as this been pursued by the various states of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, one common interest would have united her whole extent, and rescued her from the ignominy of a foreign yoke!

In the time of the Roman ascendancy, however remote a corner of Italy might be the birth-place of a Roman citizen, it had no effect in producing any inequality of political rights;these he shared in common with the native of Rome herself; nor much less, could he be deemed (as prejudice at this moment dictates) a foreigner in his own country. The most exalted of all dignities, the consulship itself, was open to competition, even to the tenant of the remotest confine of Italy. In their origin, therefore, her people were brethren;--for I would date the origin of nations from that moment, when interest and honour unite men as accordant members of a single body politic, and varied links of one common system. It was monarchy which loosened these links the emperors having parcelled out the privilege of citizenship, with unsparing hand, to a number of provinces beyond the frontiers of Italy, her cities restricted themselves to their respective territories, and preserving within themselves a form of magistracy, modelled after that of Rome, they assumed the appellation of republics: here we find the title of " Respublica," characterizing the inscriptions of almost every city or

town. Though this circumstance may have escaped the antiquary's observation, yet numberless instances can be adduced in corroboration of its correctness.

These dismemberments facilitated the inroads of the barbarians by withering that national zeal, in which the surest bulwark of the public welfare had hitherto consisted. The descendants of the Scipios, the Brutus', the Cassius', the Pompeys, the Papirius', the Fabricius', were no longer in being; some had migrated to Constantinople, others had become extinct, whilst many had betaken themselves to the clerical ranks and monastic life and the only vestige of liberty which remained, was expiring in the empty pageant of a senate. Under the Goths, therefore, Italy can scarcely be said to have changed its political condition or circumstances. The wars which arose between the Greeks and Goths, the discomfiture of the latter, and the sudden incursion of the Lombards, gave birth to the division of Italy into two parts. Romagna, the present kingdom of Naples, and Istria, remained under Grecian sway; the rest of Italy fell to the portion of the Lombards. This partition did not otherwise affect the condition of the Italians, than by affording those, who owned subjection to the Greeks, a participation in the honours of the Imperial sceptre, which had been transferred to Constantinople. Undeniable evidence of this may be found in the records of Romagna, Naples, and Istria, which speak of the Tribunes, Spati or Consuls, and other offices conferred on the nobles of those provinces, at a time when the other regions of Italy were languishing in slavery under the tyrannical yoke of the Lombard dukes and sovereigns. The establishment of Charlemagne's empire, however, united the whole country once more under one harmonious system.

Such was the state of Italy during a lapse of eleven centuries; a period, in which its present people may at least discover that their ancestors constituted one entire nation, and that not one of them was an Italian, in a greater or less degree, than another.

From this period, a new era dawns on Italy. The remoteness of the seat of government, whose rulers were born under another sky; the weakness of most, and the ignorance of many of them; a spirit of intrigue and conquest, combined with that fickleness and treachery of faith, which is the characteristic of the purpled despot, whose weapon is force, and whose whole code of laws is the mere interpreter of his own caprice and selfishness;-these were circumstances which not only inspired the Italians with the desire, but supplied them with the means, of shaking off their lethargy, and kindling the dormant spirit of liberty. A general movement now impelled every city of its own accord to rid itself

of a yoke, which could adduce no inherent right, but force alone, for its origin, and had at last become an insupportable burthen. At this period, some of the Italian cities, prompted by a natural desire of rendering obedience to established laws, and not to the capricious will of others, erected themselves into republics; or, more properly speaking, returned to their former principles of government: whilst others, prompted by secular or ecclesiastical leaders, essayed the force of arms against a foreign yoke. In this way, some individuals acquired sufficient power to become the sovereigns and masters of their native cities: but other places were true to themselves, and maintained their rank as republics. Where debasement, effeminacy, and corruption predominated, there sovereign power rewarded individual ambition; but where the laws were respected, where moderation and harmony animated the public mind, where private interests were cheerfully offered up on the altar of the general good, there the republican form obtained the preponderance. Happy had it been for Italy, if this common struggle for independence had been directed to one common end-the general welfare of the whole nation! But unfortunately, the machinations which were set on foot both by the hierarchy and the Imperial government, instilled so deadly a poison into the minds of their opponents, that not only was city armed against city, but the citizen against his fellow burgher, and the parent against his own child. In this state of things, some places, which had acquired wealth and influence by their commerce and industry, took a base advantage of the weakness of their neighbours; nor did the peace of Constance produce any better result, than that of fomenting such divisions as imperceptibly prepared every city for its ruin, by the very means through which it had hoped to escape it.

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The annals of Italy may be divided into six various epochs. The first may be denominated the Epocha of the Lions,' and comprehends the period during which the Romans, who were fierce, and powerful, and generous, subjugated the whole thenknown world. The second may not inaptly be termed the Epocha of the Rabbits:' in this interval, the Italian, too feeble to resist the ferocity of his barbarian invader, sought shelter from the storm in his hiding-places. The third we might call the Epocha of the Wolves,' when he acquired such political vigour under the French and German sovereigns, as enabled him not only to defend himself, but to attack others, and maintain his own independence. The fourth is truly the Epocha of the Dogs; during this period, the shadow of a bone; and what worthier object prompted the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or the Bianchi, and the Neri ?-the acquisition of a plot of ground, or the mere impulse of caprice or vanity, were

stimulants sufficiently efficacious to instigate one party to seek the destruction of its rival, and to induce one city to carry its murderous arms against another. The fifth epocha may be called that Of the Foxes:' Italy, in this period, witnessed the establishment of its various governments and sovereignties ;--in this period too, she was marked out as an object worthy the ambitious views of Spain, as well as of France and Germany, and had recourse to a system of policy, which was pushed to the highest degree of refinement: hence her success in resisting, avoiding, and even rising superior to the powerful arms of her ultramontane invaders; hence the skill, by which she fomented a spirit of jealousy amongst the greater potentates, and kept the one at constant variance with the other; hence her good fortune in preserving her institutions and territory unimpaired amid the conflicts of the combatants, and the storms which followed in the train of their alternate overthrows. The sixth period brings us down to our own times; " nor can I refrain," says an eminent Italian writer," however it may redound to our disgrace, from designating it as the Epocha of the Apes.' All natural ties being dissolved between us; bending our necks beneath the political yoke of certain maxims of general humanity, which are seldom exemplified even in individual instances, we possess not courage enough either to think or support ourselves independently of others; in this condition, the Italians eat and dress as is the alternate will of the French or English t, and faithfully lending themselves to the extravagances and caprices of their cooks and tailors, they know not whether the fashion of the present day will be that of the morrow, nor whether the pittance, which pleases them at this hour, will not become improper and distasteful at the next. Our very language has caught the contagion of this apish disease."

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This brief outline of the vicissitudes of Italy, developes the origin of her existing debasement and distractions.

Oh! that she would awake to a sense of her true interests! and that her people would feel that they have but two countries! "Unam Natura," says her own Cicero, alteram Juris." Their natural country, being that which contains the individual's birthplace; their lawful country, that which constitutes them members of one vast empire, boasting a population of fifteen millions of souls. Why then should the descendants of the patriot Roman disdain to cherish the welfare of his common country? Why should he abstain from promoting its interests wherever

Giov. Rinald. Carli Rubi" sopra la Patria degli Italiani.”—Opere, tom. X.

+ This having been written more than twenty years since, we can only render the extract applicable by substituting, for French and English," Austrian and alien intriguers."

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