nually it roams over the finest villas without the walls and ravages large districts of the town within; and neither the magnificence of the villa Borghese, nor the luxuriant beauty and towering pines of Doria Pamfili, can resist the assaults of this silent and deadly foe. Time seems to hold its mantle over the queen of cities, and to prepare by a fate as extraor dinary as its former history, to blot it out from the admiration of mortals. Encompassed already by the awful stillness of a desolate waste, once filled up with sixty towns, which the antiquarian in vain attempts to trace, perhaps her own site may be hereafter unknown; and some future traveller may boast with enthusiasm of having once again penetrated its deserted streets, of having visited the spot ennobled by the heroic virtue of Junius Brutus, or the eloquence and wisdom of Cato the censor. But we must leave a subject, on which we could dwell still longer with delight, and conclude our notice of a book, of which we would hope our readers have received a favourable impression. The subject of the work is not only important in itself, but most interesting to us. Italy is es-sentially an agricultural country; she is neither a manufac turing nor a commercial state. It is by her agriculture, that she supports more than 17,000,000 of inhabitants, or about 1237 to a square league; a population far superior to that of France or England. It is her agriculture which laid the foundations of those splendid cities which crowd her plains ; it is her agriculture, which, should it ever be protected by an enlightened government, will again yield nourishment to the principles of liberty, and raise her to a level with the most respectable nations of Europe. M. de Chateauvieux has deveted himself to the illustration of this noble subject, and we are confident that his work will not only afford many valuable hints to the practical farmer, but some lessons to our statesmen, in any future attempts which may be made, to el-' evate manufactures at the expense of the most dear and invaluable interests in our country.

IT is not easy to conceive a more delicate employment. than that of tracing the distinctions of national character. Besides the usual difficulty and ambiguity of all discussions of a moral nature, it involves obstacles peculiar to itself, and which increase of course in proportion to the importance of the individual subject of inquiry. We have all the varieties of national and local prejudice, all the influence of different policy, habits, and language to overcome, before we can pretend to consider ourselves as prepared to judge with accuracy of the phenomena, which are constantly presented to us in the course of public events. How much more difficult is it then, to attempt not only to follow with tolerable success the course of foreign policy, and to enter however imperfectly into the public sentiment abroad, but to study the grounds of such policy and the nature of such views as existing in the character of nations. A still more difficult and uncertain kind of speculation is founded on those varieties of character and habits, which are supposed to be peculiar to nations, when not displayed so much in the policy of the government, as in the domestic manners, the degree of refinement, and the peculiarities of the internal society of a people. It certainly will be well for the cause of public improvement, when those, who undertake the exercise of this delicate and important part of duty, shall be led to consider themselves less as partizans and theorists, and more as observers and historians. We know of nothing more vexatious, than to encounter a man possessed of all the requisite literary qualifications, and who has enjoyed the advantages of a difficult and expensive voyage to regions with regard to which we have a lively curiosity, and who yet; presents you in his report such a strange compound of prejudice, favoritism, theory, and party interest, that nothing short of a laborious analysis will enable you to get at the truth which may lie at the bottom. One would think, however, though this were true of missionary and diplomatic voyages to the East, or colonization expeditions to Africa, that still we might expect the result of calm and philosophical observation, in the productions of men of leisure and accomplishments relating to their neighbours, with whom it is their duty and policy to be

best acquainted. Mr. Irving indeed, in his Sketch Book, remarks that he would trust an English traveller sooner in an account of a remote and unknown region, than of a neighbouring kingdom. And yet one is grieved to see a traveller passing through France, so infected with political prejudice, as to find there nothing but suffering and crime; or returning from every delightful excursion in Italy, with nothing but illustrations of her political infirmities. With regard to ourselves, we may not have those claims which Italy and France present to the indulgence of travellers. We have been sometimes visited, indeed, but principally by those, who, like the ancient philosopher, were willing to suck some profit from our courtesy. After our complaisant guests have received the applause of their employers at Birmingham and Glasgow, for their accuracy in accounts of the state of the market and the nicety of their calculations of the prices of stock, they have commonly applied their enlightened and accomplished habits of observation to our moral and national character. And while one half of their reports has served to direct their employers in their shipments of broadcloth and hardware, the other has furnished the materials from which critics, philosophers, and statesmen flatter themselves that they are well acquainted with the American character.' How safe a dependence may be placed on these materials, even when presented on somewhat higher authority than that of mercantile clerks and agents, is seen in the assertion of Ensign Hall, who judiciously remarks, at the close of an elaborate essay on the internal politics of America, that the late war was unsupported by either party, who were desirous of shifting each upon the other the odium of projecting it."

It has, indeed, been unfortunate for us, that we have laboured under such peculiar disadvantages in the course of our examination before the very impartial tribunals of foreign supervision. This, however, begins to be understood, and at any rate we may congratulate ourselves on the determination which seems to have been lately made among us, not to plead guilty to every charge, however boldly and con- . fidently preferred.

Not to engage in the discussion so often repeated, why America is not a book-making country, nor to insist on the difference between this and a book-reading and book-under

standing country, we may remark, that in no connexion has the want of book-making among us been productive of more visible evil, than in this, that we leave it to foreigners to describe us. It is some excuse for believing, we had almost said for fabricating false accounts of us, that we ourselves, whose business it is, have done so little toward furnishing the world with true" ones. The work before us is entitled therefore to the higher commendation, as being, on the whole, the most respectable effort which has been made toward a description of the local manners, character, and peculiarities of any portion of our country. So long as its author chooses to remain anonymous, a protection from criticism, which, we assure him, he has no need to assume, we must content ourselves with pronouncing his work to be evidently that of a scholar and a gentleman, of an impartial observer, a temperate champion, a liberal opponent, and a correct writer. Were we to speak of any general fault, it would be an occasional paucity of facts, which are the life, and substance, and foundation of all interest in works of this nature; a fondness of running a little too far into disquisitions, which, however judicious, are not always sufficiently pertinent; and a want, at times, of a liveliness in. the style. But we are sure these defects are more than atoned for, by the manly and national spirit which breathes in the work, by the true candour not consisting in insincere compliments to political adversaries, but in as fair an estimation as a person fond of one opinion can ever make of another, by. singular freedom from the morose irony of sentiment, if we may so call it, which is remarkably infecting the literature of our countrymen beyond the sea, and by a correctness of language not often equalled by our American writers.

The work contains sixteen letters. They bear rather a desultory air in their titles, but seem nevertheless to be in fact systematically arranged. The importance of their subjects varies from literature, commerce, politics, and the fine arts, to certain funeral ceremonies: the least important, though not the least pleasing of the letters. We shall make several extracts from them, with such remarks as they suggest to us.

The following account is given of the funeral ceremonies in the south of Italy.

In the south of Italy, the last care of friends is to array the deceased in a full dress; if a man, his hair is powdered, a sword

put by his side, and a bouquet at his breast, and then the body is delivered to monks, or to one of those benevolent fraternities that devote themselves to the service of the hospitals and the burial of the dead. It is taken by them through the streets, exposed in the coffin serving for many generations, and carried to some church, where a mass being said over it, the sexton receives it into his possession, strips it naked, and burns it. Nothing can be more repulsive to unaccustomed eyes than this hideous contrast of ghastly death with the gaudy trappings of dress.' p. 9.

Without undertaking to dispute what is thus asserted without hesitation, we can only say that the burning of the dead, at the present day, in Italy, is a fact that had not before come to our knowledge. In those of the Italian cities, where we have had opportunities of making observation, the rich and noble are deposited beneath the churches, and the poor thrown into public vaults. Notwithstanding some revolting circumstances in the Italian funerals, few sights are more striking than that of a funeral train in the evening at Rome, composed of one or two of the fraternities alluded to in the extract just made from our anthor, all clad in a uniform, often white, with a mask of linen over the face, sweeping through the dusky streets with their lighted torches, and chanting, not rarely with fine voices, the solemn funeral service. The Turkish burying grounds present a more grateful spectacle to the eye, than any of which we have an account. At the head and foot of each grave, in those parts of the Turkish empire where the climate will allow it, is planted a cypress; that beautiful tree, which our severe winters unhappily deny to us, and which our author inadvertently recommends as an ornament in our grave yards. As the depositories of the departed are held sacred in Turkey, these groves of tall, rich cypress are never invaded, and increase with every year about the gates of the large cities. Without some of the gates of Constantinople, are funeral groves of this kind, covering many acres, and resorted to as an evening promenade. You literally pass through a city of the dead on the way to the city of the living; and the aspect of these trees shading the departed generations, the white grave-stones surmounted by turbans which are occasionally painted green, the gravestones themselves covered with Turkish inscriptions and texts of the Koran, in raised characters, the groups seen walking, or reclining and smoking among them, while a Cafegy sets up