SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Hisronr,

Italy and the Italian Islands, from the earliest ages to the present time. By Wil- liam Spalding, Esq., Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh.. With engravings .m wood by Jackson. and illustrative maps and plans on steel. In 3 vols. (Edinburgh Cabinet Library.) ANECDOTES, Sinipitiil and Marshall; Oliver and Boyd, Ed'nlogrgli. France since 1830. By Thomas Hikes, Esq., Author of " A Visit to St. P.r.tm- burgh." In 2 sops. Boone. Fieriest,

Compton Andley ; er, Hands not Hearts. By Lord William Lennox. In 3 viols.

SIR. SPALDING'S ITALY AND THE ITALIAN ISLANDS. Tuts addition to the Edinburgh Cabinet Library maintains the high reputation of that cheap and useful series, in every point of view. The subject of the work fills up a void in our popular literature, and its execution is very able. Mr. SPALDING has not only brought to his task extensive reading and some research, but a knowledge derived front a residence in Italy enables him to realize the descriptions of other writers, and to supply the short- comings of the learned, by pictures of his own. The book, more- over, has merits which neither reading nor local knowledge will alone produce. Mr. SPALDING is a man of acumen, sense, and acquaintance with life : his style, if not always forcible, is gene- rally close, always clear, and by no means deficient in a quiet vitality. In short, Italy and the Italian Islands will be found a book alike valuable perused by itself or as a commentary upon Roman history ; whilst, coining down to the present day, it pre- sents in a short compass a precis of the modern history of Italy. Italy, as Mr. SPALDING truly remarks, is the only country that has been distinguished in several periods, and exercised in each a direct influence upon the civilization of mankind. The arts of Egypt and the intellect of Greece were limited to the classical ages in their immediate effect : the Romans not only subdued the ancient world, and bequeathed to modern Europe the germs of many institutions, but commerce, municipalities, and modern lite- rature originated with the Italians of the middle ages, to be fol- lowed shortly after by architecture, music, painting, and the first gleam of true science and philosophy.

This peculiar characteristic of Italy has prescribed to Mr. SPALDING the arrangements of this work so far as man and his pro- ductions are concerned ; his formal division embracing the classical, the dark or middle, and the later ages ; but being in reality of a more extensive character, each period having its rise and decline as well as its zenith. Thus the history of ancient Italy embraces, first, a glimpse of the Etruscans and other predecessors of the Romans, coining down to the expulsion of the Kings ; it next treats of the Republic and the Empire till the year 180 A.D.; and then traces the rapid decline of the Roman power until the overthrow of the Western Empire. The dark and middle ages embrace two divisions,—from 476 to 1000 A.D., during which period Europe was in a state of deplorable ignorance and anarchy ; the second section (from 1000 to 1500) describing the progress of freedom, commerce, and navigation, in the Italian republics, with the rise and maturity of her literature. The last division extends from 1500 to the present time ; but the first hundred years alone is a period of glory, and that only in the arts, for political downfal and territorial division of Italy had begun at the commencement of the tent.

Though we have traced the leading outlines of the chronological arrangement, yet several sections are further broken down into smaller subdivisions, for the sake of more convenient treatment. In each chronological period the topics selected for the exposition of the subject are the same,—history, rather constitutional and political than narrating events ; topography; literature ; arts, and society ; the latter embracing religion, manners, and the character of the people, with the nature and estimation of their industrial pursuits. A variety of miscellaneous topics are introduced in separate chapters—for example, the first one contains the geography of Italy, and the last its statistics.

In every part of so wide a field of human knowledge very few persons could be equally informed ; and both the matter of Italy and the Italians and the mind which animates and disposes it will be found to differ in different sections. The most interesting in their nature, and it seems to us the topics most completely and effectively handled by Mr. SPALDING, are the political history and the pictures of society. In his literary criticism the Edinburgh Pro- fessor of Rhetoric (which is somewhat surprising) is very seldom profound, and not always original ; and even his justice sometimes wears a commonplace air, though exceptions can undoubtedly be pointed out—as in the estimate of LUCAN'S Pharsalia. In art he is probably much less instructed than it literature; but, drawing his judgments from the best authorities, what he has to say is sufficient ; and when he conveys his own impressions of a work, he is vivid in description and convincing in conclusion—as in speaking, of St. Mark's Square at Venice. But both in letters and in the fine arts he presents to his readers a succinct account of the lives and productions of Italian genius ; forming a gallery of portraits, and a history of intellect from the first dawn of records down to the pre- sent time, more complete than can be found elsewhere. We do not,. it must be understood, claim for Mr. SPALDING the praise of dis- covery or original research, though it is probable he may now and then be entitled to it. The first merit of Italy and the Italian Islands- consists in bringing together in a popular form the cream of very ex- tensive and often of very recondite reading,—ancient classics and their scholiasts, the learned but diffuse and somewhat indiscriminate commentators at the revival of letters, together with the equally learned, more critical, but rather speculative labours of the modern Germans. The next great merit is the increased light which well- selected particulars respecting one subject are made to throw upon that subject, especially when illustrated by an under-current of com- mentary infused through the narrative. We think it possible, for example, that many a pedant might be perfectly familiar with the authorities whence Mr. SPALDING draws his information, yet not (lave so clear an idea of the state of ancient society as an unlearned person perusing Italy and the Italian Islands. The following sketch of general morality under the Empire, may be taken as a favourable and at the same time fair specimen of Mr. SPALDING'S style; in which a few well-chosen instances ex- emplify the subject better than an over-crowding of many par- ticulars.

GENERAL CORRUPTION OP IMPERIAL ROME.

For the aspect of the times in general, it may be enough to take one isolated feature from each of the three great sections of national life—the court, the senate-house, and the haunts of the people.

The reign of crime in the imperial palaces during the worst times was a fearfully exaggerated prototype of those horrors which stained the petty courts of Italy in the later of the middle ages. The Roman series of executions and confiscations, indeed, prompted solely by suspicion or avarice, has had no equal since its own days ; but there have been repeated likenesses of the imperial mixture of lewdness, cruelty, unbridled passions, and extravagance of refine- ment. There was much of a modern taste in Nero's favourite amusement of scouring the streets by night, insulting every one he met, and sometimes re- turning to his palace soundly beaten ; a recreation emulated successively by the Emperors Otho, Commodus, and Heliogabalus. But we can conceive our- selves studying the history of the Sforza or the Ducal Medici when we turn to the darker pages of Nero's annals ; when we see him in his closet with the hag Locusts, trying experiments upon poisons; when he enters the banqueting- hall, and in the midst of his court sees his victim Britannicus drink the potion, and fall on the floor in convulsions ; when we watch the speechless horror of the spectators, and behold among them the unfortunate Octavia, the sister of the murdered man and the wife of the murderer ; and when, in the same night, amidst darkness rain, and tempest, we follow the corpse to the Campus Mar- tins, and see it Ihrust into its nameless grave.

The general reputation of the Imperial Senate may be gathered from two sources ; from the younger Pliny's contemptuous description of their monu- ment on the Tiburtine road in honour of Pallas, the freedman of Claudius, with their act in honour of the same worthless favourite ; and from the bitter but well-merited satire of Juvenal, in which he represents the Fathers of Rome as called together by Domitian to deliberate on the best way of dressing a turbot. One other example, a simply-told fact, will teach us how far official subserviency could carry the degradation of personal character. While Tibe- rius was on the throne, Titius Sabinus, an associate of the murdered Germani- cus, was enticed by one of his own friends to enter his house, and there express his indignation against the tyrant. Three senators, hidden between the ceiling of the chamber and the roof of the mansion, were allowed to overhear the con- versation ; and as soon as Titius had quitted the place, the four traitors con- cocted a memorial to the Emperor, in which they set forth the seditious words they had heard spoken, and boastingly related the infamous meanness by which they had purchased their knowledge.

The populace we shall better understand when we come to examine the pub- lic amusements, for these were their sole occupation. if they received their allowance of food and had the circus and amphitheatres opened to them, they were contented and most loyal subjects : for these reasons they did not hate the bad Emperors ; on the contrary, they usually liked them better than the good ones. Most of those extravagant and profligate despots scattered their treasures freely among the mob, while their cruelty exhausted itself on the rich and noble. These the Emperors might always destroy with impunity ; but it was not so safe to attempt executimj, any member of their own house- hold; it was still less safe to provoke the imperial guard ; and, pampered and wretched as the Roman populace were, an attack on them would have been the most hazardous adventure of any. Nero, with his mad jollity; his shameless exhibitions of himself, and the unequalled splendour of his spectacles, was the idol of the rabble ; who long hung garlands on his tomb upon the Pincian Mount, believing for many years that he was still alive, and would return to punish his enemies and restore the regretted days of licence. In the year of grace 69, the troops of Vespasian stormed Rome, which was held by Ifitellius. The two parties fought in three divisions—in the gardens of Sallust, among the streets of the Campus Martins, and at the rampart of the Pratorian barrack. At all these points the populace of the city swarmed out and looked on, cheering the combatants as they would have done in the amphitheatre; the wine-shops and other scenes of guilt stood open in the middle of the fight ; the people resorted to them to spend the money which they plundered from the dying and the dead ; and, when the battle was over, they hurried to the Aventine to see the capture of Vitellius, their late favourite, followed him while he was dragged, with his hands bound, across the Forum to the Gemonian Stairs, and shouted as they beheld the soldiers kill him.

" There is nothing new under the sun." The kidnapping of freedmen in the United States—the old Scotch Highland and modern Italian fashion of pouncing upon gentlemen well-to-do and detaining them till ransomed—with the slave-markets of Constan- tinople, Egypt, and the Southern provinces of America—were all to be found in Imperial Rome.

SLAVES AND SLAVE SYSTEM IN ROME.

In Rome and throughout Italy there were outrages in abundance which the imperial police durst not overlook. As examples, we may select crimes which seem to have together formed a profession practised by numerous bands of mis- creants; kidnapping, highway-robbery, and housebreaking. The first of these offences is mentioned in the last ages of the Republic as committed on tra- vellers; it again occurs repeatedly. under the Emperors; Hadrian attempted to stop it by an ordinance for shutting up the private slave-prisons, in some of which the robbers contrived to conceal their captives ; but the private dun- geons and the crime lasted as long as the Empire. The victims appear to have been sometimes detained for years at hard labour ; but the frequency of the outrage can scarcely be accounted for, unless we believe that the banditti held their prisoners to ransom, like the modern Italian robbers. One of the most noted haunts of the ancient highwaymen was the Pontine Marshes, which lay conveniently near the high-road from Naples to Rome; and another, not less infested, was the Gallinarian Wood, which stretched northward from Comae, and by its situation enabled the bandits to sally out on those persons of rank who spent the summer-months on the coast of Campania. When the military police scoured those forests and guarded their outlets, they produced by their vigilance another and worse evil ; for the villains then fled to Rome, hid them- selves amidst the labyrinth of the overgrown city, (as modern thieves find themselves safest in Paris or London,) and committed daring robberies by night

on the persons and dwellinghouses of the citizens. • • •

From the seventh century of the city, the market.places in Rome were, On the days of sale, not at all unlike what an Eastern slave-bazaar is at present. The slave-merchants, a class notorious for dishonesty, and strictly watched by the police, kept their victims in large warehouses, whence they were brought out in crowds, and exhibited in barred cages, with descriptive labels hung round their necks. If a slave had been recently made captive, a circumstance which greatly increased his price, he had his feet chalked; if he was not warranted sound, a cap was put upon his head ; and if a customer desired it, he was made to come out of his den and show his paces on the pavement of the porticoes. There were three regular sources from which Italy was supplied with these un- fortunate beings. The first was opened by the frequent wars of the Republic and Empire, from all of which were derived large numbers of prisoners. There was, secondly, an established slave-trade, which had its principal marts in the islands of Greece, on the coast of Syria, and in Egypt, receiving its supplies partly from the incessant wars of the Asiatics, and partly from kidnapping and piracy. There were, thirdly, the slaves already imported, whose descendants were retained in the families of their proprietors. If the hondmen were brought from a distance, their birth-place hall great in- fluence in fixing their reputation, their price, and the nature of their work. The natives of Asia Minor were the usual attendants on feasts, and the wretched ministers of their masters' debauchery ; the Alexandrian Greeks were thought to make the best buffoons; the Greeks of the continent were most frequently employed as teachers, artists, or artisans ; the errand-porters, litter-carriers, and other labourers, were selected from all nations, but oftenest from the Northern regions both of Asia and Europe; the Dacians, Gette,7and other Ger- manic tribes, were the favourite gladiators; and the barbarians of Britain, whom the Italians were pleased to think a tall and handsome race, commonly figured as assistants and supernumeraries in the theatres. The mountaineers from the half-conquered islands of Corsica and Sardinia were considered the fiercest and most useless of all menials : indeed, they very frequently destroyed themselves; and the natives of the latter were contemptuously characterized in a current proverb.

Every one, however slightly acquainted with antiquity, has heard of the "Diurna Acta" ; but few have the distinct notion of Roman newspapers, conveyed by the following extract, though we think the " fact " of their existence has not been so much "overlooked" as Mr. SPALDING infers. News, indeed, seems a necessary of life. There were a class of news-writers in India ; in Europe, wandering pilgrims and such like answered the purpose of penny-a-liners, till the post-office arose, when we had " writers " too, who circulated manuscript reports ; and persons of a similar kind, though under different names, may be found in very barbarous states of society. The superiority of modern newspapers, in circulation and variety of news, is mechanical, or accidental. Their distinguishing cha- racteristics are their advocacy, commentary, and criticism,—matters provided for the people to a certain extent in the ancient world, by the Roman Forums and the Theatre and Pnyx of Athens.

ROMAN NEWSPAPERS.

The Romans, though we arc apt to overlook the fact, had registers of politics and intelligence, which were really not unlike our own newspapers in their contents, but immeasurably inferior iu the mode of circulation.

The journals of the Senate and National Conventions long contained little more than entries resembling those in our collected acts of Parliament. These furnished moat of the materials from which till 625 the Pontiffs compiled their annals; and there is also proof that, after the Republic had extended its domi- nions, those official journals were regularly copied and transmitted to public men living at a distance. But these sources were not enough. Every man abroad had his correspondents in Rome; and when the task of collecting news became more difficult, several persons assumed newsmong,ering as a trade, taking in short-hand notes of the proceedings at public meetings, and selling copies of them as well as of the common gossip of the day, and the official journals. Julius Caesar, in 694, established a regular system for recording the delibera- tions both of the Senate and the Conventions, in a form much like our reports of Parliamentary debates; and he allowed these accounts to be copied and freely circulated. Although Augustus stopped the publication of the reports, the restraint was soon afterwards withdrawn ; and even after their introduction by Julius, these and all other archives of the state were so unreservedly open to the public, and their contents were diffused in so many shapes, that we are often uncertain whether the sources to which the Roman authors refer are these official reports, or the notes of professional short-hand writers, or, finally, those collections of common news that were handed about with the other pieces of information.

But we are less curious to disentangle this confusion than to learn some of the subjects which were discussed in the news-journals. The accounts of the political debates embraced the acts and resolutions, the rescripts of the Em- perors, the reports of magistrates or committees, the names of the voters, (like that of Thrasea Pietus, whose silent dissent was watched with such eagerness by the provincials,) the speeches, their reception, and the squabbles of the de- baters. Stray articles of law-intelligence seem to have found their way into these collections. There were likewise occasional notices extracted from the local registers of births, and announcements of marriages, divorces, deaths, and funerals, as also descriptions of new public buildings, shows of gladiators, and such ordinary themes. Julius Casar, who read the news-sheet every morning, gave strict orders that Cicero's witty sayings should be regularly added to the other current matter. The journals, too, like our own, were the receptacles for all tragical and marvellous occurrences; and Pliny derived from them many of the odd stories inserted in his EncyclopMdia, among which the following may be cited. The gazettes related that on the day when Cicero defended Milo there descended a shower of bricks ; that under Augustus a burgher of Fmsulse walked to the Capitol in a procession formed by his own sixty-three descendants ; that when a slave of the unfortunate Titus Sabinus bad been executed by Tiberius, his dog watched the corpse, carried food to its mouth, and, on its being thrown into the Tiber, swam after it and strove to bring it to land ; and that in the reign of Claudius a phmnix from Egypt was publicly exhibited in Rome ; which last story, however, Pliny truly pronounces to be a manifest invention.

In general conclusions, we think Mr. SPALDING mostly true : he sometimes overrates particular instances. As clinching examples of the " morals and happiness " of Imperial Rome, he adduces two monumental inscriptions,—one by the Emperor CLAUDIUS to the memory of the elder AGRIPPINA, which might be dictated by ge- nuine affection ; but even if hypocritical, what people would be safe if the ostentatious morality of its governors were to con- demn it ? The other evidence is as follows.

" The first was found in 1797, on the hills of Decima, north-cast from Ostia. Ittells its own tale of heartless, thoughtless, and unblushing selfishness. ' I who speak from this marble tomb was born at Tralles, in Asia. Often did I repair to Baia, to enjoy its tepid baths and wander in its, delightful neighbour- hood by the sea. My heir, mindful of this my honourable life, and of my last request, employed a part of my wealth in erecting this receptacle for the bones of me and my descendants--this temple sacred to our shades. But thou who readmit these lines, of thee I request only that thou wouldst breathe this prayer for me, " May the earth lie lightly on thee, Socrates, son of Astomachus."' "

There is nothing "honourable" in the life of this Epicurean phi- losopher, (though the phrase seems the choice of his " heir,") but there is nothing so bad as to condemn the entire age in which he lived. The man led a quiet life in troublesome times, effeminately but elegantly, and without wasting his substance—as we may gather from the gratitude of the heir. There are hundreds, nay thou- sands, in every age, who have emulated the life, but not the candour of" Socrates, son of Astomachus."

Let us turn from the ancient world to give a few examples of the author's manner of treating modern subjects, where original ob- servation supports extensive reading.

MUSIC OF ITALY.

It may excite surprise that music should not have been enumerated among the diversions of the people at large. The liking for this art, and the fine mu- sical organization, are indeed general ; but the result is not at all what those who have not seen Italy are accustomed to believe. The music of the lower classes is of two kinds. That which can alone be considered as their own pro- perty has its seat among the peasantry, and scarcely approaches the towns, except in the airs which are played to some of the popular dances, like the tarantella of Naples and the Roman ealtarello. This national music may have interest for the antiquaries of the science, who try to recognize in it the ancient scales ; or it may have charms for those connoisseurs whose taste is peculiarly educated ; but for the common ear it is as unattractive as it is unvaried. A few airs have indeed been collected, particularly about Venice and Naples, which possess a wild originality; still the general character is very little supe- rior to the nasal chant with which the shepherds in the Campagna of Rome imitate successfully the harshest sounds emitted by their favourite instrument the Calabrian bagpipe. The second kind of popular music is found in the towns, where we often bear excellent singing iu parts, still oftener vocal solos skilfully performed, and occasioually serenades with the guitar, which acquire an additional interest from their romantic associations. But every thing in these performances is borrowed. The airs are usually those of the favourite operas ; and the performers, with their own national readiness, have learned them in the theatres, or by listening at the windows of houses iu which con- certs are given.

Italian music, then, is the fruit of artificial cultivation, and its office is to minister to the amusement of the aristocracy. Its character and fame are fixed; and it is no part of the plan which has been laid down for these pages, either to relate its history or to describe the means used for cultivating it. The opera, or musical drama, is its great field ; and in all the capitals, except Rome, the government in different ways contributes to the support of the chief operatic company. This indeed is distinctively the drama of Italy ; it is yen considered as exclusively the poetical drama, for in ordinary talk, and in the playbills, a play without music is described as prose. The immense the- atres of the Scala at Milan and the San Carlo at Naples, which are the largest and finest houses, are also the most celebrated for their exhibitions. The per- formers may be said to sing for the pit ; since the fashionable audience in the boxes resort to the place as a lounge and place of rendezvous, and the con- versation of such parties produces a hum which makes it difficult to hear the C72:" 1... V12 11-;Zio;',e ilIr or of the ballet. The preparations for the stage are suited to this careless reception ; for not unfrequeutly two or three operas make up the whole variety during a season.

GENERIC FEATURES OF ITALIAN LANDSCAPES.

When we first tread the soil of Italy, the loveliness of the landscape ab- sorbs our whole attention. Association, indeed, does much to strengthen the spell which the scenery throws over us ; and the force of the attraction is greatly increased by the Southern sky, with its balmy repose, its magical co- louring, and its harmonious combinations of light and shadow. All the fea- tures of the picture, however, are in themselves both novel and beautiful. The climate and Its productions do not, it is true, unfold their full luxuriance till we reach Sicily ; but to the native of Northern Europe, the face of the country is new from the very foot of the Alps. Italy is divided by nature into two very dissimilar regions. The first is Lombardy, or tipper Italy, bounded, as we have seen, on the North by the Alps, and on the South by the Apennines. This tract commences on the North and West, among Alpine heights and glens, whose aspect is that of Switzerland. The mountains then subside into broad meadow-plains, watered by large rivers, and crossed in every field by rows of poplars supporting vines ; while the olive--groves on the lower eminences both of the Alpine and Apen- nine chains and the scattered cypresses and pines, impart the first character- istic images of the Italian landscape. Southward of the ride of the Apennines is the second region, the strictly peninsular portion of Italy. 011 crossing the mountains which bound it on the North, we immediately lose the broad plains and full rivers of Lombardy. The Apennine accompanies us to the extremity of the peninsula, dividing it lengthwise, narrowing its flats, and forming deep hollows by the promontories which it everywhere sends out. The mountains, though in many districts lofty, are rounded in shape; and the undulating hills which cluster about their sides sink down into flat alluvial rallies, like the deserted beds of lakes. Woods of olive-trees, not unlike in character to the birch, cover the rising grounds with their gray foliage. Towns and villages on the plains, or oftener perched like castles on the hills, peer out from amidst vineyards, or clumps of the dark flat-topped pine and the tall pillar-like cypress ; and the most un- cultivated and lonely of the vales are clothed with a picturesque and almost tropical prodigality of vegetation, in the wild trees and shrubs, the broad leafy masses of the glossy ilex, the rich forms and colours of the arbutus, and the grace- ful outline of the fragrant myrtle. This aspect of the landscape, which pre- rails in Middle Italy, suffers some changes as we advance further South. The date-palm is now seen in sheltered nooks; in some districts the orange and lemon groves give odour to the air, and the aloe and cactus grow wild upon the rocks. These features are caught in glimpses even on the Northern side of the Apennines ; they are more and more frequent as we proceed towards Lower Italy, in which they are not indeed the prevailing features, but in several quarters assume prominence in the scene ; and in Sicily the picture unites Oriental vegetation with that of the Italian rallies. The panorama of the low country, too, has everywhere a background in the moun- tains; among which, as we climb their sides, the wide woods of Chesnut, inter- mingled with oak and beech, give way to the hardier species of the pine and other vigorous plants, and these to the green pastures which rise to the very summits of the Apennines.

The landscapes of Italy are excelled by those of Northern Europe in several respects, and most of all in extent and grandeur of forest scenery ; but every defect is redeemed by the lucid atmosphere, the characteristic luxuriance of the vegetation, the singular beauty of form in hill and vale, and the brilliant pic- tures of rural and even woodland loveliness which we discover insilo many spots. Italian scenery receives another charm from its buildings, which in them- selves are singularly picturesque, and add much to the historical and poetical recollections they so often recall. Except a few vignettes, the illustrations are properly confined to the useful—maps of the country, topographical maps of towns, and plans illustrative of architecture.