for simple worth, his love of orderly liberty, and of reform pa tiently engrafted on precedent and habit, and his respectful scepticism relative to the controverted propriety of the instituted forms of Christianity, qualify him for the office of an informed and impartial historian. A conciseness of style, harsh to affectation, has obtained for him comparison with Tacitus; and a circumstantiality of detail, not less convenient than tedious, assimilates his manner to the calm but superfluous fidelity of Rapin. Aware that the sole use of history is to supply the Jessons of experience, he neither obtrudes nor obscures any facts in compliment to the wishes of innovating philosophy. Sa (to use the words of Nani) ch'è una cosa sacra comporre l'istorie, da non trattarse che coll animo puro e con le mani intatte ; Pistorico assumendo dittatura assoluta sopra i tempi, le persone e le attioni, con arbitrio indistinto sopra i rè, ed i plebei; giudice dei secoli corsi, e maestro dell' avenire, inganna o instruisce. The First Volume opens with an address to the Eidgenossen foath-fellows) or Covenanters : such is the collective name by which the inhabitants of the united Cantons denote themselves in their public acts. This patriotic dedication, in general terms, calls on the Swiss to receive with indulgence, and to amend by their criticism, the history here offered to their perusal, and devoted to their illustration: it also suggests the importance of strengthening the bands of union and cohesion between the co-estates, and of adopting a more comprehensive spirit of internal polity. The preliminary chapters discuss the state of Helvetia in the earliest periods-the settlement of its original Gaelic inhabitants-the first discovery of the country by the Phoccans of Marseilles, who ascended the Rhone with goods for sale the partial emigration of the Cimbric tribe, and its first war with the Romans under Lucius Cassius, who was defeated near lake Leman-the great irruption into Gaul occasioned by Orgetorix- the state of Helvetia under the Roman Emperors the profuse introduction of Gothic inhabitants about the time of Attila-its condition under Charlemagne-and its continued relation to the German empire, to the dukedom of Swabia, and to the see of Rome. The 15th chapter treats of the origin of the name of Swiss, which was the patrimony of the inhabitants of the little town and county of Schwyz, or Suites, as some old documents have it; who, according to their hereditary traditions, quitted the northern part of Europe in consequence of a famine, which induced their forefathers to expel every tenth man with his family, in quest of subsistence. Chapter 16 notices the state of Savoy, which seems intended by nature to cohere with Switzerland, and which was equally adapted adapted for the acquisition of independence. Of the house of Habsburg, also, the origin is investigated. The celebrated Count Rudolf of Habsburg appears on the scene in the 17th chapter. His aquiline nose and pouting lips have descended to a long line of Austrian princes. In contempt of the claim of Richard of Cornwall to the Imperial dignity, (a claim unwisely though fortunately purchased with English gold,) he obtained the chieftaincy of Germany, and refused to go, as was usual, to Rome for coronation :-but the part which he took in defence of some young noblemen, who by indecent insolence had provoked a riot at Basil, laid a ground-work for the unpopularity of his house among the Swiss burghers. Ru dolf indeed was the steady patron of the aristocracy, and the uniform antagonist of even the most reasonable encroachments from the people. Under his odious successor Albrecht, occurs the first combination of the burghers against the extortions of the nobles. The whole of this curious covenant is inserted at p. 571 it began in the towns of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald. Common grievances occasioned elsewhere similar combinations. The prospect of support encouraged local resistance to the Imperial Vogts, or tax-gatherers; and at length hostilities began by Tell's killing with an arrow the Vogt, Herman Gessler. The story of Tell's son and the apple is borrowed from Saxo, who had already related this tale of the Scandinavian Tocco. The Second Volume includes only seven chapters: the first of which is occupied with the various local assassinations, burnings, and massacres, which distinguished the commencement of this insurrection; and which, both for motive, character of the victims, and extensive suddenness, resemble those which compelled or accompanied in France the abolition of the feudal system on the 4th August 1789. The 2d chapter treats of the internal revolution of the constitution of Zurich, in useful detail: the 3d of that of Berne: the 4th of the eight towns: the 5th includes a general view of the state of manners and opinions in Switzerland, at the time of its emancipation: the 6th narrates the Barons' war, as it is called; for of those who had conspired to throw off the Austrian yoke, many were still desirous of exercising, themselves, similar feudal tyranny, and could only be brought to obey the At length, exlaws of reason and justice by the use of force. ternal and internal domination was suppressed by the perseve *The poverty of Henry III., occasioned by this subsidy, obliged him to comply with the demands of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the great instituter of British liberty. 8 rance rance of the multitude; and the fifty years' peace was concluded. This peace, however, was not strictly observed. The controversies of the Reformation, which the Third Volume introduces to notice, occasioned internally at least many disturb ances. Of the council of Constance, our author thus speaks: Vol. iii. p. 112. Thus ended the most solemn and considerable council ever assembled in western Christendom: after having been holden in the city of Constance during three years and a half, without being once disturbed by any of the neighbouring belligerent nations, notwithstanding the bitterness of their then religious dissensions. No tumult, no dearth, no contagious disorder, ever interrupted its sittings. It deserves the praise not only of having healed a schism in the church, but of having given one decree which, if duly observed, might have prevented many subsequent and have removed all remaining evils. I allude to the decree for repeating its sittings in every tenth year. This, indeed, was too short an interval: the weight of so frequent an assemblage would not have been great :-but, if every thirtieth or every fiftieth year had been the fixed period, the church would have enjoyed an advantage, the want of which is the greatest blemish of all republican constitutions:-for, since the best institutions alter with years, and are deformed by human passions, it is proper that the times and means be prescribed for the self-improvement, and renovation from within, of a free constitution. Thus only can institutions keep pace with the perpetual progress of the human mind, and avoid that greatest of all dangers, a discrepancy with the rising relations of the world. After what happened at Constance, it seems improbable that any succeeding council, supposing it to meet every half-century, would have suffered the constitution of the church to subsist without some one radical reform. Next to the pleasure of beholding, within the limits of a single city, the characteristic features of all the European nations, both in great transactions and in private intercourse; nothing could be more instructive and entertaining than to compare the manners of the Swiss and of the Italians; to whom every thing was already known which, of old, at the court of Augustus, had been employed to gratify the intellect or the senses. Among our forefathers, on the contrary, as among the contiguous Germans, both burghers and farmers lived in a simple, frugal, patriarchal way, but without gloom and asceticism. They loved dance and song; they sang God and their arms; and to love-ditties they were not averse. Their sports contributed to exercise and diversion but their taste for gambling the magistrate was wont to restrict. Though bastards were not uncommon, it is almost incredible how free from suspicion both fathers and husbands were. It was difficult for any one to think aught amiss of his own relatives: and this no doubt with good reason, at a time when the domestic manners little contributed to the excitement of voluptuous passions. This indulgent character was favoured by the national love of chearfulness, which leaves no time for the dark cares of jealousy; and by a disposi tion to consider every misfortune as "the will of God," to be consoled in others, and to be borne without a murmur. From times of similar innocence, are derived thofe descriptions, given by the antient Greeks, of the games of the Paphian goddess.' It is amusing to compare this native account of the manners of the Swiss, in which it is remarkable that the love of drinkingbouts makes no part, with Poggio's description of the same manners at the same period: the Italian cannot believe in their purity. Ridiculum est videre vetulas decrepitas, simul et adolescentiores, nudas in oculis hominum aquas ingredi, verenda et nates kominibus ostentantes; illi neque hoc oculis advertunt neque quidquam suspicantur aut loquuntur mali.-Permirum est videre quâ fide videbant viri uxores suas a peregrinis tangi; non animum advertebant, omnia in meliorem partem accipiunt.--Persæpe existimo et Venerem ex Cypro et quicquid ubique est deliciarum ad hæc* balnea commigrasse; ita illius instituta servantur, ita ad unguem ejus mores et lasciviam repræsentant." The 2d chapter of vol. III. continues the history of the Reformation, and completes the first part of this volume. Its second part discusses the interval between the years 1436 and 1450, is divided into ten chapters, and abounds with particu lars of those local civil wars, which, however petty, deserve in one respect the notice of the philosopher; as they have almost invariably arisen from the indolence of the constituted magistracies; from their neglecting to remedy, by legislative provisions, the various grievances which time and instruction were continually displaying to the multitude; from their indifference to every thing but the profits of office, and the monopoly of heritable power. A continuation of this work, to the end of the year 1469, is announced by the author; whose profound knowlege of the detail of the borough history of Switzerland well entitled him to propose a specific plan of reformation. His advice to hold a Swiss federation, and to execute, on the jubilee of their origi nal revolution, a constitutional reform of their decayed institutions, was given, indeed, timely in a separate pamphlet, but is carried away to that limbo of perdition in which some evil genius seems to collect the fruitless plans of benevolent wisdom. With a reformed constitution, Switzerland could have. made an undivided and successful stand against invasion. A foreign power has corrupted with its aid the natural uprightness of Swiss procedure, and the natural justice of a holy cause. The autonomy of Helvetia is no more; and its laws, whatever they are to be, will not retain that raciness, that taste of the soil, which can alone endear any laws to a free * At Baden in Switzerland. APP. REV. Vol. XXVI. Pp people. people. They may extend the right of suffrage: but they are to be executed by French armies; and the executive power in the hands of Frenchmen is every where a dictatorial power. To be the puppets of a Parisian directory is an humiliating employment for the pride of genius. We may expect, then, that those who have brought on their country this tyrannic intrusion will ultimately solicit its incorporation with France; and seek, in the extension of their sphere of action, to forget the local injuries of their intolerant enthusiasm. Tay. ART.XV. Coup d'ail sur le Renversement de la Suisse, &c. i. e. A Glance at the Overthrow of Switzerland. 8vo. 74 Pages. 1798. Printed in Switzerland. T is pleasant to the vulgar to be made of consequence: they like to be told that they have rights, and to feel that they have power; and this is so gratifying to them, that they are commonly willing to sacrifice much substantial good to this end, and, for the sake of political freedom, to undergo a considerable diminution of civil liberty. Such, at least, seems to have been the sentiment of the lower class of town's-people in Switzerland: otherwise, with their courage and their natural advantages for defence, they would not so easily have submitted to France. The municipal governments of the Swiss were for the most part sovereign, and constituted like our self-elected boroughcorporations. These oligarchies were cheap and quiescent: their concerns were too puny to excite the magnificent pas sions they maintained a puritanic and provident police, and, ten years ago, were tolerated without impatience, though surveyed without approbation, by their subjects.-The principles scattered anew by the French revolution are unfavourable to the stability of any institutions, that do not emanate from the suffrage of the people. It was felt, therefore, that they endangered a senate of Berne or of Basil, not less than a king of Sardinia or of Naples. The magistrates of the Helvetic cities had indeed long employed the dialect of freedom: but they now first began to perceive that, while they were talking of rights and liberties, they meant privileges and power. They were not less unwilling than other legislators, to confer on the non-burghers a share in the choice of the sovereign. A desire of suiting their creed to their practice gradually threw all the enemies of concession into the doctrines of the Anti-jacobin sect. These doctrines, when violently avowed by the ruling power, naturally render desperate the friends of innovation, by quashing all hope of reform from within; and they predispose the leaders |