stand on the close space where the executioner in secret strangled his victim, and by the little window through which his body was thrown into the barge waiting on the Canal to receive it, and make all due allowance for the exaggerated rhetoric of the guides, and both the prolonged cruelties, and the sudden cruelties, give you a most unfavourable idea of republican Venice. And not the least instructive is the history of her fall. About sixty-five years ago, Napoleon drew near to Venice with his army, without a single pretext of war that had a shadow of justification. For many years Venice had followed a policy of strict neutrality and non-intervention. Tired of the stormy epoch of her history, Venice, forgetting that courage and the arts of war must guard the labours and the fruits of peace, relied upon her peaceable attitude alone. An English fleet lay then in the Adriatic, and timely application would have saved the State that had withstood singlehanded the Moslem might, and had weathered the storms of 1500 years. But Venice was unable to resolve upon a policy of action, and would admit Napoleon, that his republican notions might ameliorate her civil institutions. Soon, the wolf found reason to quarrel with the lamb, because she had disturbed the stream. A system of the grossest robbery that ever disgraced public honour was exercised by the French upon the hapless Venetians. Finally, by the treaty of Campo Formio, the French, in pursuance of their own selfish policy, handed over to Austria the violated province. It is said in senate and congress that Venetia belongs to Austria by the public law of Europe. But was there ever so bad a title? Could property so unjustly acquired be handed over with any shadow of right to another State? Can it be wondered at if the original possessors now urge the defective tenure by which the country is held? Can it be wondered at if men sympathize with Venice in her desire for liberation, however heavily the loss of so fair a province may now fall upon those who have entered upon the unjust inheritance?

And yet the taxes which Venice pays to Austria cannot, by a great deal, suffice for the expenses of the occupation of Venice. The Emperor would cut the Gordian knot of the tangled politics of his reign, he would save Europe from wars which are darkly imminent, if he could resolve upon an act of justice, generosity, and charity, and restore Venice to the Venetians. When will those simple principles, which ought to regulate the actions of Christian men, be accepted as the rule of politics in Christian states?

"Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's aim; and universal peace
Lie like a line of light across the lands,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea ?"

In our gondola we visited many portions of the city, but for the most part the topography is exhausted; in Murray, and in accessible books of travel, all such particulars are to be found. I was, however, able to make a few supplementary gleanings; the courtesy of the Austrian commandant threw open the interior of the palace as used by the Empress last winter, and we were the first Englishmen who had seen these splendid decorations. The long black gondola certainly looks hearselike, but it is a very cheap and very luxurious mode of locomotion. I am told that in all Venice there are only two horses to be found. I was told, too, that gaily-painted gondolas were allowed young brides for the first year of marriage, but I was not able to detect any traces of the custom. It is many years since any accident happened to any gondola. About twenty years ago, on St. John's day, there was a violent squall, and various gondolas were lost; and ever since then, from a superstitious feeling, people are very chary about venturing abroad in a gondola on St. John's day. I made some inquiries into the condition of the poorer classes. So far as their material wants are concerned, they do not seem to be badly off; there is a very large amount of charitable provision for the sick and aged. Moreover, food is very cheap and plentiful, especially fish; for about a penny, a poor man can get sufficient fish and bolenta to make a good meal. The people have followed the Austrian ecclesiastical lead, and are intensely Roman Catholic. There is a Greek Church, and the Church of England service is celebrated in one of the palaces: otherwise, no other form of religion is tolerated. Historically speaking, Venice, of all Roman Catholic states, has shown the greatest independence of the Church of Rome; but now the very reverse of this is the case. The Romans themselves are not so much attached to Rome. It is difficult to believe that this is the city of Paul Sarpi, the city which hurled defiance against Rome in the days when Rome was in the palmiest height of greatness. It is also very observable, how, in days gone by, Venice was free, comparatively speaking, from one of the gross corruptions of the Church of Rome. In the cathedral of St. Mark, as Mr. Ruskin points out in his "Stones of Venice," the adoration of the Virgin is scarcely perceptible. Everywhere, intertwined with flowers, or wreathed with the serpents of Eternity, is the Cross; and amid the manifold errors of their faith, it is to be trusted that multitudes of simple ignorant souls have clung faithfully to the precious truth of which it is the emblem. There has, however, been a degeneration in this as in other respects, and Venice is now more in Romish trammels than she has ever been in any antecedent period of her history. In Venice, and throughout the North of Italy, the Jesuits are especially active: some of them answer to the notion of their

being gentlemanly and educated men, but not all. With one Jesuit priest (this was at Venice) I had an animated conversation in Latin. Another, whom I met one day near Milan, asked me if I could speak to him in Latin; but on entering into a conversation, I found that my companion's copia verborum had entirely deserted him.

I had intended to say something respecting the Italian lakes. I visited those of Maggiore, Lugano, Como, and Garda. Of these, however, I cannot write within the limits of the present paper. In scattered publications, I have no doubt they are adequately treated, and from them art, poetry, history, and romance have derived some of their most striking pictures and stories.

I must, however, allow myself two more paragraphs. The first will relate to the present political aspect of Italy. I can scarcely think that Ratazzi is the premier most likely to consolidate the troubled fortunes of Italy. He has neither the public honesty of Ricasoli, nor the genius of Cavour. Camillo Benso di Cavour, though a man of slender personal power of willing or subduing, though in no sense of the word a great orator, possessed a genius for government and administration which approaches that of Richelieu or Pitt. As a public speaker, Ratazzi was generally considered superior to Count Cavour. Ratazzi was originally a professor in the University of Turin, and afterwards practised at the bar with a very great degree of success. He is considered deficient in really statesmanlike power. As a parliamentary leader, he achieved a great reputation, to which his performance as a minister is scarcely considered equal. Many look upon his policy as consisting of the simple principle of subserviency to the French. In reference to the recent Garibaldian episode, neither its commencement nor its termination have much surprised me. I believed that Garibaldi's South American experiences demonstrated that he could not always be successful; and it is never to be expected that in open conflict guerilla bands should gain the better of regular troops. The overthrow of Garibaldi is a matter for sincere gratulation: it will be a heavy blow and discouragement to the malignant influence of the party of Mazzini. It will probably also be a heavy blow and discouragement to the astute French emperor, who would be glad to give employment to his army by an armed occupation of the Two Sicilies. I trust that this triumph of the cause of order is a good augury for the Italian kingdom, of whose ultimate destinies, though not sanguine, I should be sorry to despair. The life of a state is analogous to that of an individual. It is through labour, discipline, trouble, trial, a useful though perhaps a most sad experience, that a kingdom attains to the wisdom of maturity,

and becomes truly fitted to take its place among the foremost nations of the world.

Secondly, if such real greatness is really to be achieved, to render it true and noble and permanent, it must be associated with the religious regeneration of the country. How far have political changes conduced to religious development? The ecclesiastical reforms to which I have alluded are not destitute of promise. And promise, too, is to be seen in other directions. We must not expect that the Italian reformation will exactly follow the groove of our own; though the substance may be identical, the type may be varied. There is a movement in the way of religious reformation, but it is neither uniform in itself, nor national in its dimensions. In Florence and Genoa and elsewhere, a highly important religious action is going on. But we must allow the Italians to work this out for themselves; they will never call themselves by any names derived from us; although I believe that the form of Reformed religion to which in any gradual progress they will approximate, will most resemble that of the Church of England. However anxious we may be to spread Reformed truth, attempts at proselytism are very seldom satisfactory. Some, indeed, go so far as to recommend that you should never enter into a religious argument when abroad. I do not say this, but I think that very few men can enter into an argument that will then and there make a convert. The good effected by discussion is, that you may mention facts, and suggest arguments, that may bear fruit on some future day. A Roman Catholic gentleman accosted me in a railway carriage, and asked me if I had not been at a certain cathedral in the course of the day. When I said yes, he told me that he had observed me, and perceiving that I was an English clergyman, he had told his wife how glad he should be for an opportunity of conversing with me. Having now this opportunity, with an apparently evident desire for my conversion, he talked for nearly the whole of the journey, bringing forward his side of the question with ability and at great length. Having overworked myself, I was glad to hear that we should be fellow travellers to-morrow, and next day I replied to him as well as I could. In the course of his conversation, he contrasted the Romish with the English clergy, and told me that all the Church of England clergy had rich livings of seven or eight hundred a year, and would not visit the did the Romanist priests. He was considerably surprised when I told him that, as a rule, all our clergy would visit the poor, and that there was a very numerous body of clergy called curates, whose average income did not exceed a hundred a year, and who frequently lived in monklike poverty at least. He declared that the Protestants persecuted the Catholics. I

poor as

did not enter into an argument, but ventured to remind him of the Marian persecutions. He had never heard of them; he had never known that Roman Catholics had ever persecuted Protestants. After this, his eagerness for debate singularly subsided. This state of gross ignorance is the most frequent thing possible in the Roman Catholic Church. It is the possibility of diffusing knowledge and of discussion, that mainly constitutes the hopefulness of things in Italy. May God's kingdom fully come in the most beautiful and the most glorious of European lands, even as we hope that men of alien nations may become brothers in a regenerated world, and between them no Alps shall rise, no oceans roll.

F. A.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MOSIAC CODE UPON SUBSEQUENT LEGISLATION.

The Influence of the Mosaic Code upon subsequent Legislation. By J. Ben. Marsden, Solicitor. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., and Hatchard and Co. 1862.

THE appearance of this volume is opportune; but it must not be concluded that it is a controversial work, except in the sense which its author explains in his preface; and from the date he subscribes to it, the preface, as usual, seems to have been written last, after the work was finished. "Since, however," he says, "the authority of the Old Testament has been called in question, even by those whose profession bound them to defend it, to trace its influence upon the principles of jurisprudence as a moral science, presented itself as a subject of interest. It was one, at least, that not unnaturally would claim the attention of a person engaged in the practice of the law." Upon this inquiry, therefore, the author employed such leisure as he could spare from his professional pursuits. His argument is not new, but yet his mode of treating it has some claim to originality. He has approached the subject, not as a theologian, but as a legal student. He does not appear to have been struck, in the first instance, with the resemblance between the Mosaic law and the laws of other nations, and then to have been led on to investigate the cause of this resemblance; but on the contrary, investigating the origin of law, he has found that it rests ultimately upon a divine sanction: and this point established, he has been led on to trace the laws of various heathen nations to their fountain head, and has discovered that Moses was not only the great legislator of the Jews, but, to a vast extent, of the Gentiles also. He sets out with inquiring into the origin of all law, and is compelled to conclude that it can have no