in those centuries in which we can scarcely discover any traces of it, should we have seen, at the period of the revival of letters, men who, in morals, politics, and the sciences, surpassed the greatest geniuses of antiquity? If there exist an infinite difference between the late celebrated men of antiquity, and those who are illustrious in letters and sciences; and if Bacon, Machiavel, and Montaigne, possessed ideas and knowledge superior to those of Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, &c.; is it not evident that the human reason did not lie dormant during the centuries which separated the lives of those celebeated men? We must not lose sight of the principle which I enforced at the commencement of this work, namely, that the most distinguished genius never rises but a very few degrees above the knowledge of his own century. The history of the human understanding during the interval which elapsed between the time of Pliny and Bacon, Epictetus and Montaigne, Plutarch and Machiavel, is very little understood by us; because men and nations, generally speaking, were confounded together in the single event of war; but military exploits created a very feeble interest after the period of their power was past. There has never, since the commencement of the world, been any other standard for enlightened men to abide by but the advancement of knowledge and of reason; nevertheless, let us observe, with the learned man, the secret manner in which Nature combines her developments. The moralist perceives the combination of causes which, during the space of fourteen hundred years, have been bringing about the actual state of the sciences and philosophy." (P. 227.)

We shall desist from following the adventurous and ordinarily triumphant career of Madame de Staël, abandoning her at the point where she quits the open ocean of literature to enter the narrow seas of individual countries. It is not that she is a less skilful navigator in the one than in the other. But we have al ready been somewhat seduced from our prescribed course in our attendance upon her, and must hasten back to it. We shall now, therefore, venture to add those general observations threatened in the commencement of this paper; and which will involve some consideration of the merit and demerit of the work.

Let it be remembered that the system of Madame de Staël is in effect this that mankind are marching onward to a state of perfection, of entire exemption from ignorance, sin, and sorrow; that the progress of philosophy, from the times of early Greece to the days of the French revolution, (a very favourite epoch of the author's), is a proof of this advancement; that this progress is the work of literature, whence also the final perfection of mankind is to be expected; that what good has been done by religion has been accomplished as much by its excesses and abuses as by its inherent and proper excellencies. That enthusiasm is the

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great engine of its operative efficacy on the progress of mind and that as enthusiasın can only be adapted to extreme cases, and to an ignorant age, little more is to be expected from religion in the regeneration of mankind. Now of all these propositions, we must take the liberty of saying, that they contain with some truth a considerable infusion of error.

Take the first, "that mankind is marching uniformly onward to a state of exemption from sin, sorrow, and ignorance:" Where is the evidence of it? Many of those cities of Asia which had once embraced revealed truth, and with it, doubtless, its humanizing laws and principles, are blotted from the map of the earth. Africa, also, which sent her bishops to the general councils of Christianity, has become the victim of a most degraded superstition, and of a most inhuman traffic in the flesh of her people. Now this observation applies, not to corners, but to quarters of the earth-to portions of it which cannot be neglected in any estimate of the general condition of man. It proves also a retrogradation in principle,-in philosophy, of that very quality of which Madame de Staël is mainly if not exclusively anxious to establish the progress. If, however, a decay in religion should not be considered as decisive of the question, by those who will maintain that such decay implies the extinction of superstition as well as of morality, and therefore is but a dubious evil, let it be remembered that the East, which was once the cradle of the fine arts, is now their sepulchre. Where is now the wisdom of Egypt-where the science of Hindustan-where the poets of Judea where the grandeur of Greece?

So far is the general progress of man from being demonstrable, that in our view it would be easier to prove the decay than the advancement of almost every part of the earth, which has not been quickened by the inspiring touch of true religion. It is difficult to say, where Christianity is not concerned, by the operation of what causes the earlier nations of the earth rose in some instances so high in the scale of science and legislation. But certain it is, that for a considerable period the heathen nations have retrograded; that especially wherever Mohammedanism has entered and established itself, it has marked its course by desolation; that art, and science, and wisdom, and humanity, have perished in its bloody grasp. When the northern hemisphere emptied its hordes upon the eastern and western em pires, the conquerors embraced the faith of the conquered; and thus a common amalgam was found, as it were, on the soil, for the incorporation of the discordant population. But neither heathenism nor Mohammedanism provide this moral cement;

and consequently the nations enslaved by the followers of the prophet remain disunited, disorganized, shivered into distinct fragments; the conquerors armed, the conquered in chains, "hateful to and hating one another." Such is the real state of that large proportion of the earth, where the withering superstition of Mohammed prevails; and Madame de Staël has veiled this fact only, by directing the attention of the reader to that portion of the globe, where the day-star of the gospel has extinguished the crescent of the prophet.

The second proposition of Madame de Staël which we have stated is, "that the progress of philosophy,' from the first ages to those of the French revolution, is in itself a sufficient proof of the progress of mankind towards perfection,-to a state of exemption from vice and suffering." By philosophy, the author sometimes, and, indeed, generally, seems to mean the study of causes and effects: sometimes, also, she appears to mean by it the study of morals.-Now of course it is indisputable, that as far as morals have advanced, the improvement of mankind has been promoted; but the other meaning of philosophy is that which predominates in the work. The spirit of her system is to maintain that a mere advancement in knowledge, and especially the knowledge of mind, is to be identified with progress in happiness and virtue in other words, that the chief desideratum for happiness and virtue is knowledge. Now this position is founded, we think, neither upon a sound acquaintance with human nature, nor a careful observation of facts. If, indeed, the human mind were not fallen, right knowledge would ensure right practice; but, where the heart needs to be influenced, as well as the understanding illuminated, that knowledge which merely enlightens will accomplish little or nothing. It is merely to open the eyes of the palsied man. As to the fact, nothing can be more obvious, than that learning or knowledge have wrought little of this magical transmutation upon the character of their possessors. The philosophers of Greece were among the most profligate of the nation. The learned of Rome conspired, in some cases, to impose a false and mischievous creed upon the people; and in others, to annihilate every creed. The scientific and literary cast of India are, in like manner, the fountain-head of Indian misery and absurdity. Survey Madame de Staël's own picture of Italy, as left to the mere influence of letters and philosophy, the picture of a nation rescued from a "second barbarism" only by the most profound "apathy." And, now that time has developed the full consequences of an event, whence she ventured to deduce very opposite prognostications, let us contemplate in revolutionary France the condition and crimes of a people, where the

throne of mere human philosophy has been established and her: power universally recognised. There, the lessons of philosophy have been written in the blood, and echoed by the groans, of a mighty nation. The French revolution has been suffered too much to teach only a subordinate lesson, viz. the danger of allowing an unlettered mob to legislate for themselves; it ought to teach us the loftier truth, that all reform is bad, and all legislation mischiev-. ous, which is not founded upon the basis of religion. They banished happiness, and honesty, and peace, when they introduced the goddess of nature into the temple. The face of Europe is now scattered with the fragments of almighty wrath; and the thunder of that contending artillery, which now shakes the Continent to its foundations, seems with one voice to proclaim, that piety, and not literature, must reform the world.

The next proposition drawn from the work of Madame de Staël too nearly corresponds with the last to need any additional. discussion. Let us then proceed to that in which she seems to maintain "that where religion has reformed or improved mankind, it is as much by virtue of its excesses and abuses, by its enthusiasm and superstition, as by its inherent excellencies and divine power." Now, although we know that it pleases God to educe good out of evil, and that even religious enthusiasm may: become under his merciful dispensation a blessing to mankind, still, to us it appears more natural, and, we may add, more philosophical, to attribute good consequences to good causes; and to believe that the excellencies, and not the abuses of religion, produced these felicitous results. Some there are whose good sense compels them to admit those beneficial effects of religion, which their creed inclines them to disown, yet contrive to get rid of their burthen by attributing these consequences, not to religion itself, but to certain circumstances accidentally connecting themselves with it. It is not the divine efficacy accompanying the gospel that reclaims and ennobles, but the pure morality taught by that gospel. And thus, in more extended cases, Gibbon has attempted to resolve the beneficial influence of Christianity altogether into natural causes-and into causes, some of them, rather discreditable than honourable to religion. In the work of. Madame de Staël, though parts of it command the gratitude of Christians, yet other parts too much correspond with the spirit of the enemies of the cross.

The last proposition which we have stated as fairly deducible from the work before us, is "that, as religion has done her work in part, by a few important changes (such as banishing slavery, and increasing the estimation of women), and partly by the enthusiasm

and superstition of her disciples; and as she now has no new laws to introduce, and not many either enthusiastic or superstitious followers, little is to be expected from her in the future regeneration of the world." It is only because we believe that there resides in religion a divine efficacy, operating wherever it enters, presiding alike in the temple and the cottage, sanctifying alike the nation and the individual, cheering with its holy flame the altar of every true church, and the path of every solitary pilgrimı, confined to no age or country, tempering the rigour of northern barbarity, and creating in our country those institutions which promise to carry the Bible and the Saviour into all nations; it is on this account, that whatever of advancement we anticipate in the history of man, we expect it from the influence of this transforming power. It is most evident, we conceive, that the doctrine of perfectibility, as maintained by sceptical philosophers and raving literati, is full of absurdities; that we have no very strong reason even in the present advanced state of philosophy to expect with Mr. Godwin, "that the use of sleep will be superseded; that men, if they die, will die only through their own mis-management; and that ploughs, when turned into a field, will perform their office without the need of superintendance." Still less reason is there to expect these glorious consequences from the causes propounded by these ingenious persons, from the "universal philanthropy" of Mr. Godwin, or the "metaphysics" of Madame de Staël.

ART. XIX-A Tour through Italy, exhibiting a View of its Scenery, its Antiquities, and its Monuments; particularly as they are Objects of classical Interest and Elucidation: with an Account of the present State of its Cities and Towns, and occasional Observations on the recent Spoliations of the French. By the Rev. John Chetwode Eustace. 2 vols. 4to. London. Mawman. 1813.

THE author of the Tour through Italy takes no inconsiderable" pains, in his preface, to convey to his readers some useful advice on the proper mode of travelling through this favoured country. "A year," he thinks, "is the shortest space that ought to be allotted to make a full and complete tour of Italy, and a year and a half, or even two years, might be well devoted to this useful and amusing part of our travels." (P. 38.)