it again. It has not prevented me, however, from going on with his History, in which I own I find nothing inconsistent with the sort of mind that produced The Prince; and what I remember of the Discourses on Livy would not alter this judgment; but these I mean to read once more. Alfieri's life, up to the French Revolution, has made me hate him; he loved liberty very much in Machiavel's way, and understood it so. His two tragedies Saul and Mirra, which I was told were his best, have made me admire and wonder, but without much dramatic interest: this is a very rash judg ment, and I shall perhaps have to retract it; but though the conduct of his plot and scenes is skilfully pursued for effect, his personages have no character of their own; and though they always speak the proper and very forcible language of the passions, they never say any thing but what one seems to have heard before, and expects them to say in their circumstances. There is consummate art in the Mirra; but it has not a touch of that pathetic with which Ovid tells the story, and with which Dryden has translated one speech, and with which Racine has imitated the same speech in Phedre. Could there be a stronger trait of a want of original genius, than his resolution not to read Racine any more, for fear of spoiling his originality! But I am falling into very old stories: do not let Foscolo hear of my heresies.

During the long interval of our not hearing from you, we heard of Whishaw and the Romillys being well, by a letter from Mr. Mallet to Madame Achard; he gave us the right history, too, of those riots, and of the good conduct of the suffering people, which our friend Louis's government takes some pains to misrepresent in their newspapers. I do not believe that you know Mr. Mal

let*, at least not much; I wish you did: he is a very amiable person, and to me quite agreeable, with a clear right head, which he uses very much upon what is passing in the world.

Your reproof about Sismondi's history is deserved; and though I have not gone back to the work, I had felt, in some measure, the harshness of my criticism, before I received yours, which is just and excellent. His conversation had made me milder towards his book, and almost will persuade me to resume it. What had set me off, was many childish pages of seeming philosophy, signifying nothing; Parisian generalities, heated up at Geneva: but I ought at the same time to have remembered, that he has embodied into his composition a great deal of the good and useful philosophy of the last age, on important political questions, though without originality or any good writing in his manner of doing it.

And now good night, my dear Lady Holland: what a blab I am become on paper, since my vow of vocal taciturnity. My kind regards to Lord Holland.

Ever affectionately yours,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CCXCV. TO MRS. DUGALD STEWART.

My dear Mrs. Stewart,

Pisa, 17th Dec. 1816.

I ought to have told you long ago how well I found all the Mintos and Elliots at Genoa; where I halted for two days on my way here; and what a pleasure it was to have for two days the faces of English friends. They were all in perfect health.

* John Lewis Mallet, Esq., son of the celebrated Mallet du Pan. See Smyth's Lectures on the French Revolution, vol. i. p. 96, and vol. ii. p. 219, He has been for many years Secretary of the Audit Board. — ED.

227.

I can of course tell you nothing of this place, except that we are at present enjoying beautiful weather, and that the general look of the town is striking and peculiar. But my present mode of existence is so like a dream, that I do not venture to talk of things as real; to have been brought over near a thousand miles of foreign country, and not allowed to look about, and then set down in a very famous place, without having breath to ask a question, puts me in a manner beside myself.

In a bookseller's catalogue this morning, I met with the title of a work, which may have been originally written by your ancient friend Lord Woodhouselee; it is a "disquisition upon the doubt which had arisen how it happened that Petrarca did not expressly praise Laura for her nose!" If you have any curiosity to see it, I will send for it to Florence.

Pray tell Mr. Stewart there is a very remarkable letter of Machiavel's lately published, written to a private friend at the very time he was engaged in the composition of The Prince, and not only fixing the date of that work, but explaining, in a manner disgraceful to the author, the use at least he made of it, in putting it into the hands of the Medicis family; the letter, besides, is full of character, and describes, in a very lively manner, the life he was leading when driven away from Florence. This particular letter may be read at the end of the last volume but one of "Pignotti's Storia della Toscana," a book published here, but which was in all the London shops before I came away; it is to be found also, with several others, which are entertaining. and curious, in a new collection published at Florence, in 1814, of Machiavel's public despatches and familiar letters. By the way I must likewise tell Mr. Stewart, that my late reading has suggested a slight criticism

upon one expression of his with regard to "Machiavel's Prince," where he calls it "one of the latest of his publications." The fact is, that his three great works were none of them published in his lifetime, nor for four years after his death; they appear to have been all written at the same period of his life, during the eight or ten years of leisure that were forced upon him; and I believe it may be made out from the works themselves, that The Prince was composed and finished first of the three, then the Discourses, and last of all the History. This and the first having been written for the Medicis family, the MSS. were in their hands, and they published them; the Discourses were printed by the care of some of his personal friends. If Mr. Stewart wishes to have the proof of all this in detail, I can draw it out without any trouble. You see that the Dissertation is one of my companions in my travels.

The last I heard of Mr. Playfair was in a letter from Lord Lansdowne, at Rome, of the 18th November, in which he mentioned his arrival; of course you have later accounts. Remember me to all at Kinneil, and believe me, dear Mrs. Stewart,

Very affectionately yours,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CCXCVI. TO J. A. MURRAY, ESQ.

My dear Murray,

Pisa, 21st Dec. 1816.

I got yours of the 2d instant yesterday. You say nothing of Mrs. Murray's health. By other accounts, I find she had been ailing and confined to her room, but was better; I hope and trust by this time quite well. Mr. Clerk's opinion will not make me think that there

was no injustice done in the Ayrshire case. There was an absolute failure of justice, upon a point of form, after infinite delay. If he and others think nothing wrong in the existing laws, I am certain that was not the opinion of Lord Eldon in that cause; and I should have expected some of those you name to have been at least as quick as he to see and admit defects that touch the liberty of the subject. Of all persons, those who give you the least aid, when any thing is to be done by legislation, are your ancient barristers; the two operations of mind, knowing what the laws are, and seeing what they had better be, seem almost incompatible.

But it is idle to regret the obstacles that exist to any amelioration of the constitutional laws of Scotland. Similar improvements in England have seldom been the work of lawyers, but have been forced upon them, or carried through in spite of them, by the public voice upon some crying instance, like that Ayrshire case, or by the efforts of individuals unconnected with the legal profession. In Scotland you have no public voice; for you have neither a popular meeting nor a political press.

You leave me in doubt, whether you adopt Clerk's opinion, when you state it, that the laws of Scotland and their administration are particularly lenient to all persons liable to imprisonment. Under the actual administration, ought to be included the state of your prisons; which, from what I have seen of some, and heard of many others, are a reproach to a civilised country. Another branch of actual administration is the practice, upon your circuits, of "deserting the Diet," at the dis

*This was an action for wrongous imprisonment on the statute of 1701, c. 6, by John Andrew, a shoemaker, in the village of Maybole in Ayrshire, accused of seditious practices, against John Murdoch, Sheriff-Substitute of that county.Dow's Reports of Appeals, vol. ii. p. 402.—ED.