*

nary and long-continued efforts in their own defence; and that commerce by which they had acquired their wealth and power began to decay, without any hopes of its reviving. All the fatal consequences to their republic, which the sagacity of the Venetian senate foresaw on the first discovery of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, actually took place. Their endeavours to prevent the Portuguese from establishing themselves in the East Indies, not only by exciting the Soldans of Egypt, and the Ottoman monarchs, to turn their arms against such dangerous intruders, but by affording secret aid to the infidels in order to insure their success, proved ineffectual. The activity and valour of the Portuguese surmounted every obstacle, and obtained such a firm footing in that fertile country, as secured to them large possessions, together with an influence till more extensive. Lisbon, instead of Venice, became the staple for the precious commodities of the East. The Venetians, after having possessed, for many years, the monopoly of that beneficial commerce, had the mortification to be excluded from almost any share in it. The discoveries of the Spaniards in the Western world proved no less fatal to inferior branches of their commerce. The original defects which were formerly pointed out in the constitution of the Venetian republic still continued, and the disadvantages with which it undertook any great enterprise increased, rather than diminished. The sources from which it derived its extraordinary riches and power being dried up, the interior vigour of the state declined, and, of course, its external operations became less formidable. Long before the middle of the sixteenth century, Venice ceased to be one of the principal powers in Europe, and dwindled into a secondary and subaltern state. But as the senate had the address to conceal the diminution of its power, under the veil of moderation and caution; as it made no rash effort that could discover its weakness; as the symptoms of political decay in states are not soon observed, and are seldom so apparent to their neighbours as to occasion any sudden alteration in their conduct towards them, Venice continued long to be considered and respected. She was treated not according to her present condition, but according to the rank which she had formerly held. Charles V. as well as the kings of France his rivals, courted her assistance with emulation and solicitude in all their enterprises. Even down to the close of the century, Venice remained not only an object of attention, but a considerable seat of political negotiation and intrigue.

That authority which the first Cosmo di Medici, and Laurence, his grandson, had acquired in the republic of Florence, by their beneficence and abilities, inspired their descendants with the ambition of usurping the sovereignty in their country, and paved their way towards it. Charles V. placed Alexander di Medici at the head of the republic [A. D. 1550], and to the natural interest and power of the family added the weight as well as credit of the Imperial protection. Of these, his successor Cosmo, surnamed the Great, availed himself; and establishing his supreme authority on the ruins of the ancient republican constitution, he transmitted that, together with the title of grand duke of Tuscany, to his descendants. Their dominions were composed of the territories which had belonged to the three commonwealths of Florence, Pisa, and Sienna, and formed one of the most respectable of the Italian states.

The dukes of Savoy, during the former part of the sixteenth century, possessed territories which were not considerable either for extent or value; and the French, having seized the greater part of them, obliged the reigning duke to retire for safety to the strong fortress of Nice, where he shut himself up for several years, while his son, the prince of Piedmont, endeavoured to better his fortune, by serving as an adventurer in the armies of Spain. The peace of Chateau-Cambresis restored to him his paternal dominions. As these are environed on every hand by powerful

* Freher. Script. Rer. German. vol. ii. 529,

neighbours, all whose motions the dukes of Savoy must observe with the greatest attention, in order not only to guard against the danger of being surprised and overpowered, but that they may choose their side with discernment in those quarrels wherein it is impossible for them to avoid taking part, this peculiarity in their situation seems to have had no inconsi derable influence on their character. By rousing them to perpetual attention, by keeping their ingenuity always on the stretch, and engaging them in almost continual action, it hath formed a race of princes more sagacious in discovering their true interest, more decisive in their resolutions, and more dexterous in availing themselves of every occurrence which presented itself, than any perhaps that can be singled out in the history of Europe. By gradual acquisitions the dukes of Savoy have added to their territories, as well as to their own importance; and aspiring at length to regal dignity, which they obtained about half a century ago, by the title of kings of Sardinia, they hold now no inconsiderable rank among the monarchs of Europe.

The territories which form the republic of the United Netherlands were lost during the first part of the sixteenth century, among the numerous provinces subject to the house of Austria; and were then so inconsiderable, that hardly one opportunity of mentioning them hath occurred in all the busy period of this history. But soon after the peace of Chateau-Cambresis, the violent and bigoted maxims of Philip's government, being carried into execution with unrelenting rigour by the duke of Alva, exasperated the free people of the Low-Countries to such a degree, that they threw off the Spanish yoke, and asserted their ancient liberties and laws. These they defended with a persevering valour, which gave employment to the arms of Spain during half a century, exhausted the vigour, ruined the reputation of that monarchy, and at last constrained their ancient masters to recognise and to treat with them as a free independent state. This state, founded on liberty, and reared by industry and economy, grew into great reputation, even while struggling for its existence. But when peace and security allowed it to enlarge its views, and to extend its commerce, it rose to be one of the most respectable as well as enterprising powers in Europe.

The transactions of the kingdoms in the North of Europe have been seldom attended to in the course of this history.

Russia remained buried in that barbarism and obscurity, from which it was called about the beginning of the present century, by the creative genius of Peter the Great, who made his country known and formidable to the rest of Europe.

In Denmark and Sweden, during the reign of Charles V., great revolu tions happened in their constitutions, civil as well as ecclesiastical. In the former kingdom, a tyrant being degraded from the throne, and expelled the country, a new prince was called by the voice of the people to assume the reins of government. In the latter, a fierce people roused to arms by injuries and oppression, shook off the Danish yoke, and conferred the regal dignity on its deliverer Gustavus Ericson, who had all the virtues of a hero, and of a patriot. Denmark, exhausted by foreign wars, or weakened by the dissensions between the king and the nobles, became incapable of such efforts as were requisite in order to recover the ascendant which it had long possessed in the North of Europe. Sweden, as soon as it was freed from the dominion of strangers, began to recruit its strength, and acquired in a short time such internal vigour, that it became the first kingdom in the North. Early in the subsequent century, it rose to such a high rank among the powers of Europe, that it had the chief merit in forming, as well as conducting, that powerful league, which protected not only the protestant religion, but the liberties of Germany, against the bigotry and ambition of the house of Austria.

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

NOTE [1]. PAGE 8.

THE consternation of the Britons, when invaded by the Picts and Caledonians after the Roman legions were called out of the islands, may give some idea of the degree of debasement to which the human mind was reduced by long servitude under the Romans. In their supplicatory letter to Actius, which they call the Groans of Britain, "We know not," say they," which way to turn us. The barbarians drive us to the sea, and the sea forces us back on the barbarians; between which we have only the choice of two deaths, either to be swallowed up by the waves, or to be slain by the sword." Histor. Gilda, ap. Gale, Hist. Britain. Script. p. 6.-One can hardly believe this dastardly race to be the descendants of that gallant people, who repulsed Cæsar, and defended their liberty so long against the Roman arms.

NOTE [2]. PAGE 8.

THE barbarous nations were not only illiterate, but regarded literature with contempt. They found the inhabitants of all the provinces of the empire sunk in effeminacy, and averse to war. Such a character was the object of scorn to a high-spirited and gallant race of men. "When we would brand an enemy," says Liutprandus, "with the most disgraceful and contumelious appellation, we call him a Roman; hoc solo, id est Romani nomine, quicquid ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiæ, quicquid luxuriæ, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est comprehendentes." Liutprandi Legatio apud Murat. Scriptor. Italic. vol. ii. pars 1. p. 481. This degeneracy of manners, illiterate barbarians imputed to their love of learning. Even after they settled in the countries which they had conquered, they would not permit their children to be instructed in any science; for," said they, "instruction in the sciences tends to corrupt, enervate, and depress the mind; and he who has been accustomed to tremble under the rod of a pedagogue, will never look on a sword or spear with an undaunted eye." Procop. de bello Gothor. lib. i. p. 4. ap. Scrip. Byz. edit. Vennet. vol. i. A considerable number of years elapsed, before nations so rude, and so unwilling to learn, could produce historians capable of recording their transactions, or of describing their manners and institutions. By that time, the memory of their ancient condition was in a great measure lost, and few monuments remained to guide their first writers to any certain knowledge of it. If one expects to receive any satisfactory account of the manners and laws of the Goths, Lombards, or Franks, during their residence in those countries where they were originally seated, from Jornandes, Paulus Warnefridus, or Gregory of Tours, the earliest and most authentic historians of these people, he will be miserably disappointed. Whatever imperfect knowledge has been conveyed to us of their ancient state, we owe not to their own writers, but to the Greek and Roman historians.

NOTE [3]. PAGE 8.

A CIRCUMSTANCE, related by Priscus in his history of the embassy to Attila king of the Huns, gives a striking view of the enthusiastic passion for war which prevailed among the barbarous nations. When the entertainment, to which that fierce conqueror admitted the Roman ambassadors, was ended, two Scythians advanced towards Attila, and recited a poem in which they celebrated his victories and military virtues. All the Huns fixed their eyes with attention on the bards. Some seemed to be delighted with the verses; others, remembering their own battles and exploits. exulted with joy; while such as were become

feeble through age, burst into tears, bewailing the decay of their vigour, and the state of inactivity in which they were now obliged to remain. Excerpta ex historia Prisci Rhetoris ap. Byzant. Histor. Script. vol. i. p. 45.

NOTE [4]. PAGE 11.

A REMARKABLE confirmation of both parts of this reasoning occurs in the history of England. The Saxons carried on the conquest of that country, with the same destructive spirit which distinguished the other barbarous nations. The ancient inhabitants of Britain were either exterminated, or forced to take shelter among the mountains of Wales, or reduced to servitude. The Saxon government, laws, manners and language were of consequence introduced into Britain; and were so perfectly established, that all memory of the institutions previous to their conquest of the country, was in a great measure lost. The very reverse of this happened in a subsequent revolution. A single victory placed William the Norman on the throne of England. The Saxon inhabitants, though oppressed, were not exterminated. William employed the utmost efforts of his power and policy to make his new subjects conform in every thing to the Norman standard, but without success. The Saxons, though vanquished, were far more numerous than their conquerors; when the two races began to incorporate, the Saxon laws and manners gradually gained ground. The Norman institutions became unpopular and odious; many of them fell into disuse, and in the English constitution and language, at this day, many essential parts are manifestly of Saxon, not of Norman extraction.

NOTE [5]. PAGE 11.

PROCOPIUS, the historian, declines, from a principle of benevolence, to give any particular detail of the cruelties of the Goths: "Lest," says he, "I should transmit a monument and example of inhumanity to succeeding ages." Proc. de bello Goth. lib. iii. cap. 10. ap. Byz. Script. vol. i. p. 126. But as the change, which I have pointed out as a consequence of the settlement of the barbarous nations in the countries formerly subject to the Roman empire, could not have taken place, if the greater part of the ancient inhabitants had not been extirpated, an event of such importance and influence merits a more particular illustration. This will justify me for exhibiting some part of that melancholy spectacle, over which humanity prompted Procopius to draw a veil. I shall not, however, disgust my readers by a minute narration; but rest satisfied with collecting some instances of the devastations made by two of the many nations which settled in the empire. The Vandals were the first of the barbarians who invaded Spain. It was one of the richest and most populous of the Roman provinces; the inhabitants had been distinguished for courage, and had defended their liberty against the arms of Rome, with greater obstinacy and during a longer course of years, than any nation in Europe. But so entirely were they enervated by their subjection to the Romans, that the Vandals, who entered the kingdom, A. D. 409, completed the conquest of it with such rapidity, that in the year 411, these barbarians divided it among them by casting lots. The desolation occasioned by their invasion, is thus described by Idatius an eyewitness: "The barbarians wasted every thing with hostile cruelty. The pestilence was no less destructive. A dreadful famine raged, to such a degree, that the living were constrained to feed on the dead bodies of their fellow-citizens; and all those terrible plagues desolated at once the unhappy kingdoms.” Idatii Chron. ap. Biblioth. Patrum. vol. vii. p. 1233. edit. Ludg. 1677. The Goths having attacked the Vandals in their new settlements a fierce war ensued; the country was plundered by both parties; the cities which had escaped from destruction in the first invasion of the Vandals, were now laid in ashes, and the inhabitants exposed to suffer every thing that the wanton cruelty of barbarians could inflict. Idatius describes these scenes of inhumanity, ibid. p. 1235. b. 1236. c. f. A similar account of their devastation is given by Isidorus Hispalensis, and other contemporary writers. Isid. Chron. ap. Grot. hist. Goth. 732. From Spain the Vandals passed over into Africa, A. D. 428. Africa was, next to Egypt, the most fertile of the Roman provinces. It was one of the granaries of the empire, and is called by an ancient writer the soul of the commonwealth. Though the army with which the Vandals invaded it did not exceed

30,000 fighting men, they became absolute masters of the province in less than two years. A contemporary author gives a dreadful account of the havoc which they made: "They found a province well cultivated, and enjoying plenty, the beauty of the whole earth. They carried their destructive arms into every corner of it; they dispeopled it by their devastations; exterminating every thing with fire and sword. They did not even spare the vines and fruit trees, that those to whom caves and inaccessible mountains had afforded a retreat, might find no nourishment of any kind. Their hostile rage could not be satiated, and there was no place exempted from the effects of it. They tortured their prisoners with the most exquisite cruelty, that they might force from them a discovery of their hidden treasures. The more they discovered the more they expected, and the more implacable they became. Neither the infirmities of age nor of sex; neither the dignity of nobility, nor the sanctity of the sacerdotal office, could mitigate their fury; but the more illustrious their prisoners were, the more barbarously they insulted them. The public buildings which resisted the violence of the flames, they levelled with the ground. They left many cities without an inhabitant. When they approached any fortified place, which their undisciplined army could not reduce, they gathered together a multitude of prisoners, and putting them to the sword, left their bodies unburied, that the stench of the carcasses might oblige the garrison to abandon it." Victor Vitensis de persecutione Africana, ap. Bibl. Patrum, vol. viii. p. 666. St. Augustin, an African, who survived the conquest of his country by the Vandals some years, gives a similar description of their cruelties, Opera, vol. x. p. 372. edit. 1616.-About a hundred years after the settlement of the Vandals in Africa, Belisarius attacked and dispossessed them. Procopius, a contemporary historian, describes the devastation which that war occasioned. "Africa," says he, "was so entirely dispeopled that one might travel several days in it without meeting one man; and it is no exaggeration to say, that in the course of the war five millions of persons perished! Proc. Hist. Arcana, cap. 18. ap. Byz. Script. vol. i. 315.-I have dwelt longer upon the calamities of this province, because they are described not only by contemporary authors, but by eye-witnesses. The present state of Africa confirms their testimony. Many of the most flourishing and populous cities with which it was filled, were so entirely ruined, that no vestiges remain to point out where they were situated. That fertile territory which sustained the Roman empire, still lies in a great measure uncultivated; and that province, which Victor, in his barbarous Latin, called Speciositas totius terræ florentis, is now the retreat of pirates and banditti.

While the Vandals laid waste a great part of the empire, the Huns desolated the remainder. Of all the barbarous tribes they were the fiercest and most formidable. Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary author, and one of the best of the later historians, gives an account of their policy and manners; which nearly resembled those of the Scythians described by the ancients, and of the Tartars known to the moderns. Some parts of their character, and several of their customs are not unlike those of the Savages in North America. Their passion for war was extreme. "As in polished societies" says Ammianus, "ease and tranquillity are courted, they delight in war and dangers. He who falls in battle is reckoned happy. They who die of old age or of disease are deemed infamous. They boast, with the utmost exultation, of the number of enemies whom they have slain, and, as the most glorious of all ornaments, they fasten the scalps of those who have fallen by their hands to the trappings of their horses." Ammian. Marc. lib. xxxi. p. 477. edit. Gronov. Lugd. 1693.-Their incursions into the empire began in the fourth century; and the Romans, though no strangers, by that time, to the effects of barbarous rage, were astonished at the cruelty of their devastations. Thrace, Pannonia, and Illyricum, were the countries which they first laid desolate. As they had at first no intention of settling in Europe, they made only inroads of short conunuance into the empire, but these were frequent, and Procopius computes that in each of these, at a medium, two hundred thousand persons perished, or were carried off as slaves. Procop. Hist. Arcan. ap. Byz. Script. vol. i. 316. Thrace, the best cultivated province in that quarter of the empire, was converted into a desert, and, when Priscus accompanied the ambassadors sent to