tions of barbarians brought new settlers from the exposed provinces: the more opulent guests were induced by the security in which their hosts lived to establish themselves in the same situation; and from the poorer class, the more promising in health, strength, and activity, were allured by greater gain to embrace the maritime instead of the agricultural life. The little burgh of Rialto appears to have received, with the fugitives from Padua, (which had been burned to the ground,) her consuls and tribunes, and other forms of Roman government. Untouched-by the Lombards, but menaced by that people from the continent and by Sclavonians by sea, the Venetians, in a general assembly convened in 697 at Heraclea, elected a Doge or Duke, whose office it was to direct the forces of the state against external and internal enemies.

s

The Venetians boast with reason of their pure descent from the Romans; since, equally hostile to Huns, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Franks, they were unpolluted by any mixture of barbarians. Rialto became the capital of the new state; the sixty islands that surround it were united by bridges to this first island; and over the whole of this space the present city extends. The ducal palace was erected on the spot on which it now stands; and the name of Venice, which belonged to the whole republic, was assumed by the capital. Twenty years afterward, the body of Saint Mark was transferred (according to their legends) from Alexandria to this city; and it is related that the merchants, who carried off this relic from the Egyptian church, adroitly substituted the body of Saint Claude, for whom they had less veneration. From this time, Saint Mark was deemed the patron of the republic; his lion became the impression on its coin, and the standard of its arms; his name was at length so identified with that of the state, that it has a charm for Venetian ears superior to that of the republic or of its victories; and the mention of it will bring tears into the eyes of every good Venetian.

About the same time that Venice was laying the foundations of her power on the Adriatic side of Italy, the less interesting republics of Genoa and Pisa began to shake off the yoke which had long oppressed them; developing the first germs, of that power which was destined in some degree to counterbalance the Venetian, and by a long and bloody rivalry to make the, Italians masters of the seas.

Thus the new revolution was accomplished; and, of the northern and southern races of Europe united, were formed, with the exception of Venice, new states and a new order of things. The conquerors brought energy and the conquered brought sensibility to the work of improvement. The people

of

of the north possessed liberty without a country to attach them; while those of the south had a country which claimed all their affections, but were strangers to that liberty which should have called forth their energies in its defence. Language, it is true, suffered by the introduction of auxiliary verbs, and the profuse usage of articles, those unworthy substitutes for the change of termination by which the antients expressed their times and cases. The nobles, derived principally from Germany, adhered for some time to the jargon of their ancestors: but their children were usually instructed by monks in the Latin tongue. Imperceptibly, one common dialect leavened the mass of each individual state; and one common language, subject only to the divisions produced by dialects, was spoken throughout the extent of the peninsula.

ART. VII.

[To be continued.]

Histoire de l'Ambassade, &c. ; i. e. A History of the French Embassy to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1812, by M. DE PRADT, Archbishop of Mechlin, at that time Ambassador at Warsaw. 5th Edition, revised and corrected. 8vo. pp. 272. Paris. 1815.

ON

N the other side of the channel, this publication has been circulated very extensively, not on account of any merit in the composition, which is loose and irregular, but of the interest resulting from the disclosure of matters connected with the official situation of the writer. M. DE PRADT alleges that he prepared his manuscript while Bonaparte was on the throne, and wishes the public to give him credit for a very different share of independence and courage from that which it allows to those who raised the note of reprobation after the fall of the usurper. The fact, however, is that Bonaparte, having found his clerical diplomatist deficient in the qualities most requisite for his situation, dismissed him from his service in a very unceremonious manner; and M. DE P., who no doubt thought that his talents were equal to those of Richelieu or Mazarin, determined in consequence to tell his wrongs to the world, and to announce that he had always disapproved the violent measures of his master: but he forgets to explain how it happened that he, being so virtuous and disinterested a character, should find himself in the enjoyment of several lucrative places at that corrupt court; or by what accident a dignitary of the church had gained favour in the eyes of Napoleon by taking a part in the well known quarrel with the Pope. Our readers will soon perceive in what complacent terms this reverend functionary is pleased to speak of his own proceedings;

at present, we shall waive our comments, and shall take up the narrative at its outset, viz. the departure of the French Emperor for the Russian campaign of 1812.

Bonaparte quitted Paris on the 9th of May, M. DE PRADT and some of the court following him on the next day. On conversing at Metz with the departmental Prefect, with whom Napoleon had passed a part of the preceding evening, M. DE P. found that his Imperial master had chosen to hold a very confident language: "Je vais mettre à cheval toute la Pologne oui, toute la Pologne; seize millions de Polonois."

I arrived at Dresden,' continues the author, on the 17th of May, after a most fatiguing journey, the ordinary lot of those who follow in the suite of Bonaparte all of whom, whether males or females, must continue to travel, night and day, like so many couriers. At Dresden, we saw him in all his splendour, receiving the visits of the neighbouring princes, of the King of Prussia, and even of the Empress of Austria. It was amusing to observe the humble deportment of the vassals, and the artful condescension occasionally shewn by their master.'

M. DE PRADT received on this occasion marks of attention which surprized him, Bonaparte inquiring particularly about his health, and expressing his concern lest it should have suffered from the fatigue of the journey. This unusual complaisance he soon found to be a prelude to the disclosure of the intention of sending him ambassador to Warsaw, which was soon afterward communicated in a private audience :

and,

On the 24th or 25th of May, he sent for me after mass having again inquired about the state of my health, he explained his intentions concerning me: but it was only from the Duke of Bassanò (Maret) that I learned the real nature and object of my mission. The Emperor merely spoke of sending me into Poland. " Go, I will make a trial of you. You know well that it is not to say mass that I have brought you hither. An immense establishment will be necessary. Shew attention to the women; it is a point of consequence in that country. You ought to know Poland; you have read Rhulières. I, for my part, go to fight the Russians; it is high time. By the end of September, we ought to have finished; perhaps time has been already lost. I am tired of this place:- for a whole week I have been employed in dancing attendance on the Empress of Austria."To some observations that I made on the conduct proper to be held towards Poland, in reference to the partitioning powers lately become his allies, he replied in a manner rather vague, but so as to be well understood, that, after having settled with Russia, it was his intention to engage with Austria, in order to make her either accept Illyria or be satisfied without it: distinctly adding that he did not as yet know to whom he should give the kingdom of Poland, when restored to its antient limits. He then proceeded, "I am going to Moscow one or two battles will decide the business: the

Emperor

Emperor Alexander will fall on his knees; I will burn Thoula; voila la Russie desarmée. They expect me there; Moscow is the heart of the empire; besides, I intend to carry on the war with the blood of the Poles. I will leave 50,000 French in Poland. I will make a Gibraltar of Dantzic. I will give two millions of yearly subsidy to the Poles; they have no money, but I am rich enough to do that. Without Russia, the continental system is a nullity. Spain costs me very dear; were it not for her, I should be master of Europe. When this is accomplished, my son will have only to adhere to the system; and il ne faudra pas être bien fin pour cela. Go and wait on Maret." This is, word for word, his conversation; important only for the light which it throws on his plans. Throughout the whole, were mingled expressions of satisfaction with my services; a species of praise which he knows well how to give when his interest requires it, but which he can retract with a vengeance in his days of passion, I mean on those occasions when the only epithets that he bestows are those of "fool" or "idiot.",

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M. DE PRADT declares, (p. 59.) in his usual spirit of modest pretension, that he was always averse to the Russian expedition; the result of which, he says, he had sufficient sagacity to foresee. Nay, he was in great distress on receiving his instructions as ambassador at Warsaw. Never,' he says, I describe my sensations when, after having crossed the Elbe, I traversed the dark forest on the other side. Such was my melancholy, that every tree seemed to me a cypress. I felt all the ties of my affections dissolved, and my heart in a manner torn by the cruelty of my situation.' Yet, though in so dismal a state of feeling, he found means to do wonders at Warsaw :

My clerks had not arrived, and all business rested for a time on my shoulders. Its pressure was such that I cannot yet conceive how I was able to go through with it, and it seems as if I must have sunk under it a hundred times. Yet I managed so that nothing languished, nothing was in arrear. From the 20th of June to the 27th of December, the day of my departure, I was not absent from a single sitting of the council; I did not fail in a single visit of importance; the whole political machine was kept in order, and performed its part with surprizing accuracy.'

We suppose that we must class among these hyperbolical effusions of vanity the assertion (p. 85.) that the duchy of Warsaw, which was under M. DE P.'s guidance, furnished so many as 85,000 combatants to the Russian war, at a time when the efforts of the rest of Poland were too trifling to deserve notice. How, in fact, is it possible that such a body of men should be armed and equipped in a country almost devoid (see M. R. Vol. lix. p. 522.) of the advantages of civilization? The policy of Bonaparte was to make the Poles come forwards in their own cause; to exhibit them as extremely desirous of

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the

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the recovery of their independence; and to take credit with them as its assertor, while to the rest of the world, and particularly to Austria, he pretended to moderate the rising spirit, and to assist in confirming that power in the possession of the provinces assigned to her by the partition-treaty of 1796. In pursuance of the first-mentioned object, he said to the Polish deputies at Posen, "Adopt whatever measures you deem proper; go as far, both in word and deeds, as you chuse; I put no restraint on you." In consequence, at the diet convened at Warsaw in the end of June, the re-establishment of the antient independence of Poland was distinctly brought forwards; a measure adopted by M. DE PRADT in conformity with his instructions, although Bonaparte was so wedded to concealment and indirect methods as to disapprove of this proceeding. The writer says, The Duke of Bassano, on rea

Polish dier Py of the address issued on the opening of the

Polish diet, was highly gratified, and even went so far as to call it "a chosen morsel of eloquence." But I was much mortified on opening the Duke's next letter to read the following passage: "I was at first in raptures with the address: but the Emperor does not approve it, and I must confess that he is in the right. He says that it would have been better to have given an address composed by an old Pole, and written in a bad style, but a style evidently Polish.""

It was next proposed to send a deputation from Warsaw to Wilna, to express the wishes of the Polish nation; and it is curious to find that the speech given to the world as the spontaneous effusion of a free assembly was fabricated three times over: the first draught being by a Polish nobleman, the second by M. DE PRADT, who altered it entirely, and the third by Bonaparte himself, who cut down the performance of his ambassador and substituted an abrupt harangue, of which one of the principal passages was, "Speak, and sixteen millions of Poles will rise in arms." The public answer given by Bonaparte, to, the deputation bore all the marks of his habitual art. He professed admiration of the efforts of the Poles, but dwelt on the variety of the interests which he had to consider, and declared that he could sanction no attempt to interfere with the Austrian government in the possession of Galicia. The object of this conduct was to secure the cordial co-operation of Austria during the campaign; after which he would have had no scruple in changing his tone, as he calculated (p. 24.) on becoming absolute master of the Continent in the course of a few years. In the present case, however, his cunning overshot its mark; the Poles being discouraged by his equivocal language,