side a fountain ornamented with shell-work, which was at the farther extremity of a shaded walk, she heard the sounds of a harp, accompanied by the still more pleasing accents of a human voice; and presently the names of Raoul and Isaure were mingled in the rhymes. She went towards a chink in the wall which was concealed by ivy, and, pushing aside the branches, endeavoured to discover the musician. A new astonishment succeeded, when her eyes were met by those of another person. She retired immediately; and, a conscious emotion accompanying her home, she promised to herself that she would not return to the fountain: but she had left her watering-pot there, her flowers were languishing, and she went for it again at the hour at which she had forgotten it on the evening before. She heard no noise: but, again peeping through the crevice, which seemed to be enlarged, she perceived a youth of pleasing figure seated on the turf, with a harp beside him, and his Presently he took up eyes fixed on the opening in the wall. his harp, and sang a lay of love, which Clementia could not doubt was addressed to her; and, approaching the opening, he seemed to conjure her not to fly. These were two of his lines : "Vous avez inspiré mes vers ; Qu'une fleur soit ma récompense.” Clementia hesitated, but at length deposited a violet on the ivy bough, and ran away. For a month the young man carolled, and received daily a flower as the reward of his music. Raoul, who was a natural son of Count Raymond, was now compelled to follow his father to the army, to assist in repulsing the invaders of the province of Artois; and both of them gloriously lost their lives in the battle of Guinegaste, so Clementia learnt this fatal to the young men of Toulouse. event with bitter grief, and time seemed only to increase her affliction but in religion, she sought a consolation independent of the world, and pronounced on the altar those vows which her mother had always exhorted her to offer to the Virgin. Before, however, she separated from her temporal possessions, she wished to erect some monument of her early feelings, and bequeathed to the company of Seven Troubadours an estate, out of which prizes of silver flowers were to be given; an amaranth to the author of the best ode, an eglantine for the best speech, a violet for the best hundred lines, a heart's ease for an idyl, and a lily for a pious sonnet to the Virgin. The rest of the revenue was to be divided APP. REV. VOL. XCI. I i among among forty master-minstrels, of whom the Seven Troubadours were the chosen directors. A Languedocian ode by Clementia still subsists, of which the following is a translation: Youth of the year, delightful spring, you bring back the games of poesy, and crown with flowers the faithful troubadour. Let us sing the piety of the queen of angels, when sobbing beside the cross she beheld the Prince of Heaven expire. 6 City of my ancestors, dear Toulouse, offer to the skilful poet the yearly prize of song, and so remain always worthy of his praise. The proud one hopes for ever to be chaunted by poets: but I am aware that the young troubadours will soon forget the fame of Clementia. So fades in the field the primrose, when the chill winds of night have blighted its young petals.' The schools of medicine at Montpelier are described with curious particularity, and a copy is given of the oath which every physician takes on there receiving his degree. We shall extract it as a curiosity, for it seems nominally to require a degree of superstition hardly compatible with liberal edu cation: I, Isidore M., or N., before the image of Hippocrates, in presence of the professors of this school, and of my dear fellowcollegians, do swear, in the name of the Supreme Being, to be faithful to the laws of honour and probity in the exercise of medicine. I will give my care gratuitously to the indigent, and will not exact a salary beyond my just demands. Admitted into the interior of families, my eyes shall not see what they ought not to see, nor shall my tongue betray any secrets confided to me; nor shall my profession be made available to corrupt morals, or to favour guilt. Respectful and grateful to my masters, I will endeavour to return to their children the instruction which I have gathered from the fathers. May men grant me their esteem in proportion as I am faithful to this oath; and may I be disgraced among my colleagues when I swerve from it!' Among the distinguished natives of Montpelier, the writer mentions Count Daru, author of a translation of Horace, and of a History of Venice reported in our last Appendix. We trust that the Hermit has not finished his travels; and we shall receive with pleasure, and notice with alacrity, any farther account of them. ART. ART. V. Eclaircissemens Historiques, &c. ; i. e. Historic Explan- HERE ERE is a writer on the principles of Sir Samuel Romilly. Born among the French Calvinists, and nurtured in French philosophy, he retains that veneration for principle, for piety, for domestic morality, which his education infused; and he has acquired that lofty spirit of independence, that tolerant absence of prejudice, that zeal for human liberty and public justice, and that cosmopolite philanthropy, which attach him every where to the cause of right, and necessitate him to rise in his strength against the oppressor, of whatever rank or country. To these general accomplishments is superadded an exact technical knowlege of the laws and constitutions of his nation, and a most disinterested spirit in the application of his skill. If we have any fault to find with his exertions, it is for the want of condensation in his argument, for the profuse compilation of his documents, for the. copiousness of his narration, and for the egotism of his interminable but meritorious industry. The Protestants of Nismes, as every body knows, were early distinguished for their zeal in behalf of the French Revolution. In this feeling they sympathized with the great body of their countrymen: - but, as it often happens where a sectarian party-spirit prevails, the Catholics of Nismes were less disposed to express zeal in behalf of that event because the Protestants had pre-occupied the ground, and carried the liberality of their allegiance to the very edge of republicanism. At every crisis of the Revolution, ferments broke out in the department of the Gard; and in general it appeared that the Catholics leaned to royalism and to the Bourbon dynasty, but that the Protestants preferred the more tolerant On the reprinciples which were supported by Bonaparte. storation of the present royal family, the old differences between the Protestants and the Catholics acquired a lamentable bitterness: sedition broke into horrible violence; and, whether the military were not alertly called in, or not within call, very many Protestants were execrably massacred. Of the nature and degree of the provocations which terminated in these shocking catastrophes, the five Numbers before us give, or rather begin to give, (for there are to be others,) a detailed and instructive account; and they deserve the attention of the politician, as well as the investigation and abridgment of the ecclesiastical Ii 2 historian, historian. As, however, it is not in our power to comprize within our limits a regular and complete account of these melancholy transactions, we must content ourselves with recommending the perusal of the original. Indeed, without a very minute knowlege of the successive states of French parties, and of all the phases of the Revolution, it would not be easy for the reader to follow any succinct narrative with that interest which results from an intimacy with the causes of the phænomena recorded. Those who covet entire information will find in the work of M. DE PERET a highly satisfactory statement; amply corroborated by vouchers, abounding in personal details, and animated by that spirit of probity, and that solicitude for investigation, which form a title to confidence and a pledge of impartiality. Highly useful it certainly might be to the cause of religious toleration, if an English abridgment of these statements were to be prepared for general circulation. It is much to be feared that Ireland still possesses many whose temper has been made irascible by similar provocations; and the animosity between Catholics and Protestants might perhaps be enfeebled at home by a skilful exposure of its injuries abroad. ART. VI. Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, &c.; i. e. The His By J. C. L. 8vo. Paris. A FTER a considerable interval, we are enabled to recur once more to this valuable history of a glorious land, with undiminished feelings of interest and affection. * With the name of Italy, a thousand "sweet and bitter fancies" are awakened in our bosoms: kings, consuls, emperors, and pontiffs, rise in all the dumb majesty of Shakspeare's royal phantoms; and we recognize the "Land of lost gods, and godlike men." The history of Italy, at every period of her existence, forms an important part of the chronicle of the world. On emerging from the darkness of the monkish ages, that country was in fact the mould in which the nations of Europe fashioned themselves. Her highest and truest claim, however, to the gratitude of modern times, consists in the restoration of * The first eleven volumes of the work were reported in our Appendixes to vols. lxxviii., lxxix., and lxxx. letters; letters; which, though they have failed to bestow happiness and freedom on the land that nourished them, have in other regions exerted a freer influence, and awakened those energies of mind with which the welfare of man is so intimately connected. The volumes now before us commence at a most disastrous period of Italian history. "With darkness and with dangers compassed round," this fair land was on the eve of beholding her vineyards trodden by hostile hoofs, and her cities flowing with the blood of their inhabitants. The disunion of her different princes both occasioned and promoted this evil; and never was Italy less able, than at the conclusion of the fifteenth century, to resist the encroachments of foreign power, by the virtues of her rulers. The chair of St. Peter was filled by a pontiff whose name has almost become a bye-word for infamy: Alfonso II., who had succeeded to the throne of Naples, inherited all the worst qualities which distinguished his father's character; and Ludovico Sforza, who had usurped the sovereign power at Milan, was a man of a haughty, ambitious, and cruel mind, and but too justly accused of having stepped to the throne over the dead body of his near kinsman. On this prince also rests the guilt of having invited into Italy the strangers whose lances were so soon imbued in her best blood. Yet Whatever might have been the claims of the house of Anjou to the crown of Naples, (and the rights of the two contending parties seem equally matched in weakness,) it was the interest as well as the duty of all the Italian states to repel an invasion which threatened the desolation of their fields. to most of them, according to M. DE SISMONDI, the approach of the French armies was a subject of rejoicing; and among these he includes the Pope, who, he says, hoped to be made the arbiter between the two potentates.* (Vol. xii. p. 102.) Alexander, however, must have been aware that a young and ambitious prince, at the head of a powerful army, would be little inclined to listen to mediation; and he accordingly appears to have beheld the incursion of the French king with very different feelings; inciting, as he did, even the Turks *This statement is given on the authority of Guicciardini; though from the silence of Commines, and from the circumstance of the Pope's name being omitted in the letter of Ludovico Sforza to Charles, (Corio, p. 891.) it is more than probable that the French king had never received any encouragement from the pontiff. Ii 3 against |