were inclined to be hypercritical, he might object, that its bright and even flow occasionally lapses into monotony, or causes the reader to lose sight of the principal thought in admiration of the language or the illustration. But even these qualities can hardly be deemed defects, when treating of such themes as Italian art and Italian scenery. Here, the most curious and brightly-pictured expressions, and the ripest fancy, seem at home; they breathe the spirit of that land which inspired Petrarch and Boccaccio, and sometimes softened even the stern genius of the great poet of Florence.

Mr. Hillard has judged wisely in not thowing his observations into the form of a journal. He says very little, indeed, of his personal adventures, and makes no complaint of hard fare, bad inns,, or cheating landlords. True, the times are changed in this respect, since travellers used to tell so dolorous a story of the annoyances and discomforts that they suffered while exploring the remains of Roman grandeur, or feasting on Italian art. The vast influx of foreigners into Italy has introduced foreign fashions and foreign comforts; and one can now journey from Milan to Naples about as easily as from Boston to New York. Our author refers all persons who are curious about such particulars to that invaluable rade mecum, Murray's Guide Book; and contents himself with giving a series of descriptive sketches of the most remarkable objects of nature and art. His work conveys very faithfully, we think, the general impressions which these objects make on the mind. of a well-informed traveller, of refined taste and a lively sensibility. Though imbued with the best fruits of thorough and extensive scholarship, it is singularly free from any touch of pedantry. It contains hardly a Latin quotation or a poetical extract from beginning to end. But all the information necessary to understand the picture, the statue, or the ruin, is given incidentally and without effort, from the stores of an overflowing mind. Three chapters, at the close of the second volume, give an agreeable and critical account of the most noteworthy books that have been written about Italy, from the time of Petrarch to the present day. Here will be found some useful hints for persons who desire to qualify themselves for a journey in the peninsula by studying the works of those who have preceded them. We are a little surprised not to find, upon our author's list, the interesting volumes of Mr. Whiteside, a distinguished Irish lawyer, who was travelling in Italy at about the same time with Mr. Hillard; or the amusing and instructive work of Mrs. Hamilton Gray, upon the sepulchres of Etruria. It does not appear, however, that the catalogue was designed to be complete.

We must not part from Mr. Hillard's work without giving some ex

tract from it, which shall be a fair specimen of his manner. The following eloquent passage upon the Coliseum, (which we prefer to spell as Gibbon did,) will answer this purpose:

"If as a building the Colosseum was open to criticism, as a ruin it is perfect. The work of decay has stopped short at the exact point required by taste and sentiment. The monotonous ring of the outer wall is everywhere broken, and, instead of formal curves and perpendicular lines, the eye rests upon those interruptions and unexpected turns, which are the essential elements of the picturesque, as distinguished from the beautiful and the sublime; and yet so much of the original structure is left, that the fancy can without effort piece out the rents and chasms of time, and line the interior with living forms. When a building is abandoned to decay, it is given over to the dominion of Nature, whose works are never uniform. When the Colosseum was complete, vast as it was, it must have left upon the mind a monotonous impression of sameness, from the architectural repetitions which its plan included; but now that it is a vast ruin, it has all that variety of form and outline which we admire in a Gothic cathedral. Not by rule and measure have the huge stones been clipped and broken. No contriving mind has told what masses should be loosened from the wall, or where they should lie when fallen. No hand of man has trained the climbing plants in the way they should go. All has been left to the will of time and chance, and the result is, that, though there is everywhere resemblance, there is nowhere identity. A little more or a little less of decay, a chasm more or less deep,- a fissure more or less prolonged, a drapery of verdure more or less flowing, - give to each square yard of the Colosseum its own peculiar expression. It is a wilderness of ruin, in which no two fragments are exactly alike.

"The material of which the Colosseum was built is exactly fitted to the purposes of a great ruin. It is travertine, of a rich, dark, warm color, deepened and mellowed by time. There is nothing glaring, harsh, or abrupt in the harmony of tints. The blue sky above, and the green earth beneath, are in unison with a tone of coloring not unlike the brown of one of our own early winter landscapes. The travertine is also of a coarse grain and porous texture, not splintering into points and edges, but gradually corroding by natural decay. Stone of such a texture everywhere opens laps and nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of summer, instead of sliding from a glassy surface, is held where it falls. The rocks themselves crumble and decompose, and thus turn into a fertile mould. Thus, the Colosseum is throughout crowned and draped with a covering of earth, in many places of considerable depth. Trailing plants clasp the stones with arms of verdure: wild flowers bloom in their seasons, and long grass nods and waves on the airy battlements. Life has everywhere sprouted from the trunk of death. Insects hum and sport in the sunshine: the burnished lizard darts like a tongue of green flame along the walls, and birds make the hollow quarry overflow with their songs. There is something beautiful and impressive in the contrast between luxuriant life, and the rigid skeleton upon which it rests. Nature seems to have been busy

in binding up, with gentle hand, the wounds and bruises of time. She has covered the rents and chasms of decay with that drapery which the touch of every spring renews. She has peopled the solitude and the silence with forms and voices. She has clothed the nakedness of desolation, and crowned the majesty of ruin. She has softened the stern aspect of the scene with the hues of undying youth, and brightened the shadows of dead centuries with the living light of vines and flowers.

"As a matter of course, everybody goes to see the Colosseum by moonlight. The great charm of the ruin under this condition is, that the imagination is substituted for sight; and the mind for the eye. The essential character of moonlight is hard, rather than soft. The line between light and shadow is sharply defined, and there is no gradation of color. Blocks and walls of silver are bordered by, and spring out of chasms of blackness. But moonlight shrouds the Colosseum in mystery. It opens deep vaults of gloom where the eye meets only an ebon wall, but upon which the fancy paints innumerable pictures, in solemn, splendid, and tragic colors. Shadowy forms of emperor and lictor, and vestal virgin and gladiator and martyr, come out of the darkness, and pass before us in long and silent procession. The breezes which blow through the broken arches are changed into voices, and recall the shouts and cries of a vast audience. By day, the Colosseum is an impressive fact; by night, it is a stately vision. By day, it is a lifeless form; by night, a vital thought.

"The Colosseum should, by all means, be seen by a bright starlight, or under the growing sickle of a young moon. The fainter ray and deeper gloom bring out more strongly its visionary and ideal character. When the full moon has blotted out the stars, it fills the vast gulf of the building with a flood of spectral light, which falls with a chilling touch upon the spirit; for then the ruin is like a 'corpse in its shroud of snow,' and the moon is a pale watcher by its side. But when the walls, veiled in deep shadow, seem a part of the darkness in which they are lost, when the stars are seen through their chasms and breaks, and sparkle along the broken line of the battlements, the scene becomes another, though the same; more indistinct, yet not so mournful; contracting the sphere of sight, but enlarging that of thought; less burdening, but more suggestive.”

"But, under all aspects, in the blaze of noon, at sunset, by the light of the moon or stars, - the Colosseum stands alone and unapproached. It is the monarch of ruins. It is a great tragedy in stone, and it softens and subdues the mind like a drama of Eschylus or Shakespeare. It is a colossal type of those struggles of humanity against an irresistible destiny, in which the tragic poet finds the elements of his art. The calamities which crushed the house of Atreus, are symbolized in its broken arches and shattered walls. Built of indestructible materials, and seemingly for eternity,—of a size, material, and form, to defy the 'strong hours' which conquer all, it has bowed its head to their touch, and passed into the inevitable cycle of decay. 'And this too shall pass away,'- which the Eastern monarch engraved upon his signet-ring, is carved upon these Cyclopean blocks. The stones of the Colosseum were once water; and they are now turning into dust. Such is

ever the circle of nature. The solid is changing into the fluid, and the fluid into the solid; and that which is unseen is alone indestructible. He does not see the Colosseum aright, who carries away from it no other impressions than those of form, size, and hue. It speaks an intelligible language to the wiser mind. It rebukes the peevish, and consoles the patient. It teaches us that there are misfortunes which are clothed with dignity, and sorrows that are crowned with grandeur. As the same blue sky smiles upon the ruin which smiled upon the perfect structure, so the same beneficent Providence bends over our shattered hopes and our answered prayers." Vol. i. pp. 305 – 310.

2. Free Blacks and Slaves.

Would Immediate Abolition be a Bless

ing? A Letter to the Editor of the Anti-Slavery Advocate. Cambridge Man. London and Liverpool. 1853.

By a

AMONG the many recent publications in England upon the subject of slavery is a modest pamphlet bearing the title given above, which deserves special notice. It is marked by the good sense and moderation with which it treats this most difficult of the questions that perplex our times. It is quite free from the cant, extravagance, and invidiousness which have too often exhibited themselves in the discussion both here and abroad. A man deserves credit who can think and speak calmly in the midst of so much passion, and still more, if he do so wisely.

The Anti-Slavery Advocate is the organ of that party in England, who are eager to bring about the immediate abolition of slavery in this country. The author of this letter to its editor, having travelled in the United States, and inquired into the condition of the free blacks and of the slaves, has come to the conclusion that immediate abolition, even if it were possible, would be undesirable, and states the grounds of his opinion in a clear, concise, and forcible manner. The facts from which he draws his conclusion are, for the most part, well known in this country; but the close of the letter contains a suggestion which is as new as it is simple and important.

"Admitting," he says, "the impossibility of abolishing Slavery in the extreme Southern States till the European races are acclimatized, or the Asiatic

*The suggestion is anticipated, however, in the article in our present number on "The Possible Amelioration of Slavery," which was written without any knowledge of the existence of the pamphlet here mentioned. It is proper to state, also, that this article, and the present brief notice of the pamphlet by a Cambridge Man, were furnished by two contributors without any concert with each other.

ones introduced, it is yet hard to understand why, alone of all American institutions, Slavery has never been modified or improved upon:- why, in a country whose characteristic is a generous growth and progress, there is one fearful and peculiar existence, which never changes with the changing times, nor, year by year, becomes less vile and loathsome. There is much that might be done with little trouble, with no risk, with the certainty of weakening the arguments of the abolitionists by striking from them their most effective weapon tales of horror and cruelty.

"Slave-owners, however excellent themselves, must wilfully shut their eyes, or they must be well aware that, though exaggerated by the opposite party, cruelties are not all unknown; and though by no means common, Haleys and Legrees are not quite extinct. Now, what prevents the slave-owners of America, men, many of them, with as good hearts as the South Carolinian,' whose letter, reprinted in Frazer, you have doubtless seen,- what prevents the inhabitants of the South, who do not see their way clear to abolition, forming in their separate States a 'Slavery Modification Society,' or some such thing, whose members should take upon themselves reforms which would not affect the stability of their 'property,' but which would show before God and man that they were really anxious to vindicate themselves from the reproach of conniving at grossest oppression and injustice. Let them examine into the condition of slaves in their own State, and appeal to their State Legislature to assist their endeavors to improve and raise it.

Among the reforms which would at once suggest themselves to such a band of high-hearted Southerners would be,—

"1. The observance of the marriage tie for the black man as for the white. "2. The abolition of the internal slave-trade between different States. "3. The appointment of commissioners to examine into the state of the different plantations.

"4. The better regulation of auctions."

Other reforms might, as the "Cambridge Man" adds, be easily suggested. But the special objects and the plan of operation of such associations as those proposed may best be left to be determined upon and worked out by those who are best acquainted with what ought to be done.

A project like this seems to afford room for the exercise on a broad field of those qualities which are so often found among slaveholders, the result of their full appreciation of the responsibilities of their position as masters, and of their sincere desire to perform their duties faithfully to their slaves. A Southern plantation may be the scene of the most thoughtful kindness and complete self-devotion of the master to his slave. Virtues which are rarely to be found elsewhere are there called into action. To make these virtues the rule by which the treatment of slaves should be regulated, to raise public opinion up to the highest standard of principle, not to allow it to be regulated by interest