criminal code. In the kingdom of Naples, the Code Napoleon, with some modifications, has been republished with the sanction of the restored government.

In order to appreciate the advantage of these enactments, we ought to compare the present state with the confusion which existed in the judiciary administration and practice of the Italian courts previous to the end of the last century. Laws, edicts, and sentences, promulgated at various epochs during eight or ten centuries, by conquerors and kings of almost every nation in Europe, and often construed in a sort of barbarous Latin, were jumbled together; canonical law clashed with the civil; feudal regulations and privileges were still in vigour in many places; most towns had their old municipal statutes. Of these latter, Tuscany alone reckoned more than five hundred. Leopold in Tuscany, and Joseph in Lombardy, began the reform, and at last the French swept away the whole heterogeneous mass in every part of Italy, and substituted the Code Napoleon. That celebrated compilation secured many valuable advantages to the people. The civil code, especially, was digested with great skill. Its system of hypotheques, or public register for mortgages, has been found so beneficial, that its provisions have been retained in almost every part of Italy to this day. With regard to the criminal code, notwithstanding its faults, it ensured one great and essential guarantee for individual security, namely, the practice of public trials. And here the Italians have materially lost by the late changes, for they have reverted to the old inquisitorial system of secret proceedings, interrogatories of the accused in prison, and written depositions; there is no cross-examination of witnesses by the defendant; in short, the whole responsibility of the trial rests in a great measure with the reporting judge and the fiscal advocate.

In many cases the punishment of death is accompanied by confiscation of property, the wife and children of the culprit having only claim to alimony, ad arbitrium of the Court.

There is, however, no longer any distinction of rank before the law; the use of torture and of torments in general is universally abolished.

*

The return to the old system of secret pleadings has met with many opponents. The superior advantages of public trials have been warmly sustained in several Italian journals. Romagnosi of Parma has boldly advocated the cause, refuting the objections of those who pretended that public trials were incompatible with the system of monarchy. Romagnosi, after mentioning the public pleadings of Rome, even under the Cesars, quotes the authority of Pierre Ayrault, lieutenant criminal at Angers, in his work styled

One of the most distinguished jurists of Italy. His principal works are-Genesi del diritto Penale, and his Introduzione al diritto Pubblico Universale. The Italians rank him with Beccaria and Filangeri.

Ordre, formalités and instructions judiciaires," published so early as 1587, and which shows that, even under Justinian and Valens, trials were public; that they were so in the early councils of the church; " and likewise in the earlier times of the French monarchy; and of this," says Mr. Ayrault, we have traces still at the gates of our churches, castles, markets, and in the public squares, where are to be seen the seats of the judges who tried the accused coram populo."* Romagnosi proceeds to prove that the publicity of trials is no wise incompatible with the system and spirit of a well regulated monarchy; that Catherine of Russia herself, in her " Instructions for a new Code," acknowledged that "secret proceedings savour too much of tyranny and oppression;' and that in the ancient Venetian statutes, "the placiti, or trials, were ordered to be carried on with open doors, for the terror of the guilty and the example of others, and for the satisfaction of the good, in order that every one may see strict justice awarded to each indiscriminately." This wise principle of the Venetian republic was, as is well known, put aside afterwards by the Council of Ten, in matters of state.

Romagnosi, in short, Rossi and other Italian jurists, maintain that the secret examination by the informing judge, who reports the case to his colleagues, and then gives his own opinion upon it, tends to bias the judgment of the court; that written depositions afford not sufficient light to the judges, who are apt to trust too much to the diligence and wisdom of their active coadjutor; that, on the other side, although the accused is now secure from personal violence, yet his mind is often kept in a state of torture by the mysterious formalities of his trial; that, in short, public pleadings alone can combine the attainment of the ends of justice with the preservation of individual security. It seems strange that such palpable truth should want defenders in our days!

We have been led into these observations on the judicious system of Italy, by the third work on our list, the "Annals of Coppi," which is a register, not only of political events, but also of all the acts emanated from the various authorities that have succeeded each other in Italy, concerning matters of legislation, political economy, public instruction, &c. Coppi's work is meant as a continuation of Maratori's "Annals of Italy," and the diligence and impartiality of the writer are deserving of great praise. He has given a most useful directory for those who wish to become acquainted with the alterations that have taken place in Italian society since the middle of last century. And we must say that, upon the whole, the progress of improvement has been very great. Italy is now very different from what it was in the memory of living men; even the appearance of the towns, the streets lighted at night, the new roads, the more effectual police, and a hundred

other things, attest the hand of improvement. Education is more generally spread, morality and decency have also gained, the noxious custom of serventism is on the decline, domestic affection is better valued; there is more union in families, the heads of which no longer strive to force the inclinations of their sons and daughters in the choice of a state. There is more religion and less superstition among the lower classes, and the affectation of infidelity which prevailed in the junior part of the upper orders, is no longer in fashion. All the remains of feudality have been abolished; property is more distributed; agriculture improves, especially in the north; common lands have been enclosed. Some of the Italian states, such as Tuscany and Parma, may be said to be under a liberal administration; in others, such as Austrian Lombardy, the authorities have shown much severity in political matters, but public security is at the same time firmly protected, and the laws are administered with impartiality. Piedmont and Modena are perhaps the two states in which the old system of absolute government has been most scrupulously reinstated. From the very division of Italy, it follows, however, that measures of rigour are seldom general.

Among the disadvantages resulting from the subdivision of Italy into many little states,* must be reckoned the impediments thrown in the way of the communication between the various people. Each state has its line of custom-house, its passports and police, its taxes, its laws, its peculiar currency. The inconvenience resulting from this to individuals, is obvious. Industry, speculation, manufactures, literature, all suffer from the same cause. It has as yet, been impossible to establish diligences or stage coaches throughout Italy, the interests of the vetturini having proved too strong in the southern States. The mails or letter bags also suffer considerable delay, having to pass at the frontier of each State into the hands of a new courier, and being detained in each Capital a certain time. Goods and travellers are examined a dozen times at least, in proceeding from Milan to Naples. Duties or fees must be paid at every custom-house. Even vessels proceeding from one harbour to the other on the same coast, perform quarantine. And all this, within the natural precincts of the Peninsula, "the Alps and the sea." With regard to books, journals, and other literary intelligence, the consequences are equally injurious. The censors are more severe or scrupulous in some States than in others, and thus, a book which is allowed free circulation at Florence, may be seized on the frontiers of Lombardy, or of the Roman States. Another evil proceeding from the same cause, is the precarious tenure of copyright. A work published in Milan, if it be

*Three Kingdoms, viz.-Sardinia, Lombardy, and the two Sicilies; five Duchies,-Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Lucca and Massa; the Papal States, and last and least, the Republic of San Marino.

good for anything, is re-printed immediately in a cheaper form at Florence, Turin, Bologna, and Naples. If published originally at Florence, it is still worse for the proprietor, for he can only depend on its circulation within the narrow limits of Tuscany. The consequence is, that booksellers seldom can afford to purchase MSS., and authors are obliged to publish their works by subscription, or at their own risk. Such a state of things is fatal to literary spirit and independence. The abuse has been loudly complained of. Monti's poetical works were generally pirated soon after they appeared. Botta's history, and Manzoni's novel, have been re-printed in four or six different towns. But a case which has lately attracted much attention, is that of Dr. Ferrario, who some years ago began publishing at Milan, an expensive work in numbers, with plates, under the title of "Costume antico e Moderno,' being a description of the customs, dress, religion, government, arts and sciences of antient and modern nations. The price of publication when complete, was fixed at four thousand livres. After many numbers had appeared, a bookseller of Florence announced a re-print at the price of four hundred livres! He prefaced his advertisement with the opinion of a legal friend, who had observed, "that as all the nations of Europe plundered each other's literary property, he did not see why the Tuscans should not do the same with a work published at Milan?" The strangenesss of this reasoning called the attention of another Florentine advocate, Dr. Collini, who replied to the bookseller and his counsel, in a note which was inserted in the journals. Colliri observes, that the practice of re-printing the works of living authors without their sanction, censurable as it is in general, is perfectly inexcusable between the inhabitants of one common country, speaking the same language, having the same literature, and living within a few miles of each other. "This is not so much a question between printer and printer," adds Collini, "as between two weavers of silk or cloth; there is another person principally interested, and that is the author, the creator of the work, about whom neither the bookseller nor his accommodating advocate have given themselves any concern."

We observe with pleasure, that the celebrated Angelo Mai obtained from the various Italian governments, the security of his copyright in their respective territories, for the books of Cicero, which he has discovered. This principle of justice ought to extend to all cases of authorship. For this and many other interests which are common to all Italians, there ought to be some sort of federal pact between the various States. We heard not long ago, certain vague reports about a projected Italian confederation; this would perhaps be the only practicable approximation to something like union in the Peninsula.

ART. VI.-1. Zillah: a Tale of the Holy City. By the Author of Brambletye House, &c. &c. London: Colburn. 4 vols. 1828.

2. Tales of the Great St. Bernard. London: Colburn. 3 vols. 1828. 3. Tales of Woman. London: Colburn. 2 vols. 1828. Ir was a beautiful fiction of antiquity that made the Muses the daughters of Memory. Of the poetical influence of recollection we have not, in these days, those great and convincing evidences which once gave an easy and striking interpretation to the above allegory. In the poetry of sentiment, the description of the human passions is the same as yesterday and for ever, and the summer fields bloom with the same flowers this year as they did a hundred seasons back. Imagination in compositions of this kind is not obliged to leave her home in the heart, and the present moment is as good as an eternity. Poetry, however, when thus confined to the world of individual self, must have dipped her wings in the divinest dews of human thought, to bear evidence of her high origin. When she fails of this, she becomes the retailer of common-place sentiment, and her beauty and influence over the passions of men are lost. The English muse is at present very nearly in this predicament. Most of our poetry is sentimental, and very little of it powerful and original; without, therefore, having those graces which belong to the modern literature of some other countries, it has lost that splendid dignity, that strength and richness, which belonged to the Muses in classical ages, and gave them the appellation of daughters of Memory.

A mere reader of modern poetry would find it difficult to discover the appropriateness of this title, but to the lover of the Muse in former times, it must have been singularly full of meaning. There was no poem in which there was not a continual looking back to past periods; to the birth-times, and places of cities, heroes, and gods. The vallies and woods, with every rock and fountain, and bowery wilderness, which had been rendered reverent by tradition, were the venerable temples of Memory. She was enshrined in the deepest bosom of Nature, and her solemn teachings, uttered amid the doubts and surmisings of a yet unfledged philosophy, were a stream of inspiration to the meditative muse. When poetry lost somewhat of its romantic and fabling character, when it ceased to catch its wild and mystic strain from the echos of bowery woods and ancient grottos, and took more of the spirit of society, still it retained the marks which associated it with the workings of deep-varied memory; it was still enriched from the relics she had preserved of by-gone days, and the cultivator of it was called the doctus poeta, because he was familiar with these treasures, and could employ them in his grave and erudite verse. Since the days of Milton, this epithet of the poet has been inapplicable, and the elegant fable of the Muses' parentage has been long forgotten.