mere compilation of former notices, strung together upon a very slender thread of personal observation, and swelled out by those decorations which are so easily supplied by a systematic adoption of all the common-places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing." A subsequent passage of this note, however, which condemns the frequent introduction of "the same Gallic Helot to reel and bluster before the rising generation, and terrify it into decency by the display of all the excesses of the Revolution," seems to afford a sufficient clue to the severity of the above critique. They, who can talk with so much complacency of the "hyæna bigots*" of Certaldo, were not likely to shew much lenity towards one who ventured to raise his voice against their brother liberals, the French revolutionists. But the most amusing part of the matter is, that most of those who evince so much tenderness for the French, are themselves to the full as vehement in their invectives against the Austrians; as though, forsooth, they were to enjoy a monopoly of abuse. After all, however, it must be admitted that Eustace would have adopted a wiser course, had he indulged less frequently in his

*Childe Harold, Canto IV. Note 33.

"antigallican philippics;"-mindful of the proverb, that it is possible to overcharge with shadow even the portrait of a fiend:

Poi quel proverbio del Diavolo è vero,

Che non è come si dipigne nero.

No such defects as those above mentioned can be imputed to Forsyth, whose book deservedly passes for the best that has yet appeared on the subject of Italy, whether we take into consideration the depth and originality of the remarks, or the terseness and nervousness of the language. In a more recent work, however, intitled "Two Hundred and Nine Days; or, the Journal of a Traveller on the Continent," indited by a Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg—a work, to say the least of it, as shallow as it is flippant—we find the following character of Forsyth's performance. "We took Forsyth with us to Pæstum; I was disappointed, when I first read this book, which, like many of the works of his countrymen, has been industriously praised and extolled more than it deserves; and, in looking over it again, I was even less satisfied with it. He certainly has the merit of sometimes thinking and speaking for himself; but the style is clumsy and heavy: it is the book of a schoolmaster, not of a

gentleman." Thanks to Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg, we now know what the work of a schoolmaster is; but that ingenious personage would have laid us under still greater obligations had he been pleased to indicate the marks by which we might ascertain the work of a gentleman;— unless, indeed, we suppose, that, for such marks, it was his intention tacitly to refer us to his own performance.

In the opinion of most of those who have made the tour of Italy, Mathews ranks next to Forsyth. It cannot, certainly, be said of his book, as it has been justly said by himself with regard to Forsyth's, that "it is a mine of original remarks." It professes to be but the "Diary of an Invalid;" to give merely a record of first impressions; and so admirably has its author performed his task, that never was the "nihil non tetigit quod non ornavit" more strictly applicable than in his case;-applicable, indeed, to every portion of the book, but most of all to those portions of it which treat of the different works of art; where he rivals, if he does not even surpass, Forsyth himself. And yet it is of this Prince of Journalists, that Mr. Conder, the author of the "Modern Traveller"--who has recently put forth a compilation on Italy-asserts, that “he is never

enough in earnest to be trusted; and his strange caprice and dogmatism, on subjects on which he appears to have been profoundly ignorant, obscure the good feeling and strong sense which break out in some of his observations. He well deserves to be read, but can rarely be cited as authority." It would seem that Mr. Conder had not himself visited Italy, and that may account for his cold appreciation of a work, which— Rogers's and Forsyth's always excepted-bears the stamp of genius more evidently impressed upon it, than any other that has been published on the same subject during the present century.

Among the charges brought against Eustace, the principal are, as we have seen-the want of accuracy-the systematic adoption of all the common-places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing-and the being but a mere compilation of former notices. The first of these charges has, in some instances, been successfully rebutted in the Editor's Preface to the sixth edition of the work; and, to say the truth, most of the specimens of inaccuracy adduced are not of a very important character. In a book of travels, an approximation to accuracy is all that can be expected; nor are Eustace's deviations from it either more fre

quent or more palpable than those of his fellowlabourers*.

The second charge relates to a mere matter of taste. Eustace seems to have belonged to that school which thinks that "there is more true taste in drawing forth one latent beauty, than in observing a hundred obvious imperfections." And surely, a systematic adoption of the commonplaces of praise is to the full as agreeable, and rather more consistent with itself, than the plan pursued by Simond. That tourist, to whom censure is" as the cloak that he hath upon him, and as the girdle that he is alway girded withal,"

* Take the following curious example from Simond's Travels in Italy and Sicily; a work which, according to Mr. Conder, has "the merit of general, though not infallible, accuracy.”"Soon after leaving Syracuse (says Simond), and travelling over the sands of the sea-shore, we beheld the extensive ruins of Epipola; its walls and towers crowning inaccessible heights on our left, and its sepulchres, on the face of perpendicular rocks, appearing like rows of pigeon-holes. We should have liked a nearer view, but it would have taken many hours to reach the place and return; and we had a long day's journey before us. Epipola was once a powerful rival of Syracuse, and contained a numerous population!!" Who could have supposed that Epipole was the most impregnable part of that very town of which it is here said to have been the rival— the part by which Marcellus entered with his legions on the night of Diana's festival? Yet such is the fact.