traditions, and of which she supposes that it comprehended the various bands of foreigners, including the Jews, who occupied the fertile Delta of the Nile. She identifies the colonists of Resin and future Etruscans with the scientific Assyrians, who are spoken of by Herodotus as dwelling in Egypt, and building the Pyramids of Cheops and Cephrenes. At last the native Egyptians, who had retreated up the country, drove these strangers out, and forced them, according to Mrs. Gray, into Libya, or Lybia.

tracted most attention are that of Niebuhr, and his German followers, (among whom is Muller, who has written a history of the Etruscans,) and that of Mannert. Niebuhr assigns the Etruscans an origin in the mountainous district at the top of the Adriatic sea, and supposes that they thence descended into Etruria. Mannert accepts the account of Herodotus as literally true : and conceives that the Pelasgians, whose original seat he states to have been Thessaly, were forced to abandon that country, After inhabiting that country for a some of them taking refuge in Italy, whilst short time-whence she supposes the mis- others went to Lydia and the districts of take of Herodotus putting Lydia for Lybia, Asia Minor; and that, at a subsequent peunless he confounded the term "Ludeni" riod, the settlers in Lydia sailed to Umbria, or Assyrians, with "Lydians,"-they took and renewed their connexion with the earship, and, landing on the opposite coast of lier colonists. We shall, in the course of Umbri, founded the kingdom of Etruria. this article, adduce some reasons for beThe time of their arrival she takes from lieving that the Etruscans did come from the story of Plutarch, that, in the year of Lydia, and that they did belong to a branch Rome, 666, when Sylla finally extinguish- of the Pelasgian tribe. With the Thessaed all hopes of Etruscan independence, an Etruscan Aruspex proclaimed that the Etruscan day of 1100 years, during which their Jupiter, Tina, had given them dominion, was near an end. To use her own language

"We think," she says, "that we can discern them, a stately band issuing from beneath the lofty gateways of the high-walled and proudly-towered Resen-that great city, as ancient as Memphis and Zoan. Thence we follow them on the banks of the Nile, and behold them mingling in fellowship with the victorious Assyrians, and with the seed of Israel, on the fertile nomes of Lower Egypt: until at length the avenging arm of the legitimate Pharaoh delivered his country_from Asiatic oppression, and drove the men of Resen to seek for settlements elsewhere. After their second exile, we trace them to a welcome Italian home, whither they brought the arts, the arms, the luxuries, and the sciences, which they had originally possessed in India, and on which they had engrafted the learning of the

wisest of nations.

"Here they became dominant lords of the soil, and beneficent victors, conquering, civilizing, and blessing the ruder people of the West, until the mysterious times of their dominion being ended, and the sand of their promised ages of glory having run, they sunk into the subordinate state of a conquered nation, and were soon absorbed in the all-engrossing Senatus Populusque Romanus."-P. 24.

These views as to the early history of Etruria are proposed with diffidence, and, amid the numerous difficulties which invest the subject, are entitled to weight.

The two other theories which have at

lian origin of the Pelasgians we have at present nothing to do. The difficulty that besets Niebuhr's theory, besides his entire refusal of credit to the account of Herodotus, is the eastern character, the arts and sciences, letters and learning of the Etruscans. These, which are the peculiar characteristics of the people, and for the origin of which we are inquiring, cannot be supposed to have been practised by Alpine mountaineers, or brought down by them into Italy, There is no doubt, indeed, that some of the original inhabitants of Italy took this road from Asia-the cradle of the human race: but that is a very different question.

We confess our strong predilection for the father of history: there is a simple and earnest truthfulness about his narration that carries an inward conviction with it. Every succeeding age-each step in geographical discovery, has born him out.

Let us see whether it is not the case in this instance: and we think it of far more importance that the veracity of this great and oldest historian should be established, than that a host of opposite theories and hypotheses should be made plausible.

tual intercourse with the countries he desHerodotus spoke generally from having accribes, and access to the best information which they possessed. His knowledge of the traditions of Asia Minor was, of course, complete; and he spent some time in Magna Græcia. The tradition, which he says the Lydians repeated in his day, was asserted by them 500 years after with equal

positiveness. The Sardians, in the time of Viterbo, the traveller comes to a deep fissure Tiberius, asserted their common origin in the plain, and descending to the bottom, with the Etruscans and the Peloponnesians. The story was universally believed in Rome in the time of the historian Dionysius. As to his disbelief of it, because it is omitted by the historian of Lydia, this omission has no weight placed beside the positive testimony of Herodotus. But besides this external testimony, there is the internal evidence for its truth, or at least for the fact, that the colony which settled in Etruria did come from Asia Minor, and not from Africa or the Alps.

he finds it gradually widening, and at length joining with a similar ravine, it opens out into a little sunny amphitheatre, over which hang the ruins of an old feudal castle. The rocky walls of this valley, high overhead, are marked with figures of doors, pediments, and various architectural ornaments and inscriptions, all traced by deep lines in the living rock. Beneath each doorway, but considerably below it, is a cavern containing sarcophagi and the remains of the dead. Now, Mrs. Gray supThere are many similarities between the poses, and with good grounds, that this Etruscans and the inhabitants of Asia Mi- was the Fanum Voltumnæ, or general asnor and Syria. Their language, at least sembling place of the Etruscans, and that this the names, belong to the Phoenician and honored burying-ground was reserved for the Hebrew dialects. Some of their pecu- the leading chiefs and nobles. This order liar notions of religion belong to the Pho- was hereditary in Etruria. Doubtless as in nicians; and it is singular that the monu- our own country the best blood of the kingments which give us most information dom belongs to those whose ancestors came about the Etruscan people, speak most over with the Conqueror, the families of strongly for their connexion with Asia Mi- the first colonists or conquerors in Etruria nor. Their funeral monuments are alike. would be the highest and noblest in the The three celebrated tombs of Etruria-land. The customs of the great would that of Porsenna, the conquerer of Rome, as described by Pliny; of Aruns his son, still remaining at the side of the road from Rome to Albano, just at the entrance of the town; and the magnificent ReguliniGalassi sepulchre, at Core, which Mrs. Gray so fully describes in her former work, were of precisely similar construction to that of the tomb of Alyattes, still visible at Sardis, and described by Herodotus (i. 93) as erected to the memory of that king. There is a low circular wall sorrounding the receptacle of the body, and rising from and resting on this wall, a conicle mound of earth or stones. But it is from the latest discoveries among the antiquities of Asia Minor, that we derive the strongest reason for accepting the account of the old historian. It is our ignorance which has hitherto induced us to doubt it. The researches of Sir Charles Fellowes have established the strongest analogy between the tombs of the original inhabitants of Asia Minor and Lycia, and some of the most remarkable and distinctive sepulchres of Etruria. These are the wonderful rock tombs of Castel d'Azzo, of which an admirable account was given in Mrs. Gray's earlier work, to the fidelity of whose description we can ourselves testify.

Few spots are more strikingly situated than Castel d'Azzo. After traversing some miles of the comparatively level country near

then be the customs of the country from which the colonists came. This would especially be the case with funeral rites—the usages which man keeps up with most tenacity. Now, the exact antitype to these rock-tombs is found in Lycia and Asia Minor. In his account of Discoveries in Lycia published in 1840, Sir C. Fellowes describes the tombs and architectural representations, as appearing on every cliff as he travelled up the country and the valleys of Asia Minor. There, as might be expected, instead of being confined to a single spot, as in Etruria, the custom was general. Sir C. Fellowes speaks of these early specimens of represented buildings on the rocks, as giving a perfect insight into the construction of the ordinary dwellings of those remote ages. Generally every city is perched upon a hill, and has the sides of its rock pierced with tombs, sometimes high and inaccessible, and at other times near and distinct presenting every variety of form, from the earlier Lycian monuments to the form adopted by the Greek colonists when engrafting their ar chitecture upon the old model. Every page of Sir C. Fellowes's most interesting narrative, and every plate of his beautiful sketches, tells the same tale, and confirms the Lydian origin of the Etruscans. Besides some of these tombs have interiors ornamented with bas reliefs representing

domestic scenes, and illustrating mytho- the previous occupants: that the friendly logical stories, as in the pictured tombs of spirit with which they were received, and the Etruria, and even colored with the bright conciliating temper which they adopted, blues, yellows, and reds which abound so soon led to great intercourse between the much in the Etruscan caverns. The anal-old and new inhabitants of the land, and ogy seems to have forcibly struck Sir finally connected them together as one C. Fellowes; and it is fully explained by, common people. and firmly corroborates the story of Herodotus, the accuracy of whose traditions, and the care with which he selected them, are daily more and more felt and recognized.

rug

indifferently in the towns of the other; the "Each people," says our authoress, " dwelt Tuscan language was understood and spoken, as we have reason to know, throughout Umbria, and the Rasena, as their history proves We are well aware that sepulchral to us, had the wise and singular policy of makcaverns are found in the upper parts of ing with those whom they had conquered, Egypt; that they extend through the such a peace as gave them a share in the ged mountains of Petræa to the south of government, and an equal interest in the perthe Dead Sea, and along the shores of Pales- nullifying all feelings of humiliation and hosmanence and prosperity of the state; thus tine; that some most remarkable specimens tility, and converting them from bitter enemies of sculptured friezes are found in the valley into grateful allies and indissoluble friends." of Jehosaphat, near Jerusalem, and that the -P. 69. Etrurian mode of closing these caverns with a stone moving on pivots, has always prevailed, and is still observed in Judea and Syria. But this only shows the probability of an early migration, not from Egypt to Lybia, and thence to Italy, as Mrs. Gray supposes, but from Egypt to Asia Minor and Lydia, and from Lydia to Italy-the old tradition stated by Sir Walter Raleigh in discussing the title of Larth, common to Egypt and Etruria. The Philistines were clearly from Egypt, (Genesis x. 14,) and so were many other of the Phoenicians. Their original laws and customs were the same. Agenor, king of Phoenicia, was said to be the son of Neptune and Libya. This connexion between the Phoenicians, or people of the coast of Asia Minor and Syria, and the Egyptians, and the evidence we have shown for the Etruscans having come from those countries, explains the striking resemblance between their antiquities and those of Egypt, which has made it impossible sometimes to give a distinctive character to the productions of each; a similarity which was doubtless increased by the actual trade kept up between Egypt and Etruria.

We have dwelt thus upon the origin of the Etruscans, because it is really the most interesting inquiry in the work before us, being, in fact, the origin of Italian civilization; and on account of the interest of the recent discoveries, and the light they throw on the value of the work of Herodotus.

A point of great importance in the history of the Etruscans, on their arrival in Italy, seems to be the fact that they effected their settlement in the land with the good will of

Here is the first instance of that policy, which afterwards, in the hands of the Romans, made their universal dominion permanent, by gradually connecting every conquered nation, by the ties of citizenship, with the conquerors. Many of the obscurities in the early Etruscan history are cleared away, when we find this assimilation of the older inhabitants of Italy with this people; for the Etrurians, gradually comprising in the circle of their power the other races of the Peninsula, the different theories of their origin may be reconciled by supposing them true of the different parts of which the nation was composed.

Mrs. Gray goes fully into the subject of the ancient inhabitants of Italy. The most curious part of this discussion is as to the Pelasgians, and who they really were. This point has distracted the learned men of all ages, and seems to have been as much disputed in the times of Herodotus and Strabo, as in our own. At present, however, we have only to deal with the connexion of the Pelasgians with Etruria. They are represented by our authoress as being in Italy on the arrival of the Etruscans, and a distinct people from them. contrary opinion has generally been held, and the Tyrrheni-Pelasgi was another name for the Etruscans. Here again the researches of Sir C. Fellowes throw light upon the question.

A

The Pelasgi have left nothing to us of their language, manners, or customs-only their names, and a few doubtful traditions. The chief records of their existence are their architectural remains :-the walls of

enormous height and thickness, and built | can style. These walls are described by with immense stones, which are found Pausanias, whose description, we are inthroughout Italy and Greece and Asia Mi- formed by a traveller who visited them nor, occupying the highest point of every last year, is the best guide to them now. hill, the object of wonder to the present In many Italian provinces, Mrs. Gray tells inhabitants, and, according to them, the us, there are Cyclopean, Pelasgic, and work of the giants or magicians, or their mas- Etruscan walls of the same age, and in ter the devil. The higher road from Na- very many instances, there is a mixture of ples to Rome, by the Abruzzi, passes a the Etruscan and Pelasgic, and the Etrusline of these hill-forts, which seem to guard can and Cyclopean styles. At Cadyanda, and overawe the plains below. They are in Lycia, Sir C. Fellowes tells us (Lycia, a portion of a longer line extending from p. 121,) the Cyclopean walls of the city the Adriatic coast of Italy, opposite Greece, are blended with the more regular Greek, quite across the Peninsula. They recall (that is, old Greek,) and were evidently to mind the fenced cities, walled up to hea- constructed at the same period; and again, ven, which terrified the Israelites before at Panora, (p. 141,) he observed the Cyclotheir entrance into the Promised Land. pean, so often considered as the older, surThese various remains have been classed mounting the regular squared walls; and by architects and antiquaries (and the dis- in that country the sculptured friezes, and tinction is as old as Pausanias) into the rock tombs are found in conjunction with Cyclopean, the Pelasgic, and the Etruscan, the Cyclopean walls. When we find thus according to the apparent art used in their the only authentic record of the Pelasgi, construction; the first being of large bringing them into so close union with the stones, so rudely piled together as to re- Etruscans, we cannot but accept the acquire the interstices to be filled up with count of their being the Tyrrheni-Pelassmaller fragments; the second, of large gians, or Pelasgians who settled in Italy. stones, but fitting into each other; and the There are many other circumstances, such third of quadrangular stones, occasionally as their knowledge of letters, regular instisecured by cement. Now, the last are tutions, and use of arms, which connect them confessedly the work of Etrurian architects, with the early Grecian settlers, and antiand two well known instances are the Arco quaries have dwelt upon Cecrops' twelve del Bove at Volterra, and the gates still cities of Attica and the twelve cities of Etruremaining at Pæstum. The first notion ria, as offering additional evidence. Of about them was, that the rudest were the course, in a subject of this kind, the evioldest, and the more artificial the production dence itself is slight and indirect, but if we of later aud more civilized times. Mrs. find all that there is pointing in one diGray seems to maintain an opposite theory, rection, we are bound to follow it. and thinks that the ruder fragments in Our authoress states that the Etruscans Italy at least were the production of the who landed in Umbria, had for their leader Pelasgi, who had imperfectly learned the Tarchon, a name known to the readers of art of building from the Etrurians, her Virgil. She gives him a high place among master-masons. The latest investigations the heroes of the olden time. He founded have, however, established, that all these Tarquinia, the city whose interesting antikinds run into each other in the same build-quities and remains we have before mening, and appear to have been in contempo- tioned. She devotes much space in her raneous use; that they are, therefore, the work to the institutions which he establishproductions of one and the same people: ed, and enters into large dissertations on and from this we are enabled to confirm the tradition of the Sardians, as reported by Tacitus, that they or the people of Asia Minor, the Peloponnesians, or early colonists of Greece and the Etruscans, the early colonists of Italy, were of the same

the passages to be found in classical writers, respecting the earliest heroes of Italy, conceiving their stories of Janus, Saturn, and Hercules, to be but traditionary recollections of this great leader. Into these discussions we shall not now enter, nor into the subject of the colonization of the cities At Mycenae, in the Peloponnesus, the ux- of Magna Græcia, with which her conTueror Liv of Homer, the two kinds cluding chapters are occupied. We think called Pelasgic and Cyclopean are found our readers will be more interested in her together, and also an approximation to re-account of the institutions founded among gular masonry of hewn stone or the Etrus- the Etruscans by Tarchon, and in getting

race.

an insight into their national and religious from this characteristic principle of the character. Etruscans.

These institutions were said to be deriv- The king of the nation appears to have ed from Tages, the supposed lawgiver of been elected at the assembly of the people, the nation, who was fabled to have been which took place yearly at Castel d'Azzo; found in a furrow by Tarchon, having the where the public business of the nation, as gray head of an old man with the body of well as its traffic, was carried on at their ana child, and to have dictated to him the re-nual fair. This national cemetery was, as ligion and laws of his country. There we have already stated, their place of nawere three national divinities.

"Each town had one national temple dedicated to the three great attributes of Godstrength, riches, and wisdom-or Tina, Talna, and Minerva. The Etruscans acknowledged only one supreme God, but they had images for his different attributes, and temples to these images; but it is most remarkable that the national divinity was always a triad under one roof; and it was the same in Egypt, where one supreme God alone was acknowledged, but was worshipped as a triad with different names in each different Nome."-P.

147.

tional assembly. Their Westminster Abbey was close to their Houses of Parliament. The people generally were under the control of hereditary princes or chiefs, who had large tracts of land assigned to them and the people over whom they ruled. It was a kind of clanship ;-the very word, according to Mrs. Gray, being Etruscan. The principle of their connexion was not feudal but patriarchal. It was the same principle that once prevailed in the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland, though always opposed by the Norman laws, and never recognized. She tells us that the The state religion, afterwards adopted at chief was the governor, judge, general, and Rome, was derived from Etruria, where prince of his people. The clansmen lathe different classes of augurs were kept up bored for him, traded for him, and fought in full perfection; the placing these offices for him. They paid his debts, if poor; in the hands of an hereditary nobility, and ransomed him, if a prisoner; and followed the control over the national assemblies him into banishment, if exiled. A colony possessed by the augurs, who alone could animated with such principles and under take the auspices and interpret the omens, such leaders, was sure to succeed. Under was a state-craft of Etrurian origin. Their the name of Patron and Client this system knowledge of science, which was carefully is found in Rome; at least, in the earlier treasured from the vulgar, greatly assisted ages of the Republic; afterwards a middle these operations. They are believed to class arose, with the extension of conquest have understood the electric agency of and commerce and the use of a standing lightning; and this appearance, according army, and this being unconnected with the to its being in one part of the heavens or aristocracy by any ties of blood or clanship, another, circumstances over which they the real principle was abolished, whilst the seem to have had full control, was a favor-name, perverted and abused, was retained. able or unfavorable omen. They alone of the people in Italy understood how to obtain fire from heaven by means of burningglasses, and thus rekindle the sacred flame which was in the custody of the Vestal Virgins. This was an Etruscan institution, and our authoress supposes the first Vestal to have been the sister of Tarchon. From this, she concludes, that her hero introduced into European society the principle of rendering honor to women, and the making imperative for them such an education as shall fit them to maintain that honor, "A principle," she says, "which alone can give stability to civilization. Where women are educated, men must be manly and society must be refined." The custom of admitting females to the banquets and public feasts, she also considers to have arisen

Religion was mixed up with all the actions of the Etruscan. We must here use our authoress's own language.,

"All the ancient legislators rested their systems upon a religious structure, and strove to found the institutions of time upon the basis of eternity. Hence they inculcated all the natural and civil obligations of social life as held to be every sentiment of patriotism, and emanations of the divine will, and such they every exhibition of public courage. The state ritual taught each man his rights and duties, and the prescribed line of his public and private conduct, as that which was pointed out for him by the gods. No one was suffered

by Tages to separate from religion the interests of his country, the inspirations of human genius, or the purposes of human rectitude. No one was allowed to consider the world as the ultimate object of his hopes and desires,