the Holy Empire, the dukes of Savoy and kings of Sardinia received the oath of fidelity from the lords of the imperial fiefs, which before depended immediately and solely on the emperor of Germany, In Piedmont and Savoy the military commanders 'superintended the police in concert with the civil power. The council of state, superior in rank to the other departments of the magistracy,never repealed the sentences of the senate or courts of justice, but suspended their execution by allowing to the parties in the name of the king, a revision of the process. The grand chancellor, generally chief of this council,as well as of all the other tribunals, had the right to preside in person; but it was rarely that he exercised] that right. It has even been observed that a first president or a minister of state, promoted to the place of grand chancellor, lost much of his former influence, In doubtful cases the decision of the supreme tribunal, called the Senate, was law, or in failure of that, the Roman code was adopted The code of Charles Emmanuel formed the basis of the Prussian code, and has been admired by the ablest French lawyers. In two points, however, it differs from that of Prussia. The law of primogeniture, which, compelling the younger offspring to celibacy,is an excuse in some measure for libertinism, and forms an obstacle to the increase of the population in Piedmont and Savoy, bears some relation to the antient feudal system. The preceding laws, which were by no means favourable to the female sex, are still less so in the code of Charles Emmanuel; the women neither participate in the property of their fathers nor in that of their husbands at their death; they are reduced to a portion, and a very moderate jointure. The Piedmontese legislators, charged with the compilation of these laws, only had in view the means of preventing the property of a family from passing with the daughters into other houses, and seen never to have considered that by this same restriction they also prevented it from returning again. It was, after all, but a natural compensation, an exchange from family to family. If the women had acquired the right of sharing with their brothers and children, it would have facilitated marriages and given a greater activity to commerce; and if they had thought of augmenting the king's revenue by these means, it is certain that a division of property would have occasioned a multiplicity of contracts and public acts, without perhaps inducing more frequent or longer processes. In other respects the laws were equitable enough, except that in some ar ticles they trenched on civil liberty, in prohibiting the exportation of all works of new invention out of the country. By the Piedmontese law it was not lawful for a subject to promulgate any discovery out of the country, nor even in it, without the sanction of government.'

The most advantageous mode of distributing personal property among a family is a delicate, perhaps a difficult, question to determine, and certainly requires the exercise of an enlightened and impartial judgment. Perhaps those laws are the most perfect, which consider all human beings as

moral and rational agents, and without distinction of sex or positive law, either for or against any party, only indicate the means of preventing very gross abuses in either sex. The only universal law in such cases is that of cultivating the judgment and governing the passions both in men and women, and then there is every reason to conclude that they will not injure their families by an improper or irrational distribution of their personal fortunes; and all that is not personal should be clearly appropriated by positive laws, such as have been long found of the first importance in this

country.

On the actual state of learning in Piedmont, signor Denina tacitly admits that the ancient system, however bad, was preferable to any thing that has hitherto been substituted in its place. The riforma degli studi taught grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, theology and civil and common law: to this was added an establishment called the college des Provinces, which had no equal either in France or Italy. All these institutions have now passed away, and we have only a pompous display of the names constituting the academy of sciences, literature and fine arts of Turin. In this list we find the names of Giobert, Bonvoisin, Rossi, Vassalin Eandi, Denina (our author), Berthollet, Bossi, and Lagrange, all born and educated in Piedmont or Savoy.*

Signor Denina also notices slightly the state of the arts and manufactures; he acknowledges candidlythe imperfection of the latter, but treats with just indignation the unjust insinuations of the French in 1795, that Piedmont was still in the same condition that it had been eight or ten centuries before.

The population of the kingdom of Italy is stated to be 3,552,555individuals, and, with Savoy and Nice, in time of war capable of furnishing 70,000 men in arms. We have on former occasions given a scale of faith for French calculations, and it could in no case be more fairly applied than in the present. To complete the topographical view of the countries composing that kingdom, the author gives a brief sketch of Austrian Lombardy, the detached possessions of the house of Austria in Italy, and also the republics of Genoa, Venice, &c. The union, however, of the numerous petty states of Italy, although unquestionably attended with great injustice and oppression, is not an evil of sufficient magnitude to excite attention in such eventful times as those in which it is our lot to live. Political institutions are always verging towards extremes, and revolutions seem necessary to correct their aberrations. Under the heavy op

pression of the iron crown, the Italian states may perhaps for get their local animosities, and by shaking off their little provincial pride eventually effect both the moral and political amelioration of the people.

A considerable part of this volume is occupied by notes tending to develope the routes of Bellovese, Hannibal and Cesar over the Alps; but the author, although possessed of considerable local knowledge, is very inferior both in learning and ingenuity to Mr. Whitaker, who has published two volumes on this now more curious than useful subject. Signor Denina contends that Mont Viso has been the route of Hannibal and Bellovese, from the conjecture of Simler, that the expression of Livy Julias Alpes, should be read Invias Alpes, as at the foot of the mountain the village Envie (called in Latin Invia) is still found. To such conjectural readings there is no limit, and they never can be received as valid argument. The chief reason, however, urged by our author for his belief, is the particular place whence Hannibal could shew his army the fertile plains on the banks of the Po; a circumstance very natural to enliven the drooping spirits of an army, but also very likely to have been much more brilliant in the imagination of the historian than before the eyes of the Carthaginians. Were it not foreign to our present purpose, we could state facts to prove that neither Mr. Whitaker's St. Bernard, nor Denina's Mont Viso were the real route of Hannibal..

Before concluding our remarks on this volume, we must observe that it abounds in judicious historical facts and impartial moral observations relative to the countries of which it treats; but, partly from the want of a well-executed map, and partly from the author's diffuse and unmethodical manner of writing, it is often obscure and sometimes almost contradictory, and requires to be elucidated by his other works on Italy. On statistics we have little more than the following extract from Peuchet:

'Piedmont, augmented by some parts of Lombardy, offers a territorial extent of 1108 square leagues, containing a population of 1,879,746 individuais, or 1696 inhabitants to each square league. In 1802 the pell-tax (contributions directes) amounted to 18 millions of francs, (about half a guinea a head.) The new arrangements, it is added, must diminish the population and the public revenue of Piedmont. Turin and Coni have already experienced its fatal effects.'

From a cieux litterateur, we have never seen such a mass of valuable materials as the present laid before the

public without some attempt at arrangement. Nevertheless, it will be read with considerable interest by all those who have ever visited the romantic regions of Upper Italy, and who have made themselves acquainted with the varying genius and different dialects of its inhabitants.

ART. XII.-Recherches sur plusieurs Alonumens, &c. Researches, on many Celtic and Roman Monuments, by J.F. Barailon, 800. Paris, 1806. Imported by Deconchy.

OF the state of manners and the civilization of a people of whom we have no written records, we can know nothing but from those works of art and industry which they left behind them, and some of which still survive the ravages of time. History presents us with only a few notices of the antient inhabitants of Etruria; but from the numerous works of art, which have been transmitted through a period of more than three thousand years, we may very rationally conclude that the Etruscans were a civilized and highly polished people. The first object of man is to procure subsistence: and agriculture, and even commerce must flourish in no inconsiderable degree, before any encouragement can be given to the elegant and ornamental arts. The manufacturers of articles of luxury and taste can find no vent for their com modities, and consequently cannot exist till capital has been accumulated and opulence diffused. Artificial wants are produced in proportion as the wants of necessity have been more abundantly supplied; and art is nurtured in the bosom of superfluity. In the first manufactures of any mation little attention is paid to ornament, and the ornament which there is, is destitute of taste. But when not only in the more rare and costly, but in the more common articles of manufacture, which are of daily and domestic use, we behold the utmost attention paid to beauty of appearance, to delicacy and variety of form, it is a certain proof that such a people have made great advances in civilization and refinement. In the vases and other articles of Etruscan origin, which are still remaining, we behold proofs of the most perfect workmanship and the most exquisite taste. We behold richness every where united with chastity of ornament; there is the utmost luxuriance of decoration, but it is the luxuriance of modesty. Hardly any two forms are alike; and yet, as in nature, all are beautiful. The authors seem to have aspired not only to imitate but to excel that beauty and diversity of form, which are visible in the varied productions of the universe. It is not lang since our own arti

eles of earthen ware consisted of the coarsest materials and the rudest shape, without any thing like elegance of ornament or beauty of appearance. To what then are we to ascribe the great improvements which have since taken place in these particulars? Certainly, to the imitation of the magic beauties of Etruscan art. If then only the scattered reliques of Etruscan genius have been so powerfully operative in improving the taste and increasing the elegance of a people so highly civilized as ourselves, is it not a proof that at least in that point of civilization which respects the discrimination of beauty and the power of exhibiting the beautiful, which with exquisite taste can discern, and with exquisite facility imitate, modify and combine the beauty of nature's forms, the Etruscans may fairly challenge the palun of excellence and the wreath of fame?

In M. Barailon's Celtic researches we do not find that he has made any discoveries, which, like the vases and manufactures of antient Etruria, give us any very favourable opinion of the manners or the manufactures of the pristine inhabitants of Gaul. M. Barailon considers the town of Chambon in the department of La Creuze, to have been one of the principal seats of the antient Celts; and this is proved less from any remaining monuments of that people than from the many Celtic terms which are still found in the vulgar dialect of the country, and from the names of places, of towns, villages, plains, valleys, and mountains, which are of Celtic origin. The ravages of conquest, which introduce new inhabitants and efface the old, or even the revolutions of time which seem continually attempting to make all things new, are not always sufficient to obliterate these durable records of the original occupants of a country, which the local nomenclature will supply. In the neighbourhood of Chambon most of the local names retain their primeval purity, or without any other alteration than what they have received from being compressed into the mould of French orthography: These terms are all very expressive, and well adapted to excite a sort of picturesque idea of the places for which they stand. Antient names of places will generally be found to pourtray the prominent features of the locality which they designate. At Chambon is seen a square temple, and very narrow, constructed of cut stone, turned to the south, which was originally open at the top. This was anterior to the time of the Romans, who added an arch, and left proofs of their addition in the bricks and tiles which they employed. This temple constitutes at present part of the church of St. Valery, and has for a long time served as the chapel of the tutelary saint. This fact