CHAP. XXIV. B LAST FOUR YEARS OF THE CENTURY, FROM 1796 To 1800. EING arrived at the interesting moment when Retrospection ceases and observation is begun, our book must with this chapter end itself, and be submitted to the reader's Retrospect. If found at last too short for use, too long for entertainment, the writer will be forry; Yet if we fhadows have offended, That you have but flumber'd here, While thefe vifions did appear.-Midfummer Night's Dream. 66 are va The carly vifions of Rome's glory, papal as imperial, “nished into air, into thin air." Her fecond cycle of twelve centurics is more than flown, and destiny demands his due. That the fucceffors of her laft great founder " have been of late compelled to take "the loweft room" at the long table of our common mafter, they owe to the coarfe ftruggles he forbade: when pushing for the topmost place we faw and felt * The faucy follower grown a fovereign lord, If how foever, when his church was young, "fhe girded herself and walked where he would," let us lament rather than triumph over VOL. II. Sce 14th chapter of St. Luke's Gofpel, Sth and 9th verfes. her her, "when now, being old,* another girdeth and carrieth her whi"ther she would not:" and as a great preacher of the prefent day wifely admonishes, Let us not, while poring over the monuments of past greatnefs, neglect to study those infcriptions on them, from which "fome warning may be drawn for future times." Different ideas will be called up in different minds by like events, or by the fame narration: each student draws after the giant ftatue, and takes his view according as he fits to it. Far as the past occurrences have place all this goes well; and to anticipate what is yet to come, transcends alike our limits and our power. When the uncertain figure passes by, and like thofe of Eliphaz,† fear makes our bones to fhake; we cannot difcern the form thereof, though thro' the filent night a voice be heard. Kett, King, and Whitaker, with numbers more, have lent learned and grave conjectures towards explaining, after a mortal mode, the awful figns which have distinguished this half century, fertile in wonders above all the rest: and if, befide texts from both Testaments, description of the latter days by the fictitious Efdras were admitted, the strange things he predicts daily arrive: untimely births do indeed live and are raised up, while children of a year's growth as certainly speak with their voices, and are liftened to. "But woe be to that people (fays an old English writer) who live "under these young governments! All unripe fruit is harsh (he adds), and they that dwell in new houses be apter to catch diseases than they who inhabit ancient ones well-feafoned." What fhall we fay then if all this be fo concerning our own times? when Poland, Holland, North America, all infant ftates, speak plain, and speak aloud; when new republicks in the north of Italy appear like fungufes in fairy rings, produced by tears of the preceding night: when just before the year * See 21ft chapter of St. John's Gofpel, 18th verfe. + See 14th chapter of the Book of Job, the 14th, 15th, and 16th verses. ↑ See 6th chapter, 2d Book of Efdras, 21ft verse. 1796 France, to the admiration of all Europe, produced her laft newborn constitution, being the fourth she had acknowledged fuch within five revolutions of the fun; when five men called directors took the lead. Before these people, and by their direction, were feen stealing off the camera obfcura, thofe rugged forms of rough fraternity, which like the fons of Edipus had made the name of brotherhood abhorred; and dresses meant to distinguish and adorn high rank were hung upon thefe new rulers over twenty-feven millions, which hovering over Europe like locufts darkening the fun, menaced its destruction, and cast a formidable fhade around. Nor could men quickly fee through the thick gloom, that if this multitude were actually agreed upon the murder of a lamb-like prince, they must have been twenty-feven millions of monfters; and that if they tamely fuffered fix hundred frantick ruffians to kill him publickly in their defpite, they must have been fo many millions of cowards. Certain it is the new directory feemed to lament the crush of every virtue by the grand fall of altars and of thrones: they hoped perhaps, while roasting out the fubftance of monarchy, morality, and religion, to keep at leaft the COS, as chemifts call the Colour, Odour, Sapor of all three. But an avowed defire to destroy every other government, gives no good pledge of kind intentions towards our own. Befides that, as Machiavelli fays, "a re"volution is carnival time to a mob ;" and when were boys wearied with barring out their mafters? Berquin's defcription of children tired with doing their own way, and anxious, after fuffering for their folly, to be replaced under papa's guidance, was no emblem of his countrymen, who now hated all laws and all restraint; and were, as Mercier himself confeffes, loofed into a state of what he calls general demoralization. No wonder! Since Louis feize had laid down his authority, the fceptre, after the example of Aaron's rod, affumed a ferpent's form, affrighting even those who wished to wield it. And Carnot, to keep turbulent fpirits quiet at home, fent to the fighting field his trufted friend Buonaparte. This general, the firft who ever wore as a name the title of Deftroyer;* Apollyon Buonaparte burst o Italy, amazing all mankind, not by deftruction of his fword alone, but by his powers of fascination too, difplayed in their effects among Italian potentates, which, not unlike birds upon a branch, dropt one by one into the mouth of the rattle-fnake. The prince of Piedmont, whofe father was fo liberally paid by England for keeping the key of their peninfula, ftole it, as a girl does from under her governefs's head, to let in the feducer who fings beneath the window while Venice, unwarned perhaps, perhaps unwilling to believe baseness could lurk where liberty difplayed her banner; received and foftered, even against the will of fubjects ftrongly attached to the old way, new mafters, who arrived only to fcorn, to plunder, and forfake them. Thus, without one blow ftruck in its defence, did this ancient and once refpectable aristocracy, formed when a former Attila ravaged the earth; tamely yield up its independence to fome troops detached by the destroyer Buonaparte, with orders even to burn their bucentoro, golden book, and every mark of former fovereignty, carrying their bronze horses off to Paris, and having (as Frenchmen with no unjust though bitter farcafm obferved) torn the old woman's night-cap from their doge, and put upon his head their bonnet rouge; 'twas time to annihilate every remembrance of happier hours, and abolish even mafquerading in their ftreets; fending them all to bed at ten o'clock, as by a curfew-bell in ancient times, linking them faft to their new idol Freedom, by chains of iron never to be broken. Milan and Mantua meanwhile received the fudden fhock of more than gothick fury; and Lodi's bridge crowned the unfeeling conqueror with laurels, every dark leaf of which, though ornamental, will in the end perhaps prove poifonous to him, who fhocked the curé de St. Salo by throwing quicklime upon half-dead foldiers, under pretence of * See the 9th chapter of St. John's Apocalypfe, 11th verfe.-The Greek word is Apollyon. The Corfican pronunciation makes it Napollione. general 66 66 in order A general utility, and the neceffity of avoiding putrid complaints confequent upon fuch carnage. A Lombard peafant, when the day was done, was called out by a colonel of brigade to fhew him a convenient field of green corn it was early in May) where he might turn his horses for refreshment. They paffed by one, which the officer obferved would do well enough, to another fifty yards diftant, that was better. "Why bring us here, kind citizen?" exclaimed the French commander, "when I told you the leffer inclofure would have done." "Ah eccel"lenza!" replied his melancholy conductor, "it is becaufe that little "field belongs to a poor neighbour of mine who has a wife and child. "This meadow is my own; a fingle man (an't please your lordship) "need not outlive the honour of his country; life has a claim on dear "Antonia's husband'; he can't like me, whom the refufed to make him happy, rush on your fwords and lofe all fenfe of forrow." So fared it with the north of Italy. Rome, fatherlefs and affrighted, feemed likely to exhibit ftill deeper diftrefs. Some of her church plunder was fold by French invaders, as it stood, to Jews; who when they had paid for it and claimed their bargain, were beaten off by an incensed populace, which had feen villa Albani long their boaft, ftript and raz'd quite to earth with infinite difpleasure, although care had been taken to enrage them too, against all wealthy individuals; and the fight of princes Colonna and Borghefe reduced to eat rice with a horn spoon, affected them but little I believe. 'Tis faid their quondam fovereign borne about, fometimes in open carts for more indignity, fometimes in a clofe coach for fear fuch fufferings fhould excite compaffion; found leifure during his laft fad captivity, for writing a long letter to his bishops fheltered among us, expreffing gratitude towards heaven for having raised them up friends in a foreign land; and though by nature and by long-fixed prejudice hostile to our opinions, it is fuppofed that his last breath bleffed the brave British nation. They meantime, whilst Buonaparte drove forward like the Affyrian conqueror Rabhake, crying, "Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? and have they |