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"denounced those crimes which the Romans, from a tical love of liberty, had exalted into virtues;-without offering an apology for every part of the conduct of Cæsar, he has refused to applaud the excesses of the faction opposed to him;but above all, he had it in view to allay the enthusiasm which the Romans inspire, and which he believes to be dangerous, because it is capable of engendering in the minds of men in every age, contempt or disgust for the government of their own country, when it does not resemble that of Rome."

Thus it is, that after the arms of France have crushed every vestige of modern republicanism in Europe, and are now directed, with infuriate and implacable hostility, against the only free constitution remaining there, her writers are employed in profaning as it were the tomb, and polluting the memory of ancient republicanism; in stripping the illustrious founders and protomartyrs of liberty, of the venerable honours with which they had been invested, by the unanimous consent of mankind, and clothing them in the hideous garb of assassins and robbers, in order that there may be nothing left, either in the example of the old, or in the institutions of the modern world, to inflame the imagination against the hellish dominion of the sword.Thus it is that history, under the government of Bonaparte, and in the prostitute hands of the French literati, is used not to enlighten, but to obscure and distort the past; not to recommend and canonize virtue, but to seal the triumph, and to prepare the apotheosis of vice.

The only English work on the subject of ancient history, which the Institute condescend to notice, is that of Mitford in relation to Greece. When this respectable writer considers the spirit which dietated the following observations, he will not find himself much flattered by the compliment they are meant to convey. "The author of the history of Greece," says the Report," has studied his subject well; he has preserved himself from that enthusiasm of extravagant liberty which has made so many writers, particularly in his own country, wander from the truth. He omits nothing that is calculated to give us a just idea of the morals, the politics, the manners, and the government of the ancient Greeks; but although he declares himself to be free from prejudice, he may be accused of judging on all points, according to the opinions of his age and of his country.'

The Report indulges in a particular criticism on Mitford, the propriety of which we are inclined to contest. It is as follows:-" He appears to suppose too readily that the Greeks had a federative constitution, which, according to him, was

dissolved at the period of the battle of Mantinea; whereas the Greeks did not conceive the idea of such a constitution until a century after this battle, when the Achean league was formed." This assertion of the Institute is much too peremptory. It may indeed be questioned whether the Greeks had any idea of a civil federative union, analogous to our own, anterior to that of Achaia, but there can be no doubt of their having been previously united, in something like a permanent political confederacy.

The dangers to which the northern parts of Greece were exposed from invasion, and the necessity of defending the Peloponnesus from the eastern colonies, led to the establishment and maintenance of the Amphictyonic council, which assumed, even before the Persian war, the character of a general congress, or representative assembly of all the Grecian states. It was undoubtedly in the nature of a permanent diet, charged with the care of the common defence against foreign enemies, and with the preservation of domestic concord. It took cog. nizance not merely of religious disputes, or of acts of impiety, but of infractions of the law of nations, and deeds of lawless violence between the numerous cities, which acknowledged it as their supreme head, and the depositary of their most important interests. It was, indeed, at all times deficient in coercive strength, but continued, from the authority which it enjoyed, to be usefully operative as a political magistracy, until, by suf fering itself to be too much engaged in religious disputes, it degenerated into a mere synod, and no longer served but as an instrument of ambition or revenge, in the hands of the more powerful members of the league. The functions of this institution, and its efficient existence for a long period, leave no doubt but that Mr. Mitford and with him Gillies, Barthelemi, and most of the writers who have treated of Grecian history, are right in supposing, that the Greeks understood the theory, and partially enjoyed the advantages, of a federal government, strictly so called, previous to the age of Aratus. Such a republic as our own, partly federal and partly national, so happily tempered, so nicely compacted, so firmly established, was indeed, never imagined, even by the most speculative of the philosophical statesmen of antiquity; and required, we may venture to say, before it could have been either conceived or established in our own times, so glorious an archetype and so encouraging an experiment as the British constitution.

After giving a long and tedious account of the labours of the French literati on the history of the middle ages, the authors of the Report proceed to survey the progress of modern

history since 1789.-Here again they are almost entirely taken up with the productions of their own language. Muller's History of Switzerland, and Schiller's thirty years war, are the only foreign works introduced to the knowledge of the reader, and these are only named. They must have experienced no small difficulty, in making up such a catalogue of French writers in history since the revolution, as would satisfy in any manner the cravings of national vanity. To eke out a suitable number of pages on this head, they have foisted in a long eulogium on the history of Russia, by Levesque, published in 1781, but reprinted at Hamburgh in 1800; and a detailed account of the historical writings of Gaillard and Anquetil before the revolution, as introductory to the exhibition of their subsequent and very insignificant labours.-In the notice which they take of Gaillard's history of Charlemagne, they reprove him severely for the unfavourable picture which he has drawn of the private character, and for the censure which he has passed upon the usurpations, of this ferocious conqueror.

It is perhaps known to most of our readers, that Bonaparte is fond of being called "the modern Charlemagne," and has often asserted his right as Emperor of France, to whatever was conquered by the arms of his "predecessor."-The Institute, in the eagerness of their zeal to flatter the pride and support the pretensions of their sovereign, do not fail to improve the opportunity afforded by the mention of Galliard's work, in order to defend the barbarian hero and his projects, against all vituperation. It is somewhat amusing to see how their servility works, and to trace the operations of the grovelling spirit of adulation, in such phrases as the ensuing.

"The history of Charlemagne is a noble theme; it affords an opportunity of comparing the great man of a barbarous age, with the great man of a civilized one.-Mr. Gaillard has not been happy in all parts of his work; it would seem that an erroneous idea of ancient France has occasioned his principal faults; he mistakes ancient Gaul, for France properly so called, and seems to think, that Charlemagne ought to have been satisfied with the former.-But this was on the contrary, but an acquisition of the Franks. France properly so called,--the true country of that people—was a part of Belgium, and a vast territory to the right of the Rhine as far as Mein.-As Gaillard's principal object in all his works, is to decry war and conquests, and as he appears to have conceived the hope of bringing about a general peace in Europe by his writings, he represents Charlemagne as the unjust aggressor of the Saxons, as

culpably ambitious, &c. and endeavours to inspire us with more interest for the vanquished, than for the hero."

"Mr. Hegewisch, who published his history of Charlemagne in 1791, is more just towards this prince. While Gaillard, a Frenchman by birth, fatigues his readers with complaints about the evils, which the Saxons suffered ten centuries ago, Mr. Hegewisch, a native Saxon, acknowledges that his ancestors stood in need of being subjugated. Charlemagne, adds this judicious historian, protected the agriculture of the people whom he subdued; he gave them laws as good as the age would admit, and scattered over their country fruitful seeds of prosperity. All the nations whom he conquered ought, even now, to pronounce his name with gratitude. It is the great views of Mr. Hegewisch that render his work very superior to that of Mr. Gaillard."

Thus is poor Gaillard shorn of his beams, and postponed to one of the dullest of chroniclers, for the meanness of his spirit in not admiring war and conquests, and his stupidity in not comprehending, that subjection to the yoke of Charlemagne, accompanied by the most cruel oppressions that barbarian conquest could carry in its train, were among the absolute wants of the Saxons.

Of the late French historians enumerated by the Institute, there is none who truly merits the name, with the exception of M. de Segur and Mr. de Rulhiere. The Tableau historique et politique de l'Europe, by Mr. de Segur, is a production of considerable merit, and worthy of the reputation which the author has established, as an able writer and a sagacious statesman. In the well known work entitled Politique de tous les Cabinets de l'Europe, of which he was the editor, he has made an invaluable accession to the diplomatic history of the eighteenth century. Mr. de Rulhiere obtained early, a respectable place in the ranks of literature, by his "Historical elucidations of the causes of the revocation of the edict of Nantz." He died in 1791, and left behind him, two historical works, one published in 1797, styled "Anecdotes concerning the revolution in Russia, of 1762;"-the other in 1807, under the title of a history of the anarchy and dismemberment of Poland. The first met with considerable success, and was read with eagerness, as the author was an eye witness of the events which he describes, and has reported them with great fidelity. The Institute notice only the last, which was left in an unfinished state, and much corrupted both in the style and sentiments, by the persons into whose hands it fell.Under these disadvantages it is still to be considered as an

able composition, and to be appreciated as a body of valuable materials, concerning the history of one of the most interesting people of Europe, and one of the most memorable catastrophes known in the political annals of mankind.

The Institute in acknowledging that he displays more talent in this than in the preceding work, still pronounce it to be less honourable to his memory, on account of the spirit in which it is written.-They complain bitterly of the desire which he evinces, to conciliate sympathy in favour of the unhappy Poles, and of the indignation which he expresses against Catherine, for her participation in a crime second only in atrocity as we think to the more recent usurpations of the French government. M. de Rulhiere is accused in the Report, of falling into a contradiction, when he represents the Poles as objects of generous compassion in their struggle against lawless violence, and at the same time admits, that the nature of their government entailed upon them all the evils of anarchy; as if, whatever might have been the vices of their domestic system, their heroic efforts to resist the aggressions of foreign ambition and rapacity, were not to be admired, and their overthrow in that sacred warfare to be for ever deplored.-It is also alleged as an unpardonable defect in the work of M. de Rulhiere, that the perusal of it inspires but a very unsatisfactory sentiment:that of hatred towards most of the personages whom he introduces upon the stage: as if, again, it were not the paramount duty of an historian, in his capacity of a moral teacher, to hold up guilt of the blackest dye and of the most destructive consequence, to the sovereign detestation of mankind;-as if it were not a trait of primary excellence in any historical work, to be so framed as to awaken in the mind of the reader, those feelings alone, which nature and justice demand.-The drift of the Institute in their covert apology for the dismemberment of Poland, is sufficiently obvious.*

M. de Toulongeon and Lacretelle the younger, the first an exceedingly tedious, and the latter a very superficial writer-are the only annalists of the French revolution mentioned in the Report. Nothing is said of the valuable and interesting memoirs of De Bouillé and Bertrand de Moleville, nor of the history of the war of La Vendée published in 1807, by

* We should, however, do the Institute the justice to remark, that they do not stand alone in their doctrines on this head. We confess, with a blush, that they are far outstripped on the same side of the question, by an English author, sir Robert Wilson,-who has just published his "Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Armies." See p. 14, 15, of his preface for doctrines which any other than an encomiast of Bonaparte, or a declared Machiavelian, should be ashamed to avow.