Before bidding adieu to the piazza of St Mark, around which there hovers so many historic memories, and which every style of architecture, from the Greek and the Byzantine down to the Gotho-Italian, has met to decorate, and which, we may add, in point of noble grace and chaste beauty is perhaps not excelled in the world, we must be allowed to mention one object, which appeared to us strangely out of keeping with the spot and its edifices. It is the tall Gothic tower that rises opposite the Byzantine front of S. Mark's Cathedral. It attains a height of upwards of three hundred feet, and is used for various purposes, which, however, it could serve equally well in some other part of Venice. It strikes one the more, that it is the one deformity of the place. It reminded me of the entrance of a clown at a royal levee, or the appearance of harlequin in a tragedy. Betaking ourselves again to a gondola, and gliding noiselessly along the grand canal, "For silent rows the songless gondolier,-" we visited the Academia delle Belle Arte. It resembled a great and elaborately compiled work on painting, and I could there read off the history of the rise and progress of the art in Venice. The several galleries were arranged, like the successive chapters of a book, in chronological order, beginning with the infancy of the art, and going on to its full noon, under the great masters of the Lombard school,-Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and others. The pictures of the inner saloons were truly magnificent; but on these I do not dwell. Let us sit down here, in the midst of the seas, and meditate a little on the great moral of Venice. We shall let the poet state the case : "Her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased." But now, after power, wealth, empire, have come corruption, slavery, ruin; and Venice, course. "Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose." But the course which Venice has run is that of all States which have yet appeared in the world. History is but a roll of defunct empires, whose career has been alike; and Venice and Rome are but the latest names on the list. Egypt, Chaldea, Tyre, Greece, Rome,―to all, as if by an inevitable law, there came, after the day of civilization and empire, the night of barbarism and slavery. This has been repeated again and again, till the world has come to accept of it as its established We see States emerging from infancy and weakness slowly and laboriously, becoming rich, enlightened, powerful; and the moment they seemed to have perfected their civilization, and consolidated their power, they begin to fall. The past history of our race is but a history of efforts, successful up to a certain point, but only to a certain point; for whenever that point has been reached, all the fruits of past labour,—all the accumulations of legislators, philosophers, and warriors,have been swept away, and the human family have found that they had to begin the same laborious process over again,—to toil upwards from the same gulph, to be overtaken by the same disaster. History has been simply a series of everrecurring cycles, ending in barbarism. This is a discouraging aspect of human affairs, and throws a doubtful shadow upon the future; but it is the aspect in which history exhibits them. The Etrurian tombs speak of an era of civilization and power succeeded by barbarism. The mounds of Nineveh speak of a similar revolution. The day of Greek glory sank at last in unbroken night. At the fall of the Roman empire, barbarism overspread Europe; and now the cycle appears to have come round to the nations of modern Europe. Since the middle of last century there has been a marked and fearfully rapid decline in all the States of continental Europe. The entire region south of the Alps, including the once powerful kingdoms of Italy and Spain, is sunk in slavery and barbarism. France alone retains its civilization; but how long is it likely to retain it, with its strength undermined by revolution, and its liberties completely prostrated? Niebuhr has given expression in his works to his decided opinion, that the dark ages are returning. And are we not at this moment witnessing an attempted repetition of the Gothic invasion of the fourth century, in the barbarian north, which is pressing with ever-growing weight upon the feeble barrier of the East? "Nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt." But why is this? It would almost seem, when we look at these examples and facts, as if there were some malignant influence sporting with the world's progress,—some adverse power fighting against man, baulking all his efforts at self-advancement, and compelling him, Sysiphus-like, to roll the stone eternally. Has the Creator set limits to the life of kingdoms, as to that of man? Certain it is, they have seldom survived their twelfth century. The most part have died at or about their twelve hundred and sixtieth year. Is this the "three-scoreand-ten" of nations, beyond which they cannot pass? The common explanation of the death of nations is, that power begets wealth, wealth luxury, and luxury feebleness and ruin. But we are unable to accept this as a satisfactory account of the matter. It appears a mere statement of the fact, not a solution of it. It is evidently the design of Providence that nations should live happily in the abundant enjoyment of all good things; and that every human being should have all that is good for him, of what the earth produces, and the labour of man can create. Then, why should affluence, and the other accessories of power, have so uniformly a corrupting and dissolving effect upon society? This the common theory leaves unexplained. There is no necessary connection betwixt the enjoyment of abundance and the corruption of nations. The Creator surely has not ordained laws which must necessarily result in the death of society. The real solution, we think, it is not difficult to find. All religions, one excepted, which have hitherto appeared in the world, have been unable to hold the balance between the intellect and the conscience beyond a certain stage; and therefore, all kingdoms which have arisen hitherto have been unable to exist beyond a certain term. So long as a nation is in its childhood, a false religion affords room enough for the free play of its intellect. Its religion being regarded as true and authoritative, the conscience of the nation is controlled by it. So long as conscience is upheld, law has authority, individual and social virtue is maintained, and the nation goes on acquiring power, amassing wealth, and increasing knowledge. But whenever it attains a certain stage of enlightenment, and a certain power of independent thinking, it begins to canvass the claims of that religion which formerly awed it. It dis covers its falsehood, the national conscience breaks loose, and an era of scepticism ensues. With the destruction of conscience and the rise of scepticism, law loses its authority, individual honour and social virtue decline, and slavery or anarchy complete the ruin of the state. This is the course which the nations of the world have hitherto run. They have uniformly begun to decline, not when they attained a certain amount of power or of wealth, but when they attained such an amount of intellectual development as set free the national conscience from the restraints of religion, or what professed to be so. No false religion can carry a nation beyond a certain point; because no such religion can stand before a certain stage of light and inquiry, which is sure to be reached; and when that stage is reached,-in other words, whenever the intellect dissolves the bonds of conscience,-the basis of all authority and order is razed, and from that moment national decline begins. Hence, in all nations an era of scepticism has been contemporaneous with an era of decay. Let us take the ancient Romans as an example. In the youth of their nation their gods were revered; and in the existence of a national conscience, a basis was found for law and virtue; and while these lasted the empire flourished. But by and by the genius of its great thinkers leavened the nation; an era of scepticism ensued; that scepticism inaugurated an age of feeble laws and strong passions; and the declension which set in issued at length in downright barbarism. Papal Rome has run the very same course. The feeble intellect of the European nations accepted Romanism as a religion, just as the Romans before them had accepted of paganism. But the Reformation introduced a period of growing enlightenment and independent thinking; and by the end of the eighteenth century, Romanism had shared the fate N |