its Santa Croce, with its six mighty tombs,-those even of Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, Leonardo Aretino. The size of Florence brings all these objects within a manageable distance; and, during my stay of wellnigh a week, I visited them, as any one may do, almost every day. But every traveller has entered largely into their description, and I pass them over, to touch on other things more rarely brought into view.

Florence is the focus of Italian art; and here, if anywhere, one can see the effect of educating a population solely on the æsthetic principle. The Florentines have no books, no reading-rooms, no public lectures, no preaching in their churches even, bating the occasional harangue of a monk. They are left to be trained solely by fine pictures and lovely statues. From these they are expected to learn their duties as men and as citizens. The sole employment of the people is to produce these things; their sole study, to be able to admire them. The result is not civilization, but barbarism. Nor can it well be otherwise. We find the "beautiful" abundantly in nature, but never dissociated from the "useful;” teaching us that it cannot be safely sought but in union with what is true and good; and that we cannot make it "an end" without reversing the whole constitution of our nature. When a people make the love of "the beautiful" their predominant passion, they rapidly decline in the better and nobler qualities. The beautiful yields only enjoyment; and those who live only to enjoy soon become intensely selfish. That enjoyment, moreover, is immediate, and so affords no room for the exercise of patience and foresight. A race of triflers arise, who think only of the present hour. They are wholly undisciplined in the higher qualities of mind,—in perseverance and self-control; and, being withdrawn from the contemplation of facts and principles, they

become incapable of attending to the useful duties of life, and are wholly unable to rise to the higher efforts of virtue and patriotism. The Italian Governments, for their own ends, have restricted their subjects to the fine arts, but at the expense of the trade, the agriculture, and the civilization, of their dominions. The fabric of British power was not raised on the æsthetic principle. Take away our books, and give us pictures; shut up our schools and churches, and give us museums and galleries; instead of our looms and forges, substitute chisels and pencils; and farewell to our greatness. The artizan of Birmingham or Glasgow is a more civilised man than the same class in the Italian cities. His dwelling, too, displays an amount of comfort and elegance which few in Italy below the rank of princes, and not always they, can command. The condition of the Italian people shows conclusively that the predominating study of "the beautiful" has a most corrupting and enfeebling effect. In fact, their pictures have paved the way for their tyrants; and when one marks their demoralizing effects, he feels how salutary is the restriction of the Decalogue against their use in Divine worship. If pictures and images lead to idolatry in the Church, their exclusive study as infallibly produces serfdom in the State.

In the early dawn of the Reformation, several of our own countrymen visited the city of the Medici, that they might have access to the works of antiquity which Cosmo had collected, and enjoy the converse of the learned men that thronged his palace. "William Selling," says D'Aubigné, "a young English ecclesiastic, afterwards distinguished at Canterbury by his zeal in collecting valuable manuscripts,-his fellowcountrymen, Grocyn, Lilly, and Latimer, more bashful than a maiden,'-and, above all, Linacre, whom Erasmus ranked above all the scholars of Italy,-used to meet in the de

licious villa of the Medici, with Politian, Chalcondyles, and other men of learning; and there, in the calm evenings of summer, under that glorious Tuscan sky, they dreamt romantic visions of the Platonic philosophy. When they returned to England, these learned men laid before the youth of Oxford the marvellous treasures of the Greek language." We are repaying the debt, by sending to that land a better philosophy than any these learned men ever brought from it. This leads us to speak of the religious movement in progress in Tuscany. After all, man's power for evil is extremely limited. The very opposite is the ordinary estimate. When we mark the career of a conqueror like Napoleon, or the withering effects of an organization like that of Rome, and compare these with the feeble results of a preacher like Savonarola, whose body the fire reduced to ashes, and whose disciples persecution speedily scattered, we say that man's power to destroy his species is almost omnipotent, his power to benefit them scarce appreciable. But spread out the long cycles of history and the long ages of the world, and you learn that the triumphs of evil, though sudden, are temporary, and those of truth slow but eternal. A true word spoken by a single man has in it more power than armies, and will, in the long run, do more to bless than all that tyrannies can do to blight mankind. Savonarola, feeble as he seemed, and unprotected as he was, wielded a power greater than that of Rome. The truths sown by the preacher on the banks of the Arno so many centuries ago are not yet dead. They are springing up; and, long after Rome shall have passed away, they will be a source of liberty, of civilization, of arts, and of eternal life, to his countrymen.

A political storm heralded the quiet spring-time of evangelical truth which has of late blessed that land. Prior to 1848, although there had been no change for the better in the

law, a very considerable degree of practical liberty was enjoyed by the subjects of Tuscany. The Tuscans are naturally a quiet, well-behaved people; the Grand Duke was an easy, kind-hearted man; his Government was exceedingly mild; and, as he conducted himself towards his people like a father, he was greatly beloved by them. Tuscany at that period was universally acknowledged to be the happiest province of Italy.

The priesthood of those days were a good-natured, easy set of men also. They had never known opposition. They could not imagine the possibility of anything occurring to endanger their power, and therefore were exceedingly tolerant in the exercise of it. They were an illiterate and illinformed race. An Abbatte of their own number assured Dr Stewart, so far back as 1845, that there was not one amongst them, from the Archbishop downwards, who could read Hebrew, nor half-a-dozen who could be found among the upper orders who could read Greek. They were masters of as much Latin as enabled them to get through the mass; but they were wholly unskilled in the modern tongues of Europe, and entire strangers to modern European literature. Though poorly paid, they durst not eke out their means of subsistence by entering into any trade. Many of them were fain to become major domos in rich families, and might be seen chaffering in the markets in the public piazza, and weighing out flour, coffee, and oil to the servants at home. No priest can say more than one mass a-day; and for that he is paid one lira, or eightpence sterling.

Such being the state of matters, little notice was taken of what foreign Protestants might be doing. The priests were secure in their ignorance, and deemed it impossible that any attempt would be made to introduce the diabolical heresies of

Luther among their orthodox flocks. Indeed, these flocks were removed almost beyond the reach of contamination, not so much by the vigilance of the priests, as by their own ignorance and bigotry. The degree of popular enlightenment may be judged of from the following circumstance which happened to Dr Stewart, and of which the Doctor himself assured me Soon after his first coming into Tuscany in 1845, he came into contact with a countryman, who, on being told that he was a Protestant minister, began instantly to scrutinize his lower extremities, to ascertain whether he had cloven hoofs. The priests had told the people that Protestants were just devils in disguise.

The Government, I have said, was a mild one. It was more: it was affected with the usual Italian sluggishness and indolence, the dolce far niente; and accordingly it winked at innumerable ongoings, so long as these did not attract public attention. Bibles and religious Protestant works were introduced secretly, the Government knowing it, but winking at it, as the Church did not complain. The arrest of the deputation from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to the Holy Land in 1839 was an exception to what I have now stated, but such an exception as confirms the general statement. The deputation, with the ignorance of us Britishers abroad for the first time, imagined that because Leghorn was a free port, they were free to give away Bibles, tracts, and all kinds of religious books; and accordingly they made vigorous use of their time. Scarcely had they stepped on shore when they commenced a liberal distribution of Bibles, books on the “Evidences,” and other valuable works, among the boatmen, facchini, and beggars. It did not occur to them, that of those to whom they gave these books, few could read, and none were able to appreciate them. Many persons who received these