would not want to go back again. Ask her if she knew Nancy Poolman, in Wine-Street, who used to play with Edith Sheppard so much, and tell her I am living with her, and am as happy as the day is long; and I should have been ten times more so, had it not been for the loss of my poor child, who died soon after we came here—she had every attention paid her. We were five weeks coming from Bristol to Quebec, and eighteen days to Little York; we had a very pleasant passage on the ocean, but very rough up the rapids, and that is the reason Mrs. Carpenter wished me to come New York way. Give my kind love to little Jane, and tell her I wish she was out here, as she could get as much work as she could do, and good work too-it is 2s. 6d. for making a shirt, without any stitching, and I have as much in the house as I can do. Please to tell Mr. and Mrs. F. that I think they were very foolish in going back again, for I am sure they might have done very well here; but that is the way of some people, they just come and look round, and run back again before they know any thing about it, and give it a bad name, but I speak as I find it: I have never known the want of anything since I landed in America; and wearing apparel is just as cheap as it is at home; I have bought a very handsome Leghorn bonnet for 19s., a new hat for John, a pair of shoes each, two new gowns and aprons, a very handsome black silk shawl, and a pair of new trowsers for John, and I have a pound to spare; and this is more than I should have had in Frome in a year, therefore I do not repent leaving it: but if I had you all here I should be happier. Do not delay writing, for I long to hear from you.

'From your loving Son and Daughter,

As a pendant to this letter from children to their parents, we subjoin one from two parents to those of their children whom they had left behind, though, it would seem, they had taken several with them of whom mention is made in the letter as happily provided for. This common epistle from a father and mother, subscribed by both, and in which each takes the pen alternately without any distinguishing mark, is very usual among letters of this class. This letter is evidently begun by the father, but it is not difficult to discover where the mother commences her portion of the joint correspondence, from the maternal pride and love evinced in her account of her children's improved condition.

'Auguste, Upper Canada.

• MY DEAR CHILDREN,-I received your kind and welcome letter, and am glad to hear you are well, as it leaves us all at present, thank God for it. How glad we are to hear you are coming. I hope the Lord will bring you safe over the mighty deep. My dear children, I do long for the time to come to see you. What a joyful day will that be for us to be together. We have taken fifteen acres of land, and are going to put some of it in order for you, against you come; you are the right man for this country—a man who likes his work, stout

and

and able like you, there is no fear of coming here. I have a cow, calf, two pigs, and eight chicken: we had a very fine harvest. Your sister Sophia lives at Squire Longley's, where she did when she first came, waiting-maid, 10l. a year. Jane is house-maid at Squire Jones's, 121. a year; I am happy to say she is very steady. Hepzeba has not been home to live since we landed; she has 3/. 10s. Henry has his living and clothes, lives at Mr. Hicks's, where we took the land when we first came. Daniel and little William live at home with me; he grows a very fine boy, he can talk anything now: sometimes I say, "Baby, I want the cow," he will take a stick and drive her to the door for me to milk. You are desirous to know what I do: the farmer's wife is glad with me; I go to market one day, sometimes two days in the week, and go to Prescott to sell and buy for them; and when they sheared their sheep, I helped them to sort the wool; they asked me if I could spin in the hand-turn, I said yes, so I have earned twenty shillings, and I am going to buy me a gown: they don't pay in money: last week I went and picked up apples, for which I had my keep and a bag of apples. They are very good to me; if I want anything in their garden, I send and have it. Your dear sisters and brothers, when I read the letter to them, their eyes were filled with tears of joy to hear you were coming; Sophia says, “Then I shall be happy." We all long for that happy day to come. Give our kind love to my sister French: I hope I shall see her in America. Give our kind love to Mrs. Heel and Sarah, &c. I am sorry you did not say anything of Thomas Barter; he was at our house about a month ago; he has a very good place; he lives handy our Sophia; sometimes they come here together, they live at one place but not at the same house; he takes my house as home. I am happy to say that in the same place as your three sisters live there is a Church of England and Meetings the same as in England.

'From your affectionate Father and Mother,

'WILLIAM and JANE RAWLINGS.'

One more specimen and we have done :

'Upper Canada.

'MY DEAR WIFE, I received your letter on the 4th of this month, and am happy to hear that you are all well: I thank God for it. I am happy to inform you that I never had one hour's illness since I left you, that is a blessed thing to say. I don't know that I ever was so stout or so strong in my life as at present; I thank God for it. I have got my house built and the roof put on, and one room finished; it is twenty-four feet long and sixteen feet wide, with four good rooms in it, when finished, which I hope will be in March or April. Do not bide and get rid of all your money, and then say I wish I had went to Canada when I had some. We have no landlord to come at Michaelmas, to say I want my rent: no poor-rates to pay; we are in a free country. It is a pretty thing to stand at one's own door and see a hundred acres of land of his own. I wish you would

go

go to my brothers and your own, or send and persuade them all to come, if they can; not to mind if they have but one shilling in their pockets when they land, they soon get more. You must think if I was bad off here, I should not wish a dear wife and family to come and be the same. Edgar, be sure to take care of your poor dear mother, and the little children; may God bless you, and send you a safe journey so no more at present from your loving husband and father,

'ROBERT SLADE.

'P.S.-If I never see you no more on earth, I hope I shall in heaven. May the Lord bless you all, my little dears. May the Lord bless every subscriber; I hope they will never live to want it.'

We conclude with the same wish; may the Lord bless every one who will contribute to the good work of aiding the honest and industrious poor, whom no fault of their own, but the natural progress of population expanding within a narrow insular area, has reduced to misery in Ireland, to parochial slavery and degradation in Britain, to remove to a situation where they will enjoy the comfort, independence, and happy prospects that are so strikingly depicted in these artless letters-where they will become a blessing to society at large, to themselves, their friends, and their native country, instead of an incumbrance and a spectacle of illrequited patience under almost intolerable and wholly undeserved sufferings.

ART. VII.-Storia degli antichi Popoli Italiani, di Giuseppe Micali. Tomi 3. 8vo. Firenze, 1832.

THE

THE vast erudition, and, no doubt, the spirit of bold and ingenious speculation, which the German scholars of recent days have carried into every branch of antiquarian inquiry have thrown into the shade the more modest-though, in some instances, not less meritorious-researches of writers in other countries. Some of the Italian literati, in particular, have ill-brooked the invasion on what they considered their own peculiar territory-the history of ancient Italy; their journals have been constantly open to rude, and occasionally not unsuccessful, attacks upon the new views of Roman history. To this jealous and resentful spirit, however, Signor Micali is altogether superior: he does full justice, even where he differs from them, to the more eminent scholars of Germany. 'As to some,' he observes, who discuss the antiquities of Italy, it is easy enough to come forward as writers, on the credit of opinions already published by others-imagining that they have composed a book when they have compiled one. But from this imputation are exempted those distinguished men who, by their acute researches

since the beginning of the present century, have given to Italian history greater fullness, lustre, and utility. Of these, to pass over others, suffice the illustrious names of a Niebuhr and an Otfried Müller.'

He adds, however-in a tone assuredly of pardonable national feeling that his countryman Vico had already opened the way to all the brilliant discoveries of later times.

'Italy is willing, on every subject, to avail herself of the erudition of others; but, as well for her philosophy, as for her national spirit and genius, she has no need to look beyond herself. We appreciate and from our hearts give all due honour to foreigners; yet we cannot, without a compassionate smile, see those same opinions, which are, by inalienable inheritance, the patrimony of our country, returning home to us in a foreign language.'

We shall not attempt the arduous, and not very profitable, task of vindicating their due proportion of literary glory to the scholars of either country. The dark oracles of Vico certainly contained the primary principles of almost all the new discoveries of the present day, but undeveloped, and enwrapped in that enigmatic obscurity which belonged to his style: on the other hand, it must be admitted, that the Germans themselves were the first to do justice to Vico, and to obtain for the philosophic Neapolitan that European reputation which was due to the boldness and originality of his views; but which his peculiar and repulsive manner of writing, as well as the singularity of his opinions, had prevented him from attaining, even in his own country.

The present work of Signor Micali may be considered a rifacciamento of his former publication, L'Italia avanti il Dominio dei Romani. It is so superior in every respect-in extent and depth of inquiry, as well as in more mature judgment—that we fear the author will himself endanger any claims to originality, which he might have founded on the date of his former work, by the neglect to which he will have consigned it by this History of the ancient Peoples of Italy.' We have been led, indeed, to his present treatise by an incidental circumstance. In a former article on Egyptian antiquities, we had been struck by the extraordinary similarity between the vast Egyptian catacombs and some of those ante. Roman cemeteries in Italy, which appear from recent discoveries to have been very common in the old Etrurian cities. We ventured to recommend this inquiry, as possessing peculiar interest to Italian scholars, and as likely to be pursued by them with the greatest local advantages. We were not at that time aware that Signor Micali had carried on this investigation with so much ardour, and had avowedly espoused the theory of the Egyptian origin of the Etrurian civilization. He has, in justice to himself, transmitted

transmitted the volumes now before us; and we shall begin with quoting his own general statement of the conclusions at which he has arrived:

That the principles of these oriental notions in Etruria were chiefly derived from Egypt is not a mere ingenious speculation, for we have most positive demonstration in the monuments themselves, which establish with the greatest weight of authority, that at a very early period there existed in Etruria a centre of civilization contemporaneous with that of the East and of Egypt. And here we mean to speak of the most ancient monuments, or those which at least are the representatives of the tenets received in the most ancient times; in these alone the true and legitimate national character can be studied; those which betray in any manner the influence of Grecian art, or mythology, belong to a period manifestly secondary, and can only give false notions of the history of the primitive Etruscans. Now the principal symbols which passed at first into Etruria, as the veil of the secret doctrines, are found in great numbers, particularly among the monuments in the sepulchres; which men in the older times, profoundly impressed with religious notions, considered their true and eternal dwelling. There are seen Canopic vases, figures of biform nature, winged sphinxes, and every other kind of monstrous animal;-all the significant emblems of the East, or of mysterious Egypt;-the very doctrine of Amenti recurs in a great many representations; the evil placed in opposition to the protecting genii;scarabei in great numbers;-and in what more particularly regards the arts of design, the workmanship and the imitation of the Egyptians, which we might almost call the Asiatic style of Etruria, are the great distinction of works properly called Tuscan. Figures having four wings, and other unusual symbolic forms and signs, which rather distinguish the Phoenician, or Syrian, or Babylonian divinities, show still further that the highly-religious Etruscans adopted, wherever they made their voyages, or traded, celestial protectors-more particularly in the East, the abundant source of superstitions. Indeed, without going so far, in the neighbouring Sardinia, which was inhabited by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Etruscans, the latter might easily appropriate many things foreign to, yet in strict conformity with, their own system; and these same Asiatic, Phoenician, and Egyptian notions-the groundwork of the national Etruscan mythology-were so deeply rooted from their antiquity in Etruria, that even when the people began to fall away from its ancient creed, and the power of the priesthood to decline-when the arts of design wholly Grecized, imitating only the Hellenic models-we still find not a few of the symbols and the fables of the antiquated religion brought upon the scene, though under more graceful forms. We now touch only rapidly an important subject, which will be more fully developed in the next volume.'

Signor Micali appcals to the highly interesting volume of

engravings