e Middle Age--a period of about six and a half centuries. What a
succession of stirring scenes does this volume present; what fields
of bloody action; what revelry of carnage; what schemes of petty
ambition; what trampling on necks, what uncrowning of heads; what
orgies of fire, sword, famine, and slaughter; what overtoppling of
thrones, and unseating of rulers; what pantings after freedom; what
slavery of passion; what sunny scenes of fortune to be shaded with
melancholy pictures of desolation and decay--are comprised in these
few pages of the history of a comparatively small portion of the
world for a short period--a narrow segment of the cycle of time.
What Sismondi so ably accomplished in sixteen volumes, he has here
comprised in one. He tells us that he could sacrifice episodes and
details without regret. The present is not, however, an abridgment of
his great work, "but an entirely new history, in which, with my eyes
fixed solely on the free people of the several Italian states, I have
studied to portray their first deliverance, their heroism, and their
misfortunes."

We quote a few sketchy extracts.

_Last Struggle of Rome for Liberty_.

"1453. Stefano Porcari, a Roman noble, willing to profit by the
interregnum which preceded the nomination of Nicholas V., to make the
Roman citizens demand the renewal and confirmation of their ancient
rights and privileges, was denounced to the new pope as a dangerous
person; and, so far from obtaining what he had hoped, he had the
grief to see the citizens always more strictly excluded from any
participation in public affairs. Those were entrusted only to
prelates, who, being prepared for it neither by their studies nor
sentiments, suffered the administration to fall into the most shameful
disorder.

"In an insurrection of the people in the Piazza Navona, arising from a
quarrel, which began at a bull-fight, Stefano Porcari endeavoured to
direct their attention to a more noble object, and turn this tumult to
the advantage of liberty. The pope hastily indulged all the fancies
of the people, with respect to their games or amusements; but firmly
rejected all their serious demands, and exiled Porcari to Bologna. The
latter hoped to obtain by conspiracy what he had failed to accomplish
by insurrection. There were not less than 400 exiled Roman citizens:
he persuaded them all to join him, and appointed them a rendezvous
at Rome, for the 5th of January, 1453, in the house of his