Viewing the remains of Roman taste and magnificence, he will feel a thousand emotions of the most interesting nature, while those whose minds are not, like his, stored with classical knowledge, gaze with tasteless wonder, or phlegmatic indifference; and, exclusive of those monuments of antiquity, he will naturally desire to be acquainted with the present inhabitants of a country, which at different periods has produced men who, by one means or another, have distinguished themselves so eminently from their contemporaries of other nations. At one period, having subdued the world by the wisdom and firmness of their councils, and the disciplined vigour of their armies, Rome became at once the seat of empire, learning, and the arts. After the Northern barbarians had destroyed the overgrown fabric of Roman power, a new empire, of a more singular nature, gradually arose from its ruins, artfully extending its influence over the minds of men, till the Princes of Europe were at length as much controlled by the bulls of the Vatican, as their ancestors had been by the decrees of the Senate. Commerce also, which rapine and slaughter had frightened from Europe, returned, and joined with Superstition in drawing the riches of all the neighbouring nations to Italy. And, at a subsequent period, Learning, bursting through the clouds of ignorance which overshadowed mankind, again shone forth in the same country, bringing in her train, Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music, all of which have been cultivated with the greatest success; and the three last brought, by the inhabitants of this country, to a degree of excellence unequalled by the natives of any other country of the world. When to these considerations we add, that there is reason to believe that this country had arrived at a great degree of perfection in the arts before the beginning of the Roman republic, we are almost tempted to believe, that local and physical causes have a considerable influence in rendering the mind more acute in this country of Italy, than any where else; and that if the infinite political disadvantages under which it labours were removed, and the whole of this peninsula united in one State, it would again resume its superiority over other nations.