Sismondi--if the magnitude, and in many respects the merit, of his works be considered--must be regarded as one of the greatest historians of modern times. His "History of the Italian Republics" in sixteen, of the "Monarchy of France" in thirty volumes, attest the variety and extent of his antiquarian researches, as well as the indefatigable industry of his pen: his "Literature of the South of Europe" in four, and "Miscellaneous Essays" in three volumes, show how happily he has blended these weighty investigations with the lighter topics of literature and poetry, and the political philosophy which, in recent times, has come to occupy so large a place in the study of all who have turned their mind to the progress of human affairs. Nor is the least part of his merit to be found in the admirable skill with which he has condensed, each in two volumes, his great histories, for the benefit of that numerous class of readers who, unable or unwilling to face the formidable undertaking of going through his great histories, are desirous of obtaining such a brief summary of their leading events as may suffice for persons of ordinary perseverance or education. His mind was essentially philosophical; and it is the philosophy of modern history, accordingly, which he has exerted himself so strenuously to unfold. He views society at a distance, and exhibits its great changes in their just proportions, and, in general, with their true effects. His success in this arduous undertaking has been great indeed. He has completed the picture of which Robertson had only formed the sketch--and completed it with such a prodigious collection of materials, and so lucid an arrangement of them in their appropriate places, as to have left future ages little to do but draw the just conclusions from the results of his labours.