Many men of learning and understanding in Italy, had, from time to time, thrown doubts on the early portion of the Roman history, some perhaps feeling that their own native provinces had been wronged by their gorgeous adversary. But the fate of Italy, Servir sempre, o vincitrice o vinta, had lowered the energies that, under other circumstances, would have boldly proclaimed these doubts long ago, and have shown Rome as she was, the destroyer of men and of happiness; a conqueror converting whole well-peopled and cultivated provinces into deserts, ever which a few wretched slaves wandered to their task work, instead of the free peasants who once gathered their own rich harvests; a tyrant at whose frown the liberal arts withered, and commerce deserted the useless ports and abandoned storehouses of the subdued merchants and spiritless artists. But the pains-taking critics of Germany had no morbid sensibility to prevent them from attacking Rome; none of the hopeless feeling of those who would, but must not, vindicate the fame of their ancestors; and with something of roughness and much of justice, they have taught us to trample on ancient prejudice, and to dare to look upon Italy as not dependant entirely upon Rome. There have not been wanting Italians to join in these views, and to acknowledge the merit of their trans-alpine critics. Among these Micali is conspicuous; and, as his late work, with its atlas, throws considerable light on a very early period of art in Italy, I shall make use of it in preference to any other in what I have to say of painting and its kindred arts, before the period of Roman authentic history begins. The scattered notices to be found in ancient writers, leave no doubt as to a few facts: namely, that a rude tribe, or several rude tribes, called by the various titles of Opicians, Auruncians, Oscans, Cascans, or Priscan Latins, under the general name of Ausonians, and all speaking the same language, once possessed, at least, the hill countries of Italy; that these were succeeded by a race speaking a different dialect, resembling the Pelasgians, who appear in several countries as the first people possessing the arts of civilized life, beginning to build cities, and introducing regular government. Then we read of Umbrians, Siculi, and colonies from Greece and Phrygia; and Italy next appears, long before the foundation of Rome, as chiefly possessed by a people whose native name seems to have been Ra-seni, who were called generally by the Greeks, Tyrrhenians, and by the Latins, Tuscans or Etruscans. It is among this remarkable people, possessed of some of the sciences and most of the arts of social life, that the fine arts were first cultivated in Italy; and that they were no mean proficients, will not be disputed by any one who has beheld even a single Etruscan vase[36].