for the future little mixed up with the general affairs of the Peninsula, and scarcely ever taking the field, but left with ample leisure for the administration of their little principality, or the cultivation of their individual tastes. Had such been the lot of Duke Federigo or his accomplished son, their fame would scarcely have been dimmed, for theirs were virtues equally calculated to elevate a court or illustrate a camp. But it was otherwise with the two remaining sovereigns della Rovere; and the glories of the dynasty would suffer no diminution did we now draw our narrative to a close. Yet these Dukes were not commonplace men; and, making allowance for the age in which they lived,--when the fine gold of literature and arts had been transmuted into baser metal, and when genius had fled from a desolation which peace without freedom was powerless to reanimate,--they were not unworthy to rule in the Athens of Italy. Those readers, however, who have thus far followed our narrative must content themselves through its remaining chapters with characters less striking, views less general, events of narrowed interest; and must bear in mind that the niche in the temple of Fame appropriated to Urbino, as well as that enshrining the Italian name, was earned ere the coronation of Charles V. had closed the struggles of Italy, and consummated her subjugation. After that time, according to one of the most rational as well as eloquent of the new dreamers after Italian nationality, "she underwent a rapid yet imperceptible decline; yet her sky smiled brightly as ever, her climate was as mild. A privileged land, removed from all cares of political existence, she went on with dances and music, happy in her ignorance, sleeping in the intoxication of incessant prosperity. Used to the scourge of invasion, the sons of the south took up again their guitars, wiped away their tears, and sang anew like a cloud of birds when the tempest is over."[26] This picture, drawn in bitterness, but not apparently in irony, paints the decline of Italy in colours more attractive than any we should have dared to employ; and we extract it chiefly for the sake of contrast with the same writer's ready admission that the liberty of the old republics was cradled amid convulsions of faction, which eventually exhausted their forces, or stifled their independence. [Footnote 26: MARIOTTI'S _Italy_, II.]