or, as they profanely call them, the b emigrants. This deadly feeling is never lost sight of or forgotten; it is the cement of their society; and in all times of their tribulation, in all times of their wealth, it forms the governing principle of their chequered and unhallowed lives."

Taking these and many other passages from Mr. James's "Six Months," some of them no doubt of a qualified nature in regard to praise and promise, his work must be held to be, in no slight degree, recommendatory of the young settlement. He does not represent it as a perfect Paradise; yet he holds it up as the most eligible and tempting opening for British emigrants that at present offers itself. The author of the third work at the head of our paper goes considerably further in his eulogy and his preference. And yet we do not accuse him of special pleading, or as performing the part of a hired advocate. Indeed Mr. Stephens, who appears to be about to choose this new settlement for his own future home, has manifestly striven to make himself master of everything that has reached this country concerning it; and conscientiously proceeds to detail for the information of others all he knows and believes of the place. And that his work has met with welcome and been greedily pondered, is proved by the fact that the first impression of it, under the title of The Land of Promise," even although in that guise anonymous, has been all sold off in a short time.

The work aspires to the honour of being a history of South Australia, and in natural succession devotes a chapter to each branch and feature which one expects to find described in a production of such pretensions. The hints and details which Mr. Stephens offers for the benefit of others, ere fixing or setting out upon the emigrating adventure contemplated by them, cannot fail to procure for him an earnest and inquisitive hearing on the part of many an anxious and honourably directed mind. To be sure he is at issue upon several points about the positive and relative advantages of his pet. Nor are his strenuous efforts to make the public acquainted with these advantages uncalled for, seeing that both in this country and in several of our colonies an excessive jealousy, and an inveterate hostility, exists to the infant settlement. It has not been for a moment our intention to enter the lists with any party concerning the respective merits of the British " Emigration Fields," but merely to lay before our readers a few of the opinions and statements drawn from three writers who deserve to be listened to in their turn on a subject of such vital importance to the mother country, and to the welfare of very many of her most virtuous children. Such being our wish and purpose, we shall cull some particulars from the postscript to Mr. Stephens's volume, which contains information from South Australia of so recent a date as the 14th of July last, these contents being of a highly satisfactory nature. Our first extract is from a letter dated June 29th, said to

be from a gentleman well versed in agriculture and grazing, and the son of a most respectable Devonshire farmer :

"Many of my respectable friends,' says he, 'requested of me most particularly, before I left England, to write them and give them a true and faithful report of the colony; and, in addition to this, I have been informed by sundry letters I have received since my arrival here, that many others are waiting my report to decide whether they will emigrate to this colony or not. Under these circumstances I have refrained writing to any one but to my own relatives up to the present moment | the writer had then been not six months in South Australia,' but eighteen,] and to them only just after my arrival.' He then goes on to state that he had on several occasions accompanied the surveying corps within a few miles of Adelaide. But,' he adds, 'for the purpose of seeing the land more remote I have been out from six to eight days at two different times. In one of these excursions I went seventy miles inland from this [Adelaide] to Encounter Bay. The land from hence then varies much, both in quality and beauty of scenery. The road thither, generally taken, is by Onkaparingo. The distance to it from this place is about twenty miles, and, with the exception of about three or four miles, pretty level, and through as beautiful and undulating a country as I ever saw. At many places the land is very rich, of a black sandy loam, and, I think, fit to grow maize, or almost any other kind of grain. Much of the country in this district (as in many others) has a complete park-like appearance, and one is every now and then expecting some nobleman's seat to break upon one's view. The greatest disappointment an Englishman meets with (as appears to me) is the want of streams of water. There are streams to be met with, and in some districts frequent; but this is by no means general. After passing Onkaparingo (which is a very romantic place), the country begins to be very hilly for some distance, and some part extensively so; but much of the land very good, particularly a valley through which runs a beautiful stream of water throughout the year. This vale resembles some of our English parks for verdure and beauty, but exceeds them in one thing-that is, its trees-many of which (of the gum kind, very large and spreading) are never seen bare of their foliage; of the two they are greener in winter than in summer. After passing this valley we soon get out of good land, and it continues very indifferent and worthless for the distance of ten or twelve miles, until we come to the declivity that leads down a beautiful valley about two miles in width, by six or eight in length, terminating at Encounter Bay. The scenery in this valley is beautiful, and the pasturage luxuriant. I have been on one excursion across the ridges of mountains, passing Mount Lofty on the left or north, steering S. E. for one day, and on the following morning setting out due east, and arrived about noon out in a beautiful undulating park-like country, the soil a very rich black loam, and many of the trees very large and spreading, of which we met with a goodly number. Many of the places we came to showed a beautiful, open (but sufficiently wooded), pastoral country. Many hundred acres may be had at very many places without an obstacle worth naming to prevent the plough going, and I am of opinion, that after the land has been broken and cropped, and then grassed down with artificial grasses, it will be most productive. In most

places at present the grass is not sufficiently thick. I attribute this to the frequent burnings it is exposed to annually; which, in my opinion, destroys both the seeds and the seedling grasses. The quality of the land in and about Adelaide, generally, though not at all bad, is not so good as farther inland. I have had sufficient proof that almost all European vegetables will grow well. I have now cabbages as good as ever I had in England, grown from seed I brought with me. I took a number of fruit trees also with me (amongst which I had three orange trees) from the Cape, and, although out of earth full two months (all but the oranges), yet they took root well, and not a single tree failed. I have lately had an opportunity of adding to my stock in the purchase of about a hundred lately imported from the adjoining colony of Van Diemen's Land. I have also a number of vines, of different sorts, taken from the Cape, doing well. I have no doubt both the orange and vine will do well here. Although it was late in November (near midsummer) when I planted my trees, most of them have made excellent shoots, from six to fifteen inches in length. I have apples, pears, plums, peaches, nectarines, and cherries, all of which appear likely to do well. I have now got some gooseberries and currants, but I almost think it will be too hot for them in summer. I have different sorts of turnips as good as I ever saw, and, as well as the cabbages and broccoli, cannot as yet be equalled in the colony. I have tried some maize, and it answers well. I have now a small patch of wheat in the garden looking beautiful." "

This account carries internal evidence of candour and of knowledge. We can only afford room for one extract more :

"In addition to the testimonies we have already adduced on this head, we subjoin the following. It is from the report of Messrs. Backhouse and Walker, two members of the Society of Friends, who, having recently visited Sydney, Van Diemen's Land, King George's Sound, Swan River, and South Australia, must be allowed to possess the means of forming an accurate (and certainly an impartial) opinion of the relative natural capabilities of the several Australian colonies. The country at South Australia,' say those gentlemen, is unquestionably the finest tract, taking into account the quality, character of the herbage, and extent, of any portion of Australia or Van Diemen's Land we have visited. Imagine a belt country, consisting of level plains or gently undulating ground, (only here and there, and that very thinly, strewed with forest trees,) stretching from Cape Jervis, the S. E. corner of St. Vincent's Gulf, to the very head of the gulf, and varying from 10 or 12 to 15 miles in width; its extreme length, so far as it has been traversed, is from 60 to 70. The whole of this we are assured, by very good authority, is very good land. We could see for 20 miles in each direction, north and south, from the top of a high range which bounds this beautiful tract, and it certainly is a fine country, and the soil good; improving as it recedes from the coast, but apparently all capable of growing wheat. Many parts of it, large tracts together, thickly covered with kangaroo-grass, which was yielding two or three tons per acre to those who were at the pains of mowing it."

One of the most gratifying circumstances in the history of this

young colony so far as it has gone, and one of the most hopeful symptoms of its future prosperity, is the fact that not only have the relations between the colonists and the aborigines been of a friendly kind, which are daily becoming stronger, but anxious provision has been made for the best interests, physical, mental, and moral, of a race that has in almost every other instance, like other great families where colour was a badge of distinction, been oppressed, degraded far beyond what wild nature could reduce them, and destroyed. In conclusion, we must say that from all we have read and heard, South Australia offers at this moment, to use Mr. Stephens's words, "to capitalists and labourers alike the best prospect of securing that easy and powerful independence which is now so rarely to be witnessed amongst the tradesmen, agriculturists and mechanics of this crowded isle.'

ART. VII.-Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, Cittadino e Segretario Florentino. X. Vol. Italia. 1836.

THE personage, whose life and works are treated of in the volumes prefixed to this article, was born at Florence, and descended from an ancient and noble Tuscan family, whose members had so long engrossed public employments that a right to be engaged in the service of the state had become almost hereditary in it. This circumstance appears to have directed the attention of Nicolo Machiavelli to a similar line of duty; and to have excited in him an early desire and taste for public life. But the records which have. come down to our time affords a very feeble and indistinct light to guide us in our researches into the history of his early life; and all that can be gathered from them tend to show that at the commencement of his career he was involved in poverty and dependence.

This disadvantage must have been compensated in part by the brilliant prosperity that was enjoyed by his native city, during that period of his life. His youth from the tenth year was passed under the popular government of Lorenzo the Magnificent, one of those rare and glorious epochs, in which the genius of the prince encourages the development of mind, while his power is yet too feeble to allow him to check its freedom. We may therefore conclude that the influence which can be attributed to a general and elevated taste for literature, when combined with the highest degree of mental activity, such as we find was in full operation in Florence at this period, to have acted upon the early character of Machiavelli, and to have concurred with his natural disposition in forming those prompt and energetic habits of thought by which he was so much distinguished during the whole of his career. While we may consider that the magnificent festivals and splendid games, which Lorenzo promoted and cherished as a means to divert the active minds of his fellow citizens from a too close investigation of the course and tendency of

his system of government, fostered in him a fondness for gayer occupations, which in after life served as a relaxation from public duty.

The first years of his manhood had hardly elapsed when the death of Lorenzo exposed the republic to internal troubles and foreign invasions. The great qualities of Lorenzo afforded to the citizens of Florence a singular contrast in the puerile administration of his son, and contributed by their very greatness to diminish the authority of his imprudent successor. The hostilities commenced by Charles VIII., at this time, with the many and long continued woes which they drew down, not alone upon Florence, the devoted object of his ambition, but upon all Italy, and the promptitude with which the republicans seized the occasion for throwing off their wearisome yoke; the want of energy so apparent in the conduct of Piero de Medici and his cowardly abandonment of the interest and dignity of Florence, are facts familiar to all conversant in Italian history. Our readers have therefore only to carry back their minds to this period in the history of the Florentines, to perceive that Machiavelli could not have commenced his political existence at a time more suitable to the employment of those abilities with which he was gifted. His first essay in public life was made about the year 1494, but the beginning of his active political duties did not take place till June 19th, 1498. This is the date of his earliest public employment, and some idea may be formed of the prevailing notion of his talents and aptitude for political business, from the fact of his having been chosen, from among four competitors, to the office of Chancellor of the second Chancery of the Signoria; and in the course of the following month he obtained from "the ten of liberty and peace, the appointment which has preserved for him, with posterity, the title of Secretary of the Florentine Republic." This office appears to have been considered by him as a situation in which he might learn the practical portion of politics. The close relation which subsisted between Florence and the principal states of Europe required in its government a greater degree of activity than we should be prepared to expect from so small a state, and originated also many delicate questions of polity that called for the greatest prudence and sagacity in all those to whose care the arrangement of them were confided. Machiavelli was engaged on many of these occasions. He was employed in twenty-three foreign embassies, among which were four to the court of France. These appointments developed with extraordinary rapidity his political genius, as may be easily traced in his extensive correspondence with the heads of his government. The numerous letters of which it is composed, may be justly classed among the most instructive portion of his writings.

The high esteem in which Machiavelli's talents was held by his government are evinced by the free recourse which was had to his services upon all important occasions. He hardly returned from one