young’s travels in prance.

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was the work of the Emperor Jofeph, who heard fuch a reiteration of complaints againftthe farmers, whofe great wealth * rendered them doubly odious, that he made fuch re-prefentations to his mother as were effectual, and they were abolilhed about eighteenyears ago. The prefent Emperor no fooner came to the throne, than he re-eftablifhedthat conftitution of which his mother had deprived the Milanefe; the States and theSenate were reftored, and alfo the right of the States to appoint what is called an oratorto Vienna , in fad, an ambaffador paid by themfelves, to lay their reprefentations beforethe court without the intervention of a governor, a right which cannot be deemed unim-portant. So that at prefent the government of Milan, though by no means fuch as canmeet our ideas of freedom, is yet a kind of limited monarchy ; for affuredly that govern-ment which does not poffefs the power of taxation, mud be efteemed fuch.

Count Firmian, while prime minifter for the Milanefe, was the author of a law, which,if it could be adopted in England, would be worth an hundred millions to us. It obligesall communities, &c. that poffefs wafte or uncultivated lands, to fell them to any one thatoffers a price, in order to cultivate them, but they have the neceffary liberty of publifh-ing the price offered, and receiving propofals of a better; a fair auction takes place, andthe lands become cultivated. Such poffeffors of waftes are even obliged to let them atan annual rent for ever by the fame procefs, if any offer of rent is made to them, be it aslow as poffible. And the effect of this excellent law has been the cultivation of manywafles, but not all; for on returning from Mozzata to Milan, I paffed a very extenfiveone, highly capable of profitable cultivation.

Venice. —The celebrated government of this republic, is certainly the moft refpedt-able that exifts in the world, in point of duration, finceit has lafted without any materialchange, and without its capital being attacked for 1300 years, while all the reft of Europe and of Afia has been fubjedt to innumerable revolutions, and the bloodieft wars andmaffacres, even in the very feat of empire. That duration is one of the firft objects of agovernment, can never admit a doubt, fince all other merit, however it may approachhuman perfedtion, is nothing without this. A well organized ariftocracy, in which thegreateft mafs of the wifdom of thecommuniiy fhall be found in a fenate, feems from thevaftand important experiment of this celebrated republic, to be effentiaily neceffary to fecurethe duration of any government. But the duration of an evil becomes a mifehief infteadof an advantage; and that tyranny which is fo politically organized as to promife animmenfe duration, is but the more juftly to be abominated. The knowledge which willrefult from long experience, may probably teach mankind the right compofition of amingled form, in which the ariftocratic portion will give duration and firmnefs; the de-mocracy, freedom ; and the conformation of executive power, energy and execution.Perhaps the Britifh government approaches the neareft to fuch a defeription.

The reputation of the Venetian government is now its only fupport, a reputation whichit does not at prefent merit in the fmalleft degree: but as this idea is diredtly contraryto the accounts given by many travellers, I feel it neceffary to premife, that I fhould thinkit merely trifling with the reader to travel to Venice in order to write differtations in myown name, on the government of that republic; I do no more than hold the pen to re-port the opinions of Italians , on wtiofe Judgment I have every reafon to rely, and asexaggerated panegyrics have been publiflied of the government of this State, it is fair tohear what may be urged on the other fide of the queftion.

* One of them now living-, Count |de Crepy (what a plague have fuch fellows to do with titles, unlef3to be written on the gallows on which they are hanged ?) hts between 20 and 30,000 zecchini a year inland. He was originally a poor boy, that fold cloth on a mule at Bergamo ; one of his commis made‘100,000 zecchini.

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