states, and it was as far west as the Elbe in the days of Ptolemy. The Saxons were therefore, in all likelihood, as ancient visitors of Europe as the Belge, the Germans, or any other Gothic tribe. Their situation seems to indicate that they moved among the foremost columns of the vast Gothic emigration; but the particular date of their arrival on the Elbe, or their particular derivation, it is impossible to prove, and therefore unprofitable to discuss.'

We shall make one more extract from this volume, by quoting the author's view of the state of Europe at the commencement of the gth century:

When Egbert attained the crown of Wessex, the most remarkable powers in Europe were the Northmen, the Francs, the Saracens, and the Pope.

As the Northmen are essentially connected with the next period of our history, we will postpone our view of their situation until we reach the era of their most distinguished activity.

In the beginning of the ninth century the empire of the Francs, produced and sustained by the genius of Charlemagne, almost monopolized the map of Europe. At the close of the fifth century, Clovis laid the foundation of the stupendous edifice. Before his reign, which commenced in 482, the Francs, like the Saxons during the AngloSaxon octarchy, had been separated into many independant governments. Clovis, the ruler of the Salian Francs, inherited only the island of the Batavians, and the ancient dioceses of Tournay and Arras. He surprised his age by a display of military energy and conduct, which not only broke the sceptres of every Francic sovereign, but also expelled from Gaul the Roman commander, who had retained Soissons, Rheims, Troyes, Beavais, and Amiens. With that success which superior talents usually command, Clovis extended his dominions, in 493, to the Seine, and in the next year to the Loire. The modern Alsace and Lorraine, with their adjacencies, were conquered from the Alemanni, and after a life of victory, he died in 511, presenting to the astonished world a compact monarchy of power, which from the Rhine reached to the Loire, and even stretched in parts to the Garonne and the Pyrenees.

He left this vast territory divided between his four sons, who established the capitals of their different kingdoms at Rheims or Metz, Orleans, Paris, and Soissons; and although these princes and their successors, like all rivals in power, differed between themselves, and experienced various successes against each other, yet under their governments, whether united or discordant, the dominion of the Francs was on all sides enlarged. In Germany to their victorious sceptre Thuringia, including even Magdeburg, Helmstadt, and the south part of Franconia, and sometimes Bavaria, were subjected. In Gaul they obtained Burgundy, Provence, and whatever the OstroGoths had enjoyed between the Alps, the Rhone, and the Mediter, ranean, with part of Ratia; part of Spain was also wrested from the Visi-Goths. This enormous empire became united under one master in Clotarius the first, the surviving son of Clovis, in 558. What his

children

children shared, the sword of the second Clotarius compelled again into one monarchy, in the possession of which he died in 628.

After, this period the empire of the Francs exhibited the phenomenon of the minister of the crown gradually acquiring an authority, which at last subverted the race of Clovis, and placed a new dynasty on the Francic throne. The sovereigns became dependents on the maires de palais their servants; weak princes, civil wars, and mino rities, produced the spectacle so unusual in the western world. The great abilities of Pepin, the maire de palais of Austrasia in 687, who obtained the title of dux et princeps Francorum, and of his son Charles Martel, who deserves our blessings, as the hero selected by Providence to save Europe from a Mahomedan yoke, made the usurpations popular among the Francs. He died in 741. His sons divided his authority, but Pepin, the most fortunate or most worthy of the two, obtained the whole authority in 747, when his brother sought the cloister. In 752 his nominal sovereign was deposed, and the crown of France was placed on the head of Pepin.

Pepin, the first maire de palais, who had ventured on the throne, died in 768. He left two sons, but his eldest, the renowned Charlemagne, soon acquired the united kingdom of the Francs, which for years he laboured to augment with a success atchieved by few. His campaigns were almost every where prosperous. In Italy he destroyed the kingdom of the Lombards; after a struggle of thirtythree years he reduced the Saxons; he conquered the prince who assumed the kingdom of Bavaria; he wrested part of Spain from the Saracens, and after a very perilous warfare he subdued the Huns and Avari, the modern Austrians and Hungarians. At length his powerful empire, from east to west, extended from the Ebro to the Vistula or the Elbe, and from north to south, from the dutchy of Beneventum to the Eyder. Possessed of the power which arose from this gigantic dominion, he died in 814.

In the seventh century a man had arisen in Arabia, gifted with` the ability to occasion an awful revolution in the mind and kingdoms of mankind. His disciples assailed society in Asia and Africa with the sword of irresistible enthusiasm. Religion and many governments fell victims to their martial and mental fury. Stimulated by unparalleled success to new enterprize, Europe, the last refuge of Christianity and of knowledge, was menaced by their battalions. In 713 Spain was conquered, and the victorious Musa meditated to obtain by his fanatic Saracens the kingdom of the Francs, Italy, and Germany. To atchieve this monstrous scheme they invaded France in 721, and in 732 secmed about to gratify their ambition, under the valiant Abderame, when Charles Martel fought the battle of the civilized world. Six days the fortune of man was in suspense; on the seventh his good genius triumphed; the Arabs experienced a ruinous defeat; they never resumed the conquest of Gaul; but they continued in the occupation of Spain.

The papal power demands a momentary glance, because at this period it consummated its separation from the eastern empire, esta blished its influence over the kings of Europe by the right which it assumed and exercised of conferring the diguity of emperor, and re.

ceived from the policy or bounty of Charlemagne great territorial accessions. In the year 800, at the festival of Christmas, Charlemagne received the crown of empire from pope Leo the third, and was hailed as the pious Augustus, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne had already, in 774, confirmed to the pope the gift of his father Pepin. This prince had presented to the Roman pontiff the exarchate of Ravenna, which he had conquered from the Lombards, the Marquisate of Ancona, and the cities of Bologna, Mantua, Cesenna, Modena, Regio, Parma, Piacenza, Ferrara, and Farnese. Charlemagne ratified and secured to the pope this splendid acquisition, and added the island of Corfu, the river of Genoa, the Upper Tuscany, the state of Urbino, and some other places. Thus the bishop of Rome was exalted from a spiritual dominion to territorial sovereignty. Power and revenue accrued to him from a domestic principality; he came to rank among temporal princes, and his authority continued to augment until it endangered the permanency of every

potentate.

Thus all the western regions of Europe were, in the year 800, possessed by four unequal states, but all of prime importance. The day of the Saracens had passed. The preponderance of Charlemagne and his successors effectually confined them to Spain; but they had been terrible, and if their neighbours had been weak, would still have been the lords of the world. Charlemagne was now the colossus which was annihilating the independance of Europe; but his grandeur was the result of his personal talents, and faded after his departure, until at length Germany was separated from France. The Northmen soon buist in terror from their lakes and marshes, and during the ninth century the infant civilization of Europe was trembling on the precipice of destruction. With slower but as fatal suc cess the papal empire extended its poisoning influence over the noblest states of the western world; knowledge and religion withered under its debasing sway, and a long night of ignorance and vice, perpetuated by its tyranny, enveloped the human race.'

Without descending to minute criticisms on this work, we shall observe that, in tracing the authenticated facts of Saxon story, in discriminating between the marvellous and the probable, in the arrangement and description of those events which he records, and in depicting those characters which he designs to hold up to admiration or to infamy, Mr. Turner's erudition and judgment maintain a respectable station. Yet there may be instances which manifest a deficiency of patient and deep investigation, and others which betray too implicit a confidence in the authority of some antient writers. His work, however, is dignified by the mien and port of history. His style possesses the excellences and defects which frequently characterize a young writer: it is generally vigorous, animated, and ornamented; often stiff, pompous, and affected.-We learn that a second volume of the work is shortly to appear.

ART.

ART. XII. Report of the Commission of Arts to the First Consul Bo naparte, on the Antiquities of Upper Egypt, and the present State of all the Temples, Palaces, Obelisks, Statues, Tombs, Pyramids, &c. of Phil, Syene, Thebes, Tentyris, Latopolis, Memphis, Heliopolis, &c. &c. from the Cataracts of the Nile to Cairo: with an accurate Description of the Pictures with which they are decorated, and the Conjectures that may be drawn from them, respecting the Divinities to whom they were consecrated. Translated from the French of Citizen Ripaud, Librarian to the Insti tute of Egypt. 4to. and 8vo. 3s. 6d. sewed. Debrett. 1800. IF we experienced some disappointment from the Memoirs relative to Egypt, mentioned in our last Number, p.131. the present Report of M. Ripaud has made us amends by its particular details, and by the promise of still more minute and splendid gratification. Though our attachment to our own country, and our interest in the preservation of its commercial greatness, led us to deprecate the political object of the French in their late Egyptian expedition; yet we ardently hoped, as Bonaparte was accompanied by a considerable number of literary and scientific men, that his temporary possession of a country so celebrated in antient history, and so renowned for its stupendous antiquities, would be productive of much curious information; and that the Members of the Egyptian Institute, enjoying a degree of security and a variety of advantages which no solitary traveller could possibly obtain, would employ them in minutely examining and taking exact admeasurements and drawings of all that is worth notice on the banks of the Nile. This, Europe has a right to expect from the French Literati and Artists. They have enjoyed their Eastern conquest long enough to answer most scientific purposes; and though we shall not be satisfied till we have inspected the maps, plans, elevations, and drawings, taken by them in Egypt, we are induced to believe, from the present Report of the Librarian to the Institute, that they have not been indolent in their department. Indeed, the Memoir of M. Ripaud is so amusing, that we shall be tempted to make considerable extracts from it. Some of his conjectures may be unfounded: the bold assertion respecting the vast antiquity of certain Egyptian structures may be considered as the effect of his deistical prepossessions: he may have spoken too contemptuously of Norden, when he terms him timid, and his views insignificant;' and he may be wrong when he asserts that this respectable traveller visited the island of Phyloe by. the light of a lantern ;' yet there will remain, in the work before

*It is true that he went to the island in the evening, but he explored it during the next morning.

us, much intrinsic merit. M. Ripauddoes not strike all preceding travellers and geographers prostrate to the earth, that he may drive his car triumphantly over them. He speaks very respectfully of Sicard and D'Anville; and while he mentions the works of Maillet, Vansleb, and Savary, as offering nothing that is true and useful,' he applauds his countryman Granger, and particularly discriminates our countryman Pococke as the most learned of all the Egyptian travellers; pronouncing that his descriptions approach the nearest to the truth. He even apologizes for the deficient information given in the works of former travellers, knowing the difficulties with which they unavoidably struggled. .

The French Literati were in Egypt with an army of their own countrymen protecting them; they explored at leisure; they had a travelling library and apparatus; and different individuals were assigned to different departments. The work was thus arranged :

Encamped near the site of the monuments, each of us engaged in that branch of the work which the habits and study of his life had rendered the most familiar to him: the views taken by Citizens Dutertre, Cécile, and Balsac, faithfully represent the actual state of the temples and palaces. Lepere the architect, and several engineers, have drawn the plans as well as the elevations and sections, with an exactitude, which cannot fail to give a complete and satisfactory idea of them. The basso-relievos and paintings in fresco, which adorn them, have been accurately copied by the young people in the Commission of Arts; the topography of the ancient cities has been executed by the engineers and geographers, while I am occupied with Citizens Fourrier and Cortaz in forming written descriptions, which are to accompany the plans and drawings.'

What a magnificent view of the Antiquities of Egypt must be exhibited by this work, now preparing under the auspices of the Chief Consul! The present Report, which is called an abridged description, is offered to the public rather to excite, than completely to gratify curiosity: but it does more than answer this first object. It informs us that five immense palaces and thirty-five temples still remain; and that twenty of their temples are still seen in a state of as complete preservation as the most mo dern of our structures. It remarks that there is a generation of monuments, the age of each of which is triple that of the most antient states of Europe;-that Egypt was the cradle of architecture; that the Greeks were copyists, and that the plans of their most elegant temples are taken from the small peripteral temples of the Egyptians;-that 'the taste of Egypt differed from that of Greece and from our own, in bringing together those masses which we have been particularly careful to detach

and