On the pages I unrol,
Like the dim light creeping
Into an antique scroll.
When the scribe is searching
The writing pale and damp,
At midnight, and the flame
Is dying in the lamp.

_FRASER'S MAGAZINE._

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THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

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THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS.


M.J.C.L. De Sismondi, has, to suit the plan of the _Cabinet
Cyclopaedia_, endeavoured to include in one of its volumes--a summary
of Italian history from the fall of the Roman empire to the end of
the Middle Age--a period of about six and a half centuries. What a
succession of stirring scenes does this volume present; what fields
of bloody action; what revelry of carnage; what schemes of petty
ambition; what trampling on necks, what uncrowning of heads; what