barbarous condition with themselves; and they had become a great nation, firmly established in their manners and political fyftem, before they directed their forces against the refined and cultivated parts of the world. Befides, the Roman virtue difdained, for a long time, to imitate the talents and accomplishments of the people whom they had fubdued.

⚫ China, and fome other of the great Afiatic kingdoms, have been frequently overrun and conquered by feveral hords of Tartars, accidentally combined under a great leader; but the conqueft, in these cafes, was not carried on flowly and gradually, as in the provinces of the western empire; it was completed by one or two great and rapid victories; fo as, on the one hand, to prevent the learning and civilization of the vanquished people from being deftroyed by a longcontinued courfe of war and devaftation; and, on the other, to prevent the conquerors, by long neighbourhood and acquaintance, from being incorporated with the former inhabitants in one common fyftem of manners, customs, and inftitutions. The final fuccefs, therefore, of the victorious army, produced no farther revolution than by fuddenly advancing their general, together, perhaps, with fome of his principal officers, to the head of a great and civilized empire; of which the native country of the conquerors became only a tributary pro

vince.

The fame obfervation is applicable to the dominion acquired by Mahomed, and fome of his immediate fucceffors; which was not established by a gradual settlement of Arabian tribes, in the rich countries of Afia, but by a rapid conqueft, that gave rife to no intimate coalition of the victors with those who submitted to the Mahometan yoke. No other change, therefore, was produced in the state of conquered nations than what arofe from fubjecting them to a new religion, and to a new set of monarchs; while the wandering Arabs, the original followers of Mahomed, remained, for the moft part, in their primitive ftate of barbarifm. The conqueft of the Saracens, and of the eastern empire, by the Turks, had a greater refemblance to the progreffive inroads of those who conquered the western provinces; but it was far from proving equally deftructive to the former civilization of the conquered people, or from reducing them to the level of their barbarous conquerors.

Mr. Millar observes, in the fecond place, that "the Ger"man or Gothic nations, who fettled in the western part "of Europe, were enabled, in a fhort time, to form king"doms of greater extent than are ufually to be found "among people equally rude and barbarous." There are feldom any principles of political affociation or correfpondence among barbarous tribes. Naturally independent, as well as jealous, of one another, though they fometimes combine in a league for mutual defence, yet fuch combinations are generally too cafual and fluctuating to be the foundation of a comprehenfive or permanent union. But thofe barbarians, who conquered the Roman empire, were quickly induced

induced and enabled to form extenfive affociations, partly from the circumftances attending their conqueft, and partly from the ftate of the country in which they formed their fettlements. With regard to the circumftances attending their conqueft, it is to be obferved, that their tribes were far from being large or numerous; and that they overran and fubdued a very large tract of country. Individuals, who had belonged to a fmall community, and who had been accustomed to fight under the fame leader, were thus difperfed over an extenfive territory; and, notwithstanding this change in their fituation, were difpofed to retain their former connections and habits. Attachment to a single chief continued to operate upon them, after they had acquired ample poffeffions, and had reduced multitudes under their dominion.

The extent of the kingdoms, erected by thofe barbarous nations, was likewife affected by the ftate of each Roman province in which their fettlements were made.

As every Roman province conftituted a part of the whole empire, fo it formed a diftin&t fociety, influenced by national views, and directed by a separate intereft. Among the inhabitants of the fame province, united by their local fituation, by the ties of friendship and acquaintance, and even by that common fyftem of oppreffion to which they were fubject, a regular intercourfe was conftantly maintained. Those who lived in villages, or in the open country, carried on a variety of tranfactions with the feveral towns in the neighbourhood, where they found a market for their goods, and were fupplied with those conveniencies which they required. The inhabitants of these towns, and of the whole province, were, at the fame time, clofely connected with the capital, where the governor refided in a kind of regal pomp and magnificence, and directed the various wheels and fprings of adminif tration. Here the public money, accumulated from different parts, was again diftributed through the various channels of government; and hither men of all defcriptions, the poor and the rich, the idle and the induftrious, were attracted from every quarter, by the views of profit, of pleasure, or of ambition.

The changes which, at different periods, were made in the political conftitution of Rome, produced no great alteration, as has been already oblerved, either in the extent or condition of her provincial governments. The ancient boundaries of the provinces appear to have been generally retained under the later emperors; though, in order to fecure the public tranquillity, they were often fubdivided into particular diftricts, which were put under the direction of fubordinate officers. The connections, therefore, between the feveral parts of the fame province, were gradually ftrengthened from the length of time during which they had fubfifted.

As, by the conqueft of thofe countries, the ancient inhabitants were not extirpated, it is natural to fuppofe that their former habits of

intercourse were not obliterated and forgotten; but, on the contrary, were in fome degree communicated to the conquerors. They who had lived under the fame government were ftill difpofed to admit the authority of a single perfon, and to remain in that state of union and fubordination to which they had been accustomed. Particular chiefs, having occupied the remaining towns belonging to a Roman province, were of course rendered matters of the adjacent territory; and he who had fet himself at the head of the most powerful diftrict was in a fair way of becoming fovereign of the whole.

It may also be worthy of notice, that, as the conquering tribes adopted a number of the Roman inftitutions, their principal conductor was frequently in a condition to avail himself of that authority, however declining, which the Roman governor continued to maintain; and, by affuming, or obtaining, the dignity which had belonged to the chief magiftrate of a province, was enabled with greater facility to extend his dominion over the territories which had formerly ac knowledged the jurifdiction of that officer. Thus we find that Clovis, who conquered a great part of Gaul, was, near the end of his reign, invelted with the title of conful, and probably with that of proconful, by the emperor Anaftafius; and that the pofterity of Clovis were at the pains to procure, from the emperor Juftinian, a refignation of all the rights of the empire over that nominal branch of his dominions.

• In like manner Theodoric, the king of the Oftrogoths, who had been invested, in the eastern empire, with the title of patrician and conful, and who had obtained for himself and his followers a fettlement in Thrace, was afterwards commiffioned, by the emperor Zeno, to conquer Italy, and to take poffeffion of the country..

• From these causes countries, at a great diftance from one another, were forced into a fort of political union; and the boundaries of a modern kingdom came, in most cases, to be nearly of the same extent with thofe of an ancient Roman province.'

In confirmation of these ingenious and profound obfervations Mr. Millar adduces the political fituation of Italy and of England. Italy was diftributed by Auguftus into eleven regions; and, in the time of the emperor Adrian, that country, together with Sicily, Sardinia, and Corfica, included no less than feventeen divifions. The smallness of the districts, into which it was thus broken by the Roman government, had an influence upon the new arrangements which it underwent from the invafion of the barbarians, and made it fall more eafily into a number of petty states, under the several dukes or nobles, who assumed an independent authority.

The fettlement of the Anglo-Saxons in England was pro duced in a different manner from that of the other German nations who fettled on the continent. The naval incurfions of the Anglo-Saxons were made by fmall detached parties, collected occafionally by single adventurers. The followers

of

of every separate leader were therefore too inconfiderable to Occupy great landed poffeffions; and, as they invaded England at different times and in different places, without any previous concert or attachment to one another, they remained in feparate ftates. Hence England was divided into fo many independent kingdoms, which were not reduced under one monarch till between three and four centuries after the Saxon conquest.

Mr. Millar proceeds to illuftrate the rife of the feudal tenures, duelling, and the inftitutions of chivalry, from the early character and fituation of the Gothic conquerors of Europe; but this we must reserve to a future number of our Review.

From the fpecimens that have been given, the public will difcover that Mr. Millar is a philofophical inquirer, and forms his fyftem from a patient inveftigation of facts. The world has been long deluded by fplendid but fanciful theories on this fubject, reared by authors who were more folicitous to invent than to discover; and who refigned themfelves to their imagination when they fhould have confulted their reason. Our author has abandoned these romantic regions for the humbler paths of historical inquiry; and, from an accurate examination of particulars, deduces general conclufions. Sometimes, by a fingle glance, he discovers an acquaintance with univerfal hiftory; but he avoids the parade of differtation, and the pomp of rhetorical compofition. His ftyle is chafte, pure, and correct, and furnishes an excellent,model of the didactic.

On fome occafions we differ in opinion from our author, which we shall notice in a future number. In the mean time, we confider The Hiftorical View of the English Govern ment as a very valuable acceffion to the republic of lettèrs.

[ To be continued. ]

ART.

ART. II. Monafticon Hibernicum; or, an Hiftory of the Abbies, Priories, and other Religious Houfes, in Ireland. Interfperfed with Memoirs of their fever al Founders and Benefactors, and of their Abbots and other Superiors, to the Time of their final Suppreffion. Likewife, an Account of the Manner in which the Poffeffions belonging to thofe Foundations were difpofed of, and the prefent State of their Ruins., Collected from English, Irish, and Foreign Hiftorians, Records, and other authentic Documents, and from many curious and valuable Manufcripts. With Engravings of the feveral Religious and Military Habits, and a Map illuftrating the Hiftory. By Mervyn Archdall, A. M. Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Francis Pierpoint Lord Conyngham. 4to. 11. 10s. boards. Robinfons. London, 1786.

ΤΗ HE ruins and memorials of those monaftic orders, which some centuries ago drew fo many thousands from the scene of action, and the circle of gaiety, to folitude and contemplation, to penances and prayers, are highly interefting to our curiofity and our feelings. Various motives contribute to give an importance and a charm to fuch refearches concerning the past. On viewing the remains of a religious edifice, the antiquary is ftruck with the fingularity or beauty of its architecture, and longs to pillage and appropriate fome reverend relict from the thrine of antiquity. The man of feeling pauses over the mutilated column, or monumental ftone; recalls the days of other years; and, while he seems to liften to the midnight bell, and the mournful orifon, runs over the revolutions of the convent, and the records of melancholy. The philosopher takes a more comprehenfive range; and, contemplating the veftiges of human frenzy in former times, makes a fecret comparison with the illumination and refinement of the prefent age; and congratulates mankind on their recovery from the delirium and dotage of fuperftition to reafon and true religion, to active and focial virtue.

The real records of convents and monafteries, in Britain or Ireland, would be a valuable acquifition to the public; but, unfortunately, materials are wanting for the fubject; and the hiftory of monachifm, like the edifices which it once reared, has become a heap of ruins.

Ireland refers her monkish establishments to a high antiquity. Towards the close of the fifth century the rudiments

of