CHAP. XXVI.
Exhortation to deliver Italy from foreign Powers.
When I take a review of the subject matter treated of in this book, and examine if the circumstances in which we are now placed would be favouiable to the establishment of a new government, which would be as honourable to its author as advantageous to Italy, it appears to me that there never was nor ever will be a period more appropriate for the execution of so glorious an undertaking.
If it was necessary that the people of Israel should be slaves to Egypt, in order to evince the rare talents of Moses; that the Persians groaned under the oppression of the Medes, in order to display all the courage and magnanimity of Cyrus; finally, if the Athenians only deeply felt the great extent of the benefits of Theseus, from having experienced the evils attached to a wandering and vagabond life; it will also be necessary, in order to appreciate duly the tatents and merit of a deliverer of Italy, to shew that our unfortunate country has been more cruelly ill treated than Persia; that her
inhabitants have been still more dispersed than
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