brief notices on the birth, on the life, and on the death of each of our writers, I have reserved myself to speak at more length of their works, though not to compose an analysis of them. All my articles, therefore, will be found divided into two parts: the first of which may be called biographical, the second critical; in which latter, that is in passing judgment upon the works of the great masters of the Italian mind, I have not relied upon myself, but have followed the opinions of the most celebrated critics, as Gravina, Parini, Muratori, Salvini, Tiraboschi, Gozzi, Zanotti, and other commentators. I shall thus have avoided the reproach of having followed my own powers of judgment; since I have adopted only the common verdict of the most learned critics. Moreover, in order that the reader may know the source from which my various conclusions are drawn, I have affixed to each page references to the works on which I have been contented to depend; and whoever is not satisfied with my summary may therefore turn to the originals, and study more at length the opinions which I have briefly abridged.

For having adopted this course, it will not be just to reproach me with plagiarism, because I have ranged in quest of flowers over the possessions of others. My design has not been to present to Italy a new work, but to instruct the youth of Germany in our classical literature, by giving, in three volumes only, a selection from the most valuable and important part of that which has been written on the subject in many great works. Thus have I endeavoured to imitate the industrious bee, who in her excursive flight culls the honey of the surrounding plains, and stores it in the hive.'

'With respect to style, I have endeavoured, as much as in me lay, to avoid the extremes of affectation and culpable negligence; and so far as my feeble powers have permitted, I have laboured to steer a middle course between modern innovations of language and antiquated phraseology.' (Preface, pp. xii-xvi.)

We feel no inclination to go minutely through the familiar contents of a work of mere elementary instruction. We shall therefore be satisfied with concluding our notice by pointing to a few passages in it. The first book, of course, is principally filled with an account of the great Tuscan triumvirate and their immortal works. But this is prefaced by a very able, though brief dissertation upon the origin of the Italian language, in which the opposite arguments for identifying it with the rustic dialect of ancient Italy, or deriving it from the later corruption of the classical Latin, are fairly and concisely stated. Qur author here inclines, we think, with Muratori and others, to the arguments for its entire origin in the corruption of the Latin, and its mixture with the barbarian languages: in opposition to the other opinion of its identity with the old rustic Latin, which was first started by Leonardo Bruni, and has found subsequent supporters, as Gravina, and others. We also have

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little hesitation in believing in its origin through corruption : but this curious question of philology is as obscure as it is interesting; and the only safe conclusion is that adopted by our author, (p. 23.), that il primo asilo della vaga nostra favella fu la corte dell' imperatore Federico II.' For, whatever may have been the process which formed its silvery tones, the errant Italian certainly found its first elegant abode in the Neapolitan court, and the fostering genius of that prince : one of the greatest characters of his times, and whose memory accordingly the chronicles of the Guelf party have delighted to vituperate with malignant assiduity.

Of the remaining part of this first book we shall only observe, that the author appears to us to have too readily admitted, with Tiraboschi, and the horde of modern commentators, the certain identity of the Laura of Petrarch with the grandmother, some twenty degrees removed, of the Abbe de Sade. Era riservato," says he, (p. 116.) ad un discendente del marito di Laura, all' abate di Sade, l'onore di spargere la luce della verità su quest' oscura materia.' This pedigree of the veracious Frenchman has always, we confess, seemed to us but very apocryphal : but we have no fancy for reviving a question, to say the best of it, so utterly insignificant. There is-need it be observed - nothing new in our Cavaliere's biography, and thread-bare criticism on either Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio. The same thing may, in a word, be said of his account of the state of Italian literature in the fifteenth century, which occupies the second book; and we dismiss it with the sufficient commendation, that it is a faithful abridgement of the best authorities.

The third book, on the sixteenth century, to do it justice, is carefully compiled; and by a judicious arrangement, we have successive chapters devoted to the poets, the historians, the commentators on the fine arts, the men of science and philosophers, the orators, the grammarians, and the writers of voyages and travels, who thickly flourished in that splendid century of Italian literature. The book closes with a spirited notice on the state of typography in the same age.

Over the fourth book, which treats of the seventeenth century, we must be permitted to pass in few words; with the confession, that in spite of the national prejudices of the author, not even the names of Galileo, Frà Paolo Sarpi, and Filicaja, the melancholy poet of his country's wrongs, can induce us to find any attraction in an age, which was for Italy equally that of disgraceful bondage to political despotism, and grovelling servitude to a corrupt and vitiated taste in literature

and art.

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The fifth and concluding book is devoted, as already seen, to the eighteenth century. Here we are very far from agreeing with our worthy author, that, if that century had not been preceded by the fourteenth and sixteenth, it might, par excellence, have been characterized as the age of Italian poetry. Nor, though we can forgive him for likening Vittorio Alfieri to Euripides, are we able, for the life of us, to discover the force and propriety of the comparison in the same sentence which places poor Metastasio in juxta-position to Sophocles! But still we allow that there is certainly a great deal to interest the reader in the history of Italian literature in the eighteenth century. Metastasio and Goldoni are names of some celebrity in the musical and comic drama; Giannone and Denina are respectable historians, though the former has been much overrated; Muratori and Tiraboschi must always be mentioned with respect in the annals of literary indus try; the sublime spirit of Alfieri has created tragedy for his country and his language; and the name of Beccaria, the politician, the philosopher, and the philanthropist, might in itself confer dignity upon any age. We do not share the enthusiasm with which the Cavaliere MAFFEI champions the century that was adorned by these luminaries; but we can listen to his relation with attention. He has entered on this apparently favourite division of his labours with animation and care; he has invested it with abundant interest; and it may certainly be pronounced to be the best executed part of his book.

But his compendium is at this moment open to the same objection which he has urged against the earlier and more voluminous work of Tiraboschi. It affords the reader no acquaintance with the literature of the passing age. The Cavaliere, whether from diffidence, or the fear of giving offence to any living writer, has cautiously abstained from all notice of the state of letters in Italy, in the nineteenth century; and any undertaking of the kind is already liable to the charge of imperfection, which has failed to introduce the student to the writings of Mazza and Ippolito Pindemonte, of Monti, and of Foscolo.

Our conclusive opinion of the work before us will be understood from the sum of the preceding remarks. It is very likely to answer the objects with which it has been composed, and is a very good elementary treatise. The last part of it may be read with advantage, even in this country: but for none of the preceding portions have we any demand. We are aware of the boast of the Italian, that his national literature has flourished with uninterrupted splendour, from A a 3

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the close of the thirteenth century to our own times:-but we deny the justice of the pretension. There is a dark hiatus in the stream of light, after the middle of the sixteenth century. We allow to Italy the honourable title claimed for her by our author, of the parent of science and letters, madre delle scienze e delle lettere ;'-but we deny that she has been, as he proceeds to assert, the watchful guardian of the sacred flame of knowledge. Until the eighteenth century, there is absolutely nothing to entitle her to this honour, after the revival of letters and art, which dawned upon Europe from her bright example. And the English student, who would trace the first beams and the meridian light of her glory, need not refer to the pictures of our worthy Cavaliere. We possess, in our own language, and in the work of a distinguished living writer, a full and admirable account of Italian literature and art, up to the epoch at which both were extinguished for nearly two hundred years. In the imaginary travels of Theodore Ducas, Mr. Mills has rendered full justice to these interesting subjects; and every Italian scholar acknowledges the beauties of that elegant production, which deserves to be a text-book in our language, and is only less popular, because less extensively known, than the other works of the same accomplished author.

ART. IV. Fables Inédites des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe Siècles, et. Fables de la Fontaine, rapprochées de celles de tous les auteurs, qui avoient, avant lui, traité les mêmes sujets, précédées d'une notice sur les Fabulistes, par A. C. M. ROBERT, Conservateur de la Bibliothèque, de Sainte Geneviève, &c. Tomes. 2. Paris. Etienne Cabin. 1825.

N EXT to those of the Grecian Esop and the Latin Phædrus, the Fables of La Fontaine are held in general esteem. The French writers, in the genuine spirit of patriotic pride, exalt the success of their poet into a national triumph, and are laboriously busy to repair his celebrity, lest the common glory should be diminished. A learned lady of France, Madame Pons de St. Maurice, in the early part of the last century, formed a digest (as perfect as her opportunities enabled her to render it) of the fables which were extant antecedently to the work of La Fontaine. The labours of successive collectors enlarged the contents of this catalogue. Looking to the amount of the accumulation, they naturally concluded that they had exhausted the objects of their search. The fruits of this protracted enquiry were afterwards placed in the hands of M. ROBERT, the conservateur of the library of St. Genevieve

in Paris. He was enabled, by the facilities of his office, to make some important additions to this curious enumeration. The result was, the publication of a mixed work, which combines interesting matter wholly new to the press; with an edition of a standard production, issuing under auspices which improve its intrinsic value. The Fables of La Fontaine are printed in the usual order, and each is followed by a list of references to those performances, whether of Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Dutch, or Eastern authors, in which the same subject is treated; and for the like reason, one or more fables are subjoined to the list, which are drawn from the unpublished collection in the hands of the editor. The references do not comprehend those writers who were subsequent to the time of La Fontaine. One hundred fables are thus added to the stock of popular literature, chiefly taken from manuscripts of the date of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. The preservation of the contents of those manuscripts is now secured; for an appendix to these volumes embraces that portion of the antient fables which found no proper place in the body of the work. Fac-similes are also given of the rude designs which ornamented the manuscript folios, and as serving to mark the progress of art, merit the attention of the curious. The whole is preceded by a notice of the known writers in this department, belonging to all countries and ages, up to the age of La Fontaine. This species springs from the illustrious Esop, although some critics claim the honour for Hesiod. After Esop, Greece presents no writer who can claim the honour of having enlarged the sphere of fabular literature. We are under the necessity of waiting for a genius kindred to his, until the tardy accession of Phædrus. And again this ornament of learning becomes almost the solitary fabulist of the Roman language. Whether by unhappy accident, or fatal jealousy of contemporaries, this remarkable author obtained no reputation in his day. His name is just saved in a line of Martial. Seneca, who chronologically should have known him, has a sentence negatively contradicting the existence of such a writer. But Avienus, a writer of fables, in the time of the emperor Theodosius, bears testimony, by an enlarged reference, to the partial celebrity of Phædrus in his day. The number of fables extant in Latin prose exceeds all power of specification. They are principally the productions of periods which followed the era of the decline of learning, and were composed, perhaps, for the purposes of elementary teaching, French literature, we find, was enriched at a very early period, by a translation of that curious fabulary relic, " Reynard the Fox." M. ROBERT has