Petrarca were the twin stars that first became visible in the literary horizon. The perfection to which their writings attained may be conceived from a single observation of one of the Italian critics: The style of Petrarca, says he, after the lapse of four hundred years is still followed as the most perfect model of writing; hardly a word will be found in his compositions which is become obsolete or antiquated.'

A general spirit of inquiry was now awakened, and the works of the ancients were sought after with the utmost avidity and enthusiasm. When I met strangers,' says Petrarca, and they asked me what I desired from their country? nothing, I replied, but the works of Cicero.' To the scrutinizing researches of the learned Poggio Bracciolini we are indebted for the recovery of the Institutions of Quintilian, Valerius Flaccus, Vitruvius, Lucretius, Silius Italicus, the orations of Cicero and his treatise de Finibus and de Legibus, together with a long list of inferior writers. After being presented with an account of the life and writings of Boccaccio, we are brought back to the writers of our own island. John Wickliff is characterised as having aided the cause of English literature by his translation of the scriptures, and by such of his tracts as were written in his native tongue and dispersed among the people. The public mind, thus agitated by novelty and the discussion of various subjects, could not but throw off a portion of the lethargy under which it had so long slumbered: And the man to whom our literature at this period owed the most serious obligations was Chaucer the poet. Our author does ample justice to his exertions, draws an able comparison between his acquirements and those of his contemporaries, and gives an accurate estimate of the success of his literary efforts when contrasted with those of Petrarca and Boccaccio. The book closes with a farther account of the state of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford; of the revival and progress of the Greek language in Europe: and of the advantages consequent on the invention of the art of printing.

The body of Mr. Berington's work, as the reader has seen, describes the state of literature in the west of Europe; but in order to omit nothing relative to the progress of learning, he presents us with two long Appendixes, the first describing the literature of the Greeks from the sixth century to the fall of the Eastern empire in 1453; the second giving a general view of the Arabian or Saracenic learning. This part of the work is marked with the same enlightened views, the same critical acuteness, and the same justness of description which every

reader will admire in the former part of the volume. We cannot close this article without observing, that the public is under great obligations to Mr. Berington. He has supplied a desideratum in English literature. His performance may justly be regarded as an excellent introduction to the celebrated Lives of Lorenzo de Medici and Leo the tenth and it closes at the period when Mr. Roscoe's literary labors commence.

The present work, independently of its merits in a critical point of view, is marked throughout by a noble freedom of enquiry, and much candor and liberality of thinking. This spirit will, perhaps, be more admired when it is known, that Mr. Berington is a priest of the Roman Catholic communion; and due respect will be paid to the man who has thus the courage to rise above the prejudices of his profession. The vices of the popes, the ecclesiastics, and the monks, he exposes with boldness, and condemns without reserve; he reprobates with manly freedom, the lawless assumption of power and the tyrannical conduct of the Roman court. We would willingly gratify the reader with a conversation which he details as having passed between pope Adrian the 4th and John of Salisbury, who were both our countrymen. But from want of room we must be content with referring the reader to the volume itself, page 317. Mr. Berington has illustrated his work by frequent quotations from a MS. of his own, entitled: The History of the Papal power:' and we add that from the many very interesting extracts with which he has favored us from it, we are induced to wish that he would lay the whole before the public-and the sooner the better.

ART. IV. Researches, concerning the institutions and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America, with descriptions and views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordil leras! Translated from the French of ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT, by HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. 2 vols. 8vo. Longman and Co., Murray, and Colburn. London, 1814. We have already dedicated a few pages to the "Personal Narrative" of this author, which should be read in conjunction with his "Picturesque Atlas," a work containing numerous researches into the ancient monuments of America, descriptions of many striking scenes in the Cordilleras, and of the manners of the inhabitants. But as this Atlas is too large and expensive

for the generality of readers, the text has been translated and reprinted in two octavo volumes, to correspond with the English edition of the other work; and nineteen of the engravings contained in the folio Atlas, which were essential to the elucidation of the text, have been selected by the author, and reduced to a proper size, to accompany the publication to which we now wish to call the attention of our readers.

The monuments of nations, their characteristic manners and customs, and the most striking scenes in the regions they occupy, are peculiarly interesting to the lover of the arts, the admirer of nature, and the philosophic student of Man; and present many points of attraction to every refined and cultivated taste. The works of the polished ages of Greece and Italy not only excite admiration by the harmony of their parts and the beauty of their forms, but inspire veneration by the genius that gave them birth; and, from their connection with a thousand local and historical associations, awaken a peculiar interest in the contemplative mind. The monumental vestiges of nations, whose intellectual cultivation has not enabled them to produce works capable of exciting those sublimer emotions, are still valuable as memorials of their manners, and are illuminating points amidst the darkness of historical and mythological traditions.

"The rudest works, the most grotesque figures, the masses of sculptured rocks, venerable only from their enormous magnitude and their remote antiquity; those lofty pyramids which indicate the multitudes employed in their construction, are all connected with the philosophical study of history. By the same connection, the feeble remains of the skill, or rather industry of the nations of the new continent, become worthy of our attention. The works of the first inhabitants of Mexico, hold an intermediary place between those of the Scythian tribes, and the ancient monuments of Hindostan. What a striking spectacle does human genius present, when we survey the immense disparity that separates the tombs of Tinian and the statues of Easter Island, from the monuments of the Mexican temple of Mitla; and compare the shapeless idols of this temple with the masterpieces of the chisel of Praxiteles or Lysippus!" Vol. 1. p. 38.

66 Although the manners of a people, the display of their intellectual faculties, the peculiar character stamped on their works, depend on a great number of causes which are not merely local, it is nevertheless true, that the climate, the nature of the soil, the physiognomy of the plants, the view of beautiful or savage nature, have great influence on the progress of the arts, and on the style which distinguishes their productions. This influence becomes the more perceptible, the farther Man is removed from civilization. What a contrast between the architecture of a tribe that has dwelt in vast and gloomy caverns, and that of hordes, whose bold monuments recal in the shafts of their columns, the towering trunks of the palm-trees of the desert! An accurate knowledge of the

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origin of the arts can be acquired only by studying the nature of the site where they arose. The only American tribes, among whom we find remarkable monuments, are the inhabitants of mountains. Isolated in the regions of the clouds, on the most elevated plains on the globe, surrounded by volcanoes, the craters of which are encircled by eternal snows, they appear to have admired, in the solitude of their deserts, those objects only which strike the imagination by the greatness of their masses; and their productions bear the Stamp of the savage nature of the Cordilleras." Vol. 1. p. 40.

The subjects which furnish matter for the various disquisitions contained in these volumes are, a Statue of an Azteck Priestess; a view of the great square of Mexico; the Natural Bridges of Icononzo; the passage of Quindiu, in the Cordillera of the Andes; the fall of the Tequendoma; the Pyramid of Cholula; detached mass of the pyramid of Cholula; the monument of Xochicalco; the volcano of Catapaxi; a Mexican monument in relief, found at Caxaca; genealogy of the princess of Azcahazalco; a Lawsuit in Heiroglyphical Writing; an Azteck Hieroglyphical Manuscript, preserved in the library of the Vatican; Costumes delineated by the Mexican painters in the time of Montezuma; Azteck hieroglyphics, from the manuscript of Veletri; View of Chimbarazo and Carquairazo; Peruvian monument at Cannar; Rock of Inti-guaicu; Azteck bas-relief, found in the great square of Mexico; Basaltic rocks and Cascade of Regla; Relief in basalt, representing the Mexican calendar; House of the Inca at Callo, in the kingdom of Quito; Chimborazo, seen from the plain of Tapia; Epochas of nature, according to Azteck Mythology; Hieroglyphic paining, taken from the Borgian manuscript of Veletri, and signs of the days of the Mexican Almanack; an Azteck hatchet; an Azteck idol of basaltic porphyry, found under the pavement of the great square at Mexico; Cataract of the Rio Vinagre, near the volcano of Purace; Postman of the province of Jaen de Bracamoras; Hieroglyphical history of the Aztecks, from the deluge to the foundation of the city of Mexico; Bridge of ropes near Penipé; Coffer of Perote; Mountain of Ilinissa; Fragments of Azteck hieroglyphics, deposited in the royal library of Berlin; Migration of the Azteck nations, from an hieroglyphic painting deposited in the royal library of Berlin; Vases of granite found on the coast of Honduras; An Azteck idol, in basalt, found in the valley of Mexico; Air volcano of Turbaco; Volcano of Cayambe; Volcano of Jorullo; Calendar of the Muysca Indians, the ancient inhabitants of the plain of Bogota; Fragment of a hieroglyphical manuscript, preserved in the royal library at Dresden; Hieroglyphical paintings taken

from the Mexican manuscript, preserved in the imperial library at Vienna; Ruins of Mitla, in the province of Oaxaca; View of Corazon; Costumes of the Indians of Mechoacan; View of the interior of the crater of the peak of Teneriffe; Fragments of hieroglyphic paintings, taken from the Caden Telleriano-remensis; Fragment of the Christian calendar, taken from Azteck manuscripts, preserved in the royal library at Berlin; hieroglyphic paintings from the Raccolta di Mendoza; Fragments of Azteck paintings, taken from a manuscript preserved in the library of the Vatican; Volcano of Pichincha; Plan of the fortified house of the Inca, situated on the Cordillera of Assnay, and ruins of a part of the ancient Peruvian city of Chulucanas; Raft of the river of Guayaquil; Summit of the mountain of Organos, at Actopan; Mountains of columnar Poihyry of Jaeal; A head sculptured in hard stone by the Merysca Indians, and bracelet of Obsidian; View of the lake of Guatavita; View of the Silla de Caracas, and the dragon tree of Orotavia. Those which are printed in italics are accompanied by engravings.

The great variety of the subjects treated of in this work, necessarily precludes any interesting analysis; and the reader who is desirous of becoming acquainted even with its leading features, must peruse it for himself. M. de Humboldt's object, in his picturesque Atlas, was to exhibit whatever could throw light on "the origin and first progress of the arts among the natives of America ;" and, in the text, which constitutes the present work, to dwell more particularly upon those analogies which subsist between the works of art found in the New World, and those of the Old.

In his descriptions the learned author confines himself principally to the subjects represented in the engravings; as he considered that the consequences which seem to result from this comparative view, could be discussed with propriety, only in the narrative of his journey. This comparison of art and nature in the two hemispheres, gives a peculiar and general interest to the work which the subjects themselves are not calculated to impart. Various examples of this effect might easily be produced, but the following short extract will be sufficient.

"When we consider the physiognomy of the mountains in each continent, we discover an analogy of form, which we could not have expected, if we reflect on the concurrence of the forces, which in the primitive world have acted tumultuously on the softened surface of our planet. The fire of volcanoes raises cones of ashes and pumice stones where it penetrates through a crater; immense swellings, like domes of extraordinary magnitude, seem owing to the expansive force only of the elastic vapours; earthquakes have raised up strata full of sea shells; and