that is derived from the mythological times of antiquity, acts only on our memory. The two epochs of civilization were each preceded by their heroic ages. The Greeks ascended to the companions of Hercules, and we look back to the Paladins of Charleinagne. These two races of heroes are, perhaps, alike the creation of the imagination in a later age; but it is exactly this which renders their relation the more true to the age that has created them. The heroic ages form the ideal of succeeding times. We seek in them the model of perfection, which is most in unison with our opinions, our prejudices, our domestic sentiments, politics, and religion. It is, consequently, by a reference to this heroism, that poetry is enabled to exercise her power more strongly over the mind or the heart. Poetry, at least that of the first class, has the same object as every other branch of art. It transports us from the real into an ideal world. All the fine arts seek to retrace those primitive forms of beauty which are not fouod in the visible world, but the impression of which is fixed in our minds, as the model by which to regulate our judgment. It is not a correct opinion, that the Venus of Apelles was only a combination of all that the painter found most perfect in the most beautiful women. Her image existed in the mind of the artist before this combination. It was after this image that he se. lected subjects for the various parts. This original image could alone harmonize the various models which he consulted ; and this assistance, purely mechanical, to retrace the most beautiful forms, served only to develop his own conception, the idea of beauty, as it is conceived by the mind, and as it can never be identified in any individual form.

• In the same manner, we find an ideal image of the beauty of character, of conduct, of passion, and I had almost said, of crime, which has not been combined from different individuals; which is not the fruit of observation or of comparison ; but which previously subsists in our own mind, and may be considered as the base of our poetic principles. Observation shews us that this idea is not the same in all nations. It is modified by general, and often by unknown causes, which seem to arise almost as much from diversity of origin as from education. The French knight possesses, in our imagination, a different character from that of the knight of Italy, Spain, England, or Germany; and all these champions of modern times differ still more from the heroes of antiquity, and bear the marks of the Romantic race, formed from the mixture of Germans and Latins. We easily portray, to our own minds, the modern hero, whose characteristics are universally recognised by all European nations ; but we cannot form a just conception of the hero of antiquity, and are obliged to delineate his character from memory and classical recollections, and not from our individual feelings. It is this circumstance, which gives so cold an air to the classical poems of modern times. In the romantic species, the appeal is made directly to our own hearts ; in the classical, it seems requisite lo consult our books, and to have every feeling and idea justified by a quotation from an ancient author. Vol. XXIII. N.S.

2 E

• We have admired, in Tasso, the antique cast of his poem, and that beauty which results from the unity and regularity of design, and from the harmony of all its parts. But this merit, the principal one, perhaps, in our eyes, is not that which has rendered' his work so popular.

It is its romantic form, which harmonizes with the sentiments, the passions, and the recollections of Europeans. It is because he celebrates heroes whose type exists in their hearts, that he is celebrated in his turn by the gondoliers of Venice; that a whole people cherish his memory ; and that, in the nights of summer, the mariners interchange the sorrows of Erminia and the death of Clorinda. Vol. II. pp. 159—162.

The pathetic story of Tasso's adversities, is very impressively related by M. Sismondi, but the circumstances must be familiar to our readers. We have no room to notice the Amyntas and other minor works of Tasso, amounting, with his “ Jerusalem Delivered," to twelve quarto volumes; but must pass on to Berni, distinguished among the Italian poets of the sixteenth century, as the inventor of a new species of poetry, which has retained his name,-the light and elegant mockery of which he set the example, being still called bernesque.

• The gayety,' remarks M. Sismondi, with which he recounts seri. ous events, without rendering them vulgar, is not confounded by his countrymen with the burlesque, to which it is so nearly allied. It is, above all, in the Orlando Innamorato of the Count Boiardo, remodelled by Berni in a free and lively style, that we perceive the folness of his genius. His other works, imbued, perhaps, with more comic wit, trespass too frequently on the bounds of propriety. Francesco Berni was born about 1490, at Lamporecchio, a castle between Florence and Pistoia. We know little more of his biography than what he relates himself, in a jesting tone, in the sixty-seventh canto of his Orlando Innamorato. He was of a noble, but not opulent family. At nineteen

years

of

age, he went to Rome, full of confidence in the protection of Cardinal Dovizio da Bibbiena, who, in fact, took little interest in his welfare. After the death of that prelate, being always embarrassed, he entered as secretary into the Apostolic Datary. He there found the means of life, but was oppressed by an irksome employ, to which he was never reconciled. His labours in'creased, in proportion as he gave less satisfaction. He carried under his arms, in his bosom, and in his pockets, whole packets of letters, to which he never found time to reply. His revenues were small, and when he came to collect them, he frequently found, according to his own expressions, that storms, water, fire, or the devil

, had swept them entirely away. His mirth, and the verses and tales which he recited, made him an acceptable member of society; but, whatever love he might have had for liberty, he remained always in a state of dependence. By his satires he made himself many enemies, the most vindictive of whom was Pietro Aretino, whom he, in turn, did not spare. Berni, who informs us that his greatest pleasure was

lying in bed and doing nothing, experienced, if we are to believe common rumour, a death more tragic than we should have been led to expect from his situation in life. He was the common friend of the Cardinal Ippolito and the Duke Alessandro de' Medici, who were cousins-german, and was solicited by the latter of these to poison his relation. As he refused to participate in so black a crime, he was himself poisoned a few days afterwards, in the year 1536. In the same year, the Cardinal Ippolito was, in fact, poisoned by his cousin.' Vol. II. pp. 215-218.

Berni's taste had been formed by a diligent study of the ancients. His rifaccimento of the Orlando Innamorato has so completely superseded the original, that no one ever thinks of Boiardo; and its popularity is easily accounted for. His pleasantries are almost irresistible, and he has always had a large party of admirers, who rank him with the most eminent poets of Italy. Every thing in his hands is transformed into the ridiculous; his satire knows no bounds. His object was, to excite a laugh, and provided he attained it, he was not restrained by any scruple of morality or decorum. He laughs at chivalry, even more than Ariosto does. Not that he has burlesqued the poem of Boiardo; it is the same romance told in good earnest, but told by a man who cannot refrain from laughing all the while he is telling it. The versification is laboured; the wit profusely scattered; the gayety more sportive than Ariosto's, though, with respect to imagination, colouring, richness, all that constitutes true poetry, the two poems will not bear a comparison.

The next name that occurs, is a far more illustrious one; the eloquent historian and subtle politician, Macchiavelli. Born at Florence in 1469, from his earliest manhood he was employed in public affairs. In the midst of these grave occupations, however, he cultivated his satiric talent, and composed some comedies, his novel of Belfagor, re-modelled in French by La Fontaine, and some tolerable sonnets. Having been employed on an embassy to the court of Cæsar Borgia, he had ample leisure for studying the crooked policy of that illustrious villain. He owed his elevation to the party in opposition to the Medici; and when the latter were recalled in 1512, Macchiavelli was banished. Having joined in a plot against the usurpers, he was seized, and put to the torture; but nothing in crimination of either himself or his associates was extorted from him. He was set at liberty by Leo X. Hence arose his hatred of princes, whom he took a pleasure in painting as he had seen them, in a work professedly written for their instruction, with that profound knowledge of the human heart, and

with the great skill he had acquired of unfolding the intricate thread of their perfidious dissimulation.

• He dedicated his treatise of the Principe, not to Lorenzo the Magnificent, as Boutterwek, by a strange anachronism, has stated, but to Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, the proud usurper of the liberties of Florence and of the estates of his benefactor, the former Duke of Urbino, of the house of Rovere. Lorenzo thought himself profound when he was crafty, and energetic when he was cruel ; and Machiavelli, in shewing, in his treatise of the Principe, how an able usurper, who is not restrained by any moral principle, may consolidate his power, gave to the duke instructions conformable to his taste. The true object, however, of Machiavelli could not be to secure on bis throne a tyrant whom he hated, and against whom he had conspired. Nor is it probable that he only proposed to bimself, to expose to the people the maxims of tyranny, in order to render them odious; for an universal experience had, at that time, made them known throughout all Italy, and that diabolical policy, which Machiavelli reduced to a system, was, in the sixteenth century, that of all the states. There is, in his manner of treating the subject, a general feeling of bitterness against mankind, and a contempt of the human race, which induces him to address it in language adapted to its despicable and depraved condition. He applies himself to the interests and selfish calculations of mankind, since they do not deserve an appeal to their enthusiasm and moral sense. He establishes principles in theory, which he knows his readers will reduce to practice; and he exhibits the play of the human passions with an energy and clearness which require no ornament.'

We entirely agree with M. Sismondi in considering his Discourses on Livy as his best and profoundest work. It has been ever since resorted to as as a treasury of political maxims, founded on an exact estimate of human nature and human motives. His history of Florence is the true eloquence of history: it is an admirable delineation of popular passions and factious tumults, and exhibits a masterly analysis of the human heart. He died in 1527, having left three comedies, which, M. Sismondi says, for novelty of plot, vivacity of dialogue, and delineation of character, are far superior to all that Italy had then, or, perhaps, has since produced. In each of them, he exposed sanctimonious hypocrisy with a strength and fidelity, which left nothing to the invention of the Author of Tartuffe.

M. Sismondi concludes his review of the Italian Literature of the sixteenth century, with some remarks on the progress of the comic drama. But, amid a host of comic authors, 5000 of whose dramas were, according to Riccobino, printed between the years 1500 and 1736, not one truly comic genius seems to have arisen in Italy. In the sixteenth century, mountebanks and empirics attempted to represent farces of a greater

a

length than the ordinary dialogue then in vogue between a

quack and his buffoon; and thus, they assumed, by degrees, r the form of a comedy. These pieces were partly extempora

neous; but a certain character was assigned to each actor, with the outline of the part he was to play. Hence, the invention of the masks of Pantaloon, Harlequin, and Columbine, to whom three succeeding centuries have been indebted for the pleasures of buffoonery.

The decline of Italian literature in the seventeenth century, is called by the Italians, the age of Seicentisti. A few writers, however, resisted the torrent of bad taste, whose names, as well as the names of those who indulged in extravagance and false refinements, are recorded by M. Sismondi. This perverted taste was first perceived in the latter part of the preceding century. Guarini may be said to belong to both of these epochs. His Pastor Fido was represented, for the first time, in 1585. We cannot insert our Author's analysis of this poem, which Guarini extended into more than 6000 lines. He has hardly, we think, rendered sufficient justice to the Pastor Fido in the following strictures.

• We can scarcely, at this period, conceive how so long a piece could have been represented. From the language of the dialogue, the trifling thoughts, and common places, and the flatness of the action, we easily gather that Guarini formed no idea of any impatience in the spectators, nor thought himself obliged to awaken their curiosity, and to rivet their attention to the story. Nor was he acquainted with the art, so important in the eyes of modern French critics, of connecting the different scenes, and of assigning probable motives for the appearance and disappearance of the persons of the drama. Each scene is, for the most part, a separate act, with very little reference, either in action, or in time and place, to that which immediately precedes it ; and this want of consistency, as a whole, throws an air of singular coldness over the first act, consisting of five scenes, which unconnectedly follow each other in the manner of five different plots. The versification of the Pastor Fido appears to me even more pleasing than that of the Amyntas. Guarini gave exquisite grace and harmony to his verses ; passing, without effort or abruptness, from the versi sciolti to measures the most varied and complex. Indeed, no prose could have conveyed his sentiments more accu

curately; while no species of lyric poetry, in the ode or in the canzone, display a happier combination of rhymes, or a greater variety of feet, both regular and free. The piece is, perhaps, more deficient in spirit than in poetry; the sentiments are often trite; and the author attempts to disguise his want of originality by frequent affectation and conceit. Its chief attraction, and which very much contributed to its success, is the poetical exhibition of the passion of love, the source of the various incidents throughout the entire action of the piece, throwing its voluptuous charm equally over the poet, the actors, and the spectators.'

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