fo S168.- J 
Account of Books for 1795. 
The Life of Lorenzo de? Medici, 
called the Magnificent. By Wil- 
liam Roscoe, 4to. 2 vol. 1795. 
ig was asserted, probably with jus- 
tice, by Gibbon, that there is no 
scholar in Asia who might not re- 
Ceive accessions to his knowledge 
from the perusal of the work of 
d’Herbelot, a native of the re- 
mote and * unbelieving countries 
of the west. Itmight, perhaps, be 
affirmed, with equal propriety, that 
the most learned men of Ispahan 
and Constantinople would profit by 
the study of the oriental writings 
‘of Sir William Jones. We know 
‘with certainty that d’Anville was 
capable of instructing the inhabi- 
emits of the Banks of the Nile and 
the Euphrates, in the ancient geo- 
gtaphy of Egypt and Assyria.— 
None of these triumphs of learned. 
industry, however, over the obsta- 
cles of a foreign language of dissi- 
milar manners, and of distance 
bothin time and place, are jn our 
opinion so striking as that which is 
exhibited in the work now before 
us. In all the instances to which 
we have alluded, the nations which 
suffered themselves to be surpassed 
in their own national literature, by 
foreigners, had declined from their 
ancient splendour. In some of the 
examples, those nations had become 
altogether rude and barbarous. It 
excites no wonder that the scho- 
lars of Oxford and Gottingen should 
be more familiar with the history of 
Pericles, and more conversant with 
the writings of Thucydides, than 
the wretched and ignorant inhabi- 
tants of modern Athens: but that 
discoveries should be made in the 
literature of one of the most polite 
and learned nations of Europe, by 
a foreigner who had never visited: 
-that country, who was not proe 
fessionally devoted to study, who did 
not enjoy the ease of lettered lei- 
sure, but who was immersed in the 
pursuits of an active and laborious 
profession, is a circumstance so 
singular and so wonderful, as to 
be of itself sufficient to confer no 
mean degree of interest and im- 
portance on the work of Mr. Ros- 
coe. 
That Italian poems’ of the 15th 
century, unknown to the scholars 
of Italy in the present age, should 
be given to the public by an attor- 
ney of Liverpool, is a fact which 
we believe to be unparalleled in the 
history of literature. 
Whe reader will paturally be cu- 
rious to learn how a writer, in the 
circumstances of Mr. Roscoe, could 
have been encouraged to attempt a 
* In the eye of Mahommedans<eunpelieving. 
1 
work 
