THE BEE, . 
ZITERARY WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, 
FOR 
_ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13. 1792. 
<AN ACCOUNT OF THE SOCIETY OF ARCADIA AT ROME, WITH 4 
SKETCH OF THE STATE OF LITERATURE IN ITALY FOR THESE 
LAST THREE CENTURIES. By ABBE TOURNER, TEACHER OF 
LANGUAGES, EDINBURGH, AUTHOR OF THE ANECDOTES OF POPE 
GANGANELLI, ©'c. 
Revolutions in the epinions of mankind often take their rise from very 
small beginnings; and these opinions, when once establifhed, produce 
wonderful changes in the situation of men and things in this universe. 
No species of history: therefore could be more interesting than that 
which thould trace, with, perspicuity, the revolutions of literature, and 
explain the causes of these changes. The Editor has been favoured 
swith the following fketch of the changes that have taken place in the 
taste for literary compositions in Italy for two hundred years past, by a 
gentleman who has-had good opportunities of observing them; and who 
pofsefses a natural talent of research in matters of this sort that few 
can boast of. Every s*ep we advance in our researches into the history 
‘of man, tends to prove, in the most decided manner, that those acc 
dental distinctions which weak writers have delighted to hold up to 
view, as permanent characteristics of nations, are merely casual inci- 
ents, being occasioned by local circumstances, that tend to call into ace 
tion, or to Jull asleep, the active powers of the mind at the time; and 
that when these everruling causes are removed, man shows himself to 
be, in-every country, radically and efsentially the same. Let us thea 
sect aside those silly prejudices that have so long tended to estrange na~ 
WOL. ix. BR + 
