OF LITERATURE. 



xliii 



condemn his conceits and his cold abstractions, 

 will confess that the perfections of his style 

 are as hard to equal as Dante's sublimity, 

 seemed to present an easier standard. Hence 

 it became the universal rage to imitate the lover 

 of Laura. His sonnets fixed a new shape o) 

 lyric poetry : fatally, perhaps, for the lyric 

 genius of his country. Originality shrunk away 

 from the constrained thoughts and vapid itera- 

 tions of the sonnetteers. For a season, too, 

 it was kept down by a resuscitated zeal for the 

 classical writers. Much intellectual power was 

 wasted on imitative endeavours in Latin com- 

 position. 



In the age of Petrarch, Italian prose began 

 almost to rival the graces of his poetry. A few 

 previous efforts had been made ; a few tales had 

 been translated from the French trouveres. 

 BOCCACIO * applied his shining talents to the same 

 task, and in the Decameron furnished an example 

 of purity and harmony, of a choice and richness 

 of expression, which showed that the language 

 he cultivated was now fit for the treatment of* 

 any topic ; and which, among other consequences, 

 threw into the shade his own poems, though 

 fraught with the epic vein, and memorable for the 

 invention of a stanza, that was afterwards adopted 

 in all the heroic verse of Italy, Portugal, and 

 Spain. The criticism of later times detects 

 faults, besides those which regard morality, in 

 this celebrated work ; some prolixity of narra- 

 tion, and some careless verbosity ; but its 

 general liveliness and elegance are worthy of 

 the friend of Petrarch. 



Among the imitators of Boccacio, SACCHETTI, 

 who grounded his novels upon real events, and 

 who brings us down to the year 1400, comes 

 nearest to the Tuscan beauties of his model. 

 We can do no more than glance at some pro- 

 ductions of a more serious kind. The political 

 condition of Italy, when it had once been broken 

 up into a number of separate states, gave all 

 classes an interest in public affairs ; bestowed the 

 spirit of statesmen on her antiquaries and her 

 men of learning ; and made history an object of 

 high concern. So early as the year 1268 SPJNELLI 

 composed annals of Naples in the Neapolitan 

 dialect. Similar works appeared in various 

 places. Even Petrarch deigned to employ 

 Italian prose in a brief account of popes and 

 emperors. Unfortunately, in spite of this be- 

 ginning, historical writers soon betook them- 

 selves to the use of Latin, and maintained it 

 until the commencement of the sixteenth century. 

 The revival of classic literature in Italy, which 



* A. D. 13131375. ' 



has been already noticed, preceded its resur- 

 rection in other countries. Her opulence and 

 liberality attracted the teachers of ancient letters : 

 the munificence of her great men, her Viscontis 

 her Sforzas, and those princely merchants of the 

 Medicean family, who discovered how alone 

 wealth could minister to real glory, nursed the 

 flame which these teachers kindled. Manifold 

 and precious were the ultimate results of this 

 sacred zeal ; but its immediate effect, no doubt, 

 was to retard the progress of modern Italian 

 literature. As soon, however, as the right ap- 

 plication of classical knowledge, so inestimable 

 when properly directed, was clearly discerned, 

 the enlightened taste of Italy returned, with fresh 

 appetite, to the culture of its own tongue. The 

 fame of JJieas Sylvius f and other masters of 

 good latinity is merged in that of Lorenzo de 

 Medici,^ the restorer of Italian song; of his 

 favourite Politien, who struck, though with a 

 desultory hand, bold notes of both heroic and 

 dramatic poetry ; of Pulci || and the more emi- 

 nent Boiardo,*[[ who with all their deficiencies of 

 genius or of style, led the way, in Italy, to that 

 renewal of the old chivalric romance, which we 

 shall presently find productive of memorable 

 excellence in the great poets of our next period. 

 The kindred language of SPAIN was quickened 

 into life sooner than that of Italy. From the 

 termination of the ninth century, the active and 

 incessant struggles of the Spanish Christians 

 against the Moors, as well as a contact, which 

 they could not avoid, with Arabian civilization, 

 began to elicit sparks of intellectual energy. 

 Little need be said of the poems in the Limosi- 

 nic or Catalonian dialect ; though to compose or 

 to improve them was the occupation of kings 

 themselves ;** though they formed the cherished 

 amusement of the Spanish nobles ; and expired not 

 until, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,tt 

 that haughty class was humbled, and the bustle of 

 traffic and business drowned the accents of chi- 

 valry and love. For the Limosinic dialect, through 

 the union of southern Spain and France under the 

 bouse of Berenger, was merged in the Provengal ; 

 and its subsequent poetry constitutes a part of the 

 Provengal literature. But, side by side with it, 

 the pure old Castilian tongue was likewise rising 

 into being. As victory inclined more and more 

 to the Spanish arms, it rapidly grew into a 

 vehicle adequate to express the pride and dignity 

 of the prevailing people, and that enthusiasm for 



t Afterwards Pope Pius II. A. D. 14051464. 

 t A. D. 14481492. 8 A. D. 14541494. 



a A. D. 14311487. t A D. 14301494. 



** As Alphonso II. 1160; Peter II. of Aragon, 1213} Peter 

 III. of Aragon, 1285; John I. 1390. 

 tt A. D. 1479. 



