fj5g ON THE REVIVAL OF LITER ATtJRE. 



is the converse of this proposition equally true ? We have now seen 

 mankind advancing in the path of knowledge — are knowledge and virtue 

 equally inse[)arable ? I have a pride in answering this question ; and dare 

 appeal to every page in the history of the times before us for the truth of 

 its affirmative. 



From the first moment that the dawn of hterature began to glimmer in 

 the horizon of Italy, where, as I have already observed, it shot forth its 

 earliest twinklings, it pointed, as with the linger of reprobation, to the 

 abominable abuses of the church, and stung to the quick in the satires 

 and brilliant wit of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio ; the first of whom, in 

 his incomparable Divina Commedia," assigned, without scruple, situa- 

 tions and torments in hell to not less than three or four of the most de- 

 bauched or most despotic of the popes, apportioning their sufferings to 

 their respective vices and degrees of tyranny while on earth ;* the second 

 of whom characterizes the papal court in one of his sonnets, by the 

 name of Babylon, and declares that he has quitted it for ever, as a place 

 equally deprived of virtue and of shame, the seat of misery, and the mother 

 of error ; and the last of whom made it his direct object, in his very 

 popular and entertaining work, the " Decamerone," to expose the whole 

 priesthood to ridicule and contempt ; his entire argument consisting of 

 the debaucheries of the rehgious of both sexes. As learning advanced, 

 these attacks became more frequent ; and as the art of printing established 

 itself, the assaults of the more celebrated writers, of Poggio, Burchiello, 

 Pulci, and Franco, were published at Antwerp, Leipsic, and in other parts 

 of the Continent, as well as in France and Italy ; till at length the church, 

 becoming sensible of her danger, and, at the same time, equally sensible 

 of her utter inability to repel the shafts that were levelled against her, 

 attempted, Hke the grand tyrant of the present day,t to suppress the 

 voice of truth and of pubhc feehng by severe denunciations and punish- 

 ments ; and hence, in the tenth session of the Council of Lateran, im- 

 mediately before the elevation of Leo X. to the pontificate, decreed, that 

 no one under the penalty of excommunication should dare to pubhsh any 

 new work without the approbation either of the ordinary jurisdiction of 

 the place, or of the holy inquisition. 



Such denunciations, however, had by this time, in a very considerable 

 degree, lost their authority, and even Leo himself, in the zenith of his 

 potency and popularity, and in many respects not popular without reason, 

 fell a sacrifice to practices which, however supported by custom, are 

 equally repugnant to rehgion and common sense. 



I have already described a part, though comparatively but a small part, 

 of the enormous expenses into which the prodigal but refined magnifi- 



* Those whom he has more especially signalized by their sufferings in the infernal regions, 

 are Pope Nicholas III., whom the poet finds tortured in the Gulf of Simony, Pope Boniface 

 VIII., and Pope Clem< nt V. The confession of Nicholas III. is peculiarly striking, who at 

 first mistook Dante, in his transitory visit, for his own successor in the papal chau", whom 

 be had been long expecting : — 



" Poi sospirando, e con voce di pianto 

 Mi disse : Dunque che a me richiedi ? 

 ' Se di saper ch'io sia ti col cotanto 

 Che tu abbi pero la ripa scorsa, 



Sappi, ch'io FUI VESTITO DEL GRAN MANTO," &C. 



Inferno, canto Kix. 



t NajJOleon Baonaparte j the day alluded to being, as already observed, 18IS: 



