J90 LANGUAG E. 
barifms, were leading to a new language. It was the fa- 
ffiion of learned in Italy to write their familiar letters in 
Latin, even to women, fo late as the time of Petrarch; 
and it was cuftomary to preach in that language; but 
preaching was then lefs frequent than at prefent. Even 
fo late as the year 1500, the bifhops and dignified clergy, 
after preaching in Latin to a feleft congregation of well- 
educated perfons, had their fermons repeated the next day 
to the common people by the friars in the vulgar tongue. 
The fermons in thefe early periods by St. Francis, St. An¬ 
thony of Padua, Bernardino of Sienna, and many others 
that have been preferved, are all in Latin. But it is a cu¬ 
rious circumftance that after this period many fermons are 
found half in Latin and half in Italian ; for the preachers, 
accommodating themfelves by degrees to the vulgar, 
avoided the trouble of a regular tranflation, by interlin¬ 
ing the Latin with fragments of Italian. But this is (till 
lefs extraordinary than the barbarifm of our Engliffi fer¬ 
mons, which not many years ago were almoft half Latin. 
An Italian congregation, from the affinity of the two lan¬ 
guages, was likely to underhand a confiderable part of 
what was uttered in Latin, which was not the cafe with 
the Engliffi. The fermons of the famous Jeremy Taylor 
in the time of Charles I. are crouded with Greek in every 
page. 
When Dante wrote his Vita Nuova, in the beginning 
of the fourteenth century, he faid that the Italian lan¬ 
guage had not fubfilted more than one hundred and fifty 
years ; and that it was firft ufed by fiome poet for the fake 
of his miftrefs, by whom the verfes addrefled to her in 
Latin began to be underftood with great difficulty. Cor- 
ticelli, in his Eloquenza Tofcana, afferts, that “in Italy 
lyric verfes preceded all other poetry; and fo general is 
the'love for this fpecies of verfification, that there is no 
nation, however barbarous, without it.” And this au¬ 
thor imagined that lyric poetry had its rife in Tufcany, 
about the year 1184, upon the following occafion. The 
emperor Frederic Barbaroffa being hunting in Mugello, a 
delightful country of Tufcany, and a flag paffing precipi¬ 
tately by him, Ubaldino Ubaldini, a valiant Florentine 
knight, feized him by the horns, and held him while the 
emperor flew him ; for which boldnefs and dexterity the 
emperor gave him the flag’s head, with a permiffion to af- 
fume it in his family arms. Ubaldino compofed an in- 
fcription to commemorate this event, which is ftill to be 
feen engraved on marble at Florence ; and, though writ¬ 
ten like profe, it confifts of ffiort verfes in rhyme, with 
a mixture of Latin words; and is luppofed to have the 
firft attempt at lyric poetry in Tufcany. But he believes 
that the firft longs in the modern language were written 
in Sicily ; whence the art palled into Provence among the 
troubadours, of whom the Italians learned it, about the 
thirteenth century. Few other veftiges are to be found 
before the year iaoo. Rhymes written upon the fubjeft 
o 1 love by the emperor Frederic II. who was born in 1104, 
are among the molt ancient that have been preferved. 
Though the French began to write in their own dialect 
much fooner than the Italians, yet their language was 
brought to no perfection before the feventeenth century ; 
but the writings of the Italians of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury are ftill regarded as models of perfection, with re- 
fpett to diftion and confirmation. According to Cref- 
cembini, the Italian written language was not wholly 
formed till the thirteenth century, though it was collo¬ 
quially ufed much earlier. Many verfes and memorials 
ftill remain of the Italian tongue during this period. 
But the Sicilians, fays the fame writer, were the firft who 
committed to paper verfes in Italian, whofe fuccefs ex¬ 
cited other poets in Italy, efpecially the Tufcans, to imi¬ 
tate them ; and Petrarch was in doubt whether the Sici¬ 
lians imitated the Provencals, or the Provencals the Sici¬ 
lians, in their poetical compofitions. But, as both thefe 
countries were long under the fame fovereigns, the inha¬ 
bitants would naturally cultivate and encourage the fame 
arts and language. If the Sicilians were the firft poets in 
a vulgar tongue, they were at lead very negligent in pre- 
ferving fufficient examples of their ancient poetry to al- 
certain its title to priority. Indeed Muratoii fays, that 
the moll ancient fonnets in the Italian language were 
written by the Sicilians ; but he neither gives fpecimens, 
nor names the authors of them. Crefcembini, however, 
confeflcs, as Bembo, Redi, and many Italian writers of 
eminence, had done before, that the Provencals were re¬ 
garded by his countrymen as the fathers of their poetry ; 
and that Dante, Cino da Piltoia, Guido Cavalcante, Pe¬ 
trarch, and Bocaccio, allowed them to have formed their 
own language, and produced an infinite number of poems, 
long before the Italians could boaft of either. Indeed, by 
a comparifon of the moll ancient Italian poems now fub- 
fifting with thofe of Provence, it appears that they imi¬ 
tated the forms and ftruCtureof the poetical compofitions 
of the ancient troubadours, who furniffied them likewifp 
with their poetical terms of art, which are the fame in 
both languages. The Provencal poets had no verft fciolti , 
or blank verfe, like the Italians; all their poetry was in 
rhyme ; fo that it feems as if the Italians in their blank 
verfe had imitated the Latins, and in rhyming the Pro¬ 
vencals. 
The Italian is accounted one of the moft perfect among 
the modern tongues. It is complained, indeed, that it 
has too many diminutives and fuperlatives, or rather aug- 
mentatives; but without any great reafon : for, if thole 
words convey nothing farther to the mind than the juft 
ideas of things, they are no more faulty than <jur pleo- 
nafms and hyperboles. The language correfponds to the 
genius of the people: they are flow and thoughtful; and, 
accordingly, their language runs heavily, though fmooth- 
ly; and many of their words are lengthened out to a great 
degree. They have a great tafte for mufic ; and,'to gra¬ 
tify their paffion this way, have altered abundance of their 
primitive words; leaving out confonants, taking in vowels, 
loftening and lengthening out their terminations for the 
fake of the cadence. Hence the language is rendered ex¬ 
tremely mufical, arid fucceeds better than any other in 
operas, and fome parts of poetry, particularly in the ten¬ 
der tone of elegy ; and here it remains unrivalled and 
alone; the plaintive melody of the founds, and fmooth 
flow of the language, being perfectly adapted to exprefs 
that foothing melancholy which this fpecies of poetry re¬ 
quires. On this account the plaintive feenes of the Paf- 
tor Fido of Guarini have juftly gained to that poem an 
univerfal applaufe. We mutt oblerve with furprife, that 
the Italians, who have fettered every other fpecies of poe¬ 
try with the fevereft fliackles of rhyme, have in this fpe¬ 
cies ffiowed an example of the moft unreftrained freedom ; 
the happy effe&s of which ought to have taught all Eu¬ 
rope the powerful charms attending it; yet with amaze¬ 
ment we perceive, that fcarcely an attempt to imitate them 
has been made by any poet in Europe except by Milton 
in his Lycidas ; no dramatic poet, even in Britain, having 
ever adopted the unreltrained harmony of numbers to be 
met with in this and many other of their beft dramatic 
compofitions. 
Rouflfeau’s character of the Italian language, and de- 
feription of its beauties, and advantage over all others, 
for vocal purpofes, are fo appofite to the prefent inquiry, 
that we fliall faithfully tranflate the whole paflage. “If 
it ffiould be afked what language is the moft grammatical, 
I fliould anfwer, that of the people who reafon the belt; 
and, if it ffiould be atked what people are likely to have the 
beft mufic, I fliould fay, thofe that have the belt language 
for it. Now, if there is in Europe one language more fa¬ 
vourable to mufic than another, it is certainly the Italian; 
for this language is foft, fonorous, melodious, and more 
accentuated than any other; four qualities peculiarly im¬ 
portant to vocal mufic. It is foft from its articulations 
being uncompounded ; from the infrequency of claffiing 
confonants; and from every word in the language being 
terminated by a vowel. It is fonorous from the moft of its 
vowels being open; its diphthongs uncompounded ; from 
having 
