They soon, however, fell from emulating the wonders of antiquity into simple admiration. As if the word had been given when Vida and Tasso wrote on the arts of poetry, the whole swarm of critics was up. The Speronis* of the age attempted to be awkwardly merry; and the Virtuosi and the Nascotti sat upon the merits of every contemporary performance. After the age of Clement VII. the Italians seemed to think that there was more merit in praising or censuring well, than in writing well; almost every subsequent performance since their time being designed rather to show the excellence of the critic's taste than his genius. One or two poets, indeed, seem at present born to redeem the honor of their country. Metastasiof has restored nature in all her simplicity, and Maffei is the first that has introduced a tragedy among his countrymen without a love-plot. Perhaps the Samson of Milton, and the Athalia of Racine, might have been his guides in such an attempt. But two poets in an age are not

* [Speroni was born at Padua in 1500, and died there in 1588. His writings, consisting of orations, dissertations, dialogues, letters, and a tragedy, were published in five volumes quarto.]

66

+ [Metastasio was born in 1698, and died at Vienna in 1782, having completed his eighty-fourth year. Dr. Burney describes him, at the age of seventytwo, as looking like one of fifty, and the handsomest man of his time of life he had ever beheld."-" This enchanting writer," says Dr. Wharton, "has been excelled by few moderns in genius and in learning. Hear a very serious philosopher asserting, 'that nothing can be more deeply affecting than the interesting scenes of the serious opera; when to the poetry of Metastasio, and the music of Pergolesi, is added the execution of a good actor."-See Adam Smith's Essays, p. 159.]

"The

[Maffei was born at Verona in 1675, and died there in 1755. glory of the tragic muse in this age is the Merope' of the Marquis Scipione Maffei; une tragédie,' says Voltaire, digne des beaux jours d'Athènes, dans laquelle l'amour d'une mère fait toute l'intrigue, et où le plus tendre intérêt nait de la vertu la plus pure.' But the praise of Voltaire is cold when compared with that of a living English writer of great literary eminence, who, struck with the classical charms of this drama, pronounces it, the most finished tragedy in the world.' ”—Walker on Italian Tragedy, p. 232.]

sufficient to revive the splendor of decaying genius; nor should we consider them as the standard by which to characterize a nation. Our measures of literary reputation must be taken rather from that numerous class of men, who, placed above the vulgar, are yet beneath the great, and who confer fame on others without receiving any portion of it themselves.

In Italy, then, we shall nowhere find a stronger passion for the arts of taste, yet no country making more feeble efforts to promote either. The Virtuosi and Filosofi seem to have divided the Encyclopædia between each other: both inviolably attached to their respective pursuits; and, from an opposition of character, each holding the other in the most sovereign contempt. The Virtuosi, professed critics of beauty in the works of art, judge of medals by the smell, and pictures by feeling: in statuary, hang over a fragment with the most ardent gaze of admiration; though wanting the head and the other extremities, if dug from a ruin, the Torso becomes inestimable. An unintelligible monument of Etruscan barbarity cannot be sufficiently prized; and any thing from Herculaneum excites rapture. When the intellectual taste is thus decayed, its relishes become false, and, like that of sense, nothing will satisfy but what is best suited to feed the disease.

Poetry is no longer among them an imitation of what we see, but of what a visionary might wish. The zephyr breathes the most exquisite perfume, the trees wear eternal verdure; fawns, and dryads, and hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess, who has forgot indeed the prettinesses with which Guarini's shepherdesses have been reproached, but is so simple and innocent as often to have no meaning. Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to revive! where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural group of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern Arcadians! where, in the midst of porticos,

processions, and cavalcades, abbés turn shepherds, and shepherdesses, without sheep, indulge their innocent divertimenti !*

The Filosofi are entirely different from the former. As those pretend to have got their knowledge from conversing with the living and polite, so these boast of having theirs from books and study. Bred up all their lives in colleges, they have there learned to think in track, servilely to follow the leader of their sect, and only to adopt such opinions as their universities, or the inquisition, are pleased to allow. By these means, they are behind the rest of Europe in several modern improvements; afraid to think for themselves; and their universities seldom admit opinions as true, till universally received among the rest of mankind. In short, were I to personize my ideas of learning in this country, I would represent it in the tawdry habits of the stage, or else in the more homely guise of bearded school philosophy.†

* ["Perhaps, while I am writing, a shepherdess of threescore is listening to the pastoral lute of a French abbé: a warm imagination might paint her in all the splendor of ripened beauty, reclining on a pasteboard rock; might fancy her lover, with looks inexpressibly tender, ravishing a kiss from the snowy softness of one of her hands, while the other holds a crook according to pastoral decorum. Amidst such frippery as this, there was no place for friendless Metastasio; he has left Italy, and the genius of nature seems to have left it with him."-First edit.]

+ [Goldsmith is not singular in thinking that the literary character of Italy has declined; that the pursuits of many of its men, not deficient in talents and erudition, are beneath their powers, if not absolutely frivolous, and that this declination is not of recent date. An eminent writer contrasts the age of Lorenzo de' Medici with even the following century: "when by an overstrained attention to the beauty of language the importance of the subject was frequent ly neglected or forgotten, and the talents of the first men of the age, being devoted rather to words than to things, were overwhelmed in a prolixity of language, that in the form of letters, orations, and critical dissertations, became the opprobrium of literature, and the destruction of true taste."-Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. ii. p. 156.]

CHAPTER V.

OF POLITE LEARNING IN GERMANY.

If we examine the state of learning in Germany, we shall find that the Germans early discovered a passion for polite literature; but unhappily, like conquerors, who, invading the dominions of others, leave their own to desolation, instead of studying the German tongue, they continue to write in Latin. Thus, while they cultivated an obsolete language, and vainly labored to apply it to modern manners, they neglected their own.

At the same time also, they began at the wrong end, I mean by being commentators; and though they have given many instances of their industry, they have scarcely afforded any of genius. If criticism could have improved the taste of a people, the Germans would have been the most polite nation alive. We shall nowhere behold the learned wear a more important appearance than here; nowhere more dignified with professorships, or dressed out in the fopperies of scholastic finery. However, they seem to earn all the honors of this kind which they enjoy. Their assiduity is unparalleled; and did they employ half those hours on study which they bestow on reading, we might be induced to pity as well as praise their painful pre-eminence. But, guilty of a fault too common to great readers, they write through volumes, while they do not think through a page. Never fatigued themselves, they think the reader can never be weary; so they drone on, saying all that can be said on the subject, not selecting what may be advanced to the purpose. Were angels to write books, they never would write folios.*

*["Miles Davies has given his opinion of the advantages of little books with some wit and humor. 'A big book,' he says, 'is a scarecrow to the head and pocket of the author, student, buyer, and seller, as well as a harbor of ignor

But let the Germans have their due; if they are dull, no nation alive assumes a more laudable solemnity, or better understands all the decorums of stupidity. Let the discourse of a pro. fessor run on never so heavily, it cannot be irksome to his dozing pupils, who frequently lend him sympathetic nods of approbation. I have sometimes attended their disputes at gradation. On this occasion they often dispense with their gravity, and seem really all alive. The disputes are managed between the followers of Cartesius, whose exploded system they continue to call the new philosophy, and those of Aristotle. Though both parties are in the wrong, they argue with an obstinacy worthy the cause of truth; Nego, Probo, and Distinguo, grow loud; the disputants become warm, the moderator cannot be heard, the audience take part in the debate, till at last the whole hall buzzes with sophistry and error.

There are, it is true, several societies in this country which are chiefly calculated to promote knowledge. His late majesty, as elector of Hanover, has established one at Gottingen, at an expense of not less than a hundred thousand pounds. This university has already pickled monsters, and dissected live puppies without number. Their transactions have been published in the learned world at proper intervals since their institution; and will, it is hoped, one day give them just reputation. But had the fourth part of the immense sum above-mentioned been given in proper rewards to genius, in some neighboring countries, it would have rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added to the real interests of society.*

ance; hence the inaccessible masteries of the inexpugnable ignorance and superstition of the ancient heathens, degenerate Jews, and of the popish schoolmasters and canonists intrenched under the frightful bulk of huge, vast, and innumerable volumes; such as the great folio that the Jewish rabbins fancied in a dream was given by the angel Raziel to his pupil Adam, containing all the celestial sciences, &c."-D'ISRAELI.]

*[" But let me cease from censure, since I have here so fine an opportunity