nothing to what those of Dryden and others used to be at the same period in England. Cosmo the Third was given to eating and drinking, and had become very sick and corpulent in the prime of life: it was thought he would not survive. His physician set him upon a Pythagorean regimen, and by temperance and exercise kept him alive and strong to eighty years of age. The Duke was very sensible of his diminished liver and increased happiness. Redi took the opportunity of enlarging the Museum of Natural History, of which indeed he may be considered as the founder; the hankering which his master had after the table was converted into experiments on gardening and vegetables: vines were collected from all parts of the world; the reigning dishes were varied without peril; the sovereign's brains were enlivened without intoxication; and arts and sciences continued to flourish under the doctor's intellectual, and the duke's corporeal appetite.

Our author continued all his life in the active pursuit of his profession. Nevertheless he found time, besides his celebrity as an experimentalist, to acquire great reputation in philology. He was a Greek and Latin scholar, and a busy collector of manuscripts. But above all, he was ever ready at the call of friendship, both in his profession and out of it. To judge from the praises of his countrymen, he partook of the wit and learning of Arburthnot, the science of Harvey, and the poetry and

generosity of Garth. His temperament was lively but delicate. Besides great fatigue, he suffered from visitations of hypochondria, and latterly from epilepsy; all which he bore with a generous patience, never being weary, to the last, of taking an interest in the welfare of literature and of his friends. He was found dead in his bed, after a short and placid sleep, on the 1st of March, 1697, in the 71st year of his age; so well had he managed an infirm constitution. But he himself has told hypochondriacs, (if it is any comfort to them), that they are long-lived. Doubtless both their life and their comfort depend upon their enjoying certain advantages, by the help of which they may lead an existence both long and well recompensed; though Plato speaks of a man who, by treating himself with great prudence, succeeded in having" a long-lived disease.” But these Greeks, with their gymnastics, had something in them of the insolence of health. They were right: they were for having no diseases which an early attention to exercise and to manly sports could prevent; and had reason to exclaim against the rest of the world for not better attending to the first requisite towards a happy life. Our author had a lively countenance, and was of a spare and chill habit of body, as he has pleasantly described himself in his poem. I believe he was married, though I find no record of his wife. He had a son, who attained to some rank in letters. If we are to trust a numerous collection of sonnets in the manner of Petrarch, (some

of which are as striking, as the major part are dull) Redi had been deeply attached to a lady who died. His remains, according to his request, were taken for interment to Arezzo, his native place.

There are three medals extant, which Cosmo struck in honour of his physician. One is in celebration of his discoveries in natural history, another of his medicine, and the third of his Bacchanalian poem. Horace reckoned nothing more delightful than a pleasant friend. There is nothing which a prince, who has a tendency to disease, can value more highly than an agreeable physician. Redi kept his master in health with his prescriptions, and entertained him with his wit and poetry. But he not only entertained him with his own; he used to take him the verses of his friends. Filicaia, the greatest poet of that age, and confessedly one of the greatest lyrical writers of Italy, had in him a constant friend at court; and men who rivalled him in other respects-Salvini in scholarship, Menzini in poetry, and Bellini in poetry and medicine-owed to him their rise in the world, both private and public. Salvini says, that his whole life was one continued round of lettered friendship. Let this be the best answer to those who have accused him of being too lavish of his praise. I cannot but own that his works abound in a profusion of compliment, which would convict a man of insincerity with us; but great allowance is to be made for the

Italian manner as well as genius. Among a passionate people, there is no end of the soft conduct exacted on all sides; and when to this national habit is added a particular tendency to admire others, and a more than ordinary vivacity of character, too much suspicion must not be attached to the solidity of the feeling, on account of the high-flying wings that set it mounting. There is a moral sort of gesticulation, analogous to personal. A great deal of it may go for nothing;-heaps of the small coin of Italy are not worth more than a shilling English; but they are worth as much, especially in the hands of an honest man. Among this touchy and superfluous people, one author can hardly mention another without the addition of some epithet of eminent or illustrious. Even an invalid is not spared in prescriptions. In those of our author, the effect is sometimes as ludicrous as Voltaire's dialogue, in his Philosophical Dictionary, between a princess and her physician, who talks of "the biliary vessels of her serene highness." Judged with these allowances, the praises bestowed upon our author's contemporaries, in the "Bacco in Toscana," become unreasonable drawbacks on the vivacity of his poem, rather than violent exaggerations. He has scarcely mentioned an author who has not come down to posterity, one or two of them with great eminence. Filicaia has been mentioned before. The names of Menzini, Maggi, Lemene, Magalotti, Viviani, Bellini, Salvini, are as well known in Italy as the most familiar of our to candi

second-rate classics with us. He himself was praised by all of them with no sparing hand. It is not to be denied that all the reigning wits of that time were fond of panegyric; perhaps about as much so as most others in all ages and countries. But certainly they carried the pretence of the reverse to a pitch somewhat uncommon. Filicaia appears to have been the most willing to receive the criticism of his friends. Redi asks for it sometimes with great earnestness; but I am not aware that he ever took it. In some instances, it is certain he did not; though the advice was very good. A man is not bound to take advice:—the greatest men generally know what is best suited to their own genius; but nobody should ask for censures which he is not prepared to consider. Let the most candid of poets throw the first stone. Redi had the reputation of being the greatest genius of his time, and he was not so. Let this account for an infirmity of which no man was guilty with greater good nature to others.

It is observable, that among the friends of our author were Carlo Dati, Francini, and Antonio Malatesti, three of Milton's acquaintances, when he was in Italy. Redi was only twelve years of age, when Milton visited his country; but he may have seen him, and surely heard of him. It is pleasant to trace any kind of link between eminent men. There is reason to believe that our author was well known in England. Magalotti, who