John Addington Symond Engraved by Joseph Brown, from a Drawing by Edward Clifford Londen Smith Eider&C 15 Waterloo Flace STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS SKETCHES IN ITALY AND GREECE' ETC. Questa provincia pare nata per risuscitare le cose morte, come si è visto della Poesia, MACH.: Arte della Guerra PART I. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1881 [All rights reserved] PREFACE. THIS work on the Renaissance in Italy, of which I now give the last two volumes to the public, was designed and executed on the plan of an essay or analytical enquiry, rather than on that which is appropriate to a continuous history. Each of its four parts-the Age of the Despots, the Revival of Learning, the Fine Arts, and Italian Literature-stood in my mind for a section; each chapter for a paragraph; each paragraph for a sentence. At the same time, it was intended to make the first three parts subsidiary and introductory to the fourth, for which accordingly a wider space and a more minute method of treatment were reserved. The first volume was meant to explain the social and political conditions of Italy; the second to relate the exploration of the classical past which those conditions. necessitated, and which determined the intellectual activity of the Italians; the third to exhibit the bias of this people toward figurative art, and briefly to touch upon its various manifestations; in order that, finally, a correct point of view might be obtained for judging of their national literature in its strength and limita tions. Literature must always prove the surest guide to the investigator of a people's character at some decisive epoch. To literature, therefore, I felt that the plan of my book allowed me to devote two volumes. Yet The subject of my enquiry rendered the method I have described, not only natural but necessary. there are special disadvantages, to which progressive history is not liable, in publishing a book of this sort by instalments. Readers of the earlier parts cannot form a just conception of the scope and object of the whole. They cannot perceive the relation of its several sections to each other, or give the author credit for his exercise of judgment in the marshalling and development of topics. They criticise each portion independently, and desire a comprehensiveness in parts, which would have been injurious to the total scheme. Furthermore, this kind of book sorely needs an Index, and its plan renders a general Index, such as will be found at the end of the last volume, more valuable than one made separately for each part. Of these disadvantages I have been rendered sensible during the progress of publication through the last six years. Yet I have gained some compensation in the fact that the demand for a second edition of the first volume has enabled me to make that portion of the work more adequate. With regard to authorities consulted in these two concluding volumes, I have special pleasure in record |