to his History of Florence, which extends from 1350 to 1455, and which is, perhaps, his best work, may be ranked many of his philosophical dialogues and letters, in which the most noble and elevated sentiments prevail. His memory, indeed, derives less honour from his too celebrated Book of Facetic, which he published in his seventieth year; and in which, with a sarcastic gaiety, he outrages, without restraint, all good manners and decorum. Nor are the numerous invectives, which, in his literary quarrels, he addressed to Francesco Filelfo, to Lorenzo Valla, to George of Trebizond, and to many others, less exceptionable. In an age when literature was confined to scholastic erudition, taste exercised on it little influence. Society could not repress the malignant passions, nor could respect for the other sex inspire a sense of propriety. We are astonished and disgusted at the odious accusations, with which these scholastic champions attack each other; reproaching their opponents with theft and fraud, poisonings and perjury, in the most opprobrious language. In order to justify an insolent and gross expression, they did not consider whether it were consistent with a due observance of decorum, but merely whether it were authorized by its pure Latinity; and, in these calumnious aspersions, they were much less solicitous about the truth or probability of their charges, than about the classical propriety of their vituperative epithets.

The man, whose life was most agitated by these furious literary quarrels, was Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481), the rival in reputation, and the declared enemy, of Poggio Bracciolini. Born at Tolentino, in 1398, he early distinguished himself by his erudition, and, at the age of eighteen, was appointed professor of eloquence at Padua. He relinquished that situation to go to Constantinople, to perfect himself in the Greek language. He repaired thither, in 1420, with a diplo matic mission from the Venetians, and was afterwards employed on others, to Amurath II., and the Emperor Sigismund. Having married a daughter of John Chrysoloras, who was allied to the Imperial family of the Palæologi, this noble alliance intoxicated the mind of a man already too vain of his knowledge, and who considered himself to be the first genius, not only of his own, but of every age. On his return to Italy, his ostentatious disposition exposed him to numerous distresses,

notwithstanding the liberality with which, in many cities, he was rewarded for his instructions. At the same time, the violence and asperity of his character procured him many bitter enemies. Not content with literary altercations, he interfered also in political disputes, although, in these, he was not actuated by any noble feelings. He pretended that Cosmo de' Medici had twice intended his assassination, and he, in his turn, attempted the life of Cosmo. He published his invectives in all the cities of Italy, loading, with the heaviest accusations, the enemies whom he had drawn on himself. After the death of his first wife, he married a second, and subsequently a third at Milan, where he resided a considerable time, at the court of the Sforza family. He died on the thirty-first of July, 1481, on his return to Florence, to which place he was recalled by Lorenzo de' Medici. In the midst of these continual disquiets, Filelfo, however, laboured with indefatigable activity for the advancement of literature. left behind him a prodigious number of translations, dissertations, and philosophical writings and letters; but he contributed still more to the progress of study by his lectures, and by the treasures of his knowledge, which he displayed before four or five hundred scholars at a time, to whom he gave instruction on various subjects, four or five times repeated in the course of one day.

He

Lorenzo Valla is the last of these celebrated philologists whom we shall here notice. Born at Rome, at the close of the fourteenth century, he there completed his early studies. He was afterwards professor of eloquence at Pavia, until about the year1431, when he attached himself to Alfonso V. He opened, at Naples, a school of Greek and Roman eloquence; but, not less irascible than Filelfo and Poggio, he engaged with them and others in violent disputes, of which the written invectives left us by these scholars form a lamentable proof. He composed many works, on history, criticism, dialectics, and moral philosophy. His two most celebrated productions are, a History of Ferdinand, King of Aragon, father of Alfonso, and the Elegantiæ Linguæ Latina. He died at Naples, in

1457.

The attention of the literary men of the fifteenth century was wholly engrossed by the study of the dead languages, and of manners, customs, and religious systems, equally extinct.

The charm of reality was, of course, wanting to works which were the result of so much research and labour. All these men whom we have noticed, and to whom we owe the discovery and preservation of so many valuable works, present to our observation, boundless erudition, a just spirit of criticism, and nice sensibility to the beauties and defects of the great authors of antiquity. But we look in vain for that true eloquence, which is more the fruit of an intercouse with the world, than of a knowledge of books; and these philologists professed too blind a veneration for every thing belonging to antiquity, to point out what was worthy of admiration, or to select what was deserving of imitation. They were still more unsuccessful in poetry, in which their attempts, all in Latin, are few in number; and their verses are harsh and heavy, without originality or vigour. It was not until the period when Italian poetry began to be again cultivated, that Latin verse acquired any of the characteristics of genuine inspiration.

The first man to whom may, perhaps, be attributed the restoration of Italian poetry, was, at the same time, one of the greatest men of his own and succeeding ages. This was Lorenzo de' Medici, chief of the Florentine republic, and arbiter of the whole political state of Italy (1448-1492). Lorenzo the Magnificent had written his first poems, before he was twenty years of age. A whole century had elapsed since Petrarch and Boccaccio, renouncing subjects of love, had ceased to cultivate Italian verse; and, during this long interval, no poet worthy of commemoration had appeared. Lorenzo attempted to restore the poetry of his country, to the state in which Petrarch had left it; but this man, so superior by the greatness of his character, and by the universality of his genius, did not possess the talent of versification in the same degree as Petrarch. In his love verses, his sonnets, and canzoni, we find less sweetness and harmony. Their poetical colouring is less striking; and it is remarkable, that they display a ruder expression, more nearly allied to the infancy of the language. On the other hand, his ideas are more natural, and are often accompanied by a great charm of imagination. We are presented with a succession of the most delightful rural pictures, and are surprised to find the statesman so conversant with country life. His works consist of one hundred and forty sonnets, and about twenty canzoni, almost all com

posed in honour of Lucretia de' Donati. He has not, however, named her; and he seems to have chosen her only as the object of a poetical passion, and as the subject of his verse. He has celebrated her with a purity not unworthy of Petrarch, and with a delicacy which was not always observed in his other attachments. But Lorenzo did not confine himself to lyric poetry. He attempted all kinds, and manifested in all, the versatility of his talents and the exuberance of his imagination. His poem of Ambra, intended to celebrate the delicious gardens, which he had planted in an island of the Ombrone, and which were destroyed by an inundation of that river, is written in beautiful octave verse. In his Nencia da

Barberino, composed in the rustic dialect of Tuscany, he celebrates, in stanzas full of natural simplicity, gaiety, and grace, the charms of a peasant girl. His Altercazione is a philosophical and moral poem, in which the most sublime truths of the Platonic philosophy are displayed with equal clearness and sublimity. Lorenzo has also left, in his Beoni, an ingenious and lively satire against drunkenness; and in his Carnival songs, couplets of extreme gaiety, that accompanied the triumphal feasts which he gave to, and shared with, the people. In his Canzoni a ballo, we have other verses, which he sung himself, when he took a part in the dances exhibited in public; and in his Orazioni we find sacred hymns, which belong to the highest order of lyric poetry.

Such was the brilliant imagination, and such the grace and versatility of talent, of a man to whom poetry was but an amusement, scarcely noticed in his splendid political career; who, concentrating in himself all the powers of the republic, never allowed the people to perceive that they had relinquished their sovereignty; who, by the superiority of his character and of his talents, governed all Italy as he governed Florence, preserving it in peace, and averting, as long as he lived, those calamities with which, two years after his death, it was overwhelmed ; who was, at the same time, the patron of the Platonic philosophy, the promoter of literature, the fellowstudent of the learned, the friend of philosophers and poets, and the protector of artists; and who kindled and fanned the flame of genius in the breast of Michael Angelo.

CHAPTER XII.

POLITIANO, PULCI, BOIARDO, AND ARIOSTO.

THE century which, after the death of Petrarch, had been. devoted, by the Italians, to the study of antiquity, during which literature experienced no advance, and the Italian language seemed to retrograde, was not, however, lost to the powers of imagination. Poetry, on its first revival, had not received sufficient nourishment. The fund of knowledge, of ideas, and of images, which she called to her aid, was too restricted. The three great men of the fourteenth century, whom we first presented to the attention of the reader, had, by the sole force of their genius, attained a degree of erudition, and a sublimity of thought, far beyond the spirit of their age. These qualities were entirely personal; and the rest of the Italian bards, like the Provençal poets, were reduced, by the poverty of their ideas, to have recourse to those continual attempts at wit, and to that mixture of unintelligible ideas and incoherent images, which render the perusal of them so fatiguing. The whole of the fifteenth century was employed in extending, in every sense, the knowledge and resources of the friends of the muses. Antiquity was unveiled to them in all its elevated characters, its severe laws, its energetic virtues, and its beautiful and engaging mythology; in its subtle and profound philosophy, its overpowering eloquence, and its delightful poetry. Another age was required to knead afresh the clay for the formation of a nobler race. At the close of the century, a divine breath animated the finished statue, and it started into life.

It was in the society of Lorenzo de' Medici, in the midst of his friends and of the objects of his protection, that several of those men of genius appeared, who shed so brilliant a glory on Italy, in the sixteenth century. Amongst these, the most distinguished rank may be assigned to Politiano, who opened, to the Italian poets, the career of epic and lyric fame.

Angelo Politiano was born on the twenty-fourth of July, 1454, at Monte Pulciano (Mons Politianus), a castle, of which he adopted the name, instead of that of Ambrogini,