dition in life; and that as the departed lady had occasioned him such heavy griefs, the new one might open a source of delight. The relations and friends of Dante gave him a wife that his tears for Beatrice might cease. some remorse on what thou hast done, and blush, at least, reputed wise as thou art, to have had in your errors so fatal a choice! Why not rather imitate the acts of those cities who so keenly dis "Ungrateful country! what madness urged thee, when thy dearest citizen, thy chief benefactor, thy only poet, with unaccustomed cruelty was driven to flight. If this had happened in the general terror of that time, coming from evil It is supposed that this marriage proved un- counsel, thou mightest stand excused; but when happy. Boccaccio, like a pathetic lover rather the passions ceased, didst thou repent? didst thou than biographer, exclaims, "Oh menti cieche! Oh recall him? Bear with me, nor deem it irksome tenebrosi intelletti! Oh argomenti vani di molti from me, who am thy son, that thus I collect mortali quante sono le ruiscite in assai cose con- what just indignation prompts me to speak, as a trarie a' nostri avvisi! &c. Oh blind men! Oh man more desirous of witnessing your amenddark minds! Oh vain arguments of most mortals, ment, than of beholding you punished! Seems it how often are the results contrary to our advice! to you glorious, proud of so many titles and of Frequently it is like leading one who breathes the such men, that the one whose like no neighboursoft air of Italy to refresh himself in the eternal ing city can show, you have chosen to chase from shades of the Rhodopean mountains. What phy- among you? With what triumphs, with what sician would expel a burning fever with fire, or valorous citizens are you splendid? Your wealth put in the shivering marrow of the bones snow and is a removable and uncertain thing; your fragile ice? So certainly shall it fare with him, who, with beauty will grow old; your delicacy is shameful a new love, thinks to mitigate the old. Those who and feminine; but these make you noticed by the believe this know not the nature of love, nor how false judgments of the populace! Do you glory much a second passion adds to the first. In vain in your merchants and your artists? I speak imwould we assist or advise this forceful passion, if it prudently; but the one are tenaciously avaricious has struck its root near the heart of him who long in their servile trades; and art, which once was has loved." so noble, and became a second nature, struck Boccaccio has beguiled my pen for half an hour by the same avarice, is now as corrupted, and with all the loves and fancies which sprung out of nothing worth! Do you glory in the baseness his own affectionate and romantic heart. What and the listlessness of those idlers, who, because airy stuff has he woven into the "Vita" of Dante! their ancestors are remembered, attempt to raise this sentimental biography! Whether he knew but up among you a nobility to govern you, ever by little of the personal history of the great man whom robbery, by treachery, by falsehood! Ah! misehe idolised, or whether the dream of the mother-rable mother! open thine eyes; cast them with the May-day interview with the little Bricè, and the rest of the children-and the effusions on Dante's marriage, were grounded on tradition, one would not harshly reject such tender incidents.* But let it not be imagined that the heart of Boc-puted merely for the honour of the birthplace of caccio was only susceptible to amorous impres- the divine Homer? Mantua, our neighbour, sions-bursts of enthusiasm and eloquence, which counts as the greatest fame which remains for her, only a man of genius is worthy of receiving, and that Virgil was a Mantuan! and holds his very only a man of genius is capable of bestowing- name in such reverence, that not only in public kindle the masculine patriotism of his bold, indig-places, but in the most private, we see his sculpnant spirit! tured image! You only, while you were made famous by illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you unjustly, envious of his greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son! Now cease to be unjust! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living, he never did do to you! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him again, but on that day, when all your citizens shall view him, and the great Remunerator shall examine, and shall punish! If anger, hatred, and enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to yourself; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold, negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son; yield your maternal piety to him whom once you repulsed, and, living, cast away from you! At least think of possessing him dead, and restore your citizenship, your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in reverence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would be called, a Florentine! He held you ever above all others; ever he loved you! What will you Half a century had elapsed since the death of DANTE, and still the Florentines showed no sign of repentance for their ancient hatred of their persecuted patriot, nor any sense of the memory of the creator of their language, whose immortality had become a portion of their own glory. BOCCACCIO, impassioned by all his generous nature, though he regrets he could not raise a statue to Dante, has sent down to posterity more than marble, in the "life." I venture to give the lofty and bold apostrophe to his fellow-citizen; but I feel that even the genius of our language is tame by the side of the harmonised eloquence of the great votary of DANTE! "A Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante," in English, printed in Italy, has just reached me. I am delighted to find that this biography of Love, however romantic, is true! In his ninth year, Dante was a lover and a poet! The tender sonnet, free from all obscurity, which he composed on Beatrice, is preserved in the above singular volume. There can be no longer any doubt of the story of Beatrice; but the sonnet and the passion must be "classed among curious natural phenomena." then do? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity? Will you practise less humanity than the barbarians? You wish that the world should believe that you are the sister of famous Troy, and the daughter of Rome; assuredly the children should resemble their fathers and their ancestors. Priam, in his misery, bought the corpse of Hector with gold; and Rome would possess the bones of the first Scipio, and removed them from Linternum, which, dying, so justly he had denied her. Seek then to be the true guardian of your Dante, claim him! show this humane feeling, claim him! you may securely do this: I am certain he will not be returned to you; but thus at once you may betray some mark of compassion, and, not having him again, still enjoy your ancient cruelty! Alas! what comiort am I bringing you! I almost believe, that if the dead could feel, the body of Dante would not rise to return to you, for he is lying in Ravenna, whose hallowed soil is everywhere covered with the ashes of saints. Would DANTE quit this blessed company to mingle with the remains of those hatreds and iniquities which gave him no rest in life? The relics of DANTE, even among the bodies of emperors and of martyrs, and of their illustrious ancestors, is prized as a treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration; those works of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His birthplace, his origin, remains for you, spite of your ingratitude! and this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has snatched from you through ages yet to come!" Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this sentimental biography, and awoke even shame and confusion in the minds of the Florentines; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the memory of their great bard. By order of the city, the Divina Commedia was publicly read and explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities of age, roused his departing genius: still was there marrow in the bones of the aged lion, and he engaged in the task of composing his celebrated Commentaries on the Divina Commedia. In this class of sentimental biography I would place a species which the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the continent, in pursuit of his historical design. He found, preserved among several ancient families of France, their domestic annals. "With a warm, patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors." A custom which we have not adopted; but we may be confident that many a name has not been inscribed on the roll of national glory, only from wanting a few drops of ink! This delight and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their folly or vanity; yet in that folly there is so much wisdom, and in that vanity there is so much greatness, that the one will amply redeem the other. The nation has lost many a noble example of men and women acting a great part on great occasions, and then retreating to the shade of privacy. Such domestic annals may yet be viewed in the family records at Appleby Castle! Anne, Countess of Pembroke, was a glorious woman, the descendant of two potent northern families, the Veteriponts and the Cliffords.-She lived in a state of regal magnificence and independence, inhabiting tive castles; yet though her magnificent spirit poured itself out in her extended charities, and though her independence mated that of monarchs, yet she herself, in her domestic habits, lived as a hermit in her own castles; and though only acquainted with her native language, she had cultivated her mind in many parts of learning; and as Donng, in his way, observes, "she knew how to convers: cf everything, from predestination to slea-silk." Her favourite design was to have materials collected for the history of those two potent northern families to whom she was allied; and at a considerable expense employed learned persons to make collections for this purpose, from the records in the Tower, the Rolls, and other depositories of manuscripts; all these, we are informed by Gilpin, he had seen fairly transcribed in three large volumes. Anecdotes of a great variety of characters, who had exerted themselves on very important occasions, compose these family records |--and induce one to wish that the public were in possession of such annals of the domestic life of heroes and of sages, who have only failed in obtaining an historian! A biographical monument of this nature, which has passed through the press, will sufficiently prove the utility of this class of sentimental biography. It is the life of Robert Price, a Welsh lawyer, and an ancestor of the gentleman whose ingenuity, in our days, has refined the principles of the picturesque in art. This life is announced as "printed by the appointment of the family;" but it must not be considered merely as a tribute of private affection; and how we are at this day interested in the actions of a Welsh lawyer in the reign of William the Third, whose name has probably never been consigned to the page of history, remains to be told. ROBERT PRICE, after having served Charles the Second, lived latterly in the eventful times of William the Third. He was probably of Tory principles, for on the arrival of the Dutch prince, he was removed from the attorney-generalship of Glamorgan. The new monarch has been accused of favouritism, and of an eagerness in showering exorbitant grants on some of his foreigners, which soon raised a formidable opposition in the jealous spirit of Englishmen. The grand favourite, William Bentinck, after being raised to the title of Earl of Portland, had a grant bestowed on him of three lordships, in the county of Denbigh. The patriot of his native country-a title which the Welsh had already conferred on ROBERT PRICEthen rose to assert the rights of his fatherland, and his speeches are as admirable for their knowledge as their spirit. "The submitting of 1500 freeholders to the will of a Dutch lord was," as he sarcastically declared, "putting them in a worse posture than their former estate, when under William the Conqueror and his Norman lords. England must not be tributary to strangers-we must, like patriots, stand by our country-otherwise, when God shall send us a Prince of Wales, he may have such a present of a crown made him, as a Pope did to King John, who was surnamed Sans Terre, and was by his father made Lord of Ireland, which grant was confirmed by the Pope, who sent him a crown of peacock's feathers, in derogation of his power, and the poverty of his country." ROBERT PRICE asserted that the king could not, by the Bill of Rights, alien or give away the inheritance of a Prince of Wales, without the consent of parliament. He concluded a copious and patriotic speech, by proposing that an address be presented to the king, to put an immediate stop to the grant now passing to the Earl of Portland for the lordships, &c. This speech produced such an effect, that the address was carried unanimously; and the king, though he highly resented the speech of Robert Price, sent a civil message to the Commons, declaring that he should not have given Lord Portland those lands, had he imagined the House of Commons could have been concerned; "I will therefore recall the grant!" On receiving the royal message, Robert Price drew up a resolution to which the house assented, that "to procure or pass exorbitant grants by any member of the privy council, &c., was a high crime and misdemean our." The speech of Robert Price contained truths too numerous and too bold to suffer the light during that reign; but this speech against foreigners was printed the year after King William's death, with this title, "Gloria Cambriæ, or the speech of a bold Briton in parliament, against a Dutch prince of Wales," with this motto, Opposuit et Vicit. Such was the great character of Robert Price, that he was made a Welsh judge by the very sovereign whose favourite plans he had so patriotically thwarted. this Welsh judge! Yet had the family not found one to commemorate these memorable events in the life of their ancestor, we had lost the noble picture of a constitutional interpreter of the laws, an independent country gentleman, and an Englishman jealous of the excessive predominance of ministerial or royal influence. Another class of this sentimental biography was projected by the late Elizabeth Hamilton. This was to have consisted of a series of what she called comparative biography, and an ancient character was to have been paralleled by a modern one. Occupied by her historical romance with the character of Agrippina, she sought in modern history for a partner of her own sex, and "one who, like her, had experienced vicissitudes of fortune;" and she found no one better qualified than the princess palatine, Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First. Her next life was to have been that of Seneca, with "the scenes and persons of which her life of Agrippina had familiarized her ;" and the contrast or the parallel was to have been Locke; which, well managed, she thought, would have been sufficiently striking. It seems to me, that it would rather have afforded an evidence of her invention! Such a biographical project reminds one of Plutarch's Parallels, and might incur the danger of displaying more ingenuity than truth. The sage of Cheronea must often have racked his invention to help out his parallels, bending together the most unconnected events and the most distinct feelings, to make them similar; and, to keep his parallels in two straight lines, he probably made a free use of augmentatives and diminutives to help out his pair, who might have been equal, and yet not alike! We were once promised, that the pathetic sweetness of Mr. Southey's prose would not fail to realise the very ideal of SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY-Our fatherland is prodigal of immortal names, or names which might be mad immortal! It would be that sort of work which Gibbon once contemplated with complacency, and of which we may long revolved in my mind a volume of biographical writing; the lives or rather the characters of the most eminent persons in arts and arms, in church and state, who have flourished in Britain, from the reign of Henry the Eighth to the present age. The subject would afford a rich display of human nature and domestic history, and powerfully address itself to the feelings of every Englishman." Another marked event in the life of this English patriot was a second noble stand he made against the royal authority, when in opposition to the public good. The secret history of a quarrel between George the First and the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second, on the birth of a son, appears in this life; and when the prince in disgrace left the palace, his royal highness pro-regret that he has only left the project. "I have posed taking his children with him and the princess; but the king detained the children, claiming the care of the royal offspring as a royal prerogative. It now became a legal point to ascertain "whether the education of his majesty's grandchildren, and the care of their marriages, &c., belonged of right to his majesty as king of this realm, or not?" Ten of the judges obsequiously allowed of the prerogative to the full. Robert Price and another judge decided that the education, &c., was the right of the father, although the marriages was that of his majesty as king of this realm, yet not exclusive of the prince, their father. He assured the king, that the ten obsequious judges had no authority to support their precipitate opinion; all the books and precedents cannot form a prerogative for the king of this realm to have the care and education of his grandchildren during the life and without the consent of their father a prerogative unknown to the laws of England! He pleads for the rights of a father, with the spirit of one who feels them, as well as with legal science, and curiosity of historical knowledge. Such were the two great incidents in the life of LITERARY PARALLELS. AN opinion on this subject in the preceding article has led me to a further investigation. It may be right to acknowledge that so attractive is this critical and moral amusement of comparing great characters with one another, that, among others, Bishop HURD once proposed to write a book of Parallels, and has furnished a specimen in that of PETRARCH and ROUSSEAU, and intended for another that of ERASMUS with CICERO. It is amusing to observe how a lively and subtle mind can strike out resemblances, and make contraries accord, and at the same time show the pinching difficulties through which a parallel is pushed, till it ends in a paradox. Hurd says of Petrarch and Rousseau-"Both were impelled by an equal enthusiasm, though directed towards different objects: Petrarch's towards the glory of the Roman name, Rousseau's towards his idol of a state of Nature; the one religious, the other un esprit fort; but may not Petrarch's spite to Babylon be considered, in his time, as a species of free-thinking?"-and concludes, that " both were mad, but of a different nature." Unquestionably there were features much alike, and almost peculiar to these two literary characters; but I doubt if Hurd has comprehended them in the parallel. I now give a specimen of those parallels which have done so much mischief in the literary world, when drawn by a hand which covertly leans on one side. An elaborate one of this sort was composed by Longolius or Longueil, between BUDEUS and ERASMUS. This man, though of Dutch origin, affected to pass for a Frenchman, and, to pay his court to his chosen people, gives the preference obliquely to the French Budæus; though, to make a show of impartiality, he acknowledges that Francis the First had awarded it to Erasmus; but probably he did not infer that kings were the most able reviewers! This parallel was sent forth during the lifetime of both these great scholars, who had long been correspondents, but the publication of the parallel interrupted their friendly intercourse. Erasmus returned his compliments and thanks to Longolius, but at the same time insinuates a gentle hint, that he was not overpleased. "What pleases me most," Erasmus writes, "is the just preference you have given Budæus over me; I confess you are even too economical in your praise of him, as you are too prodigal in mine. I thank you for informing me what it is the learned desire to find in me; my self-love suggests many little excuses, with which, you observe, I am apt to favour my defects. If I am careless, it arises partly from my ignorance, and more from my indolence; I am so constituted, that I cannot conquer my nature; I precipitate rather than compose, and it is far more irksome for me to revise than to write." This parallel between ERASMUS and BUDEUS, though the parallel itself was not of a malignant nature, yet disturbed the quiet, and interrupted the friendship of both. When Longolius discovered that the Parisian surpassed the Hollander in Greek literature and the knowledge of the civil law, and wrote more learnedly and laboriously, how did this detract from the finer genius and the varied erudition of the more delightful writer? The parallelist compares Erasmus to "a river swelling its waters and often overflowing its banks; Budæus rolled on like a majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The Frenchman has more nerve and blood, and life, and the Hollander more fulness, freshness, and colour." This taste for biographical parallels must have reached us from Plutarch; and there is something malicious in our nature which inclines us to form * It is noticed by Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, vol. i. p. 160. | comparative estimates, usually with a view to elevate one great man at the cost of another, whom we would secretly depreciate. Our political parties at home have often indulged in these fallacious parallels, and Pitt and Fox once balanced the scales, not by the standard weights and measures which ought to have been used, but by the adroitness of the hand that pressed down the scale. In literature these comparative estimates have proved most prejudicial. A finer model exists not than the parallel of Dryden and Pope, by Johnson; for, without designing any undue preference, his vigorous judgment has analysed them by his contrasts, and rather shown their distinctness than their similarity. But literary parallels usually end in producing parties; and, as I have elsewhere observed, often originate in undervaluing one man of genius, for his deficiency in some eminent quality possessed by the other man of genius; and not unfrequently proceed from adverse tastes, with the concealed design of establishing their own favourite one. The world of literature has been deeply infected with this folly. Virgil probably was often vexed in his days by a parallel with Homer, and the Homerians combated with the Virgilians. Modern Italy was long divided into such literary sects: a perpetual skirmishing is carried on between the Ariostoists and the Tassoists; and feuds as dire as those between two Highland clans were raised concerning the Petrarchists and the Chiabrerists. Old Corneille lived to bow his venerable genius before a parallel with Racine; and no one has suffered more unjustly by those arbitrary criticisms than Pope, for a strange unnatural civil war has often been renewed between the Drydenists and the Popists. Two men of great genius should never be depreciated by the misapplied ingenuity of a parallel; on such occasions we ought to conclude, that they are magis pares quam simile THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA. As a literary curiosity, I notice a subject which might rather enter into the history of religion. It relates to the extraordinary state of our English Bibles, which were for some time suffered to be so corrupted, that no books ever yet swarmed with such innumerable errata. These errata unquestionably were in great part voluntary commissions, interpolated passages, and meanings forged for certain purposes; sometimes to sanction the new creed of some half-hatched sect, and sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a confusion, or an omission, of texts-the whole was left open to the option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain ingenious wine-merchants, contrived to accommodate "the waters of life" to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing Bibles as cheaply and in as contracted a form as they possibly could, for the common people; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having no Bible at all: and, as Fuller, in his "Mixt Contemplations on better Times," alluding to this circumstance, with not one of his lucky quibbles, observes, "The small price of the Bible hath caused the small prizing of the Bible." This extraordinary attempt on the English Bible began even before Charles the First's dethronement, and probably arose from an unusual demand for Bibles, as the sectarian fanaticism was increasing. Printing of English Bibles was an article of open trade; every one printed at the lowest price, and as fast as their presses would allow. Even those who were dignified as "his Majesty's Printers" were among these manufacturers; for we have an account of a scandalous omission by them of the important negative in the seventh commandment! The printers were summoned before the court of High Commission, and this not served to bind them in a fine of three thousand pounds! A prior circumstance, indeed, | had occurred, which induced the government to be more vigilant on the Biblic press. The learned Usher, one day hastening to preach at Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers, as booksellers were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and his horror, he discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible! This gave the first occasion of complaint to the king of the insufferable negligence and incapacity of the London press; and, says the manuscript writer of this anecdote, first bred that great contest which followed, between the University of Cambridge and the London stationers about the right of printing Bibles.* The secret bibliographical history of these times would show the extraordinary state of the press in this new trade of Bibles. The writer of a curious pamphlet exposes the combination of those called the king's printers, with their contrivances to keep up the prices of Bibles; their correspondence with the booksellers of Scotland and Dublin, by which means they retained the privilege in their own hands: the king's London printers got Bibles printed cheaper at Edinburgh. In 1629, when folio Bibles were wanted, the Cambridge printers sold them at ten shillings in quires; on this the Londoners set six printing houses at work, and, to annihilate the Cambridgians, printed a similar folio Bible, but sold with it five hundred quarto Roman Bibles, and five hundred quarto English, at five shillings a book; which proved the ruin of the folio Bibles, by keeping them down under the cost price. Another competition arose among those who printed English Bibles in Holland, in duodecimo, with an English colophon, for half the price even of the lowest in London. Twelve thousand of these duodecimo Bibles, with notes, fabricated in Holland, usually by our fugitive sectarians, were seized by the king's printers, as contrary to the statute.t Such was this shameful war of Bibles-folios, quartos, and duodecimos, even in the days of Charles the First. The public spirit of the rising sect was the real occasion of these increased demands for Bibles. During the civil wars they carried on the same open trade and competition, besides the private ventures of the smuggled Bibles. A large impression of these Dutch English Bibles was burnt by order of the Assembly of Divines, for these three errors:— Gen. xxxvi. 24.-This is that ass that found rulers in the wilderness-for mule. Ruth iv. 13.-The Lord gave her corruption-for conception. Luke xxi. 28.- Look up, and lift up your hands, for your condemnation draweth nigh-for redemption. These errata were none of the printers; but, as a writer of the times expresses it, egregious blasphemies, and damnable errata" of some sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day! The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded to one William Bentley; but he was opposed by Hills and Field; and a paper war arose, in which they mutually recriminated on each other, with equal truth. Field printed in 1653 what was called the PEARL BIBLE; alluding, I suppose, to that diminutive type in printing, for it could not derive its name from its worth. It is a twenty-fours; but to contract the mighty BOOK into this dwarfishness, all the original Hebrew text prefixed to the Psalms, explaining the occasion and the subject of their composition, is wholly expunged. This Peari Bible, which may be inspected among the great collection of our English Bibles at the British Museum, is set off by many notable errata, of which these are noticed : Romans vi. 13.-Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin-for unrighteousness. First Corinthians vi. 9.-Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God ?— for shall not inherit. This erratum served as the foundation of a dangerous doctrine; for many libertines urged the text from this corrupt Bible, against the reproofs of a divine. This Field was a great forger; and it is said that he received a present of £1500 from the Independents to corrupt a text in Acts vi. 3, to sanction the right of the people to appoint their own pastors. The corruption was the easiest possible; it was only to put a ye instead of a we; so that the right in Field's Bible emanated from the people, not from the apostles. The only account I recollect of this extraordinary state of our Bibles is a happy allusion in a line of Butler: Religion spawn'd a various rout In other Bibles by Hills and Field we may find such abundant errata, reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures contemptible to the multitude, who came to pray, and not to scorn. It is affirmed, in the manuscript account already referred to, that one Bible swarmed with six thou |