Velitre, and including that which played upon a gate at Florence, and foretold the pontificate of one of its citizens. 25.-Stanza xliii., line 9. Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. The two stanzas XLII, and XLIII. are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja :—“ İtalia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte!" 26.-Stanza xliv, line 1. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. "On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Egina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: Agina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."-See Middleton's Cicero, vol. ii., p. 371. 27-Stanza xlvi, line 8. The skeleton of her Titanic form, It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi." 28. Stanza xlvii., line 2. Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; ["Whereof all Europe rings from side to side." (MILTON. Sonnet xxii.)] 29.-Stanza xlix., line 1. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the lines in the "Seasons;" and the comparison of the object with the description proves, I. P. Valeriani de fulminum significationibus declamatio, ap. Græv. Antiq. Rom., tom. v., p. 593. The declamation is addressed to Julian of Medicis. not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. The same conclusion may be deduced from another hint in the same episode of Musidora; for Thomson's notion of the privileges of favoured love must have been either very primitive, or rather deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her discreet Damon that in some happier moment he might perhaps be the companion of her bath: "The time may come you need not fly." The reader will recollect the anecdote told in the Life of Dr. Johnson We will not leave the Florentine gallery without a word on the Whetter. It seems strange that the character of that disputed statue should not be entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who has seen a sarcophagus in the vestibule of the Basilica of St. Paul without the walls, at Rome, where the whole group of the fable of Marsyas is seen in tolerable preservation; and the Scythian slave whetting the knife, is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated masterpiece. The slave is not naked; but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Cæsar. Winkelmann, illustrating a bas-relief of the same subject, follows the opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his authority might have been thought conclusive, even if the resemblance did not strike the most careless observer.* Amongst the bronzes of the same princely collection, is still to be seen the inscribed tablet copied and commented upon by Mr. Gibbon. Our historian found some difficulties, but did not desist from his illustration. He might be vexed to hear that his criticism has been thrown away on an inscription now generally recognised to be a forgery. 30.-Stanza 1., line 2. Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart [In 1817, Lord Byron visited Florence, on his way to Rome. "I remained," he says, "but a day: however, I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The Venus is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which, for the first time, at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant about those two most artificial of the arts."] 31. Stanza li., line 7. Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are "Atque oculos pascat uterque suos."-OVID. Amor. lib. ii. See Monim. Ant. Ined, par. i., cap. xvii., n. xlii., p. 50; and Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. xi., cap. i., tom. ii., p. 314, not. B. ↑ Nomina gentesque Antique Italiæ, p. 204, edit. oct. INNA S 10 TO and the new, which marra of genius, ini We use her meture rist is PENELIT retretin as held the pencil: Rs 1.T TO Papeeted frontemporary. Cars vil is mbarie, e tar em Car RCTLY The sailantry, the om Wer. umbe one of issctated fame, which hinted the wire st ensure. Aust rase 2 stat-The lead have no sex: they can surprise * 20 *raries Ler an onier 1 Telege: Corinna has ceaseri DYI Man-pesan her at nav be oreseen that many wii VOAY Iriseires JT NIMET Tmnisance, a severity to which de Inace ( Teens TUES nav Jerhaps give the colour of th Alest Ysterior o de atest posterity they will as mrody seseeni-ll save 3 TOBIE on her artus auctions; the che sta hach which they are seen, the more accumately minute will be the set the more certain the justice, of the decíarn. the will enter inte hat existenes n which he great writers of ul ugg and nations um is it were, associated in a world of their own, and, fom that amenor sonere, shed their eternal induence for the conBut the individual will gradually disappear as the anther is more distinctly seen: some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of invantary wit, and of easy hospitality, attracted within the fendly circies of Copper, should rescue from obli-ion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relationships, the performance of whose duties is rather discovered amongst the interior secrets, than seen in the outward management, of family intercourse; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine affection to qualify for the eye of an indifferent spectator. Some one should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an open mansion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those around her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot be forgotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was known the best; and, to the sorrows of very many friends, and more dependants, may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake, received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the incomparable Corinna. 34.-Stanza liv., line 7. Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Italians, without waiting for the hundred years, consider him as "a poet good in law."-His memory is the more dear to them because he is the bard of freedom; and because, as such, his tragedies can receive no countenance from any of their sovereigns. They are but very seldom, and but very few of them, allowed to be acted. It was observed by Cicero, that nowhere were the true opinions and feelings of the Romans so clearly shown as at the theatre. In the autumn of 1816, a celebrated improvisatore exhibited his talents at the Opera-house of Milan. The reading of the theses handed in for the subjects of his poetry was received by a very numerous audience, for the most part in silence, or with laughter; but when the assistant, unfolding one of the papers, exclaimed, The apotheosis of Victor Alfieri, the whole theatre burst into a shout, and the applause was continued for some moments. The lot did not fall on Alfieri; and the Signor Sgricci had to pour forth his extemporary common-places on the bombardment of Algiers. The choice, indeed, is not left to accident * The free expression of their honest sentiments survived their liberties. Titius, the friend of Antony, presented them with games in the theatre of Pompey. They did not suffer the brilliancy of the spectacle to efface from their memory that the man who furnished them with the entertainment had murdered the son of Pompey: they drove him from the theatre with curses. The moral sense of a populace, spontaneously expressed, is never wrong. Even the soldiers of the triumvirs joined in the execration of the citizens, by shouting round the chariots of Lepidus and Plancus, who had proscribed their brothers, De Germanis non de Gallis duo triumphant consules; a saying worth a record, were it nothing but a good pun. [C. Vell. Paterculi Hist., lib. ii., cap. lxxix., p. 78, edit. Elzevir. 1639. Ibid. lib. ii., cap. lxxvii.] BB quite so much as might be thought from a first view of the ceremony; and the police not only takes care to look at the papers beforehand, but, in case of any prudential after-thought, steps in to correct the blindness of chance. The proposal for deifying Alfieri was received with immediate enthusiasm, the rather because it was conjectured there would be no opportunity of carrying it into effect. 35.-Stanza liv, line 9. Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. The affectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscriptions, which so often leaves us uncertain whether the structure before us is an actual depository, or a cenotaph, or a simple memorial not of death but life, has given to the tomb of Machiavelli no information as to the place or time of the birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian. TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM There seems at least no reason why the name should not have been put above the sentence which alludes to it. It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which have passed the name of Machiavelli into an epithet proverbial of iniquity exist no longer at Florence. His memory was persecuted, as his life had been, for an attachment to liberty incompatible with the new system of despotism, which succeeded the fall of the free governments of Italy. He was put to the torture for being a “libertine," that is, for wishing to restore the republic of Florence; and such are the undying efforts of those who are interested in the perversion, not only of the nature of actions, but the meaning of words, that what was once patriotism, has by degrees come to signify debauch. We have ourselves outlived the old meaning of liberality," which is now another word for treason in one country and for infatuation in all. It seems to have been a strange mistake to accuse the author of "The Prince," as being a pander to tyranny; and to think that the Inquisition would condemn his work for such a delinquency. The fact is, that Machiavelli, as is usual with those against whom no crime can be proved, was suspected of and charged with atheism; and the first and last most violent opposers of "The Prince were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded the Inquisition "benchè fosse tardo," to prohibit the treatise, and the other qualified the secretary of the Florentine republic as no better than a fool. The father Possevin was proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucchesini not to have understood it. It is clear, however, that such critics must have objected not to the slavery of the doctrines, but to the supposed tendency of a lesson which shows how distinct are the interests of a monarch from the happiness of mankind. The Jesuits are re-established in Italy, and the last chapter of "The Prince" may again call forth a particular refutation from those who are employed once more in moulding the minds of the rising generation, so as to receive the impressions of despotism. The chapter bears for title, "Esortazione a liberare la Italia dai Barbari," and concludes with a iibertine excitement to the future redemption of Italy. "Non si deve adunque lasciar passare questa occasione, acciocchè la Italia vegga dopo tanto tempo apparire un su |