by the clergy, and, in fact, can hardly be said to have then existed. These were gradually forming out of a slow and forced amalgamation between the original Celtic of the west of Europe, the Latin of the Roman conquerors, and the various Teutonic tongues of the last invaders; all dialects of kindred origin, and fitted of course to coalesce in the end,as they have done,-into compact, and tolerably homogeneous tongues; but at that time wholly distinct, and mutually unintelligible. They were not then used for the ordinary despatch of important business. The laws were published, and the religious ceremonies conducted in Latin. The very few attempts at literary composition, made at this time, were mostly in the same language, which also continued for several centuries to be the most usual instrument of communication, verbal and written, among the learned. Hence arose very naturally, and even necessarily, the practice of making this language the basis of literary and professional education; which has been kept up by habit, like many other practices, long after the state of things that rendered it necessary ceased, and is often defended on account of some fantastic and imaginary advantages, which are supposed to result from it, but which had no connexion with its first introduction.

The earliest appearance of any thing like a regular modern language and literature, was exhibited in the south of France, and the neighboring parts of Spain and Italy, about the time of the crusades. The Provençal dialect promised at one time to obtain the ascendency through the whole south of Europe. It was cultivated with enthusiasm for two or three centuries, and produced many poets of high reputation in their day, and probably not inferior in genius to their modern successors. During the flourishing period of this school, polite literature was, in fact, a sort of passion among the higher orders of society, and was more in honor with them than it has perhaps ever been under any other circumstances. Noblemen, ladies of the first rank, kings and sovereign princes made it a matter of pride to profess and practise what they called the gay science; and carrying into their amusements the forms and terms to which they were accustomed in their more serious occupations, they instituted their courts of love,-enacted their codes of laws for the better regulation of courtship and matrimony,-and conducted the trials of the heart, like those of the person and property, by judicial process, before a jury impannelled and

sworn in proper form. The lion-hearted Richard, King of England, was distinguished in his day as a minstrel. René, titular King of Jerusalem, and father of Margaret of Anjou, the celebrated wife of Henry the Sixth, was illustrious for his patronage of poetry, and for the care with which he superintended the proceedings of these tribunals of the tender passion. He appears to have been the Justinian of this strange code. The Floral games, which were instituted about this time at Toulouse, by Clemence d'Isaure, and have been held there ever since, formed a regular annual festival, somewhat analogous to the periodical religious celebrations of ancient Greece. similar institution existed at Tolosa in Spain. Catalonia produced, even as lately as the thirteenth century, many Provençal bards of high celebrity, and this school of language and literature had even sent off colonies into the south of the Peninsula. There was therefore at that time reason to expect, that it would continue to be cultivated, until its productions should assume a finished and classical form.

A

This result, however, did not happen, although it is now somewhat difficult to assign the precise reason which prevented it. It is true, that the singular fooleries, to which we have alluded, and which form so prominent a feature in the literary pursuits of that day, argue but slightly in favor of the general intelligence of the period. The understanding of Europe seems to have been, as it were, in a childish state. But as all the great and wealthy encouraged literature with extraordinary zeal, it might naturally have been anticipated, that it would in time have ripened into something truly rich and valuable. Political circumstances probably turned the scale against the masters of the joyous knowledge. The northern provinces of Gaul gradually acquired the ascendency over those of the south, or Langue d'oc, and brought in with them their own Langue d'oui, which was afterwards matured into the modern French language.* Castile and Leon absorbed the kingdom of Aragon, and established their own magnificent dialect on the ruins of the Catalonian, while the more rapid progress of civilization in Italy led to the formation and early cultivation of a purer tongue, which prevented the Troubadours from pushing their conquests in that direc

*Oc and Oui were the forms of affirmation, corresponding with yes, respectively used in the southern and northern provinces of France. They seem at one time to have been employed as distinctive names for the dialects of those provinces, and even, in the case of Languedoc, for the country itself.

VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 82.

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tion. Thus their territory was gradually encroached upon in one way or another, on all sides, until it was finally reduced to nothing. The Provençal dialect went out of use before it had attained a pure and settled shape, and before it had served as a vehicle of thought and passion to any one of those leading minds, which stamp durability upon the language they employ. The light-hearted race of Troubadours became extinct, without producing a single powerful writer, and of all the lays that once resounded so merrily through the sunny fields that are watered by the Rhone, the Garonne and the Ebro, and were echoed by the Alps and the Pyrenees, nothing now remains but the name. The courts of love were closed. So

ciety assumed a more sober and business-like aspect, and men began to look with something like contempt on the songs and sports, which had given them before so much pleasure. Not long after came on the Reformation, and brought in its train a century and a half of mysterious metaphysics, and uninterrupted war. Science was now any thing but gay; and this unhappy generation, which seems to have been driven on by a sort of demoniacal frenzy to pour out torrents of tears and ink and blood, in quarrels about points which they did not even pretend to understand, notwithstanding their imagined superiority, must have looked, we should think, with some regret and envy upon the happier lot of their simple and joyous forefathers. In the mean time, the Provençal literature became entirely extinct, and is now only known as a branch of antiquarian study. Thus ended the first attempt at the formation of a cultivated language in modern Europe.

II. The next was made in Italy, with a success not less signal, than the failure of the former. The beautiful, or as Dante calls it, the illustrious vernacular dialect, which replaced the stern and simple majesty of the Latin, had been silently maturing, and, as early as the thirteenth century, while the Provençal poets were still lisping their childish and ephemeral lays, was seized upon and fixed by three manly minds, which appeared about the same time in the north of Italy. It is hardly necessary to add the names of Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio; who may well be considered, especially the two former, as the great fathers of all modern literature. Petrarch and Dante were doubtless two of the loftiest and finest spirits, that ever descended upon this our visible diurnal sphere. They divided between them the empire of poetry; the disposition of Petrarch being particularly sensible to kind emo

tions, and the beautiful forms which naturally correspond with them, while Dante dwells, in preference, in the regions of sublimity, and loves to experience and excite the deeper feelings of fear and wonder.

The respective events of their lives may have had some effect in determining the tone that prevails in their writings. Petrarch, uniting with the highest intellectual endowments almost every accidental advantage, was an object of general respect and esteem, throughout the civilized world of his time. His undoubted mental superiority elevated him to a familiar intercourse with the highest social circles, and made him the associate of the nobles and sovereigns of the day; while the gracefulness and beauty of his person, and the elegance of his manners, rendered him a universal favorite in all the companies where his talents introduced him. He was doomed, it is true, to suffer the pangs of an unrequited passion,-if indeed his Laura were a real personage, which seems to be still doubtful,—and sorrows of this description are certainly entitled to their full share of compassion. But when we read the sweet though melancholy strains, with which he was accustomed to complain of the cruelty of his mistress, in the cool shades of his favorite retreat at Vaucluse, and see him coming out of these delightful gardens, to appear at Rome, and receive a laurel crown from the enthusiastic admiration of his countrymen, it is difficult to suppose that the trials of the heart, to which he was subjected, very much diminished his actual enjoyment of life. Dante, on the other hand,--naturally, perhaps, a darker spirit,-fell on evil times. His native city was distracted with parties, contending in bloody struggles to determine which of two foreign interests should obtain the ascendency. The private happiness of this great poet was sacrificed to these contentions. He was banished from Florence, and lived and died away from home. Thus his great work was matured in exile and misfortune. Hence it naturally assumed a severe and gloomy character. The vision of Beauty, which filled his soul, and which he has personified under the name of Beatrice, instead of inspiring him, like the Laura of his famous contemporary, with passionate emotions,-finds him in a thick and shady forest, and conducts him to the infernal regions, where he meets the greater part of his political enemies, condemned to various forms of eternal punishment. Having thus derived a sort of stern satisfaction from taking this poetical revenge upon the opposite party,—he pursues his imaginary course into the

happier abodes of the other world, and consoles himself, in his present wretchedness, by dwelling in fancy on the joys of Paradise. In the midst of his distress, he appears, however, to derive a secret compensation from the consciousness of the beautiful language, in which he is able to express it. It was from Virgil,' he observes, ' that I learned the fine style that does me so much honor.' His sublimity relaxes at times into tenderness, but even love with him is mixed up with images of pain and horror, and we recoil from the vision of Francesca da Rimini, with almost as strong an instinct, as from the tower of Ugolino. Petrarch, on the other hand, never deviates into painful reflections, nor clouds his pictures with any other shades, than the delicate and tender distresses of his hopeless affection. And love, with him, is of so pure and etherial a cast, so wholly clear of all mixture of sensual and corrupt ideas, that it rises almost into moral sublimity, and seems like a sweet and gentle breathing of the spirit of harmony, that informs and moves the universe. The third member of this illustrious trio,-who can hardly, however, be placed upon a level with the others,-possessed a genius more akin to the gay and sportive humor of the Provença! poetry. The Tales in the Decameron, upon which his reputation is founded, are mostly of a comic cast; and the motives to mirth are not in every case as pure as the language in which they are described.

The Italian language has never departed from the standard fixed by these great authorities. Whenever any tendency to vary from its rules has been exhibited, there has always been found, soon after, some powerful genius, who has returned, by the native effort of kindred taste and talent, to these original wells of undefiled learning, and recommended them again to his countrymen. Thus we have seen, within our day, the great dramatic poet Alfieri, passing over the whole intermediate train of his predecessors in the art, and forming his style on the antique model of Dante. The perfect success of the attempt, and the great popularity of his tragedies among his countrymen, are strong proofs that the national taste in Italy is still uncorrupted, and as pure as ever. It is, in fact, a remarkable thing, that in Italy, poetry, instead of declining very rapidly, as it did in Greece and Rome, and has done in some parts of modern Europe, almost immediately after it reached the point of classical perfection,-has been maintained for five or six centuries, and up to the present day, at the same