the different impreffions which had been made upon the audience by the last acts of his piece, that he rose up in his bed, and began to prepare a new tragedy (called Agathocles) for the ftage. All this was no more than a prelude to the moft extraordinary theatrical feftival, that perhaps ever was, or will be invented, and which exhibited a moft fingular mixture of the great and the little-the affecting and the ridiculous, the elegant and the difgufting, that can be well conceived.-This feftival was the coronation of the poet; the circumftances of which have been amply enumerated in almoft all the European news-papers, and which drew many tears, and much laughter, from a prodigious multitude of spectators.-It was, upon the whole, a fplendid mountebank-bufinefs; beneath the dignity of a man of genius, especially when we confider it as performed in his prefence. Had it been exhibited after the death of the poet, in honour of his memory, as one of the principal ornaments of the French Parnaffus, this circumftance would have covered it from the reproach of abfurdity and bad tafte. Several ridiculous fcenes were mingled with these testimonies of applaufe:-a mountebank fold noftrums to the populace, which he put off in the name of the idol of the day:--the Abbe Beauregard preached againft him at Verfailles, with the fpirit and virulence of an inquifitor:-he was received a member of the fociety of Free-Mafons-vifited the ladics, was present at the meetings of the French academy, and undertook a large part (even the whole letter A.) in the revifion of the Dictionary of the French Language, published by that fociety. All these objects of ftudy, ambition, and pleafure, extinguished the feeble remains of life in this fingular man. He loft his fleep, contracted a ftrangury, took too large a portion of a foporific dofe, that had been fent him by the Marechal de Richlieu, fell into a fleep, which lafted thirty-fix hours, awaked, called the Marechal, his brother Cain, wrote a few lines to M. de Lally, to testify his pleasure at the justice done to the memory of his father, and (while he was faying to the Curate of St. Sulpice, who was affailing him with religious questions and remonstrances, Mr. Curate! pray let me die in peace) he expired.—The clergy, in a fcandalous manner, refufed him burial. By the means, however, of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot, he was interred, by a stratagem, in the Abbey of Scellieres in Chame pagne. The French academy afked leave to perform a funeral fervice, for the repofe of his foul: but their request was rendered fruitless by the clergy, who thought themfelves difpenfed from contributing to the repofe of a man, after his death, who had been always difturbing their tranquillity during his life, How glorious their revenge! ART. AR T. VIII. Storia della Letteratura Italiana, &c.-i. e. An History of Italian Literature. By JEROME TIRABOSCHI, Librarian to the Duke of Modena, and Profeffor in the University of that City. Vol. VII. containing the Period that begins with the Year 1500, and ends with 1600. Part I. 4to. Modena. 1777. IN N this first part of the feventh volume, the Author fets out with an interesting account of the ftate of Italy in the fixteenth century. It is very remarkable, that it was amidst the tumults and defolations of war, occafioned by the ambition of those monarchs who difputed fome of the richeft provinces of Italy, that literature rofe to the highest pitch of improvement and luftre in that country. This fact is illuftrated in the first chapter of the first book. In the second, we have an account of the liberality and munificence of the Italian princes, and Roman pontiffs, in the encouragement of letters. Our Author paffes flightly over the pontificate of Julius I. who was only a warrior, but dwells with pleasure on the aufpicious adminiftration of Leo X. the reftorer of letters, the Auguftus of modern Italy, whom a crown would have become better than a mitre, and whofe memory will be dear to the lovers of the arts and sciences, in all ages. The merits of the fucceeding pontiffs are here appreciated with a decent freedom, and with a liberal fpirit. Among the fovereign princes, who are mentioned as the protectors of learning, the houses of Medicis and Est shine forth with a furpaffing luftre. The Gonzagues, the Dukes of Urbino, and fome of the Dukes of Savoy, make alfo an honourable appearance in this lift. In the third chapter, the Author treats of the universities and public fchools, erected at Bologna, Padua, Pavia, Turin, Rome, Macerata, Fermo, &c. in the fixteenth century, and of the wife regulations made by the council of Trent for the advancement of learning; that, more efpecially, by which the bishops were obliged to found in their diocefes, feminaries for the inftruction of young ecclefiaftics. The three following chapters contain an account of the academies, libraries, and collections of antiquities, which contributed to the improvement of literature and fcience during this period; as alfo, of the travellers, whofe difcoveries have tranfmitted their names with honour to pofterity. This first part contains also two chapters of the fecond book; the firft, relative to theology and ecclefiaftical sciences; the fecond, to philofophy and mathematics. In this latter, Mr, Tirabofchi takes notice of the advantages which philofophy derived from the progrefs of literature; and felates feveral particularities of Pomponazzi, the famous Peripatetician of Mantua, Mantua, that were unknown to the authors who, before him, gave accounts of the life and writings of that philofopher. The writers alfo in architecture, mufic, morals, and politics, are mentioned in this chapter. A new edition, in octavo, of this inftructive work, is publishing at Florence, of which twelve volumes, which comprehend the first five of the quarto edition, have already appeared. ART. IX. Memoires de Litterature tirés des Regiftres de l'Academie Royale des Inferiptions et Belles Lettres, &c.-i. e. Memoirs of Literature, taken from the Regifters of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Letters, from 1770 to 1772, inclufive. 4to. Vol. XXXIX. Paris. 1777. First Memoir concerning the Moral Part of the History of Herodotus. By M. DE ROCHEFORT. יז Second Memoir, Herodotus compared with Homer. By the fame. N the first of these memoirs, M. DE ROCHEFORT endeavours to fhew, that Herodotus was led to imitate, Homer, not only by his natural tafte, and the peculiar caft of his genius, but also by the circumstances of the time in which he wrote, and by the tafte and spirit of the nation to which he belonged. To render this palpable, he makes fome previous reflexions on the nature of hiftorical compofition in the time of Herodotus,-on the great esteem in which the writings of Homer were then held, on the political fituation of Greece, and the ftate of poetry and philofophy at that period,-as alfo on the purposes to which they were made fubfervient. Poetry, fays our Academician, was, for a long time, the only inftrument employed to keep on record the most interefting events, and maxims, of a religious and political nature. The Greeks had no other hiftorians than the poets; but the poets, perceiving the paffion of this people for the marvellous, availed themselves of this weakness, and impofed fable and fiction upon their credulity. This abule, grown exceffive, produced a reformation; but, while they avoided one extreme, they fell into another. Hiftory, deprived of the charms of poetry, became dry and infipid, and was nothing more than a fuccinct chronicle of fuch events as were deemed of the greatest importance. This tranfition, however, from hiftorical poetry to unadorned and compendious narration, was neither fo fudden nor rapid, as to exhibit no intermediate fteps and gradations. Cadmus, Pherecydes, and others, retrenched the rithmus in their hiftories, but ftill animated their narration with poetical expreffion. Herodotus, Ctefias, and Hellanicus, were looked upon as the most fabulous among the historians; from whence our Author concludes, that hiftory, in their time, was ftill, more or lefs, blended with poetry, and differed confiderably from what it was afterwards, when Thucydides changed its form, and juftified this change, by cenfuring thofe who went before him. In this cenfure, Herodotus, though not named, is supposed to have been principally comprehended. This revolution in hiftory-writing is employed by M. di ROCHEFORT to unfold the views that guided Herodotus in the compofition of his hiftory, more especially to fhew, that he was lefs defirous of exhibiting to the curiofity of the Greeks, 2 feries of events contained in a certain period of time, than of felecting fuch facts as were interesting and inftructive, subfervient to the advancement of religion, morality, and political wisdom, in which the great and effential interests of mankind are involved. Now thefe important objects have an eminent place in the writings of Homer, and hence arife the points of comparison between the hiftorian and the poet, which our Author illuftrates, in a long and circumftantial detail, in thefe two memoirs, in which there is much inftruction and good criticifm, but, at the fame time, a great redundancy of erudition.Many pages less than fifty-three might have contained the ne ceffary illuftrations of this fubject. The First Memoir concerning Ariftotle's Poetics. By the Abbé BATTEUX. The learned Academician here propofes to examine, whether Ariftotle gives us a true notion of tragedy, when he maintains, that its catastrophe fhould always be unhappy, even to the virtuous (which feems contrary to the interefts and demands of morality), and whether fome moderns, who have undertaken to modify this decifion, or to overturn it entirely, by infifting that felicity fhould be annexed to virtue, have not violated, if not perverted the effential character of tragedy. To difcufs this point, our Academician divides his memoir into two articles; of which the first contains the theory of Ariftotle, with refpect to the nature and end of tragedy, and the fecond, that of fome modern writers on this fubject. In treating the first article, the Abbé examines and explains Ariftotle's celebrated definition of tragedy. Some parts of this definition have excited keen difputes among the learned, more efpecially that in which he indicates the end of tragedy. This is, according to him (as interpreted by our Abbé), to excite terror and pity by the exhibition of a fictitious catastrophe, adapted to this purpofe, and to make us feel thefe paffions, difengaged from the circumftances that render them painful. Our Author proves this to be the doctrine of the Stagyrite, by a variety of learned and ingenious obfervations. The Grecian fage had obferved, that men love to be moved, and that the emotions of joy from fictitious objects, are not only lefs lively than those that are excited by real ones, but alfo when the fcene is finished, produce produce a fpecies of dejection in the mind. From hence he concluded, that emotions of diftrefs, pity, and terror, were preferable in tragedy, as they are lets painful than those that are excited by reality,-nay, give pleasure to the mind, by producing, in it, emotion without anguifh, fear without danger, and compaffion without the existence of miferable objects. Thus the paffions of fear and compaffion affect the mind, without tor menting it, and are difengaged, or (as Ariftotle expreffes it) purged from the poignancy and dejection that accompany them in real life: καθάρσιν φοβε και ἔλες. Several moderns, as our Academician obferves, in his fecond article, have not only departed from this theory, but condemned it. They look upon it as the theory of the Grecian theatre, from whence, fay they, Ariftotle drew it, and not as the true theory of the tragic art. They alfo plead the great fuccefs of tragedies formed upon an oppofite plan, whofe catastrophes convey moral inftruction, by the punishment of vice, and the triumphs of virtue.-Our Academician replies, that the Oedipus of Sophocles, the Polieuête of Corneille, the Phaedra of Racine, and the Zara of Voltaire, which are univerfally acknowledged to be among the most perfect productions of the tragic mufe, are all compofed upon the plan of Ariftotle,-andthat the tragedies which have been applauded, though compofed on a different plan, are not indebted for this applause to their deviation from the rule of that great critic, but to the beauty of their moral portraits, fublimity of thought and expreffion, and a variety of other kinds of merit, of which tragical com-. pofition is fufceptible, and which our Academician enumerates. in an ample and interefting detail. A Second Memoir on Tragedy, containing an Anfwer to fome Objections made by M. De Rochefort to the preceding Memoir. By the Abbé BATTEUX. The objections which our Abbé here answers with fagacity. and candour, are contained in the seventh memoir of this volume, in which M. DE ROCHEFORT treats of the principal object of tragedy among the Greeks. The answers of the ingenious Abbé drew a fecond memoir from M. DE ROCHEFORT, which is the eighth in the volume before us. We must refer our Readers to the work itself, for a juft view of this elegant controversy, which is carried on by the two learned Academicians, in a manner that does honour to their tafte and fentiments, and will afford fatisfaction to the connoiffeurs in polite literature. A Third Memoir, on the Nature and End of Comedy. By the Abbé BATTEUX. In his critical and philofophical walk through the wide field of poetry, our Academician follows Ariftotle alone. The latter, indeed, fpeaks little of comedy in his poetics: but from that |