country was now to be benefited by his learning. He returned to Oxford, and by the persuasion, it is said of Grosteste, (if not earlier) the friend and patron of the order. entered among the Franciscans. He prosecuted his former studies in the retirement of a cell; took a more accurate survey of nature and her laws; methodised the sciences, and particularly the philosophy which he had deeply imbibed; and by the help of languages, especially that of Greece, accumulating observations which the common herd of scholars found it impossible to obtain, opened a way to new inquiries. A mind like his could observe, could investigate, and could invent; but it was not possible to advance without instruments. He is said himself to have constructed instruments; to have engaged the ingenuity of others; and to have expended a large sum in the purchase of books, and the prosecution of experiments. From the titles of his works, it appears, that perspective, astronomy, optics, geometry, the mechanic arts, chemistry, and alchymy, were amongst his favourite pursuits. He delivered lectures upon these and other subjects.

"Leland, in his usual style, wishes for a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths, that he might be able to celebrate the wonderful discoveries of Bacon as they deserved. His contemporaries were less adulatory. Many wondered; but in their stupid admiration they ascribed his inventions to the black art. In his knowledge of the Hebrew and the Greek languages, they saw nothing but a medium of holding a secret intercourse with the devil; and the same suspicion was confirmed by the lines of circles and triangles. Nor were these the sur

mises only of the vulgar: men even of some education, entertained the same; the brethren of his order refused to admit his works into their libraries, and are said to have procured his incarceration.

"In the progress of man towards improvement, there are certain stages, which, if too rapidly passed, appear to retard, rather than to accelerate his advancement. The discoveries of Roger Bacon were productive of little benefit to the thirteenth century. His contemporaries could not appreciate their value; and ascribing them to necromancy, or supernatural agency, they added new strength to former prejudices,and increased the obstinacy of ignorance. On his side, the philosopher despised the boasted learning of the schools, not considering that this very learning, by giving exercise to general talents, was perhaps best adapted to prepare the mind for that degree of light, which was tardily but gradually dawning around it. Speaking of his own times, be says: Never was there such a show of wisdom, such exercises in all branches, and in all kingdoms, as within these forty years. Teachers are every-where dispersed, in cities, in castles, and in villages, taken particularly from the new monastic orders. Yet never was there more ignorance, more error. The common herd of students, poring over their wretched versions (of the works of Aristotle), lose their time, their application, and their money. Yet, if the senseless multitude applaud, they are satisfied.' He elsewhere says of those versions, that, if he had them in his power, they should be committed to the flames, as serving only to perpetuate error and multiply ignorance.

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The opinion of his own talents

and

and acquirements was widely different. In his Opus Majus, addressed to Clement IV. speaking of himself, he says, that, from the time he had learned his alphabet, he had spent forty years in the study of the sciences and languages; but that now, in the half of one year at most, he would undertake to communicate all his knowledge to any diligent man, possessed of a sufficient capacity of retention, under certain easy conditions which he mentions. He doubts not but that within three days, he can put it into the power of such a man to learn the Hebrew tongue, in such a manner as accurately to understand what may be

necessary for the elucidation of the scriptures. He will infuse the Greek language in the same space. of time, so that whatever has been written, concerning theology and philosophy, shall be clearly comprehended; and as to geometry, it shall be fully developed in one week, and arithmetic in a second. What opinion must we form of the extent of the knowledge which could be communicated with this singular rapidity; or ought we to lament, that friar Bacon has not left behind him an art of teaching so inestimably valuable? He died about the year 1284, and was buried in the Franciscan convent at Oxford."

"D

ANTE degli Alighieri was now advancing to the zenith of his literary glory. He was born at Florence in the year 1265; where he studied, as well as in other cities of Italy, collecting from all quarters, and even, it is said, from the universities of Paris and Oxford, whatever was deemed most excellent in philosophy, theology, and the liberal arts. On his return to his own city, he was employed in many honourable offices. The cultivation of the Italian tongue, which was yet rude and inharmoniousbut which the muses were now about to adopt as their own-had deeply engaged his attention. Thus was Dante occupied; when in 1302, in one of those civil commotions, to which the free cities of Italy were, at this time, daily exposed, the párty, which he had espoused, was vanquished by its antagonists, and

he was himself forced into exile. To Florence he never returned; but the cities of Italy continued to afford him an asylum; the regrets of banishment which he felt with the keenest severity, did not suspend his literary ardour. He died at Ravenna in 1321.

"The works of Dante, on various subjects, in prose and verse, some of which were composed in Italian, and others in Latin, may be consi dered as almost absorbed in the re nown of that to which his admiring countrymen have affixed the lofty title of the Divina Commedia. They, indeed, can be the only judges of its merit. At what period of the poet's life, or where it was written, or begun to be written, is uncertain; and the cities of Italy contend as eagerly for the honour of each canto, as those of Greece once did for that of Homer's nativity. The poem, as every scholar knows, con

tains the description of a vision, in which, with Virgil, sometimes, for his guide, the poet is conducted through hell, and purgatory, and paradise, and indulged with the sight and conversation of various persons. It is evident that the sixth book of the Eneas suggested the general outline, and however inferior the modern poet of Italy may be thought to his great prototype, it is with peculiar pleasure we peruse the following lines, which at once shew, that the bard of Mantua, after the long lapse of ages of tasteless ignorance, had found a reader, who could admire and rival his beauties. Art thou Virgil? he asks, on his first presenting himself to his view:

Oh degli altri poeti onore, e lume, Vagliami lungo studio, e'l grande

amore,

Che m'han fatto cercar lo tuo volume. Tu se' lo mio maestro, e'il mio autore: Tu sé solo colui, da cu' io tosi Lo bello stile, che m'ha fatto onore. "The Italians allow, that this work of Dante is not a regular composition; that it abounds with wild and extravagant passages; that his images are often unnatural; that he makes Virgil utter the most absurd remarks; that some whole captos cannot be read with patience; that his verses are frequently unsufferably harsh, and his rhymes void of euphony; and, in one word, that his defects, which no man of common judgment will pretend to justify, are not few nor trifling. But, whatever may be the sum of his imperfections or the number of his faults, they are amply compensated, by the highest beauties:-by an imagination of the richest kind; a style, sublime, pathetic, animated; by delineations the most powerfully impressive; a tone of invective withering, irresistible, and indignant; and

1814.

by passages of the most exquisite tenderness. The story of Count Ugolino and his children, than which the genius of man never produced a more pathetic picture, would alone prove, that the Muses were returned to the soil of Latium. When it is, besides, considered, that the Italian poetry had hitherto been

merely an assemblage of rhymed phrases, on love, or some moral topic, without being animated by a single spark of genius our admiration of Dante must be proportionally increased. Inspired as it were, by him whose volume, he says, he had sought, and whom he calls his master, he rose to the heights of real poesy, spoke of things not within the reach of common minds; poured life into inanimate nature; and all this in a strain of language to which as yet no ear had listened. Among the various attractions which I have enumerated, and to which may be aded the rich colouring with which the poet had the skill to invest all the arts and literature of the age, as they make their appearance in his work, I ought to state that the many living, or at that time well-known characters, whom he brought forward, and whose good and bad deeds he tells without reserve, greatly augmented the interest of his work, and rendered it a feast for the censorious or malevolent.

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"Scarcely had this poem seen the light, when the public mind was seized as if by a charm. Copies were multiplied, and comments written, within the course of a few years. Even chairs, with honourable stipends, were founded in Florence, Bologna, Pisa, Venice, and Piacenza; whence able profes sors delivered lectures on the diving commedia, to an admiring audience. They did not always display its

The taste for poetry and elegant composition-for which the public mind had been prepared by the writings of Dante-ascended to a pitch of enthusiastic admiration, when the works of Petrarca appeared. Their style, and particularly that of his Latin compositions, was far removed from classical perfection; but men judged by comparison; and compared with the low standard of his predecessors, the hermit of Vaucluse seemed to them something more than mortal. He was complimented by the Mæcenas of the age, Robert, king of Naples; and, by a singular coincidence, received letters on the same day, from the Roman senate, and the university of Paris, in which he was earnestly solicited to honour their cities with his presence, that they might present him with the crown of laurel, which his literary labours had so justly merited. This ceremony had been formerly practised in Greece, and afterwards in the Capitoline games at Rome; but as the literary spirit became torpid, it fell into disuse. The poet embraced the invitation with rapturous promptitude; and though he might appear for a short time to hesitate, it was plain, what his choice would be. He had looked with ardent solicitude to the revival of Roman greatness; withwhich, as a first step, he might perhaps connect his coronation in the Capitol! He resolved to repair to Rome: but that the distinguished honour might seem a well-earned tribute tó merit, he first visited the Neapolitan monarch; conversed with him on subjects of literature; inspired him with a higher ardour in their pursuit; and, in his presence and in that of his court, submitted, during three days, to a public examination. From Naples he proceeded to Rome;

where he was crowned on Easter day, in the year 1341, with those ceremonious solemnities which his historians have minutely detailed.

"This ceremony was not entirely without its effects upon the interests of literature. By contributing to excite a vivid recollection of former days, it led the mind to inquire the persons who had thus been 'previously honoured; when they found that the honour had been conferred not only on victorious commanders of armies, but on those who, in the retired walks of life, had acquired renown by intellectual exertion. It seemed to indicate that the spirit of those times was returning; that the gates of the Roman Capitol were thrown open to a private votary of the Muses; and that the crown of Petrarca, with all its attendant applause, might be the reward of every citizen who should successfully emulate his literary fame.

"After quitting Rome, the poet spent some months at Parma, the lords of which city were his particular admirers: when he once more returned to the banks of the Rhone. In 1343, we again find him at Naples, and subsequently at Parma, and in other cities of Italy, where he contributed by his conversation and his writings, to disperse the seeds of science, and to promote their vigorous cultivation. When he revisited France, it was the end of the year 1345. Clement VI. at this time filled the papal chair, who himself was among the admirers of the poet. The year 1347 was remarkable for the wild attempt of Rienzo to restore liberty to Rome. Petrarca contemplated this rash enterprize as the deed of a hero, from which he augured the return of an auspicious and splendid æra: but a very different event soon blasted these florid