a slave-market, to see one child torn from them I constructed theories as rapidly and as slightly to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to as card-houses-no sooner projected than comguard the harems of Persepolis; those were pleted-no sooner completed than blown away the frequent and probable consequences of na--no sooner blown away than forgotten. Mational calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, chiavelli errs only because his experience, acpatriotism became a governing principle, or quired in a very peculiar state of society, could rather an ungovernable passion. Both their not always enable him to calculate the effect legislators and their philosophers took it for of institutions differing from those of which he granted that, in providing for the strength and had observed the operation. Montesquieu errs greatness of the state, they sufficiently provid- because he has a fine thing to say and is reed for the happiness of the people. The writ- solved to say it. If the phenomena which lie ers of the Roman empire lived under despots before him will not suit his purpose, all history into whose dominion a hundred nations were must be ransacked. If nothing established by melted down, and whose gardens would have authentic testimony can be raked or chipped covered the little commonwealths of Phlius to suit his Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up and Platea. Yet they continued to employ the with some monstrous fable about Siam, or same language, and to cant about the duty of Bantam, or Japan, told by writers compared sacrificing every thing to a country to which with whom Lucian and Gulliver were verathey owed nothing. cious-liars by a double right, as travellers and as Jesuits.

of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, however, treated with a freedom and impartiality equally honourable to the writer and to the patron. The mise

which is more bitter than every other food, the stairs which are more painful than every other assent, had not broken the spirit of Machiavelli. The most corrupting post in a corrupt. ing profession had not depraved the generous heart of Clement.

his nation is exchanged for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous times and abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for theries and humiliations of dependence, the bread strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus and the sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to the days, when eight hundred thousand Italian warriors sprung to arms at the rumour of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty patricians, who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Canna. Like an ancient temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an interest from the very circumstances which debase it. The original proportions are rendered more striking, by the contrast which they present to the mean and incongruous additions.

The influence of the sentiments which we have described was not apparent in his writings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the career which it would have selected for itself, seems to have found a vent in desperate levity. He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging the opinions of a society which he despised. He became careless of those decencies which were expected from a man so highly distinguished in the literary and political world. The sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more inclined to accuse his licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and who were unable to conceive the strength of those emotions which are concealed by the jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the wise.

The history does not appear to be the fruit of much industry or research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, and picturesque, beyond any other in the Italian language. The reader, we believe, carries away from it a more vivid and a more faithful impression of the national character and manners, than from more correct accounts. The truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient than to modern literature. It is in the style, not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus; and the classical histories may almost be called romances founded in fact. The relation is, no doubt, in all its principal points, strictly true. But the numerous little incidents which heighten the interest, the words, the gestures, the looks, are evidently furnish- ' ed by the imagination of the author. The fashion of later times is different. A more exact narrative is given by the writer. It may be doubted whether more exact notions are conveyed to the reader. The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware, that the best historics are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de Medici. Machiavelli had, it seems, intended to continue it to a later period. But his death prevented the execution of his design; and the melancholy task of recording the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on Guicciardini.

The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be considered. The life of Castruccio Castracani will occupy us for a very short time, and would scarcely have demanded our notice, had it not attracted a much greater share of public attention than it deserves. Few books, indeed, could be more interesting than Machiavelli lived long enough to see the coma careful and judicious account, from such a mencement of the last struggle for Florentine! pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most liberty. Soon after his death, monarchy was eminent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisis- finally established-not such a monarchy as tratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather that of which Cosmo had laid the foundations than seen, and resting, not on law or on pre- deep in the constitution and feelings of his scription, but on the public favour and on their countrymen, and which Lorenzo had embelgreat personal qualities. Such a work would lished with the trophies of every science and exhibit to us the real nature of that species of every art; but a loathsome tyranny, proud sovereignty, so singular and so often misunder- and mean, cruel and feeble, bigoted and lascistood, which the Greeks denominated tyranny, vious. The character of Machiavelli was hateand which modified in some degree by the feu-ful to the new masters of Italy; and those parts dal system, re-appeared in the commonwealths of Lombardy and Tuscany. But this little composition of Machiavelli is in no sense a history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is a trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more authentic than the novel of Belphegor, and is very much duller.

The last great work of this illustrious man was the history of his native city. It was written by the command of the Pope, who, as chief of the house of Medici, was at that time sovereign of Florence. The characters of Cosmo,

of his theory, which were in strict accordance with their own daily practice, afforded a pretext for blackening his memory. His works were misrepresented by the learned, misconstrued by the ignorant, censured by the church, abused, with all the rancour of simulated virtue, by the minions of a base despotism, and the priests of a baser superstition. The name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the dark places of policy, and to

*Dante Paradiso, Canto xvii.

DRYDEN.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1828.]

should have protected, a priesthood just reli- It is true that the man who is best able to gious enough to be intolerant, he might possi- take a machine to pieces, and who most clearbly, like every man of genius in France, have ly comprehends the manner in which all its imbibed extravagant prejudices against mo- wheels and springs conduce to its general efnarchy and Christianity. The wit which fect, will be the man most competent to form blasted the sophisms of Escobar, the impas- another machine of similar power. In all the sioned eloquence which defended the sisters branches of physical and moral science which of Port Royal, the intellectual hardihood which admit of perfect analysis, he who can resolve was not beaten down even by Papal autho- will be able to combine. But the analysis rity, might have raised him to the Patriarchate which criticism can effect of poetry is necesof the Philosophical Church. It was long dis- sarily imperfect. One element must forever puted whether the honour of inventing the elude its researches; and that is the very elemethod of Fluxions belonged to Newton or to ment by which poetry is poetry. In the deLeibnitz. It is now generally allowed that scription of nature, for example, a judicious these great men made the same discovery at reader will easily detect an incongruous imthe same time. Mathematical science, indeed, age. But he will find it impossible to explain had then reached such a point, that if neither in what consists the art of a writer who, in a of them had ever existed, the principle must few words, brings some spot before him so inevitably have occurred to some person within vividly that he shall know it as if he had lived a few years. So in our own time the doctrine there from childhood; while another, employof rent now universally received by political ing the same materials, the same verdure, the economists, was propounded almost at the same water, and the same flowers, committing same moment, by two writers unconnected no inaccuracy, introducing nothing which can with each other. Preceding speculators had be positively pronounced superfluous, omitting long been blundering round about it; and it nothing which can be positively pronounced could not possibly have been missed much necessary, shall produce no more effect than longer by the most heedless inquirer. We an advertisement of a capital residence and a are inclined to think that, with respect to every desirable pleasure-ground. To take another great addition which has been made to the example, the great features of the character of stock of human knowledge, the case has been Hotspur are obvious to the most superficial similar; that without Copernicus we should reader. We at once perceive that his courage have been Copernicans, that without Colum- is splendid, his thirst of glory intense, his anibus America would have been discovered, Inal spirits high, his temper careless, arbitrary, that without Locke we should have possessed and petulant; that he indulges his own humour a just theory of the origin of human ideas. without caring whose feelings he may wound, Society indeed has its great men and its or whose enmity he may provoke, by his levilittle men, as the earth has its mountains ty. Thus far criticism will go. But someand its valleys. But the inequalities of in- thing is stil! wanting. A man might have all tellect, like the inequalities of the surface those qualities, and every other quality which of our globe, bear so small a proportion to the most minute examiner can introduce into the mass, that, in calculating its great revo- his catalogue of the virtues and faults of HotJutions, they may safely be neglected. The spur, and yet he would not be Hotspur. Alsun illuminates the hills, while it is still below most every thing that we have said of him apthe horizon; and truth is discovered by the plies equally to Falconbridge. Yet in the highest minds a little before it becomes mani- mouth of Falconbridge, most of his speeches fest to the multitude. This is the extent of would seem out of place. In real life, this pertheir superiority. They are the first to catch petually occurs. We are sensible of wide difand reflect a light, which, without their assist-ferences between men whom, if we are required ance, must, in a short time, be visible to those who lie far beneath them.

to describe them, we should describe in almost the same terms. If we were attempting to draw The same remark will apply equally to the elaborate characters of them, we should scarcefine arts. The laws on which depend the pro-ly be able to point out any strong distinction; yet gress and decline of poetry, painting, and sculpture, operate with little less certainty than those which regulate the periodical returns of heat and cold, of fertility and barrenness. Those who seem to lead the public taste. are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing. Without a jus apprehension of the laws to which we have alluded, the merits and defects of Dryden can be but imperfectly understood. We will, therefore, state what we conceive

we approach them with feelings altogether dis similar. We cannot conceive of them as using the expressions or gestures of each other. Let us suppose that a zoologist shoul attempt to give an account of some animal, anorcupine for instance, to people who had neve seen it. The porcupine, he might say, is of the genus mammalia, and the order gliris. The are whiskers on its face; it is two feet long, it has four toes before, five behind, two foreteet, and eight grinders. Its body is covered with hair and quills. And when all this had been The ages in which the masterpieces of ima- said, would any one of the auditors have gination have been produced, have by no formed a just idea of a porcupine? Would means been those in which taste has been any two of them have formed the same idea? most correct. It seems that the creative fa- There might exist innumerable races of aniculty and the critical faculty cannot exist toge-mals, possessing all the characteristics which ther in their highest perfection. The causes have been mentioned, yet altogether unlike to of this phenomenon it is not difficult to assign. each other. What the description of our natu

them to be.

ralist is to a real porcupine, the remarks of | greatest of human calamities, without once vio criticism are to the images of poetry. What lating the reverence due to it; at that discrimi it so imperfectly decomposes, it cannot per- nating delicacy of touch which makes a charac fectly reconstruct. It is evidently as impossi- ter exquisitely ridiculous without impairing its ble to produce an Othello or a Macbeth by re- worth, its grace, or its dignity. In Don Quixote versing an analytical process so defective as are several dissertations on the principles of it would be for an anatomist to form a living poetic and dramatic writing. No passages in man out of the fragments of his dissecting the whole work exhibit stronger marks of labour room. In both cases, the vital principle eludes and attention; and no passages in any work the finest instruments, and vanishes in the with which we are acquainted are more worthvery instant in which its seat is touched. less and puerile. In our time they would scarcely Hence those who, trusting to their critical obtain admittance into the literary department skill, attempt to write poems, give us not im- of the Morning Post. Every reader of the Diages of things, but catalogues of qualities. vine Comedy must be struck by the veneration Their characters are allegories; not good men which Dante expresses for writers far inferior and bad men, but cardinal virtues and deadly to himself. He will not lift up his eyes from sins. We seem to have fallen among the ac- the ground in the presence of Brunetto, all quaintances of our old friend Christian: some- whose works are not worth the worst of his times we meet Mistrust and Timorous: some- own hundred cantos. He does not venture to times Mr. Hate-good and Mr. Love-lust; and walk in the same line with the bombastic Stathen again Prudence, Piety, and Charity. tius. His admiration of Virgil is absolute That critical discernment is not sufficient to idolatry. If indeed it had been excited by the make men poets is generally allowed. Why elegant, splendid and harmonious diction of it should keep them from becoming poets, is the Roman poet, it would not have been altonot perhaps equally evident. But the fact is, gether unreasonable; but it is rather as an authat poetry requires not an examining, but a thority on all points of philosophy, than as a believing frame of mind. Those feel it most, work of imagination, that he values the Æneid. and write it best, who forget that it is a work The most trivial passages he regards as oraof art; to whom its imitations, like the reali-cles of the highest authority, and of the most ties from which they are taken, are subjects recondite meaning. He describes his connot for connoisseurship, but for tears and ductor as the sea of all wisdom, the sun which laughter, resentment and affection, who are too heals every disordered sight. As he judged of much under the influence of the illusion to ad- Virgil, the Italians of the fourteenth century mire the genius which has produced it; who judged of him; they were proud of him; they are too much frightened for Ulysses in the praised him; they struck medals bearing his cave of Polyphemus, to care whether the pun head; they quarrelled for the honour of posabout Outis be good or bad; who forget that sessing his remains; they maintained professuch a person as Shakspeare ever existed, sors to expound his writings. But what they while they weep and curse with Lear. It is admired was not that mighty imagination by giving faith to the creations of the imagina- which called a new world into existence, and tion that a man becomes a poet. It is by treat-made all its sights and sounds familiar to the ing those creations as deceptions, and by re-eye and ear of the mind. They said little of solving them, as nearly as possible, into their those awful and lovely creations on which laelements, that he becomes a critic. In the ter critics delight to dwell-Farinata lifting moment in which the skill of the artist is per- his haughty and tranquil brow from his couch ceived, the spell of the art is broken. of everlasting fire-the lion-like repose of SorThese considerations account for the absurd-dello-or the light which shone froin the celesities into which the greatest writers have fal- tial smile of Beatrice. They extolled their len, when they have attempted to give general great poet for his smattering of ancient literarules for composition, or to pronounce judg-ture and history; for his logic and his divinity: ment on the works of others. They are unac- for his absurd physics, and his more absurd customed to analyze what they feel; they, metaphysics; for every thing but that in which therefore, perpetually refer their emotions to he pre-eminently excelled. Like the fool in causes which have not in the slightest degree the story, who ruined his dwelling by digging tended to produce them. They feel pleasure for gold, which, as he had dreamed, was conin reading a book. They never consider that cealed under its foundations, they laid waste this pleasure may be the effect of ideas, which one of the noblest works of human genius, by Some unmeaning expression, striking on the seeking in it for buried treasures of wisdom, first link or a chain of associations, may have which existed only in their own wild reveries. called up in their own minds-that they have The finest passages were little valued till they themselves furnished to the author the beauties had been debased into some monstrous allewhich they admire. gory. Louder applause was given to the lec ture on fate and free-will, or to the ridiculous astronomical theories, than to those remendous lines which disclose the secrets of the tower of hunger; or to that halt-told tale cf guilty love, so passionate and so full of tears.

Cervantes is the delight of all classes of readers. Every schoolboy thumbs to pieces the most wretched translations of his romance, and knows the lantern jaws of the Knighterrant, and the broad cheeks of the Squire, as well as the faces of his own playfellows. The most experienced and fastidious judges are amazed at the perfection of that art which extracts inextinguishable laughter from the

We do not mean to say that the contempo raries of Dante read, with less emotion than their descendants, of Ugolino groping among the wasted corpses of his children, or of Fram

D