The di profound, and his deductions exceedingly just. dactic form of his treatise has not deprived it of the elegance necessary for the attraction of his readers. The style is precise, yet ornamented, and very few authors have so happily combined the language of evidence and of metaphysical disquisition; very few have made a grammatical discussion so alluring, or have arrayed materials so abstruse in eloquence so engaging. This is the only work of Cesarotti's that has preserved its original reputation up to this day. The author himself abused, however, the privilege which he claimed for all writers; and in one of the reviews then most esteemed in Italy, it was asserted that the preacher of liberty had awakened a spirit of licentiousness, and yet might easily raise himself to the dictatorship.* The truth was, that Cesarotti was, by his partisans, regarded as infallible, and was the terror of his opponents, whose censure was confined to the adoption of a practice contrary to his powerful example. His prose is endowed with all the qualities that constitute a superior writer. The depth is no obstacle to the clearness of his ideas; his manner is free, his phraseology abundant, his periods are harmonious. He is lively, yet graceful; he is not so copious as to be tedious, nor so brief as to be obscure; he is full of pleasantry, which never degenerates into affectation, or is applied to the purposes of malicious controversy. But those who were obliged, had they not been willing, to discover these excellencies in Cesarotti, were relieved from unqualified admiration, by finding that all of them were spoilt and rendered inefficient; in the first place, by the intemperate and systematic use of gallicisms; and, secondly, by their being lost upon discourses either critical or metaphysical, and such as could not interest the general reader. It was in his power to *"Predicando la libertà letteraria aveva suscitato la licenza e però gli fu facile ad erigersi in dittatore."-See Annali di Scienze e Lettere, an. 1811, Numero iii. article on the Odyssey. have furnished a model of the oratorical style in his translation of Demosthenes; but his deliberate purpose, and all his efforts in this work, were directed to fritter down his original, and with this unaccountable design he has affected a style scrupulously Cruscan and pedantic. His Familiar Letters,' published after his death, have discovered to us an excellence and a defect that might not be collected from his other writings; for they show him to have been an indulgent encourager of the talents of others, as well as very liberal of his own information; but at the same time he appears so over prodigal of his praises as to incur the suspicion of premeditated flattery. His conversation was distinguished by its eloquence and its amenity; his ideas were rapid and clear, and he gave a certain grace and embellishment to the most abstruse arguments. He took delight in the education of those who attached themselves to his opinions, and were loyal to their literary faith, more especially when he discovered in them any signs of future excellence; and although he was far from rich, it was not unusual with him gratuitously to receive his pupils as his domestic guests. His confidence went so far as to entrust them with his secrets. Nevertheless, notwithstanding his kind patronage and their devoted attachment, his most constant disciples attained to no reputation; either because imitation is in itself incapable of rising above mediocrity, or because there was in the system of this great writer something rather pernicious than conducive to success. This circumstance, so painful for the head of a sect, did not, however, sour his temper, or diminish his regard. He was the same affectionate nobleminded man to the last, and his friends had just reason to praise him and to lament his loss. His political conduct was not distinguished for its constancy. The revolution found him more than a sexagenary -devoted to literary pursuits—a priest—and one who had never wandered beyond the narrow confines of his native country, which for more than a century had enjoyed the most profound calm. Bonaparte had read and re-read the Italian Ossian, and at his first occupation of Padua he eagerly sent for Cesarotti, and named him one of the chiefs of the new government. Our author took that opportunity of publishing a small treatise on the rights and freedom of mankind, on the duties of the magistrate, and the character of the people. Three or four years afterwards the chances of war brought him into the hands of the Russians and the Austrians, and he. was forced, if such an expression may be applied to such an exertion, to compose a short poem in praise of the victorious potentates. Finally, when Bonaparte had become Emperor, and was again master of the Venetian States, he created Cesarotti a knight commander of one of his orders, assigning to him at the same time a pension, which was meant to insure his gratitude and his praise. Napoleon was not mistaken; his pensioner published his poem, called Pronéa, or Providence,' a most extravagant performance, where the style of Lucan, of Ossian, and of Claudian, bewilders the reader, already lost amidst the mazes of metaphysics and of theological allegory. The work, from the first to the last page, was such as might be expected from a systematic innovator, from a devotee trembling on the brink of the grave, and from a poet who wrote by commission. He survived this effort too short a time to enjoy his pension, but not before his poem had been consigned to oblivion. Had this writer been born in other times; had he expanded his ideas and escaped from the circle of his own metaphysical speculations, by visiting other countries and mixing with other minds; had he encountered greater obstacles in his ascent to fame; but, above all, had he devoted himself to original composition and made a more judicious use of his acquaintance with foreign literature, it is probable that Cesarotti would have taken a prominent place amongst the classical authors of his country. As it is, the Italians accuse his system and accuse his example; but whilst they pronounce both the one and the other to have been highly prejudicial to his native literature, they are all willing to allow that he was possessed of great natural ability. A short notice of Angelo Mazza, the schoolfellow and the friend of Cesarotti, may be fairly subjoined to a mention of that poet. His first essay was made in the year 1764, when he translated the Pleasures of the Imagination,' and convinced the Italians that the compressed style of Dante was capable of being applied to their blank verse, which as yet was little more than a string of sonorous syllables. The poetry published by him in a maturer age consists in great part of lyrical pieces on Harmony. They are to be found in two small volumes; and Saint Cecilia is the inspirer and patroness of two of his best odes. It was not likely that he should equal the invention of Dryden; he wisely, therefore, was contented with trying a version of the great Ode, and his translation of that lyrical masterpiece has the merit of having extended the fame of our Poet to every corner of Italy. The imitations and even the translations of Mazza have a certain air of originality impressed not only on their style, which is extremely energetic, but even on the ideas which appear generally drawn from a metaphysical turn of mind. He excels much in the poetical array of abstract images, and what the Theodicea' of Leibnitz is in prose, he sometimes contrives to execute in verse. In spite, however, of the inspired tone of some of his verses on the Universe and the wisdom of the Creator, displayed, according to Mazza, in the harmony of all things, and notwithstanding he has represented this same harmony under aspects entirely new and beautiful, the poet has failed no less than all others who have attempted to embellish these sacred subjects, in keeping alive the interest of his reader, and has succeeded only in attracting the admiration of those who are delighted to see objections encountered and difficulties overcome. His odes are composed of stanzas, the melody of which is often sacrificed to what the musicians call contrapunto, which is calculated to surprise more than please, and he has even adopted those difficult rhymes which the Italians call sdrucciole, or slippery, and which not only lengthen the eleven syllabled verse into twelve syllables, but change the position of the accent, as appears from the following specimen extracted from the same Mazza: "A me le voci di concento gravide, The only work of Mazza which has been often printed, and has hit the taste of the Italians, is a poem in thirty pages, addressed to Cesarotti, in which he gives a masterly sketch of the great poets of every nation, and has placed the English on a distinguished eminence amongst the immortal brotherhood. It is only the women, who affect our endemic melancholy, and the younger readers, who occasion the immense demand for Young's Night Thoughts,' translated as they are into poor verse or ampullated prose; for the more enlightened Italians study Milton and Shakespeare. Mazza is remarkable for the candour with which he has treated his contemporaries, even those attached to a system totally different from his own. This discretion, however, has not silenced the voice of criticism, and in spite of his own reserve, his partisans and his opponents have carried on a war of words, which is seldom to be equalled by English polemics, and is outrageous even in a country distinguished by the pedantry, the fury, and the illiberality of its literary quarrels. The foreigners who have by turns usurped the Italian provinces, have extended their claims to all the productions of that fruitful soil: not only the corn, and the wine, and the oil are put in requisition, but the tythe of the poetry is claimed by the conquerors. Mazza, in his quality of perpetual secretary of the academy of Parma, composed the usual complimentary sonnets for the successive governments of his country; but he cautiously avoided all |