OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE,

pressed by the strength and number of their an-cient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths ofPetrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowdof Latin imitators, who decently repose on ourshelves; but in that era of learning, it will notbe easy to discern a real discovery of science, awork of invention or eloquence, in the popularlanguage of the country.' But as soon as it hadbeen deeply saturated with the celestial dew, thesoil was quickened into vegetation and life; themodern idioms were refined : the classics ofAthens and Rome inspired a pure taste and agenerous emulation ; and in Italy , as afterwardsin France and England, the pleasing reign ofpoetry and fiction was succeeded by the light ofspeculative and experimental philosophy. Ge-nius may anticipate the season of maturity; butin the education of a people, as in that of an in-dividual, memory must be exercised, before thepowers of reason and fancy can be expanded;nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, tillhe has learned to imitate, the works of his pre-decessors.

the success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra , by a festival of Bacchus,and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat (Bayle, Dictionaire, Jo.delle. Fontenelle, tom. iii, p. 50-61). Yet the spirit of bigotrymight often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play of fancyaud learning.

c The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375 ; and we cannotplace before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggioreof Pulci,and the Orlando Inamorato of Boyardo (Tiraboschi, tom. vi, p. ii, p.174-177.

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IXVI.