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The language of Italy had, as we have seen, reached its perfection as the language of poetry, beneath the plastic hands of Dante and of Petrarch. As the vehicle of prose, its purity was established by Malaspina and the elder Villani. There yet wanted one who should give to the prose of Italy the graces of sprightliness and familiar freedom, which suit not the muse of history. In a word, the novelist was yet wanting; and with the exigency of the hour came the man. In the Tuscan territorities at Certaldo, some twenty miles from Florence, was born, nine years later than Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, the last of the noble triumvirate of the "tercento," the "father of Tuscan prose," he "who formed the Tuscan's syren tongue." The son of a rich merchant, his father destined him for the occupation by which he had himself attained wealth; but the young man's tastes led him to far different pursuits, and a visit to Naples decided his destiny. "Visiting one day the tomb of Virgil, the genius loci worked upon him-the spirit of poetry rose within his breast. The enthusiastic youth knelt at the tomb of the Mantuan, and took a vow to bid an eternal farewell to the beaten track of commerce, and to follow the wandering steps of the Muses." At this time Robert King of Naples was one of the greatest patrons of literature, and his court the most brilliant and learned in Europe. Its attractions naturally drew young Boccaccio within its sphere, and his love for the Muses was still further developed, and finally fixed, by his ardent attachment to the king's natural daughter, whom he has made celebrated under the name of Fiammetta. Boccaccio aspired to be a poet; he imitated Dante, and wrote in terza rima; he composed epics in ottava rima; he wrote ballads and sonnets, yet none of these were calculated to raise him to a position approaching that of the two great poets whom we have already noticed. His distance from Dante was immeasurable, and he was far below Petrarch; indeed so truly was he sensible of this, that he is said to have committed his minor poems to the flames on reading Petrarch's. It was as the author of the "Cento Novelle" that Boccaccio established his great reputation in his own times, and has retained it to the present. In this com

position he raised the Italian language to a pitch of perfection before unknown. "He not only invented," says a high authority, a new style, but founded, or certainly fixed, a new language. Every Italian scholar is acquainted with the plot of the "Decamerone." At the time of the great plague in Florence, in 1348, seven young ladies, and three young gentlemen retired to a beautiful villa in the neighbourhood of the city, where they spent ten days; a lady was elected alternately queen of the day, and each member related daily a story. These stories are varied with infinite art. By turns gay, tender, passionate; with every varying colour the style is varied with exhaustless power and charm of language; while the description of the plague, which serves as an introduction to the tales, may, says M. Sismondi, "be ranked with the most celebrated historical descriptions which have descended to us. De Foe afterwards gave a description as true and as terribly life-like as Boccaccio's, and one scarcely less powerful has since appeared in the "Promessi Sposi" of Manzoni. That the "Decamerone has faults, and grave ones too, cannot be denied; that they are full of licentious incidents, and are often indelicate in language and imagery, is to be regretted; and we must admit, that morality and religion are often treated with levity. Yet in judging of the "Decamerone," or its author, we must not apply the same standard of criticism which we would to a work or a writer of our own time. We must remember that the morals of the age and the country in which he lived were far from strict; that the court of Naples was the most dissolute in Italy; and that the lady at whose request the "Cento Novelle" were written was not herself unaffected by the depraved and light tastes of the court. Let it, too, be remembered that the work was written when he was yet a very young man, and that in after years he not only regretted its appearance, but endeavoured to suppress it. But above all, let it not be forgotten that he devoted himself with indefatigable assiduity and zeal to the promotion of literature, and especially to the introduction of the Greek language; and, in the words of an eloquent apologist, "he exhausted his little patrimony in the acquirement of

learning, and was amongst the first, if not the first, to allure the sciences and the poetry of Greece to Italy." Upon the whole, had the priests and monks, whose immorality and not the religion they professed he assailed, succeeded in suppressing the "Decamerone," as they sought to do, posterity would have suffered more from its loss than they can ever do from its errors; and we feel confident that, despite of its faults, the brilliancy of its style, its wit, naïveté, and picturesque power, will insure it admiring readers as long as the Italian tongue endures.

It has been observed by Denina* that the "Decamerone" of Boccaccio, although less grave than the "Divina Commedia" of Dante, and less polished than the poetry of Petrarch, has nevertheless done much more than either of them in fixing the Italian language. The writers of the sixteenth century never speak of the "Decamerone" but with an enthusiasm almost religious. But setting aside whatever of exaggeration there may be in their praises, one cannot avoid acknowledging that in addition to the skill in the conduct of the whole composition, which is indeed marvellous, and has never been equalled by any other writer of tales or novels, either in Italian or in any other tongue, there is to be seen also most faithfully represented, as in some vast gallery, the manners and usages of his time, not only in the characters and personages which are purely his invention, but also in a great number of historical sketches which are touched with the hand of a master.

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numerous precious manuscripts of antiquity. The study of their lives and their labours will edify the man of taste and scholarly pursuits, and afford the historian much light with which to investigate the political events of the times, in which they took so large a share.

It has been somewhat ingeniously observed that Nature, in the fourteenth century, by an effort, produced in Italy three great men; and that effort was still more felicitous in that the genius of each of these men was essentially different. They struck out for themselves three routes by which to ascend the heights of Parnassus, so far asunder that they each reached the summit without encountering or obstructing the others; and mankind can now enjoy the productions of all without feeling that those of any one give an idea of the others, or being able to prefer any to the rest, or to compare them together. He who

came first seems to have attained the greatest elevation; he who came last the lowest; but the truth is, that it is the nature of the work in which each achieved excellence, that has a different elevation. The manner in which each used his gift of genius and treated his own subject is equally perfect, and each holds the highest rank in his own department, because he has never been surpassed in it.

"The literature of Italy," says Mr. Simpson, to whom, as well as to others, we acknowledge ourselves largely indebted, “may be compared to a noble river. It may be traced from its very source, and followed in all its turns and windings. Its rich and limpid waters reflect now the passions, the loves, the joys; now the sorrows, the wrongs of Italy. All her eminent writers have been more or less political characters. From Dante to Machiavelli, from Machiavelli to Massimo Azeglio, their writings have been mirrors of the times in which they lived. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, form the clasp in a chain consisting of many links, great and small, of higher or lesser value, which constitutes the literature of Italy."

* "Vicende della Letteratura," lib. ii., cap. 13.

THE FALL OF DAY.

I,

The tall trees

Project long shadows on the sunny slope;
Trembles a faint star on the tranced seas
Through yonder forest ope,

Gilding their dreams; the breezes through the grass
Seem tones of some old quaint mysterious mass.

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The fluttering lark, aye singing as he falls
His heaven-taught hymns-O how the calm air drinks
His showery madrigals:

He has been singing ever since the morn,
And now nests down among the golden corn.

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VII.

The tall trees

Throw now no shades, for all is dusk around;
The star is splendid o'er the seas, the breeze
Is dead with every sound

But the sweet streams. Myriads of loving eyes
Yearn on the earth from out the bending skies.

VIII.

The brown tint

Has faded into gloom on the sharp crest
Of the far mountain. Only starlight's glint
On the stream's heaving breast.
The lark and bee are quiet-the warm glow
Has left the cloud and the hill's frowning brow.

IX.

Heavy dews

Pearl the soft eyelids of night-cradled flowers,
That opening, smile but when the warm sun woos
In daylight's golden hours.

Sadness comes on me with the twilight grey,
And with the day my rhyme is laid away.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

THERE is no country in the world where the action of despotism upon national literature is more remarkable than in Russia. The pursuit of authorship is at all times proverbially a precarious one; but in that country the path to literary fame leads only too surely to the grave. For the purposes of state policy, the vigorous censorship which exists over all the products of intelligence is not considered sufficient; no sooner has a writer displayed any boldness or freedom of thought, than he is pursued by a destiny which follows him in every phase of his career, and strikes him down generally before he has reached his prime. The history of Russian literature adds a new and an instructive chapter to the calamities of authors, and at this time it affords a subject which cannot fail to prove interesting. When we come to examine it, we can scarcely help feeling surprised that such a thing as litera ture exists there at all. A brief glance at the list of its victims is almost enough one of the most remarkable men of his day, Koltzoff, was condemned at the age of twenty-two to perpetual exile in Siberia; Belowky,

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the poet, perished miserably of famine; Poutchin was killed in a duel; Venitztinoff died at Teheran by poison. In short, no sooner does a man of letters attain any eminence than he is struck down by a fate as mysterious as it is inevitable. To this list may be added the name of that very remarkable man, a specimen of whose writings we would now present to the reader.

Nicholas Gogol perished two years since, in the prime of life, but not before he had succeeded in establishing a reputation which is beyond the reach of tyranny to destroy. As a painter of the manners of his time he stands unrivalled. His writings, which have a grave, social meaning, are distinguished by great originality, and a vein of humour as genuine as that of Swift or Sterne. His portraits of the different phases of Russian life which have fallen within the sphere of his observation are very striking, and place him in the foremost rank of his contemporaries. Gogol was a native of Little Russia. He commenced his career as a writer of fiction, and his reputation was first established by a comedy called The Comptroller. This

piece, distinguished by singular boldness of thought and a power of comic humour, exhibits a picture of Russian life the accuracy of which is incontestible. He supposes a gentleman just come from St. Petersburgh into one of the provinces. The new arrival is mistaken for the comptroller-general, who was expected about the same time. The opportunity is thus afforded of passing in review every class of provincial administration, which he shows to be utterly corrupt, full of the grossest profligacy, and not only servile, but tyrannical. But the most famous production of this author was a work called "The Dead Souls"-a subject which, being peculiar to the country, requires a word of explanation. The serfs of the country are called souls; this term is, however, confined to the males only, neither women nor children being taken into account. The wealth of a noble is estimated by the number of souls on his estate. These are bought or sold, given as a dowry, or mortgaged, as occasion may require. There exists in the country districts a sort of provincial administration called "the Council of Guardians." To the needy peasants loans are granted by the imperial treasury on the security of their effects. This custom produces a strange result. Foreign speculators

go from village to village for the purpose of purchasing the souls of the dead that is to say, the serfs which are really dead, but whose names still appeared on the registry, which undergoes revision only once in five years. They thus obtained from the Council of Guardians a security, which they can carry beyond the limits of the empire and negotiate on foreign exchanges. Upon this curious custom Gogol has founded his romance, through the medium of which he completely exposes not only the system of fiscal administration, but many strange phases of Russian life; and he thus displays in a bolder outline than the stage could give him, all the crimes and vicious practices which the curse of despotism can inflict upon a country.

The moment he became distinguished his doom was sealed. That career which opened with so much brilliancy was soon clouded by misfortune; humiliation and persecution followed him at every step. At length he succeeded in making his way to Rome, where he lived for several years. He returned,

bringing with him a number of manuscripts, the fruits of his labours during his exile. It was not long, however, before he died suddenly, under strange and mysterious circumstances, at Moscow, whither he had retired. His writings were immediately prohibited; and it was forbidden that his name should be mentioned in any of the public journals. People spoke of him in whispers; and it was said that the greater portion of his unpublished manuscripts were burned by his own hand two days before he died.

We have before us three short sketches written by him. That which we have selected we present to our readers, less as a specimen of the author's peculiar style than as affording an accurate picture of the domestic life of the great country with which we are now in collision, and drawn by the hand of an artist qualified to portray it.

There was once a certain good old couple who resided in the Ukraine, sprung from one of the ancient families of Little Russia, that exhibit a marked contrast to some of their countrymen, who, risen from the lowest rank to be servants of the state, avail themselves of their privileges to oppress their poorer neighbours. Having realised a small capital, they endeavour to become genteel by adding to the letter "o," with which their names usually terminate, the letter "w," so as to resemble a good Russian name.

Having had no children, the affection of this old couple was completely centred in each other. Athanase had been a military man in his earlier life; he had married when he was about thirty, and had succeeded in obtaining the hand of Pulcheria, not without considerable difficulty, for his circumstances were not then in the most flourishing condition. He contrived, however, to manage the affair with so much address that he gained his point. Of this love passage in his life he would occasionally, but not often, converse freely. Athanase was not one of those old men who tire you by sounding the praises of the past, and deprecating the time in which you live. He would take the greatest interest in all the events of your life in your success, your reverses. He was fond of asking questions, but his curiosity was never tiresome ; nor was he ever indifferent

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