fate which threatened him. Many were the notices he received of the plot against his life, but all were treated with a similar disregard. Once in particular, the night before his death, he found a note under his cover at supper, containing these significant expressions, "Take care-they are about to play you an ugly trick." He read this billet-wrote at the bottom, "They dare not," and then threw it under the table.

The night of the 22d was passed by the King in a state of extreme anxiety and restlessness. The weakness of his mind was struggling with the greatness of his enterprize, and his cowardice with his extreme desire of revenge. He arose by day-break, and dressing himself in great hurry and trepidation, assembled the members of his private councils, and urged them by every argument he could suggest, not to fail in the purpose for which they were met. He told them that that day must be the last of his life, or that of the Duke of Guise. It depended upon them, he said, whether he or his rebellious subject was to be the victim. Public duties, he remarked, he knew they would willingly pay, but he now required more, a proof of their attach ment to himself, as well as regard for their suffering country, and which could only be evinced by the death of the Duke of Guise from their hands, He then distributed poniards, adding, "It is I, your lawful sovereign, who authorise you to use them against the traitor who has sworn his destruction." He then retired to his cabinet, where he continued pacing backwards and forwards in great anxiety; and presently opening the door of the councilchamber, he exhorted the gentlemen assembled not to suffer themselves to

be wounded by the Duke. "He is tall and powerful," added the timid Henry, " and I should be sorry if he injured any of you." The members all being assembled, and the Duke not arrived, the King's restlessness, which, as De Thou remarks, was always increased to madness in frosty weather, grew so insupportable, that he sent to command the attendance of the Duke, who almost immediately followed the royal message. On his arrival he sat some time in the council-chamber, conversing with the gentlemen till the King sent to desire his presence in his cabinet; he rose to obey the mandate, and, stooping down to raise the curtain before the door, received at that moment the swords of the conspirators in his body; he made some desperate but ineffectual struggles, and fell dead at the foot of the King's bed, heaving only one deep sigh.

Such was the miserable death of the ambitious Duke of Guise. The particulars of this transaction, as related by Raynouard, we forbear to give, as they are detailed more clearly in the informations made at Paris, with translations of which we shall hereaf ter present our readers, as they contain much curious matter, together with the opinions of both parties upon the subject, and something (in the papers of Miron, the King's physician) which is intended to be a justification of Henry's conduct upon this occasion. For the present, we will trespass no longer upon the patience of our readers, which we would not have done so much, had it been possible to have compressed the long notice of Raynouard into a smaller compass, without any injustice to himself and the usefulness of his researches.

LETTER FROM SIGNOR

In my last, I gave you a short account of my lately published Biographical Treatise on the Writers of Italian Literary History; and as you have been pleased to say, that whatever concerns myself and my pursuit of letters, will be interesting to you, I make no further apology for continuing in the same somewhat egotistical strain. I not long ago published two volumes of Essays and Researches, regarding the

origin, progress, and perfect develop ment of some of the principal European languages, a subject of inquiry, which, as you well know, when directed towards the elucidation of our own so norous tongue, alike so beautiful and majestic, has occupied, perhaps, too great and too exclusive a share of our literary labours, and has not yet ceased to be a matter of acrimonious dispute. I dedicate my first volume almost

entirely to the Italian language, to that language which is at once the glory of our own country and the delight of the intellectual stranger, and from which so many thousand times have flowed,

“Più che mel dolci d'eloquenza i fiumi."

I commence by reasoning on its origin and chief merits, and then treat of the question, whether in literary composition use ought to be made, and in what way, of the vulgar tongue. Such discussion naturally leads me to inquire, if there may be in Italy a written language different from the spoken tongue; that is, a language which learned and elegant writers adopted, and which differs from all the dialects spoken in the various parts of Italy. In regard to this I do not hesitate to assert, that the pure written language differs in no respect from that spoken in Tuscany by cultivated persons. For we must bear in mind, that some slight difference, in a few instances, in the conjugation of the verbs, is not what constitutes the diversity of a language. Besides, I would ask, when did they form this language which they call written? What ancient documents can be produced in evidence of the fact? How was it accomplished? Perhaps many learned men met together in congress; but of this no chronicle or history has spoken. Perhaps the Italians dispersed throughout Italy determined the language-yet this appears to me to be impossible, nor does any nation, ancient or modern, offer an example of so singular an occurrence. And if dispersed Italians did create this language so very different, as it is said, from the native, it may be supposed they would have been solicitous to write its rules, in other words, to compose a grammar-yet the first Italian grammars are of the 15th century, as every body knows from the works of Fortunio and Bembo. These first grammarians knew nothing of any

such early convention, but sought their precepts from amongst the ancient Tuscan authors. And for what motive, it may be asked, was this language created? Learned men disdained to write regarding the sciences, except in Latin. The vernacular tongue was destined to subjects which they esteemed of little moment-love verses, chronicles, romances, novels, books on horsemanship, farriery, and the like, for the untutored. The fragments of history printed by Muratori, in the Antichita Italiana, are written in the Neapolitan dialect, or one very similar to the Neapolitan. The Venetian authors of the chronicle cited by Foscarini, have used their common tongue, and their travellers have done the same. It appears to me, that these writers would have acted otherwise if there had been a language common to the whole of Italy, and designed, by universal consent, for literary produc tions. Tuscany, incomparably beyond every other part of Italy, furnished authorst ****** and these wrote in their common dialect, which quickly led to that perfection which we see in the 13th century, by the labour of some who knew how to select the finest forms of expression from those used by the people. Strangers, enchanted by that style, soon began to imitate it, and with the greatest success, perhaps, at Bologna. The language, which some call common, is no other than the language of Tuscany freed from mere Tuscanisms, and the irregularities of the vulgar.

*

That I may not be said to dwell solely upon my own lucubrations, allow me, in continuation of a subject which I know you once regarded with considerable interest, to present you with an extract of a letter by Professor Ciampi, whose learning and character stand deservedly high in your esteem. His sentiments are contained in the following:

If writers had not then begun to adopt the latter language in matters not diplomatic or connected with the Senate House, we should still have continued ignorant of what had been then the language of the common people, in like manner as we are ignorant of what it was previous to the 13th century. One may conclude then, that from the words scattered among the diplomatic documents of the ages prior to the 10th century, may be deduced the existence of a vulgar dialect, which was our common Italian, but extremely unpolished, and abounding with la tinisms vulgarly inflected.

For the above reasons, I know not how to accord either with yourself or others, who allege that it was towards the close of the 12th century that the Italian language was produced, and that Lucio Druso was the first to conceive the arduous design of forming a third dialect jointly from the Latin and the vulgar tongue. This third dialect resulted specially from the use of the article, and the change in the terminations of nouns and verbs, which had taken place, as we have already seen, prior to the time of Lucio Druso. Besides, it is not in the power of any single individual to accustom a people in the short space of a few years to the use of a new tongue. He may have been among the first to adopt it in poetry, and other branches of literature; and he may have been the first who thought of ennobling it by uniting the dialect of Sicily with that of Tuscany, but I cannot grant him more; let the praise which has been given him in the oftquoted sonnet suffice. To conclude, it is one thing to say that the Italian language existed before the 10th century, uncultivated it is true, and not subjected to fixed rules; another, that it originated about the end of the 12th, when, in fact, they only began to write it generally, and sought to polish, and in some measure regulate it, until Guido d'Arezzo, Messer Cino, Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, rendered it perfect. The inscription of Verruca, near Pisa, shews, that in the

Thus far our excellent and vener able friend, Professor Ciampi. With a view, I suppose, of forming an opinion regarding our present taste in literature, you desire me to inform you what English authors are most read

Pisan territory, and in the city, they spoke the vulgar tongue even from that period; but I do not clearly.see that any argument ought to be drawn therefrom, to prove that it was spoken in Pisa earlier than elsewhere, because the monuments of all the other Tuscan cities of the times anterior to the 10th century, abound in so many more Italian words, as assuredly to prevail against the very few made use of in that inscription. At farthest, the conclusion may be drawn, that the Pisans were among the first to write it without any intermixture of barbarous Latin, or even that they were the first to write the vulgar tongue, and here would be confirmed the boast of the supporters of Lucio Druso. Nor do I refuse to yield to them the glory that from among the citizens of Pisa have sprung various of our prime poets, of many of whom mention is made by Allaci, and also by myself, with numerous illustrations, in a letter to Signor Gaetano Poggiali, inserted in the Giornale Encyclopedica of Florence.

Thus, my dear Sir, I have repeated to you, with somewhat greater extension, my sentiments upon a subject which has greatly occupied our literary men, whose opinions are not found to accord, because they forsook the true path, believing that the written language of the monuments of the so called barbarous ages, was the common language, and that those other words commingled with it, were so many disconnected materials, which, combined with the remnants of the vulgar Latin, afterwards originated and gave place to the language of the 12th century; whereas, such words belonged to the language in common use, though not admitted in writing, especially diplomatical, unless when introduced through the ignorance of the notaries, who, when they were at a loss for a Latin or Latinized word for their law courts, made use of the vulgar. By inadvertence, too, these common words may have sometimes crept in, whilst, for a matter of form, they continued to write a language worse than the vernacular tongue.

by us in Italy. As you know I am no critic, you must excuse the dryness of a mere catalogue, while I mention the names of such works as have been translated within these last few years. Our chief translator of poetry