CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. A NEW SERIES. THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS. It is remarkable that the country, which has long lost its political independence, may be considered as the true parent of modern history. The greater part of their historians have abstained from the applause of their contemporaries, while they have not the less elaborately composed their posthumous folios, consecrated solely to truth and posterity! The true principles of national glory are opened by the grandeur of the minds of these assertors of political freedom. It was their indignant spirit, seeking to console its injuries by confiding them to their secret manuscripts, which raised up this singular phenomenon in the literary world. Of the various causes which produced such a lofty race of patriots, one is prominent. The proud recollections of their Roman fathers often troubled the dreams of the sons. The petty rival republics, and the petty despotic principalities, which had started up from some great families, who at first came forward as the protectors of the people from their exterior enemies or VOL. II. (New Series.) 2 6 their interior factions, at length settled into a corruption of power; a power which had been conferred on them to preserve liberty itself! These factions often shook by their jealousies, their fears, and their hatreds, that divided land, which groaned whenever they witnessed the Ultramontanes' descending from their Alps and their Apennines. Petrarch, in a noble invective, warmed by Livy and ancient Rome, impatiently beheld the French and the Germans passing the mounts. Enemies,' he cries, so often conquered, prepare to strike with swords, which formerly served us to raise our trophies: shall the mistress of the world bear chains forged by hands which she has so often bound to their backs?' Machiavel, in his 'Exhortations to free Italy from the barbarians,' rouses his country against their changeable masters, the Germans, the French, and the Spaniards; closing with the verse of Petrarch, that short shall be the battle for which patriot virtue arms to show the world 'che l'antico valore Ne gl' Italici cuor non è ancor morto.' Nor has this sublime patriotism declined even in more recent times; I cannot resist from preserving in this place a sonnet by FILICAJA, which I could never read without participating in the agitation of the writer, for the ancient glory of his degenerated country! The energetic personification of the close, perhaps, surpasses even his more celebrated sonnet, preserved in Lord Byron's notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold.' Dov'è ITALIA, il tuo bracchio? e a che ti servi Tu dell' altrui? non è, s'io scorgo il vero, Di chi t' offende il defensor men fero: Ambe nemici sono, ambo fur servi. Così dunque l' onor, così conservi Spada ultrice ti svegli, e sonnacchiosa, Oh, Italy! where is thine arm? What purpose serves Among offenders thy defender stands? Both are thy enemies - both were thy servants! The mighty boundaries of the glorious empire? That swore its faith to thee, thy faith thou keep'st? The heavy groans and cries of agony, In thy last danger sleep, and seek repose! Among the domestic contests of Italy the true principles of political freedom were developed; and in that country we may find the origin of that PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY, which includes so many important views and so many new results, unknown to the ancients. MACHIAVEL seems to have been the first writer who discovered the secret of what may be called comparative history. He it was who first sought in ancient history for the materials which were to illustrate the events of his own times; by fixing on analogous facts, similar personages, and parallel periods. This was enlarging the field of history, and opening a new combination for philosophical speculation. His profound genius |