Sir, Harvard College Library. I cannot amit to return you my best thanks for your way Miying present, from the fenyal of shich Ihan mived quat pleasure as well as ichormetion dne ought perhaps & regest that de valuable a piece of critsigm was not sooner comwunicated D the world; but, is another light, I confess I must consider the publication of it at the present moment as a fortunate circumstaru, for the utensth of taste and good letters. I am in hopes that your book may from a timely antidote & that poison, (uwut swut poison, and suited fear too well, Do the ages torth) with which we have been lately overflowe Under the shelter of your authority, one may perhap, venI avow an opinion, that Poetry is not confined t. nig cowplets, and that its greatest powern an not diy age in puologues and epilogues. Jam, Sis, with val sput. Welbeck Shut Your most bedient humble Swart OF JANUARY AND MAY, THE WIFE OF BATH, AND TRANSLATIONS OF STATIUS AND THE first dawnings of polite literature in Italy, composition. He collected many of the common VOL. II. B tales tales of his country, and delivered them in the purest stile, enlivened with interesting circumstances. Sacchetti published tales before him, in which are many anecdotes of Dante and his contemporaries. Boccace was faintly imitated by several Italians, Poggio, Bandello, Cinthio, Firenzuola, Malespini, and others. * Machiavel himself did honour to this species of writing, by his Belphegor. To produce, and carry on with probability and decorum, a series of events, is the most difficult work of invention; and if we were minutely to examine the popular stories of every nation, we should be amazed to find how few circumstances " * Michiavel, who possessed the liveliest wit with the profoundest reflection, wrote also two comedies, Mandgragora and Clytia, the former of which was played before Leo X. with much magnificence; the latter is an imitation of the Cassina of Plautus: Indigna vero homine Christiano (says Balzac) qui sanctiores Musas colit, et, in ludicris quoque, meminisse debet severitatis." Epist. Select. pag. 202. I have been informed that Machiavel, towards the latter part of his life, grew religious, and that some pieces of ascetic devotion, composed by him, are preserved in the libraries of Italy. Lord Bacon says remarkably of Machiavel, that he teaches what men usually do, not what they ought to do. |