days among you, and am become quite enamoured of your nation. Confider whether there were fufficient reason for my preference, that you may more readily remember what I fo earnestly importune; that you would, for the fake of foreigners add fomething to the grammar which you have begun, and indeed almoft finished, concerning the right pronunciation of the language, and made as eafy as the nature of the fubject will admit. The other critics in your language feem to this day to have had no other defign than to fatisfy their own countrymen, without taking any concern about any body elfe. Though I think that they would have provided better for their own reputation and for the glory of the Italian language, if they had delivered their precepts in fuch a manner as if it was for the intereft of all men to learn their language. But, for all them, we might think that you Italians wifhed to confine your wifdom within the pomærium of the Alps. This praife therefore, which no one has anticipated, will be entirely yours immaculate and pure; nor will it be lefs fo if you will be at the pains to point out who may juftly claim the second rank of fame after the renowned chiefs of the Florentine literature; who excels in the dignity of tragedy, or the festivity and elegance of comedy; who has shown acuteness of remark or depth of reflection in his epiftles or dialogues; to whom belongs the grandeur of the hiftoric style. Thus it will be eafy for the ftudent to choose the best writers in every department; and if he wishes to extend his researches farther, he will know which way to take. Among the antients you will in this refpect find Cicero and Fabius deferving of your imitation; but I know not one of your own countrymen who does. But though I think as often as I have mentioned this fubject that your courtesy and benignity have induced you to comply with my requeft, I am unwilling that thofe qualities fhould deprive you of the homage of a more polished and elaborate entreaty. For fince your fingular modefty is fo apt to depreciate your own performances; the dignity of the fubject, and my refpect for you, will not fuffer me to rate them below below their worth. And it is certainly juft that he who shows the greateft facility in complying with a requeft fhould not receive the lefs honour on account of his compliance. On this occafion I have employed the Latin rather than your own language, that I might in Latin confefs my imperfect acquaintance with that language which I wish you by your precepts to embellish and adorn. And I hoped that if I invoked the venerable Latian mother, hoary with years, and crowned with the respect of ages, to plead the cause of her daughter, I should give to my request a force and authority which nothing could refift. Adieu. Florence, Sept. 10, 1638. IX. TO LUKE HOLSTEIN, in the Vatican at Rome. THOUGH in my paffage through Italy, many perfons have honoured me with fingular and memorable proofs of their civility and friendship, yet on so short an acquaintance I know not whether I can truly say that any one ever gave me ftronger marks of his regard than yourself. For, when I went to vifit you in the Vatican, though I was not at all known to you, except perhaps from the incidental mention of Alexander Cherion, you received me with the utmost affability and kindness. You afterwards obligingly admitted me into the Museum, you permitted me to fee the precious repofitory of literature, and many Greek MSS. adorned with your own obfervations; fome of which have never yet feen the light, but feem, like the fpirits in Virgil, In a green valley the pent fpirits lay, to demand the parturient labours of the prefs. Some of them you have already published, which are greedily received by the learned. You prefented me with copies of thefe on my departure. And I cannot but impute it to to your kind mention of me to the noble Cardinal Francifco Barberino, that at a grand mufical entertainment which he gave, he waited for me at the door, fought me out among the crowd, took me by the hand, and introduced me into the palace with every mark of the most flattering distinction. When I went the next day to render him my acknowledgments for this his gracious condefcenfion, it was you who obtained me an interview, in which I experienced a degree of civility and kindness greater than I had any reafon to expect from a person of his high dignity and character. I know not, most learned Holstein, whether I am the only Englishman to whom you have fhown fo much friendship and regard, or whether you are led to fhow the fame to all my countrymen, from a recollection of the three years which you paffed at the univerfity of Oxford. If this be the cafe you generously pay to our dear England the fees of her education; and you both deferve the grateful acknowledgments of each individual in particular, and of our country in general. But if this diftinction was fhown exclufively to me, if you selected me as worthy of your friendship, I congratulate myself on your preference, while I think your candour greater than my defert. I ftrenuously urged my friends, according to your inftructions, to infpect the Codex Mediceus; though they have at present but little hope of being able to do it. For in that library nothing can be tranfcribed, nor even a pen put to paper without permiffion being previously obtained; but they fay that there is at Rome one John Baptifta Donio, who is daily expected at Florence where he has been invited to read lectures on the Greek language, and by whom you may easily obtain the object of your wishes. It would indeed have been far more grateful to me if I could have been at all inftrumental in promoting thofe honourable and illuftrious pursuits in which you are engaged; and which it behoves all men, on all occafions and in all circumftances, to promote. I add that you will lay me under new obligations if you will exprefs my warmeft acknowledgments, and my moft refpectful compliments to the most noble Cardinal, Cardinal, whofe great virtues and whofe honeft zeal, fo favourable to the encouragement of all the liberal arts, are the conftant objects of my admiration. Nor can I look without reverence on that mild, and if I may fo fpeak, that lowly loftinels of mind, which is exalted by its own humiliation, and to which we may apply a verse in the Ceres of Callimachus, Γθματα μαν χέρσω κεφαλαδες οἱ άπτετ' ὀλύμπω. On th' earth he treads, but to the heavens he foars. His conduct may ferve to fhow other princes that a forbidding fuperciliousness and a dazzling parade of power are quite incompatible with real magnanimity. Nor do I think that while he lives any one will regret the lofs of the Efti, the Farnese, or the Medici, who formerly efpoufed with fo much zeal the patronage of literature. Adieu moft learned Holftein, and if you think me worthy of the honour, rank me I befeech you, for the future, wherever I may be, among those who are moft attached to you and to the ftudies in which you are engaged. Florence, March 30, 1639. X. TO CAROLO DEODATI, a Florentine Noble. I DERIVED, my dear Charles, from the unexpected receipt of your letter a pleasure greater than I can exprefs; but of which you may have fome notion from the pain with which it was attended; and without a mixture of which hardly any great pleasure is conceded to mankind. While I was perufing the first lines of yours, in which the elegance of expreffion feems to conteft the palm with the tenderness of friendship, I felt nothing but an unmingled purity of joy, particularly when I found you labouring to make friendship win the the prize. But as foon as I came to that paffage in which you tell me that you had previoufly fent me three letters which must have been loft, then the fimplicity of my joy began to be imbued with grief and agitated with regret. But fomething more difaftrous foon appears. It is often a fubject of forrowful reflection to me, that those with whom I have been either fortuitoufly or legally affociated by contiguity of place, or fome tie of little moment, are continually at hand to infeft my home, to ftun me with their noife and waste me with vexation, while those who are endeared to me by the closest fympathy of manners, of taftes and purfuits, are almost all withheld from my embrace either by death or an infuperable distance of place; and have for the most part been fo rapidly hurried from my fight, that my profpects feem continually folitary, and my heart perpetually defolate. With a lively pleafure do I read your anxious enquiries about my health fince I left Florence, and your unintermitted recollections of our intimacy. Those recollections have been reciprocal, though I thought that they had been cherished by me alone. I would not conceal from you that my departure excited in me the moft poignant fenfations of uneafinefs, which revive with increased force as often as I recollect that I left fo many companions fo engaging, and fo many friends fo kind, collected in one city, which is, alas, fo far removed; which imperious circumftances compelled me to quit against my inclination, but which was and is to me moft dear. I appeal to the tomb of Damon which I fhall ever cherish and revere; his death occafioned the moft bitter forrow and regret, which I could find no more eafy way to mitigate than by recalling the memory of thofe times, when, with thofe perfons, and particularly with you, I tafted blifs without alloy. This you would have known long fince, if you received my poem on that occafion. I had it carefully fent, that whatever poetical merit it might poffefs, the few verfes which are included in the manner of an emblem, might afford no doubtful proof of my love for you. I thought that by this means I fhould entice you or fome other perfons to write; for if I wrote first it feemed neceffàry that I VOL. I. hould |