Harvard College Library. Icarnet uit te stura you my best thanks for your vem Mliying freurt.jm te fenyal fotech I lau mind quat flasu quatfliasuu a urlt ny riformadin. One ought perhaps Dengut that so caluath a sice of intuijm was net svaur am wuniiated Ø the world; best, in an atter light, Scaffo I salt anpider the palliatin A it at the parent moment of a fatuati aicumstana, for the utenski f taste and a good letters. I am in hopes that your book may pron a timely antedot. Do that foija, (uwat iwurfojo, and writed Flarte well, e ages hat. A writt til we kan ben lately woflere Undir-te Hiltur f your rutterity , may perhap, A avow opinion , that Poetry That Poetry is not confined complets, and that its greatest powen pologues and spilogue. Jam, Sir, with real Inspect, Veliuk Shut huntle Swart Flyrobitt A the venta an not dis ayu in por most bedient 22 Jan 19 1782. THE first dawnings of polite literature in Italy, B tales VOL. II. 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. |