published. The amount of labor which he gave to these works was prodigious. Speaking of his 'History of the Italian Republics,' he says: "It was a work which continued for at least eight hours a day during twenty years. I was obliged constantly to read and converse in Italian and Latin, and occasionally in French, German, Portuguese, and Provençal." It required untiring research. "I have nine times," he says, " traversed Italy in different directions, and have visited nearly all places which were the theatres of any great event. I have labored in almost all the great libraries, I have searched the archives in many cities and many monasteries." Dealing as he did with an infinity of details, it is not to be wondered at that as he went more and more into the Middle Age chronicles of petty Italian wars and conspiracies, his ardor cooled. The work was not, in its reception, a flattering success. However, the author was encouraged to persevere. His 'History of the French' extends from the reign of Clovis to the accession of Louis XVI., covering a period of nearly thirteen centuries.

As a historian, Sismondi, though laborious and painstaking, suffers by comparison with the better work done by later writers, who have covered the same ground with a better perspective and a truer historical grasp, with more literary genius, and with the advantage of access to archives and original documents denied the Genevan. "More recent investigations," says President Adams in his 'Manual of Historical Literature,' "have thrown new light on Italian affairs of the Middle Ages, and consequently Sismondi's work cannot be regarded as possessing all its former value.» His History of the French was soon entirely superseded by the greater work of Henri Martin. Sainte-Beuve, in one of his 'Lundis' devoted to Sismondi, rather sarcastically refers to him as "the Rollin of French history." The general spirit of his historical writings is made apparent in the following extract from the close of his History of the French': "I am a republican; but while preserving that ardent love of liberty transmitted to me by my ancestors, whose fate was united with that of two republics, and a hatred of every kind of tyranny, I hope I have never shown a want of respect for those time-honored and lofty recollections which tend to foster virtue in noble blood, or for that sublime devotion in the chiefs of nations which has often reflected lustre on the annals of a whole people."

He seems, however, in later years, to have become somewhat reactionary in his views; and this brought him into unpleasant relations with his neighbors. When France demanded the expulsion from Switzerland of Prince Louis Napoleon, the citizens of Geneva were particularly opposed to so inhospitable a measure. Sismondi believed the demand should be granted. Threats were made against his life, and his native city became for him a dangerous place of residence. XXIII-843

<

Then, the overturning of the ancient constitution of Geneva by the democratic revolution of November 1841, was a bitter grief to him. Outside of his historical work, Sismondi was engaged in the year 1810 to furnish the publishers of the Biografia Universale' with the lives of distinguished Italians; for which, we are informed, he was paid six francs per article. At the conclusion of this task he prepared a course of lectures on the 'Literature of the South of Europe,' which he delivered at Geneva in 1811. This in the year 1814 was the basis of a work in four volumes,- written, as Hallam tells us, "in that flowing and graceful style which distinguishes the author, and succeeding in all that it seeks to give,—a pleasing and popular, yet not superficial or unsatisfactory, account of the best authors in the Southern languages.” In 1822 he published a historical novel in three volumes, called 'Julia Severa,' purporting to show the condition of France under Clovis; and in 1832 he condensed his 'History of the Italian Republics' into one volume. M. Mignet, in his eulogy. read in 1845 before the Royal Academy of Sciences, says of Sismondi: "For half a century he has thought nothing that is not honorable, written nothing that is not moral, wished nothing that is not useful. Thus has he left a glorious memory, which will be forever respected."

مو

BOCCACCIO'S 'DECAMERON'

From 'Literature of the South of Europe'

NE cannot but pause in astonishment at the choice of so gloomy an introduction to effusions of so gay a nature. We are amazed at such an intoxicated enjoyment of life under the threatened approach of death; at such irrepressible desire in the bosom of man to divert the mind from sorrow; at the torrent of mirth which inundates the heart, in the midst of horrors which should seem to wither it up. As long as we feel delight in nourishing feelings that are in unison with a melancholy temperament, we have not yet felt the overwhelming weight of real sorrow. When experience has at length taught us the substantial griefs of life, we then first learn the necessity of resisting them; and calling the imagination to our aid to turn aside the shafts of calamity, we struggle with our sorrow, and treat it as an invalid from whom we withdraw every object which may remind him of the cause of his malady. With regard to the stories themselves, it would be difficult to convey an idea of them

by extracts, and impossible to preserve in a translation the merits of their style. The praise of Boccaccio consists in the perfect purity of his language, in his eloquence, his grace, and above all, in that naïveté which is the chief merit of narration, and the peculiar charm of the Italian tongue. Unfortunately, Boccaccio did not prescribe to himself the same purity in his images as in his phraseology. The character of his work is light and sportive. He has inserted in it a great number of tales of gallantry; he has exhausted his powers of ridicule on the duped husband, on the depraved and depraving monks, and on subjects in morals and religious worship which he himself regarded as sacred; and his reputation is thus little in harmony with the real tenor of his conduct.

ON

THE TROUBADOUR

From Literature of the South of Europe >

THE most solemn occasions, in the disputes for glory, in the games called Tensons, when the Troubadours combated in verse before illustrious princes, or before the Courts of Love, they were called upon to discuss questions of the most. scrupulous delicacy and the most disinterested gallantry. We find them inquiring, successively, by what qualities a lover may render himself most worthy of his mistress; how a knight may excel all his rivals; and whether it be a greater grief to lose a lover by death or by infidelity. It is in these Tensons that bravery becomes disinterested, and that love is exhibited pure, delicate, and tender; that homage to woman becomes a species of worship, and that a respect for truth is an article in the creed of honor. These elevated maxims and these delicate sentiments were mingled, it is true, with a great spirit of refining. If an example was wanted, the most extravagant comparisons were employed. Antitheses, and plays upon words, supplied the place of proofs. Not unfrequently, as must be the case with those who aim at constructing a system of morals by the aid of talent alone, and who do not found it on experience, the most pernicious sentiments, and principles entirely incompatible with the good order of society and the observation of other duties, were ranked amongst the laws of gallantry. It is, however, very creditable to the Provençal poetry, that it displays a veneration for the

beauties of chivalry; and that it has preserved, amidst all the vices of the age, a respect for honor and a love of high feeling. This delicacy of sentiment among the Troubadours, and this mysticism of love, have a more intimate connection with the poetry of the Arabians and the manners of the East than we should suspect when we remember the ferocious jealousy of the Mussulmans, and the cruel consequences of their system of polygamy. Amongst the Mussulmans, woman is a divinity as well as a slave, and the seraglio is at the same time a temple and a prison. The passion of love displays itself amongst the people of the South with a more lively ardor and a greater impetuosity than in the nations of Europe. The Mussulman does not suffer any of the cares or the pains or the sufferings of life to approach his wife. He bears these alone His harem is consecrated to luxury, to art, and to pleasure. Flowers and incense, music and dancing, perpetually surround his idol, who is debarred from every laborious employment. The songs in which he celebrates his love breathe the same spirit of adoration and of worship which we find in the poets of chivalry; and the most beautiful of the Persian ghazeles, and the Arabian cassides, seem to be translations of the verses or songs of the Provençals.

We must not judge of the manners of the Mussulmans by those of the Turks of our day. Of all the people who have followed the law of the Koran, the latter are the most gloomy and jealous. The Arabians, while they passionately loved their mistresses, suffered them to enjoy more liberty; and of all the countries under the Arabian yoke, Spain was that in which their manners partook most largely of the gallantry and chivalry of the Europeans. It was this country also which produced the most powerful effects on the cultivation of the intellect, in the south of Christian Europe.

WH

ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

From A History of the Italian Republics'

HILE the power of the kings of Naples, of the emperors, and of the popes, was as it were suspended in Italy, innumerable small States, which had risen to almost absolute independence, experienced frequent revolutions, for the most part

proceeding from internal and independent causes. We can at most only indicate shortly those of the republics which were the most distinguished and the most influential in Italy; but before thus entering within the walls of the principal cities, it is right to give a sketch of the general aspect of the country,— particularly as the violent commotions which it experienced might give a false idea of its real state. This aspect was one of a prodigious prosperity, which contrasted so much the more with the rest of Europe, that nothing but poverty and barbarism were to be found elsewhere. The open country (designated by the name of contado) appertaining to each city was cultivated by an active and industrious race of peasants, enriched by their labor, and not fearing to display their wealth in their dress, their cattle, and their instruments of husbandry. The proprietors, inhabitants of towns, advanced them capital, shared the harvests, and alone paid the land-tax; they undertook the immense labor which has given so much fertility to the Italian soil,- that of making dikes to preserve the plains from the inundation of the rivers, and of deriving from those rivers innumerable canals of irrigation. The naviglio grande of Milan, which spreads the clear waters of the Ticino over the finest part of Lombardy, was begun in 1179, resumed in 1257, and terminated a few years afterwards. Men who meditated, and who applied to the arts the fruits of their study, practiced already that scientific agriculture of Lombardy and Tuscany which became a model to other nations; and at this day, after five centuries, the districts formerly free, and always cultivated with intelligence, are easily distinguished from those half-wild districts which had remained subject to the feudal lords.

The cities, surrounded with thick walls, terraced, and guarded by towers, were for the most part paved with broad flagstones; while the inhabitants of Paris could not stir out of their houses without plunging into the mud. Stone bridges of an elegant and bold architecture were thrown over rivers; aqueducts carried pure water to the fountains. The palace of the podestas and signorie united strength with majesty. The most admirable of those of Florence, the Palazzo-Vecchio, was built in 1298. The Loggia in the same city, the church of Santa Croce, and that of Santa Mariadel Fiore with its dome so admired by Michael Angelo, were begun by the architect Arnolfo, scholar of Nicolas di Pisa, between the years 1284 and 1300. The prodigies of this first-born