sound, not pleasing I think when too often repeated.

As for the want of energy in that language, it is a reproach which he may make who has never read Dante, Ariosto, or Tasso; he who has perused them knows that in energy both of language and of sentiment, they yield only to their illustrious masters, Virgil and Homer, and will acknowledge with a satyrist of taste and spirit, that they strengthen and harmonize both the ear and the intellect*.

In fine, though the invading tribes did not introduce a new language into Italy, yet they must be allowed to have had some share in corrupting and disfiguring the old, by perverting the sense of words, inverting the order of sentences, and thus infecting the whole language with the inaccuracy of their own dialectst. Hence, though

* Pursuits of Literature.

+ This corruption Vida exaggerates and deplores as a change of language imposed by the victorious barbarians on the subjugated Italians.

Pierides donec Romam, et Tiberina fluenta

Deseruere, Italis expulsæ protinus oris.
Tanti caussa mali, Latio gens aspera aperto

the great body of Italian remain Latin, yet it is not difficult to discover some foreign accretions, and even point out the languages from which they have been taken; and though singular yet it is certain, that the Greek, the Sclavonian, and the Arabic tongues have furnished many, if not the greatest part, of these tralatitious terms.

The first remained the language of Apulia, Calabria, and other southern districts of Italy, which continued united to the Greek Empire many ages after the fall of the Western. The second was brought into Italy about the middle of the seventh century by a colony of Bulgarians, established in the southern provinces by the Greek Emperors: and the last by the Saracens, who established themselves in Sicily, and in some maritime towns in Calabria, during the ninth and tenth centuries. The Lombards probably

Sæpius irrumpens. Sunt jussi vertere morem
Ausonidæ victi, victoris vocibus usi.

Cessit amor Musarum,, &c.

This change of language however is confined to about a thousand words, which are derived either from barbarous dialects, or from unknowir sources. Muratori has collected them in his Thirty-third Dissertation. The rest of the language is Latin.

left some, though, I believe, few traces of their uncouth jargon behind them; and the same may be supposed of the Vandals, whom Belisarius transported from Africa, and established as colonists in some of the most fertile provinces, to repair the dreadful havoc made in their population by the Gothic war.

These causes were doubtless more than sufficient to produce all the changes which have taken place in the ancient language of Italy, even though we should reject the conjecture of Maffei, who supposes, that Italian retains much of the ancient dialects of the different provinces, which dialects yielded to Latin in the great towns during the dominion of Rome, but always remained in vigor in the villages and among the peasantry. Yet this opinion, in itself probable, as may well be supposed, since it is supported by such autho. rity as that of the learned Marquis, is strengthened, and I might say almost established, by the information and the acuteness of Lanzi.

But whatever foreign words or barbarous terms might have forced their way into the language. of Italy, they have resigned their native roughness as they passed the Alps or the sea, dropped their supernumerary consonants, or changed them into vowels; and instead of a nasal or guttural

close, they have assumed the fulness and the majesty of Roman termination. Such words therefore may, in general, be considered rather as embellishments than as deformities, and unquestionably add much to the copiousness, without diminishing the harmony of the language. In this latter respect, indeed, Italian stands unrivalled. Sweetness is its characteristic feature: all modern dialects admit its superior charms, and the genius of music has chosen it for the vehicle of his most melodious accents. That this advantage is derived from the mother tongue principally, is apparent, as all the sounds of the modern language are to be found in the ancient; but some attempts seem to have been made, by retrenching the number of consonants and multiplying that of vowels; by suppressing aspirations and separating mutes; in short, by multiplying the opener sounds, and generalizing the more sonorous cases, tenses, and conjugations, to improve the smoothness of Latin, and to increase, if possible, its harmonious powers. How far these attempts have succeeded is very questionable; especially as they have been counteracted by the introduction, or rather, the extension, of articles and of auxiliary verbs, that dead weight imposed by barbarism on all modern languages, and invented, it would seem, for the express purpose of checking the rapidity of thought, and encumber

ing the flow of a sentence. In this respect particularly, and almost exclusively, the modern dialect of Italy betrays marks of slavery and of degradation.

Barbaricos testatus voce tumultus.

Milton Epist. ad Patrem.

Italian is, however, freer from these burthens than any other modern language; but this partial exemption, which it owes to a nearer resemblance to its original Latin, while it proves its superiority on one side, only shows its inferiority on the other. To which we may add, that the Roman pronunciation, the only one which gives Italian all the graces and all the sweetness of which it is susceptible, is evidently the echo of the ancient language transmitted from generation to generation, and never entirely lost in that immortal Capital. Let not the daughter therefore

Sdegnosa forsé del secondo onore.

dispute the honors of the Parent, but content herself with being acknowledged as the first and the fairest of her offspring*.

Figlia bensi della Latina, ma non men bella e nobile della Madre," says Muratori with pardonable partiality, Dissert. xxxiii.