conversation and in light compositions, and was probably, on account of the length and solemnity of the full sound, almost universal in the provinces and in the country. In the latter class, the custom of uniting a word terminating in a vowel, with the following word beginning with one, as well as an indistinct pronunciation of vowels and consonants of similar sounds, was noticed by Cicero. These clisions were very ancient, and probably remained among the peasantry when given up by the more polished inhabitants of the Capital. In fact, from the inscription on the rostral pillar, and the epitaph of the Scipios, we find that the m and s were anciently suppressed, even in writing; that the b and the v, the e and the i, were used indiscriminately, and that the o was generally employed instead of u. In an illiterate age, when few know how to read or write, and such were the ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire, the pronunciation of the lower class generally becomes that of the community at Cicero had observed a little before, that the use of the aspirate was much less common anciently than it was in his time, and that the early Romans were accustomed to pronounce Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem, &c. that is as the modern Italians (Orator 48). The more frequent use of the aspirate was probably derived from the Greek pronunciation, which began to influence Roman elocution about that period.-Cic. de Claris Orat. 74. The observations of Quintilian upon the S and the M are curious: . Cæterum consonantes quoque exque præcipue quæ sunt asperiores in commissura verborum rixantur quæ fuit causa et Servio subtrahendæ, S, literæ quoties ultima esset aliaque consonante susciperetur. Quod reprehendit Lauranius, Messala defendit. Nam neque Lucilium putant uti eadem ultima cum dicit Serenu fuit et dignu' toco; quinetiam Cicero in Oratore plures antiquorum tradit sic locutos inde Belligerare, po' meridiem. Et illa Censorii Catonis Die hanc; æque', m, litera in e mollita. Quæ in veteribus libris reperta mutare imperiti solent et dum librariorum inscientiam insectari volunt, suam confitentur.Quintil. lib. IX. large, and at length acquires authority by time and prescription. Another cause, similar and concomitant, was the ignorance of orthography. The dreadful and destructive wars that preceded and followed that disastrous event, suspended all literary pursuits, dissolved all schools and seminaries, and deprived for ages the inhabitants of Italy of almost all means of instruction. Books were rare, and readers still rarer; pronunciation was abandoned to the regulation of the ear only, and the ear was unguided by knowledge, and depraved by barbarous dissonance. We may easily guess how a language must be disfigured when thus given up to the management of ignorance, when we observe how our own servants and peasants spell the commonest words of their native tongue, even though in their infancy they may have learned at least the elements of reading and spelling *. Among these causes these causes we may perhaps number the false refinements of the Italians themselves; and it is highly probable, as the learned Maffei conjectures, that the unparalleled effeminacy of the Romans during the second, third, and fourth cen * To the ignorance of orthography we may attribute half the corruption of the Latin language: hence the degradation of the Capitolium into Campidoglio, the Portico of Caius and Lucius (Caii et Lucii) into Galluccio; hence the Busta Gallorum became Porto Gallo, the Cloaca, Chiavicha, Video, Veggo, Hodie, Oggi, &c. &c. &c. The most material change took place not in the sound but in the sense of the words, though it is difficult to conceive how it could have been effected. Thus, laxare to loosen, unbind, has become lasciare to let go, to let in general; cavare to hollow, indent, is now to take, to draw. Morbidus, sickly, morbid, morbido, soft, &c. turies, might have extended itself even to their language, multiplied its smoother sounds, retrenched some of its rougher combinations, and turned many of its manly and majestic closes by consonants into the easier flow of vowel terminations. In fact, no circumstance relative to the Italian language is so singular and so unaccountable as its softness. The influence of the peasantry of the country, as well as that of the northern barbarians, must have tended, it would seem, to untune the language and fill it with jarring and discordant sounds; yet the very reverse has happened, and the alteration has been conducted as if under the management of an academy employed for the express purpose of rendering the utterance distinct and easy, as well as soft and musical. Thus the termination of m, so often recurring in Latin, was supposed to have a bellowing sound, and indeed Cicero calls it mugientem litteram ; the s again was heard to hiss too often at the end of words; as t closing the third person was considered as too short and smart for a concluding letter; they were all three suppressed. Cl, pl, tr, have somewhat indistinct as well as harsh in the utterance; the first was changed before a vowel into chi, the second into pi, the t was separated from the r, and a vowel inserted to give the organ time to unfold itself, and to prepare for the forcible utterance of the latter letter. Thus Clavis, placere, trahere, were softened into chiave, piacere, tirare. For similar reasons, m, c, p, when followed by t, were obliged to give way, and somnus, actus, assumptus, metamorphosed into sonno, atto, assonto; in short, not to multiply examples, which the reader's observation may furnish in abundance, the ablative case was adopted as the most harmonious, and the first conjugation as the most sonorous. The only defect of this nature in Italian, and it may be apparent only, is the frequent return of the syllables ce and ci, which convey a sort of chirping 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 and barbarism of their own dialects. Hence, though 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 *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 Sæpius irrumpens. Sunt jussi vertere morem 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 unknown sources. Muratori has collected them in his Thirty-third Dissertation. The rest of the language is Latin. 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 latter by the Saracens, who established themselves in Sicily, and in some maritime towns in Calabria, during the ninth and tenth centuries. The Lombards probably 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 doubtlessly 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 vigour in the villages and among the peasantry. Yet this opinion, in itself probable, as may well be supposed, since it is supported by such authority as that of the learned Marquis, is strengthened, and I might say almost established, by the information and acuteness of Lanzi. But whatever foreign words or barbarous terms might have |