a sound, safe and profitable one, if he employ it. But the contrary was the case here; and in this manner have the habits of personal extravagance and speculative business been engendered, which now exhibit themselves through the country. A species of speculative frenzy seized the people, similar to what we have examples of in Law's Mississippi Scheme, in France; in the South Sea Bubbles, in England; and the mining speculations in South America, which Great Britain entered into so wildly, in and previous to 1825. History tells us, that these visionary schemes, with which we now wonder that it was possible for people to be deceived, were the cause then of reckless extrava⚫ gnnce, dissolute habits, and depraved morals; and that the explosion of them was attended with ruin, despair and wretchedness to thousands of their victims; any why should not the same causes be sufficient to account for the same effects now? The dazzling fortunes, that were supposed to. have been made in the purchase and sale of real estate and wild lands, where the speculators fancied they had made, or would make, from fifty to five hundred per cent. profit, in the course of a few months; or the vast commerce that was supposed to have been about to pour in upon us, in consequence of our intended railroads and canals, meant to facilitate it, were surely little less visionary than the fallacious projects of the last century. In attributing the growth of pernicious, personal and commercial habits to these delusive dreams, we have a precedent in support of the connection of cause and effect. But in assuming, that the excessive imports of foreign luxuries is the cause, we are not merely taking an opportunity for a cause, but we are giving such a reason for the convulsions of the last few years, as has never yet been assigned for the serious troubles of any nation. Spain is, indeed, supposed to have exhausted itself commercially, by constantly drawing her supplies from other countries, at the time when idleness was nourished in the nation, by her receipts of SouthAmerican treasure; but this was a slow decay, attended with no convulsion,-no violent derangement. There is no parity between her case and ours, in two material points, viz., the cause and the manner of the change. The national idleness that brought about the result in Spain, has nothing to do with the case here, and the many years during

which over imports existed in Spain to a small excess, show a state of things altogether different from what is exhibited by the sudden excessive increase of imports here.

The disposition to borrow too much from abroad, is already sufficiently checked, by the change in the feelings of lenders. And if some preventive to the extravagance of the people, in their personal and commercial habits, is wanted, it will be found of adequate force in any measure that shall bring about a resumption of specie payments. This is the true touchstone, which will reduce the inflated images of imagined wealth and means to their real size, and convince all classes, that there is a necessity for a change in their habits and expectations. Legislation has been made so much the tool of designing or speculative men, who have abused it to the working out their schemes of fictitious accumulation, that we scarcely expect to see it, at last, made subservient to the sound, but inviting purposes of introducing the low regimen of specie payments. Too many, who are deeply interested in maintaining the present order of things, lest their airy castles and fictitious wealth should vanish from their grasp, are at work to oppose such a course of legislation. But the evil is fast working out its own cure; those who wish merely to reap in security some equivalent reward for positive hard labor, are beginning to see that the overthrow of paper fallacies is the necessary step to it; the very extent to which the system has been carried has distended it to such an unnatural size, that every part is giving way and falling into fragments, that disclose nothing but the emptiness they covered. And we doubt not, that in a short time, a sobered and industrious nation, reaping the moderate fruits of patient labor, and discerning, cautiously applied enterprize, will wonder at the delusion that could have veiled from their perception the folly of the course that we have, for the last ten years been pursuing. With a rigid adherence to specie payments, all the frugal virtues will abundantly flourish, whether we cramp our energies by the system of protection or not; but a reliance on the system of protection, for restoring the sobriety of the nation, without a resort to specie payments, will, certainly, not attain the effect.

It is an error to suppose, that a tendency to extravagance is fostered by commerce; for if we compare the habits of the commercial and the landed interests in Europe, we shall

find that thrift and frugality are virtues much more prevalent among traders and merchants, in proportion to their means, than among farmers and landholders. The most commercial nations have been most noted for their frugality, in proportion to their means, and the fact of their greater increase in national wealth is, alone, a sufficient proof of it. But restraining habits of extravagance, by restricting imports, very nearly resembles the sumptuary laws of olden times, which, ineffectual as they were, when the authority of the sovereign could give effect to them, by direct measures, will be more ineffectual under any indirect guise that may now be assumed to introduce them. It is not now sufficient to prescribe a rule, in order to alter people's conduct; we must instil a reason. The moral habits of a people cannot be dictated by authority, although they may be influenced by experience, and by argument. And our only chance of permanent influence for good is, by setting matters on their true basis, so that they may naturally gravitate to a correct position; but, placing them on a wrong foundation is an error that all the propping and supporting by extraneous contrivances will never compensate.

The system of self-dependance in a nation, to the exclu sion or diminution of intercourse with other nations, is a Chinese policy, which the present state of enlightenment must condemn, as an object to be followed for its own sake. It is to commerce that the whole civilized world owes its present state of advancement; and a higher interest than that of mere pecuniary views, the moral interest of the world, demands, that, instead of seeking to wrap themselves up within themselves, different communities should seek for intercourse with each other, by every means within their power. If an extension of the circle of our sympathies, of the sphere of our observation, an acquaintance with, and improvement in the arts and sciences that adorn, embellish and elevate mankind, and opportunities for the exertion of our energies, in the widest field of action, be desirable, then are we called upon, by every duty, and every tie to ourselves and to our fellow beings, to throw down all barriers to freedom of intercourse, wherever it is practicable to do so; and never can we defend a policy which has no other recommendation than that of cutting us off, as a community, from all necessity for intercourse with the rest of the world.

1842.] Lives of Literary and Scientific Men of Italy. 527

ART. X.-Lives of Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy: by Mrs. Shelley, Sir D. Brewster, James Montgomery, and others. 2 vols. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard.

Biography, always one of the most interesting branches of literature, is particularly so, when it relates to those extraordinary men, "the day-stars of their day," who have burst through the night of ignorance and prejudice, have outstepped by centuries the learning of their compatriots, and anticipated the march of improvement and science.

Some writer has remarked, that the difference between genius and mediocrity, consisted less in any inferiority of organization, than in the perseverance and sustained energy which leads the man of genius to accomplish his designs, overcoming apathy, enmity, jealousy, and apparently insurmountable difficulties, warring against ills, and triumphing over fate, leaving his name a glory to his country, a star to the world, whilst many, gifted with faculty to conceive and even talent to execute, become discouraged by the first difficulty, never carry through their designs, sink into obscurity, and leave no name behind.

A work appeared a few years since, entitled "on the pursuit of literature under difficulties," admirably calculated to awaken emulation in the breast of youth; for whilst it showed the aspirant for literary distinction

"How hard it is to climb,

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar,"

it also proves how energy and perseverance have carried men of superior minds up that lofty steep to a place in the temple.

The lives of the literary and scientific men of Italy, give a striking proof, which the experience of all countries confirms, of how seldom are "the favorites of Nature" the favorites of Fortune. It would seem as if heaven designed to show mankind how little it valued wealth and worldly prosperity, by endowing with these gifts those who merit the scorn and contempt of the wise and good, whilst those endowed with genius, virtue and talents, have not unfreVOL. I.-NO. 2.

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quently been the sport of fortune,-apparently the victims of an adverse destiny.

The deeply interesting volumes we are about to notice, commence with the life of Dante Alighieri, who was born in 1265, and died 1321.

As a man of surpassing genius, bursting like a meteor through the intellectual darkness which succeeded the overthrow of the Roman Empire, Dante appeared the first to lead the way in that brilliant galaxy of great minds, that made Italy a second time the seat of the arts, of poetry and refinement.

Civilization and the arts, which had been driven from the soil of Italy, by the irruptions of successive hordes of barbarians, found, for a time, an asylum in the south of France, along the beautiful valleys of the Garonne and the Durance, and the soft Provençal tongue was tuned to harmony, by the lays of the Troubadours. The Italian, which was destined to succeed the Provençal, as the language of poetry and song, was then struggling into existence, springing from a mixture of the harmonious Provençal and Moorish, grafted on the Latin.

Dante is the first who tuned to numbers this unformed tongue, and is, therefore, not inappropriately considered as the first who gave it a character and form. Colleges at that time existed in many of the large towns in northern Italy, but Latin was the only language studied, and science and polite literature gave way to polemical disquisitions and the philosophy of the schools. Dante studied at Padua, and Bologna, and was well versed in the writings of the classic authors of Rome. He was also an adept in the learning of the day, perseveringly and patiently toiled through the almost interminable labyrinths of school divinity, under the bewildering guidance of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. Following the fashion of the times, he visited the universities of other countries, particularly those of Paris and Oxford, holding debates with the learned, and challenging them to dispute on some polemical controversy, according to the syllogistic system of Aristotle.

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"During this season of seed-time for the mind," says our author, vol i., p. 21, we are told that, notwithstanding his indefatigable labors in the acquirement and cultivation of knowledge, he appeared so