spirits of their arts, we would willingly refer to that safest of all criterions, according to Moliere, in the judgment of old ladies, and readers whether old or young, viz. the degree of amusement and laughter which they may have awakened in the perusal. Such works, indeed, from their nature, ought never to consist of too weighty and laborious materials their object is discursive; and the information which they convey should be of a pleasing, a rapid, and a various character Throughout all their wanderings, an appearance of truth and the probability of nature must be preserved;a harmony, and blending of the real and ideal parts of the picture, much more difficult to attain than either a mere copy from historical nature or a purely original design. In this view, we do not think that many names can boast of having been very successful, even in native travels, conducted on this tempting but dangerous and uncertain plan. Yet, so far from being unsought in proportion to its difficulties, the airy route has been pursued from time immemorial to that of Captain Gulliver whose voyages and travels are of that rare kind which seem to produce a stronger impression of a portrait, as an Irish gentleman observed, than the original itself b>Where such a fanciful power over nature, so complete a copy, and such truth of all circumstances of life, are capable of beings brought into action together, the fictitious appearance of the traveller becomes absorbed in the wonders of his art. 3. Gullie ver forms an excellent specimen of the species of interest and illusion which we require; and in which all similar works are, in comparison, so lamentably deficient.. mam od tuodt W boWithout dilating farther on this part of the subject, it is enough for our purpose to apply these remarks to the travels of the ideal personage before us. With all the skill and literary tact attributed to his nation, Theodore Ducas the Greek has failed, in the hands of Mr. Mills, to impose for a moment on our imagination, to impress us with a sense of his actual existence, to awaken that degree of illusion which is so necessary to give life and reality, and to throw a charmi over his literary and philosophical excursions. In the want of this rare power, the vraisemblance and probability, in which so few writers succeed, we must be contented to rank Mr. Mills with the generality rather than the select number of authors, who, following Swift, Cervantes, and Le Sage, have attempted by the force and vivacity of their genius to stamp on their hero's travels and adventures the living characters of originality, not less imposing than the truth. Never, indeed, for a moment, do we seem to lose ourselves with Theodore Ducas in the progress of his route, and amid the ages of BIT. reviving reviving literature and art. The spirit in which he writes, his criticisms on art, and the tone of his feelings and opinions, are altogether of the leaven of the passing day, which too evidently leaveneth the whole mass. We strive in vain to impose on ourselves, and to believe in the probable existence of this same learned Theban ;" →→ for the idea of the editor every where assails us, in the presence of the great, in the seats of learning and of art, in the company of orators, painters, and poets, in the description of supposed contemporary characters and events, and among the time-hallowed scenes and antiquities of the old Roman world. We no where trace the lively hand and varied impressions which we should na turally attribute to a Greek; a stranger and a wanderer amid the wreck of former greatness, the fading monuments of Roman splendor, literature, and art; and the rising glories of a fresh age of genius, learning, and surpassing power. The mantle of classical inspiration is not upon himg the os magna sonaturum" of the reviving voice and ener gies of literature is not a part of him; he is not one of the ultimus Græcorum, inspiring the scholars of Italy with know lege, and with a love and veneration of the dying language and recollections of his country. He fails in transferring his ideas and feelings into the scenes and circumstances of other times, to catch some portion of the spirit of the age in which he professes to have lived, to give us an ideal existence with it, however imperfect, and to identify himself with the situ ations, objects, and recollections by which he was surrounded. Without the information of the title-page, which is indeed a little superfluous, we should have received the travels and opinions of Theodore Ducas for what they really are; and they ought to have been announced as those of a modern gene tleman, of elegant taste and classical acquirements; → unwill ing, perhaps, to take the pains of thinking and judging and journeying for himself. While the writer, however, has thus unnecessarily encountered the almost certain failure of his attempt to give them an air of reality and truth, it has al lowed him the advantage of dressing out modern authorities and generally received opinions in criticism and art, with a certain appearance of novelty and originality which they would hot otherwise have possessed; and hence, we think, we may trace the origin of the Anacharsis-style of travels from the first, the inexhaustible source of French compilers, the most notorious receivers of stolen literary goods, the ran sackers of libraries of Italian and Spanish tales and travels, and the large class of authors of Abridgments and Elegant Extracts, in which the literature of every country abounds. The names of the author of Anacharsis and of Cyrus, the Della Valles and De La Motte Fénelons of France and Italy, with the rambling heroes of our own country, will easily occur to every reader. It is among the most respectable of these productions, however, that the travels of the pseudo-Greek before us may be allowed to take their place; and though the staple article of their composition is undoubtedly of a borrowed quality, consisting of what the Italians themselves are fond of terming refacciamento, or vamping up, and which the French designate by mélange, yet the contents of these volumes are by no means destitute of interest, and the ar rangement and execution deserve much commendation. In denying them all claim, however, to an imaginative character, and to any portion of illusive interest from the merits of their Grecian hero, we do not mean to derogate from the real qualities and excellence which, in other respects, they in disputably possess. If they do not abound in original thought and criticism on the wide and multifarious subjects which they embrace, but abide by the testimony and rest on the authorities of preceding original writers, or of tourists who have really travelled, they have nevertheless the merit of diligence and research, and of adapting the opinions and circumstances of various times and characters to the objects which the author has in view. Considerable skill and ingenuity are manifested by him in availing himself of the talents and materials of others; in embodying them; and in abridging and di gesting from a mass of matter all the most curious and inter esting points, so as to give them afresh to the world in: pleasing and elegant language, for which the writer is so far intitled to our praise. We do not perceive from the production itself that he can fairly boast of higher or more original aims. As both the native and foreign authors, from whom he borrows, are equally voluminous and abundant, we are not surprized to find that his views of character and society, and of the literature and arts of the Medicean age, are in general liberal and correct. In the poets, the painters, and the scholars of Italy, the critical historians of Germany, and more recent publications of English writers, - Mr. M. had a safe and rich mine of precious knowlege and criticism relating to the revival of literature and the arts; which he has shewn, more judgment in applying to the purposes in view, than he would have exercised if he had ventured to assert greater freedom of opinion, and a wider range of critical and speculative reasoning, in the manner of the Germans, from resources, more peculiarly his own. Of these, however, he has has availed himself in a way partly justifiable, in an abridg ment of the voluminous accounts of other writers: while the manner, the language, and the spirit of the work are perfectly genuine; and the tone of sentiment and elucidation of his subjects are wholly his own. H Mr. M. has, therefore, fairly accomplished the task of giv ing us, by judicious research and arrangement, a rapid, correct, is and amusing view of the revival and progress of the various societies and professions, of learning and the fine arts, during the most interesting period of the middle ages. These sketches are agreeably blended with literary anecdotes, traits of character, and incidents relating to the private life, quarrels, and adventures of the first poets, artists, and scholars to whom Italy owes the permanence of her fame. As far as all this will be novel and entertaining to many readers, the labors of Mr. M. may be hailed as original. For ourselves, we must confess that we have been travelling over old ground during the perusal of them, encountering the faces and relishing the jokes of many of our old Italian and English friends; though well and amusingly disguised in the fashion of the passing times. Throughout the whole travels of this shrewd and observing Greek, we found nothing, either of a vegetable or an animal nature, that we had not before seen. To trace these matters to their original sources, to refer each and every! one to its parent stock, and to state them in the brief compass of a Review, would indeed be a laborious task, not less wonderful than the power of writing the Church-liturgy on a sixpence, which we have heard of being done, but which we confess to be beyond our power; and, as we do not mean to impugn Mr. M.'s literary character by these remarks, we do not feel ourselves required to depone to each circumstance of time and place, leaving such an office to future commentators on old English works. It is impossible to render adequate justice to the contents of these volumes by any specimens, which we should very willingly give as highly creditable to the taste, feeling, and composition of the author: but we shall subjoin sufficient to convey a fair and accurate opinion of the general merits of the work. We think that the account of Dante and Boccaccio, and the character of their writings, are among the best that flow from this author's pen; and, indeed, that of the latter is singularly happy in critical tact, and the justness of its views. We can quote only the concluding part: It is as the father of Italian prose that Boccaccio stands preeminent. He gave it richness, purity, and harmony. Whether such was his wish or not, his fame rests on his novels, and of those, on the Decamerone chiefly. It is generally said that he depended for immortality on his Latin works only; and that he wrote his Italian pieces for relaxation of mind. This assertion may be opposed by the fact, that his novels are far longer and more nume rous than his other pieces, and that at the conclusion of the Decamerone he often complains of the lunga fatica of his work. Towards the close of his life, he certainly regretted that so much licentiousness had fallen from his pen; and this opinion gave rise, perhaps, to the assertion which I have mentioned.' Few of the tales in the Decamerone are the perfect creations of Boccaccio's genius. Most of them existed already in a rude, shape. The collection of tales called the Gesta Romanorum, by Peter Berchorius, prior of the Benedictine convent of St. Eloy at Paris, was a very favorite work in the fourteenth century, when it was written, as well as in after times. Boccaccio has occasionally drawn from it. He calls his master Leontius an inexhaustible archive of Grecian tales and fables. Hence many Oriental and Greek fictions are to be met with in the Decamerone. Boccaccio likewise borrowed from the Trouveurs of the north, and the Troubadours of the south of France. Italian cities were in Boccaccio's time so much infested by vagrant French minstrels, that their excesses were made the subject of municipal regulation. Some germs of the Decamerone are to be found in the Golden Ass of Apuleius, in the tales of the Seven Wise Men, and others, in the collection of popular stories called the Cento Novelle Antiche. Many had been long the hereditary property of the travelling Italian minstrels, and not a few were mere village stories. The proud lord, the polite cavalier, the lovely damsel, the cruel and avaricious father, coquettes, and cuckolds, luxurious monks, and crafty friars, were common members of society in Boccaccio time, and he has introduced them into his tales, in every possible variety of exhibition. He gave vitality and spirit to the meagre forms of ancient fiction, and his pictures of his contemporaries are striking and faithful. The elegance of the narratives, the richness, and naïveté of the style, the wit of the conversation, the remarks on life, the poetic grace of description, in short, the genius of the whole, must be claimed by Boccaccio alone. There is unhappily much in the Decamerone that offends deli cacy and yet the poems were written for the amusement of the ladies, per cacciar la malinconia delle femine, as the author says. It has been well and pointedly remarked, that Boccaccio has beens less scrupulous in violating the laws of morals, which we receive from God, than in shocking the rules that regulate the purity of language, and which proceed only from the will and caprice of men. Some passages have even been construed into a contempt of religion. His wit may not, perhaps, always be under restraint, and occasionally improper expressions may have escaped him sin censuring the profligacy of the monastic orders. Indeed whene ever any act of peculiar sensuality and atrocity is to be performedy a monk is the actor. It was surmised that his laughter at false relics proceeded from a secret contempt for religion. None of his stories |