incapable of direct demonstration or even of direct confutation, and capable of being scholastically evaded by the admission of troublesome greatness as a "species per se." The second, though an enormous assumption, expressed the candid belief of ninety-nine educated men out of a hundred at the time. The third, which is supported by Scaliger with a great deal of abusive and uncritical belittling of Homer, is of course in itself a critical absurdity, but is scarcely an advance, except in sweeping aggressiveness, on the position of Vida, whom Scaliger pedantically patronises as “an excellent poet but a lame teacher." It must be admitted, however, that his injunction to "echo" the ancients is more diplomatic than Vida's frank advice to "steal from" them. He preached to willing ears, and much more than a hundred years after we shall find men like Boileau and Addison rather dressing afresh and propping up his doctrines than in any way really improving on them. Posterity might sometimes turn blind eyes upon his blasphemies of Homer, and it may be quite true that to speak of the Unities as Unités Scaligériennes is a fraud upon the critic to whom we come next. But the principle which governed the selection and erection of these Unities into a law of the Medes and Persians is the principle which lies at the root of Scaliger's whole Poetic.1

1 It should be said that Scaliger does not fear or fail to support his views in every case with copious citation and discussion of illustrative passages. The little things of his own, which he sometimes also appends (with the inevitable warning that they were knocked off in a couple of hours or the like), are less legitimate, but more amusing perhaps to some readers.

The critic just referred to, Lodovico Castelvetro (who was born at Modena in 1505, and, having been "delated" by his enemy Annibal Caro to

Castelvetro.

the Inquisition, died in exile in 1571), is not one of the discoveries of modern times. His reputation was great in his own: he was well known to European scholars in the seventeenth century, and to Italians at least in the eighteenth. But it is only of late that he has "come to his own," if indeed he has come to it; for he has been more regarded as a commentator upon Aristotle than as a critic of original views. He invited this by the form which his writings took a form almost invariably editorial or commentatorial, and not even condescending to the Discorsi with which Italy was already anticipating or originating the true special form of Criticism, the Essay.

1

His ideas on

This peculiarity of Castelvetro's, aggravated as it is by the great bulk of his writing, makes it rather hazardous to put his views with the same drama and precision as that with which those of a epics. more methodical, if more borné, spirit like Scaliger's can be given. From an extremely interesting remark of his younger contemporary, Salviati, which Mr Spingarn has disinterred from MS., it would seem that Castelvetro's sincerity was rather distrusted; men thought he "wrote so as to be

1 The chief of these are La Poetica d'Aristotele volgarizzata e sposta, my copy of which is the second edition (Basle, 1576), said to be fuller and better than the very rare first (Vienna, 1570); and Opere Varie Critiche, edited by Muratori (Lyons, 1727), both in quarto. He wrote some other things which I have not yet seen.

different from others." Such a suspicion, though by no means, as some have thought (accordingly provoking it), an infallible proof of originality, is quite consistent with it; and in Castelvetro's case it seems to have been so. His two great titles to position are, that, while fastening the chains of the Three Unities on Drama, avowedly and expressly from the point of view of theatrical representation, he loosened them from the neck of Epic by directly differing with Aristotle. He does not, like Cinthio, base his difference on a corresponding difference of nature between Romance and Epic-indeed by this time the tyranny of Kinds would seem to have been too generally accepted for this to be possible, though a little later Patrizzi 1 nearly re-vindicated the whole liberty of literature as taught by history. But with equal boldness and ingenuity he meets Aristotle on Aristotelian principles, though not in Aristotelian terms. Poetry, according to him, when freed from dramatic restraints, may follow history exactly-observing only the difference of real and invented events. The poet may introduce Unity of Action if he likes; but he is perfectly entitled to give the whole life, chronicle-fashion, of one hero, the mixed actions of several, or the gestes of a

2

1 This great critic (1529-1597) only took up Criticism as part of an anti-Aristotelian crusade. But in the two parts of his Della Poetica (Venice, 1586) he has almost founded the historic method, and actually laid down the cardinal truth that a thing is Poetry if it is treated poetically.

2 In the Spositione to the Particella Sesta of his Parte Principale Terza: in other words, in his commentary on chap. viii. of the Poetics, according to our editions.

people. And he proves this by a large comparison of instances and a great deal of very ingenious argument.

It was unfortunate, doubtless—if anything can be deemed unfortunate by that modified fatalism which long study of the history of literature induces-that men turned unequal attention upon Castelvetro's exercises of the Power of the Keys, - that they bound remorselessly what he told them to bind, and neglected to set free what he told them to loose. But the existence of these various tendencies - in neither case directly or wholly borrowed in his work, together with many other things which there is no room here to mention, shows what a critic he was, and may fitly crown the limited demonstration here possible of the critical importance of Italy in the sixteenth century. Once more, she showed herself-unfortunately it was for the last time hitherto -the mother of European culture, the fountain of intellectual gift. That the gift was of a very mixed nature, the influence not a little questionable, does not matter; and, besides, we have, even in this small space, been able to make it plain that the antidote was supplied as well as the bane.

399

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MINOR LITERATURES-CONCLUSION.

NORSE-THE DANISH BALLADS-DUTCH REDERIKERS THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGES: HUNGARIAN-THE AGE NOT SPECIALLY AN AGE OF REASON THE IMPORTATION OF THE OLD AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW OTHER INFLUENCES, EAST AND WEST-THE REFORMATION THE GREAT WORK, THE FASHIONING OF THE VERNACULARS: ACHIEVEMENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS IN LATININ VERNACULAR -ITS LACK OF THE HIGHEST CHARM-THE COMPENSATIONS-THE CHIEF ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Norse.

NOT much has to be added to the contents of the foregoing chapters before we take a final survey of this great period. The literatures of the Peninsula have received their treatment-for very strong reasons, not merely of convenience-in the following volume. The decadence which had long before set in upon the once great literature of the extreme North had already grown more decrepit. The "blanket of the dark," which dropped suddenly at the beginning of the sixteenth century between the Icelander and his great literary past, is well indicated in the opening pages of Messrs Vigfusson and Powell's