And Germany, though she might like to ment suggested to give up a great deal, keep her hands free to operate in any and may when the actual moment ardirection for example, to attract Hol- rives be unwilling to give it up. The Emland into the federation, and so gain ships, peror of Germany, it may be said, gives colonies, and commerce at a blow-pur- up nothing, for he is guaranteed in poschases her freedom dearly at the price of session of Alsace and Lorraine, and has at her liability to a combined attack from the present no desire for further acquisition West and the East at the same time. of territory, not wanting more Catholic Each Power, therefore, has some strong subjects yet awhile. But the Czar must and definite interest in an agreement give up his chance of weakening his giganwhich it is quite open to the three Sover- tic neighbour by French aid; that is his eigns to make, which two at least of their best chance of securing Constantinople, advisers, Prince Bismarck and Count An- an object which he could not abandon drassy, are understood earnestly to desire, without danger to his Crown, his subjects and which is not of a kind that the re-desiring that possession even more than mainder of Europe could resolutely attack. he does. He cannot agree to guarantee It would threaten nobody immediately, Germany and attack Germany, cannot and if it did, while England continues to make friends with Austria, and at the approve the policy of isolation, Kaiser same time lay his hand upon the throat of William may fairly say to his brother Mon- the Empire, the mouth of the great river archs," Now we three have said it, it skills which drains it from end to end. He must not much whoe'er impugns our doom." in fact remain very much where he is, that The agreement would not, like the old Holy Alliance, threaten liberty-except in Poland, for no monarch now asks external guarantees against his own people; nor would it greatly anger the Revolution, which, if no nearer its end in consequence, would be no further from it, might indeed be a little nearer, in consequence of the increased attention the Germans, relieved from their fear of invasion, would pay to their internal affairs. There is, in fact, no force anywhere to resist such an alliance, except in the West, where France by her self is powerless, and England, which might make her powerful, is intent upon ends with which the politics of the Continent have no immediate connection. It is quite possible that a league such as we have indicated might be arranged by the Sovereigns to be present at this meeting, and quite certain that the meeting, therefore, whether or not it be followed by consequences, is a most important event, but Europe has still to discover whether the Sovereigns concerned are willing to arrange it. Count Andrassy, according to the Eastern Budget, which is a semi-official Austrian journal, thinks they will be, but there are some obstacles to be removed before foreign observers can share in his opinion. Of the three Sovereigns concerned, one gains everything, while the two others will be asked under the agree is to say, shut out from the Mediterranean, and hemmed in on the West by powerful empires, from which he is protected only by a treaty, which they may observe and probably will, but also may not. He gains no new security except a promise. So also the Kaiser of Austria must give up a great deal - his chance, should war arise between Berlin and Paris, of securing the coveted Principalities, or of re-entering Germany, or, as might happen, of securing the Catholic States of the South for his own dominion. In a war such as that between Germany and France would be, heavy prices would be paid for alliances, and all things might be possible to the victor's allies. He must, moreover, forego finally all dream of the ancient crown, a dream very dear to the House of Hapsburg, and submit to see the Papacy reduced to terms, without obtaining in return any guarantee that if, after the French danger has disappeared, the treaty is ever broken, his subjects may not elect to join their prosperous and powerful brethren of the North, and so make Germany safe against all Europe combined. He will have, Catholic, Hapsburg, and defeated soldier as he is, to surrender much, and may, when the crisis comes at last, be unable to descend, as he will think, so many steps in the scale of the world. 655 670 2. OFF THE SKELLIGS. By Jean Ingelow. Part XIV., Saint Pauls, 3. REFORM IN JAPAN, Edinburgh Review, SI J'ETAIS PETIT OISEAU. By Beran LIFE SHADOWS, ger,. 642 SUMMER WINDS, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers. the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year. nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club THE LIVING AGE with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. On the iron bars, where the sun falls dim On the prisoner's latticed room, I would perch and waft, with my soothing hymn, Come from the south and the sunshine cool, A ray that should clear the gloom; Then one would smile, And another the while Should dream of his home in a distant isle. And rustle the laurel leaves! Welcome ye sound in the dewy morns, And the purple-tinted eves. Ye are songs, sweet songs, for opening flowers, Fill with your music the woods and groves, Swim over the fields of grass and corn, We're waiting to hear ye once again, In the blushing morn, and when the eve Athenæum. S. H. B. Europe is come to her majority And enters on the vast inheritance No more, as once in sunny Avignon, lips, ment begun by Petrarch had accomplished a century after his death. We must now descend to earth and go a hundred years backward, in order to trace the steps and point out the means by which these results were achieved. Florence was proud of Petrarch as her son. By honouring him she strove to make amends for the unkindness she had shown to Dante. Nowhere had he more fervent admirers, more devoted disciples. Foremost among these was Boccaccio, author of the ever-to-be-remembered "Decamerone," and the ever-to-be-forgotten "Genealogia Deorum." There is a saying attributed to the Emperor Charles V., that according as one knew so many languages he was so many times a man. Petrarch and Boccaccio spoke and wrote two languages with equal readiness. There were two men in each. There was Petrarch, the Italian poet, graceful, tender, and (in Shakespeare's phrase) "high fantastical;" and Petrarch the Latin moralist, stern, uncompromising, and aggressive. There was Boccaccio, the Italian novelist, by turns gay and pathetic, licentious and severe, but always inimitably simple and natural; and Boccaccio, the Latin pedant, laborious without method, indefatigable in research without discrimination. In the living Boccaccio the two characters, so distinct in his books, were blended into one, and doubtless the Latin which he spoke in discussion with his friends was lighted up with the graces of the "Decamerone." His relations with Petrarch were uninterruptedly friendly, always on the recognized footing of disciple and master. The homage of the disciple was gracionsly accepted; the condescending patronage of the master Looks mild reproach from out its open'd grave plied no chapter to "The Quarrels of Authors." It is true that they never lived in the same place. Distance is a great preserver of peace. Anothor disciple was Luigi Marsigli, an Augustinian monk of the convent of Santo Spirito, in Florence, who in early youth had seen Petrarch himself, and been stimulated by his encouragement to the study of classical learning; a man of letters, a man of the world, an ardent patriot, who in spite of all these disqualifications became Bishop of Florence. But that was at a later period, in 1389, | escaped notice in the secrecy of cloistered fourteen years after Boccaccio's death. A life; more public attempts at rebellion had third disciple was Coluccio de' Salutati, been easily suppressed because they were who wrote in Latin ethical treatises in imi-isolated and premature; but now the hour tation of those of Petrarch, and a poem on was come, and the men. The Accademia the wars of Pyrrhus in imitation of his which assembled at San Spirito was as "Africa." In April 1375, eight months much a dissenting meeting as the first before Boccaccio's death, he was made gathering of Covenanters on the hill-side. clerk to the Priori of Florence, i.e. secre- Each was the symptom of a movement too tary of state for all departments. He held strong to be put down by external presthe office for thirty-one years, and from a sure. Soon every city in Italy had its servant became virtually prime minister of Academy founded upon the model of that the Republic. He was the first who wrote at Florence. The questions proposed for despatches with classical precision and ele- debate were dry and abstract enough, with gance. So powerful and persuasive were no apparent reference to politics or relithey that one of the Visconti declared that gion: the hostility to existing institutions Salutati's pen had done him more harm and forms of thought, which was latent in than a thousand Florentine spears. In the the spirit and afterwards manifest in the war between Florence and Pope Gregory effect of these academies, was at first unXI. (1375-1378) he secured the sympa-suspected by the Church and perhaps by thies of all Italy by denouncing the Breton the members themselves. Intellectual mercenaries the Papal Zouaves of five power, prompted by enthusiasm, was now hundred years ago whom the Holy Fa- for the first time directed with sustained ther had enlisted to kill, burn, and ravage and organized effort towards an object in his cause. From this time forward every which the Church had not sanctioned. If state held it indispensable to have an ele- we can picture to ourselves the impatient gant Latinist for its secretary: and this delight of the Neapolitan antiquaries as helped to wrest the direction of public af- they watched the shovelling-away of the fairs out of the hands of the clergy. We volcanic dust which had covered Pompeii all remember what services, nearly three for seventeen centuries, and saw the ancient centuries later, Milton in that capacity city rising house by house and street by rendered to the government of Crom- street from its grave; or the reassured well. hopefulness of Columbus as he saw the floating sea-weed and the flights of strange birds, and knew that land was near; or the trembling eagerness of the alchemist, when at length he believed that he held in his crucible the potential gold; - we may realize the ardent curiosity, stimulated from time to time by the pleasure of discovery, with which the Academicians investigated the treasures of that old world which to them was new. And the treasures were then, literally, "untold." For us they have been thoroughly explored and sifted; they stand upon our shelves indexed, labelled, sorted; nor can we reasonably hope to add to their number. But it was otherwise with the scholars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The diligent search which was now for the first time set on foot, brought to light first one and then another long lost volume, and every man might hope to immortalize his The three men I have mentioned, in conjunction with others of like mind, founded a society for mutual improvement and discussion, which they called the "Accademia," the model and precursor of many similar societies, whose influence in the next century was incalculable. It was, in fact, the first "Literary and Philosophical Institution." It held its meetings at Santo Spirito, in Marsigli's chamber, or in the convent garden, according to the season and the weather. The very foundation of such a society was a portentous sign of the times. The thoughts of men were ripe for revolt, and here was the standard of revolt set up. The Church, which was supreme in all universities and schools, had hitherto controlled education and directed thought. The disobedience of Benedictine monks, whose only overt act was the transcription of some profane manuscript, had |