MR. OLDSCHOOL,

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

The following translation, or rather imitation of the celebrated Spanish work, called the Literary Republic, is offered to your consideration with much deference by

THE LITERARY REPUBLIC.

From the Original Spanish.

LAURA.

1

REFLECTING on the number of books that exist, and which is continually increasing, as much through the vanity of authors who study mankind in order to write, and write in order to live, as by the facility of printing them, I fell asleep, and my interior sense drew the curtain which concealed the images of the things I had reflected on, while awake. I found myself near a city whose bowers of silver and burnished gold dazzled the sight, its beauty created in me a desire to draw nearer, and, seeing before me an aged man, who was going towards it, I overtook him; it was Marcus Varro, of whose knowledge in profane and sacred history, I had learned much from the testimony of Cicero, and others. I inquired of him the name of the city; he replied courteously, that it was the Literary Republic, and offered to show me all that it contained worthy of examination. I accepted the offer, and we continued our way in agreeable conversation.

As we proceeded, I observed that the neighbouring fields produced more hellebore, than any other plant, and asking the cause, he told me that Providence always placed the antidote near the poison, and that it had here placed that plant for the relief of the citizens, who by continual study were subject to pains of the head. He added, that many of them used hellebore to strengthen the memory to the great danger of the judgment.

Having reached the city, I remarked that the walls were high and defended by cannon made of goose quills, charged with balls of paper, the ditches were filled with a dark liquor; at equal distances were high towers in which great quantities of linen rags were beat to atoms in marble mortars, and then formed into sheets of paper; a substance easily produced, but which has cost mankind so dear. Nature providentially concealed gold and silver in the entrails of the earth, as objects that would trouble our repose, she placed them in the remotest regions of the globe, and raised as walls before them, high and inaccessible mountains. But industrious man discovered the art of navigating the seas, penetrating the mountains, and extracting the metals, which have caused so many cares, wars, and murders in the world.

And these vile rags with which even nakedness could not cover itself, have been drawn by his diligence from the dunghill, where they were thrown, and changed by his labour into those sheets, where Malice is the mistress of Innocence, and which have caused such an infinite variety of ills.

The frontispiece of the gate of the city was formed of columns of marble and jasper, in which not without design Architecture seemed to have been wanting to herself; for, of the five orders, the Doric only appeared, hard and unpleasant symbol of labour and fatigue. In niches between the columns were placed the statues of the nine Muses, to whom the sculpture had given such lightness and expression, that the soul was transported as if really feeling their influence.

Clio appeared to kindle flames of glory in the breast, by reciting the deeds of illustrious men; 7erpsicore elevated the mind by the sweetness of her music; Erato gave to numbers and the compass, movement and life; Polymnia awakened the memory; Urania raised the soul to the contemplation of the stars; Caliope excited heroic spirits to glorious actions. The frontispiece was surmounted by the statue of Apollo, whose golden hair fell in brilliant waves over his shoulders; in his right hand he held a plectrum, in his left a lyre.

On entering the suburbs we found that they were inhabited by those, who exercise the arts which fatigue the body, but require little aid from the understanding. Bastard children of the Sciences, who having received from them their existence, and the rules by which they are governed, deny them, and work without knowing on what principle they labour. We passed these mechanics without paying them much attention, except to the Athenian Dedalus, who holding in one hand a saw, and a vice in the other, boasted of having invented them.

We next saw those liberal arts in which Genius guides the hand, who obeys it as its instrument, and who themselves depend on the sciences, occupied in words and quantities; they were divided from the mechanics by a gentle river, whose shores were joined by a bridge, the gate of which was supported by columns of jasper and alabaster; whose cornices were ornamented with trophies of pencils, brushes, pallets, squares, compasses and chissels; on the height of the frontispiece, Architecture was represented as a young woman, holding in her right hand a compass, her left leaning on the foundation of an edifice; at her feet, on the plane of a pedestal, was written these lines of Michael Angelo,

"Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto

"Chè un marmo solo in se non circunscriva."

At her right side stood Painting with a pencil, and pallet in her hand, and a mask hanging at her neck; at her left was Sculpture

crowned with laurels, reclining on fragments of statues. From this bridge extended a spacious street inhabited by professors of drawing and painting; among the architects, the Athenian Agatarcus gloried in having discovered the art; Sostratus drew a plan of the tower of Pharos; the Corinthian Spindarus, one of the temple of Delphos ; Carus, the Indian of the colossus of Rhodes; Scopas, the Mausoleum of Artemisia, and Apolodorus, the forum of Trajan. Others laboured at perfecting columns, pedestals, cornices, and architraves for an edifice; laborious undertakings for this short life in which the first sighs almost reach the last.

Further on, Stratonicus, Acragus, Mentor, and Bedas, were making wonderful engravings on silver. Stratonicus, engraved on a cup a satyr, with such skill that he appeared alive, and gave terror to the nymphs, who seemed to pant with fear.

Zopyrus, on a silver vase delineated the follies of Orestes; and Pytheas finished that admirable work called Magiriscia, which no one has dared to imitate. Beneath a portico king Attalus diverted himself in viewing the manufacture of cloth of various textures, and boasted of having invented them: near him several Trojans were employed in embroidery, and they copied on carpets to the envy of Painting, all the works of Nature, with such truth, that Nature herself was astonished.

In another portico, Alcamenes, Cricias, Nestocles, and Agelades, sculptured in marble, and Pyrioteles engraved Alexander the Great on precious stones, which he alone was permitted to do, as Lysippus to make his statue in marble, and Apelles to paint him on canvas. Oh! great privilege of Valour, in whose honour few are found worthy to be employed.

Among the last, though the first in his art, was the Chevalier d'Urbino finishing the statue of Daphne, half transformed into laurel, on which the view rested, expecting every moment to see her form entirely covered by the bark; and the wind move the leaves into which her hair changed by degrees.

Further on were the professors of painting, an art which emulates nature: on its invention there was great disputes. Gigias, of Lydia, boasted of having discovered it; Pyrrhus contradicted him, and also the Corinthians; the Egyptians said they had known it six thousand years before it had been known in Greece; a dispute which it would be difficult to decide, because the arts arrive at perfection by insensible degrees.

Bodies bathed in light throw out shadows, and from these shadows the art originated; Ardices and Telefantes, were the first who drew outlines, and distingushed forms; Polygnatus and Aglofon, used black

and white; Philocles, the Egyptian, invented lines; Apolodorus the pencil, and Atonello, the oil which renders pictures eternal.

As we were viewing these things in profound silence, it was interrupted by a dispute between Zeuxis and Parrhasius, rivals in painting; and as the jealousy of genius is the most violent, they would soon have come to blows; Zeuxis was ashamed of having been deceived by the curtain of Parrhasius; though he had repaired his credulity by painting grapes so naturally that the birds came and pecked at them; but he should have been less arrogant, for if the imitation of the grapes was happy, that of the boy who carried them, was not so; since he did not frighten the birds away.

We here saw Aristides painting with such expression, that the emotions of the soul, were discovered in his works; Protogenes had almost finished the picture of Jaliso, at which he had worked seven years, without other food than bread and water, any nourishment less simple, embarrassed his genius; this picture was to be placed in the temple of Peace; there remained nothing to be done, but the form of a dog, which he strove several times to imitate, but always in vain, till in despair he threw a sponge at the picture. I was astonished at the fury of the painter in destroying a work that had cost him so much pain, but my astonishment increased at beholding the mark made by the sponge produce the effect which his utmost efforts had vainly attempted; hence I learned that hazard often produces what care and attention cannot attain; and that it is best to follow the first impulses of nature, which are governed by divine movement, and not by worldly prudence.

We were amusing ourselves with this variety of pictures, when we reached a crowd of people, who disputed the precedency of painting and sculpture; Lysippus insisted that sculpture should have the preference, for it required greater knowledge of proportion, and more care in the delineation, for if an error was committed it could not be repaired in a work exposed to the touch and the view, whose perfection must be certain, and whose materials are more durable, and more precious, than those of painting. Apelles sought by various reasons to establish the superiority of painting. He said it was a silent history, which placed at once before the eyes, many actions, places, and movements to the great delight and improvement of the soul. If sculpture by the solidity of its materials shows the quantities of bodies, painting by the application of light and shade makes them appear on a plain surface. In sculpture bodies preserve their just distance, but painting groups, separates, and raises them with such skill as to deceive the eye, and make even Nature ashamed at seeing herself surpassed.

The dispute increased and threatened to become serious, when Michael Angelo, great sculptor and painter, appeased them by showing three circles which intersected each other, saying that thus these two arts and architecture were equal.

We then entered the city through a gate crowned with half a sphere, on which appeared the seven sciences. The doors were of bronze, or that Corinthian metal, so celebrated by the ancients; two grammarians with heavy eyebrows and long beards, habited à l'antique with keys hanging at their girdles, stood as guards and porters at the door; and looked so insolent with the importance of the trust, that to avoid passing I had resolved to return; but curiosity urging me on I was obliged to bear with them, and having entered, a superb edifice presented itself to my view. Before it was a spacious court, where all the books were delivered, sent from every part of the world to that Republic. The whole place was filled with them, and they were received by ancient censors each destined to examine the books of his profession; they were very severe, and only suffered to enter the city, books perfect in their kind, that could enlighten the understanding, and be of service to mankind.

I drew near a censor, and saw that he received books of jurisprudence. Fatigued with such numbers of letters, treaties, decisions, and opinions, he exclaimed, oh! Jupiter, why do you not send into the world every century an Emperor Justinian, or an army of Goths to remedy this idle deluge of learning. Without opening many cases he delivered them to the cooks that they might use the civil tracts to light fires, and the criminal ones to fry fish and cover roast meat.

Another censor received the works of the poets, among which was a great number of odes, tragedies, comedies, pastorals, eclogues, and satirical works, with much humour he applied the amorous verses to make bandboxes for the ladies, or gave them to the confectioners to wrap up surgar plumbs, &c.; the satirical ones he sent to hold pepper, or cover pins and needles, few being found among them, worthy of notice; the same fate attended the tracts of astronomy, astrology, necromancy, sortilege, and alchemy, for he sent almost all of them to make cartridges, and be employed in fireworks.

The censor who examined the works of Belles Lettres, was much afflicted to see them surrounded on all sides by commentaries, questions, annotations, lucubrations, &c.; and from time to time could not forbear laughing to see a Latin book, or even one in a modern language, with a Greek title, by which the authors expected to give dignity to their performances, like fathers who call their children Casar and Pompey, believing by these names to inspire them with valour; the censor reserved a few of these books, and sent the rest to an apothe