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In the second place, MSS. of even greater literary importance disappeared in the course of the fourteenth century, to be reproduced when their subjects again excited interest in the literary world. The history of Dante's treatise De Vulgari Eloquio is a case in point. With regard to style, no foreigner can pretend to be a competent judge.
De Vulgari Eloquio, Lib. II. cap. i. ad finem. I quote this treatise as Dante's, because the thoughts seem manifestly his; though I believe that in its present form it is an abridgment by some transcriber, who sometimes copies textually, and sometimes substitutes his own language for that of the original. Vol. III. p. 348, note.
When Dante wrote his "De Vulgari Eloquio," he reckoned nearly a thousand distinct dialects in the Italian peninsula, and, after more than five hundred years, it is said that by far the greater part survive. In England, eighty years ago, the county of every member of Parliament was to be known by his speech; but in "both Englands," as they used to be called, the tendency is toward uniformity.
As regarded the strictures of his correspondent, his triumphant answer in the shape of the Paradiso lay yet unfinished, so the author of the De Vulgari Eloquio trifled with the charge and purported to compose the present poem in earnest of reform. There is a tone of not unkindly irony about the whole. Was it an elaborate jest at the expense of Giovanni, the writer of Vergilian verse?
"Man may securely sin, but safely never." "Vulgarem locutionem anpellamus cam qua infantes adsuefiunt ab adsistentibus cum primitus distinguere voces incipiunt: vel, quod brevius dici potest, vulgarem locutionem asserimus quam sine omni regula, nutricem imitantes accepimus." Dantes, de Vulg. Eloquio, Lib I. cap. i.
Nor would it here be right to omit some notice of the essay 'De Vulgari Eloquio, which, considering the date of its appearance, is no less original and indicative of a new spirit in the world than the treatise 'De Monarchiâ. It is an attempt to write the history of Italian as a member of the Romance Languages, to discuss the qualities of its several dialects, and to prove the advantages to be gained by the formation of a common literary tongue for Italy.
We shall take up the subject again in our next number, and by extracts justify both our commendation and our criticisms of Mr. White. Edited, etc., by RICHARD GRANT WHITE. Vols. Dante, de Vulg. Eloquio, Lib. Ben Jonson said, it was a pity Shakspeare had not blotted more, for that he sometimes wrote nonsense, and cited in proof of it the verse "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause."
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