language, of courfe, could not be fo much transformed as to be materially different from that of the common people. The language of Plautus's comedies was the language of the learned as well as of the populace; and although there occur in them many expreffions which are not ufual with the other Roman authors, yet they are far from being fo numerous as would be fufficient to cause an effential difference. There is not a fufficient number of works of other authors of that epocha extant to enable us to prove that the particular words and expreffons, occurring in Plautus, were ufed exclufively by the populace.

We cannot, indeed, deny that, when the Romans had conquered all Italy, and Rome had become the general refort of all Italian nations, the language of the Romans underwent a very great and ftriking alteration; but it cannot thence be concluded that there had been formed among the people a language totally different from that of the learned. All the nations of Italy Proper, excepting thofe of Great Greece, in fact had only one language, diftinguishing themfelves from each other only by the difference of dialect; therefore they did not bring with them to Rome a language effentially different from that of the Romans. Having culti vated the arts and fciences long before the Romans, their dialects could not but be more copious and harmonious than the Roman dialect; confequently they also could produce no other alteration in the language of the Romans, but what contributed to enrich and refine it. The first reformers of the Roman language were Livius Andronicus, Nævius, Ennius, Cæcilius, Statius,

Pacuvius, and L. Accius, who all had been born and educated in different provinces of Italy, and were as well understood at Rome as in the places of their nativity; for, at that time, even the Bruttians, inhabiting the most diftant part of Calabria, fpoke a langnage, not effentially different from that of the Romans.

A

I cannot, therefore, conceive how by means of the conflux of many Italian nations at Rome, there could be produced a language totally dif ferent from that of the ancient Romans, unless this difference had been brought about by the learned. However the learned may refine a language by their writings, they cannot poffibly tranfmute it entirely. Their writings, if not compofed in the language of the people, would have been as unintelligible as hieroglyphics and riddles. language of the learned, wholly differing from that of the people, cannot poffibly have exifted. It is faid to have been the language of the fenate, of the comitiis, the fo rum, the tribunals of juftice, of the laws, the generals of the armies, the priesthood, and of all legal com. pacts, without being generally un derflood by the people. An idea more abfurd than this cannot poffibly be conceived. The neceflity of a competent knowledge in the Latin language was fo indifpenfable and effential to a Roman fubject, that whole foreign nations fubftituted it in the room of their verna cular language.

If any one fhould object, that the Romans learned the Latin language of the grammarians and rhetoricians, we need but to obferve that they applied to them for inftruction only in order to be initiated into the ele

gance

gence of diction, and for the purpote of juridical eloquence, an efiential requifite for a Roman citizen.

We know that the Latin language in Upper Italy and in Gaul fuperfeded the Gallic, and in England the British language; how much the more would it have expelled a totally different language from its original feat if it had there taken its rife?

The celebrated marquis Maffei was of opinion that it owed its real origin and gradual formation exclufively to the progressive deviation of the Italians from the grammatical correctness of the Latin language, interruptedly continuing for feveral centuries. He, at the fame time, denies that the invafions of barbarous nations had contributed any thing towards it; afferting that if this had been the cafe, it would have produced a language totally different from that of Italy. But Maffei, in this fuppofition, is under a manifest mistake; for any one who has only a flight knowledge of both languages, will eafily oblerve that the Italian language differs from that of the Romans not only in the moft ftriking deviation from the rules of the latter, but also in an infinite number of foreign words and phrafes.

This opinion is generally adopted by the learned; but I can find it no where fo clearly illuftrated as I with, and therefore fhall attempt to inquire how far this opinon is tenable.

While eloquence was eflentially ncceflary for a Roman citizen, the Romans could not but be animated with an univerfal defire of acquiring purity and elegance of diction.But when the lofs of civil liberty 2

occafioned a total neglect of eloquefice, no great attention was paid to clegance in writing the Latin language. The claffic authors were neglected, and learning was left to neceffitous foreigners. Thefe prefumed to be more learned and witty than Cicero, Virgil, and Horace; and took all poble pains to render the ftyle and language of these great men contemptible.

None of all these corrupters of the Latin language were worfe than the Greeks, who, we will not decide whether it was owing to their being more pliant, or fuperior to the Romans in point of learning, met with a very favourable recep tion at the imperial court, and in the palaces of the great. This attracted a numerous crowd of Greek rhetoricians, philofophers, and fophifts to Rome, and the Greek language was generally adopted by the great, and all thofe that were defirous of being thought people of good tafte. It was a difgrace not to know the Greek language; and many a Roman, though little acquainted with it, liftened to the declamations of the Greek fophifts with the loudest tokens of applause. The principal object which thefe infatuated talkers ftrove to attain, was to found their fame on the depreciation of the Latin language and learning. Thofe that know what injury the German language fuftained, in the beginning of the prefent century, from the contempt with which it was branded by the French and their filly admirers in Germany, will eafily be able to calculate what injury the Latin lan guage must have fuffered from the fcorn with which it was treated by the Greeks and their fervile admrers. This contempt caufed the

Romans

Romans to difregard the writings of their ancestors, to deviate from the original spirit of their language, and rendered them incapable of difcerning the genuine words and phrafes from those that were interpolated.

The Latin language being thus left at the mercy of the populace, it could not but become highly vitiated, efpecially as Rome continued to be inundated by numerous crowds of foreigners, who flocked to the capital and the Italian provinces. This conflux of foreigners now confifted no longer of nations, who had one language in common, but of Gauls, Britons, Germans, Bohemians, Illyrians, Pannonians, Dacians, and other conquered nations, whofe languages were effentially different from each other, and who, by the fuperiority of their number, and their incapacity of learning the Latin language properly, naturally must have occafioned the greatest corruption.

This evil increafed rapidly when the Roman provinces, from the time of the emperor Probus, were garrifoned with foreign auxiliaries.Amongst thefe the Herulians and Goths, who had fettled in Italy in confiderable numbers fince the government of Valens, undoubtedly caufed the greatest mischief.

The Herulians and Goths were the first of all foreign nations that ufurped a dominion over Italy, divided the lands with the natives, lived according to their own laws, or rather cuftoms and religion, and learnt the language of the country only as far as they wanted it, in order to converfe with the ancient inhabitants. They gradually be. came better acquainted with the language of the country, and imagined to fpeak elegantly when they

expreffed the phrafes of their own language by mutilated Latin words, or even gave to the words of their mother-tongue Latin terminations. The Italians, having already greatly deviated from the correctnefs of their language, and caring little or nothing for its purity, they became accustomed to foreign expreflions and words, adopted them as a current coin, and at last could not difcern any longer the foreign impreffion.

Thence arofe, towards the clofe of the fifth century, a language which by the learned was called Lingua Romana Ruftica. This period might be called the first epocha of the Italian language.

During the ruinous wars between the Greeks and the Goths, and the invafions of the Longobards, all means of reftoring the language to its original purity were totally loft; the fchools became deferted, the teachers were fuffered to ftarve, a great number of libraries were confumed by the flames, and books became extremely scarce. There were, indeed, few people who could either read or write; there fore the language of the people could not but neceffitily differ fill more from the genuine Latin under the Longobards, than it had under the Goths.

It can, however be proved that the common people in Italy underflood the genuine Latin language till the ninth century. This appears clearly by the Latin fermons which were at that time publicly preached, and are ftill extant, as well as by the Latin laws framed by the Longobard and Franconian kings, and the performance of public worship in the Latin language.

not because no writings at all were compofed in the univerfal languages, but merely because it was cuftomary to employ notaries and law yers in the framing of legal deeds and documents. As for the reft, the common language was ofed in all oral and written private tranf actions.

It was referved for the literati, efpecially the poets, to have the merit of refining the common language of the people. It is, how ever, difficult to afcertain the exact period when the first attempts of this nature were made. It is commonly believed that the first effays were attempted towards the clofe of the twelfth century. As a proof of this affertion, the following paffage in Dante's works is quoted: “E non è molto numero d'anni paffali, che apparirono quei poeti volgari..... e fe colemo guardare in lingua d'oco (in linguà provenzale) e in lingua di fi (lingua volgare) noi non troviamo cofe dette anzi il preJente tempo centocinquant, anni." Dante having wrote this in the year 1295, his opinion is clearly, that previous to the year 1145, not a fingle poem had been written either in the Provenzal or in the Italian language. But as for the Proven zal rhymes, Dante commits here a manifeft error; as it is certain that William IX. Count of Poitiers compofed already in the eleventh century poems in Provenzal rhymes. And as Dante had no knowledge of thefe ancient rhymes, it may fairly be fuppofed that Italian rhymes of a more ancient date, of which he knew not any thing, may have been extant or loft. I muft, however, obferve, that he denies not abfolutely that no rhymes were written prior to that period, maintaining

only that none of an anterior date could be found.

Dante and Petrarca agree, however, in affirming that the Sicilian poets (amongst whom thofe of the continent oppofite the island are included) had been the first who rhymed in the common language, and by their example animated the other Italians to do the fame in their refpective dialects. If that really was the cale, this may, as the authors of the literary hiftory of France are of opinion, have been done already in the eleventh century, when the Normans introduced this tafte from France. Thus much is certain, that, when Frederick II, in the twelfth century, came, while yet a boy, to Palermo, he met with poets who induced him by their example and perfuafions to rhyme in the common language. Dante relates, that Frederick and his fucceffor Manfredi, by their liberality, had drawn to their court the learn ed from all parts of Italy; and that the latter by their writings had occafioned all other literary works, even thofe compofed in the common language, to be called Sicilian compofitions and that the cuftom of rhyming in the common language had fpread from Sicily to Apulia, Tufeany, the Mark Ancona, Romagna, Lombardy, and Trevifo.

Many years clapfed before the Italian language was completely formed in all parts of Italy. As late as in the middle of the thirteenth century, a Milanefe poet expreffed himself in the fubfequent uncouth verses!

Como Deo a facto lo monda,
E como de terre fo lo homo formo,
Cum el defcendè de cel in te ra

In la vergene regal polzella,

Et