No more are heard the precepts of her sage; Her orators, her heroes, all are fled! Nor hurl their vengeance on a Philip's head. Who bade her Virgil rival Homer's lay; 600 When Rome had fall'n, then Gothic darkness spread, And Genius slumber'd with her mighty dead, Then mad Oppression rais'd his scourge on high, And Superstition flash'd her ghastly eye; Then Ignorance crept, and hugg'd his iron chains..... And the poor vassal, with a servile awe, 310. At length from Florence breaks a joyous ray, Which changes darkness to the light of day. The great Lorenzot, in one common store, See Robertson's account of the feudal system in his first volume of his history of Charles V.....and see Gib. bon's decline and fall of the Roman empire. See the elegant and entertaining history of Lorenzo De Medicis, by Roscoe : That work, which no one can read without delight, presents to our view the dawn of literature after the long Gothic night. It disperses the clouds from a period the most important and interesting. It unfolds, in its hero Lorenzo, a magnificence which was princely, and a patronage of learning which we cannot estimate too much. To him the whole literary world is indebted. He collected around him, and cherished, and rewarded the geniuses of the day, and by their exertions snatched from the cells of With princely hand bestows the glittering prize, And bids Philosophy, once more, arise! Awakes the powers of harmony and love, And leads the Muses to his peaceful grove. 320 Those worlds which move thro' Nature's boundless space, With optic tube see Gallileo trace, To science give a new and better rule, And brand with falshood Aristotle's school*.... the monks, and from the ruins of monasteries, where they had long lain mouldering, the precious works of antiquity. It is remarkable that the design of writing the history of Florence under the house of Medicis was formed by Gibbon; but that design he relinquished to trace the decline and fall of the Roman empire. [See Gibbon's miscellaneous works, vol. i. p. 109. • To Gallileo the sciences are principally indebted for their illumination and progress. He was the natural son of a Florentine nobleman. The system of Copernicus which so well explains all the phenomena by the motion of the earth round the sun, deserved to have him as a defender. About the end of the 16th century, an accidental discovery was made, of the effects of a concave and a convex glass, adjusted at the ends of a tube; but Gallileo did not hear of this until 1609, when he immediately perceived the advantages that might result from such an instrument, if brought to perfection. He meditated, he made repeated See then, where England's whiten'd cliffs ascend, The Arts, with Genius in their course, descend! There close their wings.....there make their lasting home, And bid their London vie with ancient Rome. What airy visions rise! What music floats around! What rapture bursts upon mine eyes! What trembling heaves the ground! The Genius of our seat Descends, on wings of air; Soft zephyrs kiss her twinkling feet, $30. trials, and soon constructed a telescope which shewed objects three times larger than they were in nature. By still improving his discovery, he at last procured one that magnified three and thirty times. In a word he discovered the mountains of the Moon, the satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the spots and rotation of the Sun. But enlightening mankind was exposing himself to dreadful misfortunes. The persecutions which he met with in Italy, were as cruel as they are memorable.....He was sentenced to imprison She casts her view around Her scientific throng; She bids the voice of Music sound, And Echo waft the song. Sons of Columbus! on whose distant land, 340 Peace pours her blessings from her bounteous hand; Whose sail of Commerce, spreads where Ocean roars, And brings the tribute of a thousand shores. Nor lose this darling object from your view; 350 The scourge and curse of this degenerate age; ment, and constrained solemnly to renounce his discoveries as absurdities and heresies.....He died blind, in 1642, at the age of seventy-eight. ABBE MILLOT. |