this ambition for literary distinction. 11480 he went to Rome, and there "published his Conclusiones;' consistg of nine hundred propositions, or subjects discussion, in almost every science that aid exercise the speculation or ingenuity of in: and which, extraordinary and superwas as many of them appear to a reader of = present times, certainly furnish a more quate idea of the boundless extent of his adition and research than any words can cribe. These he promised publicly to latain against all opponents whatsoever; I that time might be allowed for the circuon of his Conclusiones,' through the vais universities of Italy, in all of which he sed them to be published, notice was given the public discussion of them was not in ded to take place till after the feast of the phany next ensuing. A further object of delay was to afford to all scholars, even the remotest of these seats of learning, › were desirous to be present, and to assist a disputations, an opportunity of repairto Rome for such a purpose. So desirous Picus of attracting thither, on this occa, all the united wit, ingenuity, and erudithat Italy could boast; that he engaged efray, out of his own purse, the charges I scholars from whatever part, who should take the journey to Rome for the purof disputing publicly with him on the ects proposed." here had been many previous dispu5 de omni scibile, and many since; but ? ever excited such hostility as Picus. theses which he proposed evinced so ⚫ a circle of knowledge, and many of a displayed such singular habits of ght, that envy instead of competition provoked. It was in vain to hope to end with such erudition and such ers of intellect; and the Roman schoand divines, whose reputation was e immediately at stake, having tried effect of lampoons and pasquinades in , charged him with heresy. Some el him of vanity, not without rea; others of presumption in underng what was beyond his powers; but undervalued this wonderful young The bigots observed, that as Adam thrust out of Paradise for affecting, the knowledge of good and evil, to himself like God, so those equally rved to be exterminated from the ch of Christ who seek to know more they ought; and the professors of logy exclaimed against him as an imwretch, a new heresiarch, and a ma! Innocent VIII., though little disd to such measures, was constrained held to this clamour; and to issue an N. REV. Vol. IV, apostolic brief, appointing a commission to enquire into the obnoxious propositions, and make a report concerning them. Picus meanwhile found it prudent to retire, and withdrew to Florence under the protection of his friend Lorenzo, where he composed an apology for his undertaking, defending those theses which were accused, and explaining them, but in all things submitting himself to the authority of the holy see. This apology also was prohibited, though Innocent fully acquitted Picus of all pravity of intention. The subjects were too dangerous to be discussed. He himself soon coincided in opinion with the pope, and acknowledged afterwards that the malevolence of his enemies, under the direction of Providence, had been the means of curing him of vain-glory. Those enemies were not yet satisfied: they made the pope summon him to answer for his apology, affirming that by the very act of discussing therein the obnoxious questions, he had contravened his solemn engagement not to anticipate the decisions of the holy see. Lorenzo par ried this blow, and when Picus was on his way to Rome, obtained for him an express indulgence, which permitted him to reside at Florence. But the affair was not finally concluded till the next pontificate, when Alexander VI. by a bull released him from this complicated charge of heresy and perjury, and from all the inqui sitorial prosecutions, pains, and penalties, annexed to these crimes. Meantime Lorenzo assigned him a retreat at Fiesole, where his company and that of Politian and Ficinus, and the magnificent library of the abbey, left Picus little to wish for. In 1489 he published his Heptaplus, the same year in which the Miscellanea of Politian appeared. It can scarcely be productive, says Mr. Greswell, of any valuable purpose, very mis nutely to enquire into the merit of a work which the tacit consent of posterity has consigned to almost total oblivion: the very slight notice which is taken seems rather to be formed from the opinions of others, than from the work itself. We regret this; Picus is accused of intermixing too much Platonism, and too many cabalistic reveries with his theology; if modern Platonism be ever intelligible, it is to be supposed that he would make it so; but we know from the oration with which he designed to open his public dis putation, and which was published after his death, that it was one of his favourite LI opinions how the same great truths were taught in all mythologies, however involved in fable; and a succinct and perspicuous account of his philosophy, as far as it could be collected from this his greatest work, would form a fit, we may say, should have formed an indispensable part of these memoirs. He next employed himself upon a commentary on the Palms (whether it were ever completed is uncertain), and upon his favourite scheme of reconciling Plato and Aristotle. To this work, says he, I daily devote the whole of my morning hours; the afternoon I give to the society of friends, those relaxations which are requisite for the preservation of health, and occasionally to the poets and orators, and similar studies of a lighter kind; my nights are divided betwixt sleep, and the perusal of the holy scriptures. And he declares that he considered his time and his studies as happily employed, only in proportion as they were rendered conducive to his own moral improvement. About the year 1491 he completed his treatise De Ente & Uno, a work which Mr. Greswell praises instead of analyzing. In the ensuing year Lorenzo died. Picus upon this grievous loss, for a while left Florence for Ferrara. "A short time previously to this period, Picus willing to exonerate himself from the weight of secular dignities and cares, bad for a very inadequate consideration, transferred to his nephew, Giovan-Francesco, all his territories and other rights and possessions in Mirandula and Concordia, comprehending one-third part of the patrimonial inheritance: and the emperor Maximilian himself, whom these cities recognised as their superior sovereign, had been induced to confirm the grant. The sums arising from this transfer, Picus employed partly in the purchase of lands, to secure an annual revenue for the due support of his household, and partly in charitable donations. To the latter purpose the produce of a great part of his rich furniture and plate was appropriated: although while all undue luxuries were banished from his table, a reasonable portion of the silver utensils and other valuable moveables was preserved, to keep up some appearance of his former rank and splendour." Many men with far inferior gifts have rendered greater services to mankind than Picus of Mirandula, and built up for themselves statelier monuments; but I know not whether a character so interesting, so truly excellent, and so worthy of the love and admiration of good men, is to be found in the whole history of litera ture. Two sovereigns urged him to enter into holy orders, promising high ecclesiastical dignities and emoluments; a third tempted him to his court by the offer of the most honourable and lucrative state-employments. He replied that wealth and honours were not the objects of his desire: he had willingly sacrificed them to religious considerations, and the uninterrupted liberty of prosecuting his studies. His friends held out to him the certainty of obtaining a cardinal's hat :Picus answered, non sunt cogitationes mee cogitationes vestræ. His attention was now entirely devoted to theological studies. No man could be more pure from all common vices and all common weaknesses; were it not for one single exception he might be called truly wise: but it is said he was in the habit of inflicting upon himself those painful penances which seem, with other corruptions, to have infected the catholic church from the east. Philosophists will deride, and philosophers pity the weakness, but far better is it to throw off the vices of our age and retain the superstition, than to reject the superstition and retain the vices. One extract more we must make from these very interesting memoirs, for its substance cannot be abbreviated, and it words rather than in the author's. were idle to affect to give it in our own "His most elaborate undertaking was a work Adversus Hostes Ecclesia,' in whis he proposed to refute, I. The avowed and open enemies of christianity: II. Atheiss and those who reject every religious system, upon their own mode of reasoning: Ill. The Jews, from the books of the Old Testameat and their own writers: IV. The followers of Mahoinet from the Koran: V. Idolators and such as are addicted to any superstitious se ence, amongst whom, he particularly directed the artillery of his arguments against the partizans of judicial astrology: VI. The who, perverting the doctrines of christianity, or denying due obedience to the church, are comprehended under the general name et heretics, whom he distinguished into no fewer than two hundred species, intending to make them so many distinct subjects of his animad version: VII. Those christians who 'bold the truth in unrighteousness, and discredit, and contradict their profession by their prac tice.? Of all these and other undertakings of his, so vast in project, scarce any now remain except his work Contra Astrologian Divinatricem,' and a few Opuscula.' Picus, committing to paper the thoughts which oc it appears, by the constant practice of hastily curred in rapid succession in a mind fruithd and teeming like his, and by the use of ar tificial characters invented for the purpose of brevity, as well as by frequent blots and interlineations, had so deformed and obscured his writing, which in his youth had been reluarkably fair and beautiful, that of the immense mass of manuscripts and confused papers found after his decease few could be decyphered or methodized. By great pains and labour his nephew, however, was enabled to transcribe that portion of his voluminous work which was levelled against judicial astrology, and which proved to be in a more finished state than the rest. It was afterwards published in various collections of his works under the title of De Astrologia Disputa tionum Libri XII.' and has entitled Picus to the praise of having been the first who boldly, and successfully exposed the fallacy of this species of superstition." The style of Picus, intimately conversant as he was with scholastic language, is as copious, classical, and correct, as that of almost any writer of his age. On the other hand, he set a due value upon the schoolmen, the old birds of wisdom whom the tom-tits of the day were chattering at; men who if they have been unduly extolled in one age, have been more unduly depreciated in another, the majority of writers ridiculing them without reading them, and the few who have read joining in the ridicule because they have pilfered from them what little of truth or value there is in their own works. Aquinas was the one whom he most valued, and whom he was accustomed to call Splendor Theologiæ. He himself is described as having combined in his own method of disputation all those qualifications by which the schoolmen were individually distinguished. But for disputation he had formed, long before his death, a settled distaste, aware that it administered provocatives to vanity which needs none, and that there are few who will not in such discussions rather win the victory by the help of falsehood, than submit to truth. This most extraordinary man was deeply skilled in the theory and practice of music; he had studied such of the ancient works upon the subject as were extant, and his own compositions were held by competent judges in the highest estimation for their excellence and harmony. Picus died the 17th of November 1494, two months after Politian, the last of his most illustrious friends. He displayed in his illness true christian courage, philoso phy, and faith. His body was invested with the Dominican habit by Savonarola; this, if it were by his own injunctions, is his greatest proof of weakness, but it may be that he was desirous by every external mark of religion to remove all imputation of impiety from his memory. Savonarola, who was his confessor, possessed more influence over him than might have been expected from his own powers of mind, and the characters of his most intimate associates. It is said that at one go bare time he had resolved to sell all that he had, and give unto the and poor, footed from city to city preaching the gospel; and that he laid aside this design at his confessor's instance, for that of professing among the Dominicans. Memoirs of Sannazarius. These memoirs have one great deficiency; they contain no account of the Arcadia, the most famous of all this author's works. More also should have been said of his poem De Partu Virginis. The remaining memoirs of cardinal Bembo, Fracastorius, Marcus Antonius Flaminius, and the Amalthei, are all better fitted by their brevity for a biographical dictionary than for the present work, in which indeed some longer sketches than this last appear in the notes. There is a life of St. Domingo written by some Antonius Flaminius; is this the poet? A good epigram has been written upon the modern Latin poets of Italy, which will do for the modern Latin poets of any other country. "Vatibus hic mos est Italis, ut mille smaragdos, Ut mille intexant versibus astra suis; Nil præter flores, aurum, marmorque loquun tur, Nil radios præter lunave solve tuos. Denique versiculis in Tuscis omnia bella Excipias ipsos si modo versiculos." The satire is good but too indiscriminate. There are no sweeter poems in the Latin language than those of Flaminius. Mr. Greswell has not selected the best specimens from this delightful writer, nor is he happy in translation. In a subsequent edition of his work we should wish that the smaller articles should either be extended or thrown into the notes; but more particularly that the life of Picus should be enlarged by a careful analysis of his greater works. ART. XIII.-The Life of Professor Gellert: with a Course of Moral Lessons, delivered Ing him in the University at Leipsick; taken from a French Translation of the original German. By MRS. DOUGLAS. 3 vols. 8vo. THE works of Gellert, collected in five octavo volumes, and edited by himself, were printed in 1769, for Weidmann of Leipzig. Soon after the appearance of that edition the author died. His heirs afterwards published from among his papers two volumes more, which contain-an edifying journal of his conscientious occupations, a selection from his correspondence, and a series of exhortations to piety, differing from sermons only in not being provided with texts. Several of these posthumous works are here translated apart, through the medium of a French version, and preceded by a diffuse biography. Christian Furchtegott Gellert was born July 4, 1715, at Haynichen, where his father was clergyman. He was educated in the free-school at Meissen; there he formed a friendship with Rabener, which continued during their lives. In 1734, he entered on his theological studies at the university of Leipzig, and was ordained at the end of the usual three years. In 1739 he became tutor to a young man of Dresden, whom he accompanied to Leipzig; and finding the academic life more consonant with his inclinations than the pulpit, he by degrees left off preaching, took, in 1744, a master of arts degree, and accepted a professorship. His health, which had always been infirm, declined so sensibly about the year 1751, that an extraordinary professorship was created for Gellert, in order to relieve him from the duties of office without injury to his circumstances or disparagement to his rank. One symptom of his disorder was a deep depression of mind, and an anxious alarm for the future state of his soul; although he excelled in meekness, continence, forgivingness, piety, resignation, secret almsgiving, and all those qualities which may emphatically be denominated the christian virtues. Constipations and painful obstructions put an end to his existence on the 13th December, 1769. His pupils erected a monument to his memory in scribed with these words: "He taught religion and virtue by his lessons and by his example." All the works of Gellert are of secondary, or rather of tertiary value. The first volume consists of fables versified in the most ordinary, flat, and uninteresting manner. The second volume contains moral and religious poems, which, on account of the self-denial of the task, it ought to pass for a spiritual merit to have read. The third volume contains seven plays: 1. The Affectionate Sisters, a sentimental comedy, which neither draws laughter nor tears: 2. The Oracle, a rhymed translation from the French: 3. Widow Prayerbook, (and not, as rendered in the General Biography, the Mendicant Nun), a satire on the grimace of religio sity, which is the best of Gellert's comedies, but which he felt remorse for having written: 4. The Prize, a long, dull, orderly play of the comic class: 5. Sylvia, a rhymed pastoral drama: 6. The Sick Wife, an afterpiece: and, 7. The Ribband, another pastoral drama also in rhyme. All these plays do honour to the purity and morality of Gellert's intentions; he wished the stage to corroborate the influence of the pulpit; but they are not lively. In the fourth volume are con tained models for vulgar letter-writing, analogous to some specimens provided for this country by Richardson, and a tedious novel, also in his manner, entitled the Swedish Countess. The fifth volume comprehends Thoughts on Religion, and some other of the exhortatory discourses included in this collection. It was wise to select for translation the devotional writings of Gellert: his other works would not be heeded in England. The religious public are not very nice. Provided their books abound with pious aspirations and conscientious apprehen sions, they care little how trivial the tru isms, how feeble the eloquence, how mystical and unintelligible the sweeps of pretended argumentation with which the pages are covered. They impose the reading of sermons as a moral discipline, and would think it of the nature of sin to take delight in them as compositions. Ac customed to strike at the meanest capaci ties, their teachers naturally adop♦ a form of address, which culture may tolerate from deference for its utility, but to which it can rarely listen without a consciousness of humiliation. Their favourites, being appreciated by the quantity not the quality of their proselytes, must of course adapt their exertions to the rude edu cation of the numerous classes, and to the ignorant emptiness of vulgar minds. Hence, in an age of intellect, it commonly happens that popular religious instruction is in a great degree abandoned by the male writers, as below their dignity; and passes into the hands of a sex, whose partial information and timid feelings fit them for the appropriate duties. To this class of writers this country has of late been amply indebted for a supply of plebeian theology. Mrs. Douglas deserves a high rank in the list, both for the extent and the relative elegance of her evangelical exertions. It will be more equitable to the reputation of Gellert to make a selection from one of those pious diatribes which he himself edited, than from any of those posthumous papers which may be supposed yet to have awaited the finishing embellishments. "In vain I endeavour to conceive an universe without a first cause; I revolt from the idea, and my heart opposes it with invincible resistance. But if thou art the author of the human race, and of all that exists, if I am thy creature, and if I derive from thee every advantage I possess, canst thou have abandoned me to myself? Hast thou left me to be my own master; can I be at liberty to make what use I please of the faculties of my body and mind? I can direct them in divers manners: can the use I make of them be indifferent, whether it tends to the happiness or misery of my brethren, to make me happy or miserable? When I impose silence on my passions, I hear a voice which cries out to me, this is just, this is unjust. Whence comes this voice? No matter, I will follow its doctrines; ifl err, it will be on the authority of reason. But no; this language is too divine to be that of error: it tells me that the Almighty, to whom I owe my existence, should be feared and venerated above all beings; and that it is on doing this that consists all my duty and my happiness. I consult revelation; it confirms this oracle, and changes the too feeble glimmering of reason into a bright and luminous day-light, and allows me to perceive as many rays of the Supreme Majesty, as my timid sight can permit me to endure. Therein I discover what God is, and I learn what I am. Love, 1 mercy, power, justice, holiness, and wisdom, constitute his essence. And what are men? One of the works of his hands, created to imitate his perfectios as far as their nature will allow, and to enjoy the happiness of God himself. O mortal! consult revelation; contemplate the Divinity in this faithful mirror, and thou wilt find whatever is necessary to thy happiness, if thou considerest it with an attentive eye. Thou wert created for eternity; this life is a preparation for it. The world thou inhabitest is a state of trial. The years of thy pilgrimage, are years of that obedience which thou art called upon to pay to thy Creator, in order to become worthy of the glory he has designed for thee, and has acquired for thee at the price of the merits, our, his only Son. Clouds still hang over the righteousness, and blood of thy divine Savidivine mysteries of this revelation: but let not this alarm thee, and do not form the rash wish of dispelling them. How, indeed,' couldst thou do it? By the help of reason? Go, and renounce the idea of fathoming the impenetrable, and eternal decrees of Divine Wisdom. Who art thou, who dare to undertake it? Think on thy insignificance, and adore the plans of mercy. The mysteries of faith are above thy reason, to comprehend; thou art not obliged to comprehend, in order to believe them; it is enough if thou understandest the proofs on which they are founded, and that they teach thee that these are of divine origin.' "° We can foresee but one probable inconvenience from the circulation of this respectable book. It is the production of a man notoriously low-spirited, and it abounds with the hypochondriac wailings of religious solicitude. Now it is an observable fact, that in like manner as reading about bodily aches, and topical symptoms of disease, points the attention to those unsound parts, increases theit perceptivity, and thus produces the very pains described, by inflaming and magnifying the faintest analogous feelings; so, by reading about spiritual anxieties, and compunctious visitings of conscience, the moral scrupulosity becomes irritated into morbid punctiliousness, the most venial peccadilloes dilate into enormity, our ideas soon learn to copy the march of those with which we become familiarized, and misery of mind is diffused with concoil, like the snakes of Laocoon, about the tagious fatality. Worms that never die, patient devotee, break the limbs of his energy, and triumph in the writhings of his woe. ART. XIV.—Correspondence between Frances, Countess of Hartford, (afterwards Duchess of Somerset), and Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, between the Years 1738 and 1741. 3 vols. 12mo. "" corre IF the fashion of publishing, spondences" continues much longer in Vogue, it may be anticipated to produce an unfavourable influence on epistolary style: to say nothing about the very questionable delicacy and propriety of ransack |