[278]. Ed. cit., v. 1, 151-421, 422-461.
[279]. v. 163.
[280]. P. 168. Vico had anticipated this earlier.
[281]. iv. 200. (See the First draft.)
[282]. No reasonable person will object to this the praise of Italian writers in the De Stud. Rat., p. 125.
[283]. To do Vico full justice, we must admit that his object was less to break up Homer, as they break up Cædmon and Isaiah, than to attribute the whole work to the whole early Greek people.
[284]. On Adam Smith and Gibbon a note must suffice. The former has actually left us nothing important in print concerning the subject, though he is known to have lectured on it, and though to the partisans of “psychological” criticism the Moral Sentiments may seem pertinent. His line seems to have been pretty identical with those of Hume and of Blair, who knew and used Smith’s Lectures in preparing his own. As for Gibbon, his great work did not give very much opportunity for touching our subject, and he availed himself little of what it did give: though on Byzantine literature generally, and on some individuals—Photius, Sidonius, and others—he acquits himself well enough. His early Essay on the Study of Literature is extremely general and quite unimportant.
[285]. These are to be found almost passim in the Characteristics (my copy of which is the small 3 vol. ed., s.l., 1749), but chiefly in his Advice to an Author (vol. i., ed. cit., p. 105-end) and in the Third Miscellany (iii. 92-129).
[286]. i. 147.
[287]. iii. 187 sq.