His defects. 161. The real faults of Grotius, leading to erroneous determinations, seem to be rather an unnecessary scrupulousness, and somewhat of old theological prejudice, from which scarce any man in his age, who was not wholly indifferent to religion, had liberated himself. The notes of Barbeyrac seldom fail to correct this leaning. Several later writers on international law have treated his doctrine of an universal law of nations founded on the agreement of mankind, as an empty chimera of his invention. But if he only meant by this the tacit consent, or, in other words, the general custom of civilized nations, it does not appear that there is much difference between his theory and that of Wolf or Vattel.
CHAPTER XXII.
HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Sect. I.
ON ITALIAN POETRY.
Characters of the Poets of the Seventeenth Century—Sometimes too much depreciated—Marini—Tassoni—Chiabrera.
Low estimation of the Seicentisti. 1. At the close of the sixteenth century, few remained in Italy to whom posterity has assigned a considerable reputation for their poetry. But the ensuing period has stood lower, for the most part, in the opinion of later ages than any other since the revival of letters. The seicentisti, the writers of the seventeenth century, were stigmatised in modern criticism, till the word has been associated with nothing but false taste and everything that should be shunned and despised. Those who had most influence in leading the literary judgment of Italy went back, some almost exclusively, to the admiration of Petrarch and his contemporaries, some to the various writers who cultivated their native poetry in the sixteenth century. Salvini is of the former class, Muratori of the latter.[443]
[443] Muratori, Della Perfetta Poesia, is one of the best books of criticism in the Italian language; in the second volume are contained some remarks by Salvini, a bigoted Florentine.
Not quite so great as formerly. 2. The last age, that is, the concluding twenty years of the eighteenth century, brought with it, in many respects, a change of public sentiment in Italy. A masculine turn of thought, an expanded grasp of philosophy, a thirst, ardent to excess, for great exploits and noble praise, has distinguished the Italian people of the last fifty years from their progenitors of several preceding generations. It is possible that the enhanced relative importance of the Lombards in their national literature, may have not been without its influence in rendering the public taste less fastidious as to purity of language, less fine in that part of æsthetic discernment which relates to the grace and felicity of expression, while it became also more apt to demand originality, nervousness, and the power of exciting emotion. The writers of the seventeenth century may, in some cases, have gained by this revolution; but those of the preceding ages, especially the Petrarchists whom Bembo had led, have certainly lost ground in national admiration.
Praise of them by Rubbi. 3. Rubbi, editor of the voluminous collection, called Parnaso Italiano, had the courage to extol the “seicentisti” for their genius and fancy, and even to place them, in all but style, above their predecessors. “Give them,” he says, “but grace and purity, take from them their capricious exaggerations, their perpetual and forced metaphors, you will think Marini the first poet of Italy, and his followers, with their fulness of imagery and personification, will make you forget their monotonous predecessors. I do not advise you to make a study of the seicentisti; it would spoil your style, perhaps your imagination; I only tell you that they were the true Italian poets; they wanted a good style, it is admitted, but they were so far from wanting genius and imagination, that these perhaps tended to impair their style.”[444]