Some time after, at Naples, appeared the two brothers, John Baptiste and John Vincent Porta, those twin spirits, the Castor and Pollux of the natural philosophy of that age, and whose scenical museum delighted and awed, by its optical illusions, its treasure of curiosities, and its natural magic, all learned natives and foreigners. Their names are still famous, and their treatises, De Humana Physiognomia and Magia Naturalis, are still opened by the curious, who discover these children of philosophy wandering in the arcana of nature, to them a world of perpetual beginnings! These learned brothers united with the Marquis of Manso, the friend of Tasso, in establishing an academy under the whimsical name degli Oziosi (the Lazy), which so ill-described their intentions. This academy did not sufficiently embrace the views of the learned brothers; and then they formed another under their own roof, which they appropriately named degli Secreti. The ostensible motive was, that no one should be admitted into this interior society who had not signalised himself by some experiment or discovery. It is clear that, whatever they intended by the project, the election of the members was to pass through the most rigid scrutiny; and what was the consequence? The court of Rome again started up with all its fears, and, secretly obtaining information of some discussions which had passed in this academy degli Secreti, prohibited the Porta's from holding such assemblies, or applying themselves to those illicit sciences, whose amusements are criminal, and turn us aside from the study of the Holy Scriptures.[[307]] It seems that one of the Porta's had delivered himself in the style of an ancient oracle; but what was more alarming in this prophetical spirit, several of his predictions had been actually verified! The infallible court was in no want of a new school of prophecy. Baptista Porta went to Rome to justify himself; and, content to wear his head, placed his tongue in the custody of his Holiness, and no doubt preferred being a member of the Accademia degli Oziosi to that degli Secreti. To confirm this notion that these academies excited the jealousy of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them, at Florence as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings, and in 1568 the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the "Insipids," the "Shy," the "Disheartened," and others, but more particularly the "Stunned," gli Intronati, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the Lanternists, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held at night, the academicians not carrying torches, but only Lanterns. This academy, indeed, was at Toulouse, but evidently formed on the model of its neighbours. In fine, it cannot be denied that these literary societies or academies were frequently objects of alarm to the little governments of Italy, and were often interrupted by political persecution.
From all these facts I am inclined to draw an inference. It is remarkable that the first Italian academies were only distinguished by the simple name of their founders. One was called the Academy of Pomponius Lætus, another of Panormita, &c. It was after the melancholy fate of the Roman academy of Lætus, which could not, however, extinguish that growing desire of creating literary societies in the Italian cities, from which the members derived both honour and pleasure, that suddenly we discover these academies bearing the most fantastical titles. I have not found any writer who has attempted to solve this extraordinary appearance in literary history; and the difficulty seems great, because, however frivolous or fantastical the titles they assumed, their members were illustrious for rank and genius. Tiraboschi, aware of this difficulty, can only express his astonishment at the absurdity, and his vexation at the ridicule to which the Italians have been exposed by the coarse jokes of Menkenius, in his Charlatanaria Eruditorum.[[308]] I conjecture that the invention of these ridiculous titles for literary societies was an attempt to throw a sportive veil over meetings which had alarmed the papal and the other petty courts of Italy; and to quiet their fears and turn aside their political wrath, they implied the innocence of their pursuits by the jocularity with which the members treated themselves, and were willing that others should treat them. This otherwise inexplicable national levity, of so refined a people, has not occurred in any other country, because the necessity did not exist anywhere but in Italy. In France, in Spain, and in England, the title of the ancient Academus was never profaned by an adjunct which systematically degraded and ridiculed its venerable character and its illustrious members.
Long after this article was finished, I had an opportunity of consulting an eminent Italian, whose name is already celebrated in our country, Il Sigr. Ugo Foscolo;[[309]] his decision ought necessarily to outweigh mine; but although it is incumbent on me to put the reader in possession of the opinion of a native of his high acquirements, it is not as easy for me, on this obscure and curious subject, to relinquish my own conjecture.
Il Sigr. Foscolo is of opinion that the origin of the fantastical titles assumed by the Italian academies entirely arose from a desire of getting rid of the air of pedantry, and to insinuate that their meetings and their works were to be considered merely as sportive relaxations, and an idle business.
This opinion may satisfy an Italian, and this he may deem a sufficient apology for such absurdity; but when scarlet robes and cowled heads, laureated bards and Monsignores, and Cavalleros, baptize themselves in a public assembly "Blockheads" or "Madmen," we ultramontanes, out of mere compliment to such great and learned men, would suppose that they had their good reasons; and that in this there must have been "something more than meets the ear." After all, I would almost flatter myself that our two opinions are not so wide of each other as they at first seem to be.
ON THE HERO OF HUDIBRAS; BUTLER VINDICATED.
That great Original, the author of HUDIBRAS, has been recently censured for exposing to ridicule the Sir Samuel Luke, under whose roof he dwelt, in the grotesque character of his hero. The knowledge of the critic in our literary history is not curious; he appears to have advanced no further than to have taken up the first opinion he found; but this served for an attempt to blacken the moral character of BUTLER! "Having lived," says our critic, "in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned the Hudibras, of which he was pleased to make his kind and hospitable patron the hero. We defy the history of Whiggism to match this anecdote,"[[310]] as if it could not be matched! Whigs and Tories are as like as two eggs when they are wits and satirists; their friends too often become their victims! If Sir Samuel resembled that renowned personification, the ridicule was legitimate and unavoidable when the poet had espoused his cause, and espoused it too from the purest motive—a detestation of political and fanatical hypocrisy.[[311]] Comic satirists, whatever they may allege to the contrary, will always draw largely and most truly from their own circle. After all, it does not appear that Sir Samuel sat for Sir Hudibras; although from the hiatus still in the poem, at the end of Part I., Canto I., his name would accommodate both the metre and the rhyme. But who, said Warburton, ever compared a person to himself? Butler might aim a sly stroke at Sir Samuel by hinting to him how well he resembled Hudibras, but with a remarkable forbearance he has left posterity to settle the affair, which is certainly not worth their while. But Warburton tells, that a friend of Butler's had declared the person was a Devonshire man—one Sir Harry Rosewell, of Ford Abbey, in that county. There is a curious life of our learned wit, in the great General Dictionary; the writer, probably Dr. Birch, made the most authentic researches, from the contemporaries of Butler or their descendants; and from Charles Longueville, the son of Butler's great friend, he obtained much of the little we possess. The writer of this Life believes that Sir Samuel was the hero of Butler, and rests his evidence on the hiatus we have noticed; but with the candour which becomes the literary historian, he has added the following marginal note: "Whilst this sheet was at press, I was assured by Mr. Longueville, that Sir Samuel Luke is not the person ridiculed under the name of HUDIBRAS."
It would be curious, after all, should the prototype of Hudibras turn out to be one of the heroes of "the Rolliad;" a circumstance which, had it been known to the copartnership of that comic epic, would have furnished a fine episode and a memorable hero to their line of descent. "When BUTLER wrote his Hudibras, one Coll. Rolle, a Devonshire man, lodged with him, and was exactly like his description of the Knight; whence it is highly probable, that it was this gentleman, and not Sir Samuel Luke, whose person he had in his eye. The reason that he gave for calling his poem Hudibras was, because the name of the old tutelar saint of Devonshire was Hugh de Bras." I find this in the Grubstreet Journal, January, 1731, a periodical paper conducted by two eminent literary physicians, under the appropriate names of Bavius and Mævius,[[312]] and which for some time enlivened the town with the excellent design of ridiculing silly authors and stupid critics.