inates and of the governed to their lord, are urged
with no less force, but in a more familiar style and with direct
allusion to the events which called each letter forth. They are in fact
political brochures addressed by a thinker from his solitude to the
chief actors in the drama of history around him. Nor would it here be
right to omit some notice of the essay 'De Vulgari Eloquio,' which,
considering the date of its appearance, is no less original and
indicative of a new spirit in the world than the treatise 'De
Monarchia.' It is an attempt to write the history of Italian as a member
of the Romance Languages, to discuss the qualities of its several
dialects, and to prove the advantages to be gained by the formation of a
common literary tongue for Italy. Though Dante was of course devoid of
what we now call comparative philology, and had but little knowledge of
the first beginnings of the languages which he discusses, yet it is not
more than the truth to say that this essay applies the true method of
critical analysis for the first time to the subject, and is the first
attempt to reason scientifically upon the origin and nature of a modern
language.

[1] We must remember that our own annalists, Holinshed and Stow,
were later by two centuries than the Villani.

While discussing the historical work of Dante and the Villani, it is
impossible that another famous Florentine should not occur to our
recollection, whose name has long been connected with the civic contests
that resulted in the exile of Italy's greatest poet from his native
city. Yet it is not easy for a foreign critic to deal with the question
of Dino Compagni's Chronicle--a question which for years has divided
Italian students into two camps, which has produced a voluminous
literature of its own, and which still remains undecided. The point at
issue is by no means insignificant. While one party contends that we
have in this Chronicle the veracious record of an eye-witness, the other
asserts that it is the impudent fabrication of a later century, composed
on hints furnished by Dante, and obscure documents of the Compagni
family, and expressed in language that has little of the fourteenth
century. The one regards it as a faithful narrative, deficient only in
minor details of accuracy. The other stigmatizes it as a wholly
untrustworthy forgery, and calls attention to numberless mistakes,
confusions, misconceptions, and misrepresentations of events, whic