1. Orazioni Panegiriche e Discorsi Morali, del Revo. Sig. Canonico GIOVANNI FORNICI. 2. Panegirici e Discorsi Sacri, dell' Abate Don 3. Esercizi Spirituali, del nobile e Revmo. Monsig. 4. Il Povero ed il Ricco, Orazione, del Professor II. MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF DIDEROT I. TOD'S ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJAST'HAN Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, or the Central VI. LETTERS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT Letters of Sir Walter Scott. VII. THE SPANISH NOVELISTS The Spanish Novelists. Translated from the Original, by THOMAS ROSCOE. VIII. DR. HERKLOTS' "QANOON-E-ISLAM" Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India. By JAFFUR SHURREEF (a native of the Deccan); composed under the direction of, and translated by, G. A. HERKLOTS, M. D. IX. ZOHRAB, THE HOSTAGE Zohrab, the Hostage. By the author of " Hajji Baba." X. INGLIS'S NEW GIL BLAS The New Gil Blas; or Pedro of Peñaflor. By H. D. XI. ATKINSON'S TRANSLATION OF THE SHAH NAMEH . The Shah Námeh of the Persian Poet Firdausí, translated and abridged in Prose and Verse, with Notes and Illustrations. By JAMES ATKINSON, Esq. 139 146 147 150 154 155 XII. DAUMER'S SKETCH OF PHILOSOPHY 169 Sketch of a System of Speculative Philosophy. By Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes; or Historical XIV. ROMANCE OF BERTHA Critical Examination of the Romance of Bertha of the Great Feet, of the Notes of M. Paulin Paris, its Editor, and of his Letter to M. Monmerqué upon the "Romances of the Twelve Peers." By M. FRANCISQUE MICHEL. XV. CHINESE DRAMA The History of the Circle of Chalk, a Drama in 177 178 SELECT JOURNAL OF FOREIGN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. APRIL, 1833. [From "The Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 20."] ART. I.-1. Orazioni Panegiriche e Discorsi Morali, del Revo. 3. Esercizj Spirituali, del nobile e Revmo. Monsig. Canonico GIO. SERGARDI BINDI. 8vo. Firenze, 1817. 4. Il Povero ed il Ricco, Orazione detta nella Chiesa della Pia Casa di Lavoro di Firenze, nel giorno 3 Ottobre, 1829, dal Professor Abate GIUSEPPE BARBIERI. 8vo. Milano, 1830. It is recorded of Albert Lollio, a Ferrarese gentleman, in the sixteenth century, that with the view of encouraging the study of eloquence amongst his countrymen, he caused the walls of his villa, where he entertained several learned men as his constant guests, and daily received the visits of great numbers of others, to be hung round with likenesses of the most celebrated orators, in the expectation that the sight of the resemblances of these great men on canvass would stimulate the emulation of the Ferrarese youth to rival them in that art which had rendered their names immortal. Similar good effects might be anticipated, from the contemplation of the intellectual and moral resemblances of those who have obtained the palm of sacred eloquence, amongst a people distinguished, as the natives of Italy have always been, by the quickness and brightness of their conceptions, and the harmony and elegance of their diction. It is our intention to hang up a series of such portraits, which we shall be obliged, in a few instances, to VOL. I. NO. II. 21 fetch from the dusty garret, where they had long lain neglected. In order to give unity and interest to our plan, we shall notice only those preachers who employed the modern, not the ancient, language of Italy, and who were distinguished by, or had the reputation of popular talents, not controversial theologians; and lastly, we shall only rapidly glance at earlier periods, in order to dwell on the present century, and especially on the results of personal observation during a residence for the last few years in various cities of the Italian peninsula. As a specimen of four different styles or schools of Italian preaching, we have selected the four sacred orators whose names stand at the head of this article. Of these, Giovanni Fornici still tells in the nineteenth century the "old wives' fables" which were scarcely believed in the ninth, and actually talks with a grave face of the sacred follies of San Filippo Neri, "who made "himself a mountebank as an act of holy humiliation, dressing like "a beau, and dancing and leaping in the public places, in order "that he might conceal his extraordinary wisdom and grace!" Don Ignazio Venini is a serious, often dull, but always orthodox preacher. Sergardi Bindi, now bishop of Montalcino, in Tuscany, is the declared enemy of the modern French philosophy, which he attacks, however, far too much in the spirit of bitter and indiscriminate hostility. Giuseppe Barbieri is the consummation of every thing that is elegant and persuasive, about to be the founder, as we would fain hope, of a new and infinitely superior school of pulpit eloquence in Italy. It is a subject of controversy, among learned Italians, at what period popular religious addresses in the vulgar tongue were permitted by the Church of Rome. It is evident that this mode of address, when first introduced, labored under some stigma, since about the year 1300, the date of the earliest recorded discourses in Italian, we find that they were confined to out-of-door preaching, in gardens and orchards, churchyards, and public squares: that which was delivered within the walls of the Sanctuary being still uniformly pronounced in the sacred language of the Church. The nation at large, however, having ceased, probably from A.D. 1100, familiarly to employ and generally to understand the Latin, the exposition of the Gospel of the day (a practice handed down from the very earliest period) was, from the twelfth century for some time forward, translated or abridged for the people in Italian by an officer of the Church as soon as delivered. The first purely Italian preacher, parts of whose discourses are preserved to us, is FRA GIORDANO DA RIVALTO, born A. D. 1260. His learning and eloquence were very celebrated, and he travelled indefatigably to preach, erecting his little pulpit, with a still hum |