The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-14 00:00:00

richest tints of painting ; and as the pale, spare form of
the monk arose in the pulpit, there appeared below him,
thickly pressed together, a throng chequered with bright
costunirs, whose eyes were intently fixed upon him, whsle,
as he looked down on the mass waving to mid fro under
excitement, he saw the human pavement light up and glow
in the sombre nave, flashing into animation under his
stirring appeals.
From the chapter on " The Lights of Italian
Life" we take a sketch of the villa of Lorenzo de
Medici, a somewhat digressive illustration of the
text that " the country residences of the gentry
" are the true examples of the national taste " :
If we would recall the men who were then remarkable,
we must pass from the public palaces to the gardens and
villas which were the chosen residences of its nobles ;
not the Frizzy) Riccardi, the home of the first Cosmo,
which received kings and emperors; nor the Palazzo
Viol, which reminds us of the family who were long the
rivals of the Medici. We must tura to the villea which,
at Fiesole or Cureggi, present to us the tastes and habits
of a voluptuous but brilliant age
The large rooms and ample porticos, the halls which
opened on suites of chambers, to receive every breath of
sir, fountains that brought to the summer heat a delicious
coolness, high hedges of yew or ilex that kept off the glare
of light; the grove adjoining the house, which presented
so thick a shade as to defy even an Italian sure; the
ewes that mixed its dark spiral form with a more spread-
ing foliage; the rooms filed with works of art—Roman
busts, groups of statues, bronzes, vases, jewelled cops and
cameos; manuscripts of various languages, the dusty trea-
sures of Greece and Rome : among these moved, in lite-
rary converse, the men of mind with whose features the
great sculptors and painters have made us familiar: the
grave face which we ndmire in the bust of Cosmo ; the
young philosopher Ficino, the learned Leonardo from
Arezzo, the monk from Camsldoli, Traversari, the femme
Greek scholars, Poggio and Gnarini. hate were collected,
from Switzerland and Germany and France, the moulder-
ing manuscripts to which we owe the recovered ,works of
Lucretius, Quintilian, and Cicera. Here Aladin% came,
with treasures from the East, with Plato and Lucian, with
Xenophon anti Pinlar. Here merchants brought rare
manuscripts, the statesman lett his office to speak of lite-
rature, and the professor descended from his chair to read
a Latin ode. Here were thrown out the first hints of the
libraries which enriched Venice and Florence ; and in
these gardens, under the shade of their trees, in the midst
of statnes and busts, met the famous academy which
studied the philosophy of Plato. Here afterwards might
he seen the high features and graceful figure of Lorenzo ;
while Marsilio Ficino reasoned of truth, and Pulci wrote
Italian verses, and Accisjuoli tore himself from state
papers, and Alberti explained the rules of art, and Pico di
Mirandula discoursed, and Volition read and talked. Far
off, near the cloister walls, under a spreading beech, was
gathered a group of celebrated men, and the flow of the
fountain was nut more refreshing than the flow of their
thoughts; or they gathered on the nearer terraces of Fie-
sole and looked through cypress groves to Florence spread
below them, and saw the sun go swiftly down behind its
walls and battlements, while the eye passed over orchards
and olives, the reddening vines and black forests, to the
yellow sands and reaches of the Arno.

These passages are what may be called hand-
sumely written, which is not the same as being
well, or prettily, or beautifully written. There
is a certain glow and colour and sound about
them which would have been remarkable sonic
years ago, before this style was as common as it
has now become. But writers like Mr. Hepworth
Dixon and Mr. Macknight have somewhat
" blown upon " the elaborate rhetoric which
pleases us in the purple patches of Hallam and
the engine-turned paragraphs of Macaulay. Mr.
Colquhoun is, unconsciously perhaps, an imitator
of the former writer rather than of the latter;—
not, indeed, of his deep research or his closely-
packed intbrmation, but of the occasional pas-
sages where he rises with his subject into a
warmer and more brilliant region than that of
Ducange's Glossary and Ryiner's Fcedera.
'there is a page or two in part iv., chap. 1, of
"The Literature of Europe" in which the histo-
rian introduces a fine description of the retreat
of Lorenzo de Medici at Fiesole, "in gardens
which Tully might have envied," and over-
looking Florence, which lay before them with its
amphitheatre of hills, amid meadows which
teitified the statesman's genius for agriculture—
"the classic diversion of a statesman's cares "--
and through which " the yellow Arno steals
silently in its long reaches to the sea;" with a
good deal more to the same effect. Now any
one can see with half an eye that this passage, and
Possibly some of a similar kind in Lord Macaulay's
essay on Machiavelli, have been Mr. Coign-
houn's models. This would not so much matter,
but the fact is that lie is not quite able to keep up
the style with the same spirit ; indeed it is too
much for anybody to attempt, and even the
distinguished writers whom he imitates only
sparingl
tion. % employ such very profuse ornamenta-
e must also say as to three of the essays
that we (19 not pltosether sea that they well: