This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ... avocare solebam ab illis Uteris. Faciebam ego id quidem, sed consilio, ut videbar, bono. Cum enim in Latinis major inulto in esse t digni tas, tuque in ea facultate princeps mihi longe viderere, non tarn abstrahebam to illinc, quam hue vocabam. Nee studium reprehendebam in illis tuum, sed te majors qutedam spectare debere arbitrabar."--Epist., lib. 11. p. 55. Tiraboschi, ix. 293; Corniani, It. 98 Sadolet. Epist., lib. xii. p. 555. Castiglione, Sperone, Machiavel. Guevara, Oliva, has been al ready adverted to when the subject of their writings was before us; and it would be tedious to dwell of1"TM'" upon them again in this point of view. The Italians "J"" have been accustomed to associate almost every kind h "ty' of excellence with the word cinquecento. They extol the elegant style and fine taste of those writers. But Andres has remarked, with no injustice, that if we find purity, correctness, and elegance of expression, in the chief prose writers of this century, we cannot but also acknowledge an empty prolixity of periods, a harsh involution of words and clauses, a jejune and wearisome circuity of sentences, with a striking deficiency of thought. "Let us admit the graces of mere language in the famous authors of this period; but we must own them to be far from models of eloquence, so tedious and languid as they are."1 The Spanish writers of the same century, he says afterwards, nourished as well as the Italian with the milk of antiquity, transfused the spirit and vigor of these ancients into their own compositions, not with the servile imitation of the others, nor seeking to arrange their phrases and round then periods, the source of languor and emptiness, so that the besl Spanish prose is more flowing and harm...