names-Enrico, Errico, Arrico, Arrigo, or Arco-partly in the final, and partly in the penultimate syllables of various verses, and sometimes eked out by singling individual letters from various parts of the line; we must continue in the belief that Signor Rossetti's theory, which constitutes Enrico Sesto the pivot whereon the whole machinery of the "Commedia" turns, has led him to indulge in many conjectures of a fanciful and extravagant description; and, inter alia, we wonder that the least importance should have been attached to the circumstance of the name abovementioned being sometimes followed by "luce," a common Italian rhyme; for if this stands for Lucemborghese, and the former for Henry, that anagram is easily discoverable in all Italian writers. The varying combinations and divisions of letters and records in the same line, alluded to by our commentator, were, we have, however, no doubt, among the evasive subterfuges occasionally resorted to in the age of Dante, some striking examples of which are given from Barberino;* and we consider it as highly probable that the famous and formerly unintelligible first verse of the seventh canto, (Pape Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe,) should be read as is now suggested-" Pap' è Satan, Pap' è Satan, Aleppe"The Pope is Satan, the Pope is Satan, the chief (of the Guelphs).

We entertain a strong suspicion that our commentator has confounded together two things extremely dissimilar; a system of arbitrary signs, invented by a persecuted party to serve a temporary purpose, communicated only to sworn partisans, and even then frequently re-modified, to prevent detection-and a system of emblematic signs, all equivocal and ambiguous, but deriving their force, not merely from convention, but from some similitude and analogy real or supposed. The object of the former (the "gergo" of Signor Rossetti) is secrecy; of the latter, evasion; and for this purpose it is the most effective weapon that can possibly be directed by an oppressed minority against a superior and despotic power. It places the party assailed in the most perplexing dilemma, for the assailant can always plead his unconsciousness of the mischief, and the prosecutor cannot impute malice without appropriating the satire to himself, and acknowledging that the shaft has not missed its aim. Thus, when in the sixteenth century the Court of Rome became alarmed at the multiplication of the " Divina Commedia," by means of the art of printing, the papal" imprimatur" was not granted without an express stipulation that some of the sixteenth, and all the twenty-second and thirty-third cantos, of "Purgatory" should be omitted, as well as that passage in the nineteenth canto of the " Inferno," before ad

Rossetti, vol. ii. p. 389.

verted to, where the head of the church is identified with the harlot of the Revelations.* But a multitude of satirical allusions still remained, which, as being mysterious and equivocal, the Inquisition and the Church were too wise to recognise, however much they deprecated their circulation. With such systematic and persevering dexterity did the French employ this description of missile against whatever was obnoxious and unpopular in their government during the last century, that by many it was regarded, not in the light of an auxiliary and irregular force, but as constituting part of a regularly organized corrective opposition; so that the political constitution of France could only be defined by calling it "un despotisme tempéré par les bons mots." The taste for allegory had long since passed away; the French, therefore, could not avail themselves latterly of this commodious vehicle for disseminating satire in disguise, but they were as expert as the Italians had ever been in covering up every sally of wit, ridicule and irony in a double-entendre; and we doubt not that Signor Rossetti will prove that this species of opposition was carried much farther against the tyranny and intolerance of the church, in the time of Dante, than later commentators have suspected, or than the earliest deemed it prudent to avow. For the silence of the ancient expositors as to the political nature of the hidden allusions, raises no presumption against the novelty of his allegorical theories as against the existence of the " gergo;" for none ever doubted that there were allegories, whereas none ever dreamt before that there was a gergo," and we might easily prove that the former were known to contain in them more meaning than it was safe to expose with freedom. It is by no means improbable that some prose works of Dante were composed expressly, as Signor Rossetti believes, with a view of preparing the public mind for the interpretation of the "Commedia;" and the diffuse dissertations appended to some of his minor poems may have been written with the same design, as were unquestionably the explanations of scriptural allegories in the dedication to Can Grande. There is, at least, nothing unreasonable in such an hypothesis, as there would be in imagining that the keys of a

• Verse 108.

+ Landino, after saying that the she-wolf, in the first canto, is Avarice, adds, “ who the greyhound may be, that shall destroy her, is ambiguous;" but he then refers, for farther elucidation of the subject, to" Purgatory," canto xxxiii., and there we find that in speaking of the leader who shall destroy the harlot, he declares that "by the harlot, the Church and the Pope are meant." If these two notes be compared together, the exposition will be found sufficiently explicit, and Landino's hint in the first note abundantly significant, that the reader, if he can find a more suitable meaning, may enlighten those who walk in darkness.”

secret sectarian" gergo" had been published to the world by one of its most devoted partizans.

But when we admit that the commentator may prove that these equivocal and allegorical allusions were extensively used in the thirteenth century, we still believe he will find it necessary to assign much narrower limits to their application, both in regard to the number of authors included, and the multiplicity of the symbolic terms, and to the duration of the period during which these emblems retained the same force and value. For nothing can be more incredible than that all the literary men for a whole century, and some of them, like Guido Cavalcanti, professing themselves Guelphs, should use the same mysterious and equivocal language, whether conventional or allegorical, against the papal power and the errors of the established creed. If so much latitude is given to the system, where are we to stop? We discover similar phraseology in the works of Boccaccio; still more in the poems of Petrarch, who was a Ghibelline, and one who satirized in his odes the See of Rome as the "impious Babylon"*—“ the temple of heresy" and "the hell of the living;" his sonnets to Laura abound with all the terms and peculiar expressions attributed by Signor Rossetti to the amatory" gergo.' And from this poet we cannot separate his numerous imitators in the sixteenth century, when the poetical compositions were almost as exclusively amatory as before the era of Dante, though in an altered and less equivocal style; and when, by a strange anomaly, the bard were almost all ecclesiastics, in consequence of the influence and patronage of Leo X., who wrote love-songs himself, and whose secretary, Cardinal Bembo, published a whole volume. of them, as did Monsignor della Casa, the Reverend Archbishop of Benevento. They preceded the present age of discovery too long to have any suspicion that the classic model, of which they were imitators, had concealed beneath almost every word and expression some treasonable design or antipapal heresy. On the other hand, if we ascend the tide of song, we find ourselves in a no less extraordinary predicament, for we are carried into the camp of the crusaders, and hear the Troubadours singing of ladies, and of love, of sighing and dying, and therefore contemplating in reality reforms in church and state. Great would have been the merriment of those joyous bards could they have anticipated the fate of their love-ballads in the after-time, and much wonder would they have expressed, like Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, when he learnt, for the first time, that he had been talking prose for more than forty years!

* Sonetto 107. Fontana di dolore, albergo d' ira, &c. &c.

But if we must still reject as decidedly untenable some of the original views now proposed, and consider others as requiring farther confirmation, we are far, indeed, from undervaluing the talent and indefatigable spirit of research displayed in every part of these interesting volumes, particularly in that important point, historical illustration;-nor do we question that many propositions, which now appear extravagant, may be established when the whole work is before the public.

ART. III.-Reise in Brasilien auf Befehl Sr. Majestät Maximilian Joseph I. Königs von Baiern, in den Jahren 1817 bis 1820, gemacht und beschrieben von Dr. J. B. von Spix und Dr. Carl Friedr. Phil. von Martius. Zweiter Theil. (Travels in Brazil, in the years 1817-1820, undertaken by command of H. M. the King of Bavaria, by the late Dr. John Bapt. von Spix and Dr. Č. F. Phil. von Martius. Vol. ii. Written and edited by the survivor, Dr. C. F. P. von Martius.) Munich, 1828. pp. 469. 4to.

IN the year 1817, the King of Bavaria sent an expedition, consisting of two learned men, to explore the empire of Brazil. Having remained in that country four years, they published in 1823 the first volume of their Travels. This volume was translated into English; and therefore, even if its date was more recent, would not properly fall within the sphere of our jurisdiction. It seems, however, that a like honour is not destined to befall the volume before us, though it appears to be of at least equal merit with its predecessor, and to contain a full and authentic description of the natural productions and population of Brazil, interesting at once to the man of business, the historian, and the scientific philosopher.

Since the publication of the first volume, one of the authors has died; and, in consequence, all the weight has fallen on the shoulders of Dr. Martius, who promises a third volume, in which the description of the Journey from the River of the Amazons to the Western Boundary of the Brazilian Empire will be contained, and besides an Atlas, some dissertations on the Geography, Statistics, and Native Languages of that Country.

Having landed at Rio de Janeiro, and passed some time in exploring the neighbourhood of that city, the travellers first took a south-west direction, and visited the town of St. Paulo. From thence, making some diversions, they journeyed northwards to Villa Rica, and so on to the Diamond District. They then turned to the left, and proceeded up the Valley of the Rio de St. Fran

cisco, making a slight diversion to the border of the province of Goyaz; and at Malhada they left the course of the river,* and taking first a south-east and then a north-west direction, passed through the interior of the province of Bahia, and reached its capital city, whence we will trace their farther route hereafter.

The beginning of the second volume finds the expedition at Villa Rica, a small town, about 200 miles to the north of Rio Janeiro, whence they journey onwards to examine the Diamond District. Passing by some gold mines, in which the gold is found in veins of quartz, traversing strata of clay-slate, they afterwards cross a high Alpine country, covered with a rich vegetation.

"In walking through the high grass, we had," says Dr. Martius, "the misfortune to tread upon a round sand-hill, which was thrown up and pierced through in every direction by a swarm of large wasps, whose venomous sting we could only escape by throwing ourselves on the ground, according to the direction of our guides. These insects inhabit holes and cavities in the earth; they are nearly the same size as our hornets, are of a green colour, and their sting causes violent inflammation, swelling, fever, and even madness."-p. 425.

In a small valley near this place they found an iron foundry, erected in 1812, at the expense of the king. The works are on a large scale, and the walls of the furnace are made of sand-stone, imported from Newcastle, the quartz slate of the country not resisting fire. It is on this stratum that the iron ores are found reposing.

The travellers next reached Villa do Principe, a town of some size, lying near the edge of the Diamond District, into which they were admitted by virtue of an order from the king. This tract of country is entirely occupied by the government, for the sake of its mineral treasures. In 1730, diamonds were declared the property of the crown; and this district being particularly abundant in them, has been subjected to a most curious system of exclusion. Lines of demarcation are set around it, guarded as strictly as those of an infected city. No person is permitted to pass these, in either direction, without an order from the intendant of the mines. Every one, on going out, himself, horses, and baggage, is subjected to a most minute examination; and in case of

The River St. Francisco, whose valley is visited in two different parts by our travellers, has not been known to the Brasilians, in its whole length, for more than thirty years. From its direction and size, it would be of great importance to the internal trade of Brazil; but its fall is so great, (it being at its confluence with the Paraopeba, 1777 Paris feet above the sea,) that the navigation is very difficult and dangerous.(p. 785; compare Denis Resumé de l' Histoire du Brésil, p. 6.) Dr. Martius states that he heard nothing in Brazil of the account mentioned by Southey, (History of Brazil, vol. i. p. 534,) that this river, at a place called Sumidouro, runs for the distance of eleven or twelve legoas, through a subterraneous channel; and that it appears to rest on some erroneous information.