CHAPTER XXIV.

HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATURE IN PROSE FROM 1600 TO 1650.

Decline of Taste in Italy 623 Style of Galileo 624 Bentivoglio 624 Boccalini’s News from Parnassus 624 His Pietra del Paragone 625 Terrante Pallavicino 625 Dictionary Delia Crusca 625 Grammatical Works--Buonmattei--Bartoli 626 Tassoni’s Remarks on Petrarch 626 Galileo’s Remarks on Tasso 626 Sforza Pallavicino 626 And other Critical Writers 626 Prolusiones of Strada 627 Spanish Prose--Gracian 627 French Prose--Du Vair 627 Balzac 628 Character of his Writings 628 His Letters 628 Voiture--Hotel Rambouillet 629 Establishment of French Academy 630 Its objects and Constitution 630 It publishes a Critique on the Cid 631 Vaugelas’s Remarks on the French Language 631 La Mothe le Vayer 632 Legal Speeches of Patru 632 And of Le Maistre 632 Improvement in English Style 633 Earl of Essex 633 Knolles’s History of the Turks 634 Raleigh’s History of the World 635 Daniel’s History of England 635 Bacon 635 Milton 636 Clarendon 636 The Icon Basilice 636 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy 637 Earle’s Characters 637 Overbury’s Characters 637 Jonson’s Discoveries 637 Publication of Don Quixote 638 Its Reputation 638 New Views of its Design 638 Probably erroneous 638 Difference between the two Parts 639 Excellence of this Romance 639 Minor Novels of Cervantes 639 Other Novels--Spanish 639 And Italian 639 French Romances--Astrée 639 Heroic Romances--Gomberville 640 Calprenède 640 Scuderi 641 Argenis of Barclay 641 His Euphormis 643 Campanella’s City of the Sun 643 Few Books of Fiction in England 643 Mundus Alter et Idem of Hall 644 Godwin’s Journey to the Moon 644 Howell’s Dodona’s Grove 644 Adventures of Baron de Fænesle 644