ejudice. And this has been effected by the
flattering enthusiasm for curing us of prejudices! Indeed it is fine to
notice how that poor word 'prejudice' is bandied about. The folk who
suffer from the real disease, and who complain most loudly of its
miserable consequences, declare themselves atheists, declaim against
what they call prejudice in their sophisticated jargon, while they
bless the legitimate, veracious prejudice, which is the fount and source
of all the evils over which they weep, lament, and shriek.

Compared with these weighty topics, what follows may appear a trifle
hardly worthy of consideration. I allude to the revolution in literary
taste attempted by the Jesuit Father, now the Abbe Xavier Bettinelli,
together with some other restless spirits. Twisting that unfortunate
word 'prejudice' to suit their purpose, they scouted sound studies,
established models, correction of style, and the authority of
acknowledged masters. All such things were reckoned prejudices by these
iconoclasts, who would fain have burned down the temple of Diana in
their insolent ambition to be stared at as new stars, original thinkers,
independent writers.

Bettinelli, a man not destitute of parts, fecundity, and eloquence,
began by preaching to our youth that it was a prejudice to stand at gaze
and slumber over our old authors. What good could the study of Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio do us now? How could the imitation of their
successors in Italian poetry and prose be profitable to us in the middle
of the eighteenth century? Students of the good old type he derided as
arid word-mongers, who had lost their wits by poring over languid,
prosy, frigid models of an antiquated style. To Dante, without
understanding him, he condescendingly allowed a few fine verses, a few
felicitous images, amid that vast ocean of scurrilities and repulsive
barbarisms--the Divine Comedy!

This would-be innovator was possibly justified in his contempt for the
fashionable keepsake books of poetry which we call _Raccolte_.[21] I
will not defend them, though much might plausibly be urged in favour of
a custom which does no harm, which reflects lustre on noble families,
and which affords the rich an opportunity of succouring needy men of
letters. However that may be, Bettinelli wrote and published a satire
entitled _Le Raccolte_, which was intended to crush them, and to serve
as a specimen of his originality in works of fancy. The Granelleschi had
always