mpous quackery; neither can we attribute to their modesty their
choice of senseless titles, for to have degraded their own exalted
pursuits was but folly! Literary history affords no parallel to this
national absurdity of the refined Italians. Who could have suspected
that the most eminent scholars, and men of genius, were associates of
the _Oziosi_, the _Fantastici_, the _Insensati_? Why should Genoa boast
of her "Sleepy," Yiterbo of her "Obstinates," Sienna of her "Insipids,"
her "Blockheads," and her "Thunderstruck;" and Naples of her "Furiosi:"
while Macerata exults in her "Madmen chained?" Both Quadrio and
Tiraboschi cannot deny that these fantastical titles have occasioned
these Italian academies to appear very ridiculous to the _oltramontani_;
but these valuable historians are no philosophical thinkers. They
apologise for this bad taste, by describing the ardour which was kindled
throughout Italy at the restoration of letters and the fine arts, so
that every one, and even every man of genius, were eager to enrol their
names in these academies, and prided themselves in bearing their
emblems, that is, the distinctive arms each academy had chosen. But why
did they mystify themselves?

Folly, once become national, is a vigorous plant, which sheds abundant
seed. The consequence of having adopted ridiculous titles for these
academies suggested to them many other characteristic fopperies. At
Florence every brother of the "Umidi" assumed the name of something
aquatic, or any quality pertaining to humidity. One was called "the
Frozen," another "the Damp;" one was "the Pike," another "the Swan:" and
Grazzini, the celebrated novelist, is known better by the cognomen of
_La Lasca_, "the Roach," by which he whimsically designates himself
among the "Humids." I find among the _Insensati_, one man of learning
taking the name of STORDIDO _Insensato_, another TENEBROSO _Insensato_.
The famous Florentine academy of _La Crusca_, amidst their grave labours
to sift and purify their language, threw themselves headlong into this
vortex of folly. Their title, the academy of "Bran," was a conceit to
indicate their art of sifting; but it required an Italian prodigality of
conceit to have induced these grave scholars to exhibit themselves in
the burlesque scenery of a pantomimical academy, for their furniture
consists of a mill and a bakehouse; a pulpit for the orator is a hopper,
while the learned director sits on a mill-stone; the other se