they implied the innocence of their pursuits by the jocularity with
which the members treated themselves, and were willing that others
should treat them. This otherwise inexplicable national levity, of so
refined a people, has not occurred in any other country, because the
necessity did not exist anywhere but in Italy. In France, in Spain, and
in England, the title of the ancient Academus was never profaned by an
adjunct which systematically degraded and ridiculed its venerable
character and its illustrious members.

Long after this article was finished, I had an opportunity of consulting
an eminent Italian, whose name is already celebrated in our country, Il
Sigr. Ugo Foscolo;[309] his decision ought necessarily to outweigh mine;
but although it is incumbent on me to put the reader in possession of
the opinion of a native of his high acquirements, it is not as easy for
me, on this obscure and curious subject, to relinquish my own
conjecture.

Il Sigr. Foscolo is of opinion that the origin of the fantastical titles
assumed by the Italian academies entirely arose from a desire of getting
rid of the air of pedantry, and to insinuate that their meetings and
their works were to be considered merely as sportive relaxations, and an
idle business.

This opinion may satisfy an Italian, and this he may deem a sufficient
apology for such absurdity; but when scarlet robes and cowled heads,
laureated bards and _Monsignores_, and _Cavalleros_, baptize themselves
in a public assembly "Blockheads" or "Madmen," we _ultramontanes_, out
of mere compliment to such great and learned men, would suppose that
they had their good reasons; and that in this there must have been
"something more than meets the ear." After all, I would almost flatter
myself that our two opinions are not so wide of each other as they at
first seem to be.

ON THE HERO OF HUDIBRAS; BUTLER VINDICATED.

That great Original, the author of HUDIBRAS, has been recently censured
for exposing to ridicule the Sir Samuel Luke, under whose roof he dwelt,
in the grotesque character of his hero. The knowledge of the critic in
our literary history is not curious; he appears to have advanced no
further than to have taken up the first opinion he found; but this
served for an attempt to blacken the moral character of BUTLER! "Having
lived," says our critic, "in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of
Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned the Hudibras, of which