f martyrs, and of their illustrious ancestors, is prized as a
treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration; those works
of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His
birthplace, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude! and
this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has
snatched from you through ages yet to come!"

Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this
sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the
minds of the Florentines; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with
awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the memory of their great
bard. By order of the city, the _Divina Commedia_ was publicly read and
explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities
of age, roused his departing genius: still was there marrow in the bones
of the aged lion, and he engaged in the task of composing his
celebrated Commentaries on the _Divina Commedia_.

In this class of _sentimental biography_ I would place a species which
the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the Continent, in
pursuit of his historical design. He found, preserved among several
ancient families of France, their domestic annals. "With a warm,
patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully
preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors." This delight
and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their
ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their
folly or their vanity; yet in that folly there may be so much wisdom,
and in that vanity there may be so much greatness, that the one will
amply redeem the other.

This custom has been rarely adopted among ourselves; we have, however, a
few separate histories of some ancient families, as those of Mordaunt,
and of Warren. One of the most remarkable is "A Genealogical History of
the House of Yvery, in its different branches of Yvery, Luvel, Perceval,
and Gournay." Two large volumes, closely printed,[266] expatiating on
the characters and events of a single family with the grave pomp of a
herald, but more particularly the idolatry of the writer for ancient
nobility, and his contempt for that growing rank in society whom he
designates as "New Men," provoked the ridicule at least of the
aspersed.[267] This extraordinary work, notwithstanding its absurdities
in its general result, has left behind a deep impre