the earliest they are acquainted with in the Spanish language. t. iv. p.
525.

Charters in the German language, according to the same work, first
appear in the time of the emperor Rodolph, after 1272, and became usual
in the next century. p. 523. But Struvius mentions an instrument of
1235, as the earliest in German. Corp. Hist. Germ. p. 457.

[874] An extract from this poem was published in 1808 by Mr. Southey, at
the end of his "Chronicle of the Cid," the materials of which it partly
supplied, accompanied by an excellent version by a gentleman, who is
distinguished, among many other talents, for an unrivalled felicity in
expressing the peculiar manner of authors whom he translates or
imitates. M. Sismondi has given other passages in the third volume of
his History of Southern Literature. This popular and elegant work
contains some interesting and not very common information as to the
early Spanish poets in the Provencal dialect, as well as those who wrote
in Castilian.

[875] Dissert. 32.

[876] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 340.

[877] Dante, in his treatise De vulgari Eloquentia, reckons fourteen or
fifteen dialects, spoken in different parts of Italy, all of which were
debased by impure modes of expression. But the "noble, principal, and
courtly Italian idiom," was that which belonged to every city, and
seemed to belong to none, and which, if Italy had a court, would be the
language of that court. p. 274, 277.

Allowing for the metaphysical obscurity in which Dante chooses to
envelop the subject, this might perhaps be said at present. The
Florentine dialect has its peculiarities, which distinguish it from the
general Italian language, though these are seldom discerned by
foreigners, nor always by natives, with whom Tuscan is the proper
denomination of their national tongue.

[878] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 309-377. Ginguene, vol. i. c. 6. The style
of the Vita Nuova of Dante, written soon after the death of his
Beatrice, which happened in 1290, is hardly distinguishable, by a
foreigner, from that of Machiavel or Castiglione. Yet so recent was the
adoption of this language, that the celebrated master of Dante, Brunetto
Latini, had written his _Tesoro_ in French; and gives as a reason for
it, that it was a more agreeable and useful language than his own. Et
se aucuns demandoit pourquoi chis livre est ecris en Romans, selon la
raison de France, pour chose que nous sommes Ytalien, je diroie que
ch'est pour chose que nou