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Even this ridiculous society of the Arcadians became a memorable literary institution; and Tiraboschi has shown how it successfully arrested the bad taste which was then prevailing throughout Italy, recalling its muses to purer sources; while the lives of many of its shepherds have furnished an interesting volume of literary history under the title of “The illustrious Arcadians.” Crescembini, and its founders, had formed the most elevated conceptions of the society at its origin; but poetical vaticinators are prophets only while we read their verses–we must not look for that dry matter of fact–the event predicted!

Il vostro seme eterno
Occupera la terra, ed i confini
D’Arcadia oltrapassando,
Di non piu visti gloriosi germi
L’aureo fecondera lito del Gange
E de’ Cimmeri l’infeconde arene.

Mr. Mathias has recently with warmth defended the original Arcadia; and the assumed character of its members, which has been condemned as betraying their affectation, he attributes to their modesty. “Before the critics of the Arcadia (the pastori, as they modestly styled themselves) with Crescembini for their conductor, and with the Adorato Albano for their patron (Clement XI.), all that was depraved in language and in sentiment fled and disappeared.”

The strange taste for giving fantastical denominations to literary institutions grew into a custom, though, probably, no one knew how. The founders were always persons of rank or learning, yet still accident or caprice created the mystifying title, and invented those appropriate emblems, which still added to the folly. The Arcadian society derived its title from a spontaneous conceit. This assembly first held its meetings, on summer evenings, in a meadow on the banks of the Tiber; for the fine climate of Italy promotes such assemblies in the open air. In the recital of an eclogue, an enthusiast, amidst all he was hearing and all he was seeing, exclaimed, “I seem at this moment to be in the Arcadia of ancient Greece, listening to the pure and simple strains of its shepherds.” Enthusiasm is contagious amidst susceptible Italians, and this name, by inspiration and by acclamation, was conferred on the society! Even more recently, at Florence, the accademia called the Colombaria, or the “Pigeon-house,” proves with what levity the Italians name a literary society. The founder was the Cavallero Pazzi, a gentleman, who, like Morose, abhorring noise, chose for his study a garret in his palazzo; it was, indeed, one of the old turrets which had not yet fallen in: there he fixed his library, and there he assembled the most ingenious Florentines to discuss obscure points, and to reveal their own contributions in this secret retreat of silence and philosophy. To get to this cabinet it was necessary to climb a very steep and very narrow staircase, which occasioned some facetious wit to observe, that these literati were so many pigeons who flew every evening to their dovecot. The Cavallero Pazzi, to indulge this humour, invited them to a dinner entirely composed of their little brothers, in all the varieties of cookery; the members, after a hearty laugh, assumed the title of the Colombaria, invented a device consisting of the top of a turret, with several pigeons flying about it, bearing an epigraph from Dante, Quanto veder si puo, by which they expressed their design not to apply themselves to any single object. Such facts sufficiently prove that some of the absurd or facetious denominations of these literary societies originated in accidental circumstances or in mere pleasantry; but this will not account for the origin of those mystifying titles we have noticed; for when grave men call themselves dolts or lunatics, unless they are really so, they must have some reason for laughing at themselves.

To attempt to develope this curious but obscure singularity in literary history, we must go further back among the first beginnings of these institutions. How were they looked on by the governments in which they first appeared? These academies might, perhaps, form a chapter in the history of secret societies, one not yet written, but of which many curious materials lie scattered in history. It is certain that such literary societies, in their first origins, have always excited the jealousy of governments, but more particularly in ecclesiastical Rome, and the rival principalities of Italy. If two great nations, like those of England and France, had their suspicions and fears roused by a select assembly of philosophical men, and either put them down by force, or closely watched them, this will not seem extraordinary in little despotic states. We have accounts of some philosophical associations at home, which were joined by Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, but which soon got the odium of atheism attached to them; and the establishment of the French Academy occasioned some umbrage, for a year elapsed before the parliament of Paris would register their patent, which was at length accorded by the political Richelieu observing to the president, that “he should like the members according as the members liked him.” Thus we have ascertained one principle, that governments in those times looked on a new society with a political glance; nor is it improbable that some of them combined an ostensible with a latent motive.