The "difficulty" between literature and princes is one of old date; and, truth to tell, the connection between them has rarely been creditable to either party. If Francis I. showed his paternal regard for learning by limiting the printing–presses in all France to twelve licensed machines, literature, even as represented by such men as the historian Robertson, has been flunky enough to extol him as "the father of letters!" How often has the clause—"but he protected literature and loved learned men"—been accepted in a historian's summing–up of the character of some royal scourge of humanity, as a set–off against a host of abominations wholly incompatible with any real appreciation of the value of human intellect! It is quite time that the historic claims of many princely "fathers of literature" to the lenient consideration of the world on this ground, should be more rightly appreciated. And the dealings of several of the Italian princes during the last three hundred years with those "dangerous classes" of their subjects, the men of the pen, form a very instructive manual of the royal art of patronising literature. Cosmo I., Duke of Florence, by the grace of Charles V., was a most able practitioner in this line. He founded the Florentine Academy, and regulated its studies and duties in accordance with the great discovery, that the exercise of men's minds on words might be quite safe and harmless, if carefully disjoined from any application of their thoughts to things; nay, might even not only be harmless, but positively useful in promoting all those qualities which make men good subjects. And it is quite curious to observe with what unity of aim, means, and success, the policy so inaugurated by him has been carried out by those who came after him. Hence the innumerable "academies" which swarmed in every city of Italy, vieing with each other in the absurdity of their appellations and the frivolity of their pursuits. Hence the production of a literature which from generation to generation grew ever safer and safer, till it culminated in Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses, and gave birth to a Corilla, who could be warranted to produce, in whatever heat of poetical estro and fervid flow of extempore song, only such strains as were fitted for noble ears to hear, and were calculated to "encourage the best sentiments in the masses." [Sidenote: ARCADIANS.]