Custom and prejudice, however, predominated over the feelings of the learned even in Italy. Their epistolary correspondence was still carried on in Latin, and their first dramas were in the language of ancient Rome. ANGELO POLITIAN appears to have been the earliest who composed a dramatic piece, his "Orfeo," in "stilo volgare," and for which he assigns a reason which might have occurred to many of his predecessors--"perchè degli spettatori fusse meglio intesa," that he might be better understood by the audience! The vernacular idiom in Italy was still so little in repute, while the prejudice in favour of the Latin was so firmly rooted, that their youths were prohibited from reading Italian books. A curious anecdote of the times which its author has sent down to us, however, shows that their native productions operated with a secret charm on their sympathies; for VARCHI has told the singular circumstance that his father once sent him to prison, where he was kept on bread and water, as a penance for his inveterate passion for reading works in the vernacular tongue. The struggle for the establishment of a vernacular literature was apparent about the same period in different countries of Europe; a simultaneous movement to vindicate the honour and to display the merits of their national idiom. JOACHIM DE BELLAY, of an illustrious literary family, resided three years with his relative the Cardinal at Rome; the glory of the great vernacular authors of Italy inflamed his ardour; and in one of his poems he developes the beauty of "composing in our native language," by the deeper emotions it excites in our countrymen. Subsequently he published his "Defense et Illustration de la Langue Françoise," in 1549, where eloquently and learnedly he would persuade his nation to write in their own language. FERREIRA, the Portuguese poet, about the same time, with all the feelings of patriotism, resolved to give birth to a national literature; exhorting his countrymen to cultivate their vernacular idiom, which he purified and enriched. He has thus feelingly expressed this glorious sentiment-- Eu desta gloria so' fico contente Que a minha terra amei, e a minha gente. In Scotland we find Sir DAVID LYNDSAY, in 1553, writing his great work on "The Monarchie," in his vernacular idiom, although he thought it necessary to apologise, by alleging the example of Moses, Aristotle, Plato, Virgil, and Cicero, who had all composed their works in their own language. In our own country Lord BERNERS had anticipated this general movement. In 1525, when he ventured on the toil of his voluminous and spirited Froissart, he described it as "translated out of Frenshe into our _maternal English tongue_;" an expression which indicates those filial yearnings of literary patriotism which were now to give us a native literature.