Still a great difficulty arises from any deviation from these rules. Was then the Florentine dialect, or the Siennese, or the Pisan, to be the written language of the country? Each city would have rejected its neighbour's, and still more would Lombardisms be regarded with disdain by the inhabitants of the south. Language, pronunciation, idiom, all form a habit to the eye and ear, which, beginning with our very birth, cannot be afterwards discarded. No Tuscan ever would or even could tolerate the introduction of any of the words or phrases belonging to other dialects; and they endure the mistakes of foreigners with less disgust than the uncouth pronunciation of their countrymen of the north and east of the peninsula. Nor will they allow that even the well educated among these use classic modes of speech. This is the point of contention; for their antagonists insist, that they are in as full possession as the Tuscans of pure Italian, drawing it from the same sources— namely, the best writers of the country; and assert that they are as well able to originate new modes of expression, and to turn with as much elegance and force those already in use. Monti and Perticari both entered heart and soul into this dispute, which speedily roused every literary person in Italy to take one side or the other. The Tuscans, headed by the Della Crusca, were furious that their long-acknowledged supremacy should be questioned; while Monti, resting the merits of his opinion on the great authority of Dante, did not hesitate in his attack. Several letters to his friend Mustoxidi display his earnestness and sincerity in the cause. We extract passages from them, as explanatory of his ideas and characteristic of the man.