[295] {256}[In his defence of the "mother-tongue" as a fitting vehicle for a commentary on his poetry, Dante argues "that natural love moves the lover principally to three things: the one is to exalt the loved object, the second is to be jealous thereof, the third is to defend it ... and these three things made me adopt it, that is, our mother-tongue, which naturally and accidentally I love and have loved." Again, having laid down the premiss that "the magnanimous man always praises himself in his heart; and so the pusillanimous man always deems himself less than he is," he concludes, "Wherefore many on account of this vileness of mind, depreciate their native tongue, and applaud that of others; and all such as these are the abominable wicked men of Italy, who hold this precious mother-tongue in vile contempt, which, if it be vile in any case, is so only inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers."--_Il Convito_, caps. x., xi., translated by Elizabeth Price Sayer, 1887, pp. 34-40.] [bz] ----_when matched with thine_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [296] [With the whole of this apostrophe to Italy, compare _Purgatorio_, vi. 76-127.] [ca] _From the world's harvest_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [cb] {257} _Where earthly Glory first then Heavenly made._-- [MS. Alternative reading.] _Where Glory first, and then Religion made_.--[MS. erased.] [297] [Compare-- "The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lxxx. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 390, note 2.] [298] {258}See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540)]. There is another written by a Jacopo _Buonaparte_. [The original MS. of the latter work is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. It is entitled, "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto I'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco di Roma dell' anno mdxxvii., scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, Gentiluomo Samminiatese, che vi si trovo' presente." An edition of it was printed at Cologne, in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy of the Buonaparte family.