Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/179

 whole, it was well aware of the benefit to be derived from disunion, and it stirred up the spirit of discord by a curious contrivance;—a tub was thrown to the whale;—the government ordered the institute of Milan to occupy itself in the reform of the National Dictionary, and hence arose a fierce battle between the Della Crusca Academy and the authors of the “Proposta” on the score of language. Did the Italians speak Tuscan, or Italian? such was the mighty question that engrossed the learned of Italy; it was never started among two or three men without exciting the most violent party feeling, and for many years it set Tuscan against Lombard. Monti, by no means a pure political character, is accused of undertaking this war to please the Austrians, with his eyes open to the end in view. His son-in-law, Perticari, who shewed himself very earnest in the discussion, was too much honoured and loved, his memory is too entirely reverenced, for him to be open to the same accusation. For seven years the battle raged, exciting a virulence of party and municipal feeling, quite inexplicable out of Italy. It ended at last, as the question of big-endians and small-endians terminated in Liliput, by every one breaking his egg at whichever end he pleased;—the Lombards came to the conclusion that the Tuscans might like their language best if they chose—and they must choose, for it is not only the purest and the most idiomatic, but it