Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/559

 The Italian Cities and the Renaissance 523 each one of these grave faults has a great following, for few are those who are free from them. . . . There are many who would rather be thought masters than be such ; and to avoid the opposite that is, to be held not to be such they always cast blame on the material they work on, or upon the instrument ; as the clumsy smith blames the iron given to him, and the bad harpist blames the harp, thinking to cast the blame of the bad blade and of the bad music upon the iron and upon the harp, and to lift it from themselves. Thus there are some, and not a few, who desire that men may hold them to be orators ; and to excuse themselves for not speaking, or for speaking badly, they accuse or throw blame on the material, that is, their own mother tongue, and praise that of other lands, which they are not required to employ. And he who wishes to see wherefore this iron is to be blamed, let him look at the work which good artificers make of it, and he will understand the malice of those who, in casting blame upon it, think thereby to excuse themselves. Against such as these Cicero ex- claims in the beginning of his book, which he names De Finibus, because in his time they blamed the Roman Latin and praised the Greek grammar. And thus I say, for like reasons, that these men vilify the Italian tongue, and glorify that of Provence. . . . There are many who, by describing certain things in some other language, and by praising that language, deem them- selves to be more worthy of admiration than if they described them in their own. And undoubtedly to learn well a foreign tongue is deserving of some praise for intellect; but it is a blamable thing to applaud that language beyond truth, to glorify oneself for such an acquisition. . . . Wherefore many, on account of this baseness of soul, depreciate their native tongue, and applaud that of others ; and 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, under whose guidance go those blind men of whom I spoke in the first argument.