Page:The Literary Magnet 1826 vol 2.djvu/169



that superstitious age, when a dissolute priesthood held an almost unlimited sway over the inclinations and understandings of men; when the cowled head was supposed to be the only depository of the secrets of Omniscience; when the glance of a layman behind the curtain of nature was accounted contraband, and of evil origin; when science and wisdom conducted their votaries to the torture and the stake; there lived in Salerno (tranquil and happy, in the cultivation of those pursuits which occasioned the persecution of the “starry Galileo,” brought Savonarola to the flames, and consigned Faustus to the devil,) an old man, named Pietro Barliardo. A century, which had risen and flourished under his eye, and which was now fast hastening to decay, had enriched him with experience and the materials of wisdom.

Aware of the nobler uses of science, he applied his attainments to no purposes of idle parade. To rival the clergy in the arts, which it appropriated exclusively to itself, and on which it had set its landmarks; to boast that he had traced nature in her most secret evolutions, and was a confident of her most clandestine transactions, formed no part of his plan; he professed but to inculcate civil and classical erudition among the youth of his time, and this the monks did not consider an encroachment on their patent; but, while they were left the uncontested dispensers of divine truth, they allowed him to be resorted to as an oracle of profane and pagan literature.

Secret as the councils of conspirators were the researches of Barliardo into the mysteries of magic; for not content with a knowledge of the arts which govern men, he wished to push his conquests into other regions, and to bend superior beings to his will. So guarded, however, were all his measures, that lynx-eyed suspicion was foiled, and vigilance in vain lay in wait to ensnare him; although his green old age, vigorous and unimpaired at ninety-five, was well calculated to excite invidious oservation; for unless Lucifer were his physician, and had been feed with the reversion of Pietro’s soul, it seemed impossible that at an age when his vital powers ought to have been exhausted, and the honours of his head withered and decayed, the old man could retain so much of the freshness of his youth. So argued the monks, and such reasoning became them. Their emissaries mingled with his pupils; but without extracting any matter for the gratification of their malice, and without any other consequence than that of inducing Pietro to renounce the instruction of youth (to which he imputed the jealousy of the clergy) that he might not provoke their envy to more effectual measures, and lose the consolation of returning to dust in consecrated ground. He resolved to devote the last chapter of his life to the education of an orphan nephew, whom fate seemed, in an especial manner, to have called on him to protect, by depriving the boy of every other friend. Having adopted him as his son, and declared him heir to all his estates, he secluded himself from all commerce with the world. Books of astrology and magic, his nephew Benedetto, and a poor cousin named Fran-