Excerpt from Crestomazia Italiana: A Collection Of Selected Pieces in Italian Prose; Designed As a Class This volume is intended merely as a reading-book for those who are commencing the study of the Italian language; and the Grecism of its title - Crestomazia Italiana - sufficiently indicates that it contains a selection of pleasing and useful pieces of Italian prose, taken from the best writers. In its compilation, we have aimed more particularly to engage the mind and enlist the feelings of the student; for to read without sympathy, is to acquire a distaste for learning - to march without making progress. For this reason, principally, we have given the preference to modern authors, most of whom are still living. We do not mean, by so doing, to dispute the universally acknowledged merit of the ancient Italian writers registered in the classic catalogue approved by the despotical dictatorship of the Academy of the Crusca. They are unquestionably masters in purity of...