[The perusal of the foregoing essay has induced us once more to draw on the treasures of the Berlin Academy, and to communicate to our readers a short memoir contained in the Transactions of the years 1812 — 1813, which will certainly be read with pleasure by all who take an interest in the subject discussed by our correspondent.] ON OC AND OYL, PARTICULARLY WITH REFERENCE TO WHAT DaNTE SAYS ON THE SUBJECT. By J. E. BlESTER. One of the most remarkable, and (which is here of the greatest importance) one of the earliest passages relating to the two affirmatives of the elder French language, oc and oyl (or oz/), occurs in Dante'^s work de vulgari eloquentia. This little work of the great poet, written in Latin, remained long unknown and in manuscript. When in 1529, that is, more than 200 years after it was written, Trissino published an Italian translation of it, doubts were started of its genuine- ness, and it was suspected of being a forgery of Trissino himself (for it was soon discovered that he, not the Genoese Doria, under whose name he attempted to conceal himself, was the editor or translator), and of being designed to sup- port certain doctrines which he had previously maintained on the subject of poetry and of the Italian language, corres- ponding with those which appeared in this treatise. Such for instance was the judgement pronounced by Varchi (Er- cola7io^ dubit. 6), who too boldly asserts that nobody had ever seen or known anything of the original. There were however several copies of it in existence, and accordingly the Latin text was edited in 15775 after the death of Varchi and Trissino, by Corbinelli, no partizan of the first translator, with whom on the contrary he declares himself by no means
