VICO. J- HE name of Giambattista Vico, the author of the Scienza Nuova, of whose life and writings it is proposed in this paper to give some account, is so little known in England, that perhaps the majority of the readers of the Philological Museum may now hear of him for the jSrst time. The remoteness of the country in which he wrote, the singularity of his works, and his utter disregard, not only of the graces of style, but even the virtues of perspicuity and method, will explain the ignorance of his historical writings which still prevails among us : we are besides of all literary nations the most incurious respecting the pro- ductions of foreisrners. It is much more wonderful that the Scienza Nuova was unknown in Germany nearly a century after its publication. After Wolf had published his Pro- legomena to Homer, he received from Cesarotti, the vienerable translator of Homer and Ossian, a copy of this work of Vico, with the remark that he would find in it an anticipa- tion of his own dreams ; and he gave an account of it, as a literary curiosity, in his Museum, Vol. i. p. 555. seq. The scanty materials for the life of Vico, which was marked by few vicissitudes or incidents, are found in a memoir written by himself, prefixed to the Scienza Nuova, with some additions subsequently made by him and his son, which are contained in the publication of his works by the Marquis of Villa Rosa in 1818. He was born at Naples in 1688; the only memorable event which he has recorded of his early years is that he fractured his scull by a fall at the age of seven, an incident which the surgeon predicted would deprive him of his understanding, but which as he says confirmed a propensity to melancholy in his temper. Such a temper is indeed very strongly marked in the striking portrait prefixed to the Milan edition of the Scienza Nuova,
