In like manner, he finds it hard to appreciate those didactic compositions on trifling or prosaic themes, which delighted the Italians for the very reason that their workmanship surpassed their matter.

These defects, as we judge them, are still more apparent in the graver branches of literature.

In an essay or a treatise we do not so much care for well-balanced disposition of parts or beautifully rounded periods, though elegance may be thought essential to classic masterpieces, as for weighty matter and trenchant observations.

Having the latter, we can dispense at need with the former.
The Italians of the Renaissance, under the sway of the fine arts, sought after form, and satisfied themselves with rhetoric.

Therefore we condemn their moral disquisitions and their criticisms as the flimsy playthings of intellectual voluptuaries.