JOVIANUS PONTANUS, the secretary of Ferdinand, King of Naples, was also selected to be the tutor of the prince, his son.

When Charles VIII.

of France invaded Naples, Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror.

To render himself agreeable to the enemies of his country, he did not avoid expatiating on the demerits of his expelled patrons: "So difficult it is," adds the grave and dignified historian, "for ourselves to observe that moderation and those precepts which no man knew better than Pontanus, who was endowed with such copious literature, and composed with such facility in moral philosophy, and possessed such acquirements in universal erudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye of the world."[B] The student, occupied by abstract pursuits, may not indeed always take much interest in the change of dynasties; and perhaps the famous cancelled dedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist Dr.CASTELL,[C] who supplied its place by another to Charles II., ought not to be placed to the account of political tergiversation.

But the versatile adoration of the continental _savans_ of the republic or the monarchy, the consul or the emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary character; since, like PONTANUS, to gratify their new master, they had not the greatness of mind to save themselves from ingratitude to their old.
[Footnote A: In the article entitled "Anecdotes of Censured Authors," in vol.i.of "Curiosities of Literature."] [Footnote B: Guicciardini, Book II.] [Footnote C: For the melancholy history of this devoted scholar, see note to the article on "The Rewards of Oriental Students," in "Calamities of Authors," p.