its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well as of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned.

TRANSLATION

OF

MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

CANTO I.

I.

In the beginning was the Word next God;
God was the Word, the Word no less was he;
This was in the beginning, to my mode

Of thinking, and without him nought could be:
Therefore, just Lord! from out thy high abode,
Benign and pious, bid an angel flee,

One only, to be my companion, who

Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through.

II.

And thou, oh Virgin! daughter, mother, bride,
Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key
Of heaven, and hell, and every thing beside,
The day thy Gabriel said, « All hail!» to thee,
Since to thy servants pity's ne'er denied,
With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free,
Be to my verses then benignly kind,
And to the end illuminate my mind.

III.

'T was in the season when sad Philomel
Weeps with her sister, who remembers and
Deplores the ancient woes which both befell,
And makes the nymphs enamour'd, to the hand
Of Phaeton, by Phoebus, loved so well,

His car (but temper'd by his sire's command)
Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now
Appear'd, so that Tithonus scratch'd his brow:

IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey,

As it should still obey, the helm, my mind, And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay Of Charles the emperor, whom you will find By several pens already praised; but they Who to diffuse his glory were inclined, For all that I can see in prose or verse, Have understood Charles badly-and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer

Of genius quick, and diligently steady,

No hero would in history look brighter;

He in the cabinet being always ready,

And in the field a most victorious fighter, Who for the church and christian faith had wrought, Certes far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,
The abbey no great way from Manopell,
Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory.

Because of the great battle in which fell
A pagan king, according to the story,

And felon people whom Charles sent to hell: And there are bones so many, and so many, Near them Giusaffa's would seem few, if any.

VII.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize
His virtues as I wish to see them: thou,
Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,

And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow,
All proper customs and true courtesies:

Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now, With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance, Is sprung from out the noble blood of France.

VIII.

Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, of whom
The wisest and most famous was Orlando;
Him traitor Gan conducted to the tomb

In Roncesvalles, as the villain plann'd too, While the horn rang so loud, and knell'd the doom

Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do,

And Dante in his comedy has given

To him a happy seat with Charles in heaven.