contest was kept up between the brothers. The Cardinal contended, that, as "Rinaldo” had been dedicated to him, he had an hereditary right: on the contrary, Alphonso contended, that his brother having had his share of honour, it was now his turn. Tasso, having remained undecided for three or four years, at length took up his residence in the palace of Ferrara, and placed the name of Alphonso at the head of his poem; but he neglected not to retain the Cardinal's good opinion, by every attention. Tasso was now about twenty-two years of age, and his name had become famous through all Europe.

DOCTOR JOHN DENNIS.

MR. THEOPHILUS CIBBER relates an anecdote of this poet and critic, which is worth relating, as it is not only highly characteristic of the man, but also a striking and melancholy instance, among thousands, of the distressful predicaments into which men of genius and literary abilities are, perhaps, more apt than any others to plunge themselves, by paying too slight an attention to the common concerns of life.

"After that he was worn out" (says that author) " with age and poverty, he resided within

the verge of the Court, to prevent danger from his creditors. On Saturday night, he happened to saunter to a public-house, which, in a short time, he discovered to be without the verge. He was sitting in a drinking-room, when a man of suspicious appearance happened to come in. There was something about the man which denoted to Mr. Dennis that he was a bailiff. This struck him with a panic; he was afraid his liberty was at an end; he sat in the utmost solicitude, but did not offer to stir, lest he should be seized upon. After an hour or two had passed in this painful anxiety, at last the clock struck twelve; when Mr. Dennis, in an ecstacy, cried out, addressing himself to the suspected person,

Now, Sir, bailiff or no bailiff, I don't care a farthing for you; you have no power now.' The man was astonished at his behaviour, and, when it was explained to him, was so much exaspe rated at the suspicion, that, had not Mr. Dennis found protection in age, he would, probably, have smarted for his mistaken opinion."

DANTE'S " DIVINA COMEDIA."

"DANTE wrote before we began to be at all refined; and, of course, his celebrated poem is

VOL. I.

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a sort of Gothic work. He is very singular and very beautiful in his similies, and more like Homer than any of the Italian poets. He was prodigiously learned for the times he lived in, and knew all that a man could then know. Homer, in his time, was unknown in Italy; and Petrarch boasts of being the first poet that had heard him explained. Indeed, in Dante's time, there were not above three or four people in all Italy that could read Greek (one, in particular, at Viterbo, and two or three elsewhere). But, although he had never seen Homer, he had conversed much with the works of Virgil. His poem got the name of Comedia, after his death. He somewhere calls Virgil's Work Tragedia (or sublime poetry); and, in deference to him, called his own Comedia (or low): and hence was that word used afterwards, by mistake, for the title of his poem."

SPENCE.

ABBE MAROLLES.

THIS Abbé was an indefatigable translator: Virgil, Lucan, Martial, and Athenæus, fell into his hands, and by him they were all translated in a dull and inaccurate manner. He also took it

into his head to write verses. His translation of Martial's Epigrams he sent to Menage, who wrote on the title-page, "Satires against Martial." He was one day observing to Linière how little his verses cost him. “ I believe, Sir, that they cost you to the full as much as they are worth," was the reply.*

DU RYER

was as relentless a translator of the Ancients as the Abbé Marolles. It was said of him, " Magis fami quam famæ inserviebat," such was the hurry in which his translations appeared to have been made. He was paid for them at a certain regular proportion. He had three shillings a leaf for his prose translations, three shillings and sixpence for every hundred of long verses, and two shillings for every hundred of the shorter

ones.

RHYMING.

From Miss Hawkins's Memoirs.

"THE disposition to write in rhyme does not

* "What is written without effort, is, in general, read without pleasure."

DR. JOHNSON.

in the least prove the power to do it. When my father had written the cantatas which were set to music by Mr. Stanley, he employed a man to make a fair copy of them, and his transcriber was so pleased with them, that he not only recommended them, but tried his powers in the same way. He told his employer that he, too, could write cantatas, and asked him to hear a part of one. Four lines, my father, even at the distance of many years, remembered; but I must preface them, by saying, that the poet was clerk to an attorney, and, in a litigation between two brothers, was suspected of having given such information to the defendant, as enabled him to elude the law: to him, therefore, whom he had injured, he addressed the cantata in which these lines were found:

'Some say I did not use thee well,

In fav'ring of thy brother Barrow;
But since all that is past and gone,

I'll drink thy health now at the Harrow.'

Telling this to Captain Gostling, he requited it by this anecdote:

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Bermuda's poetry' is an expression almost proverbial in some parts of America. Its origin