Ora di Maggio fiorisce il grano, Ma non puo estrarsi senza il Sior Abramo. Now in May-time comes the corn; but, quoth he, though come I am, I should never have been here, but for Signor Abraham. She is A lady put forth her pretty laughing face (and a most good-tempered woman she was). hailed as the goddess of the May-bush. Ora di Maggio viene il fior di spina, Ma non viene senza la Signora Allegrina. Now in May-time comes the bush, all to crown its queen-a, But it never would without Signora Allegrina. A poor fellow, a servant, named Giuseppino or Peppino (Joe) who was given to drinking (a rare thing in Italy), and was a great admirer of the fair sex (a thing not so uncommon), crosses the court with a jug in his hand. It was curious to see the conscious, but not resentful face, with which he received the banter of his friends. Ora di Maggio fiorisce amor e vino, Ma ni l'un ni l'altro senza il Sior Peppino. Now in May-time comes the flower of love and wine alsò; But there's neither one nor t' other, without Signor Joe. With this true bit of a taste of May for the reader's ruminations, we close our present article. It would be an "advancement" to look out of a May-morning in England, and see guitar-players instead of chimney-sweeps.* * Since this article was written, the condition of the chimneysweepers has been greatly mitigated. THE GIULI TRE.* Specimen of Sonnets written on this subject by the Abate Casti. THE Giuli Tre (Three Juliuses, so called from a head of one of the Popes of that name) are three pieces of money, answering to about fifteen-pence of our coin, for which the Italian poet, Casti, says he was pestered from day to day by an inexorable creditor. The poet accordingly had his revenge on him, and incarcerated the man in immortal amber, by devoting to the subject no less than two hundred sonnets, which he published under the above title. The Abate Casti is known to the English public, by means of Mr. Stewart Rose's pleasant abridgment, as the author of the Animali Parlanti; and he is also known to what we suppose must be called the English private, as the writer of a set of Tales in verse, which an acquaintance of ours says "everybody has read, and nobody acknowledges to have * Pronounced (" for the benefit of the country-gentlemen," and for the sake of the euphony in the perusal of our versions) Joolee Tray. read." The Animali Parlanti is celebrated throughout Europe. The Tales have the undeniable merit which a man of genius puts into whatever work he condescends to execute; but they are a gross mistake in things amatory, and furnish one of those portentous specimens of excess on the side of free writing, which those who refer every detail of the world to Providence could only account for by supposing, that some such addition of fuel was necessary to the ordinary inflammability of the young and unthinking. The work before us, as the Florentine editor observes, is in every respect unexceptionable. He informs us, that it is not liable to a charge brought against the Abate's other works, of being too careless in point of style, and un-idiomatic. The Giuli Tre, according to him, speak the true Italian language; so that the recommendation they bring with them to foreigners is complete. We proceed to give some specimens. The fertility of fancy and learned allusion, with which the author has written his two hundred sonnets on a man coming to him every day and asking him for Tre Giuli, is inferior only to what Butler or Marvell might have made of it. The very recurrence of the words becomes a good joke. Nobody that we have met with in Italy could resist the mention of them. The priest did not pretend it. The ladies were glad they could find something to approve in a poet of so erroneous a reputation. The man of the world laughed as merrily as he could. The patriot was happy to relax his mustachios. Even the bookseller, of whom we bought them, laughed with a real laugh, and looked into the book as if he would fain have sat down and read some of it with us, instead of going on with his business. We shall notice some of the principal sonnets that struck us throughout the work, and wish we could touch upon them all, partly that we might give as much account of it as possible, and partly because the jest is concerned in showing to what a length it is carried. But we are compelled to be brief. It may be as well to mention, that the single instead of double rhymes which the poet uses, and which render the measure exactly similar to that of the translation, have a ludicrous effect to an Italian ear. In his third sonnet, the poet requests fables and dreams to keep their distance : Lungi, o favole, o sogni, ór voi da me, La vera istoria delli Giuli Tre. Ye dreams and fables, keep aloof, I pray, Son. 8.-His Creditor, he says, ought not to be astonished at his always returning the same answer to his demand for the Giuli Tre, because if a man. who plays the organ or the hautboy were always o touch the same notes, the same sounds would always issue forth. SONNET 10. Ben cento volte ho replicato a te Questa istessa infallibil verità, Che a conto mio, da certo tempo in quà, La razza de' quattrini si perdè. Tu non ostante vieni intorno a me Con insoffribile importunità, E per quei maledetti Giuli Tre Mi perseguiti senza carità. Forse in disperazion ridur mi vuo', Ond' io m'appichi, e vuoi vedermi in giù E in guisa tal te disperar farò, E vo' puittosto che ti appichi tu. I've said for ever, and again I say, Perhaps you think that you'll torment me so, You'll make me hang myself? You wish to say You saw me sus. per coll.—No, Giuli, no. The fact is, I'll determine not to pay; And drive you, Giuli, to a state so low, That you shall hang yourself, and I be gay. Son. 13. The poet does not know whether there is a plurality of worlds, whether the moon is in |