NOTES TO CANTO THE THIRD.

1.-Page 92, line 16.

Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,

ALEXANDER of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Monte

cucco.

2.-Page 92, line 17.

Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;

Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot.

3.-Page 93, line 8.

He who once enters in a tyrant's hall

A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he was slain.

4.-Page 93, line 11.

A captive, sees his half of manhood

The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer.

Petrarch.

5.-Page 93, line 28.

gone-

And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers,

6. Page 95, line 4.

Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?

["Reader! how must you have admired those exquisitely beautiful and affecting portraitures of Ariosto and Tasso which conclude the third canto of the 'Prophecy of Dante!' We there see them characterised in number, style, and sentiment, so wonderfully Dantesque, that they seem to have been inspired by the very genius of the inarrivabile Dante himself."-GLENBERVIE.]

CANTO THE FOURTH.

MANY are poets who have never penn'd
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd
The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars
Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more bless'd
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets but without the name,
For what is poesy but to create

From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain,
Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore?
So be it: we can bear.-But thus all they
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay,
Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear;

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,

Or deify the canvass till it shine

With beauty so surpassing all below,

VOL. II.

H

That they who kneel to idols so divine

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there
Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of poesy, which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected,
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved-Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass
Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome,' its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door

As this, to which all nations shall repair

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven.
And the bold Architect unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all hearts shall acknowledge as their lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven

His chisel bid the Hebrew,2 at whose word
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil pour'd
Over the damn'd before the Judgment-throne,3
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown,

The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me,1
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the empire of eternity.

Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms,
The age which I anticipate, no less

Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms,

Calamity the nations with distress,

The genius of my country shall arise, A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,

Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar,

Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze
On canvass or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy;
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise
To tyrants who but take her for a toy,

Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to pontiffs proud," who but employ
The man of genius as the meanest brute

To bear a burthen, and to serve a need,
To sell his labours, and his soul to boot.
Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,

But free; who sweats for monarchs is no more Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed and fee'd, Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door. Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power Is likest thine in heaven in outward show, Least like to thee in attributes divine, Tread on the universal necks that bow, And then assure us that their rights are thine? And how is it that they, the sons of fame, Whose inspiration seems to them to shine From high, they whom the nations oftest name, Must pass their days in penury or pain,

Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain? Or if their destiny be born aloof

From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain, In their own souls sustain a harder proof, The inner war of passions deep and fierce? Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof, I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse, The hate of injuries which every year Makes greater, and accumulates my curse,

Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear,

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that,
The most infernal of all evils here,

The sway of petty tyrants in a state;

For such sway is not limited to kings,

And demagogues yield to them but in date,
As swept off sooner; in all deadly things,

Which make men hate themselves, and one another,
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs
From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,
In rank oppression in its rudest shape,

The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother,
And the worst despot's far less human ape:
Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long
Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape,
To fly back to thee in despite of wrong,
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,6

Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong,
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars,
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth
Where--whatsoe'er his fate-he still were hers,
His country's, and might die where he had birth-
Florence when this lone spirit shall return
To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth,
And seek to honour with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain-Alas!
"What have I done to thee, my people?"7 Stern
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass
The limits of man's common malice, for
All that a citizen could be I was;

Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war,

And for this thou hast warr'd with me.-'Tis done
I may not overleap the eternal bar
Built up between us, and will die alone,
Beholding with the dark eye of a seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown,
Foretelling them to those who will not hear.

As in the old time, till the hour be come

When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear, And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.