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At the Union Printing-Office, St. John's Square, by W. Wilson.

THE fabulous histories of wandering knights, distressed damsels, giants, enchanted castles, and the whole train of legendary adventures, that, for a long time, were the delight of our ancestors, are now universally exploded: the inimitable satire of Cervantes has contributed not a little to bring them into disrepute; but however justly he may have ridiculed their many absurdities, yet, perhaps, we have too rashly adopted the contempt, which almost every one now professes for writings, from which it is certain that the greatest poets have derived many fine images; to which we are probably, in a great mea⇒ sure, indebted for the FAIRY QUEEN of our admired Spenser, and which have been the foundation of the ORLANDO FURIOSo, that has procured to its author the appellation of DIVINE.

The Italians have among them many works of a similar nature with this poem, being accustomed to translate, or compose romances in the octavo stanza. Among others, Bernardo Tasso, the father of the great Torquato, published a free translation of the Amadis de Gaul, divided into one hundred cantos: but the much greater part of these performances are not to be considered as rising to any degree of competition with Ariosto,