To shield him from insanity or shame, Such shall be his meet guerdon! who was sent To be Christ's Laureate they reward him well!

Florence dooms me but death or banishment, Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,

Harder to bear, and less deserved, for I

Had stung the factions which I strove to quell, But this meek man, who with a lover's eye

Will look on earth and heaven, and who will deign

To embalm with his celestial flattery,
As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign,
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perchance he'll love,-and is not love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?

Yet it will be so he and his compeer,
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume
In penury and pain too many a year,
And, dying in despondency, bequeath

To the kind world, which scarce will yield a tear,

A heritage enriching all who breathe

With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatch'd by time; not Hellas can unroll Through her olympiads two such names, though

one

Of hers be mighty, and is this the whole Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?

Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, The electric blood with which their arteries

run,

Their body's self turn'd soul with the intense
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of

That which should be, to such a recompense
Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
Storm be still scatter'd? Yes, and it must be;
For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff,
These birds of Paradise but long to flee

Back to their native mansion, soon they find Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree, And die or are degraded; for the mind

Succumbs to long infection, and despair, And vulture passions flying close behind, Await the moment to assail and tear;

And when at length the winged wanderers stoop,

Then is the prey-birds' triumph, then they share The spoil, e'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd, who learn'd' to

bear,

Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care! And task most hopeless; but some such have been,

And if my name amongst the number were, That destiny austere, and yet serene,

Were prouder than more dazzling fame unbless'd; The Alp's snow-summit nearer heaven is seen Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest,

Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning breast

A temporary torturing flame is wrung,

Shines for a night of terror, then repels

Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung, The bell which in its entrails ever dwells.

The Prophecy of Dante.

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'er-mastering 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 canvas till it shine

With beauty so surpassing all below, 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 Appelles 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,1 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,

(1) The Cupola of St. Peter's.

Whether into the marble chaos driven His chisel bid the Hebrew, at whose word1 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,2 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 3

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 canvas 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

(1) The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II.

SONETTO

Di Giovanni Battista Zappi.

Chi è costui, che in dura pietra scolto,
Siede gigante; e le più illustre, e conte
Opre dell' arte avvanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbia si, che le parole ascolto?
Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto

Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte,
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea del monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto.

Tal era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste
Acque ei sospese a se d' intorno, e tale
Quando il mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui,

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, 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 birthFlorence! when this lone spirit shall return To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, And seek to honour with an empty urn

I

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain-Alas! "What have I done to thee, my people ?" 5 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 : 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.

E voi sue turbe un rio vitello alzaste
Alzata aveste imago a questa egualo!
Ch' era men fallo l' adorar costui.

(2) The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel. (3) I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where), that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

(4) See the treatment of Michael Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X.

(5) E scrisse più volte non solamente a particolari cittadini del reggimento ma ancora al popolo, e íntra l' altre una Epistola assai lunga che comincia; "Popule mi, quid feci tibi "-Vita di Dante scritta da Lionardo Aretino.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto. The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one; and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source. It has never yet been decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough: but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas, Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,-or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord."

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names: as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, &c., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from 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 accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who 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.

The Morgante Maggiore.

CANTO THE FIRST.

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 everything 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.

'Twas 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