THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
t^3
f
-T 1
eM
7
Y
&YL.YESTER (DOUGLAS ) LORD QJLEKBERYIE
Nat, 13 May 17^4.
THE
FIRST CANTO
RICCIARDETTO
TRANSLATED FROM THE
P
ITALIAN OF FORTEGUERRI
AN INTRODUCTION, CONCERNING THE PRINCIPAL ROMANTIC,
BURLESQUE, AND MOCK-HEROIC POETS;
AND
NOTES, CRITICAL AND PHILOLOGICAL.
BY
SYLVESTER (DOUGLAS) LORD GLENBERVIE.
Non ego sum vates sed prisci conscius an.
LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
Neque enirn concludere versum
Dixeris esse satis : neque si quis scribal uti nos.
HOR.
852831
PICCOLO CARTEROMAC
PREFACE.
A FEW copies of this little book were
printed some months ago. I had no fixed
design at that time of submitting it to
the criticism and presumed candour of the
public at large. The circumstances which
gave occasion to its being written, at least
the part which is in verse, are correctly set
forth in the Introduction : the very mis-
cellaneous notes are such as most probably
might have occurred to me had it been, not
my own, but the production of a friend
who had entrusted it to my perusal. I do
not say that I was entirely determined not
to publish when I first sent my manu-
script to the press : but the mere printing,
correcting the errata, and adding the
notes as chance suggested them, served
to amuse me, then in bad health and spirits,
Vi PREFACE.
and gave me better opportunities of im-
proving the book to the best of my skill,
than I should otherwise have had. I be-
lieve whoever has dealt in printing, must
have found that blemishes, even of style
and composition, have struck him on read-
ing the proof sheets, which had wholly
escaped his attention in the manuscript ;
and also that many collateral thoughts,
tending to elucidate and illustrate his
meaning, had then first presented them-
selves to his mind.
In parts of Germany where paper and
printing are very cheap, and authorship
much practised, I have understood that
several of their writers have used them-
selves to send their works, prose and verse,
to the printer's, sheet by sheet, or leaf by
leaf, never polishing or amending them
till they receive the first of the printed
proofs. I recollect that Wieland says, in
PREFACE. vii
one of his prefaces, that he had found great
advantage in this.
Of the small impression of this essay
which I had taken off at the beginning of
this year, I distributed the greater part
among particular friends, from whom I
flattered myself that I might receive good-
natured and useful remarks and counsel,
touching the numerous defects which I
justly apprehended might still have re-
mained after my own repeated revisions;
and I have had good reason to be glad that
I had indulged that expectation.
Having come to the resolution of throw-
ing myself on the mercy of the grand
literary inquest of the nation, of whatever
class or cast of his majesty's liege subjects
that awful assemblage of rarely unanimous
jurymen is composed, perhaps I may seem
to have been a little precipitate in carrying
such resolution into effect. But Horace's
viii PREFACE.
advice, and Pope's, " to keep your piece
nine years," would have been equally inap-
plicable to my time of life, and to the nature
of this ephemeral trifle : that may be a good
rule for the works of authors, who, like
young Cowley, say to themselves,
" What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the world to come my own !" *
or who, according to one of Shakespeare's
inspired expressions, imagine they " feel im-
mortal longings in them." Though even as
to such cases, experience in some noted in-
stances shows the danger of too far exceed-
ing the proper period of retention, and still
continuing polishing and re-polishing, or ra-
ther altering and re-altering, while confined
within the author's closet, works so meant
for remotest posterity. It has been said, that
Lord Lyttelton printed, and then totally
* That same Cowley, in his less sanguine days,
quaintly but strongly exclaimed,
(t Who his to-morrow would bestow
For all great Homer's life, even from his death till now ?"
PREFACE. IX
cancelled and destroyed, several entire im-
pressions of his elaborate History of Henry
II., during the course of twenty or thirty
years ; and that those who had seen the
work in its earlier state, found it had gra-
dually acquired from the author's too anxi-
ous ambition to improve it, while he fondly
dreamed it was advancing to perfection, the
sort of heaviness and languor which is now
generally thought to belong to it. A like
fate is known to have attended another
historical work of more modern date, the
History of the Rebellion in 1745, by the
author of the tragedy of Douglas. That
history, according to many concurrent re-
ports at the time, by the author's con-
tinual can ceilings, and, as he thought, me-
liorations, during near half a century, had
been in a considerable degree emasculated,
and deprived of much of its original interest.
So far is it from being universally true, that
" Authors lose half the praise they would have got,
Were it but known what they discreetly blot."
X PREFACE.
Yes, it is true, if the blotting out is
really done discreetly ; and the two writers
I have just mentioned no doubt thought
theirs a sound and wise discretion ; but,
after carrying such supposed discretion so
far, they would, in the opinion of some
splenetic, though in my opinion very un-
just, critics, have done better to suppress
their said histories altogether.
As to this poor insignificant volume of
mine, written at an age from which seldom
any thing but what may be quaintly called
senile puerilities can be looked for, I
trust it will be received with some degree
of that indulgence which good nature,
still most predominant with the truest
masters of the critic's art, generally bestows
on the immature exercises of the school-
boy, or newly matriculated collegian.
The chief faults and defects which my
friends have had the kindness to point out
PREFACE. xi
to me, either while my translation still re-
mained in manuscript, or afterwards, in the
short space of time between the first and the
present impression, (about nine weeks, in-
stead of nine years), havebeen of three sorts:
1. That I have nowhere given any ex-
planation or sketch of the general plan of
the original poem. That objection I had
in some degree obviated, I thought, by
what I have said in the Introduction. The
truth is, that Ricciardetto. is (like the two
Orlandos) a mighty maze, and almost quite
without a plan. However, if I live to finish
another literary labour which has occupied
me at various intervals, during a great many
years, amidst the avocations of business
professional and official, and many suspen-
sions of all study from ill health and do-
mestic misfortunes, I may yet be tempted
to try to make a general abstract, or ground-
plot, as it were, on a very limited scale, of
b
xn PREFACE.
Forteguerri's irregular fabric ; perhaps in
stanzas ; transplanting into it here and there
a selection of what may appear to me the
most brilliant if also in no respect excep-
tionable passages of the original.
2. A second head of objection has been
the having employed in some instances cer-
tain faulty and inadmissible rhymes. One
of these, in the 85th stanza, as it stood in
the manuscript, was so unlike a rhyme, that
I still wonder how it could have escaped
me : yet it did, and after many repeated
readings over by myself, until a friend of
most distinguished talents in almost all the
fine arts, and therefore practically a judge,
and confessedly a very excellent judge
on such subjects, remarked it to me, and
luckily time enough before the former im-
pression was wholly printed off. It was
indeed so stupid, that I am ashamed to
notice it further than by saying that it
PREFACE. xiii
was worse even than one of our great pro-
saist's, Addison, in his Epistle to Sache-
verel :
" I leave the arts of poetry and verse,
To those who practise them with more success;"
or than one still more provokingly bad of
Prior, which (and there is another very
faulty one in the same passage) proves a sad
deformity to the otherwise beautiful verses
on intemperance in his Solomon ; remark-
able likewise for containing the best defini-
tion of a pun I have ever seen either in
prose or verse :
" I drank ; I liked it not. 'Twas rage, 'twas noise,
An airy scene of transitory joys.
In vain I trusted that the flowing bowl
Would banish sorrow, and enlarge the soul.
To the late revel, and protracted feast,
Wild dreams succeeded, and disordered rest ;
And, as at dawn of morn fair Reason's light
Broke through the fumes and phantoms of the
night,
b 2
xiy PREFACE.
What had been said, I ask'd my soul, what done,
How flow'd her mirth, and whence its source begun ?
Perhaps the jest that charm'd the sprightly crowd,
And made the jovial table laugh so loud,
To some false notion owed its poor pretence,
To an ambiguous word's perverted sense,
To a wild sonnet or a wanton air,
Offence and torture to the sober ear.
Perhaps, alas ! the pleasing dream was brought
From this man's error, from another's fault,
From topics which good-nature would forget,
And prudence mention with the last regret."
A few other instances of vicious or not
allowable rhymes have, on different re-peru-
sals, occurred to myself : viz. " coast," made
to rhyme with " accost" in stanza xxxi. ;
"Coww"with "account" stanza Ivii. ; "mine"
with itself identically, both in sense and
spelling, stanza Ixvi.; "scene" with "seen,"
stanza IxxviL; and "drest" with "addrest"
stanza Ixxviii. I hope if any patient and
well-conditioned reader will take the trou-
ble to collate what I may, though not ac-
PREFACE. ^cv
curately, distinguish as the first edition,
with the present, in order to see the
changes I have made in those stanzas, he
will think that, with the expulsion of
illegitimate rhymes, I have mended the
sense as well as the sound. It would be no
justification in the case of English rhyme to
observe, that in Italian, and in French*
too, but there more sparingly, such rhymes
as " scene" and " seen," or even "mine"
and " mine" that is, the same identical
word, and, in the Italian, in the same sense,
but not in French, are lawful, and not very
unfrequent; nor are they indeed without re-
peated examples, perhaps from negligence
* " Prens-moi le bon parti, laisse-la tous les livres,
Cent francs au dernier cinq combien font-ils ? vingt
livres."
Boileau.
" Tel que vous me voyez, monsieur, ici present,
M'a d'un fort grand soufflet fait uu petit present."
i Rac. Les Plaideurs.
XVI PREFACE.
or oversight, in our now semi-obsolete, but
still excellent and admired Spenser.
3. The third objection which has been
mentioned to me may seem of a more
serious nature. It is to the use sometimes
of expressions considered, in a general
view, as coarse and homely ; and for the
most striking examples of this sort, the
stanzas narrating the circumstances of the
single combats between the two giants,
Tragga and Master Stritch, and Rinaldo,
have been particularly specified. A lady,
(for to that sex I have always wished to
resort for criticism united with taste, in
matters within the compass of their literary
pursuits, having found their judgment in
such matters at once sure and liberal),
a lady, on whose opinion I have the most
implicit reliance, and whose indulgence to
my muse is hereditary, wrote to me that
this was an objection which she feared was
PREFACE. xvii
likely to be made. I have done my best to
get out of the scrape, if it is one, by my
note, No. 84 ; and, if example and pre-
cedent be allowed by our poetical jurists
that authority which they claim in other
judicatories, I beg leave to say, "fecere
alii scepe, item boni,"* I have only trod in
this respect in the footsteps of others in-
finitely my betters ; and, to support me
in this, I particularly pray in aid, in the
first place, Homer himself, who, in that
dramatic scene which I have cited in the
note on stanza xxvi. makes the humi-
liated and contrite Helen call herself by a
namet of which no well-bred person in our
days ever pronounces more than the first
letter ; J and, secondly, on our own Par-
* Ter.
j- " Aaijf dvT epofstnte KOvcyViJoj, si ifoT eyy ys."
11.3, v. 180.
J Avidien and his wife, no matter which,
For him you call a dog, and her a b .
Pope's Imit. of Hor. Lib. 2. Sat. 2.
xvni PREFACE.
nassus, the refined author of the Rape of
the Lock ; not to name a host of other
poets, as well of ancient as modern, foreign
as domestic renown; confining my appeal
to those compositions of theirs for there
it is that their cases are, as the lawyers say,
in point of which the purport and general
tenor most clearly prove that they must
have meant to avoid every thing that could
be considered as low and plebeian.
I must, at all events, request my fair and
young readers to do me the justice to ob-
serve, that no example, nor any blind ve-
neration for the greatest poetical names,
have any where seduced me to follow any
precedent in the adoption of words which
the modest meek-eyed virgin might blush
to see, or her uncontaminated ears be
shocked to hear.
I will now state a fourth sort of fault
PREFACE. xix
which many may find, and indeed some
have found, in my notes : I mean the very
frequent quotation of parallel passages
from different authors of high eminence,
both ancient and modern. In this I own
I gave way to a taste natural to me, and
almost innate, and increasedby unsuspended
habits of more than half a century. I like
to see how fine writers express the same
ideas, sometimes in almost the same words,
whether knowingly or not ; and why ? be-
cause such repetitions fix a sort of stamp
on the ideas and expressions, like the stamp
of the mint, which authenticates and cer-
tifies the purity and sterling value of our
current coins ; and indeed to me such
passages, even when undisguised imitations,
often seem to confer on the original thought
as it were new and original beauty or ef-
fect. Such an imitator was Virgil, who yet
merited from one of the greatest of poets,
the description of " that fountain which
XX PREFACE.
pours forth so broad a stream of elo-
quence,"
" Quella fonte
Che spande di parlar si largo fiume ;" *
and such imitators of Horace and Juvenal
were Boileau and Pope, of the one as well
as of the other of whom it may be said,
that he was
" Meme en imitant toujours original."
THE ADMIRERS of the divine, though some-
times a little profane, Lodovico, must well
remember those exquisite stanzas towards
the end of his immortal Orlando, where he
supposes himself, after a long and perilous
voyage, to be arrived at length in sight of
his native harbour, and that he already
perceives numerous friends, whom he names
* Dante 1' Inferno.
PREFACE. xxi
or characterizes, come down to the shore
to hail his return, and preparing to embrace
and surround him with every tender sign
of gratulation. It would be a most ex-
travagant abuse of the privilege of com-
paring great things to small, if, from my not
less worthy, and, I may add, in many in-
stances not less illustrious friends who
have taken the kindest interest in my poor
enterprise, I were to dream of similar gra-
tulation on the return of my little bark
from her short and undignified cruise ; but I
trust those friends will not disdain to allow
me the satisfaction of here dedicating the
fruits of my coasting expedition not on
that account the more secure from the
dangers of shipwreck to each and all of
them ;
To the ingenious and learned friend, as
deeply versed in professional science as he
is conversant with all the branches of
xxil PREFACE.
polite literature, while the small portion of
leisure time he can now enjoy is spent and
courted in the best society of London,
whose simultaneous taste and decision
made me reject a disagreeably jingling
word from the third line of the stanzas
addressed to the Earl of G d ;
To the elegant scholar and polished
gentleman, best loved where most known,
in that select society to which his delicate
health and discriminating choice require
him chiefly to confine himself, who I
believe will find banished from my verses
almost all the words and expressions
which his just and scrupulous acumen
condemned ; -
To one of the persons before-mentioned,
by me ever most honoured, esteemed, and
admired, whose quick eye, and skill, and
experience, in building the lofty or pathetic
PREFACE. xxm
song, discovered at once that worse than
bellman's rhyme in my 85th stanza, which,
had it been left there, would probably
have brought on me such a deluge of epi-
grammatic quizzing, and critical sarcasm,
as to render me and all my 95 ottave rime
" Sacred to ridicule my whole life long,
Or the sad theme of many a merry song ;"
To him, who, if he is not always named
in the very first rank of our best con-
temporary poets, has his ill health, or a
disposition perhaps unambitious of such
mere literary fame, certainly not his muse,
to blame ; and who corrected a hasty su-
perficial note of mine, in an instance where
my early and long habitual use of the most
northern dialect of our mother tongue had
misled me, " manserunt, hodieque ma-
nent vestigia ruris;"
To the most amiable person, also already
xxiv PREFACE.
mentioned, whose mild susceptibility per-
ceived, while a friendly fear of hurting the
almost morbid sensibility of an author
(genus irritabile], perhaps most partial to
what is most objectionable in his writings,
only permitted the surmise of a fault
which might probably be imputed to me,
and which in deference to that suggestion I
have above attempted, perhaps unsuccess-
fully, to palliate or defend j
To that citizen of the world, in the best
sense of a term so frequently misapplied,
who is entitled to be considered as a classic,
and also as a critic of safe and sure judg-
ment and taste, equally in English and Italian
literature " degno d' esser salutato maestro
di color che sanno;" and who, amidst his
most pressing literary occupations and pur-
suits, has found time attentively to peruse,
and has spoken indulgently and favourably
of my prose and rhymes ;
PREFACE. XXV
To the most valued and respected friend,
with whose acquaintance I have been so
long honoured distinguished for natural
eloquence both in foreign languages and
our own, and a superior understanding and
acquirements, cultivated and refined by
the most steady and persevering applica-
tion of the happiest faculties to the study
and practice of all that can improve the
morals and manners of polite and social
life who has taught me to reconsider and
amend many passages to which I had not
before sufficiently attended ;
To each individual of the much regretted
assemblage mentioned in my Introduction
regretted, for we shall never all meet
again in this world who were the motives,
I may say, and witnesses of what their ap-
probation gave me the courage to attempt,
and which may now afford some excuse, I
hope, for the mock importance I am at pre-
XXVI PREFACE.
sent endeavouring to give it : and, among
them,
To our then host, the most learned,
yet the least pedantic of men ; of know-
ledge and literature the most profound,
because acquired by the most capacious
and most retentive memory; possessed too
of the quickest, keenest sense of ridicule,
with the happiest vein of playful humour
in expressing that sense, yet this so tem-
pered by the milk of human kindness as
never to give offence: in short, the best
good man with the best-natured muse ;
my near and dear relation, chosen by me
for many affecting reasons to be the poetical
patron of this tardy and feeble effort of my
widowed and childless old age :
To all these I thus again devote, dedi-
cate, and consecrate, the following pages.
PREFACE. xxvii
And since this " ex voto" is in itself of
but little worth, I crave permission to con-
clude the humble offering in the words of
Forteguerri himself, at the end of his poem :
" Che r anima gentil sempre pon mente
Al buon cuor di chi da, non al Presente :"
" The gentle mind ever considers, not the
value of the gift, but the good heart of the
giver."
September 17, 1821
INTRODUCTION.
MY intention in attempting the translation of the
first Canto of Monsignor Forteguerri's Ricciar-
detto subjoined to this discourse, was to try
if I could convey to English readers any thing
like an adequate idea of the style and character
of that amusing Poem. But the most competent
judges of my success in this attempt must be per-
sons, conversant not only with our own literature,
but with that of Italy, and particularly with the
poets among the Italians who are generally ranked
in the same class with Forteguerri.
Definitions have been long said to be dangerous
in Law ; l they are also, though not so proverbially,
dangerous in Science, and it may be added, that,
if not dangerous, they are in many respects incon-
venient in matters of Literature. Perhaps, in that
case, as in the others, their best and safest use is
to assist arrangement, and serve as a sort of index
INTRODUCTION.
to the different ideas which are treasured up in the
memory, and become objects of our contemplation.
As in the natural world it is found very difficult to
fix the exact lines of demarcation even between the
three great kingdoms of Animal, Vegetable, and
Fossil, or Mineral, and still more so, to draw the
evanescent strokes which divide the different or-
ders, classes, genera, and species in those several
kingdoms, whatever system of nomenclature may
have been adopted, so it has happened in things
intellectual ; for example, in laying down accurate
limits even between prose and poetry, but yet more
in classifying in a satisfactory manner by subdivi-
sions, the different sorts of composition which are
to be considered as belonging to the one or the
other of those several provinces of literature.
For general purposes the common division of
Poetry into Epic, Dramatic, Didactic, Lyric, and
Satiric, is sufficiently clear, and there are certain
works which all the world will agree in placing
immediately under one or other of those heads.
But when the Critics descend to fix the place of
many poems which are of a mixed unsystematised
description, they find themselves engaged in con-
INTRODUCTION. 3
troversy, and embarrassed to decide whether this
or that poem belongs to the one or the other of
those classes, or is so much sui generis that it
cannot with propriety be marshalled with any of
them. It never was questioned, I believe, that
the Iliad and Tasso's Jerusalem belong to the
head of Epopeia, but it has been maintained that
the Paradise Lost has no right to be placed in that,
which is usually considered as the highest station
in poetry. Addison, in his well known analysis,
and commentary on that great boast of our country,
proposes to settle the matter by placing it still
higher, and calling it a Divine Poem*. On the
other hand, that ingenious and accomplished writer
seems to have been inclined to have assigned a
place among Epic poems to the ballad of Chevy
Chase -f-. These, indeed, may be deemed too much
of extreme cases to be adduced as proofs of the un-
satisfactory nature of definitions. It is only in in-
stances where a particular poem appears to stand,
as it were, on the verge between two of the esta-
blished divisions that, as in the case of the con-
tiguous borders of the primary colours in the rain-
bow, it is difficult, or impossible to say to which of
the conterminous classes it belongs.
* Spectator, No. 267. t Spectator, Nos. 70. 74.
4 INTRODUCTION.
If the term Narrative, which has been lately
introduced into the critical nomenclature, should
be adopted instead of Epic, (which would then fall
to be the appropriate name of a subdivision of the
narrative) under that more comprehensive head,
Ricciardetto would be, as indeed it has been, pro-
perly placed. It certainly is not Dramatic, Didactic,
Lyric, nor Satiric ; its general tenor is narration,
either by the Poet himself, or by his fictitious re-
presentative, the Muse: yet this species of the
narrative admits of a greater or less proportion of
the more peculiarly characteristic qualities of some
other sorts. Where Dialogue is intermixed, it
becomes in part Dramatic ; a vein of disguised
Satire may pervade it throughout ; and who shall
deny, that in such a narrative poem as our Au-
thor's, might be introduced, without the necessity
of changing its denomination, Lyric digressions
like those which form such happy ornaments to
the exquisite compositions of Lord Byron, and Sir
Walter Scott.
Not to pursue such subtilties any farther, I
think it sufficient to add here, that Ricciardetto is
generally classed by the Italian Critics with the
Morgante of Pulci, with the Orlando Innamorato
INTRODUCTION. 5
of Boiardo, with that poem as new cast by Berni,
and with the Malmantile Racquistato of Lippi.
These are often called Romantic and Chivalresque,
being either founded on the chivalrous fictions so
current and fashionable for centuries in all our
western part of Europe, or imitating the nature
and style of the wild and extravagant personages
and adventures of those Romances. In this last
predicament stands the Malmantile, and it partakes
in many other respects of the particular qualities of
the other three. The Girone il Cortese of Alamanni
is also Romantic, but founded on the fabulous
history of the Round Table of King Arthur. The
Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso is a Romantic poem,
deriving, like the Morgante, and the Orlandos of
Berni and Boiardo, its personages from the not
much less fabulous histories concerning Charle-
magne and his Paladins. But those two works
have so few of the other characteristic features of
that class, and which are much more essential to it
than the mere substratum of fabulous narrative,
that they cannot be held to belong to the same
subdivision of poetry.
A strain of comic humour, under the mask of
ironical gravity, or chivalrous solemnity ; 2 the fre-
6 INTRODUCTION.
quent parodying of the very words, but more fre-
quently of the elevation or pomp of Epic diction ;
an almost constant mockery, quizzing, persiflage,
or mystification, 3 sometimes of his personages,
sometimes of his readers, sometimes of his sup-
posed audience ; not seldom poignant satirical al-
lusions to public or private vices and follies ; to-
gether with an intermixture of the more lofty or
pathetic, or descriptive kinds of poetry : these are
all features distinctly marked in Forteguerri's work,
and most of them also are in a greater or less de-
gree to be found in the Morgante, the two Orlandos
of Boiardo and Berni, and in the Malmantile.
All the works I have mentioned are in " Ottawa
Rima," or what may be called the heroic stanza of
the Italians, that stanza having long been, almost
exclusively of other measures, employed by them
in the higher sorts of poetry, in consequence of the
transcendent fame of the Orlando Furioso which
is written in it, and of the immortal work of Tor-
quato Tasso, who, when his judgment and taste
were at their full maturity, 4 also preferred it to the
" Versi Sciolti," or blank verse of Trissino, as his
father had previously done in his Amadigi, on per-
ceiving, as we are informed by Bernardo's Biogra-
INTRODUCTION. 7
pher, the then recent ill success of Trissino's Poem
(the Italia Liberata) in that measure ; though in
whatever measure that poem had been written,
there can be little doubt that it must have been
equally unsuccessful.
It is from the prevalence more or less of humor-
ous, good natured mockery in the works of the class
of Poets to which our Author belongs, that they
are commonly distinguished by the name of bur-
lesque, derived immediately from the Italian word
burla, whose proper meaning is joke, or mockery.
Yet with regard to the Morgante there long sub-
sisted a learned controversy among the Italian
Critics whether it was not to be considered as of the
class of the true Epic. At first sight a modern
reader must be surprised to find the great Tor-
quato himself, in one of his numerous critical works
referred to by Crescimbeni, reckoning Pulci in the
number of renowned Epic Poets. But Tasso, who
is proved by his own immortal work to have had
the justest idea of what constitutes the real Epic,
undoubtedly meant, in the passage to which Cres-
cimbeni refers, to use the word in a much more ex-
tensive sense than that to which it is now generally
8 INTRODUCTION.
confined, namely, in the sense above expressed by
" Narrative," founding himself on the interpreta-
tion which the original Greek word *Eirt$ will ad-
mit of.
Many of my readers must be aware of the little
esteem in which the Morgante has in general been
held out of Italy. .Voltaire particularly has not
been sparing of his ridicule of it; and the late
ingenious author of a work " Sur la Litterature du
Midi," who, as he writes in the French language,
may on such subjects be considered as ultramon-
tane, after describing it, as " by turns low and bur-
lesque, amusing and devout;" observes particularly,
" that all the Cantos begin by religious invocations,
and that religion is continually mixed in it with
every adventure, in a manner the most strange and
unedifying, so as to render it very difficult to re-
concile that monkish sort of medley with the half
Pagan character of the society of Lorenzo of
Medicis, and to judge whether one ought to impute
to Pulci the extremest bigotry, or a mere profane
derision of what ought to be held most sacred." 5
With all its defects, the Morgante continues to
INTRODUCTION. 9
retain its popularity in Italy. It is still frequently
reprinted in the different cities of that country ;
and I am possessed of a small edition, very lately
published at Cagliari in Sardinia, though Italian
is there the language only of the higher ranks, and
of persons connected with the government. But
it is in Tuscany (the soil in which it grew) that it
is in the highest repute, because there Pulci's plea-
santry is naturally best understood. 6
What is considered as humour and wit, in any
country or district, seems to be connected in no
small degree with the peculiarities of the verna-
cular phraseology of that particular country, and
with the local manners and modes of thinking and
acting of its inhabitants. Hence it is common
enough with different nations, to claim wit, and
humour, (two things very distinct in many respects,
but still in others so analogous and often so in-
timately combined, that they are commonly both
mentioned at one and the same time), as exclusively
or peculiarly their own. The French are seldom
willing to share with any other nation the talent
of wit, or the happy facility of " bons-mots" an
expression I have been forced to adopt in order
10 INTRODUCTION.
to limit the sense of their very vague and general
word " Esprit" The English again are often
disposed to consider humour, as confined to the
southern division of this island ; and I have con-
versed with many English readers, who, though
they admire the extraordinary talents displayed in
the late copious harvest of novels which Scotland
has produced, have little relish for the humour of
those parts of them that are written in the Scottish
dialect, though that dialect is merely a mode of
the self-same language which is and always has
been, the mother tongue of the low-country Scotch,
as much as of their southern neighbours, and
differs much less from pure and classical English
than the dialects of Venice, Lombardy, Naples,
&c. differ from the pure Italian.
Pulci, though a man of good family in Florence,
probably owed his familiar access to the table of
Lorenzo, chiefly to his poetical vein, in many re-
spects congenial to Lorenzo's own. There it has
been conjectured that various stanzas of the Mor-
gante were composed impromptu, and this will
account for the flatness and triviality of many of
the lines, and even of whole stanzas, resembling
INTRODUCTION. 1 1
such as are often to be observed in the extem-
porary effusions of the most eminent of the Italian
" Improvisator's"
On the whole, however, there must surely be
some extraordinary beauties in the style of the
Morgante, otherwise the great Torquato would
scarcely have believed, as it appears he did, that
Marsilio Ficino, a man so conversant with the
purest eloquence of ancient Greece, was in part the
real author. Nay there have been others who have
even gone so far as to suggest the probability that
the whole was in truth the work of Politian, who
had given it to be recited by Pulci, on account of
a singular talent he had in that way ; that very
Politian, whose famous stanzas on the tournament
of Julian of Medicis are considered as the fore-
runners and models of the beautiful style in Ottava
Rima, which was carried to such perfection in the
succeeding century, by Ariosto and Tasso,
If the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo could be
justly thought to have little or no intrinsic merit, it
would still be an interesting work, from its having
led Ariosto's choice to the same subject ; the far-
famed Orlando Furioso being, as to its characters
12 INTRODUCTION.
and incidents, a direct continuation of Boiardo's.
But Boiardo's work is entitled to the positive praise
bestowed on it by Sismondi, of having carried the
burlesque poetical narrative, by the invention of a
great variety of amusing adventures, much beyond
his contemporary Pulci. " II lui est bien supe-
rieur," adds that author, " par la richesse du co-
loris, et 1'interet meme qui nait de la bravoure ;"
and, continues he, " les femmes y paraissent ce
qu'elles doivent etre dans la chevalerie, Fame de
tout le roman. Angelique surtout s'y montre deja
avec tous ses charmes et toute sa puissance sur les
plus braves chevaliers."
Boiardo was a man of illustrious descent, and
in his own right the feudal sovereign of Scandiano,
and also governor of Reggio, under Hercules,
first Duke of Ferrara. His style is reckoned un-
polished, and partakes I believe of the inelegance
which few writers in Lombardy were at that time
able to avoid; there being then no Vocabolario
Delia Crusca to appeal to ; and not having lived
to finish his poem, he probably had not given it
that ultimate polish which he might otherwise
have done. But though it must perhaps be ad-
mitted that his verses are often harsh and uncouth,
INTRODUCTION. 13
I cannot help thinking there is sometimes a sort
of simple naivete in them, which neither Ariosto,
his continuator, nor his professed reformer, Berni,
have been able to surpass. It has, however, proved
disadvantageous to the fame of Boiardo, that in
general he has been so much improved by Berni
in point of taste and elegance, though the latter
has, for the most part, followed him very closely
in the narrative, as well as in the names and cha-
racters of his heroes and heroines, both chivalrous
and burlesque.
The great Ariosto is too often classed with the
burlesque poets, who became so numerous after
those patriarchs of that style of whom I have al-
ready treated, that a mere catalogue of them would
fill several pages *. But Ariosto's genius soars so
high above their level
Coetusque vulgares et udam
Spernit humum fugiente penna
D. H. Uepi y$40w?, xij>. 5.
14 INTRODUCTION.
that it seems a sort of derogation from his great
name to rank him among them. It is true there
is much burlesque in his poem ; but it is so rich
in all the beauties of the higher poetry, that he
ought to be contemplated alone in that vast inter-
mediate space which he occupies between the mere
burlesque writers and the great masters of the true
Epic. 7
This is not the place to discuss the com-
parative merits of Tasso and Ariosto. That
" vexata questio" has now been litigated by the
critics of Italy for above two centuries, with as
much eagerness as may have been observed some-
times in this country among the disputants con-
cerning Dryden and Pope. As there has not yet
been discovered any satisfactory standard of taste
by which all the general lovers of poetry would be
willing to weigh or measure their own sentiments
or opinions, I am afraid the only safe refuge out
of such unprofitable disputation is to shelter one's
self under the trite but sensible maxim " that
there is no disputing of tastes" (" quil nefaut pas
disputer des gouts") As far as the principles of
regular composition commonly acknowledged can
INTRODUCTION. 15
influence the decision, this subject has been no-
where treated with so much impartiality as by
Metastasio, in his Letter to Diodati, printed in
the collection of his epistolary correspondence ; in
my opinion one of the most elegant and candid
morsels of criticism that is any where to be met
with. Many probably from the infinite diversity
of forms and colours which Ariosto's muse can
assume, the sweet variety of his numbers, those
unapproachable (" inarrivabili") beauties of the
Furioso, as Serassi, though the biographer and
panegyrist of Tasso, expresses himself, will ever
continue to think that his genius was superior to
that of Tasso. But who can tell how much
Tasso's fancy was restrained by the plan of com-
position which his judgment had taught him to
adopt, in order to produce the greatest effect;
and, as a work, how is it possible to put the wild
and desultory tissue of adventures and knight-
errantry, of which the Orlando Furioso is com-
posed, on a level with the majestic design and
execution, consistent beginning, middle, and end,
unequalled discrimination and shadowing of cha-
racters constantly sustained, and from time to time
adorned with the happy adoption and frequent
16 INTRODUCTION.
improvement of the most striking beauties of the
genius of former times, which have been thought
to entitle the Gerusalemme Liberata to be con-
sidered as the most finished poem that exists in
any language? 8
Lippi, the author of il Malmantile Racquistato,
a painter by profession, was born in 1G06, more
than half a century after the death of Ariosto,
Boiardo, and Berni, and several years after that of
Tasso, which happened in 1595. Lippi died 16G4 ;
but though the Gerusalemme, in spite of the sort of
persecution which that poem as well as its author
were so long destined to endure, had then reached
the height of its fame and glory, the taste for the
chivalrous burlesque still maintained a sort of di-
vided empire at Florence. As the distinguishing
characteristic of the Orlando Innamorato of Berni
was the graceful facetiousness which he had given
to the ruder inventions of the Lombard Boiardo ;
so Lippi's great merit with the Florentines was to
have interwoven many of the most striking pro-
verbs and quaint expressions which abound in the
mouths of the plebeian inhabitants of that part of
Tuscany, with a sort of pseudo-chivalresque story,
INTRODUCTION. IT
and applied them, in a humorous manner, with
now and then happy stanzas of a more serious
cast, and the whole expressed (the mere proverbs
and undisguised vulgarisms excepted,) in what has
been considered as the purest and most classical
Italian. The Malmantile has been described by
a modern Italian critic as " Poema tutto sparse di
proverb] e di graziosi Fiorentinismi ;" 9 and indeed
Lippi's general .style partakes of that sly bon-
hommie which, from Berni's works, has obtained
the name of the Bernesco, as somewhat of a similar
style in French is called Marotique, from Clement
Marot. But the naive bonhommie, called Ber-
nesque, is still more conspicuous in Berni's Capi-
toli, in terza rima, than in his Orlando.
Proverbs, or, to call them by their more dig-
nified name, adages, have been justly described as
summaries of the wisdom of ages. They consist
most commonly of the illustration of some just
sentiment by a quaint laconic sort of metaphor,
simile, or allegory, while their pithy and concise
form makes them in some respects like the Tvujpou,
or sententious maxims which abound in Pindar
and Euripides, (not to refer to a more sacred
18 INTRODUCTION.
author), or to many of those happy lines applicable
to the affairs of human life which occur so ha-
bitually to the memory of persons much con-
versant with the plays of Terence, and the works
of Horace, Shakspeare, and Pope. The fre-
quent use of old proverbs by vulgar and illiterate
persons may be owing to this, that, unaccustomed
to analyse through the medium of language the
process of their thoughts upon any subject, they
find it convenient to hasten to the conclusion by
the application of some apposite proverb ; and, as
this reason does not so generally hold in the higher
ranks of society, such too frequent use of them is
by persons of better taste properly avoided ; but
yet, when aptly introduced, a proverb sometimes
contributes to produce a happy effect not only in
conversation, but even in the most powerful kinds
of forensic and parliamentary eloquence.
It is a remarkable thing, that in that part of the
united kingdom where I am now writing, it is not
unusual to speak of Scotch proverbs as particularly
clever, and I should be very unwilling to disclaim
so well-established a confirmation of the astute
sagacity frequently attributed, by the just in
INTRODUCTION. 19
praise, by others with a sneer, to my fellow-
countrymen. But the truth is, that the greater
part of the best of those Scotch proverbs, as well
as of those of England, France, Italy, &c. and of
ancient Greece and Rome, are to be found, often
literatim, but still oftener in the form of cor-
responding equivalents, in the languages of all
those different countries. Of this, those readers
will be easily satisfied, who may have amused
themselves with turning over the pages of the
large folio volume containing a collection of many
chiliads of adages by the incomparable Erasmus,
which is to be found in the complete edition of his
works printed at Leyden in 1703.
It has been above observed, that much of what
is reckoned humour in different countries and
districts is in a manner local. Yet with this dis-
advantage, every reader, even such as like myself
are foreigners to the language of Tuscany and
Italy, if tolerably conversant with the less idiomatic
poetry of that country, will find his pains well re-
paid in reading the Malmantile, however much he
may be interrupted by unavoidable reference to
the voluminous and often not satisfactory notes and
commentaries of Paolo Minucci, which generally
20 INTRODUCTION.
accompany the best editions. The Malmantile
was first published, I believe, in 1676, twelve
years after the death of the author, by Minucci,
under the name of Pucci Lamoni, as editor, that
being the anagram of his real name, and of Per-
loni Zipoli, being in like manner the anagram of
Lorenzo Lippi, as the author.
The Secchia Rapita of Tassoni, the Lutrin of
Boileau, and Pope's Rape of the Lock, are more
commonly spoken of by the description of mock-
heroic, than as burlesque poems. There is nothing
of knight-errantry in their personages ; nothing of
the peers of Charlemagne, or King Arthur; no
Archbishop Turpino ; no Abbe Triteme ; no Gar-
bolin ; cited as the authorities for what they re-
late ; there is one single action in each, as in the
most regular epic ; and that action, in all three, is
founded in real fact. Yet in their details there
is much of true burlesque, as the very term mock-
heroic implies.
Tassoni, who was born in 1565, and died in
1635, began his literary career by various works
in criticism, and did not publish his Secchia Rapita
till 1622. He was a native of Modena.
INTRODUCTION. 21
Bracciolini, a Pistoian, born in 1556, is said by
his biographer, Count Mazzuchelli, to have written
his poem intitled Lo Scherno degli Dei, " a con-
correnza" with the Secchia Rapita. The priority
of date between them is still a disputed point
among the literary chronologists of Italy ; but
though certainly written about the same time,
there is no possibility of justly accusing the one
of being a plagiarist from the other. The ground
work of the Secchia Rapita, as I have just men-
tioned, is a real -incident in the history of Modena
and Bologna. Every part of the Scherno degli
Dei, which the author himself has explained to
mean the Mockery or Ridicule of the heathen
gods, is entirely fiction, and, according to my taste,
very clumsy and absurd fiction; 10 whereas Tassoni's
work, which suggested the title of the Rape of the
Lock, and perhaps the general idea both of that
and of the Lutrin, is worthy to stand in compe-
tition with those two master-pieces of English and
French poetry. It is true that one or two Italian
critics of bad, or singular, or partial taste, such as
Mazzuchelli, have contended for the superiority of
Bracciolini's poem. But honest Tiraboschi, after
having declared his own contrary opinion, in very
22 INTRODUCTION.
strong terms, adds a powerful practical argument,
by stating, that at the time when he wrote, 11 there
had not been more than six editions of the Scherno,
and none posterior to the year 12 1628, whereas of
the Secchia Rapita there had been thirty during
that period, besides some in ultramontane countries,
I believe ; indeed it was first printed at Paris.
It is curious to contemplate the diversity of
national tastes with regard to the three several
poems of Tassoni, Boileau, and Pope. Italians,
if not possessed of the Gallomania, which I think
I have observed to be not much less common in
Italy than the Anglomania is said to be in France,
will generally be found to give a decided prefer-
ence to the Secchia over the other two ; whereas,
as the French of the last century had been taught
by Boileau to think La Fontaine had improved
on the humour of Ariosto, so I have very seldom
conversed on the subject with any French person
of letters, let him have understood English ever
so well, and been as conversant as many of them
now are with our English poets, who has not
thought the Lutrin greatly superior to the Rape
of the Lock. I again, like most others whose
INTRODUCTION. 23
mother tongue is English, hold Pope's work su-
perior beyond comparison to Boileau's. I remem-
ber once mentioning this difference of national
tastes to the celebrated Abbe Delille, 13 when I
found that he not only preferred the Lutrin to the
Rape of the Lock, but confessed to me that he had
never been able to relish the beauties which we
ascribe to the latter poem. This astonished me in
a man, many of whose works prove his extensive
acquaintance with our language, especially as I
knew the particular admiration he had of Pope,
whose poetry in general was a frequent and fa-
vourite topic of conversation with him. To us, the
gallantry and tone of good company which pervades
the Rape of the Lock, notwithstanding certain ex-
ceptions, have charms which we cannot discover in
the story of a dispute among a set of canons and
choristers, about restoring an old desk to a place
which it had formerly occupied in their cathedral,
without any female character, except the quondam
mistress, and then wife, of a periwig-maker, to
grace and enliven it.
I know there are English critics, as well as
foreign, who have disapproved of the machinery,
as it is called, of sylphs, gnomes, &c. which Pope,
24 INTRODUCTION.
by an after-thought, added to the original sketch
of his admired poem. But how comparatively bald
and jejune would it now appear if those aerial
beings were driven from it, as Andres in his pon-
derous history of the Literature of all Nations
thinks they ought to have been, and nothing left
but transactions between mere human creatures.
Much has been written against the employment
of the supernatural agency of fhe heathen gods in
modern poetry, now that nobody believes in the
existence of those pagan divinities. Yet still, what-
ever rigid critics may say, it is probable that Venus,
Cupid, Phoebus, and the Muses, will long retain
their place in the poetry of modern times. To in-
troduce heathen gods as perpetual efficient agents
in regular connexion with all the events of a long
narrative, certainly awakens too much our sense of
improbability, and thereby takes off from the in-
terest which it must be the author's object to ex-
cite. Yet the substitution in their stead of those
metaphysical unembodiable entities, the personified
abstractions of human virtues, vices, or other affec-
tions of men, or of Superstition, Discord, Night,
&c. (the machinery of Boileau in the Lutrin, and
Voltaire in the Henriade), which we can never con-
INTRODUCTION. 25
template as invested with the complex dispositions
and passions, the flesh and blood as it were of men,
tends to produce a still greater sense of improba-
bility. The vague idea that the greater part of the
original readers of Homer and Virgil believed in
the real existence of their deities, serves in some
sort to satisfy the imagination, when we find in their
works those deities interfering in the concerns of
human life; but to reconcile us to a system of
machinery founded on the assumption, that mere
naked attributes of mind ever existed as distinct
and individual beings, so as to take an active part
in the complicated details of the affairs of our
world, would require such a stretch of the imagina-
tion as will ever be found to baffle the utmost
efforts of the most powerful genius. It is true,
^Eschylus has personified the qualities of Strength
and Force* in his sublime poem of Prometheus.
How far that is to be considered as one of the ex-
cellencies of that wonderful piece, I will not take
upon myself to decide, nor to say whether there
were not in his" days such deities known.
Their appearance, however, in the Prometheus
is very short, like that of the allegorical personage
* Kpaltf, Ba.
26 INTRODUCTION.
of Fame in the Eneid ; and that sort of brief epi-
sodical personification is not only unexceptionable,
but often gives variety and beauty to poetical nar-
ration. 14
But so deep rooted in heathen times does the po-
pular creed appear to have been with all except the
comparatively small number of sceptical philoso-
phers and metaphysicians, that Lucretius, though
one of those philosophers, was not afraid to place
in the front of a work denying and purporting to
disprove such interference of the gods, an address
to Venus, ascribing all the beautiful phenomena
of nature to that goddess. If he had been as rigid
a logician as some of our modern critics, we should
have lost one of the finest passages that is to be
found in any of the classics.
In our days, though, as before observed, Apollo
and the Muses are still continued to be invoked,
it is not so much, I conceive, as personifications of
the abstract poetical talent, as from our habitual
acquaintance with them, in consequence of our
early classical studies, as invisible beings once
thought to have inspired and presided over the
exercise of that talent.
INTRODUCTION. 27
As to the machinery of the Rape of the Lock,
most of us in this country have been prepared, by
our infantine familiarity with the fairies of the
nursery, to give a sort of anticipated credence, not
only to Shakespeare's inimitable little sprites, but
to those of the Rosicrucian dream, which Pope's
youthful fancy and cultivated taste led him to
borrow from the fictitious Gabalis, a name assumed
by the Abbe de Montfaucon de Villars.
It must have surprised some of those sectaries
in poetry with us who seem desirous of excluding
that author from the pale of the first of the fine arts,
if they have chanced to meet with the work 15 of the
Historian of all Literature, a book of considerable
repute when I was last in Italy, and quoted above
as objecting to the machinery of the Rape of the
Lock, to have found him after having accused
Pope, the most concise of all poets, of a redundancy
of expression, and that he never knows when to
end complimenting him with great fertility of
imagination.
I might have been tempted, after having thus
suffered myself to fall into a sort of patriotic de-
28 INTRODUCTION.
fence of Pope's Rape of the Lock, to say some-
thing of the Dunciad ; but the limits within which
I had resolved to confine this discourse, require
that I should omit what I might otherwise have
added concerning that other admirable mock epic
of his, though too temporary and personal not
to have already lost much of the interest and
picquant, which must at first have belonged to it ;
I except, however, from that observation the fourth
book, written in a loftier strain than the other
three, and calculated to please equally readers of
taste, at all times and in all countries where our
language shall be understood. 16
I shall in like manner pass over Hudibras, in
its form belonging to the chivalrous burlesque, of
which poem Voltaire 17 says that he never met
with so much wit in any other book ; while Mr.
Hume, in his History of England, no less justly
observes, that, though scarcely any other author
was ever able to express his thoughts in so few
words, Butler often employs too many thoughts on
one subject, and thereby becomes prolix after an
unusual manner.
INTRODUCTION. 29
I now therefore proceed to give some account of
the author of Ricciardetto, and of his work, in which
last respect he himself will be my principal au-
thority ; and also of the circumstances which led
me to attempt a translation of his first canto, and
my reasons for proceeding no farther.
Niccolo Forteguerri, otherwise Fortiguerra, was
born in the year 1674, of respectable parents at
Pistoia, in Tuscany, and after the example of one,
or perhaps more, of the same family in that city,
he often assumed, both in his Latin and Italian
compositions, the name of Carteromachus, or Car-
teromaco, according to the pedantic custom of
adopting the Greek translation of modern names,
which was so prevalent with the learned at the re-
vival of letters, and for many years afterwards. 18
Scipio Carteromachus, a Pistoian, and no doubt of
our author's family, a learned man who lived during
the reign, and some time in the service, of Leo
the Tenth, seems to have been known by no other
name, either by his contemporary Erasmus, who
had been familiarly acquainted with him while in
Italy, or by Bayle. The former gives to this For-
teguerri an encomium for recondite and finished
30 INTRODUCTION.
erudition, joined to the most complete absence of
all display, so happily expressed, that Bayle ex-
claims, after citing it, " que c'est un bel eloge !
et qu'il y a peu de savans qui le meritent !" The
words of Erasmus are, " Bononia? primum videre
contigit Scipionem Carteromachum, reconditse et
absolutae eruditionis hominem, sed usque adeo
alienum ab ostentatione, ut, ni provocasses, ju-
rasses esse literarum ignarum."
Our Forteguerri also frequently followed an-
other more modern, but not less affected mode
among Italian authors, of assuming in their title
pages their academic appellation, as Shepherds of
Arcadia; his name, by his diploma from that
academy, being Nidalmo Tiseo. He was by his
parents designed for the profession of the law, but
like many other poets of renown, both among us,
and in France and Italy, he soon abandoned that
severe study for the more seductive cultivation of
the muses. Desertions to the bar have been
much less common, and when they have hap-
pened, there have been still fewer that could
have justified an exclamation similar to the ele-
gant flattery by Pope of the future Lord Chief
INTRODUCTION. 31
Justice Mansfield, in the early part of that great
lawyer's professional life,
" How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost !"
Forteguerri's legal studies, however, were pro-
bably of service to him when, in his youth, after
going through the ordinary course of education at
the university of Pisa, he established himself at
Rome, under the patronage of his mother's near
relation, Carlo Augustino Fabroni, afterwards Car-
dinal Fabroni. 19
In that town, which its present inhabitants still
love to hear called the Head of the world, and the
Eternal City, he passed the greater part of his
days, under successive pontiffs, experiencing va-
rious vicissitudes of fortune. After the death of
his relation, Cardinal Fabroni, in whose authorita-
tive dignity, says the writer of his life, Monsig-
nor Fabroni, a relation of both, he had long re-
posed all his hopes of advancement, he appears to
have lived for a considerable time in a state of
neglect, if not disgrace ; but on the succession of
Clement XII. to the throne of St. Peter, that
venerable head of the Catholic church appointed
INTRODUCTION.
him secretary to the congregation of cardinals
called Delia Propaganda, and with well founded
prospects, which however were never realised, of
being soon after raised to a situation of higher
dignity. Clement is said to have taken great de-
light in our author's company, finding relief from
the cares and fatigues of his various weighty and
laborious occupations in the cheerful playfulness
of his conversation, and particularly to have been
much amused by his recitals of the entertaining
adventures of Ricciardetto. These we may suppose
he delivered with peculiar grace, as we are told he
had a very happy facility in repeating poetry, with
a most uncommon suavity of voice and gesture;
being also of a tall and dignified presence, with
limbs finely proportioned, a manly freshness of
complexion, and a most engaging and exhilarating
expression of countenance, He died at Rome in
the possession of his office of Secretary to the Pro-
paganda on the 17th of February, 1735, in the
61st year of his age.
It appears that Forteguerri was endowed with a
most powerful memory, and an eager ambition of
distinction in almost every branch of composition
INTRODUCTION. 33
both in prose and verse ; and, as was more the
custom in those days, in Latin as well as in the
Vulgar or Tuscan, as the purists of that district
of Italy love to call the general language of the
country. His Latin orations or discourses upon
public occasions, both inaugural and on specu-
lative topics of taste or morality, were applauded
in their day ; but I believe few were ever printed.
I have never met with any of them, and it seems
to be generally admitted now, even by his most
unqualified admirers, that he had no particular
claim to extraordinary merit in writings of that
description. The great and early bent of his
genius was certainly poetry. He was a proficient
not only in the knowledge of the Latin, but also
of the Greek classics, and had endeavoured to form
his taste upon a profound and judicious considera-
tion of their excellencies ; and in his attempts to
approach the highest station in poetry, if he failed,
as will be mentioned by and by, it may be said of
him " magnis tamen excidit ausis." As a mem-
ber of the Academia degli Arcadi he composed
odes, canzoni, sonnets, stanzas, and a collection of
capitoli in the terza rima of Dante, and in a
style something between the manner of Berni 20 in
34 INTRODUCTION.
his capitoli, and that of Ariosto in his satires. In
whatever he undertook his aim was perfection,
being used to say that one ought never to despair
of arriving at the best.
While Forteguerri was actually employed in
writing his Ricciardetto he finished a translation
into blank verse of the Comedies of Terence,
which has been published in various editions, and
is spoken of in terms of high commendation by
many Italian critics of great authority. He was
much too good a scholar not to have done justice
in this translation to the sense of the original, and
too much a master of Italian versification not to
have done it with elegance, and some approach
to the extreme delicacy and beauty of Terence's
iambics. But modern accented hendecasyllables
can ill furnish a just and happy resemblance of
the inimitable dialogue of Terence.
The gaiety of Forteguerri's character was one
of its most conspicuous features, insomuch that it
had obtained for him, among his friends and ac-
quaintances, the name of " il Lepido," derived
from the Latin " lepor" or " lepos" a word to
INTRODUCTION. 35
which it would be difficult to find one exactly
synonymous in our language. It must be ren-
dered by a circumlocution. Does it not, in its most
appropriate sense, express a Kght and graceful
jucundity united with good breeding ; that chas-
tised liveliness, which still knows to confine itself
" Within the limit of becoming mirth ?" 21
Lepidus is more than "jucundus:" one may have
"jucunditas" without " lepos." Cicero sometimes
makes the distinction : " Multa erat in homine ju-
cunditas, et magnus in jocando lepos." In other
parts of his writings, indeed, that great, though
not always successful, joker, uses lepos in a more
indeterminate sense; in a sense in which the
Italian epithet may have been sometimes offen-
sively applied to our author ; thus he speaks of
" facetiarum et urbanitatis non scurrilis lepos."
And it is confessed, that the good Niccolb, in cer-
tain and perhaps not unfrequent moments of so-
cial relaxation and unrestrained open-heartedness,
transgressed Shakespeare's limit of becoming mirth.
Of this being conscious himself, he was not well
pleased with those who gave him the appellation
of Lepido, whom he suspected of meaning to convey
by it that he was a person who habitually sacrificed
36 INTRODUCTION.
the civility and proprieties of conversation to an in-
dulgence in coarse and indecent pleasantry. Yet it
certainly cannot be denied, that, in his most cele-
brated work itself, he has given way too much to
the irresistible force of a laughter-loving disposi-
tion, such as is so apt to transport the boon com-
panion beyond the checks prescribed by a just
sense of modesty and decorum. To the great purity
of Forteguerri's manners, and his abstinence from
every thing that could have justified the imputation
of dissoluteness, intemperance, or immorality, we
have abundant testimony : so that if censured be-
cause he does not always write with a due regard to
delicacy, which God forbid that I should attempt to
justify, though he is not more faulty in that way
than the admired Ariosto, or (proh dolor !) our
Spenser himself in a certain canto of his Fairy
Queen, it may be said with truth of him,
" Licentious though his song, his life was chaste !"
I have hinted that our author was ambitious of
eminence in the higher sorts of poetry, as well as
in that which has rendered his name of such ce-
lebrity with all who have a taste for genuine
humour. His Ricciardetto probably cost him a
INTRODUCTION. 37
thousand times less pains than his translation of
Terence ; and his historian and relation informs
us, that as it appears that he wrote Ricciardetto
in a sort of rivality with Ariosto, Berni, &c. he
had conceived a work in imitation of the immortal
Gerusalemme, on the subject of Bajazet, but
when he was proceeding to describe the barbarian
conqueror boxed up in his iron cage, he was so
carried away by a sudden train of ludicrous images,
that all at once he determined to relinquish a
project so little suited to the natural turn of his
mind.
The circumstances which gave rise to his writing
Ricciardetto are told with so much simplicity and
good humour by the author himself, in a letter
prefixed to the first acknowledged edition, that
I cannot better perform a part of what I had pro-
posed to myself in this discourse than by trans-
lating it.
In that letter he states, that at a country-house
of his, near his native Pistoia, in a society of friends
assembled there in the autumn of the year 1716,
there were several young men of great erudition,
38 INTRODUCTION.
with whom, in the evenings, while others of his
company diverted themselves with play in an-
other room, he used to read sometimes Berni,
sometimes the Morgante of Pulci, sometimes Ari-
osto, which readings, he says, were a source of
very particular delight ; that one evening, during
some intervening pause, after they had read for a
considerable time, one of his young friends said,
" God knows what a labour it must have cost the
authors of those poems to compose, not to say an
entire Canto, but even a dozen of their stanzas,
and the greater the facility of the measure and of
the rhyme appears to be, so much greater must
their exertions have been." That his other friends
present all concurred in this remark : " Upon this,"
continues he, "I, less considerate, or at least more
confident, observed with a smile, in good faith
those poets have, peradventure, laboured much
less than you imagine, for in poetry, if not the
whole, at least more than one half, is due to nature,
and he who has not been benignly seconded by
nature, will do well not to meddle with so noble
and delectable an occupation, but rather betake
himself to some other employment of his time,
where art, not nature, may be his guide. And not
INTRODUCTION. 39
to waste more words, but to prove in fact what I
have asserted, I engage to produce to you a Canto
to-morrow evening, containing in it the style of
the different bards we have been reading ; for to
speak freely, nature has been rather liberal to me
than scanty, in her gifts of that sort. The engage-
ment was received with applause by all, and having
retired after supper, I executed it punctually, and
produced and read the new Canto the next even-
ing, to the no ordinary satisfaction of the society."
The whole thirty cantos are said to have been
finished in thirty days.
When I was first in Italy, now more than half a
century ago, the Ricciardetto was the most popular
of all their burlesque poems with the young and
gay society into which I happened to be intro-
duced at that time, and its novelty to me, and its
broad but sly humour, naturally recommended it
to a very young reader ; and now, in my later years
(such is the force of early habit), a few cantos, or
even stanzas of this jocular poem, have been a fre-
quent temporary source of relief to my spirits when
afflicted with poignant grief (of which I have had
40 INTRODUCTION.
my share), or visited by occasional returns of
depression and melancholy.
I had often been surprised, considering the great
love of Italian poetry, both of the serious and
amusing kind, so prevalent in England, that no
translation of Ricciardetto into our language
had, as far as I knew, ever been attempted. The
different versions of Tasso and Ariosto, as well
as of the Portuguese epic, Gamoens, by Fairfax,
Harrington, Fanshawe, Hoole, and Mickle, are in
most considerable libraries ; and it seemed unac-
countable, that in the country which had produced
Hudibras and the Rape of the Lock, the two
extremes as it were of the burlesque and mock-
heroic, there had been found no translator of
Ricciardetto. A few years ago I had presumed
to suggest to a gentleman possessing great poeti-
cal talents, and a remarkable vein of humour and
pleasantry, that if he would undertake to translate
that work it would be a source of amusement to
himself, and at the same time be a great service
rendered to the public in this department of the
very extensive and diversified domain of the British
INT110DUCTION. 41
Muse. I had also ventured to state the same idea
to a friend who holds almost daily and active in-
tercourse with men of genius in all branches of
science and belles lettres. My suggestion was not
adopted, I incline to believe from a juster measure
of what is suited to the actual taste of the present
day, than my habits of reading had enabled me to
form. I myself, though, like most lovers of poetry,
a scanner of syllables, and accustomed to strain,
from time to time, once in a year perhaps, a few
lines on occasional subjects, with all the pangs and
throes of difficult labour, 22 never dreamed of at-
tempting any thing in verse of one third part the
length of a canto of Ricciardetto. But finding
myself not many weeks ago in a country-house
with some friends, ladies and gentlemen, fond of
" merry doggrel verse," as well as " lofty rhyme,"
in circumstances, therefore, not dissimilar to those
under which the idea of the original was first con-
ceived, our conversation one evening happened to
turn on the subject of Italian poetry, when I intro-
duced my favourite topic of Ricciardetto ; and wish-
ing to give them a sort of sample of that work, I
wrote and carried down with me the next morning
at breakfast, the translation or imitation of the first
42 INTRODUCTION.
stanza, almost as it is now printed. I had even
then not the smallest intention of proceeding any
farther, but, when alone, the nature of association
carried me on to the next, and so from stanza to
stanza, sometimes one, sometimes two or more in
a day, till I worked my way, without any fixed
design, to the 95th and last, which I finished at
the inn where I slept on my road back to town.
When I had got about half way in my translation,
while still at the country-house I have mentioned,
I happened to open a printed catalogue at the end
of one of the then late numbers of the Quarterly
Review, where I saw a translation of the first
and second cantos advertised as already published.
I had not an opportunity of meeting with that
translation till after I had received from the printer
the first proof of my own, when I found that
the principal story in the first canto had been
omitted in it. I have since learned that the
author of that translation is a gentleman of great
classical attainments, and known to the literary
world by many happy imitations both of the Greek
and Latin poets.
It has never entered into my thoughts to pro-
INTRODUCTION. 43
ceed farther in translating Ricciardetto. Were I
as sure as I begin to be doubtful of the taste of
the present day, on the subject of that species of
poetry, it would be an ill employment of any por-
tion of the time I may yet have to live, * to devote
it to such an undertaking, especially as it would
certainly be necessary, in compliance with the im-
proved delicacy of manners at this period, and in
this country, to omit, curtail, or disguise, a good
deal of what is contained in the succeeding cantos
ef the poem. Luckily there is nothing in the first
which required any departure from the original in
that respect, and as that canto comprehends a
characteristic introduction, where the author speaks
in his own person ; and then his Muse's relation of
two independent stories, those of Stella and Bru-
netta; I thought it might serve as a sufficient
specimen of his style and manner, if I should be
found in any way to have done him justice.
While I have been writing this discourse I have
* " E*x ifalal V0<rt, itSi; ; |y
8' ayjpao-iv, avrif ', 7pi?ov,
! iraXa/lffowri."
Find. Nem. Od. 3.
44 INTRODUCTION.
perused a learned and ingenious essay in the
Quarterly Review (No. 42, April, 1819,) in which
there is in many respects a just, but in others, in
the opinion at least of myself, his volunteer trans-
lator and commentator, a not sufficiently favourable
account of the genius and writings of Forteguerri.
I will not have the conceit to enter the lists on any
question concerning Italian poetry with the author
of that essay, who manifestly appears to be much
more deeply versed in it than I can pretend to
be. 23 I shall therefore take the same course I had
meant to pursue before I had read that interesting
essay, by concluding these pages with the eloquent
words of an author whom I have already more
than once taken occasion to quote.
" Ricciardetto est, en quelque sorte, le produit
du talent aimable d'un improviseur, de cette fer-
tilite d'imagination, de cette harmonie naturelle,
de cette gaite naive et enfantine qui caracterisent
les Italiens. Les strophes en sont ecrites avec
une negligence que la beaute seule d'une langue
si poetique et si sonore peut rendre agreable, mais
il re9oit souvent aussi un merite plus eclatant
d'une inspiration plus immediate. Souvent la ver-
INTRODUCTION. 45
sification est lache et trainante, mais quelquefois
elle s'orne de toutes les plus brillantes couleurs
d'une imagination du midi. Quelques morceaux
s'elevent a la plus haute poesie, dans les autres, la
gaite habituelle et le charme de 1'abandon font
considerer comme plus naive la maniere noncha-
lante dont ils sont ecrits. Le heros principal est
un plus jeune frere de Renaud; mais tous les
Paladins de Charlemagne reparaissent avec lui
dans leur ancien caractere; seulement la partie
comique du roman est mise beaucoup plus en evi-
dence que dans 1'Arioste ; la maniere de ce grand
poete semble fondue avec celle de Berni et de
Tassoni par Forteguerri, et ce dernier egale au
moins tous ses predecesseurs en esprit et en vi-
vacite de plaisanterie. Une gaite un peu profane
en aiguise souvent le picquant. Le prelat croyait
pouvoir disposer librement de son bien ; 1'hipocrisie
et les passions sensuelles des moines en general, et
de Ferragus, qui s'etoit fait ermite, en particulier,
sont 1'objet de la satire la plus divertissante de
Forteguerri." Sismondi, Lift, du Midi.
RICCIARDETTO.
CANTO I.
Ho letto 1'Ariosto, e il gran Torquato,
La Secchia, il Malmantile, e il Bracciolini,
Con quanto c'e di Poesia stampato
D'Autori Italiani e Fiorentini ;
Ma pure insino ad or non ho trovato
Tra Poemi nostrali e pellegrini,
Che leggendo mi dia maggior diletto,
Come quel che s'appella Ricciardettof*
To THE EARL OF G D.
G D ! to laughter-moving song a friend,
And full of pleasant jokes and quaint remark.
An ear to Forteguerri's stories lend ;
A learned wight was he and witty spark;
And, if his sense I mar instead of mend,
For words and rhymes oft groping in the dark,
My strains uncouth with kind indulgence scan,
And spare the poet if you love the man.
De enemigos pedantes no pretendo
Para mis versos ni perdon ni excusa ;
Pero, segunda vez, los recomiendo
A LOS AMIGOS DE MI POBRE MUSA."
RICCIARDETTO.
CANTO I.
THE ARGUMENT.
The portrait of the Muse, capricious wench ! 25
Prefaces here the work ofGarbolin;
And though both he, and she, plain facts should wrench***
To make us sob and sigh, or laugh and grin,
For me, a mere Translator, to retrench
One word from wJiat they tell were shame and sin, 2 7
Of our Astolphus, and of sage Araldo,
Despina, Stella, Richard, and Rinaldo.
I.
AN odd caprice has got into my head
(Do all I will, I cannot drive it thence),
To tell a tale in verse, but seldom read,
I ween, or known to men of wit and sense :
No daughter of the sun, but country-bred,
My Muse to lyre of gold has no pretence ;
But she 1 s a merry soul, and takes delight
To chant her idle ditties, day and night.
52 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
II.
And though most used in the woods to range,
And drink the crystal spring, and acorns chew,
Her hint is now to sing adventures strange, 28
Of damsels fair, and war's heroic crew.
And if sometimes she chance the truth to change,
Gentles ! some pardon to her fault is due ;
For, never studying where sage masters teach,
She roam'd from elm to oak, from birch to beech.
III.
Yet now you find she'll sing of love artd war
For why ? to our Arcadia late there came M
A bevy bright of strangers from afar ;
Poets and orators of mighty name,
On foot, on palfrey, donkey, cart, or car ;
None skilTd like them to rhyme or to declaim.
So, loving company with them to keep, ^
She dreams of heroes, waking and asleep.
CANTO I. HICCIARDETTO.
IV.
But, as you soon shall see, she '11 oft and oft
Embroil herself in her geography,
Even as an ant, journeying on plaster soft,
Or on the dust, or heap of flour perdie, 31
Or like that limner, by old critics scofTd,
Who drew a cypress in the azure sea,
And whales light-skipping on some lofty mount,
Things quite as queer my gipsy will recount.
V.
And sure for this she should not be ill-treated,
Nor pointed at, nor scorn'd, with mock and gibe ;
She ne'er on high Parnassus' top was seated,
Nor read the works of any learned scribe
Of Athens, Rome, or Florence ; ne'er was greeted
Member elect of a blue-stocking tribe, 32
Nor e'er aspired with dandy wits to shine,
Who think themselves immortal and divine. 33
RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
VI.
She only sings for merriment and glee,
(Of which, if so disposed, you may partake ;)
Of those strict rules the sense she ne'er could see
Which cause the heads of weary bards to ake,
Who, struggling to make wit and words agree,
In frenzy oft the third commandment break,
And scratch their addle pates, and bite their nails,
When sense or rhyme or proper accent fails.
VII.
Sometimes you'll see her (such a child she is)
Leap to and fro as doth a frisky frog ;
Nor can I blame or deem her fool for this,
Nor that the patient plodder's sober jog
She 's apt to turn to ridicule, and quiz. M
Sweet Poetry ! what pedant chain shall clog
Thy devious wanderings, humble or sublime,
Thy merry doggrel song, or lofty rhyme !
CANTO I. RICCIA11DETTO. 55
VIII.
Oft in the fury of the embattled field,
Drench'd with the blood of slayers, and of slain,
This so capricious Muse of mine will yield,
All in a moment, to some peaceful strain
Of soft amours ; then lofty anthems build 36
Or hymns, to holy saints in solemn fane
Then, hark ! mid ocean's roar, and tempest's, shock,
She weeps with Ariadne on her rock.
IX.
See, now in hand she takes her rural pipe,
But hums, with voice subdued, and mien abash'd ;
Then look not at her, till her wit, more ripe,
And bolder grown, through thick and thin has splash'd,
Lest blushes, rosy red, of shame the type,
With native lilies in her cheek be dash'd.
Hist ! she begins ! so let us, side by side,
Near her, in silence and on tip-toe glide.
RICCIARDETTO. CANTO i.
X.
-My PURPOSE is to sing the warfare dire
Whereof I once in certain writing read ;
If true or false, I did not much inquire :
Right well I know it filTd my soul with dread,
To hear the dying screams of son and sire,
Of matrons slain, and maidens ravished,
In Paris, compass'd round, and sorely shent, 37
By paynim foes from every region sent.
XI.
The author who this curious book indites
Was Garbolin, a name that here comes pat in,
Who swears he saw the whole whereof he writes,
And set it forth, in Vulgar, and in Latin.
His work my father, who in books delights,
Bought of a hind who came our goats to fatten,
And, in exchange, to suit his toes and rump,
A doublet gave, and for each foot a pump. 38
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 57
XII.
This clerk narrates the dudgeon and fierce rage
Of Afric's and of Asia's godless kings
Against great Charles the brave, the good, the sage,
When, marshalling numerous hosts and gatherings, 39
Cafria's proud chief, and Lapland's, did engage,
And Negroland's, with more of whom he sings,
(But nameless now !) all Christian blood to spill, 40
And every Christian church with idols fill.
XIII.
But mark (lest I the caution should forget),
Be pleased at all times when I talk of love
To banish from your thoughts the fond conceit
That ever Love and I were hand and glove :
Love never made me mad nor merry yet,
But fancy-free, through woods and wilds I rove : 41
So, in that sort whatever 's said or sung,
Regards me not my withers are unwrung. 42
58 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XIV.
The former war was scarcely at a close
Against great Charles, to fame so widely known,
When in the Infernal Council there arose
Another hellish plot to crush his throne.
Christians and Saracens again as foes
Had met, and Pluto's trump " To arms 11 had blown
Now harken while I tell the how, and why,
These fatal new dissensions rose so high.
XV.
The Scricc, fell king of Cafria, had a son, 43
Of strength with Hercules himself to vie,
And who the heart of Venus might have won
By his vermilion cheek and jet-black eye.
He in the former war to France had run,
Bold lad ! of strife and danger nothing shy,
Where fighting fiercely once with Ricciardetto,
He took from him a deadly stab in petto. 44
CANTO I. KICCIA11DETTO.
XVI.
Scricc had a daughter, too, Despina hight,
With eyes bright sparkling like two brilliant stars ; 45
She ne'er had left her brother, day or night,
And loved him so, that of this would-be Mars
She was the leman deem'd by many a wight,
(His loose companions in their bloody wars !)
Now when Despina learn'd her brother's fate,
She tore her hair, and rent her robe of state.
XVII.
" Farewell," she cries, " feast, joust, and revelry."
Then kindling vengeance in her father's heart,
Full many an amorous chief assembleth she,
To whom this firm resolve she doth impart :
" That Prince alone my wedded spouse shall be,
" Who, strong and bold, and stung by Cupid's dart,
" Shall, kneeling, on a charger, at my tent,
" My brother's murderer's gory head present."
60 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO 1.
XVIII.
Bulasso, scepter'd chief of Negroland, 46
A hideous giant, measureless and strong,
Straight sent his swarthy troops the stern command,
Without delay to join the Cafrian throng ;
Resolved himself to follow out of hand.
And lo ! a club, as rafter thick and long, 47
Shaking with glee before Despina's eyes,
He cried, " What think ye, shan't I win the prize ?"
XIX.
And, mad to gain this heiress of the Scricc,
Of Egypt's Sultan, then, the son and heir,
Hearing her manifesto, in the nick
To his old father's palace did repair,
And got his leave to give the Franks a lick,
Forming a host of doughty spearmen there
And Lapland's Sire, all shaggy, lean, and lank,
CalTd forth his troops and all were heathens rank. 48
CANTO I. RICCIAIIDETTO. 61
XX.
Besides, of gay cadets, and volunteers,
(Garbolin says at least six thousand strong)
A brilliant band ! on Cafria's plain appears ;
And Cafria's heiress fair, amidst the throng
Of horsemen, girding girths and pointing spears, 4n
Seems now to hear the loud triumphal song,
And that by Macon's aid some fated knife 50
Hath slit the thread of RicciardettxTs life.
XXI.
But though this storm was gathering over France
As peasants, newly scaped from winter crude,
Lead up, with violets crown'd, their rural dance ;
While, on some sunny bank, of gentler mood
Others their carols chant, in mirthful trance,
(Nature their teacher, though the song be rude !)
Thus, spear and shield suspended on the wall,
The peaceful Peers at court had given a ball.
62 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XXII.
But some, more quiet, near the silver Seine
Listened to songs of love, in verdant shade ;
Quaffing in crystal goblets bright champagne,
Others at social board carousals made ; . -
While some again more tender cares detain,
Wooing some maiden coy in cool arcade ;
And many a lady fair, and favoured swain,
Thank all the saints that peace was come again. 51
XXIII.
Great Charles alone sat sorrowing at the tale
Of matchless Rowland's wondrous strong insanity/' 2
Thinking in quest of him to ride or saiL
But his brave Barons, with true French urbanity,
And floods of tears, beseech him (and prevail)
To stay at home, leaving to their humanity
To find the nook or crook where the Paladin
Might haply then be playing his pranks so mad in.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. C3
XXIV.
Now all were ready soon, some east, some west
To post Rinaldo chose to ride alone
Such solitary ways displeased the rest,
So with Astolphus sage Alardo 's gone,
And Richard stout. These three to Spain addrest
Their steeds, aland where Rowland's haunts were known,
While Oliver, with many hundreds more,
By different roads each distant clime explore.
XXV.
With Charlemagne now scarcely three times ten
Remain'd of Paladins in arms renown'd,
When at the palace of this King of men 53
A pagan herald blew a threatening sound,
And fiercely made it known in accents plain,
" That straight the Scricc's dread host would there be
found,
" Resolved each drop of Christian blood to shed,
u Or Richardet to have, alive or dead,
F
G4 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XXVI.
" Who gave his dear and only son to death. 1 " 54
Charles mildly answered, " To your monarch turn, 55
" And say, both weak and wicked thoughts he hath ;
" He should alone the chance of battle mourn,
" If Ricciardetto robb'd his son of breath,
" And sent him whence no travellers return ; M
" Fortune to chop and change is never slack,
" But on her favourites often turns her back.
XXVII.
" My heroes deal in force, and not in fraud,
" Still fighting fairly as brave warriors use
" Whom generous foes as well as friends applaud;
" Nor speak I thus for that I war refuse :
" My troops shall reap fresh laurels and new laud,
" If your black Giant that same sport shall choose,
" Braving his frightful Cafrians when they list
" To meet them, sword to sword, or fist to fist.
CANTO I. EICCIARDETTO.
XXVIII.
" Let them come on, that, from our city's wall,
" Our wives and children may those monsters see ;
" Strange sight ! 'twill stir their laughter, not their gall. 1 "
The herald heard thse words with little glee,
But looking fierce, said, " Then, have at you all !
" The Scricc, as hawk on lark, to France shall flee,
" And (for my master's threatenings are no joke)
" Your braggart words repay with fire and smoke."'
XXIX.
The herald thus despatched, great Carlo takes
Sage counsel with his few remaining Peers ;
Then wise assignment of their duties makes,
To each according to his sense and years :
One man the truncheon of commandment shakes ;
One pays the troops their long deferr'd arrears
Repairs, provisions, embassies, require
Talents by nature given, not had for hire.
C6 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XXX.
But leave we these and let us follow fast
Astolphus, Richard, and the sage Alard,
Who, as along the road to Spain they past,
Still tried with asking eye, and question hard, 57
To get some inkHng of the Count at last. M
But, learning nought their journey to retard,
They traverse all the mountainous expanse,
And rude, which parts the realm of Spain from France.
XXXI.
And having cleared those lofty Pyrenees,
And reach'd the land by Rowland favoured most,
They wend to Arragon by slow degrees ;
Till thus a countryman gan them accost :
" Stretch'd by a common-shore, or place of ease,
" I Ve seen your knight, who hath his senses lost,
" Where, bellowing like a bedlamite, he lay
" 'Twas near Valentia, and but t'other day. 11
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO.
XXXII.
On hearing this the Paladins opine
'Twere best to turn their steeds towards the east,
And seek Valentia by the nearest line ;
So prick'd they on that road, till man and beast 59
Felt it was season fit to rest, and dine
Then, when of bandits half a score at least
Stopp'd them on Orepesa's desert plain,
They sent them one and all to Pluto's reign,
XXXIII.
Blaspheming as they fell ! To kiss the sea 60
Now Phebus slants his car the mountains high
Grow dark the little feathered songsters flee
In haste to shelter in some forest nigh
Mid covert close, where they may roost them, free
From dread of human snares and treachery.
The lazy toad crawls forth, the moping owls
Scream out, the cricket chirps, the gaunt wolf howls !
68 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XXXIV.
And now the Paladins descry a fire
That seems to blaze in some near shepherd's hut,
But, whence it came all anxious to inquire,
Sharp spur to horse's flank each warrior put,
When Dwarf, in act humane, but quaint attire,
Three nosegays in his hand, is seen to strut,
Crying, " Dear lordings ! from her glorious bowers 61
" My lady greets you with these beauteous flowers.
XXXV.
" Her name is Stella (if you know it not) ;
" Spain never yet has seen so fair a dame ;
" Much goodly land and castles she has got,
" But ne'er would hear of spouse, or change her name. 02
" Sweeter than nightingale's her voice I wot
" With music's charms the toughest heart would tame ;
" And if she dance in hall or on the green,
" She rivals Love's own mother, Beauty's queen."
THE D WA R F
,IVen<ini7t.
ASTOLPHF5 .
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. G9
XXXVI.
This when Astolphus heard, with studious care
Forth from its case of gold a comb he drew,
And having smoothed his frill, and comb'd his hair, 63
He takes his faithful glass in haste to view
His precious self The others smile and stare :
And Alard mutters low, with eyes askew,
" Oh, coxcomb vain ! for ever doom'd to prove
" The dupe of women, and the slave of love !"
XXXVIL
Meantime bright flaming torches meet the sight,
Each borne by damsel blithe in jocund guise ;
While from their cymbals, with sweet garlands dight,
Dulcet harmonious symphonies arise,
That take the ravished ear with strange delight : 64
They all are fair, but to our warriors'' eyes 65
Their mistress, in the midst, excels as far
The rest, as Luna doth the meanest star. 6G
70 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XXXVIII.
Of bright celestial hue her garment was,
Falling but little way below her knee ;
Round her fair locks a golden wreath did pass ;
With graceful, decent air advanceth she ;
Her taper arms were bare, and smooth as glass ;
CarVd with nice skill an ivory lyre they see
Hung round that neck, the which, I ween, doth show
More white than falls from heaven its purest snow.
XXXIX.
And singing, thus she said " Adored and dear,
" Thou, holy Freedom, art ! What price too high
" To purchase thee ! Who sells thee must be near
" The last despair of starving penury !
" To soften woe, arrest the gushing tear,
" Lend mirth to sadness, check the rising sigh
" These are thy gifts ; true glory lives with thee ;
" The dastard licks the dust ! the brave are free 1 { ' 7
CANTO I. 11ICCIARDETTO. 71
XL.
" For me, the liberty I most approve
" Is that which reigns supreme in female hearts ;
" Which spurns the fetters of the tyrant Love,
" And genuine joy still unalloy'd imparts ;
" Happy ! who from the cradle learn to move,
" Nor lur'd, deceived, nor vanquished by his arts.
" Thus I in shady arbours choose to dwell,
" And all his wiles defeat, and darts repel."
XLI.
Now, as they nearer came, was hushed the song,
And while it seem'd she neither walk'd nor ran,
But " moved, smooth sliding without step, along," w
Her smile benignant caught the love-struck man
" Angels like this, my fiiends, to heaven belong,"
(Biting his lips, Astolphus thus began) ra
" For never mortal wight such charms displayed,
" Oh face! Oh voice! Oh grace! Oh matchless maid! 1 ' 70
RICCIARDETTO. CANTO i.
XLII.
Again the Lady speaks. " Ye gentle knights,
" What fortune brings you thus to Stella's wood?
" Whoso to sport with hound and hawk delights,
" Here finds of hawk and hound a peerless brood, 71
" With foot and wing to mock the sharpest sights :
" Come, then, unloose my dogs, my birds unhood,
" You're welcome other joys are here forbidden,
" Either in open bower or arbour hidden. 11
XLIII.
" Offspring of heaven !" exclaims our Paladin,
" Speak not, oh ! speak not of such sports as these.
" To follow hound or hawk has never been
" Pastime that did my wayward fancy please ;
" And now that mine enchanted eyes have seen
" Charms to which prostrate thus I bend my knees,
" What else can please ? To thee supreme control
" Yield I henceforth, and empire o'er my soul."
CANTO I. 1UCCIARDETTO. 73
XLIV.
And here he breathed a sigh, then waxed red ;
The nymph to pass within her noble walls
Invites them : she precedes. Now heart and head
Of England's Prince such frantic love enthrals,
That close behind on Stella's heels to tread
He risks, and whispers " Instant death befalls
" Your victim, if no pitying look you give
" To him who now by you must die or live."
XLV.
The nymph, not answering aught, her way pursues ;
Her damsels slily smile with looks astute ; 72
They dare not laugh, nor speak, so prudence use,
And keep their lips and tongues unmov'd and mute.
And lo ! in emerald goblets, wines profuse
Are pour'd ; rich tables groan with choicest fruit
And viands ; England's hero nought descries
But the bright radiance of fair Stella's eyes.
74 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XLVI.
Ricardo jogs him, but he feels no jog
The tables smoke, and Stella takes her seat,
The others with her ; like a stupid log
Astolphus stands, nor moves to drink or eat,
But stares on Stella, laughs, and ciies ; no prog
Alluring him, nor beverage. The discreet
Alardo sighs ; when Stella, this perceiving,
Cried, " Courage ! I Ve a drug will cure his raving.*
XLVII.
Then straight produced a nut of fam'd Brasil,
And said, " When in his bed he lays him down,
" Take tliou the sharpest blade' of tempered steel,
" And scrape clean off this dirty coat so brown,
" Then, having fairly cleared away the peel,
" Rasp of the substance just a drachm, and drown
" In racy wine the raspings. When infused,
" This wine to bathe his mouth and breast be used.
CANTO . RICCIARDETTO.
XLVIII.
" ""Pis safe and sure My mother (once how fair f)
" So madly on my honoured father doted
" That men her wifely love would oft compare
" With Artemisia's, so much prized and quoted ! 73
" And, when resolved his country's fate to share,
u That patriot warrior fell, to death devoted,
" She pined away, still weeping sore and wailing ;
" But when were tears to drown our woes availing !
XLIX.
" She wept and wail'd in vain ! corroding care
" Had changed her comely shape to skin and bone ;
" Hot tears deep furrows in her cheeks did wear ;
" The ruddy freshness of those cheeks was gone :
" How could her Stella's heart unbroken bear
" To see her thus a living skeleton !
" Now, driving out one morning in the coach, 74
" We saw an old sea-faring man approach.
76 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
L.
11 And thus he said, ' If madam 's sick from love,
" ' I '11 cure her. 1 So a nut like this he gave her,
" And soon her voice grows clear, her eyes now move
" Refulgent, and with tears no longer lave her
" Now ruddy cheeks again ; her thoughts now rove
" On gayer themes 'Twas clear the drug would save
her:
" And so it came to pass : in scarce a year
fc< Its virtue quite restored my mother dear.
LI.
" The nature of this nut is to expel
" Forth from the mind love and its griefs : It chanced
" That Proteus (so the good old man did tell)
" Once gave it to a sea-nymph far advanced
" In this disease ; a swain (untouched and well
" Himself) in desperate love had her entranced,
" But soon the nut from thraldom set her free
" What Proteus gave to her she gave to me.
CANTO I. RICCIAKDETTO. 77
LII.
" She gave it me For, sitting on a rock,
" All day I used to mourn my destiny,
" Loving proud beauty, who my pains did mock,
" Nor deign'd my woes to soothe, my tears to dry;
" My tale the sea-nymph's tender heart did shock,
" (For sea and shore had heard me groan and sigh)
" And, with kind hand administering the drug,
" She cured my heart, and left it sound and snug.
LIII.
The man subjoined, that once by Proteus' 1 care
" Like nut had cured fair Helen's amorous grief.
(Its powers when steep'd in wine how wondrous rare !)
" And Agamemnon, too, of chiefs the chief,
And young Telemachus, Ulysses' heir,
" Thus from Calypso's snares obtain'd relief;
Drowning all penance past, and by-gone sorrow,
In hopes of joys each future day, and morrow."
RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
LIV.
This said, the Lady fair got up from table,
A curtsy made, and bid her guests good night ;
When lo ! distract of mind, with air unstable,
Astolphus near her drew on tip-toe light,
And whisper'd, " Cruel Stella ! art thou able
" Unmoved to quit me in such doleful plight ?"
The lady, feigning deafness, takes her leave,
First whispering Alard something in his sleeve.
LV.
The poor inamorato, thus forsaken,
Retired not till compelTd by his compeers ;
Then struggles with his trusty blade to break in
To his uncovered breast, and, bathed in tears,
To send his heart to Stella. But his bacon
Is timely saved, for now the drug appears
Doing good work else had he slain in madness
Himself and friends, and fill'd all France with sadness.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 79
LVI.
The fated drug, the hero's frame invading,
Soon cleansed his bosom of the perilous stuff
That weighed upon his heart, when straight evading 7S
That maddening flame (the cure was somewhat rough) 7C
He changed his loving note to harsh upbraiding
Of Stella fair, in language coarse and gruff.
Then sleeps two hours Then hark ! at peep of day
He sounds his horn, and wakes his comrades tway. 77
LVII.
" Up, up !" he cries, " to find our frantic Count !"
" Good sooth ! his madness never equalled yours,""
Quoth then Alard, " Till Stella did recount
" Of Proteus 1 potent nut the wondrous cures,
" And swelTd by curing you their grand amount 78
" Let thanks and endless gratitude be ours."
Astolphus (lost all trace of what had past)
Devoutly crossed himself, and looked aghast !
80 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
LVIII.
" Well, as we ride we 11 tell you the whole thing,"
Thus said the knights ; then haste, their armour don,
And back the leavings of the nut they bring
To Stella. Then (for each in breeding shone,)
Of flowery compliments a copious string
They add. But let them for a time spur on
As best them suits ; we '11 now go join Kinaldo,
Bold as my cousin grim, great Arcibaldo. 79
LIX.
You may remember how the sulky elf
(For to your worships so he must have seem'd)
Rode forth, with no companion but himself.
To Persia bound convenient port he deemed
Famed La Rochelle, port free from rock and shelf.
To Persia ; where one night he fondly dreanTd
He 'd find Orlando ; or else in Utopia,
Which lies between that realm and Ethiopia. **
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 81
LX.
Ocean and Euxine traversed, see, he 's landing,
And for his courser ordering corn and beans ;
Then at each inn and coffee-house demanding
News of Orlando, if, by any means,
He aught might learn, to Paris worth remanding,
From grey-beard, man, wife, youth, or miss in teens.
But meeting nought but negatives and scorning,
He mounts his nag, and rides away next morning.
LXI.
When he had journey 'd on of miles a score,
Flying he meets a herd of kine and beeves ;
Then a fair ruddy peasant girl, who tore
Her curling hair and rustic garb, perceives :
She weeps, and cries aloud, lamenting sore,
" Ah ! hapless, hapless me !" then silent grieves
He stops, and looking round, a serpent spies
Of fearful length, and most enormous size,
82 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
LXII.
Who did with gaping, gory mouth pursue
The trembling girl, that ran with all her might.
The cavalier, alighting, instant slew
The monstrous worm that caused the maiden's fright ; 1U
But when he looked for thanks, as guerdon due,
And valour's meed, by courtesy and right,
She still runs on, and though he bawls, " stop, stop,"
On her deaf ears his cries unheeded drop.
LXIII.
Thence he pursued his journey, till the night
Surprised him near a castle on the road,
And in a neighbouring house a cheerful light
He saw, and singing heard, and laughter broad.
An inn he deem'd it, and conjectured right,
And straight he chose it for his night's abode ;
For in the gate-way, blithe and full of life,
Stood, greeting him, the landlord's buxom wife.
RIHAXDO
THE LANDLADY.
CANTO I. R1CCIARDETTO. 83
LXIV.
He asks to eat ; but near the hostess lags ;
And even would lend a hand to turn the roast ;
In kitchen phrase of scullion frolicks brags. 82
The landlord doubts that this is all a boast ;
For, though like saucy clown his tongue he wags,
Mine host observes his love of buttered toast, M
And other dainties by the great approved ;
And how genteel he look'd, and handsome moved.
LXV.
Resolved to try him, to the Knight he turns
And says, " If at your heart that bravery dwell,
" Which in such breasts as yours so often burns,
" Your valour may despatch a monster fell,
" Through whom a brace of piteous lovers mourns,
" And of our dolorous district merit well ;
" For that dire monster, cruel, fierce, and horrible,
" Doth keep us all in terrors most deplorable."
84 RICCIAltDETTO. CANTO i.
LXVI.
The Knight replies, " If you Ve nought else to do,
" And to delight my listening ears incline,
" Tell me the story of those lovers true
" Whom this detested monster maketh pine,
" From the beginning, all in order due ;
" Right well thouknowest, mostcourteous landlord mine,
" How much a tale told o'er a mantling cup
" Amuses, when we dine, or when we sup."
LXVII.
Quoth then the Host, " The castle near at hand,
" Whose name is Baccola, did once belong
" To a most worthy Baron of the land,
" Healthful and beautiful, like you, and strong,
" Whom, well-a-day ! amidst a youthful band,
" Once hi our market-place, where strangers throng,
" The fairy Nera seeing, love insane
" Took forcible possession of her brain.
CANTO I. EICCIARDETTO. 85
LXVIII.
" But he had made a present of his heart
" To Miss Brunette, who dwelt in village near,
" And neither gifts nor treats on Nera's part,
" Could win the favour of that worthy Peer ;
" So the enchantress, by her hellish art,
" I )evised the hideous plot you soon shall hear ;
" But waited till their wedding-day approached,
" And then her strange unheard-of mischief broach'd.
LXIX.
*' See, where Brunetta comes in vestments white !
" Roses and lilies crown her nut-brown hair :
" We all were met rejoicing in the sight :
" And the vile witch disguised was also there,
" Midst the bride's maidens for the wedding dight ;
" Who bids them wait a moment where they were,
" Under the shade of a tall cypress tree,
" From whence the bridegroom's coming they might see.
86 IlICCIAKDETTO. CANTO I.
LXX.
" Behold him now advance, with joyous pace,
" Singing aloud, when lo ! an imp of hell
" A flask of water from that damned place
" Gives to the fay, who straight, by witchcrafts spell,
" Squirts me that water in each lover's face.
" Now hear, with horror hear, what then befel ;
" We saw them strangely changed O fatal luck !
" The bride was grown a doe, her spouse a buck !
LXXI.
" The buck eftsoons sets off, and bounds away,
" The doe pursues him Now 'tis past two years
' ; Since, so bewitch'd, those woful lovers stray.
" Whoso shall them relieve, and quell our fears,
" Must scale a mountain which few dare essay
" So steep to heaven its horrid front it rears ;
" There, on its summit, in a lofty tower,
" Nera, the wicked witch, hath built her bower.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 87
LXXIL
" Besides, she 's guarded there by giants two,
" One called Traggea, t'other Master Stritch :
" Frightful to saints above, and fiends below ;
" Both clothed in skin of snake, more rough than rich,
" More fit for stirrup straps, than glove of beau ;
" And in his fist each giant holds a switch,
" So strong, that, if comparisons we draw,
" A drayman's whip becomes a wisp of straw.
LXXIII.
" If you those scaly wretches could subdue,
" And their infernal mistress captive make,
" What blessings to us all would then ensue !
" The enamour'd pair of torment leave would take,
" Restored to pristine form and rosy hue,
" And mirth no more this happy nook forsake."
Rinaldo cries, " Fine Paladin of France
*' Am I, on such adventure to advance !
88 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO i.
LXXIV.
" Oh ! what a theme for mockery and mirth !
" At a mere lifeless shadow apt to tremble
" No meaner low-born peasant treads the earth.
" My father Ludwig, whom I much resemble,
" At Pisa got me Lucia gave me birth,
" Scared by a ghost the truth I'll not dissemble,
" And at a time when 'twas their daily habit
" To feed on nought but water-gruel and rabbit
LXXV.
" Those giants, ugly, powerful, fierce, and hideous,
" Have put me into such a strange quandary !
*' I see them! Oh ! they '11 make the night so tedious !
" I ne'er can sleep alone ! See ! Blessed Mary !
" Lord ! how they stare ! and then that witch insidious !
" Sir, with your wife all night I fain would tarry. 11
Mine host, grown jealous, makes him this reply
see your drift, Sir Knave, with half an eye."
CANTO J. HICCIARDETTO. 89
LXXVI.
With this, he catches up a piece of a stick, 84
And says, " Your folly shall have this reward ;"
Then brandishes the same with air gymnastic.
Rinaldo on his knees solicits hard
For pardon, in a whining strain bombastic.
Mine host does this as cowardice regard,
And hits him on the nob : the knight grows furious, 85
And takes him by both legs, in mode most curious,
LXXVII.
And round the chamber makes the lubbard swing ;
As long ago old Jesse's son was seen
Whirling the fatal stone in leathern sling,
Which laid Goliath sprawling on the green.
But soon the wife, with tears and blubbering,
Hath quelTd our gallant hero's wrathful spleen ;
And, for her sake, he lays her husband down
Quite stunn'd, as one asleep, or in a swoon.
90 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
LXXVIII.
To bed the Knight betakes him, till the sky
Was dyed vermilion by the opening dawn ;
Then up, in arms of proof, and spirits high,
Alone, on foot, he treads the dewy lawn ;
But first o'er a small book he casts his eye,
(Gift of a dame on whom he used to fawn)
To see if aught of useful knowledge he
Might haply reap from her astrology.
LXXIX.
There reads (at page six hundred forty-five)
What her profound foreknowledge doth command,
How he the fay must bind, and burn alive ;
And, gathering up the ashes in his hand,
Strew them where most the doe had use to drive
Her once betrothed buck along the strand
In furious speed, sans pity or remorse,
ImpelTd by sorcery's resistless force.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 91
LXXX.
How, passing o'er that path, they each shall doff
(Doe-bride and bridegroom-buck) their bestial hide,
And he, a buck no more, shall lead her off,
Making this whilom doe (so long a bride)
His wife, who many a hymeneal strophe
Shall joyous sing, right blithely, by his side ;
" But mind, if you release the captived witch,
" She Tl whip you dead with scourge of giant Stritch."
LXXXI.
He scales the mount Traggea hears the clang
Of arms, and spies the Knight then bawls, " Some
broth
" Would'st have, my lad ?" (in Babylonish slang) 86
" Come, win it first." Rinaldo, waxing wroth,
Cries, " Beast ! right soon we'll give thee such a bang,
" 'T will change to dying groans thy vapouring froth."
Traggea hurls huge stone with hasty hand 87
At our brave Peer He ducks, and draws his brand.
92 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
LXXXII.
His brand he draws, and, darting on him quick,
A deadly wound inflicts above the groin.
A sword it was to pierce through armour thick
Of brightest steel point, blade, and dudgeon fine.
The Patagonian brute grows wondrous sick,
Then headlong grunts, and dies like loathsome swine.
When Striccia sees the downfal of his fellow,
He roars! the mountain groans ! the rocks rebellow!
LXXXIII.
Thundered his voice ! as lightning flashed his eye ! "
And, lo ! his switch he levels at Our Knight,
(So sudden, had he wish'd, he could not fly)
Aiming a blow that must have crushed him quite ;
By feint Rmaldo turns the stroke awry,
Then driveth at his foe, with main and might,
Falchion which never yet its object miss^ ; ^
And leaves each arm a stump without a fist.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO.
LXXXIV.
The monster screams, yet still, with show of courage,
Looks fierce, and flings about each bleeding stump ;
Rinaldo pays him for this long demurrage
With scores of kicks and cuffs on reins and rump ;
Till, lest last night's should prove his farewell porridge,
(So stoutly did our knight his jerkin thump)
Stritch plies his heels towards the castle gate ;
Rinaldo, following fast, overtakes him straight ;
LXXXV.
And at the very portal thrusts his steel
Half through the entrails of the recreant wretch.
See ! now he staggers ! See him streetward reel,
And on the flags his caitiff carcass stretch.
He writhes convulsed. Rinaldo lets him feel
Once more his carving knife on bust and breech ;
Then cries, " Die, brute ! " (and so he does) : the while
Rinaldo wipes his blade, nor stops his toil.
94 RICCIARDETTO. CANTO i.
LXXXVI.
But presses on to where, in garden fair,
There sat a damsel, weeping and forlorn ;
" Loose flowM the soft redundance of her hair," 91
Part clothed she was, part naked as when born.
Her alabaster breast and arms were bare ;
Her eyes the stars of heaven itself might scorn ;
Like orient suns on flowery meads they shine,
Shedding mild lustre o'er her face divine.
LXXXVII.
The Knight draws near. The damsel trembles sore,
But trembling seems more beauteous in his sight,
And, as his fury melteth more and more,
By gazing on those humid rays so bright,
The dame, provided with a copious store
Of cunning, sighing loud, exclaims, " Sir Knight,
" Help ! help ! for honour's sake commiserate
" A poor devoted maiden's ruthless fate.""
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 95
LXXXVIII.
Unmann'd he stands, and, less alive than dead,
From nerveless arm lets fall his trusty sword.
The sorceress' eyes, now tearless, burning red,
Dart forth a sulphurous flame and smoke abhorr'd, 92
And straight to seize him as her prey she sped ;
But, governed by his book's unerring word,
Now following up his system, stout and steady,
A ball of cord he dexterously gets ready :
LXXXIX.
Then binds her as our woodmen faggots bind,
Ties her, thus fetter'd, to a neighbouring tree,
And clips her flowing locks with shears unkind,
When, lo ! no more fair maiden seemeth she,
But (which the book foretold him he would find)
O ! strange result of all her sorcery !
A goblin old, unsavoury, and uncouth,
Wrinkled, deform'd, eyes blear'd, and ne'er a tooth.
H
9G RICCIARDETTO. CANTO i.
xc.
He then piles round the witch of wood a heap,
Which, kindled, smokes and blazes towVds the skies ;
Shrieks the foul fiend, and tries to bound and leap, 93
Soon as the crackling flame did upwards rise ;
But tethered fast, and forced her place to keep,
The fire soon meets the sulphur of her eyes,
And soon her worthless life remains extinguished,
A mass of ashes, by no shape distinguished.
XCI.
Our hero gathers up the wretch's embers,
And with assiduous care and hastened pace
(For all the book had taught he well remembers),
He makes his way to the predicted place,
And putting in a sieve the pristine members
Of her, thus brought to death in vile disgrace,
Sifts them where doe and buck were doom'd to pass,
And take again the form of lad and lass.
CANTO I. RICCIARDETTO. 97
XCII.
The neighbours all had seen each marvellous feat,
The giants slain, the Knight's triumphant entry
Within the precincts of that steep retreat,
Spite of those monsters fierce who there stood sentry,
And safe escape from that unhallow'd seat ;
And now those rescued, gladsome, happy gentry
Embrace him warmly, and with laud and song
Joyful surround him as he moves along.
XCIII.
Meanwhile the doe and buck came on with speed,
And, as they crossed the path, grew maid and man ;
O ! then what acts of grateful thanks succeed !
Their words, rebounding, through the mountain ran,
Giving, " in good set terms," the Knight his meed. 94
At length they " what" and " how" to ask began,
When, as they bow and curtsy, long and low,
Rinaldo tells the whole, from top to toe.
H 2
RICCIARDETTO. CANTO I.
XCIV.
Much pressed is now the victor to remain
Beneath their roof by each enamoured spouse ;
When sudden, gallop, gallop, o'er the plain,
With bloody spurs, horse breathless, reins thrown loose,
A courier comes express from Charlemagne,
The emperor's favourite Moor, and brings the news
That once again in France unchristian war-is-seen," 5
And Paris close besieged by heathenish Sa-ra-cen.
xcv,
Rinaldo starts ; bows low ; and mounts his horse ;
Hies to the shore ; and there embarks for France ;
Exclaiming loud, as he pursues his course,
" When I get home, I "ll lead the knaves a dance."
But here my weary Muse must pause perforce :
Mark how she hobbles now when she would prance.
To-morrow, with your leave, in livelier verse
New and more strange adventures she'll rehearse.
CANTO I. R1CCIARDETTO. 99
Next day our Forteguerris Muse renewed
Her extracts from thy work, grave Garbolin!
But mine, fair reader, be it understood,
Did never pledge herself, nor ever mean
In English rhyme the promise to make good.
I'm told another wight of late was seen
To dip ajinger in that wench's pie
Much good may 't do him! Gentles all, "good bye"
NOTES.
Vix ea nostra voco.
NOTES.
Note 1, page 1.
" Definitiones in jure sunt periculosa."
Law Maxim.
Note 2, page 5.
(c Cervantes' serious air." Pope. If Don Quixote
had been in verse it would have been called a chivalrous
burlesque or mock-heroic poem; but being without
poetical feet, which forms, though not the most essential,
yet a necessary component part or ingredient in our
common idea of poetry, it is no more in strictness and
wholly a poem, than Cervantes, if he had been born
without his natural feet, would have been wholly a man.
fc3* The same might be said of many other celebrated
poems in prose to unlearned ears a contradiction in
terms, of Telemachus, the Castle of Otrauto, Attala,
Tom Jones, Gesner's Idylls, the German Undine of La
Motte Fouque (so happily translated by Mad. de Mon-
104 NOTES.
tolieu), &c. &c. and of the late* work called the " So-
litaire," by the Vicomte d'Arlincourt, which has been la
fureur in Paris for the last six months, and growing so
in London for the latter half of that time.
{Kf> Though to man, as an animal, the head and heart
are more vital and essential than the upper or lower ex-
tremities, yet a child born without hands or feet, how-
ever complete in other respects, would be considered
and described as a monster : so, though, to constitute
poetry, thought and sentiment are much more essential,
and, as it were, vital component parts than that metrical
arrangement of the words and syllables called verse j yet
to common feeling and understanding, a composition
without such metre, however abundant in thought and
sentiment, if it claims to be a poem, should, in my
opinion, be regarded as a sort of monster.
Note 3, page 6.
Vide, infra, note 35, to stanza 7.
Note 4, page 6.
&$ Tasso afterwards, when his noble intellect had been
broken down by vexation, misfortune, and distemper,
adopted the blank verse of Trissino in his poem called
" Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato."
* This was writter/Sept 1821.
NOTES. 105
Note 5, page 8.
Those who have read the collection of sonnets, &c.
by Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco, can have little doubt
of the spirit in which the very objectionable passages in
the Morgante referred to by Sismondi were written. That
collection was republished (after two rare editions in the
15th century, and one in 1520), in 1759, by a certain
Marchese Filippo de Rossi, but without the name of
any printer or place, several of those sonnets being
addressed to Lorenzo de Medici himself. The editor of
that last edition says of Pulci, " Era di carattere assai
bizzarro. Fu esso il primo che, a persuasione del Mag-
nifico, introdusse col suo Morgante, i Romanzi nella
nostra poesia, cantando, ad imitazione degli antichi
rapsodi, ai conviti del suo Mecenate," and, of both the
authors, " La maggior gloria per altro di quei due poeti,
oltre la piacevolezza satirica, si e la purita della nostra
lingua, ond 'essi sono annoverati tra i padri della Toscana
favella."
Note 6, page 9.
From such differences of opinion between Pulci's
countrymen and foreigners, one might be tempted to
say, that to have a proper taste for the beauties of his
work, his readers ought to have been born and bred on
the banks of the Arno, as it was said that no one could
be expected to relish the black broth of Sparta but such
as had bathed in the Eurotas.
106 NOTES.
Note 7, page 14.
Alas ! I am afraid there are still readers, not only in
our own country but in Italy itself, who consider Ariosto
in no other light than that of a sort of poetical buffoon,
who has strung together in pleasing rhymes a great
number of merry and diverting, though absurd and ex-
travagant, stories ; persons who would be ready to
concur in the well-known apostrophe addressed to the
poet, by his illiberal, ungenerous, and tasteless patron,
the Cardinal D'Este.
Note 8, page 16.
Why is it necessary to adopt the invidious and too com-
mon practice of weighing the transcendent talents of those
matchless poets in opposite, and as it were contending
scales ? Reader ! if you have already had the delight of
perusing the last productions of Lord Byron's Muse*,
how must you have admired those exquisitely beautiful
and affecting portraitures of Ariosto and Tasso which
conclude the 3d Canto of the " Prophecy of Dante."
We there see them contrasted without such invidious
comparison, or depreciation of the one to exalt the other ;
and characterized in numbers**, style, and sentiment, so
wonderfully Dantesque, that mastering our uncongenial
language, and habitual modes of thought as well as ex-
Written May, 1821.
Terzette.
NOTES. 107
pression they seem to have been inspired by the very
genius of the " inarrivabile" Dante himself.
Kf- Vincenzo Monti, in his <e Rivoluzione Francese, Vi-
sione alia Dantesca", republished in this country by Mr.
Mathias, and dedicated by him to the late Mr. Perceval, is
among the most successful of the Italian imitators of Dante's
manner. He is said to have aimed in that poem at uniting
the vigour of Dante's style with the harmonious sweetness
of Ariosto. Monti has since become distinguished equally
by the versatility of his talents and of his politics. One
of his numerous works best known with us is his trans-
lation of the Iliad, first published at a time when he
hardly denied his almost total ignorance of the Greek ;
a circumstance which gave rise to the following epigram
he had then lately been made a knight by Napoleon :
" Ewiva Cincio Monti, cavaliero,
Gran traduttor dei traduttor' d'Omero!"
One of the earliest, and, I believe, scarcest editions
of the Gerusalemme, printed at Lyons in 1581, appresso
Alessandro Marsilij, in l6mo. published by Angelo
Ingegneri, and dedicated by him to Charles Emanuel,
Duke of Savoy (a copy whereof I possess, and which
now lies before me), contains at the beginning of the
dedication so affecting a picture of the miserable state
in which the unfortunate Torquato, after his escape from
Urbino, arrived at the gates of Turin, that I hope I
shall be pardoned for inserting it here.
" Serenissimo Signore, due anni e mezzo fa, quand' il
108 NOTES.
povero Signer Torquato Tasso, portato dalla sua strana
maninconia, si condusse sin alle porte di Torino, onde,
per non haver fede di sanita, venne ributtatoj fui
quegl'io, che ritornando dalla Messa udita a Padri Ca-
puccini, lui incontrato introdussi nella citta : fatte prima
capaci le guardie delle nobile qualita sue; lequali (come
ch'ei fusse male all'ordine, e pedone) non pero afFatto
si nascondevano sotto a si bassa fortuna."
I have had my copy of that edition ever since the
year 1769 : long before Serassi's Life of Tasso appeared,
and I had never then heard or read of the fact disclosed
by that remarkable dedication, except in that original
copy. The melancholy anecdote has been since in-
corporated into the body of Serassi's work, and the
words of Ingegneri quoted verbatim in one of his notes.
But methinks that when one reads them in the very
form and manner in which they may have first met the
eyes of many of the contemporaries of Tasso, they make
a different and deeper impression than when so tran-
scribed. Whenever I have had occasion to turn to them
there I have felt it scarcely possible to abstain from
tears
" E' se non piangi di che pianger suoli !"
The first entire edition of the Gerusalemme was printed
in Venice, 1580, in 4to. There were no less than seven
editions in 1581, five of them in 4to, one in 12mo, and
the one I have mentioned in l6mo ; and of that in 12mo,
there were no less than 1300 copies taken off.
NOTES. 109
Note 9, page 17-
In one of the prefaces, or prolegomena, to the edition
I have now before me, and considered, I understand, as
the best (in two volumes 4to. 1750, from the celebrated
press of Francesco Moiicke), there is this just and laconic
praise of the Malmantile. " Libro ottimo per apprendere
le maniere e modi di dire della lingua Fiorentina."
Note JO, page 21.
In my copy it is announced in the title page as
" Poema Piacevole," a rash anticipation inethinks of
the opinion of the reader !
Note 11, page 22.
Viz. in 1787-93, being the date of the second edition
of Tiraboschi's work.
Note 12, page 22.
There has been since an edition in the series of
Milan classics in 1804.
Note 13, page 23.
*3 The pithy conciseness of our language, and espe-
cially of Pope's style, of which Swift (no diffuse writer
himself!) has so emphatically said,
" For Pope can in one couplet fix
" More sense than I can do in six,"
had particularly struck that most distinguished perhaps,
110 NOTES.
after Voltaire, among the modern French poets. He
was therefore disagreeably surprised to meet with a lax
superfluity of words in a translation into English verse
of his poem of the " Gardens." Having fallen in com-
pany with this celebrated genius, before his emigration
to this country, at a public dinner at the Hotel de Ville
of Paris, when the ill-fated M. Bailly had the misfortune
of presiding there as M aire, or chief municipal officer, in
the autumn of 1791, Delille happened to say to me that
he had never heard of any English version of that poem,
on which I told him that I knew there was one, though
I had never read it, but that I would endeavour to pro-
cure and send it him as soon as I returned to England.
I accordingly did so, and he acknowledged the receipt
and perusal of it by a letter, from which as a literary
curiosity I here insert an extract.
" J'avais essaye d'atteindre la precision de Pope dans
ces vers sur les rochers embellis par des plantations
' Cachez, ou decouvrez, variez a la fois,
Les bois paries rochers, les rochers paries bois;'
mais ces deux vers se tronvent tellement delayes par ce
I fear one cannot say " p.,!' <*|ut/'(uova" here, though Homer
does, when speaking of Nireus as the most beautiful of the Greeks
after the not very blameless P elides :
" N'JJEV;, o; xXX5-TO{ cnrif J/TO I"XK> ifxS'f,
TiaTt a'xXiuv ArevauJy jUtr' (i^xjuoya n>jXsiu;va."
II. Lib. II. v. 673-4.
But a/^J/u.wv must, I suppose, be construed in that place in a ge-
neral sense, " excellent."
NOTES. 1 1 1
traducteur dans une langue si superieure a la notre par
la precision, qu'en les lisant, ' voila un Anglais/ ai-je
dit, ' qui met de 1'eau dans mon punch.' "
Note 14, page 26.
Of this sort is the charming description of " La
Mollesse" (imperfectly rendered into English by " In-
dolence") at the end of the second canto of the Lutrin,
the last line of which particularly " Soupire, etend les
bras, ferme 1'oei], et s'endort" has been always so justly
admired. Yet even in that instance I feel the objection
I have stated, to the appearance of " Night" as a bustling
agent in the business of the poem.
Boileau himself seems to have thought, at the end of
his work, that the introduction of the heathen goddess
Themis, to wind up his story, and conclude it with a
compliment to his friend, the first President Lamoignon,
would have a better effect than if he had adhered to the
general plan of his machinery, by employing the abstract
virtue Justice to perform that part.
Note 15, page 27.
Dell' Origine, progressi, e stato attuale d'Ogni Let-
teratura, dall' Abate Giovanni Andres, 4to. vol. ii. page
456, &c.
I should find it difficult to say whether I have been
more provoked or amused by this author's absurd ana-
lysis of those two celebrated works of Pope, the Rape
of the Lock, and the Epistle of Heloisa to Abelard.
112 NOTES.
Note 16, page 28.
BJ- Vide in Spence's Anecdotes (page 60) a carious
account of a conversation with Dryden concerning his
Macflecno, from which it would seem he imagined
there was some analogy between that poem and the
Secchia Rapita and Lutrin.
Note 1 7, poge 28.
Voltaire farther called Hudibras " le livre le plus
intraduisible ;" yet Mr. J. Towneley, an English gentle-
man who had been long in the French service, having
successfully rendered parts of it into French verse of
eight syllables without hem'stich, was encouraged at lust
to execute the whole j and accordingly h^s entire trans-
lation was printed and published, with the original, in
London, in 1757, by the Abbe J. T. Needham. This
French translation had become a great curiosity, and
extremely scarce, when the bookseller Jombert of Paris
undertook a republication of it about three years ago,
to which I was a subscriber, and which I afterwards
saw placarded in large characters in all the streets of
that city when I was there iu 1820-1. Mr. Towneley
said modestly, in his short preface, that he had not
dared to offer to the public what Voltaire had declared
to be impracticable, with any other view than to assist
those foreigners who were desirous of forming some idea
of the peculiar characteristics of this singular perform-
ance. It has been observed that the French version, ex-
cept in a very few instances, is as concise as the original
NOTES. 113
English. I am also possessed of a translation of Hudi-
bras into German., printed at Riga, in 1787; and it may
afford amusement to English readers acquainted with
those two foreign languages, to compare part of the
portrait drawn by Butler of his hero, as rendered in the
one and the other.
French.
" Son aspect etait, trait pour trait,
D'un preux chevalier le portrait,
Dont le fier genou, de sa vie,
Ne plia qu'a chevaleriej
Qui jamais qu'ww coup n'endura
Qui son epaule decora ;
A bon droit la flour de la clique
Soit errante, soit domestique;
Grand sur les banes, grand a cheval ;
Sur tous deux d'un merite egal
Brillaient son coeur et sa cervelle
A juger, ou vider querelle;
Et fut renomme pour ses faits
Pendant la guerre comme en paix j
(Ainsi certain rat amphibie
Dans 1'air ou 1'eau trouve sa vie,)
Mais ici doute maint auteur
S'il cut plus d' esprit, ou de coeur ;
C'est disputer et faire glose,
En verite, sur peu de chose ;
L'esprit ne passait, c'est certain,
La valeur que d'un demi-grainj
i 2
114 NOTES.
Ce qui fit passer pour manie
L'eclat dont brillait son genie,
Et qu'on le prit (tranchons le mot)
Pour 1'outil des fripons, un sot ;" &c.
German.
" Sein Ansehn war voll Drang und Kraft,
Ein wahrer Spiegel der Ritterschaft ;
Der nie gebeugt sein steifes Knie
Vor etwas anders, als Chevalerie,
Und keinen ander Schlag vertrug,
Als den der ihn zum Ritter schlug ;
Ein Konig aller irrenden Ritter
Und Friedensrichter ; ein wahrer Z witter
Vom Helden in Turnier und Streit,
Und Weisen in Urtheil und Bescheid ;
Gleich gross auf seiner Richterbank,
Und wenn er auf sein Ross sich schwang j
Krieg oder Friede gait ihm gleicb,
So wie die Wassermaus zugleich
In Scheunen wohnt und auch im Teich.
Viel uns'rer Autor'n zweifeln zwar
Ob er mehr klug, oder tapfer war.
Der eine halt dies, der andre das ;
Doch all' ihr Zank ist wol nur Spass,
Den hochstens iiberwog sein Him
Die Wuth ein halbes Gerstenkorn.
Viel hieiten ihn fur ein Werkzeug gar
Das Schelme brauchen, und heisst ein Nar," &c.
NOTES. 115
Note 18, page 29.
Erasmus, from the Greek 'EpoHrpiOf, was not even a
translation of that great man's name, by which, if he
were now quoted, nobody would know who was meant.*
ft^> To refer to a much more modern instance, how
few of the readers of Metastasio are aware that his real
name was Trapassi^
Note 19, page 31.
Most of the considerable offices at the court or under
the government of Rome require, to be duly executed,
an acquaintance with the canon and civil law, and, ac-
cordingly, most of those who hold them have studied
those branches of learning. They are generally made
prelates or monsignori, though often not ordained
priests, so that it remains competent for them to
renounce the ecclesiastical character, to marry, and to
hold situations incompatible with the priesthood. Many
cardinals continue in that predicament. This, I be-
lieve, is the case of the present eminent statesman,
and accomplished and amiable gentleman, Cardinal
Gonsalvi, secretary of state to his present holiness,
Pius the Seventh, f
* 65" It would have been difficult to ascertain his Dutch name, as
he is understood to have been the illegitimate, and of course not avowed,
son of a monk.
f 8^ I am told that, since I was at Rome in 1815-16, Cardinal
Gonsalvi has taken priest's orders.
116 NOTES.
Note 20, page 33.
To give the reader of Italian some idea of Forte-
guerri's terzetti, in the manner of Berni, I here insert
the twelve first lines of the 25th capitolo, in the Milan
edition.
" Liborio, il caldo mi rascinga in modo,
Che di grasso, ch' io era a' di passati,
Oggi mi trovo secco, come un chiodo.
Dall' Inferno cred' io, che sien scappati
Questi sciroccbi, tanto sono ardenti,
E tramontani sol sieno pe' Frati,
Che, ancorche involti fra lane roventi,
Van sulla nona, e '1 meriggio piu fitto,
In busca dell' amiche, e de' parenti.
E loro importa poco, che a diritto
Gli piombi il sole in sulla rasa nuca,
Tant' odio han per le lor celle, e despitto."
Note 21, page 35.
" Another of those students at that time
Was there with him (if I have heard a truth
Biron they call him). But a merrier man
Within the limit of becoming mirth
I never spent an hour's talk withal :
His eye begets occasion for his mirth :
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest j
Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
NOTES. 117
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished j
So sweet and voluble is his discourse."
Shakesp. Love's L.'s L. act iL sc. 1
It is observable that " hour," in the fifth line of this
passage, is used by Shakespeare as a dissyllable, as the
monosyllable "fire" also is in the following and other
instances.
f< O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus."
Id. Rich. II. act i. sc. 3.
fc^" It too often happens that persons endowed with the
most agreeable talents for society, are liable to such un-
certainty and inequality of spirits and temper, that their
agreeableness proves very precarious, and renders them
what the French call "journalier." We find from the
following passage in Spence's Anecdotes, that this was
the case with Addison " Addison was rather mute in
society upon some occasions ; but, when he began to be
company, he was full of vivacity, and went on in a noble
stream of thought and language, so as to chain the at-
tention of every one to him." Dr. Young, apud Spence,
Anecd. p. 335. I must remark here, as I shall have
occasion to do again in another place, * what, I think,
must appear to a modern reader a vulgarism in the use
of the word ' ' company" in this passage ; whether attri-
* Infra, note 30, p. 122.
1 1 8 NOTES.
butable, in the present case, to Spence himself, or to
Dr. Young, or whether it may only have become vulgar
since their time, from one of those changes to which
what is considered as polite, especially in colloquial
language, or the familiar style of the lighter sorts of
writing, is so liable. No one who has lived long in the
world can be insensible of those changes, or help re-
marking in the works of some of our purest writers,
even at no very distant period, (as in the Spectator, for
instance,) expressions which are now banished to some
steward's room; to some district far far to the east of
Westminster and Temple-Bar; to the ultimate Thule per-
haps of the United Kingdoms ; or, wafted on the wings of
commerce, across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The
progress of refinement in this respect is particularly re-
markable with regard to the use of words now shunned
as indelicate and indecent, though not so considered
heretofore. Of these how many instances might be
quoted from the most correct and polished works of
Pope himself, though they were written particularly for
the meridian of whatever was distinguished for elegance
and politeness in his days. Whether our morals have
mended with this improvement in our manners is a point
which it is more easy to discuss than to decide. Much
has been, and may be, said on both sides of the question.
For myself, I hope, and, in sooth, am on the whole in-
clined to the opinion that they have : The query in the
following anonymous lines may seem rather to point the
other way.
NOTES. 119
SONNET.
" How language changes with the lapse of years !
* Time was when plain John Bull was not abash' d
Plain words to use, now silenced quite and quash'd,
Lest they should shock our modern eyes or ears.
If now in decent company one hears
Such words escape from lips of clown unwash'd,^
Straightway each modest eye to ground is dash'd,
And on each cheek a crimson blush appears.
It was not so in famed Eliza's times,
Nor even much later under good Queen Ann ;
The nicest then would call a " spade a spade ;"
But now, though more correct our talk and rhymes,
If we the truth with honest candour scan,
Are folks of slips in conduct more afraid?"
* '' Time was, a sober Englishman would knock
His servants up, and rise by five o'clock."
Pope's Im. of Hor. lib. ii. ep. 1, v. 161.
t " Another lean un-wash'd artificer
Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death."
Sh. K. John, act iv. sc. ii. Reed's Ed. vol. x. p. 482.
" The king of late drew forth his sword,
(Thank God 'twas not in wrath)
And made of many a 'squire and lord
An unwasfi'd'Z Knight of Bath."
Swift's Works, Scott's Ed. vol. xiii. p. 358.
^ Qu. why uuwash'il ?
120 NOTES.
Note 22, page 41.
" Who writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains from hard-bound brains six lines a year."
Pope.
Note 23, page 44.
I am happy in this opportunity of declaring my
entire concurrence with the opinion expressed in the
essay here quoted, concerning the two very enter-
taining poems which form the direct subject of the
article referred to in the Quarterly Review, and of
adding, that for the persons as well as talents of their
authors (venturing to guess at the one whose publica-
tion is anonymous), I entertain the highest respect and
esteem.
Note 24, page 48.
The stanza on the reverse of the title-page after the
Introduction, is the first of a set of Ottave Rime, in-
serted at the end of the 3d volume of the Milan edition
of Ricciardetto, (1813), and addressed, by Nicotele
Emonio, (a fictitious name, as pastor of Arcadia), to the
Princess of Forano, who had sent their author a copy
of that poem.
Note 25, argument.
The portrait of the Muse, capricious wench.
Johnson gives " young woman," as the primitive
sense of the word " wench" and quotes for it the fol-
NOTES. 121
lowing passage in Othello, so familiar to all readers of
Shakespeare :
' ' Now how dost look now ? O ill-starr'd "wench /"
And Steevens, for that sense of the word, quotes 2
Samuel, ch. xvii. v. 17,* and a line from Gawin Douglas's
version of the JEneid,
" Audetque viris concurrere virgo."
M. lib. 1. v. 497.
" This wensche stoutley recounter durst with men."
B. 1. v. 832.
Note 26, argument.
And though both he, and she, plain facts should wrench.
" Cyriack, whose grandsire, on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause,
Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench."
Milton, Son. 21.
Note 27, argument.
For me, a mere translator, to retrench
One word from what Ihey tell, were shame and sin.
Those who may have the curiosity to compare this
translation with the original, will no doubt observe how
scrupulously attentive I have been to avoid subjecting
myself to the sin here denounced ; but had they not
better take my word for it ? according to the familiar
French saying, " II vaut mieux croire que d'y aller voir."
* " Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel : for they
might not be seen to come into the city : and a -wench went and told
them : and they went and told king David."
NOTES.
Note 28, stanza ii.
Her hint is now to sing adventures strange.
" Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills, whose heads touch
heaven,
It was my hint to speak."
Shakespeare, Othello.
Note 29, stanza iii.
- To our Arcadia late there came
A bevy bright of strangers from afar;
Poets and orators of mighty name.
This passage manifestly alludes to the set of friends
mentioned in the author's account of the origin of his poem
which I have inserted in the introduction, p. 37 39.
Note 30, stanza iii.
So loving company with them to keep.
Kf~ Let not the indelicate imagination of any reader,
from his too great familiarity with the vulgar tongue,
misinterpret here the words " to keep company," in a
sense inconsistent with the unblemished character of
Forteguerri's Sylvan Muse. Her own solemn protest in
a subsequent stanza, (st. xi.) ought to prevent any such
unwarrantable construction. Indeed I have been sur-
prised to find the Rev. Mr. Speuce, who appears to have
been a man accustomed to live in good society, using the
same expression in the meaning peculiar to the language
of the lowest classes of the people. The passage I allude
NOTES. 123
to in Spence's Anecdotes is as follows: " Prior left
most of his effects to the poor woman he ' kept company
with' his Chloe : every body knows what a wretch she
was. I think she had been a little ale-house keeper's
wife." (Sp. Anecd. p. 49.) He quotes Pope for this
anecdote, and the expression in question may have been
Pope's. Vide supra, Note 20, p. 117.
Note 3 1 , stanza iv.
Or heap of flour perdie.
This word " perdie" is not in my edition of Johnson's
Dictionary, though it occurs not only in Spenser (whom,
however, Johnson often quotes as authority), but also
in a well known epigram of Prior :
" Had this same tale in other guise been told,
Had they been young (perdie) and she been old."
It is in some degree an expletive, like usque in Latin ;
but it also sometimes serves to give a sort of archaic
vigour to an assertion, when used with discretion.
Note 32, stanza v.
Member elect of a blue-stocking tribe,
Nor eer aspired with dandy wits to shine.
The expressions " blue-stocking" and " dandy" may
furnish subject matter for the learning of a commentator
at some future period. At this moment every English
reader will understand them. Our present ephemeral
dandy is akin to the macaroni of my earlier days. The
124 NOTES.
first of those expressions has become classical by Mrs.
Hannah More's poem of the " Bas Bleu," and the other
by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's poems. Though
now become familiar and rather trite, their day may not
be long.
" Cadentque
Quse nunc sunt in honore vocabula."
Note 33, stanza v.
Who think themselves immortal and divine.
" E si stima ciascun nel suo pensiero
Assai piu di Virgilio e piil d'Omero."
Bracciolini, Scherno degli Dei, canto 3, st. 2.
To these formerly belonged,
" The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease."
Pope, Ep. to Aug. v. 8.
Note 34, stanza vi.
And scratch their addle pates, and bite their nails,
When sense or rhyme or proper accent fails.
" Be mindful, when mvention^/azTs,
To scratch your head, and bite your nails."
Swift's Rhapsody on Poetry.
Note 35, stanza vii.
She 's apt to turn to ridicule, and quiz.
The word quiz stands in the same predicament with
NOTES. ] 25
those observed upon in note 32. It is not in Johnson,
nor perhaps in any author of note before the end of the
last century, or the beginning of this j but now it is in
general, and, I may say, fashionable use, both as a verb
and as a noun. " Quizzing," as I understand it, is a
coarser or broader shade of what is called by the French
persiflage, and mystification; also words now very com-
monly used with us in conversation.
KS- The talent or turn for quizzing, like that for
drawing caricatures, or for mimicry, requires to be
vigilantly checked and reined in by a proportionate share
of tact, good nature, and delicacy. Those qualities,
(much more rare than what passes for wit), in union
with wit the most genuine, prompt, and brilliant, I, for
many years of my now alas ! solitary life, had the good
fortune to have opportunities of observing exemplified
almost daily and hourly, in the conversation of some of
my own nearest and dearest connexions. But how often
does the inconsiderate vanity of the professed " diseur
de bons-mots" by a sprightly but indiscreet or ill-timed
joke or epigram on some innocent foible or peculiarity,
incur the risk of forfeiting the good will of perhaps his
most valuable friend. In such cases, however the
joker may abound in wit, the mirth he excites trans-
gresses the becoming limit :
" medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat."
Lucr. lib. iv. 1 126.
126 NOTES.
" Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow,
Which tends to make one worthy man my foe."
If Pope had always acted up to that sentiment, which
his better sense and feelings had inspired, he might
have been spared much of those heart-burnings and
palinodias, or, which often amount to the same thing,
explanations, to which he is said to have exposed
himself. But a still graver consequence is apt to at-
tend the irresistible " pruritus" of quizzing, for those
who are strongly infected with it cannot sometimes
refrain from attempting to turn to jest and ridicule
matters too serious for such frivolous pleasantry,* nay
even such as are required to be held sacred by the most
authoritative sanctions both human and divine.
Note 36, stanza viii.
Then lofty anthems build.
" Who would not weep for Lycidas ? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme."
Milton, Lycidas.
Note 37, stanza x.
In Paris, compass d round, and sorely shent.
Johnson cites not only Spenser and Shakespeare, but
* I take the Greek words y\wd^i.t and ^fvaa-fto; or yXswW/ur/,
to mean " to mystify," and " quizzing'' or " persiflage ;" and an
eminent and judicious author, whose works I have been lately perusing,
makes a personage in his history characterize an indiscreet joker of
whom he was speaking, thus; " Xxtv?ty tiri-^tipti i:pay/jLxl<x ov"x
NOTES. 127
Dryden also for the word " shent ;" and Spenser for the
infinitive " to shend."
" Debateful strife, and cruel enmity,
The famous name of knighthood foully shend."
Note 38, stanza xi.
And, in exchange, to suit his toes and rump,
A doublet gave, and for each foot a pump.
After the authentic picture that Forteguerri has given
us of his merry but rustic and ignorant Muse, we can
hardly suppose that in this account of her father's barter
with the poor goatherd, she could have in view the
similar transaction between Diomed and Glaucus, in the
6th Iliad, where, whatever refining critics or translators
may have said, the meaning seems to me pretty clearly
to be, that honest Glaucus had been sadly outwitted by
Tydides :
*Ev0 OLMTS TXO.VKU) KpoviSyg <ppava,f %\elo Zsuf,
'Of rtpbf TvSelSyv A<&ju,ij#a rsu^e' ajw,eje,
X^uVea %aAxg('wv, Ixars'fifoi sweat? oiuiv.
II. lib. vi. 234, &c.
Which Pope thus renders in six lines,
" Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign'd :
(Jove warm'd his bosom and enlarged his mind:)
For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device,
For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price),
K
128 NOTES.
He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought ;
A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought."
But Cowper, in but four, and conformable to the more
obvious sense of the text, (though not less prosaical),
as follows :
" Then Jove of sober judgment so bereft
Infatuate Glaucus, that with Tydeus' son
He barter 'd gold for brass ; an hundred beeves
In value, for the value small of nine." * 03"
t^ It is quite curious to observe what a stumbling block
this passage in the Iliad has been to the various trans-
lators and expositors of Homer, both ancient and modern.
Those who have found it impossible to reconcile the idea
of Glaucus having been cheated by Diomed, (according
to the indisputable sense of the words " tppsvas e%e\elo "
on other occasions,) with the common sense they would
ascribe to the one, and the liberality they suppose must
have belonged to the other ; instead of resorting to the
unsatisfactory and far-fetched paraphrase cited from
Porphyry by Eustathius, or the vague meaning sug-
gested (inter altos) by a late French translator, (Roche-
fort), and still more recently by Heyne, would find
great relief, I imagine, in adopting the opinion of the
last, and one of the most learned and ingenious English
$$ In the second edition there are but three lines, and the words
that puzzled so much are rendered by " Jove so blinded Glaucus"
surely not substantially differing from the former, though in the note
the strained mitigation of the sense quoted from Porphyry is ap-
proved of.
NOTES. 129
critics on Homer I am acquainted with, who unhesi-
tatingly says, " HCBC de armorum commutatione a rhap-
sodo ignobili et inficeto plane project a sunt."
It might be surmised that the frolicsome maiden had
heard something of this so often quoted adventure,
whether of Homeric or ignoble and supposititious au-
thority, from some of those wits whom she had lately
met with at her friend Forteguerri's villa, according to
what he says in the third stanza. Be that as it may,
considering the value she must have set upon the work
of the great Garbolin, she cannot but have felt how in-
finitely it exceeded that of the pair of pumps (so called
in the language of the gods, but in that of mortal men
only brogues fit calceament for such simple lout) with
which her father had cunningly purchased it from the
illiterate goatherd.
Note 39, stanza xii.
When, marshalling numerous hosts and gatherings.
" Gathering" is an expression used in the Highlands
of Scotland for the meeting under arms of the men of a
Clan on the summons of their Chieftain.
Note 40, stanza xii.
" (But nameless now.)"
The original is,
" Ch'or non voglio dire."
Thus,
" I quali ora nomar non fa mestiere."
Ariosto.
130 NOTES.
Note 41, stanza xiii.
But fancy-free, through woods and tvilds I rove.
" But the imperial vot'ress passed on
In maiden ineditation^yancy^/ree."
Shakespeare.
Wieland has translated literally the words " maiden
meditation" in his poem called " Liebe um Liebe."
" Ueber den ebnen griinen rauin
In stillenjung^rdulichen gedanken
Das holdes madchen vorubergieng."
4B.
Note 42, stanza xiii.
My withers are unwrung.
" Let the gall'd jade wince,
Our withers are unwrung."
Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Note 43, stanza xv.
The Scncc,Jell king of Cqfria, had a son.
Scricca is the name in the original, and if the mono-
syllable should appear harsh to an English ear, let me
justify myself in the use of it by the example of Du-
mourier, the French imitator of Ricciardetto.
" Scric, roi de Caffre, avoit un certain fils."
In my opinion, the sound on this occasion adds to the
burlesque drollery and mock dignity of the poetry.
NOTES. 131
Note 44, stanza xv.
He took from him a deadly stab in petto.
" Which from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt."
Shakespeare, As you like it.
" In petto" is an expression like the word "inamo-
rato," which occurs afterwards in stanza 55 j both have
been long in a manner naturalized in our language,
though " in petto" is seldom used in English in its literal
sense.
Note 45, stanza xvi.
With eyes bright sparkling like two brilliant stars.
Comparisons innumerable of the eyes of a beautiful
woman to the sun and stars, might be accumulated from
old Homer down to the poets of our own days. Ariosto
says of Alcina's,
" Sotto duo negri, e sottilissimi archi,
Son duo negri occhi, anzi duo chiari soli."
Orl. Fur. c. 7. st. 12.
Such comparisons must have been in use ever since the
days of Adam and Eve. Adam must have seen united
in the eyes of his Eve, more lovely than the loveliest
of her daughters, all the beauty of all the constella-
tions of heaven,
" Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye"
Par. Lost, b. 8. v. 488.
Note 4fi, stan/a xviii.
Bulasso, scepter d chief of Negroland.
" Moloch, scepter'd king." Milton.
132 NOTES.
Note 47, stanza xviii.
A club, as rafter thick and long.
II. lib. 6. v. 141.
- Sternentes agmina clava.
^n. lib. x. v. 318.
The words here in the original are,
" Ed ha una mazza piu che trave grossa j
E, scotendola avanti a la Regina,
Dice : " Questa ha da far la medicina."
Note 48, stanza xix.
- And all were heathens rank.
" So" (as the commentators on Shakespeare express
themselves) in the popular Catch written, I guess, by an
Englishman, *
* %$ My dear South Britons (for you are dear to me in the
aggregate, and many among you are personally so, who have survived
those nearest and most dear), forgive the petulancy of this remark ;
and you, ye Americans, descendants of the ancient British stock,
though not always over-partial to your Cis-atlantic cousins, forgive me
if I have seemed disposed to quiz your frequent use, uncouth and
unvernacular, of the verb " to guess." I own I love my native
country, I cannot love the man who does not love liis : I love my
native shire, my native parish, the silver stream near to whose verdant
banks I first drew breath ; but I also love and admire old England.
What other country can boast such military and naval skill and
prowess as England can in her Marlboroughs, her Nelsons, and her
Wellingtons ; such powers of intellect as she can in her Bacons, her
Newtons, and her Shakespeares !
NOTES. 133
" The first he was an Irishman,
The second was a Scot;
The third he was a Welshman,
And all were knaves I tvot."
Note 49, stanza xx.
Of horsemen, girding girths and pointing spears.
This line was meant to bear some allusion to the fol-
lowing passage of Homer :
Ey |,y fig Sopv v)%o(,<rQw, eo J'aeTr/Ja &e<rfla;,
Eo $s fig fwouriv Ssl-ffvov SoTca (axwrto$<r<riv,
Eo $e Tig appaT* apfis iu)x, oroXf/xoJo psSsfQw.
II. lib. ii. v. 382, &c.
Imitated by Milton,
" Let each
His adamantine coat gird well, and each
Fit well his helm, gripe fast his orbed shield."
Par. Lost, b. ii. v. 54 J.
Forteguerri's line is,
" Chi raggiusta le selle, e chi gli elmetti."
Note 50, stanza xx.
And that by Macon's aid.
" Macon," or " Macone," is a name frequently used
by the Italian romance poets for " Mahomet."
Note 51, stanzas xxi. ii.
fc^" There seems to me very considerable beauty in the
134 NOTES.
original of these two stanzas. The author, familiar as he
was with the Greek and Latin Classics, had probably
in his mind, when he composed them, Homer's account
of the occupations of the companions in arms of Achilles
during that hero's secession from the Grecian army;
Aaol SI, Tfapd p^ypvi 0aAatr<njf,
AicTKOunv lepirovlo, &c. &c.
II. lib. 2. \. 773, et seq.
As well as Virgil's description of the pastimes of the
Blessed in the shades of Elysium ;
" Pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris," &c.
JEn. lib. 6. v. 642, et seq.
but I am afraid there is little reason to think that Forte-
guerri could ever have read even in Rolli's very in-
adequate translation, which was first printed, and then
only in London, in 1735, the very year when our author
died the celebrated passage in the Paradise Lost, where
Milton, to say the least, falls nothing short of those his
two great prototypes, in relating the manner in which he
feigns the fallen spirits to have employed their time while
their leader was engaged in his desperate enterprise
against our first parents.
" Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley sing," &c.
Par. Lost, b. 2. v. 541, et seq.
NOTES. Io5
Note 52, stanza xxiii.
Great Charles alone sat sorrowing at the tale
Of brave Orlando's wondrous strong insanity.
The masterly account of Orlando's madness the reader
will find in the Orlando Furioso, canto 24, stanza 25.
Note 53, stanza xxv.
This King of men,
" AVaij dvSpwv A y yajw.eju.vwv."
Horn.
Note 54, stanza xxv. xxvi.
Or Richardet to have alive or dead,
Who gave his dear and only son to death.
Many examples might be adduced both from Italian
and English Poets, where the sense is thus carried on
from one stanza to another. To admit the frequent use
of this licence, as I think it may be called, would cer-
tainly have a bad effect, as a similar enjambement has,
(to use the French term) when in rhyming distichs the
sense is too often made to begin in one, and carried on
to a full stop in the middle of the following line, or,
which is still more analogous to the present instance,
where the sense of the last line of a distich is carried on
in like manner to the middle or end of the first of the
next. It is indeed true, that when this sort of enjambe-
ment never or extremely rarely occurs in works of any
considerable length, that sort of monotony is produced
136 NOTES.
which is so generally objected to in Pope's versification.
But as, after all, rhyme in the same manner as the
measure of every sort of verse, must be intended, in
some degree, to be perceived (otherwise why write in
rhyme or poetical measure?) the ear may be said to be
disappointed when, in order to give a real or supposed
due effect to the sense, that intention, though professed
by the very form of the composition, is, as it were,
studiously defeated. Therefore, as a general proposi-
tion, this ought to be avoided, unless when the manifest
advantage of harmony and variety, or that of fixing the
attention to some obviously emphatic pause in the sense,
more than counterbalances such disappointment. In
verse like that of the Fairy Queen, the Minstrel, the Castle
of Indolence, and Childe Harold, * the last line of every
stanza being an Alexandrine, this enjambement seems
more productive of that sort of disappointment to the
ear, than where there is no such change of the measure
in the moment of passing from one stanza to the other $
besides which, the full completion of the thought, by the
winding of it up in the Alexandrine, is one of the most
striking beauties belonging to that sort of verse. Still,
however, every one must feel the good effect of some-
times breaking the continually returning uniformity even
of such stanzas, by sacrificing what, if they are con-
sidered separately, seems in a manner essential to their
perfect construction. The French in their distichs much
* J5" This is by no means intended to imply disapprobation of
any of the instances occurring in the three beautiful modern poem
here mentioned.
NOTES. 137
more frequently than any of our poets carry the sense
on from the last line of one distich to the end of the first
of the other, so as to begin a new subject with the
second line of that other distich.* This, I imagine,
they do the more to fix the attention to that change of
subject. The sense in the last line of the 25th stanza,
to which this note applies, is carried on in the first line
of the 26th stanza, quite to the end of that line. In a
subsequent stanza (33) the enjambement stops in the
middle of a line, and these are the only two instances,
I believe, in which I have resorted to the licence which
I have been endeavouring to explain. But though I
have here tried to express what I believe most readers
of poetry feel with regard to those niceties in versifica-
tion, the good taste of the poet must guide him in the
use he may make of them, as well as of every deviation
from the more ordinary practice; and the good taste of
his readers must decide whether the effect justifies such
deviation.
- * The following examples will illustrate what is here meant :
" Telle est de ce poeme et la force et la grace.
" D'un ton un peu plus haut, mais pourtant sans audace,
" La plaintive elegie, en longs habits de deuil,
" Sait, les cheveux epars, gemir sur un cercueiL"
Boileau, L'Art. Poet. c. 2, v. 36.
" II faut que le comr seul parle dans 1'elegie.
*' L'ode avec plus d'eclat, et non moins d'energie,
" Elevant jusqu'au ciel son vol ambitieux,
" Entretient dans ses vers commerce avec les Dieux."
Boileau, ib. v. 56.
138 NOTES.
Note 55, stanza xxvi.
Charles mildly answer d, &c.
*^" The renowned Charlemagne " the brave, the
good, the sage," who, according to Garbolin, had
begun his reply to the Cafrian Herald so " mildly,"
" Augusto in volto, (I suppose) ed in sermon decoro,"
works himself up to so violent a passion before he
concludes it, as absolutely to degenerate into a mauvais
plaisant, and vulgar quizzer j affording a very poor
specimen of imperial wit. The anticipated caricature
he indulges in, of the ladies of his court making merry
with the hideous figures of their pagan invaders, is very
different from that interesting scene where honest
Homer introduces Helen on the walls of Troy, describ-
ing to Priam, her worthy and second father, (for as such
she considered him, ('Exu^oj $s -ffalyp ws OJTHOJ die}*), the
several most distinguished heroes and leaders of the be-
sieging army.f
Note 56, stanza xxvi.
And sent him whence no travellers return.
" That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns."
Shakespeare, Hamlet.
* Iliad, lib. 24, v. 770.
f Iliad, lib. S, v 160, et seq.
NOTES. 139
Note 57, stanza xxx.
Stitt tried with asking eye.
" Explain the asking eye."
Pope, Epil. to Satires.
Note 58, stanza xxx.
To get some inkling of the Count at last.
By the Italian poets who have written on the fa-
bulous history of Charlemagne and his Paladins, Orlando
(in our English romances, and one of our most familiar
proverbs, Rowland) is often called il Conte de Montal-
bano, as Astolfo is represented as prince of England.
Vide stanza 44.
Note 59, stanza xxxii.
So prick'd they on that road.
" A gentle knight was pricking on the plain."
Spenser, F. Q.
Note 60, stanza xxxiii.
Blaspheming as they foil!
Vide note 54, stanza 25 6.
Note 61, stanza xxxiv.
Crying, " Dear lordings ! from her glorious bowers
" My lady greets you with these beauteous flowers."
" To lordings proud I tune my lay,
Who feast in bower or hall,
Though dukes they be, to dukes I say,
That pride will have a fall."
Swift's Works.
140 NOTES.
Note 62, stanza xxxv.
-Or change her name."
An expression very familiar with young ladies for
marrying.
Note 63, stanza xxxvi.
And having smooth'd his frill.
The word " frill" is not to be found in Johnson, but it is
now daily in the mouths of all persons of all ranks for what
is otherwise called the ' ' breast ruffle of a man's shirt."
I am told by some of my female friends, that it also ex-
tends to appendages of the same sort attached to any
part of dress ; as the "frill of a ruff, of a tucker, shirt
collar," &c.
* C3- The reader will observe that the traditional
character of Astolfo is that of a coxcomb, boastful but
handsome, brave but good-natured, easily captivated
and inflamed, and with a fribblish attention to his dress
sometimes a quizzer, but more often quizzed. Such is
his portrait handed down from Boiardo, Berni, Ariosto,
&c., and by all those poets he is feigned to be Prince of
England, as Zerbino the exaggerated but interesting
male beauty, is called the Prince of Scotland. From
Zerbino, " zerbinare" has now become a familiar ex-
pression in Italy for flirting} as zerbino is used for a
male flirt, both in conversation and writing.
NOTES. 141
Note 64, stanza xxxvii.
That take the ravish'd ear with strange delight.
tf The song was partial, but the harmony
Suspended hell, and took ivith ravishment
The thronging audience."
Par. Lost, B. 2. v. 552.
Note 65, stanza xxxvii.
They all are fair, &c.
'Pera S 1 oioiyvwlvi itzX&1a.i, KaXdi 8s Is ifa<rai.
Odyss. lib. vi. v. 108.
Note 66, stanza xxxvii.
Their mistress, in the midst, excels as Jar
The rest, as Luna doth the meanest star.
Vehtt inter ignes
Luna minores.
Hor. lib. l.Od. 12.
K3~ " Ma di tutte Alcina era piu bella
Si come e' bello il sol piu d'ogni stella."
Ariost. O. F.
Note 67, stanza xxxix. xl.
Adord and dear,
Thou, holy Freedom, art, &c.
The more serious address to Freedom in the first of
these two stanzas seems so little in unison with the
continuation of it in the next, that I have sometimes
thought it must have been one of those fc purpurcl panni'
142 NOTES.
which poets amuse themselves in composing, and keep
by them, ready to be incorporated, on any accidental
occasion that may occur, into some work for which they
may not have been at first particularly designed. Such
it has always appeared to me must have been the case
with the famous speech oiJaqnes, on the different stages
of human life, in " As you like it :" and there are many
other admired passages in Shakespeare's plays, of the
same sort, which, in getting some of them up, as it is
called, for representation, have frequently been transferred
into those prepared for acting, from their original places.
The following beautiful verses on marriage, from Vol-
taire's, comedy of the " Enfant Prodigue," might, in
like manner, with very little alteration, be introduced
into any other play where the subject of marriage is to
be mentioned.
" A mon avis, 1'hymen, et ses liens,
Sont les plus grands, ou des maux ou des biens :
Point de milieu j 1'etat du mariage
Est des humains le plus cher avantage,
Quand le rapport des esprits et des coeurs,
Des sentimens, des gouts, et des humeurs,
Serre ces noeuds tissus par la nature,
Que 1'amour forme, et que 1'honneur epure.
Dieux ! quel plaisir d' aimer publiquement;
Et de porter le nom de son amant !
Votre maison, vos gens, votre livree,
Tout vous retrace une image adoreej
Et vos enfans, ces gages precieux,
Nes de 1'amour, en sont de nouveaux noeuds.
NOTES. 143
Un tel hymen, une union si chere,
Si Ton en voit, c'est le ciel sur la terre !
Mais tristement vendre, par un contrat,
Sa liberte, son noin, et son etat,
Aux volontes A'vn maitre desootique,
Dont on devient le premier domestique ;
Se quereller ou s'eviter le jour;
Sans joie a table, et la nuit sans amour j
Trembler toujours d'avoir une faiblesse,
Y succomber, ou combattre sans cesse ;
Tromper son maitre, ou vivre sans espoir,
Dans les langueurs d'un importun devoir;
Gemir, secher dans sa douleur profonde;
Un tel hymen est 1'enfer de ce monde !"
Of these very popular lines, the following imitation
has been attempted.
In my opinion, Hymen and his laws
Of pains and pleasures are the sovereign cause j
That state no medium knows. To every wife
Marriage is bliss, or wretchedness for life.
When head and heart in unison we see,
When tempers, tastes, and sentiments agree,
The precious knot to fasten and secure,
Which Nature form'd, and honour render'd pure,
Gods ! unrestrain'd, how charming to make known
Your love for him, whose name is now your own ;
Your very house, your servants, liveries, all
Still that dear object to your thoughts recal;
144 NOTES.
But chief your darling offspring, born to prove
New ties and tender pledges of your love ;
Oh ! such an union, if to mortals given,
Is a sure foretaste of the joys of heaven !
But by a sordid contract, seal'd and sign'd,
To be made over, bargain'd, sold, assign' d,
To a despotic master's ruthless will ;
His upper, but most abject servant still ;
To quarrel daily, or to shun his sight j
Joyless at meals, at morn, at noon, at night j
Fearful to some forbidden love to yield,
Or still to combat with a flame conceal'd ;
Your tyrant cheat, or without hope sustain
Cold duty's dull indissoluble chain j
To languish and to pine in ceaseless woe j
Oh ! this were torture worse than hell's to know !
Note 68, stanza xli.
But moved smooth sliding, without step, along.
Smooth sliding without step.
Par. Lost, B. 8. v. 302.
Note 69, stanza xli.
Biting his lips, Astolphus thus began.
The original is
" Con tal viso,
" Che Astolfo i labbri per stupor si morse"
" Ambo le mani per dolor mi morsi"
Dante Inferno, C. 33. v. 58.
NOTES. 145
Note 70, stanza xli.
Oh face ! Oh voice ! Ok grace ! Oh matchless maid !
This line was meant to resemble in its character, ex-
pressive of sudden agitation and passion, though not in
the particular sense of the words, the following verses of
Theocritus and Virgil :
Theo. Id. 2. v. 82.
Utf vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error !
Virg. Eel. 8. v. 41.
Note 71, stanza xlii.
Whoso to sport tvith hound and hawk delights,
Herejinds of hawk and hound a peerless brood.
3=* Similar transpositions to this, of the relative situa-
tion of the same words on a repetition of them, are much
affected by Metastasio. The following instance has just
occurred to me :
Giusti Dei che riposate
Placidissimi sull' etra,
La mia Fille e la mia cetra
Deh! serbate
Per pieta.
L 2
11C NOTES.
Fili poi la Parca avara
I mici di mill' anni, e mille
La mia cetra e la mia Fille
Sempre cara
A me sara.
Is this kind of prettiness a beauty or a blemish ?
Note 72, stanza xlv.
Her damsels slily smile with looks astute.
This word " astute" is of very common use in the
forensic language of the English bar, but I question if it
has been yet fully naturalized with us beyond that pale.
The French have " astuce" and I think I have heard
" astucieux*" though it is not in the Dictionary of the
Academy : the Italians have " astuto" and " astuzia"
Perhaps " shrewd" has pretty nearly the same sense;
but, alas ! it would not rhyme with " mute"
Note 73, stanza xlviii.
That men her "wifely love would oft compare
With Artemisia's, so much prized and quoted.
" $9Jcri $' aTToflaxstnjf, Sid ffv9o$ IS avfy o;." Strabo,
lib. 14. Suidas in " Artemisia," Cic. Tusc. Q. 3.
(d 1 * " Astucicusement." See Mad de StaeTs Posthumous Works,
vol. L p. 294. The words and style of that truly extraordinary
genius will, I am persuaded, be cited by future French Academicians
as of classical authority if that learned lody should ever condescend
to adopt the plan of the Academia della Crusca, so much better than
their own, and of our Johnson himself a host.
NOTES. 147
Note 74, stanza xlix.
Now driving out one morning in the coach.
One of the significations Dr. Johnson gives of the verb
" to ride" is " to travel in a vehicle," but perhaps the
examples he cites do not very distinctly bear him out. At
any rate, according to modern usage at least, I should
have been justly taxable with teaching Stella vulgar En-
glish, if I had made her talk of herself and her mother
" riding in a coach."
Note 75, stanza Ivi.
Soon cleans'd his bosom of the perilous stuft
That weigh'd upon his heart.
" And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart ?"
Shakespeare, Macbeth.
Note 76, stanza Ivi.
The cure was somewhat rough.
Like the mystical strain by which the Druids in Mason's
Caractacus proposed,
' ' To penetrate, to purge, to purify,
The yet unhallowed bosom" of that hero.
148 NOTES.
Note 77, stanza Ivi.
And wakes his comrades tway.
" And Gyon's angry blade so fierce did play,
That quite it clove its plumed crest in tway"
Spenser.
Note 78, stanza Ivii.
And sioell'd by curing you their grand amount.
" Grand Total" (or Grand Amount) is an expression
more in the style of arithmetical than of poetical numbers,
as this verse may prove. It is in very familiar use with
financial politicians of whatever party, and often ex-
hilarates their sanguine disciples, who have a wonderful
proneness to give implicit faith to the irrefragable results
with which it is calculated to gratify them. The follow-
ing may illustrate its application :
Grand Total . . 000,000,000,000
Extract from Finance Rep. 18 , or 19 .
Note 79, stanza Iviii.
Bold as my cousin grim, great Arcibaldo.
lot yever/s Is, xa* ai^alo; sv^Qfjidi swat."
" Douglas stood,
And with stern eye the pageant view'd :
I mean that Douglas, sixth of yore
Who coronet of Angus bore,
And, when his blood and heart were high,
King James's minions led to die
NOTES. 1-1-9
On Lauder's dreary flat :
Princes and favourites long grew taine,
And trembled at the homely name
Of Archibald BeU-the-Cat."
I hope I shall be pardoned for having mentioned in
this place the Scottish chieftain and hero, Archibald
Douglas, the Vlth* Earl of Angus of his name and family,
and one of the most eminent warriors in the history of
Scotland; often distinguished in that history by the
different appellations of " Archibald the Great Earl of
Angus" and Archibald Bell-the-Cat ; which last name
he obtained by reference to the well-known fable, on
offering himself (and he performed what he offered) * *
personally to impeach and cause to be seized the fa-
vourite and obnoxious servants of James the Third, in
that monarch's presence. He is among the principal
personages in the poem of Marmion, whose author seems,
in many of his works, to have taken delight in referring
to the chivalrous renown of that house j and who has
* Or, according to some, the Vth.
* * $3' See the account of that memorable transaction in David
Hume of Godscroft's History of the House and Race of Douglas
and Angus, a work, in my judgment, far superior to the common
class of family histories ; and which, though sometimes loaded with
unnecessary and tedious or irrelevant digressions and discussions, con-
tains passages of narrative and portraits worthy of Clarendon himself;
yet the author, a near relation of the Angus family, lived chiefly in
Scotland or France, and wrote soon after the accession of James I. to
the crown of England. He wrote also occasionally much Latin and
English poetry, published in Paris and London, under the name of
Theagrius.
150 NOTES.
therefore, independent of his transcendent talents, a
particular claim to the admiration and gratitude of all
who bear the name of Douglas.
Ks" I have, like Sir Walter Scott, applied the epithet
'' grim" to this hero,
" Huge boned, and tall, and grim, and gaunt,"
though in the history of Scotland that is the distinguishing
description of another Archibald (Earl of Douglas) an
early ancestor of his. Archibald Douglas, the grandson
of Bell-the-cat , and his successor in the title of Earl of
Angus (his father, George, having fallen at Flodden field
before his grandfather's death), married Margaret, widow
of James IV. of Scotland, and sister to Henry VIII., by
whom he had only one child, Lady Margaret Douglas,
who was the mother of Lord Darnly, grandmother of
James I. of England, and direct lineal ancestor of our
present sovereigns of the house of Hanover.
In another passage of the same poem, like honourable
homage is paid to the memory of Gawin Douglas, one
of the sons of that Archibald, and well-known to all
conversant with the history of English poetry, by his
celebrated translation of the Eneid :
" A bishop by the altar stood,
A noble lord of Douglas blood,
With mitre sheen, and rocquet white :
Yet shew'd his meek and thoughtful eye
But little pride of prelacy ;
More pleas'd that, in a barbarous age,
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page,
NOTES. 151
Than that beneath his rule he held
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld."
Note 80, stanza lix.
-Or else in Utopia,
Which lies between that realm and Ethiopia.
If any of my readers should be disposed to question
the relative situation which Forteguerri's Muse has here
assigned to Utopia, that fertile and interesting portion
of Terra Incognita, in consequence of the poet's too can-
did surmise of her false steps in geography; in stanza 4,
I beg leave to refer him to Bushing's Erdbeschrdbung,
T. 10. p. 112.
Note 81, stanza Ixii.
The monstrous tvorm, &c.
' ' O ! Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear
To that false 'worm"
Milton's P. L. B. 9. v. 1067-8.
Note 82, stanza Ixiv.
In kitchen phrase of scullion Jr dicks brags.
Aristoph. 'litie^s- v. 216.
Note 83, stanza Ixiv.
Mine host observes his love o/"butter'd toast.
The fashionable English innkeepers, whose accom-
plished daughters learn to draw, sing, play, and speak
152 NOTES.
what they call French,* and even Italian, would not
reckon the love of buttered toast any great sign of
gentility, though it is a favourite English regale, and an
Italian Anglomane may very well be supposed to consider
it as a dainty. * *
There is an anecdote of a well-known representative
of this country in Italy some sixty or seventy years ago,
who having invited an Englishman to dinner with a
number of British travellers, but who had no acquaint-
ance of that visitor, a question arose, after he retired,
concerning him, and to what class of society he might
belong ; upon which the diplomate observed, that he had
no particular means of knowing who he was, but that he
must have been accustomed to good company, since he
eat grated cheese with his soup.
* fc^> French like that of the Prioress in the Prologue to the Can-
terbury Tales :
" And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford at the Bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe."
v. 124, &c.
* * 5 The sarcasm here cannot affect many worthy individuals,
whose respectable conduct in their calling affords the traveller in
England conveniencies and comforts to be met with in no other
country ; nor their sons and daughters, on whom many of them may
have been able, from their fortunes, honourably acquired, to bestow
an education, particularly in languages, both becoming and orna-
mental, and often useful to persons in their situation of life.
NOTES. 153
Note 84, stanza Ixxvi.
With this, he catches up a piece of d stick.
" And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a-stick."
Hudibras.
Note 85, stanza Ixxvi.
And hits him on the nob.
I do not find this ignoble but familiar word " nob" in
Johnson's Dictionary ; Kf But is it not the same with
knob?
Note 86, stanza Ixxxi.
In Babylonish slang.
K3* In Hudibras the Babylonish dialect is described to
be " what learned pedants much affect." How the giant
Traggea could have become acquainted with that par-
ticular dialect, or slang, Garbolin hath no where recorded ;
but undoubtedly the jocular urbanity of his expressions
here, savour very much of those we every now and then
meet with in the polite lucubrations of some of the most
eminent among the writers of the " Notae Variorum."
Be this however as it may, our refined and courtly Paladin
of France seems to have been willing to show that he
was up to giving, in language, as well as in fighting,
to Nera's two body guards, what would be called in
the dialect in question, " as good as they brought;"
and even Garbolin himself (for in such instances Forte-
154 NOTES.
guerri's delicate Muse must be taken to have been merely
an humble and faithful repeater of her author's original
text in the vulgar tongue*) appears, when he speaks in
propria persona, to have thought it a fit compliment to
that hero, to try his own hand a little in the same style.
The word " slang" is not in Johnson. It meant
originally the cant or enigmatical language of thieves
and jail-birds, serving them as a sort of spoken cypher,^
and corresponding to the words " argot" in French, and
" gergo" in Italian ; and in that sense there must be, I
should imagine, some equivalent term in all languages.
But " slang" seems to me to have come of late into
more general use with us, as synonymous to " jargon"
or " gibberish."
None 87, stanza Ixxxi.
Traggea hurls huge stone with hasty hand.
- " 'O $s yjc^Utdhov Xoi^t %<'
TvSslfys, jw-eya ephvl"
II. Lib. 5. v. 302.
" Saxum antiquuin, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat
Ille manu raptum trepida torquebat in hostem."
. 12. 897.
* Vide stanza xi.
" And set it forth in Vulgar and in Latin."
J- Si direbbe ch' io 1' insegnassi di favellare in " gergo," ovvero
in " cifera" Delia Casa, Galatea.
NOTES. 155
Note 88, stanza Ixxxii.
Then headlong grunts, and dies like loathsome siaine.
" To grunt and sweat under a weary life."
Shakespeare.
See the learned notes upon the use of the word
" grunt" in Hamlet's famous soliloquy, by Johnson,
Steevens, and Malone. The modern reading is " groan,"
which sounds better to our refined ears ; but those
eminent commentators have decided, upon the authority
of various quotations from their author and other old
poets, in favour of the more homely term j and which,
at any rate, suits my purpose better.
Note 89, stanza Ixxxiii.
Thunder' d his voice! as lightning flash" d his eye !
I know not if the nominative in this manner after a
neutral verb is to be considered as an allowable figure of
grammar, or is warranted by any very good recent au-
thority.* I think I recollect that there are various in-
* jf^- Since the above was written, I have met with such an
authority in a poem, the name of whose author I must not suggest, as
it does not appear in the title-page ; yet I will venture to say, that the
reader must be a " blockhead'" indeed who does " not know him by
his style." The lines I allude to are,
" Their leader sang and bounded to her song
With choral Step and voice, the virgin throng."
156 NOTES.
stances of the use of it by Pope, particularly in his Homer,
and by other poets of former though modem times, but
I cannot at present specify any of them. By placing the
main idea foremost in the phrase, it appears to me to
produce a good effect here and in a subsequent line in
Stanza XC. " Shrieks the foul fiend," &c.
Note 90, stanza Ixxxiii.
Falchion "which never yet its object miss'd.
3" Falchion is one of the many words in our language
almost peculiar to poetry. In such poetical words the
Italian and German, and, I believe, the other branches
of the Latin and Teutonic stems also abound, whereas
the French is extremely poor in this respect ; a dis-
advantage of which their own poets are very sensible,
greater effort thereby becoming necessary to raise their
poetical style above prose. The following four lines
were often quoted to me by Dr. Beattie, as being, in
point of lofty and harmonious diction, superior to any
thing else he knew in English rhyme. I believe he also
Observe an instance of the same sort in the passage quoted from the
French Hudibras (supra, p. 113):
" Grand sur les banes, grand a cheval :
Sur tous deux, d'un merite egal,
Brillaient son coeur et sa cervelle."
I think similar examples are very common in French verse, especi-
ally of the Marotique or antique, and burlesque sort. Vide La Fon-
taine passim.
NOTES. 157
mentions them with that commendation in some of his
critical works.
" Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire,
And all the godhead seem'd to glow with fire ;
Even the ground glitter'd where ihejalchion flew,
And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue."
Dryden's Knight's Tale from Chaucer.
Note 91, stanza Ixxxvi.
Loose florid the soft redundance of her hair.
Shenstone's Works, Elegy 15.
Note 92, stanza Ixxxviii.
Dart forth a sulphurous jlame, and smoke abhorred.
Sa bouche se remplit d'un poison odieux,
Et de longs traits de feu lui sortent par les yeux.
Lutrin, 1. v. 44.
Note 93, stanza xc.
Shrieks the foul fiend, &c.
Supra, note 89, p. 155.
Note 94, stanza xciii.
Giving, " in good set terms," the knight his meed.
" A fool, a fool ! I meet a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool ; a miserable world !
158 NOTES.
As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd at lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool."
Shakespeare, As you like it.
Note 95, stanza xciv.
That once again in France unchristian war-is-seen,
And Paris close besieged by heath' nish Sd-ra-cen.
In this sort of triple rhyme, the two last syllables are
supernumerary ; and where the verse is in our ordinary
heroic decasyllabic iambic measure, they render the last,
or fifth foot., instead of being an accented iambus, like
" success," " resent," &c. that sort of compound foot of
four syllables, in which the second is long in Greek and
Latin, and accented in our language, and the other three
short, or non-accented, which foot I believe is called by
the prosodaists " the second poeon" (-tid,n-tx>dr-is-seen};
for instance, like the Latin word " resolvere," which
compound foot is of course resolvable into an iambus
and pyrrhichius. This therefore gives to the three last
syllables the effect of a dactyl, as " Saracen" resembles
in this respect " solvSre." When such three syllables
consist in part or entirely of monosyllabic words, as
" war-is-seen" in the first of the two lines above, they
sound harsh to the ear if any one but the second of those
monosyllables requires from its nature to be pronounced
(as " seen" does in that line) with some degree of exer-
NOTES. 159
tion or emphasis, which, in our ordinary versification,
would render it analogous to a long syllable in Greek
and Latin. It was to show my sense of this harshness
that, in stanza 95, I introduced the line
" Mark how she hobbles now when she would prance."
Yet when such lines are employed with discretion, and
with a view to particular effect, especially in rhyme, they
are sometimes very amusing. Witness the general po-
pularity of the two following lines in one of Lord Byron's
poems :
" But, Oh ! ye lords of ladies in-tellectudl,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd-you-all?"*
I may also cite these of Swift when speaking of his
deafness, and which I quote from memory : (They be-
long to the eight- syllable iambic measure) :
" For both my ears were fellow sufferers,
Which made my grandame al-ivdys stuff" her ears."
And in the same piece,
" To t' other ear I found it coming on,
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon."
And these of Butler, in the same last-mentioned kind of
verse :
" There was an ancient sage philosopher
That had read Alexander Ross over."
* Here the 5th foot is analogous to " risolvtre"
M
160 NOTES.
Our dodecasyllabics, such as the two lines to which
this note refers, terminating with the second peon, or a
dactyl, whether in rhyme or blank verse, (differing en-
tirely from our regular dodecasyllabic iambics or Alex-
andrines), correspond exactly to the versi sdruccioli of
the Italians ; whereas their regular heroic measure, con-
sisting (strictly) of five iambic feet with an additional
eleventh unaccented syllable, resembles as exactly our
ordinary decasyllabics when they have the addition of
one supernumerary or eleventh unaccented syllable. Of
this, instances are very common in the blank verse of
our tragedies, and occur sometimes in Milton ; I doubt if
at all in Thomson's Seasons : often in Dryden's rhymes :
scarcely ever in Pope, unless when he means to give a
burlesque turn to his verse, as in the two following
distichs :
" Whether the goddess sinner it, or saint-it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint-it."
" Worth makes the man, and want of it
The rest is all but leather and prunella."
Here is an instance from the Paradise Lost :
-" What time his pride
Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspir-ing
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equall'd the Most High."
Shakespeare seems, in a few of his plays, particularly
NOTES. 161
in Henry VIII., to have studied to make use of this
supernumerary or eleventh syllable. Of this a very
striking example occurs in the beautiful soliloquy of
Wolsey, which, consisting of twenty-two lines, has but
five of those that are not hendecasyllables :
So farewell to the little good you bear-me !
Farewell ! a long farewell to all my great-ness.
This is the state of man j to-day he puts-forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blos-soms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon-him :
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, ( 1 ) .
And when he thinks, good easy man, full sure-ly
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root, (2)
And then he falls, as I do. I have ven-tur'd,
Like little wanton boys that swim on blad-ders,
These many summers in a sea of glo-ryj
But far beyond my depth ! my high blown pride (3)
At length broke under me, and now has left-me,
Weary and old with service, to the mer-cy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide-me.
Vain pomp and glory of the world ! I hate-ye !
I feel my heart new open'd. O ! how wret-ched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' fa-vours !
There is betwixt the smile he would aspire-to,
The sweet aspect of princes, and his ru-in,
More pangs and fears than war or woman know j (4)
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, (5)
Never to hope again.
M 2
162 NOTES.
I have also been reminded that such lines occur in
almost every page of Beaumont and Fletcher.
In several of the lines just cited, as well as in the two
before taken from Pope, the monosyllables (pronouns,
and other particles), being to be pronounced without em-
phasis, have the effect, to the ear, of those called enclitic
in Greek and Latin grammar ; as, " bear-me," " puts-
forth," " upon-him," " left-me," " hide-me," " hate-
ye," " aspire-to," (Shakespeare) ; " saint-it," " paint-
it," (Pope) ; like " Tojotrfe," " 'O^e" " A%a<cyj>7e,"
" Tpwwvle," in Greek ; "tecum," " vobiscum," " tuus-
que," in Latin ; " parlerotti," " meco," in Italian ;
" precarella," " haberos," in Spanish; " vendome,"
" passouse," in Portuguese. If we consider the words
" day, he," in the third line of Wolsey's soliloquy, as
one diphthongal syllable, * that line is only decasyllabic ;
and, indeed, the words " put forth," at the end of the
line, are, I believe, most naturally read as an iambus
* 55- This is always (or almost always) the case where two, or even
three vowels, though in distinct words, concur in this manner in Italian
verse, as " se e il," in the first line of the Gerusalemme,
" Canto 1'arme pieto | se e il | capitano,"
and not unfrequently in English, as in " glo | ry a 1 bove" in the
abovementioned line of Milton.
" To set himself in glo | ry a ] bove his peers,"
And in " the eas | tern" in the following,
*' Now mom her rosy steps in | the eas | tern clime."
Par. Lost, b. v. v. 1.
This mode of writing, or scanning, without elision, has become much
more common of late than with our older poets.
NOTES. 163
(or spondee perhaps), and with less stress on " put"
than on " forth," which last word, in this view, ought
not to be considered as a supernumerary syllable.
The versi sdruccioli of the Italians are never, or
scarcely ever, used in their graver poetry, or mixed with
their hendecasyllables but for the purposes of ridicule
or burlesque. Here is an example of three sdruccioli
taken from the Arcadia of Sannazaro.
" Solca nell' onde, e nell' arene semina,
E tenta i vaghi venti in rete accogliere,
Chi fonda sue speranze in cor di femmina."
Ariosto had the fancy of writing most of his comedies
in versi sdruccioli (they are also sciolti, or without
rhyme) ; but their monotonous effect has prevented sub-
sequent Italian dramatic writers from adopting that
practice.
Goldoni, not finding such sdruccioli measure success-
ful or popular, tried some of his comedies in lines of
fourteen syllables, or versi Martelliani, so called from
one Martelli having written in that measure. Here is a
specimen from his Filosofo Inglese.
Ecco i stampati fogli che il padron mio vi manda
I solid foglietti, di Parigi, e d'Olanda,
II Mercurio galante, che fa tanto rumore,
Ed il corrente foglio del nostro Spettatore.
It will be observed that these versi Martelliani, though
consisting of an equal number of syllables with those of
161 NOTES.
some of our old poets, are of a different construction ;
for the English are divisible into two verses, the first of
eight, the second of six syllables j those of Goldoni into
two equal divisions of seven syllables each, the seventh
and fourteenth syllables being always unaccented.
Here are four (strange sounding) lines from Phaer's
Virgil :
Then first the cruel fear me caught, and sore my spirits*
appall'd,
And on my father dear I thought, his face to mind I
call'd,
When slain with grisly wound our king, him like of age
in sight,
Lay gasping dead ; and of my wife Creuse bethought
the plight.
03- Chapman's entire translation of Homer's Iliad, a
work of a very different character from Phaer's Virgil, is
in the same fourteen syllable measure (which by an error
in the press, I suppose, is called in VVarton's History,
vol. iii. p. 397, Isted. " fourteen-foot ed.") Pope says of
it, " that its defects are covered by a daring fiery spirit
that animates his translation, which is something like
what one might imagine Homer himself to have writ
(written) before he arrived at years of discretion." I
copy from Wharton the concluding part of his translation
of the sublime passage concerning Diomed, at the be-
ginning of the 5th Iliad,
* Used as one syllable, like sprites.
NOTES. 165
And then the God began
To drive his chariot through the waves. From whirl-
pools every way
The whales exulted under him, and knew their king:
the sea
For joy did open, and his horse so swift and lightly flew,
The under axeltree of brasse no drop of water drew.
Wharton's Hist, of Eng. Post. vol. iii. p. 444.
These lines might perhaps bear a comparison with
those describing the armour of Mars by Dryden, quoted,
supra, p. 157. They resemble also the only sublime
lines perhaps in Sternhold and Hopkins's version of the
Psalms, which are in the same seven-footed iambics,
though generally printed with each line divided into two.
They are by Sternhold
The Lord descended from above
And bow'd the heavens high ;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.
On cherubs and on cherubims
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad.
Psalm XVIII. v. 9, 10.
I believe many English readers, and most of those
Italians who understand our language, are ignorant of
the complete similarity of the measure of our heroic verse
to that of the Italian, when we employ the eleventh, of
166 NOTES.
supernumerary syllable. It may therefore be of some use
to show that similarity, by comparing together the first
stanza of Tasso, and a literal translation of it in the same
measure, (though not in ottava rima.)
" Canto | 1'arme | pieto | -se e il ca | -pita-no
Che il gran sepolcro libero di Cris-to,
Molto egli opro col senno e con la ma-no,
Molto soffri nel glorioso acquis-to.
E in van 1* Inferno a lui si oppose, e in va-no
S'armo d'Asia, e di Libia il popol mis-to j
Che il Ciel gli die favore, e sotto a i san-ti,
Segni, ridusst i suoi compagni erran-ti."
Englished verbatim.
I sing | the pi j ous ar | mies and | the cap-taiu
Who the great sepulchre of Christ deli-ver'd j
Much he achiev'd by wisdom and by prow-ess,
Much suffer' d in the glorious acquisi-tion j
And Hell in vain oppos'd him, and in vain-too
Was arm'd of Asia and Lybia, the mixt peo-ple ;
For Heaven gave favour to him, and to his ho-ly
Ensigns submitted his companions er-rant.
I need not say that this translation has no other pre-
tence or purpose, but to establish what I have just stated.
Opposed to the verso sdrucciolo is the verso tronco,
which exactly answers to our usual verse, since it ends
with an iambus, or has the last syllable accented, which
in general is the case with ours.
I say, in general, because our best poets sometimes
NOTES. ] 67
conclude a line of only the regular number of ten, or,
as the case may be, of eight syllables, with a polysyllable,
the two last syllables of which have not the accent (or
the acute accent) ; and there too, when sparingly used,
they produce a graceful variety, especially in blank verse.
" That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."
Milton, Par. Lost.
" Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tale,
And younger hearings are quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse."
Shakespeare, Love's Labour Lost.
" Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage :
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness."
Shakespeare, Mids. N.'s Dream.
" And in the modesty of fearful duty,
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence."
Shakespeare, Ibid.
1 ' ' Sleep, gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
168 NOTES.
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses iii forgetfulness!"
Shakespeare, Hen. IV.
" In the first rank of these did Zimri stand :
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome."
Dryden, Abs. and Achit.
" Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence."
Pope, Essay on Man.
" O ! thou, whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Draper, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver."
Pope, Dunciad.
The following is an example in our eight syllable
iambics :
" Who neither heed, nor hear, nor see,
But at the nod of Vanity."
Advice to Julia.
^ I have indulged in quoting here these numerous
examples on account of the beauty of most of them : I
doubt if some of the commentators on Shakespeare (too
wordy sometimes) could plead the same excuse. But both
Homer and Pindar warn me to stop. The former says,
" ndvlcoy ply Kopof er" " all things are liable to sa-
tiety ;" and the other, " 'AXAa yap dvaMauns E'v i(a.v\\
yXuxeTa epyw, xopw $' Zysi Ka j^eAi/' &c. " to pause is
always agreeable, for things most sweet will cloy" and
NOTES. 169
Mictlii nks I now seem to hear the learned reader ex-
claim here, " Ohe! jam satis !" ""AA<$ 2rw Twv ffafa-
Jejy^aVtuv *," " a truce at length to quotations."
Here also the three last syllables have the effect, to our
ears, of a dactyl, like that of the two final dactyls in
" Maecenas, atavis edzte Regzbus."
In general the versi tronchi, like the sdruccioli, are
only used by the Italians, mixed with their regular hen-
decasyllables, for the same burlesque purpose for which,
as in the lines above quoted from Butler, Swift, and
Lord Byron, triple rhymes are employed in our language.
Take as an example the 79th stanza of the first canto of
our Ricciardetto :
" E legge a carte settecento e tre
Tutto questo negozio come staj
E che legare la Fata si de',
E darle fuoco senza aver pieta :
E le ceneri poi portar con se,
E in lunga lista spargerle cola
Dove la cagna e il cervo in su e in giu
Vanno correndo, accio vi passin su."
Pulci, Ariosto, and others, make now and then whole
stanzas (like that just taken from Forteguerri), and at
other times their concluding couplets or distich s, of versi
tronchi, and sometimes also of versi sdruccioli. There
is not, I believe, a single instance of the one or the other
* Scriptor supra cit. note 35, p. 126'.
170 NOTES.
licence in that most perfect work the Gerusalemme Li-
berata j but which, in respect of its too strict versifica-
tion, is often thought by the Italians, as Pope's verses
are by many of us, to be wanting in variety.
I learned from the very scholarlike and respectable
editor of the late beautiful and patriotic edition of the
Portuguese Lusiad, printed by Didot, at Paris, that versi
sdruccioli are frequently used in that language in the
most serious and solemn poetry : and to exemplify this,
he mentioned to me the following admired stanza, being
the 39th of the 5th canto of the Lusiad, in which the
second, fourth, and sixth verses are sdruccioli. *
" Nad acabava, quando huina figura,
Se nos mostro no ar, robusta e vali-da,
De disforme e grandissima estatura,
O rosto carregado, a barba esquali-da :
Os olhos encovados e a postura
Medonha e ma, e a cor terrena e palli-da,
Cheios de terra, e crespos os cabellos,
A boca negra, os denies amarellos."
* jf$- Here is also an instance of versi tronchi in the Lusiad.
Canto i. stanza xiv ;
" Logo os Dalmatas vivem, e no seio,
Onde Antenor ja muros levantow,
A soberba Veneza esta no meio
Das aguas, que tao baixa comeou.
Da terra hum bra$o vem ao mar, que cheio
De esfor9O na$6es varias sujeitow ,
Branco forte de gente sublimada,
Nad menos nos engenhos, que na espada."
NOTES. 171
The same, I believe, is true with regard to Spanish
poetry. A friend, most familiarly acquainted with all
good literature, and particularly so with that of Spain, has
pointed out to me the following stanza with three sdruc-
cioli (endruxili) lines, in Lope de Vega's long poem on
the life and death of Mary, Queen of Scots :
" i Que noche no me llama imagen fiera
(La apretada cerviz, cardeno lino)
Mi esposa, que por ti venganza espera
De mi rigor y su cruel martyrio ?
Pues Judith se llamaba, Judith fuera,
Y yo el dormido Capitan Assyrio,
O para no igualar la de Betulia,
Escocesa Judith, Romana Tulia."
Corona Trag. Lib. 3.
The same friend observes, that, in this, and in another
stanza he has shown me of the same poem, the eleventh
and twelfth syllables of the sdruccioli lines are formed
of two vowels, which in any other part of a line would
be counted only as one diphthong. Sdruccioli of that
sort are very common in Italian.
Qu : An instance of sdruccioli in Spanish not formed
of that sort of diphthongal composition 3 for, if the ter-
minations here quoted, and all those similar to them, are
to be considered as diphthongs still, the verses are hen-
decasyllables, and not sdruccioli ?
The German tragedies of Schiller, of Lessing, of
Schlegel the successful translator of Shakespeare, &c.
are in exactly the same measure with our decasyllabics.
172 NOTES.
Before the great revolution produced in their versifica-
tion by Klopstock, the most general heroic verse in
German was on a like model with the French Alexan-
drines, having the constant pause in the middle, that is,
at the end of the sixth syllable, or of the first hemistich,
and the alternation of masculine with something corre-
sponding to the French feminine rhymes.
I believe in all French verse there must be either an
alternation of distichs which are denominated feminine
and masculine, or of masculine and feminine lines inter-
mixed in an irregular manner, but preserving always
corresponding rhymes of each sort.* Every feminine line
has a syllable more at the end than the corresponding
masculine verse, formed by what is called a feminine,
and sometimes, though improperly, the mute "e" or
"es."t Their heroic, or most solemn sort of verses,
correspond, when masculine, in the number of syllables,
with our Alexandrines, with this difference however,
that theirs necessarily consist of two half lines or hemi-
stichs, the first always of six syllables, the last of which
six must be formed of the last syllable of some entire
word, so that the first of the next hemistich, of course,
is the beginning of another word. The feminine verse
must be formed in the same way, except that the
second hemistich must consist of seven syllables; the
first hemistich, as in the masculine, being of six. Those
* Infra, p. 138.
j- It requires much practice to read French verse so as to give the
effect of a syllable to the feminine " e," without articulating it distinctly
in*the manner of the natives of the south of France.
NOTES. 173
long verses, whether masculine or feminine, are called,
by the French, Alexandrines.
IO- No species of French verse is governed, I under-
stand, by any regular arrangement of accents or atten-
tion to the position of them ; it is therefore loosely or
ignorantly stated in some of their prosodies that the
French language has no accent. No dissyllable or poly-
syllable is pronounced, or, according to usual and distinct
articulation, can be pronounced, without a particular
stress of the voice or utterance on one of the syllables,
which is what on this point is meant by accent.
For lighter poetry the French more generally use verses
of ten and eleven syllables, that is, the masculine of ten,
and the feminine of eleven ; and these in like manner are
always divided into hemistichs ; their first hemistich
being of four and the other of six, when masculine, and
of seven when feminine. This strict mechanism is never
dispensed with ; so that each line, whether Alexandrine
or of the shorter sort, might be written as two lines,
making a distich appear as a quatrain, with only the
second and fourth lines rhyming together. Let us take
the following passage of the Lutrin as a specimen of
their Alexandrine, and the subsequent passage from Du-
mourier's* imitation in French verse of Ricciardetto, as
* He was the father of General Dumourier, and is said to have
written his abridged imitation of Ricciardetto after he was eighty
years of age: the son mentions it in his Memoirs. It has been
often reprinted in France, but, I believe, is hitherto little known in
England.
174 NOTES.
one of their ten and eleven syllable verse; and which
last instance will also serve as a good sample of the
manner of that very entertaining imitator of the Italian
of Forteguerri.
From the Lutrin.
" Ses Chanoines vermeils, et brillans de sante,
S'engraissoient d'une longue et sainte oisivete.
Sans sortir de leurs lits plus doux que leurs hermines
Ces pieux faiueans faisoient chanter Matines;
Veilloient a bien diner, et laissoient en leur lieu
A des Chantres gages le soin de loiier Dieu."
From the French Richardet.
" Comme tu dis, c'est une bagatelle,
Repond Renaud. Le projet est badin.
Tu me crois done de France un Paladin ?
A dire vrai, Thistoire m'epouvantej
Le plus souvent inon ombre me fait peur ;
Je crains sur-tout cette race geante,
Et cette nuit je mourrai de frayeur.
Mon bon ami, pour rassurer mon ame
II me faudra coucher avec ta femme.
Plutot cent fois, dit 1'Hote avec fureur,
A belles dents j'arracherois ton coeur;
Et, le croyant poltron comme il s'annonce,
D'un coup brutal assortit sa reponse.
NOTES. 175
I
Le Paladin, qui de rage palit,
D'un bras nerveux par un pied le saisit,
Et vous lui fait en 1'air faire une ronde,
Comme un Berger qui balance sa fronde.
Toute sa vie il en resta poussif,
L'Hotesse en pleurs, crie, et demande grace,
Le bon Renaud s'en tient a la menace,
Et devant elle il jette le chetif,
Ne sachant plus s'il etoit mort ou vif."
The first masculine and feminine lines of the passage
from Boileau might be written thus :
Masculine ( Ses Cha | noines | vermeils,
verse. ( Et brillans de sante.
Feminine f Sans sortir de leurs lits,
verse. ( Plus doux que leurs hermines, &c.
And the two first from the French Richardet as follows :
Feminine ( Comme | tu dis,
verse. ( C'est un | e ba | gatelle,
Masculine ( Renaud | repond,
verse. \ Le pro | jet est | badin.
Drayton's Poly-Olbion is written entirely in Alex-
andrines, differing in nothing from the French, except
that in his there could be no feminine rhymes or alternate
couplets necessarily of thirteen syllables ; the following
is a specimen :
N
17G NOTES.
" Thus scarcely said the Muse, but hovering wliile she
hung
Upon the Celtic wastes, the sea-nymph loudly sung,
O ! ever happy isles ! your heads so high that rear,
By nature strongly fenc'd, which never need to fear
On Neptune's wat'ry realms when Eolus raiseth wars,
And every billow bounds, as though to quench the stars."
1 Song.
3" Sometimes the ancient trimeter iambics, when they
happen to be divisible, like the French Alexandrines,
and those just quoted from Drayton, that is, when the
last syllable of the third foot is a monosyllable, or the
end of a word, resemble completely those Alexandrines ;
and if the last syllables of the first and second hemistich
rhyme together, they resemble English rhyming distichs
of six syllables. Thus the ancient proverbial trimeter,
which, I believe, has been applied to Demosthenes, and
which seems to be the original of the English well known
lines, generally thought to be, but which, I believe, are
not in Hudibras :
o (pew/cuv xai -jraXiv pa%ir)<rs1a.i."
The man who runs away will fight another day.
The common proverbial lines are,
The man who fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day.
The Alexandrines just mentioned agree entirely with
those at the end of Spenser's stanzas, and such as are
NOTES. 177
frequently mixed witli the ordinary ten syllable verses of
Dryden, &c., and sometimes, but much more rarely, with
Pope's. Here is one famous instance, however, in which
Pope so happily exemplifies the triplets which Dryden
delighted to terminate with one of his sonorous Alexan-
drines :
te Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."
Imit. of Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. 1.
Though the hemistich is not essential to our Alexan-
drine, it is generally studied by the poets, and as it were
expected by the reader.
Mr. Lamb, in his late spirited attempt to render into
English the wonderful poem of Atys, has mixed with
the Alexandrines of Dray ton the measure of fourteen
syllables, with a pause after the eighth, of which specimens
have been given above from Phaer's Virgil and Chapman's
Homer Thus :
" Borne swiftly o'er the seas to Phrygia's woody strand,
Atys with rapid haste infuriate leap'd to land ;
Where high-inwoven groves in solemn darkness meet,
Rush'd to the mighty deity's remote and awful seat."
The two ensuing quotations from Opitz and Haller,
prove the exact similarity of the German Alexandrines
to the French.
" Was eine Schlacht erheischt, wo Sturm und Anlauff gut,
Wo Hinterhalt must stehn, wo Wacht vonnbthen thut,
N 2
178 NOTES.
Und was der Sachen mehr, bist selber angegangen,
Behertzt und ungebiickt hast nie entfarbt die Wangen,
Die Augen nie verkehrt; zviar, durch Verstand und
Rath,
Ein Feldherr, aber auch durch Fechten ein Soldat"*
Opitz.
" Ein Kind ist noch ein Kraut das an der Stange klebt,
Nicht von sich selbst besteht, und nur durch andre lebt.
Darauf, wannnachund nach seinDenken wird seineigen,
Und Witz und Bosheit sich durch starkers Werkzeug
zeigen,
Wachst Geitz undEhrsucht schon, noch weil ein kinder-
spiel,
Ein Ball und schneller Reif, ist seiner Wunsche ZieL"
Haller.
* ftS" These lines of Opitz, the great patriarch of the old, or per-
haps I ought to say middle, f school of German poetry, were long
ago pointed out to me as a good specimen of his style. How nearly
does the last part of them resemble what I now transcribe from the
Greek author I have quoted in two former notes (35, p. 126*, and 95,
p. 169*). " 'Hvyap B juovov <A faltiyo; dyreSoj aXXa xal iroXi/xidrif x1a
X%* yEvvaio;." I do not think it very probable that Opitz was in this
case a mere imitator or translator; but if any friend of his had stumbled
on these words as I have done, and pointed them out to him, might he
not naturally have exclaimed by another but voluntary plagiarism
" Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt ?"
f Milton was born 1608, and died 1674. Dryden 1631, and
died 1700. Vondel, the great seicentista poet of the Dutch, was
born so early as 1587> but did not die till 1679. Opitz was bom
1597, died 1639.
NOTES. 179
And here are two specimens of German decasyllabics
and hendecasyllabics. The first is an extract from
Schlegel's translation of the passage quoted above from
Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
" O drey mal selig die, des Bluts Beherr-scher,
So jungfrauliche Pilgerschaft bestehn !
Doch die gepfliickte Ros'ist irrdischer begluckt
Als die, am unberiihrten Dome welkend,
Wachst, lebt, und stirbt ib heil'ger Einsamkeitj"
Except that the third line is an Alexandrine in the old
' form,
" Doch die gepfliickte Ros' ist irrdischer begluckt,"
which mixture I think not uncommon in German trage-
dies. An English ear cannot but be very much struck
with the consonance between those verses and their
original.
The next is from Schiller's Maria Stuart, of which the
French translation (but greatly altered from the original)
had so great a run at Paris last spring (1820).
" Ich stehe an dem Rand der Ewigkeit,
Bald soil ich treten vor den hbchsten Rich-ter,
Und noch hab ich den Heil'gen nicht versohnt."
Lastly, here are four hexameters (the prevailing mea-
sure now in German) from the Messias of Klopstock :
180 NOTES.
" Schonster der Tage, du sollst vor alien kiinftigen Tagen
Festlichundheiliguns seyn, dich soil vor deinen Gefahrten,
Kelirst du wider zuriick, die Seele des Menschen, der
Seraph,
Und der Cherub, beym Aufgang und Untergange, be-
griissen !"
*3~ The attempt to adapt the Greek and Latin mea-
sures to the modern languages was made on the revival of
letters in this country, as well as in Italy, France, and,
I believe, in all the western part of Europe. But it
was soon found advisable to relinquish a scheme so in-
compatible with the genius of those languages. Whether
the experiment was then made in Germany I do not im-
mediately recollect. I think it was : but if tried in that
country, it must also have been soon abandoned. As to
English, Pope's opinion is very decided,
" And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet !"*
I am unqualified to pronounce any opinion on its
right applicability to the rich and energetic language
which, in its ruder state, formed the basis of our own.
But, in fact, it has established or re-established itself,
from Hamburg to Vienna, for now about half a century ;
and all I must venture to say is, that I cannot reconcile
my ear to it, though not unused to German poetry. Much
less can I wish to see it revived in England, notwith-
standing the former and very recent efforts of the author
Imiu of Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. 1.
NOTES. 181
(but I think fortunately in our honest, and in a manner
prescriptive Iambic decasyllabics), of that most masterly
poem, Roderick the Last of the Goths.
Nothing can sound more ridiculously burlesque than the
seriously intended hexameters of Stanyhurst's monstrous
version of the four first books of Virgil, though now this
precious fragment is so much regretted on account of its
rarity. Mr. Southey, in his very curious selection of
hexameters in modern languages, subjoined to his Vision
of Judgment, has given an adequate sample of that
absurd or rather mad monstrosity. Here are the six
last lines of his extract :
Three showrs wringlye wrythen glimmring, and forciblye
scweiug,
Thre watrye clowds shymning to the craft they rampired
hizzing,
Three whern's nerd glystring, with south winds rufflered
huffling.
Now doe they rayse gastly lightenings, now grisyle re-
boundings
Of ruffe raffe roaring, mens harts with terror agrysing,
With peale meale ramping, with thwich thwack sturdie
thundering.
Vision of Judgt. p. 72.
How much does Mr. Pope's attempt at roughness in
our tame heroic measure of five Iambuses fall short of
this " ruffe raffe roaring, thwick thwack thundering," of
182 NOTES.
the native of that country which was afterwards to pro-
duce a Swift, a Parnell, a Goldsmith, and a Moore :
" Or like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,
With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse,
Rend with tremendous sounds our ears asunder,
Of guns, drums, trumpets, blunderbuss, and thunder."
Pope.
I think the best English hexameter in the Eliza-
bethean age of our poetry, is that impromptu of Queen
Elizabeth herself, wherein she so happily characterises
the three Roman poets, Ovid, Persius, and Martial ;
"Persius, a crab-staffe; bawdy Martial j Ovid, a fine
wag;"*
though I know no system of English pronunciation
or prosody, which would have made this line pass muster
with her majesty's biographer, Camden, that distinguished
master of Westminster school.
For some short but interesting observations on the
subject of the vogue which hexameters &c. by quantity
of syllables had begun to obtain, when the great Haller
wrote, as concise and classical in his admired poetry
and politico -philosophical novels, as he is voluminous
but I believe not verbose in his scientific prose, I would
refer my readers to the dedication of the last edition
of his Schweizerische Gedichte (published by himself,
Lord Orford's Works, v. 1, p. 267.
NOTES. 183
1777), to the famous Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, and
sister to the more famous Frederic of Prussia. It was
to her that Voltaire presumed to present the celebrated
verses (or Madrigal), which have been thought in part
to have contributed to the quarrel between him and her
royal brother ; verses much more familiar probably than
any thing ever addressed by the sentimental and per-
secuted Tasso to Leonora of Este, the sister of his cruel
and unrelenting master, though pretended patron and
protector, Alfonso :
" Souvent un air de verite
Se mele au plus grossier mensoiige.
L'autre jour, dans 1'erreur d'un songe,
Au rang des rois j'etais monte.
Je vous aimais alors, et j'osais vous le dire,
Les Dieux a mon reveil ne m'ont pas tout ote :
Je n'ai perdu que mon empire."
Attempted in English :
" Not seldom something real seems
To mingle with our vainest dreams.
Last night, asleep, on fancy's wing,
Soaring, I thought myself a king.
I loved you then, and dared impart
Unawed, the passion of my heart.
When I awoke, the gods benign
Resumed not all I dreamt was mine.
My throne I willingly resign."
This incidental quotation, being one of the most
184 NOTES.
striking instances of Voltaire's unequalled " curious
felicity," in what the French call " vers de societe,"
may serve as an example of those " rimes melees" just
touched upon in an earlier part of this note.*
The versification of the modern Greeks, and which
has been now established for many centuries, is accen-
tual, or founded on accent instead of quantity. It is,
I believe, almost always accompanied with rhyme, as
the verse of the English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Dutch, and German, most commonly is. The heroic,
or that sort in most general use with the Greeks, as our
decasyllabic Iambic are with us, hendecasyllables with the
Italians, and hexametrical Alexandrines with the French,
is formed of fifteen syllables, or two hemistichs, the first
of eight, the second of seven syllables, with the regular
pause or caesura, between them. The following speci-
men makes the two first lines of a sort of elegy, written
on the occasion of the death of Prince Mourouges, chief
dragoman of the Porte, who was beheaded at Constan-
tinople in 1798.
" T) 7o ^a/*a 7ap^a lovlo ; T\s y 7f yj>oj cnojv>) ;
Ilo/a IjtAsfvJ/i; e<poivy slf lyv cnpa'ifav lyv Mivr, j"f
Accented rhyming verses of this sort, when first in-
troduced at Constantinople, which was perhaps their
cradle, from their becoming the most fashionable in that
city, (IIoAif), were called IIoXiTixoj, for which, in the
* Supra, p. 126.
f The author of this elegy, Calfoglou, passes for one of the best
Fanariot poets. *>
NOTES. 185
literal sense of the word, the equivalent in Latin would
be " civiles," or " urbani," and in English perhaps
f( genteel j" certainly not ''political," notwithstanding
Mr. Home Tooke's ingenious system.
(This last note, of such disproportionate length, is an
extract from an Essay I have in part composed on the
different modes of versification in several of the modern
languages.)
INDEX.
ABELARD, note 15, p. 111.
Abstract qualities, naked attributes of mind, or meta-
physical entities, unfit machinery in poetry, p. 24, 25,
26.
Academia degli Arcadi, p. 30, 33.
Delia Crusca, note 72, p. 146. * ft*.
Accented syllables in English verse are analogous to long
syllables in Greek and Latin, note 95, st. xciv. p.
158163.
Achilles, note 51, p. 134.
Adage, vide Proverb.
Adam, note 45, p. 131. * C^.
Addison, p. x. note 20, p. 117, 118.
JEschylus personifies strength and force, p. 25.
Agamemnon cured of love by a nut of Brazil, st. liii.
Alard, Alardo, companion to Richard and Astolfo, st.
xxiv. j a sort of grave splenetic Mentor to Astolfo,
ib. and st. xxxvi. Ivii.
Alexandrine dodesyllabic accented iambics in English
and German, note 95, p. 160. In French, ib. p. 172;
but not governed by any regular arrangement of ac-
188 INDEX.
cented syllables, p. 1 73 ; example of English Alexan-
drines in the Poly-Olbion, p. 1 76 ; the last line of every
stanza in the Fairy Queen is like this ; and so in the
Castle of Indolence, the Minstrel, Childe Harold, &c.
Only the hemistich, though much studied, is not
essential as in French and German, p. 1 77 j specimen
of French Alexandrines, ib. p. 174, 175; of German,
p. 177180.
Alfonso, patron and persecutor of Tasso, note 95, p. 183.
Allegory, or personification, if short, agreeable in poetry,
p. 25, 26.
Amadigi, Amadis of Bernardo Tasso, a romantic nar-
rative poem, founded on the fabulous history of Charle-
magne and his Paladins, p. 5, 6.
American use of the word " guess," note 48, p. 132. * 03-
Andres Dell' Origine d'ogni Litter atur a, p. 27, note 15,
p. 1 1 1 j his ridiculous yet provoking analysis of the
Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard, p. 27, note
15, p. lllj he imputes prolixity to Pope, p. 27;
allows him great fertility of imagination, ib.
Angelica, her character well supported in the Orlando
of Boiardo, p. 12.
Anglomane, note 83, p. 152.
Anglomania, said to be common in France, p. 22.
Anne (Queen), language less delicate in her time than
now, notes, Sonnet, p. J19.
Apollo and the Muses continue, and probably will con-
tinue to be pretended to be invoked by modern and
Christian poets, p. 24, 25.
INDEX. 189
Arcadi, Academia degli, vide Academia.
Archibald, Arcibaldo, surnamed the Great, and Bell-
the-Cat, immediate ancestor of the true Douglas's,
st. Iviii. note 79, p. 148; quotation concerning him
from Sir W. Scott, p. 150.
Argot, French, vide Slang, note, p. 154.
Ariosto, p. xviii. ; futility of unprofitable parallels or
comparisons between Ariosto and Tasso, note 8,
p. 106; their comparative merit a vexata qucestio for
more than 200 years, p. 14; character of the Orlando
of Ariosto, p. 15; of the Gerusalemme, p. 15, 16;
Ariosto's beauties unattainable, p. 15; the Gerusa-
lemme a perfect work, p. 1 6 ; Metastasio's opinion re-
ferred to, p. 15 ; Lord Byron's opinion of each without
invidious comparison, note 8, p. 106; Cardinal Hip-
polito d'Este's foolish and ungenerous question to
Ariosto, note 7, p. 106 ; his, the opinion of many
tasteless people, ib. ; quotation from, note 40, p. 129.
Most of Ariosto's comedies are in versi sdruccioli
sciolti, note 95, p. 1 63 ; these monotonous, and he
has not been followed in the practice, ib. ; his satires
are in terza rima, p. 33, 34; his account of Orlando's
madness, note 72, p. 135.
Aristophanes, expression adopted from his play of the
Knights, stanza Ixiv. note 82, p. 151.
Artemisia's wifely love for her husband, st. xlviii. note
73, p. 146 ; dies of her grief for him, ib.
Arthur, King, p. 5 ; Catch concerning Prince Arthur,
note 48, p. 132, 133.
190 INDEX.
Astolphus, Astolfo, described as a modern dandy, finical
in his dress and manners, st. xxxvi. ; traditionally the
Prince of England in the Italian romance poetry, note
63, p. 140} his sudden madness, st. xxxvi. lv.; and
cure by the potent nut of Brazil, st. Iv. Ivi.
Astute, Scotch said to be, p. 18, 1 9, st. xlv. ; word familiar
in Westminster Hall, note 72, p. 146; the French
have Astuce, ib., and Madame de Stae'l uses astucieuse-
ment, ib. * 85" j the Italians, Astuto and Astuzia, ib.
Author, The, the circumstances which led him to attempt
this translation, p. 29. 39 43.
Authority of precedents in poetry, note 89, p. 155. * 65".
B.
Babylonish Slang or dialect, st. Ixxxi. j vide Slang.
Baccola Castle, in Spain, st. Ixvii.
Bajazet, Forteguerri begins an epic poem concerning,
p. 37 j but fails, being carried away by his turn for
ridicule, ib.
Baitty, conversation at his house (Hotel de ville) with
Delille in 1791, note 13, p. 110.
Bayle, his praise of the learning and extraordinary mo-
desty of Scipio Carteromachus, p. 29, 30.
Beatlie, versification of his Minstrel, note 54, p. 136 ;
his admiration of a passage in Dryden, note 90, p.
156.
Beau, gloves of, st. Ixxii.
Beaumont and Fletcher cited for dactylic endings of
their lines, note 95, p. 1 62.
INDEX. 191
Bell-the-Cat, epithet of Archibald Douglas , Earl of
Angus, note 79, p. 149.
Bernardo Tasso, wrote his Amadigi in ottava rima in
preference to versi sciolti, p. 6.
Bernesco, burlesque style so called, p. 17.
Berni, his Orlando Innamorato in ottava rima ; his Ca-
pitoli in terzetti, p. !/
Bibliomane, the Muse's father one, st. xi.
Biron, citation from Shakespeare for the character of
a merry but well bred man, p. 35 } note 21, p. 116.
Blue-stocking, st. v. ; expression become classical, note
32, p. 123, 124.
Bonhommie, sly bonhommie in Berni's and Lippi's works,
p. 17 ; called the Bernesco style or manner, ib.
Boiardo, author of Orlando Innamorato, p. 5, 6 ; sove-
reign of Scandiano, p. 12 ; governor of Reggio, ib. ; his
simple naivete, p. 13 j Sismoiidi thinks him much be-
yond his contemporary Pulci, p. 12; that his female
characters are more consonant to chivalrous manners,
ib. ; that Angelica in his poem is already invested with
all her charms and influence, ib. ; his style unpo-
lished, and improved by Berni, p. 13 ; Berni follows
him close in the narrative part and personages, ib. ;
Ariosto continues his story, ib. ; he did not live to give
his work the ultimate polish, p. 12.
Boilcau, p. xviii. ; quotations from, note 14, p. 111}
note 54, p. 137; note 92, p. 157: vide Lutrin.
Bracciolini, author of the Schema degli Dei, written " a
concorrenza" with the Secchia Rapita, p. 21 j much
o
192 INDEX.
inferior to it, ib. j his ground work mere fiction, and
clumsy absurd fiction, ib. j cited note 33, p. 124.
Brazil, nut of, st. xlvi. j cure for unrequited love, ib.j
receipt, sec. artem, for applying it, st. xlvii. j cured
Stella's mother, st. xlviii. et seq. ; a sea-nymph, st. li. j
an old seaman, st. lii. j Helen, st. liii. j Agamemnon,
ib. j Telemachus, ib.
Brand, falchion, poetice for sword, st. Ixxxii.
Brogues, a sort of cheap shoes, by the gods called pumps,
st. xi. ; note 38, p. 127.
Buck, the Baron of the Castle of Baccola changed to a,
by Nera, the sorceress, st. Ixx. j pursued by his bride
Brunetta turned into a doe, st. Ixxi. 5 how they re-
become lad and lass, maid and man, bride and bride-
groom, st. xci. xcii. xciii. j their curiosity to learn the
" what" and " how," ib. ; their gratitude to their
deliverer, Rinaldo, st. xciv.
Bulasso, sceptered chief of Negroland, st. xviii. ; a giant
measureless and strong, ib. ; his club, and boasting
confidence in it, ib.
Burla, jest, mockery, ridicule ; hence burlare, burlesco,
p. 7 ; burlesque poetry distinguished from mock-heroic,
ib.
Busching's Erdbeschreibung mis-quoted, note 80, p. 151.
Butler, vide Hudibras.
Byron, Lord, his Prophecy of Dante, note 8, p. 106 j his
beautiful and affecting verses on the respective hi-
stories and genius of Ariosto and Tasso, ib. ; his use
of the word "dandy," note 32, p. 124; Alexandrines
INDEX. 193
in Childe Harold, note 54, p. 136 j example of placing
the nominative after a neutral verb, st. Ixxxiii. xc.
note 89, p. 155 ; quotations from, ib. ; note 95, p. 159.
C.
Cafria, Bulasso, sceptered chief of, st. xviii. ; his club,
ib. j compared to the club of Ereuthalion, in the Iliad,
note 47, p. 132 ; the heiress of Cafria, Despina, st.
xx. j Herald of Cafria delivers an insolent challenge
to Charlemagne, st. xxv. ; Charlemagne's mild reply
thereto, st. xxvi. xxvii. xxviii.
Calfoglou, a modern Greek poet, note 95, p. 184. f.
Calypso, st. liii.
Camoens (author of the Portuguese Lusiad), his use of
sdruccioli verses in that poem, note 95, p. 1 70 ; an
example thereof, ib. ; also an example of tronchi,
ib. * S5-.
Cant, st. Ixxxi. note 86, p. 153. Vide Slang.
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's, quotation from the pro-
logue to, on bad French, note 83, p. 152. * t^.
Caractacus, Mason's tragedy of, note 76, p. 147 ; quota-
tion from, ib.
Carlo, Charlemagne, Charles, widely known to fame, st.
xiv. j new war plotted in hell against him, ib. et seq.;
his mild answer to the Cafrian herald, st. xxvi. ; but
at last quizzes him and his master's troops, xxvii.
xxviii. ; his despair for the madness of Orlando, st.
xxiii. j his preparations for war, st. xxix.
Carteromachus, Carteromaco, vide Forteguerri (Scipio),
o2
194 INDEX.
p. 29 ; a Pistoian in the service of Leo X., ib. ; his
remarkable modesty with profound learning praised
by his acquaintance Erasmus, p. 29, 30 j Bayle's ex-
clamation thereon quoted, p. 30.
Carving-knife, falchion, poetice for broad-sword, st.lxxxv.
Casa (Delia), his Galatea, note 86, p. 154. f .
Catch, a popular one cited, note 48, p. 133.
Catullus, Mr. Lamb's translation of, vide Lamb.
Cervantes' " serious air," quoted from Pope, note 2, p.
103.
Chapman's translation of Homer praised by Pope, note
95, p. 164. 03-; quotation from, p. 165.
Character of the Morgante of Pulci, p. 7 9 j of Orlando
Innamorato of Boiardo, p. J 1 ; of ditto of Berni, p.
13; of the Malmantile Racquistato, p. 16; of the
Secchia Rapita, p. 21 ; of the Orlando Furioso, p.
13 15; of the Scheme Degli Dei, p. 21 ; of the
Rape of the Lock, p. 23 ; of the Dunciad, p. 28 ; of
Hudibras, ib. ; of Ricciardetto, p. 29, et seq.; by
Sismondi, p. 44, 45.
Charlemagne, vide Carlo.
Charles, vide Carlo,
Chaitcer, vide Canterbury.
Cheat, vide Diomed, Goatherd, Slang, Thief.
Chevy-Chase, stated by some to be an epic poem, p. 3.
Childe Harold, note 54, p. 136.
Chiliads of adages collected by Erasmus, p. 1 9.
Cicero, his interpretation of lepidus, lepos, &c. p. 35 ;
quoted, note 73, p. 146.
INDEX. 195
Classification in science and literature, difficulty of, p. 1 .
et seq.
Classical, vide Byron, Moore, Stael.
Clement, took delight in the pleasantry, reading, and re-
citals of Forteguerri, p. 31, 32.
XAsoa^gjy, p^Xua<r/*a, %\evd<riw$, Greek for quizzing,
note 35, p. 126.*
Club, used for tribe, st. v. ; enormous size of the giant
Bulasso's, st. xviii. j note 47, p. 132.
Commandment, the third, often broken by impatient bards
or rhymesters, st. vi.
Company-keeping, Forteguerri's Muse loves to keep com-
pany, i. e. associate with wits and orators, st. iii. ;
and dreams of heroes, ib. j her own testimony and
protest against any imputation on her character, st.
xiii.
Company -keeping, discussion on the plebeian use of this
term, p. 35 ; and note 21, p. 1 16, 1 17- Kf* ; the Spec-
tator, Pope, Dr. Young, Spence, there cited, p. 1 1 7 ;
sceptical sonnet on our improved delicacy of language
in this and similar cases, note 21, p. 119.
Comparisons, of the Muse to an ant, st. iv. j to a bad
painter, ib. 3 to a frog, st. vii. j Despina's eyes to two
stars, st. xvi. j Bulasso's club to a rafter, st. xviii. j
Scricc to a hawk, st. xxviii } Orlando to a Bedlamite,
st. xxxi. j Stella's voice to a nightingale, st. xxxv.j
her beauty to Venus's, ib. ; Stella to Luna, st. xxxvii. ;
the whiteness of her neck to new fallen snow, st.
xxxviii.j Stella to angels, st. xli. j Astolfo to a log,
196 INDEX.
st. xlvi. ; Stella's mother to Artemisia, st. xlviii.j to
a skeleton, st. xlix.; Rinaldo to a saucy clown, st.
Ixiv. ; to the Baron of Baccola, st. Ixvii.j the switch
of the giants to a drayman's whip, st. Ixxii.; Rinaldo
to King David, st. Ixxvii.j his landlord to one in a
swoon, ib. ; Striccia's voice to thunder, st. Ixxxiii. ;
his look to lightning, ib. ; Rinaldo's sword to a carving-
knife, st. Ixxxv. ; Nera's skin to alabaster, st. Ixxxvi. ;
her eyes to stars, ib. j to the sun shining on a dewy
field, ib. ; Nera bound, to a faggot, st. Ixxxix.j to a
toothless goblin, ib.
Count, Orlando so called (being Conte di Montalbano),
or Montauban, by the romance poets, st. xxx. j note 58,
p. 139; st. Ivii.
Cowley, quoted, p. vi. j ib. -*.
Coivper, quotation from his Homer, note 38, p. 128.
Crescimbeni cited for Tasso's opinion of the Morgante,
p. 7.
D.
Dactylic terminations of English decasyllabic iambics,
abundant examples of, note 95, p. 167, 168.
Dactyls, spondees, &c. by quantity, attempted to be
introduced in living languages, on the revival of letters,
note 95, p. 180; but soon abandoned, ib.j now re-
sumed in German, ib. ; and quite established there
since the publication and popularity of Klopstock's
Messiah, ib. ; quotation from Pope against the use of
them in English, ib. j one by Queen Eliz., p. 182.
INDEX. 197
' Dandy tvits, st. v. ; the tribe of gentlemen who write
with ease quoted, note 33, p. 124.
Dante, his peculiar style and manner not inarrivabile to
genius transcendent as his own, note 8, p. 106, 107 ;
quoted, note 69, p. 144.
Dantesque, the imitation of the manner, versification,
and mode of thinking of Dante, note 8, p. 106.
David (King) comparison of his swinging a stone and
slaying Goliath, to Rinaldo's whirling the jealous inn-
keeper into a dead sleep or swoon, st. Ixxvii.
Decasyllabic iambics, note 95, p. 158, et seq.; our
common heroic measure is decasyllabic, ib. ; but when
an unaccented eleventh syllable is added, it is pre-
cisely the same with the Italian common heroic hen-
decasyllable, note 95, p. 160. et seq.; exemplified
by the first stanza of the Gerusaleuime, translated
verbatim in such English hendecasyllables, ib. p. 166 j
the Italian verso tronco exactly like our most common
iambic decasyllabic, where they end (as is most usual)
with the tenth syllable accented, ib. p. 166, 167;
exemplified in the Ixxixth stanza of c. 1. of the ori-
ginal Ricciardetto, ib. p. 1 69 ; example of the same
in the Portuguese ottava rima of the Lusiad, c. 1,
st. 14 j ib. p. 1 70. * 3* ; the measure of our iambic de-
casyllabics and endecasyllables much used by the mo-
dern German poets, p. 178, 179 j example from Schle-
gel's translation of a passage above quoted from the
Mids. Night's Dream, ib. ; and one from Schiller's
Maria Stuart, ib.j various examples of the good effect
198 INDEX.
of our decasyllabics having the 5th foot formed by
two unaccented syllables, p, 167; from Milton, ib.;
Shakespeare, ib. ; Dryden, p. 168 ; Pope, ib.j an
example of a similar 4th foot from the Advice to Julia,
ib.
Delitle, perhaps the most distinguished modern French
poet after Voltaire, note 13, p. 1 10; his high opinion
of Pope's poetry, p. 23; did not feel the charms
we do in the Rape of the Lock, ib.; his opinion of
the superiority of our language in precision, (concise-
ness,) note 13, p. 110, 111; his dissatisfaction with
one of the English translations of his " Jardins" in
that respect, ib. ; extract of a letter from him on that
subject, ib.
Description of the approach of Night, vide Night.
Despina, daughter and heiress of the Scricc, st. xvi.j
her eyes like brilliant stars, ib.; her masculine spirit
and sanguine hopes, ib. ; her declaration against Ric-
ciardetto, who had slain her brother, st. xvii.
Didactic poetry, p. 2.
Dodecasyllable , vide Decasyllabic.
Doe, the village girl Brunetta bewitched into one, st.
Ixx.; becomes again a lass, st. xci. ; a maid, st. xciii. ;
a spouse, st. xciv.
Doggerel, merry doggerel verse, certain respected ladies
and gentlemen fond of, p. 41 ; Poetry claims the
privilege of writing merry doggerel verse, in spite of
strict rules, and the chains of the pedant, st. vi. vii.
Douglas, vide Arcibaldo; passage of Marmion respecting,
INDEX. 199
note 79, p. 148, 149; gratitude due from all true
Douglas's to Sir W. Scott, ib. p. 150.
Dramatic poetry, p. 4 ; narrative, epic, satiric, lyric,
may be in part dramatic, ib.
Drayman's whip (parva magnis) compared with the
switch or scourge of Nera's two body guards, st. Ixxii. ;
st. Ixxx. 3 st. Ixxxii.
Dray ton, his dodecasyllabic iambics described, being
exact Alexandrines like the French, with hemistich,
note 95, p. 175, I77j specimen of, ib. p. 176.
Dryden, dispute on comparison between Dryden and
Pope, p. 14 j his frequent use of Alexandrines, note
95, p. 177; his idea of a resemblance between his
Macfleckno and the Secchia Rapita, note 16, p. 112 ;
quotation from admired by Dr. Beattie, note 90,
p. 157 ; note 95, p. 168; specimen of his dactylic ter-
minations of decasyllabics, ib.
Dumourier, father of the general, translator of Ricciar-
detto at the age of above 80, note 95, p. 1 73. * ; his
son's memoires quoted for that fact, ib.; specimen of,
p. 174, 175 ; quotation from, note 89, p. 155, 156. C^.
Dunciad, character of, p. 28; quotations from, note 2,
p. 103; note 95, p. 168.
Dupe, vide Goatherd, Glaucus, note 38, p. 127; Astolfo,
st. xxxvi. ; Rinaldo's landlord, st. Ixxvi. ; Rinaldo,
st. Ixxxvi. Ixxxvii. Ixxxviii.
E.
Editions of the Morgante, 12mo. at Cagliari, p. 9 3 of
200 INDEX.
Erasmus' works; 1 vol. fo. Lyons, 1703, p. 19 ; first
of the Secchia, 1 622, p. 20 5 those of the Scherno degli
Dei, viz. anterior and posterior to 1 628, p. 22 ; and
one in 1804, note 12, p. 109 ; of the Secchia, thirty
before 1793, p. 22 ; note 12, p. 109; first of the Mal-
mantile, in 1766, p. 20 5 the last, in 2 vols. 4to. by
Moiicke, 1 750, p. 109 ; of Tiraboschi the 2d, in 1 787
93, note 1 1, ib. ; of the Scherno where styled poema
piacerole, note 10, ib. ; the first entire of the Gerusa-
lemme, 4to Venice, 1580, note 5, p. 108 j seven in
1581, ib. ; five of these in 4to. ib., one in 12ino. ib., and
one in 16mo. ib. ; 1300 copies printed of ed. in 16mo.
ib. ; of the Sonnets of Pulci and Franco, note 5, p.
105; of the Lusiad by M. de Souza, printed by Didot,
note 95, p 170; of Roll i's Par. Lost, note 51, p. 134.
Elizabeth, Queen, the custom in her days to call a spade
a spade, Sonnet, note 21, p. 119. Vide Hexameter.
Eloquence, effect of the judicious use of proverbs in forensic
and parliamentary eloquence, p. 1 8 j the modesty of a
speaker preferred to saucy and audacious eloquence ;
quotation from Shakespeare, note 95, p. 167.
Emphasis, emphatic, when the sense requires that stress
of the voice on a monosyllabic word in our language,
it has the effect in English verse that a long syllable
has in Greek and Latin, note 95, p. 158, 159.
Enclitic words, examples of, in English, Greek, Latin,
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, note 95, p. 1 62, 1 63.
Enfant Prodigue of Voltaire, tirade on marriage from,
note 67, p. 142, 143 ; translated, p. 143, 144.
INDEX. 201
English poetry, admired for its conciseness by Delille :
vide Delille.
Englishman, note 48, p. 132. * (&; conjecture con-
cerning the author of a certain popular Catch, note 48,
p. 133 ; nationality avowed, p. 132. * 3 j just praise
of the English, ib.
Enjambement of verses explained, st. xxv. xxvi. note 54,
p. 135, 136) specimens of, from Boileau, note 54,
p. 136, 137. * fcf .
Epic poetry, a species of the general class of narrative,
p. 4.
Epigram on the poet Monti, note 8, p. 107-
Equivalent for the same proverbs are found in almost all
languages, p. 18, 19.
EtfO, p. 8.
Erasmus, p. 29 j an assumed name, from 'Epacrpog,
happy, note 18, p. 115.
Ethiopia, st. lix.
Euxine Sea, traversed by Rinaldo, st. Ix.
F.
Fabroni (Cardinal), a relation of Forteguerri, and his first
patron at Rome, p. 31.
(Monsignor), related to our author and the Car-
dinal, and author of a life of Forteguerri, p. 31.
Falchion, poetice for siaord, st. Ixxxiii. ; such words
abound in English, Italian, German, &c. note 90, p.
156 j rare in French, ib.
Fame, personified by Virgil, p. 25, 26. ,
202 INDEX.
Feminine rhymes in French, note 95, p. 1 72 j the femi-
nine, or often, but incorrectly, called mute e, ib. j the
difficulty of making such e sensible as a syllable in
verse without pronouncing it too fully, in the manner
the inhabitants of the south of France do, ib. f.
Ficino (Marsilio), supposed to have been partly the au-
thor of the Morgante, p. 11.
Fiorentinismi, the Malmantile described as a poem, tutto
sparse di proverb) e di graziosi Fiorentinismi, p. 17.
Fire, made a dissyllable by Shakespeare, note 2 1 , p. 1 1 7.
Fletcher and Beaumont, their works abound in decasyl-
labic iambics, with a supernumerary or eleventh un-
accented syllable, note 95, p. 162.
Fontaine (La), contended by Boileau to have improved
on the humour of Ariosto, p. 22.
Force (Kpcflo;) and Strength (B<a) personified by ^Eschy-
lus in his Prometheus, p. 25.
Forteguerri, or Carteromaco (Scipio), encomium on his
learning and modesty by Erasmus and Bayle, p. 30.
(Nicolo), born 1674 1 , at Pistoia, died 1 735,
at Rome, p. 32.
studies law, but abandons it soon, p. 30 ;
his reverses of fortune at Rome, p. 31 5 patronized
by Clement the Xllth, ib. j his person favourably de-
scribed, p. 32 ; attempted almost every branch of
composition, both in prose and verse, and in Latin as
well as Italian, p. 33 j was a proficient in the know-
ledge of the Greek and Latin classics, ib. j wrote
capitoli in the manner of Berni and Ariosto, ib.;
INDEX. 203
translated Terence into blank verse, ib. ; from the
gaiety of his character was called " il lepido," ib. ;
attempted an epic poem on the subject of Bajazet,
p. 37 ; his own account of the circumstances which
gave rise to his writing Ricciardetto, ib. 39 j character
of that poem in the Quarterly Review, p. 44 j by Sis-
mondi, ib. 45.
Foscolo, p. 44, note 23, p. 120.
Franco (Matteo), and Pulci, indecency of their sonnets,
&c. note 5, p. 105 j two editions in 1520, and one in
1759, ib. j cited by the Crusca, and reckoned among
the fathers of the Tuscan language, ib.
French verse, note 54, p. 136, 137; note 95, p. 172;
not governed by accent, ib. 1 73.
Frog, the author's Muse compared to, st. vii.
G.
Gabalis, the fictitious name of the Abbe de Montfaucon
de Villars, from whose work Pope took the machinery
of the Rape of the Lock, p. 27.
Galatea, vide Casa.
Gallomania prevalent in Italy, p. 22.
Garbolin, the fictitious author of the story of Ricciardetto,
p. 20 ; argument, st. xi. xx. 3 concluding stanza, p.
99, note 38, p. 129; note 86, p. 153.
Caivin Douglas, note 79, p. 15U, 151.
Geography, the Muse's mistakes in, st. iv. lix., note 80,
p. 151.
Gergo, Italian, corresponding to slang, note 86, p. 154.
204 INDEX.
German Alexandrines, specimens of, from Opitz and
Haller, note 95, p. 177, 178.
decasyllabics and hendecasyllables, specimens of,
from Schlegel's Midsummer Night's Dream, and from
Schiller's Maria Stuart, note 95, p. 179.
hexameters from the Messias of Klopstock,
note 95, p. 180.
Gerusaltmme of Tasso, p. 3 ; perfection of that poem,
p. 15, 16 ; Lord Byron's opinion of, note 8, p. 106.
Gesner, idylls, poetry without feet, note 2, p. 103.
Gipsy, the author's Muse called one, st. iv.
Glaucus, discussion concerning the sense of Homer's
account of the exchange of armour between Glaucus
and Diomed, note 38, p. 127 ; rejected as spurious by
a late critic, ib. p. 128, 129.
Tvwpai, a sort of proverbs or dicta in Pindar and Euri-
pides, and Terence, Horace, Shakespeare, and Pope,
analogous to proverbs, p. 17. 18.
Gods, question concerning the introduction of heathen,
in modern poetry, p. 24 26.
Goldsmith, note 95, p. 182.
Goldoni writes some of his comedies in lines of fourteen
syllables, called versi Martelliani, note 95, p. 1 63 j
specimen thereof, ib.
Goliath, st. Ixxvii.
Gonsalvi (Cardinal), an eminent statesman, and amiable
and accomplished gentleman, note 19, p. 115.
Grand Amount 1 Financial use of that term, st. Mi. ;
Total ) note 78, p. 148.
INDEX. 205
Greeks, modern, their versification founded on accent,
note 95, p. 184; example of, ib.
Grim, epithet transferred, after the example of Sir Walter
Scott, from a former Archibald Douglas to Archibald
Bell-the-Cat, st. Iviii.j note 79, p. 150 j quotations
from the poem of Marmion relative to Bell-the-Cat
and his son 'Gawin Douglas, translator of Virgil, note
79, p. 148. 150.
Grunt) observation on the use of that word in Hamlet's
famous soliloquy, note 88, p. 155.
Guilford (the Earl of), p. xxiv. ; introductory stanza ad-
dressed to, before stanza first of the translation.
Gulliver, note 95, p. 168.
H.
Holler, specimen of Alexandrines from, note 95, p. 178 ;
as concise and classical in his poetry and politico-philo-
sophical novels as voluminous in his scientific prose,
ib. p. 182 j interesting passage in his dedication of the
last edition of his poem, 1777, on the then recent
revival of the ancient metres in German, ib. p. 183.
Hamlet, soliloquy cited for the word " grunt," note 88,
p. 155.
Hanuver, the present house of, descended lineally from
Archibald Bell-the-Cat, note 79, p. 150.
Harold (Childe), note 54, p. 136.
Hawk, st. xlii. ; note 71, p. 145.
Heathen, st. xix. ; Heathen gods, vide Gods.
Helen, amorous grief cured by the nut of Brazil, st. liii.
206 INDEX.
Heloisa, vide Abelard.
Hemistich in French Alexandrines and ten syllable
verses, note 95, p. 172 175 } Drayton's Poly-Olbion
in similar Alexandrines, p. 1/5, 176 3 and so Ger-
man Alexandrines, 177 178.
Hendecasyllables, or endecasyllables, exactly similar in
English to the common Italian heroic measure, note 95,
p. 165, 166.
Henria.de, the machinery of, p. 24, 25.
Hexameter, singular one by Queen Elizabeth, note 95,
p. 182.
Heyne, his interpretation of the words " tpptvas %telz"
in the episode of the exchange of armour between
Glaucus and Diomed, note 38, p. 128, 129.
Hint, st. ii. j adopted from Shakespeare, note 28, p.
122.
Hippolito, or Ippolito, Cardinal d'Este, note 7> p- 106.
Home, his history of rebellion 1/45, p. vii.
Homer, vide Iliad; his account of the exchange of arms
between Glaucus and Dioined cited and discussed,
note 38, p. 127} held by a late critic to be an inter-
polation, ib. 128, 129} Pope's and Cowper's trans-
lations of it, ib. p. 127, 128; quotations from, note
47, p. 132} note 4-9, p. 133} note 51, p. 134} note
65, p. 141 ; note 79, p. 148} note 87, p. 154} note
95, p. 168.
Hopkins, vide Sternhold.
Horace quoted, p. v. vi. 13} note 66, p. 141.
Host of the inn where Rinaldo alights, st. Ixiv. liixv. -,
INDEX. 207
he recounts the story of the Baron of Baccola and Miss
Brunette, st. Ixvii. Ixxiii. ; quarrel betwixt him and
Rinaldo, st. Ixxvi. Ixxvii.
Hostess, the buxoin wife of the aforesaid landlord, st.
Ixiii. Ixiv. Ixxv. Ixxvii.
Hound and hawk, st. xlii. xliii , note 71, p. 145, 14G.
Hour made a dissyllable by Shakespeare, note 20, p. 1 17.
Hudibras, Voltaire's character of, p. 28 ; Hume's ditto,
ib. ; Voltaire treats it as " intraduisible," note 17,
p. 112; translated by Mr. J. Towneley, an English
gentleman in the French service, into French verse
of eight syllables, first published, London, 1757, by
the Abbe J. T. Needham, ib. ; German translation of,
printed at Riga, 1787, ib. p. 113; extract from the
French translation, ib. p. 113, 114; extract from the
German, ib. p. 114; quoted, note 84, p. 153; note
86, ib.} note 95, p. 159.
Hume, his opinion of Hudibras, note 17, p. 114.
-- of Godscroft, character of his history, note 79,
p. 149. tJ-.
Humour in different countries and districts is in a manner
local, p. 9.
Hymen, for marriage, note 67, p. 142 ; a happy and
unhappy marriage contrasted from Voltaire's Enfant.
Prodigue, ib. p. 142, 143 ; the same imitated in En-
glish, ib. p. 143, 144.
Jacques, his famous speech on the different stages of life
^08 INDEX.
conjectured not to have been originally written for the
play of As you Like it, note 67, p. 142 j a like con-
jecture concerning Voltaire's tirade on the two sorts
of marriages in his Enfant Prodigue, ib.
Iambics formed of the alternation of accented and non-
accented syllables, the general measure of our heroic
verse, note 95, p. 158, et seq. ; and also of the Italian
heroic verse, ib. j the Italian verso tronco corresponds
exactly to our regular decasyllabic iambics, ib. p. 166;
instances where our ten syllable and eight syllable
iambics end gracefully with the fifth and fourth feet
respectively formed of two unaccented syllables, or
what may be called (substituting accented and non-ac-
cented, for long and short syllables) pyrrhichius, ib. p.
1 67, 1 68 j example of a stanza in Ricciardetto in versi
tronchi, ib. p. 1 69 ; one of versi tronchi in Portuguese
verse, ib. p. 1 70. * fr^ ; decasyllabic iambics with two
extra syllables at the end unaccented in English cor-
respond exactly to the Italian versi sdruccioli, ib. p. 1 58j
instance of such at the end of the 94th stanza of this
translation, p. 98 ; instances of in Italian from Sanna-
zaro, note 95, p. 163 ; instance of versi sdruccioli in
the Portuguese of Camoens, ib. p. 170 ; Ariosto wrote
most of his comedies in versi sdruccioli, ib. p. 1 63.
James III. of Scotland, his favourites accused and
seized by Archibald Douglas, note 79, p. 149.
Jerusalem, vide Gerusalemme.
Iliad, p. 3; quotations from, note 38, p. 127j note
47, p. 132 j note 49, p. 133 ; note 51, p. 134 ; note
INDEX. 209
53, p. 135 ; note 55, p. 138; note 79, p. 148; note
87, p. 154.
Improvisator}, p. 11.
Improviseur, p. 44.
Ingegneri, editor and friend of Tasso, note 8, p. 107;
most affecting incident in Tasso's life related by In-
gegneri, ib. p. 107, 108 : vide Malone.
Johnson's Dictionary referred to, note 25, p. 120, 121 ;
plan of his dictionary, like that of the Crusca, and
preferable to that of the Academic Franchise, note 72,
p. 146. * *3" ; note 74, p. 147; note 85, p. 153 ; note
86, p. 154; note 88, p. 155.
Jombert, editor of the second edition of the French
Hudibras, note 17> p. 112.
Journalier, a French expression for inequality of spirits
or temper, note 21, p. 117.
Ippolito, vide Hippolito.
Irishman, note 48, p. 133.
Italia Liberata of Trissino, in blank verse, p. 7.
Julia (Advice to) quoted, note 95, p. 168.
K.
KlopstocJt, revolution produced by him in the versifica-
tion of the Germans, note 95, p. 172; sample of
hexameters by him, ib. p. 180.
Knife, poetics for sword, st. xx.
, (carving) st. Ixxxv.
Knob, vide Nob.
210 INDEX.
Kpalos> Strength, personified by ^Eschylus in his Pro-
metheus, p. 25.
L.
Lamb, (Mr.) his translation of Catullus, note 95, p.
177.
Landlady "I of an inn near the castle of Baccola, Rinal-
Landlord ) do's adventures with, st. Ixiii. to the end.
Law, definitions dangerous in, note 1, p. 103.
Leo X., p. 29.
Leonora of Este, note 95, p. 183.
Lepido, Lepidus, an epithet applied to Forteguerri on
account of his great gaiety and playfulness, p. 34 ;
discussion concerning the proper sense of Lepido,
Lepidus, and Lepos, explanation of, p. 34, 35 j
quoted from Cicero, p. 35.
Lessing, the measure of his tragedies the same with
English heroic iambics, note 95, p. 171-
Lille, vide Delille.
Lippi, author of the Malmantile Racquistato, born 1606,
p. 16 j a painter by profession, ib. ; founded his
poem on the romantic and chivalresque history of
Charlemagne and his Paladins, p. 5 ; his poem de-
scribed as full of proverbs and graceful Florentinisms,
p. 1 7 ; his works published under the fictitious name
of Perloni Zipoli, being the anagram of Lorenzo
Lippi, p. 20 ; died 1664, p. 16 j his Italian considered
as pure and classical, p. 1 7.
Literati "I English and Italian, p. 3; definition and
Literature ) classifications inconvenient, p. 1 3.
INDEX. 21 1
Love and war, the intended subject of the poem, st. iii. ;
the Muse's protestation against the conceit of her
ever being made rnad or merry by love, st. xiii.;
vindication of her character in that respect on the
authority of her said solemn protestation, note 30,
p. 122.
Love's Labour Lost, quotation from, containing a happy
description of becoming mirth, p. 35; note 21, p. 116,
117.
Lucretius, a sceptical philosopher, p. 26; his beautiful
address to Venus, ib. ; a passage from him applied
to the subject of quizzing, note 35, p. 125.
Lusiad, beautiful edition of, by Count Souza-Bouttelha,
note 95, p. 170; two stanzas quoted from, to show
that the Portuguese ottava rima admits in serious
poetry both of versi sdruccioli and versi tronchi, ib.
Lutrin preferred in general by the French to the Secchia
Rapita and the Rape of the Lock, p. 22 ; reasons
for thinking it inferior to the latter, p. 23 j ob-
jection to the machinery employed in it, ib. 27;
beautiful description of La Mollesse in the Lutrin,
note 14, p. Ill ; quotation from, note 92, p. 157;
passage quoted from it as a specimen of the French
Alexandrine, note 95, p. 174.
Lyttleton, (Lord) history of Henry II. p. vii.
M.
Macaroni, once the fashionable word for dandy, note
32, p. 123.
212 INDEX.
Macbeth, plagiarism from, st. Ivi.; note 75, p. 147.
Macfleckno, vide Dry den.
Macon, Macone, st. xx. ; name frequently used by the
Italian romance poets for Mahomet, note 50, p. 133.
Madrigal by Voltaire, note 95, p. 183 ; translated, ib.
Malmanttte, vide Lippi.
Malone, his proof that "grunt" is the proper reading
in Hamlet's soliloquy, note 88, p. 155.
Mann (Sir Horace), anecdote of, note 83, p. 152.
Mansfield (Lord), a deserter from the Muses to the
bar, p. 30 j elegant compliment to him by Pope on
that subject, p. 31.
Marot (Clement), a simple bonhommie style in French
verse, called from his name Marotique, p. 17.
Marriage, Despina makes the killing of Ricciardetto for
having killed her brother a sine qua non in her choice
of a husband, st. xvii. ; Stella's perseverance in re-
fusing to hear of a husband or change her name by
marriage, st. xxxv. xl. ; note 62, p. 140; quotation from
Voltaire's comedy of the Enfant Prodigue, containing
a beautiful description of a happy contrasted with that
of an unhappy marriage, note 67, p. 142, 143 5 imi-
tated in English, ib. p. 143, 144 j the wedding of the
Baron of Baccola with Miss Brunette interrupted by
the fairy Nera, who transforms her into a doe and him
into a buck, st. .Ixvii. to Ixx. j how they grow maid
and man again, and are happily married, st. xciii.
xciv.
Martelli, a poet who wrote comedies in a measure so
INDEX. 213
called from his name, note 95, p. 163 ; extract from
Goldoni's Filosofo Inglese, ib. ; difference between
the measure which has been used in some English
poetry of fourteen syllables, and the Italian versi Mar-
telliani which are in that measure, ib. p. 163, 164.
Mars, beautiful description of the shield of, from
Dryden's modernisation of Chaucer's Knight's Tale,
quoted, note 90, p. 157 ; Dr. Beattie's admiration of
those four lines, ib. p. 156.
Mason, the mystical purgation of Caractacus in his
tragedy compared to the effect of the nut of Brazil
in curing Astolfo, note 76, p. 147-
Mathias, note 8, p. 107.
Mausolus, King of Caria, his wife Artemisia's ex-
treme grief for his death, " so much prized and
quoted," compared to Stella's mother's sorrows for
the death of her father, st. xlviii. note 73, p. 146.
Metaxtasio, his original name Trapassi, note 18, p.
115j quaere, whether a certain mode in the ar-
rangement of words sometimes affected by him, is a
beauty or a blemish ? note 71, p. 145, 146.
Midsummer Night's Dream, words adopted from, st.
xiii.; note 41, p. 130; those very words literally
adopted by Wieland, ib.
Milton, p. 3 ; line taken from, st. xli.; note 26, p. 121 ;
note 68, p. 144; quotation from his Paradise Lost,
proving that the comparison of beautiful eyes to stars
must have been in use ever since the creation of Eve,
214 INDEX.
note 45, p. 131.*^f~ ; imitation of a passage of Homer
by the translator, st. xx. note 4*9, p. 1 33 ; of the same
passage by Milton, ib.;. used by Forteguerri, ib. j
Milton's celebrated episode on the occupations of
the fallen spirits during the absence of Satan on his
expedition against our first parents, note 51, p. 134 ;
some similarity between that passage and the va-
rious employments of the Paladins of France during
the armistice, st. xxi. xxii. ; Milton probably had in
Tiew in the said episode the account Homer gives of
the amusements of Achilles's companions during his
secession from the Grecian army, note 51, p. 134;
quoted, note 68, p. 144; note 81, p. 151; note 95,
p. 16O.
Minstrel (Beattie's), remark on the Alexandrines of,
note 54, p. 136.
Moc&-heroic poetry, how distinguished from the chi-
valresque burlesque, p. 20 j a short review of the
principal mock-heroic poems in English, French, and
Italian, p. 2028.
Moloch, Bulasso, the hideous giant, measureless and
strong, suggests Milton's picture of that fallen spirit,
st. xviii. ; note 46, p. 131.
Montfaucon de Villars, the real author of the Comte de
Gabalis, p. 27-
Monti, note 8, p. 107.
Moore (Thomas), note 95, p. 182.
More (Hannah), her poem of the Bas Bleu first brought
INDEX. 215
the trite expression of blue and blue stocking into
such general use, note 32, p. 123, 124.
Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, p. 4 ; belongs to the
class of romantic and chivalresque poems, p. 5 ; de-
scription of the principal features of such poems as
the Morgante, the two Orlandos of Boiardo and Berni,
and the Malmantile, p. 5, 6 ; a controversy formerly
whether the Morgante, though highly burlesque, was
not an epic poem, p. 7 ; reason why that idea has been
mistakenly imputed to Tasso, p. 7, 8 3 Voltaire's
ridicule of the Morgante, p. 8 ; Sismondi's censure
of the mixture in it of what is religious with what is
grossly profane, p. 8 ; edition of it at Cagliari, p. 9 ;
it is most relished in Tuscany, the soil where it
grew, ib. ; Tasso believed that Marsilio Ficino was
in part the author of it, p. 1 1 ; others have ascribed
it wholly to Politian, who only had given it to be
recited to Lorenzo de Medici, as excelling in that
way, ib.: vide Moucke.-
Moiicke, a celebrated printer, editor of the best edition
of the Malmantile, 2 vols. 4to. 1750, note 9, p. 109.
Murray, vide Mansfield.
Muse, Forteguerri's account of his, st. i. ix.; how
she came to sing of love and war, st. iii. ; often em-
broiled in her geography, st. iv. j called a gipsy,
which she very possibly was, ib. ; her scanty reading,
st. v.5 never chosen of a blue stocking club, ib. ; nor
aspiring to shine with dandy wits, ib. ; never could
see any sense in the rules of Aristotle and Bossu,
st. vi. ; apt to quizz the patient plodders, st. vii. ; and
216 INDEX.
capriciously to fly from war to love, from love to re-
ligion, and from composing anthems to lamenting
the desertion of Ariadne, st. viii.j very shy and apt
to blush till fairly engaged in her subject, st. ix. ;
her solemn denial of having ever been hand and
glove with love, st. xiii.
N.
Narrative poetry, a generic description of a more com-
prehensive meaning than epic, p. 4; the Morgante
is certainly narrative, and certainly, in the usual
sense of the word epic, it is not epic, p. 7, 8.
Needham (Abbe), published the original edition of
Towneley's French Hudibras, London, 1757> note 17,
p. 112.
Negroland, Bulasso chief of, st. xii. xviii. ; note 46, p.
131; note 47, p. 132.
Nera, a fairy, witch, or sorceress, grows mad with love
of the Baron of Baccola, st. Ixvii. j changes him and
his bride, Brunetta, into a buck and doe, st. Ixx. j
assumes the form of a beautiful damsel weeping and
forlorn, st. Ixxxvi. ; Rinaldo ties her to a tree, and
burns her alive, st. xc.j her ashes, strewed in the way
of the buck and doe, brings them back to their human
shape, st. xci. xciii.
Nidalmo Tiseo, the name, as an Arcadian, of Forteguerri,
p. 30.
Night, description of the advance of, st. xxxiii.
Nob, note 85, p. 153-
INDEX. 217
Nut of Brazil, its wondrous effects in curing love, st.
xlvi. ; exact receipt for preparing it, to be used in-
fused in wine, and applied internally and externally,
st. xlvii. ; cured Stella's mother, st. 1.3 a sea-nymph
who received it from Proteus, st. li. ; an old mariner
cured with it by the sea nymph, st. lii. ; Proteus cures
by it Helen, Agamemnon, and Telemachus, st. liii. ; it
cures Rinaldo of his mad impromptu passion for Stella,
st. Ivi.j its operation somewhat rough, ib.
O.
Ocean, Rinaldo traverses it and the Euxiue in quest of
Rowland, st. lx.
Odyssey, quotation from, note 65 , p. 141.
Oliver or Olivier i, st. xxiv.
Ondine, note 2, p. 103. Vide Undine.
Opitz, quotation from, in Alexandrine verse, the great
patriarch of the old or middle school of German poetry,
note 95, p. 177, 178 ; a singular coincidence between
part of the quotation from him and a passage in a
Greek author cited also, ib. p. 178. * 63=-; born 1597,
ib. ; died 1639, ib.
Orlando, vide Rowland.
Innamorato of Boiardo, vide Boiardo.
ofBerni, vide Berni.
Furioso, vide Ariosto.
Othello quoted, note 28, p. 122.
Ottava Rima has become the heroic measure and stanza
of the Italians, p. 6j all the romantic, burlesque, and
218 INDEX.
mock heroic poets have written in it, ib.j its pre-
ference over versi sciolti, and its form of stanzas
established also for serious narrative poetry by the
transcendent merit of the Orlando Furioso and the
Gerusalemme, both written in it, ib. ; Politian's fa-
mous stanzas the supposed models of Ariosto's and
Tasso's ottava rima style, p. 11.
Ovid, Lord Mansfield compared to, by Pope, p. 31.
P.
Paradise Lost, vide Milton.
Paris, the Frenche of, quotation from Chaucer, note 83,
p. 152. * ts-.
Parnassus, st. v.
Parnell, note 95, p. 182.
Parody, frequent parodying of the very words, or eleva-
tion and pomp of epic diction, one of the characteristics
of the romantic chivalresque burlesque poetry, p. 5, 6.
Pause or ccesura, and hemistich in Alexandrines, &c. note
54, p. 135 137? note 95, p. 164, et seg.
Peon, in the four last syllables of our verses ending in
what are called triple rhymes, intellectual, hen-peck'd-
you-all, -tian tvar-is-seen, -nish Sa-ra-cen; that last
foot of the verse is, taking accent for quantity, what
prosodaists call the second peon, like resolvere, note
95, p. 158.
Perceval, note 8, p. 107.
Persia, Rinaldo sets out for, in search of Orlando, st.
lix. j Utopia lies between, and Ethiopia, ib.j this
INDEX. 219
proved by reference to Biisching's Erdbeschreibung,
note 80, p. 151.
Phaer, specimen of his translation of Virgil in verse of
fourteen syllables, with hemistich between the eighth
and fourteenth, note 95, p. 164.
Phoebus will probably still be continued to be invoked
by modern poets, p. 24, et seq.
Pindar, quotations from, p. 43, note 95, p. 158. KX
Plot, new, in hell against Charlemagne, st. xiv.
Pluto's trump sounds to arms against Charlemagne,
st. xiv.
Poetry^ not to be chained by pedantic rules in her
devious wanderings and merry and lofty rhyme, st.
vii. vide Alexandrine : burlesque romantic epic
heroic lyric satiric j nothing complete poetry with-
out poetic measure or feet, note 2, p. 103. Vide
M'wgante, note 95, p. 169.
Politian, his famous stanzas in ottava rima, p. 1 1 j sup-
posed by some to be the author of the Morgante, ib.
Political verse, why so called, note 95, p. 184, 185.
Poly-Olbion, vide Dray ton.
Pope, p. vi. vii. xv. xvi. 20 ; his Rape of the Lock, a
mock-heroic rather than burlesque poem, p. 22 j dif-
ference of national tastes on the. comparative merits of
the Secchia Rapita, the Lutrin, and the Rape of the
Lock, p. 22, 23 j justification of the machinery of
Pope, p. 27 5 some sectaries in poetry bent upon
excluding Pope from the pale of true poetry, ib. j
Andres, author of a massy book on the history of all
220 INDEX.
literature, on the other hand, says he is redundant, and
never knows where to end, ib. } but grants to him,
what those critics deny, great facility of imagination,
ib.; quotations from, p. vi. 30, 31 ; note 21, p. 119 }
note 22, p. 120; note 95, p. 168} his pithy style,
note 13, p. 109} note 33, p. 124 } note S5, p. 126}
note 95, p. 160, 162 ; words used by him now become
vulgar, and others have become indelicate, note 21,
p. 118j his translation of the passage in the 6th Iliad
of the exchange of armour between Glaucus and
Diomed, note 38, p. 127} monotony objected to in
Pope's versification, note 54, p. 135, 136} expression
copied from, st. xxx. note 57, p. 139} note 89, p. 156}
dactyllic termination from, note 95, p. 1 68 } studied
harshness in a quotation from, note 95, p. 181, 182.
Porphyry, quoted from Eustathius, note 38, p. 128.
Portrait of the Muse} argument, vide Muse; of De-
spina, st. xvi.} of Stella, st. xxxv. xxxvii. xxxviii.
xli. 1. j portrait and character of Astolfo, st. xxxvi.
xli. xliii. xliv. xlvi. liv. lv. } of Miss Brunetta, st. Ixviii.
Ixix. } of Nera as a young beauty, Ixxxvi. Ixxxvii. ;
as an old witch, st. Ixxxviii. Ixxxix.
Prior, p. xi. xii. } note 31, p. 123.
Prometheus, observation on the allegorical personages of
Strength and Force in ^Eschylus' Prometheus, p. 25.
Proteus, vide Nut.
Protest of the Muse against the supposition of her know-
ing any thing of love, st. xiii.} calls herself fancy-
free, as Shakespeare calls Queen Elizabeth, ib.
INDEX.
Proverbs, considerations concerning, p. 17 19; why
more used by vulgar and illiterate persons, p. 18 j
sometimes of happy effect in the higher kinds of
forensic and parliamentary eloquence, ib. j Erasmus's
folio volume of proverbs or adages, p. 1 9.
Pruritus of quizzing requires to be vigilantly counter-
acted, note 35, p. 125, 126. fc3-.
Psalms, vide Sternhold.
Public officers, reason why the, of the Pope's government
generally canonists and civilians, note 19, p. 115.
Pulci, vide Morgante and Franco.
Pump, st. xi.j pumps, brogues so called by the gods,
note 38, p. 129.
Punch, diluted, a lax wordy translation compared to,
note 13, p. 110, 111.
Pyrenees, " The mountainous expanse,
" And rude, which parts the realm of Spain from
France." st. xxx. xxxi.
Pyrrhichius, a foot consisting, in ancient metre, of two
short, in modern, of two unaccented syllables, note 95,
p. 158.
Q-
Qualities, abstract, why disapproved of as machinery in
poetry, p. 24, 25.
Quantity, in Greek and Latin prosody, short and long,
generally speaking, analogous to accented and non-
acceuted syllables in our modern European languages,
note 95, p. 158, 159.
222 INDEX.
Quarterly Review, No. XLII. cited for the opinion there
given of Forteguerri, p. 44 ; note 23, p. 120.
Question concerning the comparative excellence of
Ariosto and Tasso, p. 13 16 ; note 8, p. 106.
Quixote (Don), as little an entire poem, having no poeti-
cal feet, as Cervantes would have been a man if born
without any flesh and blood, note 2, p. 103.
Quiz, st. vii.; attempt to define quizzing, note 35, p.
124 1265 a diatribe against, ib. p. 125 ; Lucretius
there quoted, ib. ; a Greek critic and historian also
quoted, ib. p. 126 *.
R.
Rape of the Lock, vide Pope.
Receipt, vide Nut.
Rhymes, ottava rima the heroic measure in Italian, Por-
tuguese, and Spanish, p. 6, 7, et passim; specimens
of in Italian, note 95, p. 166; in Portuguese, ib. p.
170.
Ricardo or Richard, st. xxiv. xxx.
Ricciardetto, st. xv. xx. xxv. xxvi.
Richardet by Dumourier the father, vide Dumourier.
Rolli, his translation of the Paradise Lost very in-
adequate, note 51, p. 134; first printed 1735, ib.
Rinaldo sets out alone in quest of Rowland, st. xxiv. ;
account of his progress, st. Iviii. to the end; bold as
Archibald Douglas the Grim, note 79, p. 148; lands,
it is presumed, in Persia, st. Ix. ; kills an enormous
serpent, st. Ixii. ; arrives at an inn near the castle of
INDEX.
Baccola, st. Ixiii. ; falls in love with the landlady, st.
Ixiv. ; pretends to be a clown or scullion, ib. ; this
doubted by the host, from his gentility in look and
motion, ib. j the host tells him the history of the Baron
of Baccola and Miss Brunette, st. Ixv. j proposes to
him, ironically perhaps, to rescue the Baron and Miss
Brunette, st. Ixxiii.; Rinaldo pleads his mean birth
and innate cowardice, st. Ixxiv.j and, from his
terror of the witch and giants, says he would fain tarry
all night with the hostess, st. Ixxv. ; the host hits him
a blow on the head, st. Ixxvi. ; he takes the host by the
two legs, and whirls him as in a sling round the room,
st. Ixxvii. ; the wife pacifies Rinaldo, but who does
not lay her husband down till he was quite stunned
as if asleep, ib. ; the details of his defeating and
putting to death the two giants, and binding and
burning alive their mistress Nera, st. Ixxxi. xci.;
gratitude of the Baron and Brunette and their neigh-
bours to him, for having been the means of their dis-
enchantment, st.xcii.xciii. ; a courier from Charlemagne
brings him tidings of the new war with the Saracens,
st. xciv. ; he sets off on his return to France, venting
threats against those invaders, st. xcv.
Rome still called the head of the world and the Eternal
City, p. 31.
Rose, William Stewart, p. 40 ; author's opinion of his
very entertaining poem reviewed in the Quarterly
Review, No. XLII. note 23, p. 120.
Rowland, Orlando, his madness, st. xxiii. note 52, p.
Q
224 INDEX.
135 ; Charlemagne prevented from going personally
in search of him by his barons, st. xxiii. ; Astolphus,
Richard, and Alard, proceed to Spain in quest of
Orlando, st. xxx. j hear of him near Valentia bellow-
ing like a Bedlamite, st. xxxi. j Astolphus madder
than him with love of Stella, till she cures him with
nut of Brazil, st. Ivii. ; Rinaldo inquires in vain for
him on his landing in Persia, where he had dreamed
of his being, st. lix. Ix.
S.
Satirical poetry, p. 4. 6.
Sannazaro, example of sdruccioli verses from the
Arcadia of, note 95, p. 163.
Schema, vide Bracciolini, quotation from, note 33, p.
12*.
Schlegel, extract from his translation of the Mids.
Night's Dream, note 95, p. 179.
Schiller, example of German decasyllabics like our
own heroic verse, note 95, p. 179.
Sciolti versi, Trissino's unsuccessful poem of Italia
Liberata in that measure, p. 6, 7 ; Tasso, when his
intellect was impaired, composed his poem of Le
Sette Giornate del Hondo Creato in that measure,
note 4, p. 104>.
Scott (Sir Walter), happy lyric digressions in his narra-
tive poems, p. 4; his edition of Swift, note 21, p.
119, f; his Marmion quoted for the character of
Douglas, Earl of Angus, note 79, p. 148, 149; and
INDEX. 225
of his son Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunk eld, p.
150, 15 1; many English have little relish for the
humour of those parts of the novels generally imputed
to him, which are written in the Scottish dialect,
p. 10.
Scricca, or the Scric, King of Cafria, st. xv. ; beauty
of his daughter, st. xvi.; verse from Dumourier's
Richardet, where he is called Scric, note 43, p. 130.
Sdruccioli versi, dodecasyllabics like our heroic mea-
sure, with a triple rhyme formed by the tenth syllable
and two supernumerary unaccented ones, st. xciv.
note 95, p. 160. 166.
Secchia Rapita, vide TassonL
Serassi, author of the Life of Tasso, note 8, p. 108; his
opinion of the beauties of the Furioso, p. 15.
Shakespeare, his words and phrases incorporated in this
book, argument, st. ii. xiii. xv. xxvi. Ivi. xciii.
quoted, note 21, p. 119, t; note 25, p. 121 ; notes
41, 42, p. 130; note 44, p. 131; note 55, p. 138;
note 56, p. 138; note 75, p. 147; note 88, p. 155;
note 94, p. 157, 158; quotation from Wolsey's so-
liloquy in Henry VIII. consisting chiefly of hendeca-
syllables, note 95, p. 161 ; quotations from his works,
of dactylic ending of decasyllabics, note 95, p. 167,
168.
Shenstone, line adopted verbatim from, st. Ixxxvi. note
91, p. 157.
Shent, st. x.; authority for the verb shend and shent,
note 37, p. 126, 127.
INDEX.
Sidney, Pope's opinion of his attempt to introduce the
Latin versification into English poetry, note 95, p.
180.
Sismondi, vide Morgante; his opinion, in his own
eloquent words, of the Ricciardetto, p. 44, 45.
Slang, st.lxxxi. ; philological observations on that word,
note 86, p. 153, 154.
Sling, comparison concerning King David's use of his,
in killing Goliath, st. Ixxvii.
Sonnet on the changes wrought by time as to the pro-
prieties of language, note 21, p. 119.
Spade, to call a spade, a spade, not now permitted in
decent company, note 21, p. 119.
Spence's Anecdotes quoted for an opinion of Dryden
concerning his Macflecno, note 16, p. 112; his vulgar
use of the phrases " to keep company with," to " be
company," &c. note 21, p. 117, 118j Dr. Young
told him that Addison was at times very taciturn,
ib. p. 117.
Spenser, a canto of his Fairy Queen very indecorous,
p. 36 ; quoted as authority by Johnson, note 37, p.
126, 127; his Alexandrines in the Fairy Queen, note
54, p. 136; quotations from, note 59, p. 139; note
77, p. 148.
Sorcery, strange result of the witch Nera's, st. Ixxxix.
Southey, his Vision of Judgment referred to, note 95,
p. 1S1 ; his Roderic the Last of the Goths, ib ; his
collection of curious hexamaters, ib.
Souza Bottelha, the Count de, his beautiful and pa-
INDEX. 227
triotic edition of the Lusiad, note 95, p. 170; his
scholarlike and respectable character, ib.
Statl (la Baronne de), her truly extraordinary genius,
note 72, p. 146. * 3j her style ought to be con-
sidered as classical and authoritative, ib.
Stanyhurst, his mad version of Virgil, note 95, p. 181 ;
specimen of, ib.
Star, antiquity of comparisons to, note 45, p. 131.
Steevens, vide Malone.
Sternhold and Hopkins singular, and perhaps only
beauty of their translation in fourteen syllable iam-
bics quoted, note 95, p. 165.
Strabo quoted for Artemisia's wifely love, note 73,
p. 146.
Striccia, Master Stritch, one of Nera's giant body
guards, st. Ixxii. ; both clothed in skin of snake, ib.
Suidas quoted for the history of Artemisia, note 73,
p. 146.
Swift, his words borrowed, st. vi. note 34, p. 124 ; the
justice he renders to the conciseness of Pope, note
13, p. 109} ludicrous triple rhymes in the eight
syllable iambic measure quoted from, note 95, p. 159;
ib. p. 182.
Swine-herd cheated by that bibliomane and modern
Diomed, the Muse's father, st. xi. note 38, p. 127*
128, 129.
Switch, the direful weapon of Nera's two giants, st. Ixxii.
Ixxx. Ixxxiii.
228 INDEX.
T.
Taciturnity frequent in agreeable and witty men, note
21, p. 117} which renders them what the French
czttjournalier, ib.
Tasso (Bernardo), his Amadigi, p. 5 ; cannot be held
to belong to the same class of poetry with the Mor-
gante, &c. ib.; why he preferred, in his poem, the
ottava rima to the blank verse of Trissino, p. 6, 7.
Tasso (Torquato), his favourable opinion of the style of
the Morgante, p. 1 1 3 the admirable plan and execution
of his immortal poem, p. 15, 16; striking part of
Lord Byron's Prophecy of Dante concerning him
and Ariosto, note 8, p. 1 06 j melancholy anecdote
concerning Tasso, ib. p. 107, 108; quotation from,
note 95, p. 138; verbatim translation from, note 95,
p. 166.
Tassoni, author of the Secchia Rapita, born in 1565,
died 1635, p. 20; proofs of his great superiority to
Bracciolini, p. 21, 22.
Telemachus, cured of love by the nut of Brazil, st. liii.
Terence translated by Forteguerri, p. 34; character of
that work, ib. ; the dialogue of Terence inimitable,
ib. ; passages from the works of Terence, Horace,
Shakespeare, and Pope, applicable to the affairs of
human life, occur very frequently, so as to have be-
come in a manner proverbial, p. 17, 18.
Terzetti, mode of rhyming used in Dante's great work,
and in the capitoli of Berni, example of, note 20,
INDEX. 229
p. 116; happily imitated by Lord Byron in his Pro-
phecy of Dante, note 8, p. 106, 107.
Theocritus, lines suggested by one of his, st. xli.j that
line quoted, note 70, p. 145 j an imitation of that
line by Virgil, ib.
Thomson, Alexandrines in his Castle of Indolence, note
54, p. 136 5 quaere, if any hendecasyllabics in his
Seasons? note 95, p. 160.
Thule, used vaguely for the most northern part of the
island, note 21, p. 118.
Tiraboschi, his practical reason for proving the su-
periority of the Secchia Rapita over the Scherno of
Bracciolini, p. 21, 22.
Tooke, Home, his system of etymology, note Q5, p.
185.
Totvneley, his translation, into French verse, of Hudi-
bras, note 17, p 112; specimen of, ib. 113, 114;
first edition of, London, 1757, another, Paris, 1820,
ib. p. 112.
Tribe, vide Club.
Trissino, his Italia Liberata in versi sciolti, p. 6;
would not have met with success if written in any
other measure, 7
Triteme (Abbe), not quoted as authority in any poem
strictly mock heroic, p. 20.
Tronchi versi of the Italians resemble exactly in their
scanning our common heroic measure of ten accented
iambics, or five feet, note 95, p. 169; instance of,
being the Ixxixth stanza of Ricciardetto, quoted, ib. ;
230 INDEX.
example of Portuguese versi tronchi in the Lusiad,
ib. p. 170. * Kf.
Turpino., the archbishop, not quoted as their authority
by the mock-heroic poets, p. 20.
U.
Undine, by La Motte Fouque, a poem without feet,
note 2, p. 103.
Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, Voltaire's verses to, note
95, p. 183.
Utopia, its situation between Persia and Ethiopia,
st. lix. ; note 80, p. 151.
V.
Variorum notes ; the notorious urbanity of style in
some of them, note 86, p. 153.
Vega (Lope de), quotation from, note 95, p. 17J.
Venus might have been in love with Despina's brother,
st. xv. ; rivalled by Stella when she dances, st. xxxv.
Verse, a necessary, though not the most essential com-
ponent part of poetry, note 2, p. 103.
Villars (Mr. de), author of the Comte de Gabalis, p.
27-
Virgil and Homer, machinery of, p. xvii. p. 25 ; quota-
tions from the former, note 47, p. 132; note 51, p.
134 ; note 70, p. 145.
Vocabolario della Crusca, none existed when Boiardo
wrote, p. 12; the plan, as well as that of Johnson,
INDEX. 231
better than that of the Academic Frar^aise, note 72,
p. 146. * C3-.
Voltaire, his ridicule of the Morgante, p. 8; the cha-
racter he gives of Hudibras, p. 28, note 17, p. 112;
the machinery of the Henriade condemned, p. 24,
25; his tirade on marriage inserted, note 67, p. 142,
143 ; imitated in English, p. 143, 144.
Vulgar tongue, the Italian or Tuscan often so called,
st. xi.
Vulgarity of language, st. iii.j note 30, p. 122, 123;
note 21, p. 117, 118; st. xlix.j note 74, p. 147;
st. Ixxxi.; note 86, p. 153, 154.
W.
Waller, note 95, p. 177.
Welchman, a satire on the moral character and favourite
food of that people, note 48, p. 133.
Wench, authorities for a respectable sense of the word,
note 25, p. 120, 121.
Whale, painted skipping on a lofty mount, st. iv.
Wieland, his literal adoption of a happy expression of
Shakespeare's, note 41, p. 130.
Wit and humour connected with local peculiarities of
phrase and manners, p. 9, 10; distinct in many
respects, analogous in others, p. 9; wit imperial, st.
xxvii. xxviii.j note 55, p. 138.
Witch, vide Nera.
Worm, poetice for an enormous serpent, st. Ixii. ; apud
Milton, Par. Lost, for the devil, note 81, p. 151.
R
232 INDEX.
Y.
Young, Dr. cited by Spence for an anecdote of Addi-
son, note 21, p. 117.
Z.
Zipoli (Perloni), the anagram of Lorenzo Lippi, author
of the Malmantile, p. 20.
Zerbino, prince of Scotland, note 63, p. 1 4O.
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