micians at Florence. He died of a dropsy in September, 1704, aged 54. The Art of Italian Poetry,' is divided into five books or cantos. In the first of which, the poet opens with showing the difficulty of poetising successfully; and that art must unite with nature, neither being sufficient of itself. He attempts to prove, that the chief foundation of good writing is a critical acquaintance with the idiom of the language exhibited: the advantage of imitating good writers; the certain success of dignity and perspicuity: that the poet should possess promptitude of rhyming, and evince ease and fluency, not by negligence and carelessness, but by a well-sustained and regulated balance. The Tuscan language, in its infancy contracted and mean, was meliorated, he tells us, by degrees, and principally by the labours of Petrarch. He exhorts the poet to submit his writings to the ordeal of severe scrutiny, and repeatedly revise them if he wish them to acquire durability. The poem is written in terza rima, or, as the Welch archæologist would denominate it, in triads; a measure, in which we shall observe, for the benefit of the English reader, that the termination of the middle verse, of every preceding stanza, regulates the rhyme for the first and third of the subsequent. The first canto opens as follows: • Erto è il giogo di Pindo: anime eccelse Chè la parte lasciar terrestre ed ima Oh tu, che prendi ad illustrar le carte, Però che in vano un nome eterno attende Di paterno timor pallido e bianco, E quei del folle ardir tosto si avvide La favola è per te, che adegui appena Come se la barchetta che sostenne 1 The English reader must accept of the following translation, in which, to give him a clearer insight into this order of versification, we have followed the original in the mechanism of its rhymes: Steep is th' Aonian mount:-the few sublime, For vain his hope of Fame's eternal scroll, Loud shriek'd his spirit, and his heart misgave, This is thy tale, who, skimming scarce the mire, As though the boat, some shelter'd stream that scours, The Italian reader must forgive us for translating Olandesi by the term Britain: we are acquainted with no word that will so well express the poet's meaning in modern days. In the course of this canto, we have been particularly pleased with the account of the gradual polish produced by the workman who plies the Pierian anvil. • Così per lunga età potè vedersi We have also been highly gratified with the well-deserved panegyric paid to Petrarc, the maggior Tosco, as our poet denominates him, to whom the chaste and naked Graces first unveiled themselves in modern days: whence Bembo, in his ottavi, as is well observed by the annotator, < Il Petrarca è il maggiore tra' Lirici.' Menzini has, occasionally, copied his countryman Vida'; but he has far more frequently, and more closely, copied Horace, who may also, in some sort, be called his countryman, though of an anterior language as well as æra. The second book commences with observations on the epopee, the origin of which, in Italian literature, the poet attributes conjointly to Tasso and Ariosto, whose respective merits he duly discriminates. He advises an intimate connexion of part with part, and that the customs and manners of the time be rigidly a adhered to. Above all things, he repudiates obscenity of expression. He then adverts to the two celebrated tragedies of Solimano and Torrismondo, and points out the time and intention of tragedy and comedy. He maintains that the writers of modern comedy have departed essentially from the appropriate character they assumed in former times; and points out the vices into which they most frequently run. He concludes with an observation to which we can scarcely accede; to wit, that comedy, being a species of poetry, ought not to be destitute of verse. In these trammels it was unquestionably exhibited at Athens and Rome: but it was often a looser verse, verso più sciolto, than even Italy herself has exhibited in any modern period. There is a stateliness, a dignity, and solemn march in tragedy, which appear to demand, and to be infinitely improved by, the introduction of metre; but the unrestrained freedom, the playfulness, of comedy, seem to allow of a considerable deviation from the sober shackles in which the tragic muse exhibits herself to most advantage The excellent examples we possess in our own country, in France, and Germany, prohibit us from wishing that this maxim of our poet may ever be generally adopted. If adopted at all, it might, perhaps, be most successfully applied to the Italian theatres; but the prose specimens which have been of late afforded us by Goldoni, Alfieri, and various others, prevent us from being anxious for its adoption even in Italy. From our author's description of the common defects of comic performers, our comedians, of the present day, might glean no small degree of improvement: and we lament that our limits will not allow us to copy the passage. In his third book, Menzini treats of dithyrambic, or, as it has more generally been styled, Bacchanalian poetry; of the satire, of the elegy, of pastoral and piscatory productions: in the course of which, the observations he offers, and the rules he lays down, evince an equal possession of taste, judgement, and genius. We have before observed that Horace appears to have been his chief model; and the opening of the present book cannot but forcibly remind us of him. It occurs as follows: Ite lungi, o profani! ignaro e stolto Ecco varcano il rio leggieri e snelle; Voci d'alto mistero l' aria fendone, Hence! ye profane! ye brutish rabble, hence! See! light and airy yonder stream they cleave, By Pan conducted.-Hark! th' empyreal plain Sanazzaro is, in this book, regarded as the father of the piscatory eclogue. This, however, is a dignity which should rather have been couferred on Theocritus, from whose Fisherman Sanazzaro appears to have drawn his first idea of reconsecrating this subject to verse. We are rather surprised also, that no notice is taken of the old Αλιευτικη of Oppian, who was studied with so much success by our own Countrymen, Phineas, Fletcher, and Brown, whose piscatory poems are still worthy of attentive perusal. The following stanzas are pretty, and offer an elegant turn: 'Prendi dell' alto, o costeggiando varca Ninfe del mar, Partenopee Sirene, Misero! A che cantando io disacerbo Odimi, o Filli, e poi di me t' incresca; The fourth book is dedicated to devotional poetry, to the ode, to didactic poetry, and the sonnet. The author admits, that in sacred poetry it is difficult to obtain success : but he by no means conceives, with Dr. Johnson, that devotional subjects do not offer the muse a proper theatre for the exercise of her powers. 'Al risonar della celeste lira Ah, menti umane! se non foste sorde Nè in questo basso e paludoso fiume Squarcisi omai questa sì folta e densa P. 81. • When wakes the heavenly lyre the spheres above O, minds of mortals!-the celestial chime CRIT. REV. Vol. 4. January, 1805. F |