out, never to stop 'till we reach the appointed end. If a man may talk without thinking, why may he not write upon the same terms?" P. 47. On the subject of flattery, he gives this sportive but just illustration: 'He that slanders me, paints me blacker than I am, and he that flatters me, whiter-they both daub me, and when I look in the glass of conscience, I see myself disguised by both-I had as lief my taylor should sew gingerbread-nuts on my coat instead of buttons, as that any man should call my Bristol stone a diamond. The taylor's trick would not at all embellish my suit, nor the flatterers make me at all the richer.' P. 37. We shall only add another extract.— When we look back upon our forefathers, we seem to look back upon the people of another nation, almost upon creatures of another species. Their vast rambling mansions, spacious halls, and painted casements, the Gothic porch smothered with honeysuckles, their little gardens and high walls, their box-edgings, balls of holly, and yew-tree statues, are become so entirely unfashionable now, that we can hardly believe it possible, that a people, who resembled us so little in their taste, should resemble us in any thing else. But in every thing else, I suppose, they were our counterparts exactly, and time, that has sewed up the slashed sleeve, and reduced the large trunk-hose to a neat pair of silk stockings, has left human nature just where it found it. The inside of the man at least, has undergone no change. His passions, appetites, and aims, are just what they ever were. They wear perhaps a handsomer disguise than they did in days of yore; for philosophy and literature will have their effect upon the exterior, but in every other respect a modern is only an antient in a different dress.' P. 48. At the termination of this volume is a poem on an ancient oak, entitled Yardley-Oak' (discovered among posthumous papers). Its poetical merit, certainly considerable, is exaggerated by the editor, who seems unaware that, of these verses, many are executed in the worst style of the master, and are harsh and turgid. The shattered veteran,' of Yardley Chase, in his state of embryo, and in decay, is strikingly painted : Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Design'd thy cradle, and a skipping deer, The soft receptacle, in which secure Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.' r. 409. 'Time made thee what thou wast-King of the woods! (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing 'Time was, when settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the root-and time has been When tempests could not.' P. 413. We must now complete our copied sketch. Purity and tenderness of sentiment,' 'religious fervour,'' innocent playfulness of fancy,' elegant simplicity of style,' and 'peculiar ease, harmony, and grace,' are distinctions which the biographer has lavished on the Letters of Cowper. Shall we assert this applause to be overstrained?-We must yet acknowledge, that we have felt his power to amuse the fancy, gratify the judgement, and ameliorate the heart: and since, among other motives for this publication, Mr. Hayley has expressed a commendable desire of confirming sincere and simple piety in persons of various persuasions,' we may be allowed to hint, that, when another edition is required, The Life and Letters of Cowper will be rendered generally useful, rather by an inexpensive mode of printing, than by three volumes in quarto. The decorations, hitherto unnoticed, are an engraved view of St. Edmund's chapel, in the church of East-Dereham, which contains the grave of Cowper, and an etching of his monument, with the inscription, and elegantly-appropriate verses, which we now transcribe: In Memory Of WILLIAM COWPER, Esq. Ye, who with warmth the public triumph feet Here, to devotion's bard devoutly just, Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust! P. 1. England, exulting in his spotless fame, Ranks with her dearest sons his fav'rite name: Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise So clear a title to affection's praise; His highest honours to the heart belong; His virtues form'd the magic of his song.' The design of the monument itself is uninteresting: and, if dull critics may estimate, from an etching, the daring efforts of a statuary, incorrect. At the top of this memorial, a single pen, unconstrained and unbroken, bends over a Bible; and, to form a pyramid, depresses itself at the summit, and is unaccountably raised in the centre! The lower and literary portion of our quills is more stubborn, the higher less inclined to dejection. What sculptor ever learned, on classic ground, that the swans of Ilissus had plumage tipped with lead; or, that even the geese of the Capitol had feathers thus strangely distorted? Perhaps, however, this ingenious artist vaunts with the poet : Non usitata, nec tenui ferar ART. VII.—L'Arte Poetica Italiana da Benedetto Menzini. The Art of Italian Poetry, by Benedict Menzini. ART. VIII.-Bacco in Toscana Ditirambo di Francesco Redi. Bacchus in Tuscany, a Dithyrambic of Francis Redi. ART. IX.-La Rivoluzione Francese, Visione alla Dantesca, da Vincenzo Monti. The French Revolution, a Vision, after the Manner of Dante, by Vincent Monti. small 8vo. 5s. each. Boards. Becket. 1801. THERE is no foreign country to which Italy is so much indebted for the study and cultivation of its language, and a just, but at the same time complimentary, estimation of its writers, and especially of its poets, as Great Britain. When Galileo was disgraced, and suffering imprisonment in his native land, for pursuits and discoveries which have immortalised him, his name, and his researches, were honoured as they deserved to be in England. Milton visited and consoled him in his captivity, and became so enamoured of his native tongue, as to compose many of the best of his smaller effusions in Italian, and communicate to his countrymen, for the first time, a taste for the Italian sonnet. When Marchetti had completed his elegant and exquisite version of Lucretius, the best which has hitherto made its appearance in any language, fearful of the consequences which might result to him from the dissemination of a book which struck so deeply at the root of all superstition and false philosophy, he restrained the publication in his own country, and is indebted to England for the first edition of his labours, which made its appearance in London in 1717. A similar warmth of regard for Italian literature has seldom ceased to be manifested at any period; but it has of late exhibited a more prominent aspect, in consequence of Mr. Roscoe's gratifying attention to Italian history, and Mr. Mathias's republication of select poems, poetic narratives, and poetic commentaries, from the best writers of this elegant and highly-gifted people. It is to this last celebrated and accomplished scholar we are indebted for the three small volumes now under our consideration; each of which is introduced by an ardent and well-written address, in Italian, to some very dear and cultivated,' some highly favoured and learned,' friend-chiarissimo e coltissimo, ornatissimo e dottissimo; and preceded by a brief notice, either of the poet, or the subject of the poem. We have already had occasion to examine, in terms of no vulgar approbation, the preceding labours of Mr. Mathias, in the same ardent exertion of ushering the Muse of Italy to an acquaintance with his countrymen and contemporaries; and we perceive that the works before us are edited of the same size, type, and paper as his former republications, and are hence designed to match them, and constitute an uniform series. We shall begin with noticing Menzini's Art of Italian Poetry,' the prefixed Life of whom is taken from the edition of his poems published at Nice in 1782; and of whom it may be sufficient to state, that he was born at Florence, of poor but honest parents, in 1646; that he was indebted for his education and introduction into life to the gracious patronage of the marquis Vincent Salviati; that he was a contemporary and intimate acquaintance of the learned and dithyrambic Redi; that he was unsuccessful in the earlier part of his life; but, upon travelling to Rome, found, in the cardinal Pignatelli, a second patron; who, enamoured of his poetic talents, strongly recommended him to Christina queen of Sweden, that philosophic princess, to whom the learned of every country were offering with the incense of elegant adulation: that he was next private secretary to the cardinal Radioschi, primate of Poland, and who was afterwards elected to the pontificate, under the name of Innocent XII. : that, upon his return to Rome, he was chosen coadjutor of the canon Michael Brugneres, in the chair of eloquence ju the Sapienza, and was united to the Della Cruscan Acade 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 archaologist 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 Dubsequent. 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 E quei del folle ardir tosto si avvide La favola è per te, che adegui appena Come se la barchetta che sostenne |