Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the world's war, and years, and banishment,
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught;
For mine is not a nature to be bent

By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain, and never more, save when the cloud

Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud
Of me, can I return, though but to die,

Unto my native soil, they have not yet
Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high.
But the sun, though not overcast, must set,

And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.

The world hath left me, what it found me, pure,
And if I have not gather'd yet its praise,

I sought it not by any baser lure;

Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name
May form a monument not all obscure,
Though such was not my ambition's end or aim,
To add to the vain-glorious list of those
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,

And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows
Their sail, and deem it glory to be class'd
With conquerors, and virtue's other foes,

In bloody chronicles of ages past.

I would have had my Florence great and free; 1 Oh Florence Florence! unto me thou wast Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over," but thou wouldst not; as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gather'd thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard

My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire. Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire, But did not merit to expire by her,

And loves her, loves her even in her ire! The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer 2 Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust

Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom;

Cader tra' bouni è pur di lode degno." Sonnet of Dante, in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.

2 "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [On the 27th of January, 1302, Dante was mulcted eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' banishment; and in case the fine was not paid, his goods were to be confiscated. On the eleventh of March, the same year, he was sentenced to a punishment due only to the most desperate of malefactors. The decree, that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered, in 1772, by the Conte Ludovico

No, she denied me what was mine-my roof,
And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb.
Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof

The breast which would have bled for her, the heart
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof,
The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each part
Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw
For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art
Pass his destruction even into a law.

These things are not made for forgetfulness,
Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw
The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
Of such endurance too prolong'd to make
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
Though late repented; yet-yet for her sake
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
My own Beatrice, I would hardly take
Vengeance upon the land which once was mine,
And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return,
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine,
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn.
Though, like old Marius 3 from Minturna's marsh |
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,

And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph, let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those
Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose

But on the pillow of Revenge - Revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,

When we shall mount again, and they that trod
Be trampled on, while Death and Até range
O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks- -Great God!
Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod
Will fali on those who smote me,-be my shield!
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities, and the tented field-
In toil, and many troubles borne in vain

For Florence. 4- I appeal from her to Thee! Thee whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious vision, which to see

And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow

The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect

Savioli. See Tiraboschi, where the sentence is given at iength.]

3 [Under the pretence of opposing the power of Sylla Marius, who had been five times elected to the consulship. aimed at the sovereign power. Stapylton says, that the Minturnian fens, in which he was discovered by Sylla's emis saries, were in Switzerland ! For this accurate piece of topography, he was indebted to the old scholiast. The spe however, lies on the right hand of the ferry of Garigliano, as you go from Rome to Naples. — GIFFORD.]

[In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathise with a resentiment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. But the heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender; his poetry is full of comparisons from rural life; and the sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the veil et allegory that surrounds her. But the memory of his injuries pursued him into the immensity of eternal light; and in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkcas at the name of Florence. — HALLAM.]

Of half a century bloody and black,
And the frail few years I may yet expect

Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear,
For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd

On the lone rock of desolate Despair,

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail
Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare;
Nor raise my voice-for who would heed my wail?
I am not of this people, nor this age,
And yet my harpings will unfold a tale

Which shall preserve these times when not a page
Of their perturbed annals could attract
An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,
Did not my verse embalm full many an act

Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom
Of spirits of my order to be rack'd

In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone;
Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have

known

The name of him- who now is but a name, And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, Spread his by him unheard, unheeded—fame; And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die Is nothing; but to wither thus — to tame

My mind down from its own infinity —

To live in narrow ways with little men, A common sight to every common eye, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things That make communion sweet, and soften pain To feel me in the solitude of kings

Without the power that makes them bear a crownTo envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, Within my all inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,1

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry 2- this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, They made an Exile-not a slave of me.

Corso

This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelf families, named Donati. Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described as being" Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate il più nobile filosofo che mai fosse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e uffici della Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotele che, &c. &c. ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai. E Marco Tullio-e Catone-e Varrone, e Seneca-ebbero moglie," &c. &c. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for any thing I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might

Forth from the abyss of time which is to be, The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Shapes that must undergo mortality;

What the great Seers of Israel wore within, That spirit was on them, and is on me, And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, The only guerdon I have ever known. Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed, Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget In thine irreparable wrongs my own; We can have but one country, and even yet

Thou'rt mine-my bones shall be within thy breast, My soul within thy language, which once set With our old Roman sway in the wide West; But I will make another tongue arise As lofty and more sweet, in which express'd The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs,

Shall find alike such sounds for every theme That every word, as brilliant as thy skies, Shall realise a poet's proudest dream,

And make thee Europe's nightingale of song; So that all present speech to thine shall seem The note of meaner birds, and every tongue Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish'd Ghibelline. Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries Is rent,,—a thousand years which yet supine Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise, Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, Float from eternity into these eyes;

[tion,

The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their sta-
The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb,
The bloody chaos yet expects creation,
But all things are disposing for thy doom;
The elements await but for the word,
"Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb !
Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,
Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,

Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:
Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?
Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,
Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice
For the world's granary; thou, whose sky heaven gilds
With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,

And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew ; Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints,

as to their philosophy-Cato gave away his wife of Varro's we know nothing-and of Seneca's only that she was disposed to die with him, but recoverea, and lived several years afterwards. But, says Lionardo, L'uomo è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi,' And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce a Città.”

2 [The violence of Gemma's temper proved a source of the bitterest suffering to Dante; and in that passage of the Inferno, where one of the characters says —

'La fiera moglie più ch' altro, mi nuoce,
'me. my wife,

Of savage temper, more than aught beside,
Hath to this evil brought,'

his own conjugal unhappiness must have recurred forcibly and painfully to his mind. — CARY.]

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made Her home; thou, all which fondest fancy paints, And finds her prior vision but portray'd

In feeble colours, when the eye- from the Alp Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp Nods to the storm dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 't were for help,

To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still

The more approach'd, and dearest were they free,
Thou thou must wither to each tyrant's will:
The Goth hath been,- the German, Frank, and Hun
Are yet to come, — and on the imperial hill
Ruin, already proud of the deeds done

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,
Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won
Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue
Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,
And deepens into red the saffron water

Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vow'd to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
Their ministry: the nations take their prey,
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
Are; these but gorge the flesh and lap the gore
Of the departed, and then go their way;

But those, the human savages, explore

All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set; 1
The chiefless army of the dead, which late
Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met,
Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;

Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance
Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.
Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,

From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,

But Tiber shall become a mournful river.

Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye rocks! floods whelm them, and for Why sleep the idle avalanches so,

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
Why doth Eridanus but overflow

[ever!

And makes your land impregnable, if earth Could be so; but alone she will not war, Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth

In a soil where the mothers bring forth men: Not so with those whose souls are little worth; For them no fortress can avail, the den

Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting Is more secure than walls of adamant, when The hearts of those within are quivering.

Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to Against Oppression; but how vain the toil, [bring While still Division sows the seeds of woe And weakness, till the stranger reaps the spoil! Oh my own beauteous land! so long laid low, So long the grave of thy own children's hopes, When there is but required a single blow To break the chain, yet - yet the Avenger stops,

And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee, And join their strength to that which with thee What is there wanting then to set thee free, [copes; And show thy beauty in its fullest light? To make the Alps impassable; and we, Her sons, may do this with one deed

CANTO THE THIRD.

Unite.

And flow again, I cannot all record

That crowds on my prophetic eye: the earth And ocean written o'er would not afford Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth;

Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven, There where the farthest suns and stars have birth, Spread like a banner at the gate of heaven,

The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,

And Italy, the martyr'd nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and mercy evermore :

Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind,
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
The seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of
Earth's dust by immortality refined
To sense and suffering, though the vain may scoff,
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
Before the storm because its breath is rough,
To thee, my country! whom before, as now,
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre
And melancholy gift high powers allow
To read the future; and if now my fire

Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
I but foretell thy fortunes-then expire;
Think not that I would look on them and live.
A spirit forces me to see and speak,
And for my guerdon grants not to survive;
My heart shall be pour'd over thee and break:

MDXXVII, scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, gentiluomo Samminiatese, che vi si trovò presente.' An edition of it was printed at Cologne in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy of the Buonaparte family.]

Yet for a moment, ere I must resume Thy sable web of sorrow, let me take Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy And many meteors, and above thy tomb [night. Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight: And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise To give thee honour, and the earth delight; Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,

The gay, the learn'd, the generous, and the brave, Native to thee as summer to thy skies, Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave, 1 Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name; For thee alone they have no arm to save, And all thy recompense is in their fame,

A noble one to them, but not to theeShall they be glorious, and thou still the same? Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be

The being and even yet he may be born.
The mortal saviour who shall set thee free,
And see thy diadem, so changed and worn

By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced;
And the sweet sun replenishing thy morn,
Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced,
And noxious vapours from Avernus risen,
Such as all they must breathe who are debased
By servitude, and have the mind in prison.

Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe
Some voices shall be heard, and earth shall listen ;
Poets shall follow in the path I show,

And make it broader: the same brilliant sky Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow, And raise their notes as natural and high;

Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing Many of love, and some of liberty,

But few shall soar upon that eagle's wing,

And look in the sun's face with eagle's gaze,
All free and fearless as the feather'd king,
But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavish'd be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of praise !

And language, eloquently false, evince

The harlotry of genius, which, like beauty,
Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,

And looks on prostitution as a duty.

He who once enters in a tyrant's hall 3

As guest is slave, his thoughts become a booty,
And the first day which sees the chain enthral
A captive, sees his half of manhood gone- +
The soul's emasculation saddens all
His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne
Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,
How.servile is the task to please alone!

To smooth the verse to suit his sovereign's ease
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,
Or force, or forge fit argument of song!

[bles,

Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to Flattery's treHe toils through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest truth should stammer thro' his strain.

Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecucco.

* Columbus, Americus Vespasius, Sebastian Cabot.

A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he was slain.

But out of the long file of sonneteers
There shall be some who will not sing in vain,
And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers,
And love shall be his torment; but his grief
Shall make an immortality of tears,

And Italy shall hail him as the Chief
Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song

Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. But in a farther age shall rise along

The banks of Po two greater still than he;
The world which smiled on him shall do them wrong
Till they are ashes, and repose with me.

The first will make an epoch with his lyre,
And fill the earth with feats of chivalry:
His fancy like a rainbow, and his fire,
Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his thought
Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire;
Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught,

Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme,
And Art itself seem into Nature wrought
By the transparency of his bright dream.
The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood,
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem;
He, too, shall sing of arms, and Christian blood
Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp
Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood,

Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp

Conflict, and final triumph of the brave
And pious, and the strife of hell to warp
Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave
The red-cross banners where the first red Cross
Was crimson'd from his veins who died to save,
Shall be his sacred argument; the loss

Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame
Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss
Of courts would slide o'er his forgotten name,
And call captivity a kindness, meant
To shield him from insanity or shame,
Such shall be his meet guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's Laureate-they reward him well!
Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,

Harder to bear and less deserved, for I

Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;

But this meek man, who with a lover's eye

Will look on earth and heaven, and who will deign
To embalm with his celestial flattery

As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign,
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he'll love, and is not love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?

Yet it will be so-he and his compeer,
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume

In penury and pain too many a year,

And, dying in despondency, bequeath

To the kind world, which scarce will yield a tear, A heritage enriching all who breathe

With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatch'd by time; not Hellas can unroll

Through her olympiads two such names, though one Of hers be mighty; and is this the whole Of such men's destiny beneath the sun 76

The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer. 5 Petrarch.

["Why is it necessary to adopt the invidious and too common practice of weighing the transcendent talents of Ariosto and Tasso in opposite, and as it were contending, scales?

Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, The electric blood with which their arteries run, Their body's self-tuned soul with the intense

Feeling of that which is, and fancy of

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

These birds of Paradise but long to flee

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

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

And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, Then is the prey-birds' triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd who learn'd to bear, Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!

And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name amongst the number were, That destiny austere, and yet serene,

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

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

A temporary torturing flame is wrung,

Shines for a night of terror, then repels

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

CANTO THE FOURTH.

MANY are poets who have never penn'd

Their inspiration, and perchance the best: They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more bless'd Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame, Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. Many are poets, but without the name,

For what is poesy but to create

Reader! if you have already had the delight of perusing the last production of Lord Byron's muse, how must you have admired those exquisitely beautiful and affecting portraitures of the two matchless poets which conclude the third 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 characterised in numbers, style, and sentiment, so wonderfully Dantesque, that mastering our uncongenial language, and habitual modes of thought as well as expression-they seem to have been inspired by the very genius of the inarrivabile Dante himself." GLENBERVIE, Ricciardetto, p. 106.]

1 The cupola of St. Peter's.

2 ["If," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "the high admiration and esteem in which Michael Angelo has been held by all nations, and in all ages, should be put to the account of prejudice, it must still be granted that those prejudices could not have been entertained without a cause: the ground of our prejudice then becomes the source of our admiration. But from whatever it proceeds, or whatever it is called, it will not, I hope, be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet, however unequal I

From overfeeling good or ill; and aim At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men, Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late, Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain, And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain, Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore? So be it we can bear. But thus all they Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power Which still recoils from its encumbering clay Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er The form which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, Or deify the canvas till it shine With beauty so surpassing all below, That they who kneel to idols so divine Break no commandment, for high heaven is there Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of poesy, which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected,
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved - Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass

Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome 1, its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door

As this, to which all nations shall repair
And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven.
And the bold Architect unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord,*
Whether into the marble chaos driven
His chisel bid the Hebrew 3, at whose word
feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world
again, I would tread in the steps of that great master. To
kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his per-
fections, would be glory and distinction enough for an an
bitious man."-SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS's Discourses, vol. ii.
p. 216.]

3 The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II. SONETTO

Di Giovanni Battista Zappi.

Chi è costui, che in dura pietra scolto,
Siede gigante; e le più illustri, e conte
Opre dell' arte avvanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbra s1, che le parole ascolto?
Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto
Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte,
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea del monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto
Tal era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste

Acque ei sospese a se d' intorno, e tale
Quando il mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui.
E voi sue turbe un rio vitello alzaste?
Alzata aveste imago a questa eguale!
Ch' era men fallo l' adorar costui,

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