wherein it occurs, before our learned expounder met with it there. P. 91. He promulgates it as his own discovery, that the word “lontana" (c. ii. v. 60,) is used as an adjective and not a verb; and then adds, with apparent modesty, "sed nos hæc cognovimus esse nihil." We happen to know something more; that the discovery, such as it is, is Lombardi's. "E durerà quanto '1 mondo lontana-cioe lunga. Lontano per lungo adopera Dante pure nel Paradiso, (c. xv. v. 49,) &c. "The common construction," he says, "does not seem to him to furnish clear ideas." Lucky man if he should ever find any that will! P. 100. He calls" Pope's Ode to Solitude, a solemn disclosure of feelings, more recondite far than Dante's attachment to Beatrice." The expounder has full credit for such a preference. Yet he seriously believes that Dante wrote the beautiful sonnet on Beatrice, beginning O ciascun alma presa e gentil core, at nine years of age. Of this sonnet he says, that it "is really very pretty, and, considering it was the production of a mere child, astonishingly so.”+ P. 129. On finding that one of the commentators had supposed Beatrice to be a daughter of an Emperor of Constantinople, he observes, with much bonhommie, that, "really the whims and perplexities of the commentators are too tantalizing to unravel them all." P. 264. "Heraclitus," says he, "I pronounce with the penultimate short, as it is in the original and in Petrarch." It is by throwing up a feather, one sees which way the wind blows. This little instance completely proves how ignorant the commentator is of Dante's metre, though he talks so much of its melody. Nothing is more common both in Dante and Petrarch, than a trochee in the fourth place. In the line preceding this, he would of course read and Diogenes, Anassăgōra, e Tale; Forth, Satan, forth! Thine awful forehead shine! O princely Satan, for one gleam of thine! are scarcely a paraphrase." The Hebrew we will leave to Hebraists; but that the "venerable concision of the original is most strangely cut up, our own senses assure us. Of the expounder's "venerable concision," we have an instance in a note of twenty-one pages on this one verse. It is not to be wondered, if with the expounder's great knowledge of foreign languages, and the immense labour it must have cost him to acquire them, he should have a little forgotten the grammar and spelling of his own. Thus at p. 435, "it is them that our poet, who was truly both a philosopher and a republican, would have reprobated; for the context of all his writings justify the assertion.' In some words, the violations of orthography may be imputed to the difficulties of a foreign press; but when we find "unvealing" for "unveiling," p. 188, we conclude that the writer himself has been misled by an Hibernian pronunciation. So much for these precious notes, as he has handsomely called those of "his fair antagonist," Mr. Cary. Pre So Lombardi would read instead of moto. His error in supposing mondo to be pcculiar to the Nidobeatina edition and some MSS. is remarked by Mr. Cary, who passes over the discovery as one of Lombardi's unwise noveltics. + For the sonnet itself, and a translation of it, see Mr. Cary's Life of Dante, p. 33. cious, indeed, the reader will find them, or rather the money they will cost him, which, at the rate of the present volume, will be not less than eleven pounds; notes on a translation, which the writer, for some reason best known to himself, has thought fit to suppress. Yet the purchaser will have this consolation, that he may treat them without the smallest ceremony, use them just as he would Montagne's Essays, "take them up, and throw them down, and" (if he likes it)" take them up again ;" only that the exercise will be a little more operose in one instance than the other; for before the Divine Comedy is completely elucidated, he must expect that the Comment will have swelled to twelve octavo volumes and a half, consisting altogether of 6500 pages. If he shall resolve on undertaking so formidable a labour, we conclude by wishing him well through his task of "taking up, and throwing down, and taking up again," in the animating words of his authorHo! charge, hurra, jolt, bound, rebound! ODE. ADDRESSED TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF FRANCE. By the Author of the Essays on English Versification. And check thy hostile march before it be too late. When first thou wert an exile from thy home, When both thy health and strength thou hast outlasted? Thou seest around thee subjects bending low; Be sure thou soon shalt know Thyself their hate, and all thy race their scorn. Where are thy men-at-arms, they, once who moved As flowers that all the darksome night So these, in sullen slumber now reclined, Their worship and their service turn'd and gone And darest thou, presumptuous, now demand To spoil an unoffending Land? And dare'st thou hope that Heaven will hear?- Pray that kind Heaven will condescend To grant thee rest and safety till thine end; SPANISH ROMANCES. Ir the vicissitudes of ages have scarcely produced a change on the Spanish peasantry, so that they, to whom the inimitable pages of Cervantes are familiar, can see nothing new in the European peninsula ;-if the influence of song is still omnipresent and omnipotent ;-if the strains of wisdom and eloquence often fall from the lips of the untutored, and the volumes of history appear familiar to the meanest villager; -if a spirit of joy and harmony is spread over mountain and valley these, and more than these, have been produced by those beautiful and touching compositions, which, grafted on an oriental stock, have been conveyed from tongue to tongue, and have served to transfer from generation to generation, in all their strength, and all their freshness, the events, as well as the sympathies, of other days. Even in the obscure and trackless recesses, which have scarcely ever been trodden by the foot of a stranger, in spots beyond the influence of civilization, where the mass-book and the lives of the saints make up the sum total of the learning of the most learned; the historical Romances have served as the great depositaries, the faithful archives of all that is interesting in the chronicles of Spain, since Rodrigo el Desdichado completed the ruin which Witiza el Nefando had begun. Was wisdom ever conveyed in a more attractive form than that of these graceful and flowing strains? The recurring music of the asonante, that light echo of a rhyme, so much more harmonious than blank-verse, so much less resstrained than any species of metrical prosody, adds singularly to the general charm; and depending wholly A la sombra de mis cabellos peynaua yo mis cabellos con cuydado cada dia y el viento los esparzia robandome los mas bellos, y a su soplo y sombra dellos mi querido se durmio, ¿ si le recordare, o no? for its effect on the simple vowel sounds, whose melody is so much more soft and pure than any thing produced by a combination of letters, it falls on the ear like notes too distant for distinctness, yet producing 66 a concord of sweet sounds," whose character can hardly be defined, though it leaves an irresistible emotion of complacency and delight. A history of Spain, from the fall of the Visigothic monarchy down to the present hour, might be formed from the existing Romances alone. A judicious inquirer would be able to extract a greater sur total of truth, communicated with greater energy and beauty in the Romanceros of the peninsula, than in all the chronicles of the convents or of the palace. But this is too extensive to be entered upon. For the expression of warm and natural sentiments-for genuine pathos and tender feeling-for that impassioned eagerness which finds food for its hopes and fears in every object of thought or sense; in a word, for the eloquence of honest emotions, what is there that can be compared to the Romances of Spain? Could I transplant my readers to the brown mountains of Andalusia, or the valleys of Bastan; could I bid them dwell with me on those delightful recollections of hours, when in the brightest spring-tide of youth I joined the village-dance and listened to the peasant's tale; could I paint that enthusiasm, kindled in every countenance, and spreading like light through every bosom, "it would be something." Every happy villager took his turn in the recitation, and such as these were the affecting and beautiful compositions we enjoyed: dizeme que le da pera el ser en estremo ingrata Primavera de varios Romances, APRIL, 1823. 2 E Sad was the noble cavalier, O what has driven me, my dear! Old Silva de Romances, (without date.) And seek through passion's waves to steer, Then some young swain doffed his montero bonnet, and, his voice blending with the tones of his guitar-the ever faithful companion of Spanish verse― in low and melancholy tones he sang as follows: Di Juan de que murió Blas Cuando morir se tenia que el dolor de que moria Say, Juan, say, of what he died?. What said he, shepherd?-thou wert there Poor youth! he had been scorn'd by pride--- And when he felt the failing breath And when the last, last throb drew nigh, Conde Claros. Nor were the decorations which the charms of nature offer to the ena moured poet forgotten. Encontrandose dos arroyuelos Bajaba un arroyo manso Two little streams o'er plains of green |