For now their torrents rush with double roar,

To meet the ocean, which, advancing still, Already grasps each drowning hill,

Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave.

Enter a WOMAN.

WOMAN. Oh, save me, save!

Our valley is no more:

My father and my father's tent,

My brethren and my brethren's herds,

The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent

And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds,

The little rivulet which freshen'd all

Our pastures green,

No more are to be seen.

When to the mountain cliff I climb'd this morn,

I turn'd to bless the spot,

And not a leaf appear'd about to fall;—

And now they are not!—

Why was I born?

JAPH.

To die! in youth to die;

And happier in that doom,

Than to behold the universal tomb

Which I

VOL. XI.

Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain.

Why, when all perish, why must I remain? [The Waters rise: Men fly in every direction; many are overtaken by the waves; the Chorus of Mortals disperses in search of safety up the Mountains; Japhet remains upon a rock, while the Ark floats towards him in the distance.

END OF PART FIRST.

MORGANTE MAGGIORE

DI

MESSER LUIGI PULCI.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto. The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one, and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source. It has never yet been decided entirely, whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion, which