sublime and terrible.' M. Ginguené has pursued the parallel further; but we must confine ourselves to the concluding observation. "Ce qui lui donne un grand et précieux avantage, c'est qu'il est toujours simple et vrai; jamais un trait d'esprit ne vient refroidir une expression de sentiment ou un tableau de nature. Il est naïf comme la nature elle-même, comme les anciens, ses fidèles imitateurs. We now arrive at Petrarch; for in the vast field before us, we must be contented to select our objects, and it be as well to 0 it may confine to poetry. We may hereafter find an opportunity of taking up our unfinished sketch of the historians of Italy. after urselves, at least for the present, The whole literary history of the 14th century, indeed, may in some sort be considered as included in that of Petrarch. His literary life occupies more than half of it; and, although his fame with posterity rests almost exclusively on his compositions in the newly created language of his country, in his own life he was at least equally celebrated for his ardour in the cultivation and revival of ancient learning, for his works on philosophy and morals, his oratorical eminence, and his skill in the political transactions of the day. Of his numerous works in the Latin language, all of which evince more or less the extraordinary powers of his mind, there are none that can awaken an interest in any class of modern readers, with the exception of his correspondence and his curious dialogues De Contemptu Mundi, which will ever be valuable for the strong light they cast on his personal character and the incidents of bis strange and diversified life. The confessions of St. Augustin furnished him with the idea of the last mentioned work, but, observes M. Ginguené, 'ni Augustin, ni Montaigne, ni même J. J. Rousseau, n'ont découvert plus naïvement leur interieur, ni fait avec plus de franchise l'aveu de leurs faiblesses.' His epistolary correspondence is evidently founded on the model of that of Cicero, whom he affected to imitate in all things. But no principle of mere imitation could sufficiently account for its wonderful multiplicity and extensiveness, the causes of which are to be sought in the character of the individual. Il avait,' says the Abbé de Sade, une amitié babillarde, et un cœur qui aimait à s'épancher.' The poem of Africa' was that, of all his works, on which he had proposed to build his most exalted and durable reputation; but long before his death he had the good sense to see and acknowledge its incurable defects: 'I would,' he says in one of his letters, if it were permitted me, efface even the recollection of this work, and nothing would be more agreeable to me than to burn it with my own hands. In spite of the faults which prevail in it, and greatly exceed its beauties,' adds M. Ginguené, it is fortunate that it has been preserved, not for the reputation of the poet, but for the history of poetry.hunter In comparing Petrarch with Dante, no doubt every reader of pure and uncontaminated taste must recognise the wonderful, we may almost say the immeasurable, superiority of the latter in all the higher qualities of the art, and especially in those respects in which the vices of Petrarch are most conspicuous. But enough is left to justify the applause of mankind, and to support him in the rank which the consenting voice of ages has assigned him. We must not forget, in appreciating his Italian poems, the opinion which the author himself has repeatedly expressed concerning them, and the views in which he composed and transmitted them to posterity. This, he assures us, was but to gratify himself by the unpremeditated effusions of his momentary feelings, and to amuse that description of readers which was incapable of understanding the more exalted efforts of his genius, conveyed in a nobler and more durable language. The fame which they obtained even in his life-time was equally unsought and unexpected: nevertheless that fame which has been so amply confirmed by posterity, could not have been raised except upon sufficiently solid foundations. The platonic refinement which has been imputed to him as the fundamental error of his poetical doctrines is thus converted by his admirers to a source of peculiar excellence; and, indeed, we think it is hardly within the province of criticism to maintain that the poetry so constituted could not, in the nature of things, be the genuine language of the heart. On voit qu'il ne voulut point, comme les poëtes anciens, peindre les effets extérieurs de la passion et les plaisirs sensibles qu'ils out su rendre avec tant de fidélité et que l'on goûte d'autant plus dans leurs vers, que l'on y reconnaît davantage ses propres affections et ses faiblesses; mais qu' ayant élevé son ame par la contemplation du beau inoral, et par l'espèce de culte que Laure obtint de lui, jusqu'à un amour dégagé de ses sens, il sut donner à cette passion le langage le plus naturel, puisqu'il est le plus convenable à sa nature presque céleste.Le cours des opinions et des mœurs a emporté loin de nous les passions de cette espèce; mais elles n'étaient pas sans exemple de son temps; et certain une fois, comme on doit l'être, que ce qu'il exprima d'une manière si ingénieuse et, si l'on veut, si extraordinaire, il le sentait réellement, on doit trouver un plaisir secret à reconnaître dans ses poésies, au moins comme un objet de curiosité, les traces de cet amour presqu' entièrement disparu de la terre. Elles peuvent même servir comme de pierre de touche pour juger et les autres et soi-même. Sans aspirer à la sublimité de ces sentiments, trop supérieurs à l'imperfection humaine, it es sûr que plus on aimera les poésies de Pétrarque, plus on aura en soi, si jamais ces passions pures revenaient à la mode, ce qui rendrait capable de les sentir.'-Ging. tom. ii. p. 562. We must be equally insensible,' M. Ginguené proceeds to assure us, to poetical and moral beauty not to perceive, in the poetry of Petrarch, an original, and, if we may so say, primitive character, a pathos of a peculiar sort, but still real, and springing out of the intimate persuasion and deep affections of the poet; a richness of images which sometimes amounts to profusion, but which, even in its excess, is always superior to poverty; a great dignity of philosophical and moral sentiments, an erudition select in itself and always employed with advantage, and above all a style so pure, so harmonious, and so sweet, that, among a multitude of pieces which may be casily chosen for their superior beauty, there are scarcely any which do not, like the verses of Horace and Virgil, of Racine and La Fontaine, impress themselves without effort and as it were spontaneously on the memory.' With regard to the points in which the Italian language may be considered as peculiarly indebted to Petrarch, it is observed that, even after Dante, something yet remained to be done in the choice of expressions and the fixation of the idiom, but by Petrarch nothing was left unfinished.' Denina assures us that, throughout the Canzoniere, there are hardly two expressions, even of those which the difficulties of rhyme forced upon the poet, that have grown old or are in any degree out of use. And this within a hundred years from the very infancy of the language. The taste for false point and antithesis, in which he unhappily indulged so freely, was that of the age in which he lived. C'est encore son siècle qu'il faut accuser de ces idées froidement alembiqués, nées de l'espèce de fureur platonique qui régnait alors, et dont nous avons vu de malheureux exemples dès les premiers pas de la langue et de la poésie Italiennes. Yet more to extenuate his faults and exalt our sense of his beauties, it is right to remember that Petrarch's genius was as strictly original as that of Dante. In that early age of literature the multiplication of copies was slow and uncertain, and we have the authority of Petrarch himself that the great work of his immortal predecessor was, to a considerable degree at least, unknown to him until a late period of his poetical career; so that, according to the ingenious expression of M. Ginguené, he may be called the second who had none before him.' A few of Petrarch's best sonnets have been repeatedly imitated in every language of Europe, and in England they have, sometimes at least, met with translators who have done them as much justice as it is, perhaps, possible for one language to render to another. His Canzoni' are less familiar to the English reader, and yet, in the opinion of competent judges, they tend to raise the character of the poet much higher than those smaller compositions 6 of which the confined and embarrassing structure has not unaptly been compared to the bed of Procrustes. Of the Canzoni, that which begins Chiare, fresche e dolci acque' has been beautifully, though somewhat freely rendered by Voltaire. Of another Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte.' M. Ginguené himself has offered us a poetical version, which appears to be possessed of considerable merit. There are three to which the Italians have uniformly given the preference ; but, in the opinion of our intelligent critic, the superiority of these over the rest, can only be understood relatively to the style, the delicacy of the expressions, and the harmony, the melodious enchainment of the words, the rhymes, and the measures.' 'I should not think,' he continues, any more than Muratori has thought, that I was committing a sacrilege in preferring to all three, for the truth of the sentiments, the richness and variety of the images, and for that soft melancholy which constitutes the principal attraction of amatory compositions, the Di pensier in pensier, the Chiare, fresche e dolci acque, the Se il pensier che mi strugge, the In quella parte dove amor mi sprona, and the Nella stagion che'l ciel rapido inchina, so rich in comparisons drawn from a country life, and so poetically expressed.' It is the last of these that we have selected in the hopes of giving some faint impression of its beauties. In that still season, when the rapid sun Drives down the west, and day-light flies to greet We make no apology for subjoining it. Claire fontaine, onde aimable, onde pure, En rappellant son image; Ornemens de ces bords, et filles du matin, Vous dont je suis jaloux, vous, moins brillantes qu'elle, Immortalisé par ses charmes, Lieux dangereux et chers où de ses tendres armes Ecoutez mes derniers accens, ecevez mes dernières larmes. The 18th, 19th, and 20th of the Canzoniere. When night has closed around, Yet has the wanderer found A short, but deep forgetfulness at last But ah! my grief that with each moment grows, Day urges on, is heaviest at its close. When Phoebus rolls his everlasting wheels To our first fathers bore. By us disdain'd, yet praised in hall and bower; But of repose, an hour, When Phœbus leaves, and stars salute the earth. Then, far from human sound, Am Some desert cave he strows With leaves and verdant boughs, And lays him down, without a thought, to sleep Who flies me still, my endless toil renewing. Even the rude seaman, in some cove confin'd, And when the sun in ocean wave serene Bathes his resplendent front, and leaves behind O'er men, and beasts, and flowers But my determined grief finds no repose, Nor know I what can check its ceaseless tears. |