ing the plane of courtship in an age not noted for the finest sensibility in this regard. Boccaccio was a friend of Petrarch, and probably the dissimilarity that is often noticed between friends was emphasized in the story-teller and the poet, to judge from their literary relics.

The following sonnets by Petrarch should be read with interest, two being addressed to Laura living, and one after she is dead. The translations by Colonel Higginson are especially admirable :

DOTH

SONNET (NO. 223).

Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama. any maiden seek the glorious fame Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy ? Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy Whom all the world doth as my lady name! How honor grows, and pure devotion's flame, How truth is joined with graceful dignity, There thou mayst learn, and what the path may To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;

There learn that speech beyond all poets' skill,
And gracious silence, and those holy ways

be

Unutterable, untold by human heart. But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill, This none can learn! because its lovely rays Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art. (TRANSLATED BY T. W. HIGGINSON.)

THE PERISHING HEART.

Mille fiate o dolce mia guerrera.

A THOUSAND times, sweet warrior, to obtain

Peace with those beauteous eyes I've vainly tried,
Proffering my heart; but with that lofty pride

To bend your looks so lowly you refrain:

66

Expects a stranger fair that heart to gain,
In frail, fallacious hopes will she confide :
It never more to me can be allied;
Since what you scorn, dear lady, I disdain.

In its sad exile if no aid you lend,

Banished by me; and it can neither stay
Alone, nor yet another's call obey:

Its vital course must hasten to its end:

Ah me, how guilty then we both should prove,
But guilty you the most, for you it most doth love!
(TRANSLATED BY NOTT.)

SONNET (No. 261).

Levommi il mio pensiero.

DREAMS bore my fancy to that region where
She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see.
'Mid those who in the loftiest heavens be
I looked on her, less haughty and more fair.
She took my hand; she said, "Within this sphere,
If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me:
I filled thy life with war's wild agony;
Mine own day closed ere evening could appear.

'My bliss no human thought can understand;

I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil

Of beauty thou dost love shall yet retain." Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand Ere those delicious tones could quite avail To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain ? (TRANSLATED BY T. W. HIGGINSON.)

For a period of nearly a century the Italian sonneteers were feeble or extravagant imitators and followers of Petrarch.

Michael Angelo (1475-1564),

a sonnet of

whose is quoted in the preceding essay, is con

spicuous not only for sonnets of a rare order, but because he united his gift of poetry to genius in art. For a blending of rare religious feeling with a self-deprecating, pure affection, the love sonnets of Angelo are unrivaled. His mistress, or rather his friend, Vittoria Colonna, walks far above the plane of his own worthiness, as he imagines it, as indeed Beatrice does to Dante; but, as far as their sonnets indicate, the latter lover had perhaps the more mundane feeling of the two. In short, the poetry of the great painter and sculptor was in fine harmony with the lofty, sacred character of his other art-work.

The following sonnet by Angelo is, like many by Milton, Keats, Wordsworth, and later poets, of peculiar biographical interest. It is an estimate of the greatest of Italian poets, by one of the next in importance, translated by America's greatest

sonneteer:

DANTE.

WHAT should be said of him cannot be said;
By too great splendor is his name attended;
To blame is easier those who him offended,
Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead

For our instruction; then to God ascended; Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid, Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.

Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice

Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well,

That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
That as his exile hath no parallel,

Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.
(TRANSLATED BY LONGFELLOW.)

Next for consideration is a sonnet-writer who was a most valued patron of Angelo's. This versatile Florentine, Lorenzo de' Medici, statesman, wit, and philosopher, beguiled his time with sonnets which were at least good imitations in Petrarch's style. Boiardo, author of the "Orlando Innamorato," kept up the love-lorn line of sonnets. The Lombard poet, whose work ranks among Italy's great romantic poems, yields place to the Cardinal, Bembo, and he is outshone by his friend Ariosto, in the line of sonneteers. The latter wrote but thirty-six, marked by a luxuriance of feeling, if not by striking originality. The Archbishop Giovanni della Casa followed his brother ecclesiastic, Ariosto, and by his harsher but stronger verse worked an innovation among the languorous followers of the early sonneteers. Costanzo, the historian of Naples, wrote sonnets, fair, indifferent, and sometimes ridiculous; and contemporary with him were three lady devotees of the sonnet, the famous Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara ; Veronica Gambara; and Gaspara Stampa. In Tasso we have a sonnet - writer well worthy of study, a writer of stately, dignified poems. Leigh Hunt has given the next prominent sonnet - maker, Marini, so thorough a castigation for his flippancies, extravagancies, and ludicrous conceits, that he may as well be considered a poetic corse, and dismissed as such.

The Italians have a proverb to the effect that an Italianized Englishman is a very devil; from which one might go on to infer that his doubtful majesty is a good sonneteer, as are not a few Italianized Englishmen. At any rate the chronological

order of writers of notable sonnets in the Italian brings us next to Milton, who visited Manso, the Marquis of Villa, about twelve years after Marini's death. Manso was the patron of this latter poet, as well as of Tasso; and it is related that Milton had to use all his adroitness in order to appear to compliment them both, while in his heart he must have disapproved strongly of Marini's style. Milton has left evidence, in a canzone, of his failure to please the Italian taste with his sonnets, which were doubtless too austere and selfcontained, even in their love passages, to suit the luxurious taste of his entertainers. After Milton's visit, there flourished another group of sonnet-writers in Italy. Redi wrote the pleasing "Bacco in Toscana," Menzini was a satirist, Maggi and Lemene were both chivalrous and humorous in their rhyming; but all aided to combat the taste for Marini's acrobatic poetry. Of all, Filicaja was perhaps the truest poet, winning as he has the praise of Wordsworth, while he evidently attracted Longfellow, as is witnessed by this translation of a lovely sonnet from the Italian's works:

TO ITALY.

ITALY! Italy! thou who 'rt doomed to wear
The fatal gift of beauty, and possess

The dower funest of infinite wretchedness,
Written upon thy forehead by despair;

Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair,
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who in the splendor of thy loveliness

Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!
Then from the Alps I should not see descending
Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde

Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore,