[ 80 ] [JAN. 



UGO FOSCOLO, AND THE ITALIAN POETS.* 



LIKE the Oriental fame of the thousand and one tales, the charm of 

 which strengthened with the recital,, there is a sort of fascination clinging 

 around every thing of Italy and her works, that seems to grow with the 

 lapse of time, and hold the heart and the imagination in willing captivity. 

 In how far this pre-eminence of attraction and respect, among surrounding 

 nations, may be founded on reason and truth, or on mere climate and con- 

 ventional circumstances, would afford scope for some curious speculation ; 

 for assuredly, if we could, it would be right to divest ourselves of 

 hereditary admiration, and all undue love and reverence for objects, 

 not in themselves deserving of our high, enthusiastic regard. If, how- 

 ever, we were to let facts speak, the result, we incline to think, of such 

 inquiry would go far to shew the justice of the peculiar claim which 

 Italy boasts in the eyes of the world, in her history, her literature, and 

 her arts, not only to our love and admiration, but to our unceasing 

 gratitude for pleasures and benefits long conferred. Amidst the splendid 

 ruins of the Grecian and Roman greatness, Italy, the nurse of learning 

 and the arts, like the ark of the Israelites, still preserved the type of 

 intellectual truth and beauty, and continued the links between the 

 master-minds and diviner spirits of the old classic ages, and the periods 

 of civilization, discovery, and refinement, to which they roused man- 

 kind, down to the present day. The Muse of Italy was of the first to 

 break into full and majestic song; her painters first pictured the works 

 and the visions of heaven upon the wondering earth ; her princely scho- 

 lars raised the first institutions of learning, science, art ; models of 

 all which we now possess ; her philosophers made their discoveries 

 before Bacon wrote ; without her Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, our 

 Chaucer would not have been the same poet ; without her novelists the 

 mighty Shakspeare must elsewhere have sought his sources of magic 

 power, his Moor and his Juliet would not exist ; Milton combined the 

 majestic vigour and the splendid imagery both of Dante arid Tasso ; 

 Dry den, Pope, and all the best and loftiest of our names turned from the 

 classic stores which Italy preserved to us, to drink deeply after boyhood 

 at the scarcely less inspiring fount of Italy's Helicon itself. But among 

 the most gifted of her sons, whose genius spread light and civilization 

 over the modern world, none assuredly hold a higher rank than her 

 poets, standing in equally bold relief with the grand disciples of their 

 sister art, the Michael Angelos, the Raphaels, and the Titians of their 

 respective times. 



Like them they devoted themselves to their cause with an energy of 

 soul that mastered every difficulty ; they entered on their career with a 

 spirit of intellectual gladiatorship, which, in each pursuit and study, 

 ensured them success ; they did not confine their knowledge to one 

 branch of art, men for all times and all learning, they asserted the 

 rights of intellect ; they made their voice heard and feared ; they walked 

 with princes ; they adorned the camp, the court, and the cabinet, and 

 appeared more like the patrons than the mere fosterers of learning. 

 We might here, indeed, adduce numerous instances in which crowned 

 heads, as in the case of the bold Aretin, yielded obeisance to the power 



* Lives of the Italian Poets. By the Rev. Henry Stebbing, M.A. M.li.S.L. 

 Second Edition, with numerous Additions. 3 vols. Edward Bull. 



