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I have faid above, that the Kra of Dante and Petrarch was the 

 Auguflan age of Italy. Others, perhaps, may have formed a different opi- 

 nion, nor fliall I now c6nte{l the point. What I principally meant was, 

 that Dante and Petrarch had unlocked the fprings of Italian poetry, and 

 certainly have not been outdone by any of their fucceflbrs. Crefcimbeni 

 too had faid, that fuch was the excellence of Petrarch's verfe, that 

 reaching the highefl: point of perfeftion, the Tufcan poetry, after the 

 manner of all fublunary things, fpeedily funk once more into its ancient rude- 

 nefs. And fo true is this, that for a whole century after, the Italian 

 poetry ftood ftill, as if in aftoniflimcnt of the efforts itfelf had made. Nor 

 was it till Lorenzo of Medici, about the middle of the fifteenth century, 

 had recalled the mufes to their ancient groves, that they again appeared 

 in Italy. After thefe, a fecond but fliorter calm fucceeded, when Ariofto 

 and Taffo burfl: upon the world, with Coftanzo, Tanfdlo, Guarini, and 

 fome few others in the fixteenth and feventecnth centuries, who have 

 fixed the Italian poetry as on a rock that cannot be fliaken, but with 

 the deftruftion of the language itfelf. But all thefe diftinguiflied bards 

 compofed their beft and nobleft works in the teleutic harmony : neither 

 would they have committed the brazen monuments of their own and 

 their country's fame to the precarious tenure of a rhime, had they not 

 been fufficiently convinced of its importance ; and that, whatever might 

 have been the ftubborn and inflexible feature of the Roman Verfe, the 

 genius of the Italian mufe, from whofe afhes flie fprung, fpoke in rhime, 

 arid like another phoenix, from burning in the balms of the parent neft, 

 took a bolder flight, and adopted a fweeter mufic of her own. And 

 although England for the mofl: part fliaped both the language and the 

 form of her poetry after the fafhion of France, as fhe has followed her 

 in almofl every other, yet was it at the Italian fire that Spenfer lighted 

 his allegoric lamp, and the fublime Milton kindled the torch, that ani- 

 mating the frame of the univerfe, blazed on the confines of futurity, 

 and flaming into another world, " far round illumined hell." To Dante 

 Vol.. IX. K therefore, 



