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language a reaton for our not availing 
ourselves of one of the marked excel- 
lencies of our own, £ The sonnet,’ 
says Preston, ‘ will ever be cultivated 
by those who write on tender pathetic 
subjects It is pectiliarly adapted to the 
state of a man violently agitated by a 
real. passion, and wanting composure 
and vigour of mind to methodize his 
thought. Itis fitter to express a mo- 
mentary burst of passion, &c.? Now, 
if there be one species of composition 
more. difficult and artificial than another, 
it is an English sonnet on the Italian 
smodel. Adapted to the agitations of a 
real passion! Express momentary bursts 
of feeling in it! I should sooner expect 
to write pathetic axes, or pour forth ex- 
tempore eggs and altars! But the best 
confutation of such idle rules is to be 
found in the sonnets of those who have 
observed them, in their inverted sen- 
tences, their quaint phrases, and incon- 
gruous mixture of obsolete and Spen- 
‘serian words: and when at length the 
thing is tooled and hammered into fit 
‘shape, it is in general racked and tor- 
tured prose, rather than any thing re- 
sembling poetry.” In proof of the 
justice of this opinion, the reader may be 
referred:'to Miss Seward’s ‘ legitimate’ 
sonnet to Mr. Carey, and Mr. Capel 
Loft’s to the young poet of Nottingham, 
Mr. White, whose productions we have 
noticed with so much pleasure ; and on 
the other hand, to Bowles and to Char- 
lotte Smith, which last excellent writer 
must be regarded as the reviver of the 
sonnet in England. 
Lord Strangford ‘has therefore been 
constrained, by the unnatural metre 
which he has adopted, to deviate from 
-the sense of the original. That it is pos- 
sible to render the Italian sonnet, or the 
Italian ottava rima, into a correspond- 
ing metre, without adding to, or de- 
tracting from the original, and even 
without altering or omitting an epithet, 
and this too in verses which, in the na- 
tural flow and life of language vie with 
those which they represent, we have 
been convinced, by inspecting such 
efforts of consummate skill, which the 
translator of Filangieri has executed. 
But without this demonstration we 
should have conceived it impossible, and 
to effect it requires a combination of ta- 
lents, which can so rarely occur, that, 
perhaps, they ought not to be sacrificed 
to the task of translation. The present 
-translator, however, has deviated from 
POETRY... 
his original, ‘by choice, as well as by, © 
necessity. It is evident that he has 
thought Camoens too low, and has there- 
fore raised, him upon stilts. Let the fol- 
lowing improvement be compared with 
a plain and unadorned version of 
Portugueze. ‘ 
«{ ines rae a wretch, who would profanely 
are : 
On Love bestow a tyrant's barbarous name, 
And foe to-every soft delight, proclaim 
His service, slavery ; its wages, care? 
For ever may he prove it so, nor eer 
Feel the dear transports of that generous 
flame; 
Forbim nor maiden smile, normelting dame 
The silent couch of midnight bliss prepare! 
For much he wrongs the. gentlest, best of 
pow'rs, : 
Whose very pangs.can charm, and torment 
please, 
Whom long I’ve known, and in whose 
angriest hours i 
Such rapture found, as would I not forego, 
No—not forego, for all the dead, cold ease 
Which dull indifference could e’er bestow |” 
* - 
Is there who says that love is like the wind 
Fickle, ungrateful, full of fraud and hes? 
‘That wretched man hath sure deserved to find 
From Love ail vengeance and all cruelties ! 
Gentle, benignant, merciful is Love ; 
Believe not him who says love is not so! 
Let the vile slanderer live by men below: 
Despised, and hated by the gods above. 
If ever Love work'd misery, in me 
May man the sum of all his evils see, 
Me whom he seems delighted to oppress ; 
The utmost rigour of his power I prove, 
Yet would not change the miseries of love ° 
For all the world beside calls happiness. 
Camoens is never so amorous as his 
translator. There may be as much fire, 
but there is less fame; as much passion, 
but more modesty. The Portugueze is 
often flat, sometimes puerile, but rarely 
turgid; and where his subject is happy, 
never writer has poured forth a sweeter 
flow of natural and recognizable. feel- 
ings. The two following sonnets, plainly 
versified, will exemplify his best man- 
ner, for his sonnets are beyond compa 
rison his best productions. 
Waters of Tejo, gentle stream, that flow 
Thro’ these fair meads, refreshing as ye 
Herbage and flowers, and flocks, and wakes. 
light 
Soothing the nymphs and shepherds on your 
x awe vor 
I know not, gentle river, when my sight 
Shall linger on your pleasant waters more. . 
And now I turn me from you, sad at heart, 
Hopeless that fate my future lot will bless ; 
That evil fate which bids me now depart, - 
Converts remembered jay to wretchedness. 
