And since this "ex voto" is in itself of but little worth, I crave permission to conclude the humble offering in the words of Forteguerri himself, at the end of his poem:

"Che anima gentil sempre pon mente

Al buon cuor di chi dà, non al Presente:"

"The gentle mind ever considers, not the value of the gift, but the good heart of the giver."

September 17, 1821

B

INTRODUCTION.

My intention in attempting the translation of the first Canto of Monsignor Forteguerri's Ricciardetto subjoined to this discourse, was to try if I could convey to English readers any thing like an adequate idea of the style and character of that amusing Poem. But the most competent judges of my success in this attempt must be persons, conversant not only with our own literature, but with that of Italy, and particularly with the poets among the Italians who are generally ranked in the same class with Forteguerri.

Definitions have been long said to be dangerous in Law;1 they are also, though not so proverbially, dangerous in Science, and it may be added, that, if not dangerous, they are in many respects inconvenient in matters of Literature. Perhaps, in that case, as in the others, their best and safest use is to assist arrangement, and serve as a sort of index

to the different ideas which are treasured up in the memory, and become objects of our contemplation. As in the natural world it is found very difficult to fix the exact lines of demarcation even between the three great kingdoms of Animal, Vegetable, and Fossil, or Mineral, and still more so, to draw the evanescent strokes which divide the different orders, classes, genera, and species in those several kingdoms, whatever system of nomenclature may have been adopted, so it has happened in things intellectual; for example, in laying down accurate limits even between prose and poetry, but yet more in classifying in a satisfactory manner by subdivisions, the different sorts of composition which are to be considered as belonging to the one or the other of those several provinces of literature.

For general purposes the common division of Poetry into Epic, Dramatic, Didactic, Lyric, and Satiric, is sufficiently clear, and there are certain works which all the world will agree in placing immediately under one or other of those heads. But when the Critics descend to fix the place of many poems which are of a mixed unsystematised description, they find themselves engaged in con

troversy, and embarrassed to decide whether this or that poem belongs to the one or the other of those classes, or is so much sui generis that it cannot with propriety be marshalled with any of them. It never was questioned, I believe, that the Iliad and Tasso's Jerusalem belong to the head of Epopeia, but it has been maintained that the Paradise Lost has no right to be placed in that, which is usually considered as the highest station in poetry. Addison, in his well known analysis, and commentary on that great boast of our country, proposes to settle the matter by placing it still higher, and calling it a Divine Poem*. On the other hand, that ingenious and accomplished writer seems to have been inclined to have assigned a place among Epic poems to the ballad of Chevy Chase. These, indeed, may be deemed too much of extreme cases to be adduced as proofs of the unsatisfactory nature of definitions. It is only in instances where a particular poem appears to stand, as it were, on the verge between two of the established divisions that, as in the case of the contiguous borders of the primary colours in the rainbow, it is difficult, or impossible to say to which of the conterminous classes it belongs.

*

Spectator, No. 267.

† Spectator, Nos. 70. 74.