originals, followed sometimes with attempts to versify them; and in the
Appendix, for the furtherance of the study of the Italian language, are
given entire stories, also in the original, and occasionally rendered
in like manner. The book is particularly intended for such students or
other lovers of the language as are pleased with any fresh endeavours to
recommend it; and, at the same time, for such purely English readers as
wish to know something about Italian poetry, without having leisure to
cultivate its acquaintance.

I did not intend in the first instance to depart from the plan
of selection in the case of Dante; but when I considered what an
extraordinary person he was,--how intense is every thing which he
says,--how widely he has re-attracted of late the attention of the
world,--how willingly perhaps his poem might be regarded by the reader
as being itself one continued story (which, in fact, it is), related
personally of the writer,--and lastly, what a combination of
difficulties have prevented his best translators in verse from giving
the public a just idea of his almost Scriptural simplicity,--I began to
think that an abstract of his entire work might possibly be looked upon
as supplying something of a desideratum. I am aware that nothing but
verse can do perfect justice to verse; but besides the imperfections
which are pardonable, because inevitable, in all such metrical
endeavours, the desire to impress a grand and worshipful idea of Dante
has been too apt to lead his translators into a tone and manner the
reverse of his passionate, practical, and creative style--a style which
may be said to write things instead of words; and thus to render every
word that is put out of its place, or brought in for help and filling
up, a misrepresentation. I do not mean to say, that he himself never
does any thing of the sort, or does not occasionally assume too much
of the oracle and the schoolmaster, in manner as well as matter;