Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2 by Leigh Hunt
page 7 of 371 (01%)
page 7 of 371 (01%)
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Vengon, per disertar non so che loco:
Però vi lascio in questo vano amore Di Fiordespina ardente poco a poco Un' altra volta, se mi fia concesso, Racconterovvi il tutto per espresso." But while I sing, mine eyes, great God! behold A flaming fire light all the Italian sky, Brought by these French, who, with their myriads bold, Come to lay waste, I know not where or why. Therefore, at present, I must leave untold How love misled poor Fiordespina's eye.[2] Another time, Fate willing, I shall tell, From first to last, how every thing befell. Besides the _Orlando Innamorato_, Boiardo wrote a variety of prose works, a comedy in verse on the subject of Timon, lyrics of great elegance, with a vein of natural feeling running through them, and Latin poetry of a like sort, not, indeed, as classical in its style as that of Politian and the other subsequent revivers of the ancient manner, but perhaps not the less interesting on that account; for it is difficult to conceive a thorough copyist in style expressing his own thorough feelings. Mr. Panizzi, if I am not mistaken, promised the world a collection of the miscellaneous poems of Boiardo; but we have not yet had the pleasure of seeing them. In his life of the poet, however, he has given several specimens, both Latin and Italian, which are extremely agreeable. The Latin poems consist of ten eclogues and a few epigrams; but the epigrams, this critic tells us, are neither good nor on a fitting subject, being satirical sallies against Nicolò of Este, who had attempted to seize on Ferrara, and been beheaded. Boiardo was not of a nature qualified to |
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