than I do the great masterpieces of wit and humour which Italy
has produced. Still I cannot but discern and lament a great
deficiency, which is common to them all. I find in them
abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, of profound and just
reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters, opinions,
are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing." But
something is still wanting. We read, and we admire, and we yawn.
We look in vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the
comedy of Athens, for the fierce and withering scorn which
animates the invectives of Juvenal and Dryden, or even for the
compact and pointed diction which adds zest to the verses of Pope
and Boileau. There is no enthusiasm, no energy, no condensation,
nothing which springs from strong feeling, nothing which tends to
excite it. Many fine thoughts and fine expressions reward the
toil of reading. Still it is a toil. The Secchia Rapita, in
some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuse and
languid. The Animali Parlanti of Casti is perfectly intolerable.
I admire the dexterity of the plot, and the liberality of the
opinions. I admit that it is impossible to turn to a page which
does not contain something that deserves to be remembered; but it
is at least six times as long as it ought to be. And the
garrulous feebleness of the style is a still greater fault than
the length of the work.

It may be thought that I have gone too far in attributing these
evils to the influence of the works and the fame of Petrarch. It
cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great
measure, from a neglect of the style of Dante. This is not more
proved by the decline of Italian poetry than by its
resuscitation. After the lapse of four hundred and fifty years,