The essay is interesting from the degree of acquaintance it
exhibits with some of those great ones, who have held up the highest
aims to the soul, and from the degree of insight which reverence and
delicacy of mind have given to the author. From every line comes the
soft breath of green pastures where "walk the good shepherds."
Of the sonnets, we doubt the possibility of making good
translations into English. No gift of the Muse is more injured by
change of form than the Italian sonnet. As those of Petrarch will
not bear it, from their infinite grace, those of Dante from their
mystic and subtle majesty; so these of Angelo, from the rugged
naivete with which they are struck off from the mind, as huge
splinters of stone might be from some vast block, can never be "done
into English," as the old translators, with an intelligent modesty,
were wont to write of their work. The grand thought is not quite
evaporated in the process, but the image of the stern and stately
writer is lost. We do not know again such words as "concetto,"
"superna" in their English representatives.
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