sad, or of a lively cast, we eagerly wish for them, because, the more they agitate us, the more strongly they quicken our consciousness of existence. Still, as we are perpetually striving against pain, and hurried on in the constant pursuit of pleasure, our hearts would sink under their own agitations, were they abandoned by the dreams of imagination, with which we are providentially gifted to enlarge our stock of happiness, and to gild with bright illusions the sad realities of life. Great writers alone can so control the imagination, as to make it incapable of distinguishing these illusions from the reality. If, in a poem, the ideal and fanciful predominate, we may indeed be surprised for a moment, but can never be brought to feel for objects which either have no existence, or are too far removed from our common nature-and on the other hand, if poetry dwell too much on realities, we soon grow weary; for we see them wherever we turn; they sadden each minute of our existence; they disgust us ever, because we know them even to satiety :—again, if reality and fiction be not intimately blended into one whole, they mutually oppose and destroy one another. Petrarch does not afford many N instances of so happy a combination of truth with fiction, as when he describes Laura's features immediately after expiring— Pallida no, ma più che neve bianca- Quasi un dolce dormir ne' suoi begli occhi, Sendo lo spirto già da lei diviso Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso. No earthy hue her pallid cheek display'd, Like one recumbent from her toils she lay, Where death enamour'd sate, and smiled with angel grace. Had the translator kept closer in the last line to the original words, "Death seemed beautiful on the lovely features of Laura," he would have conveyed a higher and yet more credible notion of her beauty, and insensibly changed, into an agreeable sensation, the horror with which we regard a corpse. But "Death sitting enamour'd in Laura's face, exhibits no distinct image, unless it be that of the allegorical form of Death transmuted into an angel sitting upon the face of a woman which affords a striking exemplification of the absurdities arising from the unskilful mixture of truth with fiction. VIII. PETRARCH often surrounds the reality with ideal decorations so luxuriantly, that while we gaze at his images they disappear Obscured and lost in flood of golden light. ROGERS. And the poet by whom this line is suggested, justly remarks that "True taste is an excellent economist, and delights in producing great effects by small means." Dante selects the beauties that lie scattered throughout created Nature, and embodies them in one single suḥject. The artists who combined in the Apollo of Belvidere, and the Venus de' Medicis, the various beauties observed in different individuals, produced forms, which, though strictly human, have an air of perfection not to be met with upon the earth: however, when contemplating them, we are led insensibly to indulge in the illusion, that mankind may possess such heavenly beauty Stiamo, Amor, a veder la gloria nostra, Vedi ben quanta in lei dolcezza piove; Vedi quant' arte indora, e imperla, e innostra Here stand we, Love, our glory to behold— Spring round her feet to pay their amorous duty. Her praise, whose presence charms their awful beauty. MERIVALE. This description makes us long to find such a woman in the world; but while we admire the poet, and envy him the bliss of his amorous transports, we cannot but perceive that the flowers" that courted the tread of her foot," the sky "that grew more beautiful in her presence," the atmosphere "that borrowed new splendour from her eyes," are mere visions which tempt us to embark with him in the pursuit of an unattainable chimæra. We are induced to think, that Laura must have been endowed with more than human loveliness, since she was able to kindle her lover's imagination to such a degree of enthusiasm, as to cause him to adopt such fantastic illusions, and we conceive the extremity of his passion; but cannot share his amorous ecstasies for a beauty which we never beheld and never shall behold. IX. ON the contrary, the beautiful maiden seen afar off by Dante, in a landscape of the terrestrial paradise, instead of appearing an imaginary being, seems to unite in herself all the attractions which are found in those lovely creatures we sometimes meet, whom we grieve to lose sight of, and to whom fancy is perpetually recurring-the poet's picture recals the original more distinctly to our memory, and enshrines it in our imagination Una donna soletta, che si gia Cantando ed isciegliendo fior da fiore, Deh bella donna, ch' a' raggi d'amore |