NOTES.

[1] Page [13]. The Sepulchres.

This poem was composed by Foscolo during a temporary retirement to Brescia, in Northern Italy. The occasion which called it forth was a law passed about that time in the Italian kingdom, directing that all burials should take place without the confines of the cities, forbidding inscriptions or any mark of distinction upon the graves, and prohibiting the approach of visiters to the cemeteries. Though intended to obviate the inconveniencies arising from the ancient custom of interring the dead in the churches, this law was carried to an arbitrary and unnecessary extreme; for it consigned the departed to one indiscriminate place of sepulture, and denied to the mourner the last consolation of grief. Our poet, fired with indignation at this sacrilegious infringement of the solemn rights of nature, gave utterance to his feelings in the work just mentioned, in which he dwells on the salutary influence over the living of their veneration for the dead; and proves the mischievous effects of that policy which would invade the sacredness of a sentiment so holy.—American Quarterly Review, Vol. xvi. page 76.

[2] Page [15]. That stung the Sardanapalus of our land.

“Il Lombardo Sardanapalo.” The Prince Belgiojoso, severely satirized in Parini’s poem of “The Day.”

[3] Page [17]. To scoop from it his own triumphal bier.

Nelson is said to have carried about with him, sometime before his death, a coffin made from the main mast of the ship Oriente; that when he had finished his career in this world, he might be buried in one of his trophies.

[4] Page [17]. The spot where sleeps enshrined that noble genius.

Nicolo Machiavelli.

[5] Page [17].

——when I saw

His mausoleum.

Michel Angelo.

[6] Page [17]. And his, who ’neath Heaven’s azure canopy.

Galileo.

[7] Page [18]. That cheered the Ghibelline’s indignant flight.

Dante.

[8] Page [18]. To him, the chosen of Calliope.

Petrarch was born in exile, of Florentine parents.

[9] Page [19]. And high o’er all, the Fates’ mysterious chant.

Popular rumor related that over the field of Marathon the sailor could hear all night the trampling of horses, and witness the encounter of spectral combatants.

[10] Page [19].

And the proud surge exult, that bore of old

Achilles’ armor to Rhetœum’s shore,

Where Ajax sleeps.

“The shield of Achilles, stained with the blood of Hector, was by an unjust sentence adjudged to Ulysses; but the sea which snatched it from the wreck, caused it to swim, not to Ithaca, but to the tomb of Ajax; thus manifesting the unfair judgment of the Greeks, and restoring to Salamis the honor due.—It is said that the story of the arms borne by the waves to the sepulchre of Telamon was current among the Eolians who afterwards inhabited Troy. The promontory of Rhetœum, in the Thracian Bosphorus, was famous among all the ancients for the tomb of Ajax.”

[11] Page [32]. To a Waterfall.

These lines were suggested by a Portuguese sonnet; but too much has been added to entitle them to be called a translation.

[12] Page [47]. The Guardian Genius.

This poem, from Lamartine’s “Destinies of Poetry,” is supposed to be sung by the female peasants of Calabria.

[13] Page [66]. Incantation of Hervor.

This is not a translation of the celebrated Icelandic lyric, which consists of a dialogue between Hervor and Argantyr; but merely a sketch of what the heroic daughter may be supposed to have said, when trying the power of the spells of poesy to wake her ancestor from the dead, and compel him to give up his sword, which had been buried with him. The sword in question had been made by the dwarfs, and was taken by Angrim, the father of Argantyr, from the grandson of Odin.

[14] Page [103]. The Pictured Rocks.

On the southern shore of Lake Superior.

TERESA CONTARINI:
A TRAGEDY,
IN FIVE ACTS.

FIRST PERFORMED AT THE PARK THEATRE, NEW YORK,
MARCH, 1835.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Doge of Venice.
Foscarini.
Contarini.Inquisitors of State.
Loredano.
Badoero.
Veniero.
Vincentio.
Leonardo.
Steno.Officers of the Inquisition.
Pascali.
Beltramo, the Jailer.
Memmo, Captain of the Guard.
Marco.
Stefano.
Teresa.
Fiorilla.
Matilda.
First Attendant.
Senators—Guards—Attendants, &c.

SCENE VENICE.

The passages marked with inverted commas were omitted in the representation.