As compared with the Tuscan, the Venetian is a confirmed egotist. While the former well-nigh effaces his individual personality out of his hymns of adoration, the latter is apt to talk so much of his private feelings, his wishes, his disappointments, that the idol stands in danger of being forgotten. There is, indeed, a single song—the song of one of the despised mariners—which combines the sweet humility of Tuscan lyrics with a glow and fervour truly Venetian—possibly its author was in reality some Istriot seaman, for the canti popolari of Istria are known to partake of both styles. Anyhow, it may figure here, justified by what seems to me its own excellence of conception:
Fair art thou born, but love is not for me;
A sailor's calling sends me forth to sea.
I do desire to paint thee on my sail,
And o'er the briny deep I'd carry thee.
They ask, What ensign? when the boat they hail—
For woman's love I bear this effigy;
For woman's love, for love of maiden fair;
If her I may not love, I love forswear!
When he is most in earnest and most excited, the Venetian is still homely—he has none of the Sicilian's luxuriant imagination. I may call to mind a remark of Edgar Poe's to the effect that passion demands a homeliness of expression. Passionate the Venetian poet certainly is. Never a man was readier to "dare e'en death" at the behest of his mistress—