At a time rich beyond all former ages but that of Elizabeth, and scarcely less prodigal than that in works of imagination; at a period when our Poetry, following in the steps of our refinement as a nation, and becoming, from the industry and success with which it is cultivated, no less the theme of the aged than the passion of the young,—whilst some superior intellects of the day, in their thirst for distinction, are spending their great powers on startling and vain experiments, it were surprising if there were not some more willing to confine their ambition within the boundaries of classical study, and, tracing the improvements which English Poetry has undergone in its progress, to the Tuscan Muses as their principal source, to explore, as their adventure, the treasures confined under the golden key of Italian language. Never has the inspiration of those Muses been invoked without the most signal advantage, not only to our literature, but our language. It softened, under Chaucer, the Saxon roughness of our early tongue; it ruled and regulated the cadences of Surrey and Wyatt, till from an uncouth and often arbitrary metre, our Poetry grew into proportion, harmony, and grace; it gave to the lyres of Spenser, Milton, Collins, and Gray, much of their compass, richness, and luxury of sound. The advantages have indeed been such, and of so permanent a nature, as to lead the historians of our literature to assert, that all the grand renovations which have been made from time to time in our Poetry, have either originally sprung from the Italian school, or been promoted by it. Nor can the increasing taste for Italian literature, spread by the excellent productions of Roscoe, Foscolo, and Matthias, nor the farther cultivation and extension of it by Commentators and Translators, lead to less important results.
But little, however, has yet been accomplished in giving to England the Poets of Italy; and our writers may with justice observe, that this neglect is a disgrace to our national literature. If we except the Amynta of Tasso, recently given in a good translation by Mr. Hunt; if we except Fanshaw's old version of Guarini's Pastor Fido, so justly eulogised by Sir John Denham, Lloyd's Alfieri, and the Dante of Mr. Carey, where shall we look for adequate pictures of her thousand Spirits of Song? This deficiency has arisen from neglect, from disdain, from any thing but inability. What Italy has been in the possession of her Dantes, her Ariostos, her Petrarcas, and her Tassos, England is in her Byrons, her Scotts, her Campbells, and her Moores; not omitting others that have powers little less, if at all inferior, who might, if they desired it, by Translations almost as original in composition as are those glorious types themselves, become at once personifications of their beauties, and inheritors of their fame. The severe simplicity and wrathful grandeur of Dante is already transfused with spirit and condensity. There is perhaps but one living poet possessed of an equal versatility of talent, of the same various powers of passionate description, fancy, wit, and whim, to transfuse the Proteus-spirit of Ariosto, the Prince of Romancers; and but one gifted with an equal feeling, melody, and charm of language, who could, with a graceful hand, pour out music and lamentation from the Urn of Petrarch: but they could do it to the life; nor may it be altogether a vain expectation that some of their future hours will be consecrated to the service, and that their names will thus become consociated in immortal brotherhood with the names of these Patriarchs of Italian verse.
But if the writer does not calculate amiss, it is to a Translation of Tasso,—of Tasso, who possesses much of the sublimity and fervour, with nothing of the obscurity of Dante,—the romance and the picture, the fantasy and fire of Ariosto, without his eccentricity and caprice,—the melody, tenderness, classical elegance, and transpicuousness of Petrarch, without his subtilty: of Tasso,—who, by the specific account of Serassi, his best biographer, had passed, at the time when he was writing, through one hundred and thirty editions, and had been translated into twenty languages and dialects of Europe, that the liveliest sympathy is likely to be accorded, and the greatest favour shown, by a People whose pride must be gratified by the celebrity which he has given in his Poem to the exploits of their ancestors, with minds sufficiently imaginative to abandon themselves at will to the spells of his delightful genius, and with hearts that cannot avoid taking a warm part in the generous heroism of his Rinaldo and Tancred, in the enchanting beauty of Armida, and the yet more interesting fortunes of his sensitive Erminia.
In speaking of the ten former attempts that have been made to give Tasso an English dress, the writer has no desire to undervalue, or unjustly to decry them,—they may all have been more or less serviceable: he is admiringly alive to the harmonies and graces of our most masculine Fairfax, as well as to the stoical fidelity of antique Carew; but he cannot be blind to their great defects, still less can he shut his eyes upon those empiric pretensions and empty performances of the Usurper of their honours, which have led "the Ariosto of the North" (whom Britain also tenaciously claims for her Boccaccio) to observe with his characteristic truth and humour, that "to rescue this charming Poet from the frozen paws of poor Mr. Hoole, would be to do our literature a service at which he must rejoice." Stimulated by the approbation accorded by his mighty mind, no less than by that of other literary characters whom it would be ostentatious to mention, the task commenced under favourable auspices, and in which great progress is made, will be prosecuted with the care and devotedness which so exquisite a poet demands, and the nature of the measure chosen as most true to his genius, of necessity enforces. It has been observed that Translation is but little popular in England: to render it so with the mass of readers it may be requisite to aim at giving it the air and charm of original composition; but with the very many to whom the Italian poem must be familiar, it cannot be doubted that their pleasure must be doubled in having added to their contemplation of the original their criticism of the artist, more particularly if, as in the fine Translation of Coleridge from Schiller,—that criticism should fortunately derive gratification from his skill. Neither is the Iliad of Pope unpopular, nor Sotheby's Oberon, nor any Translator who has trod with freedom and spirit in the steps of the Master with whom he has endeavoured to identify himself. But if the name of Tasso should be insufficient to bespeak attention to a project which cannot be perfected but with great labour of thought, the Author will look for it in the story and the subject, and believe it impossible but that those who view with interest the present exertions of Christian Greece against the Mussulman Ottomite, will still find emotion and amusement in a transcript, though it may prove a too unworthy one, of the celebrated pages in which all Europe stands in banner-array against the despotic Ottomite of the Middle Ages, in a land full of the most sacred recollections.
The Translator submits to the Public the following
PROPOSALS:
The "Jerusalem Delivered" to be translated stanza for stanza from the original, in the measure of the "Fairie Queene:" to be printed in the finest manner, with a beautiful new type cast on purpose for the Work, in Two Volumes Royal Octavo, accompanied with a Biographical Account of the Life and Writings of Tasso, with his Portrait engraved in the first style, and, if the number of Subscribers prove sufficient, with other Embellishments.
PRICE TWO GUINEAS,
To be paid on delivery of the Work.