“My dear Lady Dacre,—This will be presented to you by Professor Panizzi, of whom my brother has already spoken to you, and of whom it is quite impossible to say too much, either as regards his accomplishments or his excellent amiable qualities.
Yours, etc., etc., H. Brougham.”
The acquaintance thus formed ripened into a lasting friendship. Of the frequent correspondence which this led to the chief and most interesting examples are the views exchanged on the interpretation of various passages from Dante and Petrarch. Lady Dacre, in fact, began very shortly to regard Panizzi as her literary adviser; and some years later, on the publication of her work, “Translations from the Italian” (1836), makes the following grateful mention of him:—“I have of late years been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum, and to obtain also his approbation of these English versions of his great national poet. It is by his advice and that of other high authorities that I now make this collection of my attempts.”
Lady Dacre’s letters are beyond measure charming. The elegance of mind and purity of taste pervading them, with the rare beauty of their tone and style, must cause any one who may happen to have read them, though knowing nothing before, nor having even heard of Lady Dacre, to regret that the amiable and accomplished translator of Petrarch is not more extensively appreciated.
A passage from one of her earlier letters seems worth extracting, as showing her estimate of the best known English translator of Dante, although the comments it calls for may lead to a slight digression from the line of the narrative:—“As to Cary’s translation of ‘La Divina Commedia,’ I still hold translating Dante as an impossibility.... Cary does not satisfy me, for, as he gave himself all the latitude of blank verse, I cannot help thinking he might have done more justice to the gems.”
With the opinion expressed in the first clause of this extract few will disagree. Lady Dacre, indeed, might have extended her sentence to other poets besides Dante, and, it may be said, to poets in general of any marked eminence.
Of these poets, or of any save those of the second or third class, to which may be added certain of the satirical and didactic category, it is not too much to assert that nothing that could be called a sufficient translation has yet been accomplished. By translation is here meant not a mere rendering, however faithful and intelligent, of the words, phrases, and plain meaning, but a transfusion, by the translator’s own genius, of the spirit of the original into the ordinary diction, idioms and peculiarities of another language. Pope and Dryden have, perhaps, arrived nearest this result; but, too great themselves, they have so imbued their greater originals with their own spirit—a spirit in many respects differing widely from the classical, that their versions may with more justice be called paraphrases than translations. Still, if there are degrees of impossibility, Dante is fully entitled to a place in the first class of such impossibilities.
To Lady Dacre’s assertion, however, of the facility which Cary ought to have derived from his use of blank verse, exception may well be taken. Although in some cases, as in translating Petrarch, it may be difficult, and in others, as in rendering certain classic metres, impossible, to reproduce in the alien language the exact form of verse employed in the original (and with the form of his verse, it must be observed, the spirit of the poet is always indissolubly connected), yet it is necessary to a good and true translation that this course should be adopted wherever practicable. Dante is a rhymed poet, and the system both of his rhymes and of his verse is by no means uncommon in English poetry; to none, it might be supposed, more familiar than to Lady Dacre. For this reason alone it would appear that if Dante, of all poets, is to be clothed anew in English garb, the most fitting attire for him would not be blank verse.
These remarks are merely by the way, our work is not particularly concerned with poetry, but with the life of Panizzi, who was then (1829) engaged upon his “Orlando Innamorato di Bojardo: Orlando Furioso di Ariosto: with an Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians; Memoirs, and Notes by Antonio Panizzi.” 9 vols. 8vo. London, 1830-34.
