La qual, non come suol leggiera e scarca,
Sovra 'l turbato mar corre a seconda,
Ma in poppa e 'n prora, all'una e all'altra sponda
E' grave sì ch'a gran periglio varca.
Il tuo buon successor, ch'alta cagione
Direttamente elesse, e cor e mano
Move sovente per condurla a porto.
Ma contra il voler suo ratto s'oppone
L'altrui malizia; onde ciascun s'è accorto,
Ch'egli senza 'l tuo aiuto adopra in vano."
Which may be thus read in English blank verse, giving not very poetically, but with tolerable fidelity, the sense of the original:—
"With mud and weedy growth so foul I see
Thy net, O Peter, that should any wave
Assail it from without or trouble it,
It might be rended, and so risk the ship.
For now thy bark, no more, as erst, skims light
With favoring breezes o'er the troubled sea;
But labours burthen'd so from stem to stern,
That danger menaces the course it steers.
Thy good successor, by direct decree
Of providence elect, with heart and hand
Assiduous strives to bring it to the port.
But spite his striving his intent is foiled
By other's evil. So that all have seen
That without aid from thee, he strives in vain."
PAPAL PRETENSIONS DEAR TO ITALIANS.
The lofty pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, which our poetess, with all her reforming aspirations, goes out of her way to declare and maintain in the phrase of the above sonnet marked by Italics, were dear to the hearts of Italians. It may be, that an antagonistic bias, arising from feelings equally beyond the limits of the religious question, helped to add acrimony to the attacks of the transalpine reformers. But there can be no doubt, that Italian self-love was active in rendering distasteful to Italians a doctrine, whose effect would be to pull down Rome from her position as capital of the Christian world, and no longer permit an Italian eclesiastic to issue his lofty decrees "Urbi et Orbi." And those best acquainted with the Italian mind of that period, as evidenced by its literature, and illustrated by its still-existing tendencies and prejudices, will most appreciate the extent to which such feelings unquestionably operated in preventing the reformation from taking root, and bearing fruit in Italy.