[13] This work, a commentary by Taafe on Dante, was printed, like Adonais, at Pisa by a printer who used the types of Didot, the celebrated French typefounder. Byron interested himself in the book, and it was subsequently published by John Murray. Professor Dowden printed the middle paragraph of this letter.
The more considerable portion of this work will consist of the comment. I have read with much attention this portion, as well as the verses, up to the eighth Canto; and I do not hesitate to assure you that the lights which the annotator's labours have thrown on the obscurer parts of the text are such as all foreigners and most Italians would derive an immense additional knowledge of Dante from. They elucidate a great number of the most interesting facts connected with Dante's history of his times; and everywhere bear the mark of a most elegant and accomplished mind. I know you will not take my opinion on Poetry, because I thought my own verses very good, and you find that the public declare them to be unreadable. Show this to Mr. Procter, who is far better qualified to judge than I am. There are certainly passages of great strength and conciseness; indeed the author has sacrificed everything to represent his original truly, in this latter point pray observe the great beauty of the typography; they are the same types as my elegy on Keats is printed from.
You cannot do me a greater favour than in making some satisfactory arrangement with the author. Of course I cannot expect, nor do I wish, that you should undertake any thing that should not fairly promise to promote your own interest. But pray allow my recommendation to overbalance, if your determination should be in equilibrium. I feel persuaded that I am recommending a most excellent work, and one without which the history and the spirit of the age of Dante as relates to him will never be understood by the English students of that astonishing poet.
Dear sir, your obliged and obt. servt.,
Percy B. Shelley.
Pisa, June 16, 1821.
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