find a subject which he will venture upon with the animation necessary
to create sympathy, unless he confines himself to a particular art or
he takes something of a one-sided view of the person he is disposed to
celebrate. This is a melancholy truth, and affords a strong reason for
the poetic mind being chiefly exercised in works of fiction: the poet can
then follow wherever the spirit of admiration leads him, unchecked by
such suggestions as will be too apt to cross his way if all that he is
prompted to utter is to be tested by fact. Something in this spirit I
have written in the note attached to the Sonnet on the King of
Sweden; and many will think that in this poem and elsewhere I have
spoken of the author of "Paradise Lost" in a strain of panegyric
scarcely justifiable by the tenor of some of his opinions, whether
theological or political, and by the temper he carried into public
affairs, in which, unfortunately for his genius, he was
concerned.]

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades

so much

High over-arch'd embower.-PARADISE LOST.* "VALLOMBROSA-I longed in thy shadiest wood. To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor!" † Fond wish that was granted at last, and the Flood, That lulled me asleep, bids me listen once more. Its murmur how soft! as it falls down the steep, Near that Cell-yon sequestered Retreat high in airWhere our Milton was wont lonely vigils to keep For converse with God, sought through study and prayer.

+

The Monks still repeat the tradition with pride,
And its truth who shall doubt? for his Spirit is here; §
Vallombrosa-the shady

Compare Paradise Lost, Book I., 1. 302. valley-is 18 miles distant from Florence.-ED.

See for the two first lines, "Stanzas composed in the Simplon Pass."W. W. (See Vol. VI., p. 265.)-ED.

6

The monastery of Vallombrosa was founded about 1050, by S. Giovanni Gnalberto. It was suppressed in 1869, and is now converted into the R. Instituto Forestale, or forest school. The cell,' the sequestered retreat' referred to by Wordsworth, is doubtless Il Paradisino, or Le Celle, a small hermitage 266 feet above the monastery, which is itself 2,980 feet above the sea.-ED.

§ Compare Milton's letter to Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence, written during his stay in the city, Sept. 10, 1638.-ED.

In the cloud-piercing rocks doth her grandeur abide,
In the pines pointing heavenward her beauty austere ;
In the flower-besprent meadows his genius we trace
Turned to humbler delights, in which youth might confide,
That would yield him fit help while prefiguring that Place
Where, if Sin had not entered, Love never had died.
When with life lengthened out came a desolate time,

And darkness and danger had compassed him round,

With a thought he would1 flee to these haunts of his prime. And here once again a kind shelter be found.

And let me believe that when nightly the Muse

2

Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill,*

Here also, on some favoured height, he would choose
To wander, and drink inspiration at will.

Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page

Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind
Had a musical charm, which the winter of age
And the changes it brings had no power to unbind.
And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you

I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to part,

While your leaves I behold and the brooks they will strew, And the realised vision is clasped to my heart.

Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may
In Forms that must perish, frail objects of sense;
Unblamed-if the Soul be intent on the day
When the Being of Beings shall summon her hence.
For he and he only with wisdom is blest

Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they grow,
Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest,
To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity flow.

XIX.

AT FLORENCE.

[Upon what evidence the belief rests that this stone was a favourite seat of Dante, I do not know; but a man would little consult his own interest as a traveller, if he should busy himself with doubts as to the fact. The readiness with which traditions of this character are received, and the fidelity with which they are preserved from generation to generation, are an evidence of feelings honourable to our nature. I remember how, during one of my rambles in the course of a college vacation, I was pleased on being shown a seat near a kind of rocky cell at the source of the river, on which it was said that Congreve wrote his "Old Bachelor." One can scarcely hit on any performance less in harmony with the scene; but it was a local tribute paid to intellect by those who had not troubled themselves to estimate the moral worth of that author's comedies; and why should they? He was a man distinguished in his day; and the sequestered neighbourhood in which he often resided was perhaps as proud of him as Florence of her Dante : it is the same feeling, though proceeding from persons one cannot bring together in this way without offering some apology to the Shade of the great Visionary.]

UNDER the shadow of a stately Pile,

The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,

Nor giving heed to aught that passed the while,

I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,

The laurell'd Dante's favourite seat.*

A throne,

*The Sasso di Dante is built into the wall of the house, No. 29 Casa dei Canonici, close to the Duomo.-ED.

In just esteem, it rivals; though no style

Be there of decoration to beguile

The mind, depressed by thought of greatness flown.
As a true man, who long hath served the lyre,

I gazed with earnestness, and dared no more.
But in his breast the mighty Poet bore

A Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire.
Bold with the thought, in reverence I sate down,
And, for a moment, filled that empty Throne.

XX.

BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT FLORENCE.* [It was very hot weather during the week we stayed at Florence ; and, never having been there before, I went through much hard service, and am not therefore ashamed to confess I fell asleep before this picture and sitting with my back towards the Venus de Medicis. Buonapartein answer to one who had spoken of his being in a sound sleep up to the moment when one of his great battles was to be fought, as a proof of the calmness of his mind and command over anxious thoughts-said frankly, that he slept because from bodily exhaustion he could not help it. In like manner it is noticed that criminals on the night previous to their execution seldom awake before they are called, a proof that the body is the master of us far more than we need be willing to allow. Should this note by any possible chance be seen by any of my countrymen who might have been in the gallery at the time (and several persons were there) and witnessed such an indecorum, I hope he will give up the opinion which he might naturally have formed to my prejudice.]

THE Baptist might have been ordain'd to cry

Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein

*This Sonnet refers to the picture of the young St John the Baptist, now in the Tribuna, Florence, designed about the same time as the Madonna di San Sisto, for Cardinal Colonna, who is said to have presented it to his doctor, Jacopo da Carpi. It has been much admired, and often copied; but it is inferior, both in drawing and in colouring, to the great works of Raphael. How much of it was actually from his hand is uncertain; and the Baptist is painted rather like a Bacchus than a Saint -ED.

His Father served Jehovah; but how win
Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy

The obstinate pride and wanton revelry
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin

And folly, if they with united din

Drown not at once mandate and prophecy?

Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert, thence

To Her, as to her opposite in peace,

Silence, and holiness, and innocence,

To Her and to all Lands its warning sent,

Crying with earnestness that might not cease,

Make straight a highway for the Lord—repent!”

XXI.

AT FLORENCE FROM MICHAEL ANGELO.

[However at first these two sonnets from Michael Angelo may seem in their spirit somewhat inconsistent with each other, I have not scrupled to place them side by side as characteristic of their great author, and others with whom he lived. I feel, nevertheless, a wish to know at what periods of his life they were respectively composed.* The latter, as it *The second of the two sonnets translated by Wordsworth is No. lxxiii. in Signor Cesare Guasti's edition of Michael Angelo (1863)

AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS.

Scaro d'un' importuna.

It was evidently written in old age. The following is Mr John Addington Symond's translation of the same sonnet.

Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,

Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,

Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,

As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.
Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand,
With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide
Promise of help and mercies multiplied,
And hope that yet my soul secure may stand.

Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see

My evil part, Thy chastened ears to hear,
And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime :

Let Thy blood only love and succour me,