"I know not how it is, but none of these Italian poets interest me much--perhaps the most, that mad-cap Ariosto. There is a reckless vigour about him which none of the rest possesses; and their prettinesses tire. Tasso is certainly very sweet and very graceful, but seldom powerful; and Dante, dark, terrible, and stern, wants the relief of beauty. His Inferno is certainly a grand poem, the personification of thousand hates and vengeances; but the Paradise is a poor affair. "It is very strange how much more difficult men find it to imagine and to paint perfect happiness than exquisite torture. Perhaps it is because in this life we are much more familiar with pain than pleasure. Pain and grief are to human beings, positive; our greatest happiness here below rarely more than negative--at all events, never unmixed. But in none of the Italians do we find the grand march, the sustained majesty of the Greeks and the Romans. I cannot help thinking that Boccaccio had more poetry in his nature than most of his brethren; and there are some fine passages in his great poem, notwithstanding its many wants. Many of his novels, too, are full of poetry. But, after all, ten lines of Homer are worth all the Italian poetry that ever was written. Alfieri seems to have felt this inferiority of the poets of Italy to the ancients, even too much; and the effect has been a stiffness in his writings, produced by aiming at dignity in a language which is not dignified. When the thought itself is grand, its grandeur can only be preserved in so weak a tongue by clothing it in the very simplest words. Dante was not alone aware of this, but was impelled to that course by his own sharp character. He never strove to embellish by mere words, though sometimes, as if to impress the idea upon the reader's mind, he reiterates it in another form, venturing upon pleonasm as a means of force, in which he was probably mistaken; at least, the effect upon my mind is always disagreeable. It would be better if the verses were spoken. I cannot but think--though perhaps it is national partiality--that the poets of England are superior to any that have ever lived since the fall of the Roman empire. The French have no poetry. The Germans have two or three great poets; but their literature may be considered as yet in its infancy. The Spaniards have some beautiful poems, it is true; but in all of them are blemishes which overbalance the perfections. In the English tongue there has been excellent poetry enough written in every different style and manner, to supply the whole world. A crowd of our poets are unknown even to ourselves; and many of the very best are imperfectly known, and that but to a few. The sonnet, indeed, attained its highest point with Petrarch; and yet how beautiful are some of Sir Philip Sidney's!--for instance, the one beginning-- 'No more, my dear, no more these councils try, Oh give my passions leave to run their race.'