It is not, then, Lorenzo the MAGNIFICENT, the statesman, and the chief of a great republic, who finds a place in these pages,--but Lorenzo the lover and the poet, round whose memory hover a thousand bright recollections connected with the revival of arts and literature, and the golden age of Italy. Let politicians say what they will, there is a spell of harmony, there is music in his very name! how softly the vowelled syllables drop from the lips--LORENZO DE' MEDICI!--it even looks elegant when written. Yes, there is something in the mere sound of a name. I remember once taking up a book, and a very celebrated book, in which, after turning over some of the pages with pleasure, I came to _Peter_ and _Laurence Medecis_,--I shut it hastily, as I would have covered my ears to protect them from a sudden discord in music. Between Petrarch and Lorenzo de' Medici, there occurs not a single great name in Italian poetry. The century seemed to lie fallow, as if preparing for the great birth of various genius which distinguished the succeeding age. The sciences and the classics were chiefly studied, and philosophy and Greek seemed to have banished love and poetry. In such a state of things, it is rather surprising to find in Lorenzo de' Medici the common case reversed; for by his own confession, it appears that it was not love which made him a poet, but poetry which made him a lover. Giuliano, the brother of Lorenzo,--he who was afterwards assassinated by the Pazzi, and was so beloved at Florence for his amiable character and personal accomplishments, had been seized with a passion for a lady named Simonetta, who was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Florence, and is scarcely ever mentioned but with the epithet, "La bella Simonetta."--She died in the bloom of early youth, and all the wit and eloquence of her native city were called forth in condolences addressed to Giuliano, or elegies to her memory, in prose and verse, Latin, Greek, and Italian. Among the rest, Lorenzo, who had already made several attempts in Italian poetry, pressed forward to celebrate the love and the loss of his amiable brother:--in his zeal to do justice to so dear a subject, he worked himself up into a fit of amorous and poetical enthusiasm which soon found a real and living beauty for its object. But to give this romantic tale its proper effect, it must be related in Lorenzo's own words. He has left us a most circumstantial and elegant as well as interesting and fanciful account of the birth and progress of his poetic passion, and I extract it at length from Mr. Roscoe's translation.