Veronica da Gambara e con loro Si grata a Febo, e al santo aonio coro. This was distinction enough to immortalize her, if she had not already immortalized herself. Veronica was not a prolific poetess; but the few Sonnets she has left, have a vigour, a truth and simplicity, not often met with among the _rimatori_ of that rhyming age. She has written fewer good poems than Vittoria Colonna, but among them, two which are reckoned superior to Vittoria's best,--one addressed to the rival monarchs, Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, exhorting them to give peace to Italy, and unite their forces to protect civilized Europe from the incursions of the infidels; the other, which is exquisitely tender and picturesque, was composed on revisiting her native place Brescia, after the death of her husband. Poi che per mia ventura a veder torno, &c. It may be found in the collection of Mathias. Veronica da Gambara died in 1550, and was buried by her husband. It should seem that poetical talents and conjugal truth and tenderness were inherent in the family of Veronica. Her niece, Camilla Valentini, the authoress of some very sweet poems, which are to be found in various _Scelte_, married the Count del Verme, who died after a union of several years. She had flung herself, in a transport of grief, on the body of her husband; and when her attendants attempted to remove her, they found her--dead! Even in that moment of anguish her heart had broken. O judge her gently, who so deeply loved! _Her_, who in reason's spite, without a crime, Was in a trance of passion thus removed! I have been detained too long in "the sweet South;" yet, before we quit it for the present, I must allude to one or two names which cannot be entirely passed over, as belonging to the period of which we have been speaking--the golden age of Italy and of literature. Bernardino Rota, who died in 1575, a poet of considerable power and pathos, has left a volume of poems, "In vita e in morte di Porzia Capece;" she was a beautiful woman of Naples, whom he loved and afterwards married, and who was snatched from him in the pride of her youth and beauty. Among his Sonnets, I find one peculiarly striking, though far from being the best. The picture it presents, with all its affecting accompaniments, and the feelings commemorated, are obviously taken from nature and reality. The poet--the husband--approaches to contemplate the lifeless form of his Portia, and weeping, he draws from her pale cold hand the nuptial ring, which he had himself placed on her finger with all the fond anticipations of love and hope--the pledge of a union which death alone could dissolve: and now, with a breaking heart, he transfers it to his own. Such is the subject of this striking poem, which, with some few faults against taste, is still singularly picturesque and eloquent, particularly the last six lines.-- SONETTO.