the imagination, are among the most lively and interesting we can experience. Whatever allusions to the scenery of Italy the following pages may contain, have been derived entirely from recollections which have become considerably weakened in their power and effect, from the length of time the Author allowed to elapse ere the idea of placing his impressions on paper had occurred to his mind. Each of the tales here included is entire and distinct in itself, although its effect is in some measure designed to bear upon the principal one, and, with few exceptions, the incidents of the narrative are referred to the same locality. It may be remarked as a peculiar― perhaps objectionable feature, that ample use is made of lengthened figures; yet the Author does not conceive that such a style is necessarily objectionable, because it has not been followed of late: its merits will be determined rather by the success of the execution, as such a form of expression offers undoubted advantages peculiar to itself. The irregular metre adopted, while it affords the greatest facility in composition, and has been often shown to possess extraordinary power in descriptions of external nature, has its defects, and none is more likely to induce homely and ineffective language in the less important parts of the narrative. The taste of the day, perhaps, offers an obstacle to success; yet the Author, while conscious of the undefined prejudice which subsists against verse, would consistently hope to to be judged from the general design of the poem, and the merits of those passages, where, from the superior interest and importance of the subject, a greater effort may be requisite if such passages should bear a fair proportion to the whole. London, January, 1846. |