loves of Petrarch and Laura; but he is evidently afraid to speak his whole mind on this tender subject. His praise of Petrarch is, all through, too extravagant, and he surely cannot be justified in stating, that the study of Petrarca* had refined the manners of Italy,' while, in almost the next sentence, he affirms that his style was in perfect congeniality with that devoted respect to women which the romantic gallantry of chivalry had spread over Europe.' (vol. ii. p. 31.) On the Divina Commedia he is more fortunate in his criticisms. The merits of Dante are at length pretty accurately settled. The strangeness, if not the richness, of his ideas, his energetic brevity of expression, the keenness of his satire, and the sublimity of his moral strain, are fully and freely acknowledged; but however striking may be the majestic beauties of the Inferno, or we should rather say of passages of the Inferno, such is the tediousness of the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, that we read the poem altogether as a task. In invention, Dante is far below many poets, particularly Milton, with whom it is most natural to compare him. Dante created no new worlds; the people in his Stygian shades talk and act perfectly like beings of common earthly mould-like monks in a subterranean cloister. In all his descriptions of the circles, rocks, and bridges of hell, and his journey with Virgil, there is much tediousness and some confusion, and nothing comparable for sublimity with the solitary flight of Satan from Pandemonium. Dante's Lucifer is far from being that great though fallen spirit whose hellish rancour and intellectual energy Milton has so powerfully drawn. The demons in the twenty-first canto of the Inferno more nearly resemble the devils in a modern pantomime, than the Molochs and Belials of the great council of rebellious angels. Dante was brought into fashion in England by Sir Joshua Reynolds's Ugolino, and by some other accidental eircumstances, but he will never be popular; and notwithstanding Mr. Carey's translation— the best we ever read of any work- we believe that his success amongst us is rapidly declining.

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The life of the author of the Orlando Furioso is written with gaiety and spirit. Mr. Mills has turned to the satires of Ariosto for the materials of this piece of autobiography, which he has delivered as from the lips of the poet.

In serving my country,' continued Ariosto, I only discharged my duty, and I did not look for reward. But I was, on so many occasions, the private counsellor and negociator of the family of Este, that I reasonably expected to receive some marks of princely favour. An easy

Mr. Mills writes Machiavelli, Petrarca, Michelangiolo; this extreme accuracy seems to us somewhat affected; to be exact, he ought to be consistent; and if Michel Angelo is to be called Michelangiolo, Florence should certainly be Firenze, Naples, Napoli, and Venice, Venezia.

sufficiency

sufficiency and independence were all the favours that I sighed for. I wanted repose, and not those employments which would have cast the waters of Lethe over my studies-studies which, by exalting my mind, and teaching me the real nature of man, prevent me from feeling the evils of poverty, make me prefer liberty to wealth, bound my hopes within the limits of my wants, and suffer me not to become the prey of anger or envy, because another person is called by loftier titles than any which grace me. The princes of Este are vain of patronizing literary men, but their avarice is a stronger passion than their vanity, and, therefore, they cannot support the character of Mecænas. I requested a friend to tell his Eminence, than I can bear poverty better than servitude. The Cardinal Ippolito was a very acute mathematician, and a profound divine; and he called my Orlando Furioso, a poem written in celebration of his family, a collection of absurdities. He took occasion of quarrelling with me because I declined to make one of his train to Hungary. I am not fond of travelling. I prefer to read the world. in a globe, so much do I dislike altercations with innkeepers. The long German winters would not have agreed with my Italian constitution. The hot air of their stoves would have suffocated me. Being temperate by nature, I could not partake of the rich and riotous repasts of Germany. If I had accompanied Ippolito to Buda, who, during the two years of my absence from Italy, would have taken care of my poor brother Gabrielo, that, from his infancy, has been totally helpless? Who would have laboured for a portion for my sister, or have watched over my mother? I mentioned all these things to the Cardinal, and they did not touch his heart, for they gratified none of his selfish passions. But what virtue can dwell in a man who destroyed the eye-sight of his brother, because a woman had declared that the beauteous eyes of Giulio were more attractive than the Cardinal's person? Ippolito was disposed, indeed, to dismiss me. My spirit is not formed for the life of a courtier. They who set no value on liberty have different feelings from those which I possess. But let each man follow the disposition which nature has given to him. The linnet and the goldfinch bear confinement, but the nightingale will not readily endure the cage; and the swallow, if imprisoned, will beat herself to pieces against the bars. I was never proud of being a slave to the great. I cannot fawn and crouch to them, and be the shadow of their opinions and humours. When they pretend to see the sun at night, and stars at noon-day, I remain silent; but take care that the silence of good breeding shall not be construed into assent to folly. I was never forward in personal services to Ippolito, I was not anxious about putting his wine into ice, or being the bearer of his errands. I did not care whether I handed him his mantle, and' -proceeded Ariosto, changing his voice from the tone of indignation to that of irony-'my size prevents me from stooping to buckle on his spurs. A yearly, but very irregularly paid, rent-charge of a few crowns on the duchy of Milan, is all the return which the Cardinal Ippolito has made me for sixteen years' service. Oh, Ruggiero, ancestor of this distinguished family, if this be the only reward which thou canst procure me

A A 3

among

among thy descendants, it will be of little importance to me to have sung thy great deeds and courage !-vol. ii. pp. 131. 134.

This lamentation is well compiled. The verbosity and affectation of an Italian litterato are happily preserved, and nothing can be more natural than the twinges of ambition and avarice which break out through these high professions of independence: we are entertained too with the conviction into which he had persuaded himself, that his tastes were natural, and those of his friend absurd -that his Italian constitution could not bear what was quite agreeable to the Italian constitution of the Cardinal-and, in short, that he was all in the right, and his patron all in the wrong. We have thus given our readers a few specimens of this work, which will enable them to judge of its general style and merits. We frankly confess that we have, in the course of our perusal, often regretted that the author should have expended so much talent, taste, and learning (for he possesses them all) on a subject which, to speak the truth, is become somewhat trite and tedious; and with all the difficulties which we foresee in Ducas's ultramontane journeys, we think, that if he will condescend to give us more of manners, as he must give us less of literature, the reader will, on the whole, have no reason to regret when he finds himself on, what the Italians are pleased to call, the barbarian side of the Alps.

ART. VI.-Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. By John Franklin, Captain R. N., F.R.S., and Commander of the Expedition. With an Appendix on various Subjects relating to Science and Natural History. Illustrated by numerous Plates and Maps. Published by Authority of the Right Honourable the Earl Bathurst. London. 4to. pp. 784. 1823.

THE

HE discoveries in geography, geology, and natural history, with the personal adventures described in the work before us, can scarcely fail, if our estimate of its character and merits does not greatly deceive us, to receive the approbation of the reading and scientific part of the public. We can, at least, safely avouch that the perusal of it has not only afforded us many new lights on that portion of the globe of which it treats, but excited in our minds an intense and painful interest. The unstudied and seaman-like simplicity of the style is not the least of its merits; and the illustrations and embellishments, contained in a great number of very beautiful prints, from the drawings of the late unfortunate Mr. Hood and Mr. Back, are of a very superior kind, and carry us back to the old times of Cook and Vancouver. They consist

of

of views, figures of the natives, and subjects of natural history-not hastily got up in those greasy daubs of lithography, which for the last few years have disgraced books of travels but of etchings, finished in line-engraving, by Mr. Finden, a young and promising artist; and we cannot but congratulate the public on this return to a species of the art, in which this country had arrived at a high pitch of perfection, but which, from the cheapness of stone impressions, has been of late threatened with extinction.†

The narrative of Captain Franklin adds another to the many splendid records of the enterprize, zeal, and energy of British seamen-of that cool and intrepid conduct, which never forsakes them on occasions the most trying-that unshaken constancy and perseverance in situations the most arduous, the most distressing, and sometimes the most hopeless that can befal human beings; and it furnishes a beautiful example of the triumph of mental and moral energy over mere brute strength, in the simple fact that, out of fifteen individuals enured from their birth to cold, fatigue, and hunger, no less than ten were so subdued by the aggravation of those evils to which they had been habituated, as to give themselves up to indifference, insubordination, and despair; and, finally, to sink down, and die; whilst, of five English seamen, unaccustomed to the seve rity of the climate, and the hardships attending it, one only fell, and he-by the murderous hand of an assassin. A light buoyant heart, a confidence in their own powers, supported by a firm reliance on a merciful Providence, never once forsook them, nor suffered the approach of despondency, but brought them safely through such misery and distress, as rarely, if ever, have been surmounted.

We have had occasion more than once to pay our tribute of praise to his Majesty's government, for instituting those researches by sea and land, which, under the auspices of the noble lords who preside over the admiralty and the colonies, have been prosecuted with unremitting attention since the conclusion of the war. Among others, the completion of Northern Discovery, so warmly patronized by the last two Henrys and Elizabeth, has been a prominent object; and while Lieutenant Parry was exploring a passage across the Polar Sea towards the Pacific, Lord Bathurst conceived it might not only be serviceable to this intrepid navigator, but desirable for the benefit of geographical and hydrographical science, to ascertain the actual position of the mouth of the Copper-mine River and the trending of the shores of the Polar Sea to the eastward of it. With this

* His engravings of Captain Batty's Welsh Scenery' are beautiful specimens of this branch of the art.

We would not be thought to disparage an ingenious and useful invention, when confined within its proper sphere. It is only when it seeks to usurp the higher branches of the art, that we wish to see its ambitious pretensions discountenanced.

view, Lieutenant (now Captain) Franklin was recommended by the Lords of the Admiralty as a proper person to be employed on such a service; they, at the same time, nominated Doctor Richardson, a naval surgeon, well skilled in natural history, Mr. Hood and Mr. Back, two admiralty midshipmen (subsequently promoted to the rank of lieutenants), and two steady English seamen, to accompany him.

This little party embarked on board the Hudson's Bay Company's ship, Prince of Wales, the 23d of May, 1819; and reached Stromness the 3d of June, where four boatmen were engaged to assist their progress up the rivers of America:-after a narrow escape from being wrecked on the rocky shores of Resolution island beset with heavy ice, they arrived in safety at York factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay, on the 30th of August. Here they immediately commenced preparations for their long journey; and we are glad to observe that every possible assistance was afforded by the governor and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who furnished them with a boat, provisions, stores, and ammunition, sent forward circular letters to all their posts, directing the superintendants to supply all their wants, and communicated frankly such information for their guidance, as materially assisted them in their future proceedings.

The charts of the route convey so correct a view of the numerous lakes, rivers, rapids, and portages, and the difficulties and impediments which occur in the long river-navigations of North-America; and these obstructions have been so minutely detailed by Hearne and Mackenzie, that we do not deem it necessary to notice them on the present occasion, wishing to appropriate the space we can afford, to matters of higher interest.

The journey into the interior commenced at York Fort, where the party embarked on the 9th of September, 1819; and they arrived at Cumberland House on the 22d of October, the travelling distance by water being about six hundred and ninety miles. Late as the season was, Captain Franklin determined not to remain here, but to set out on a long and perilous expedition of several hundred miles to Fort Chepey wan, near the western extremity of Athebasca lake; where, by his presence, he hoped to prevent delay in the necessary preparations for their ulterior proceedings. With this view, accompanied by Lieut. Back, on the 18th of January, 1820, he took leave of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood, who were to bring up their baggage in the spring; and after a journey of 857 miles in the very depth of winter, the thermometer frequently at 40°, and sometimes more than 50° below zero, arrived safely, on the 26th of March, at the Fort.

Travelling in winter can only be performed on sledges, which

are