literature. In 1805. he published the “Inferno' of Dante in blank. verse, and an entire translation of the · Divina Commedia,' in the same measure, in 1814. He afterwards translated the Birds' of Aristophanes, and the ‘Odes’ of Pindar, and wrote short memoirs in continuation of Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets, which, with lives of the early French poets, appeared anonymously in the ‘London Magazine.' For some years Mr. Cary held the office of assistant-librarian in the British Museum, and enjoyed a pension of £200 per annum. A Memoir of this amiable scholar was written by his son, the Rev. H. Cary, and published in 1847. First brought into notice by the prompt and strenuous exertions of Coleridge, Mr. Cary's version of the Florentine poet passed through four editions during the life of the translator. We subjoin a specimen.

Francesca of Rimini. In the second circle of hell, Dante, in his vision,' witnesses the punishment of carnal sinners, who are tossed about ceaselessly in the dark air by furious winds. Amongst these he meets with Francesca of Rimini, who, with her lover Paolo, was put to death. The father of the unfortunate lady was the friend and protector of Dante,

I began : “Bard! willingly
I would address those two together coming.
Which seem so light before the wind.' He thus:
• Note thou, when nearer they to us approach,
Then by that love which carries them along,
Entreat; and they will come. Soon as the wind
Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech:

O wearied spirits ! come and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrained. As doves,
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along ;
Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks,
They, through the ill air speeding, with such force
My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.

O gracious creature, and benign! who goest
Visiting, through this element obscure,
Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued ;
If, for a friend, the King of all we owned,
Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise,
Since thou hast pity on our evil plight.
Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse
It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that
Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind,
As now, is mute. The land that gave me birth,
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams.

Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt,
Entangled him by that fair form, from me
Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still :
Love, that denial takes from none beloved,
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well,
That, as thou see'st he yet deserts me not.
Love brought us to one death: Caina (1) waits
The soul who split our life.' Such were their words;
At hearing which downward I bent my looks,

1 The place to which murderers are doomed.

And held them there so long, that the bard cried :
• What art thou pondering ?? I, in answer, thus :
* Alas! hy what sweet thoughts, what fond desire,
Must they at length to that ill pass have reached !

Then turning, I to them my speech addressed,
And thus began : ‘Francesca ! your sad fate,
Even to tears, my grief and pity moves.
But tell me; in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what and how Love granted, that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes.' She replied :
No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand! Tuat kens
Thy learned instructor. Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale. One day,
For our delight, we read of Lancelot, (1)
How him love thralled. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Ofttimes by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our altered cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wished smile, so rapturously kissed
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kissed. The book and writer both
Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.' (2) While thus one spirit spake,
The other wailed so sorely that, heart-struck,
I, through compassion fainting, seemed not far
From death; and like a corse fell to the ground.

Ugolini and his Sons in the Tower of Famine. During the contests between the Guelph and the Ghibellines, in 1289, Count Ugolini with two of his sons and two grandsons, were confined by Archbishop Ruggieri in a tower; the tower was locked, and the key thrown into the Arno, and all food was withheld from them. In a few days, they died of hunger. Dante describes the future punishment of Ugolini and the cardinal as being peut in one hollow of the ice.' The awful deaths in the tower are thus related by the ghost of the count.

A small grate
Within that mew, which for my sake the name
Of famine bears, where others yet must pine,
Already through its opening several moons
Had shewn me, when I slept the evil sleep
That from the future tore the curtain off.
The one, methought, as master of the sport,
Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf and his whelps,
Unto the mountain which forbids the sight
Of Lucca to the Pisans. With lean brachs,
Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged
Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.
After short course the father and the sons
Seemed tired and lagging, and methought I saw
The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke,

1 One of the knights of the Round Table, and the lover of Ginevra, or Guinever, cel. ebrated in romance.

2 A fine representation of this scene in marble formed part of the Manchester Exhibi. tion of 1857. It was from the collection of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, and was ex. ecuted by Mr. A. Munro, sculptor. a young artist cut off prematurely by death in 1871.

Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard
My sons--for they were with me-weep and ask
For bread
Now had they wakened ; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream; and I
Heard, at its outlet underneath, locked up
The horrible tower : whence, uttering not a word,
I looked upon the visage of my sons.
I wept pot: so all stone I felt within.
They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried :
Thon lookest so! father, what ails thee?' Yet
I shed no tear, nor answered all that day
Nor the next night, until another sun
Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
Had to our doleful prison made its way,
And in four countenances I descried
The image of my own, on either hard
Through agony I bit; and they who thought
I did it through desire of feeding, rose
O'the sudden, and cried: “Father, we should grieve
Far less if thou wouldst eat of us ; thou gavest
These weeds of miserable flesh we wear;
And do thou strip them off from us again.'
Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
We were all silent. Oh, obdurate earth!
Why open'dst not upon us? When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretched did fling him, crying: Hast no help
For me, my father? There he died; and e'en
Plainly, as thou seest me, saw I the three
Fall one by one 'twist the fifth day and sixth :
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud
Called on them who were dead. Then, fasting got

The mastery of grief. A select descriptive passage of Dante, imitated by Gray (first line in the ` Elegy),' and by Byron ('Don Juan,' canto iii. 108), is thus rendered by Cary:

Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell;
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hear the vesper-bell from far,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day,

WILLIAM STEWART ROSE. WILLIAM STEWART ROSE (1775–1843), the translator of Ariosto, and a man of fine talent and accomplishments, was the second son of Mr. George Rose, Treasurer of the Navy, &c. After his education at Eton and Cambridge, Mr. Rose was introduced to public life, and he obtained the appointment of reading-clerk to the IĪouse of Lords. Ilis tastes, however, were wholly literary. To gratify his father, he began ‘A Naval Ilistory of the Late War,' vol. i., 1802, which he never completed. His subsequent works were a translation of the romance of · Amadis de Gaul,' 1803; a translation, in verse from the French of Le Grand, of 'Partenopex de Blois,' 1807: · Letters to Henry Hallam, Esq., from the North of Italy,' 2 vols., 1819; and a translation of the " Animali Parlanti’of Casti, 1819, to which he prefixed introductory addresses at each canto to his friends Ugo Foscolo, Frere, Walter Scott, &c. In 1823, he published a condensed translation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato,' and also commenced his version of the ‘Orlando Fuiroso,' which was completed in 1831. The ·latter is the happiest of Mr. Rose's translations ; it has wonderful spirit, as well as remarkable fidelity, both in form and meaning, to the original. The translator dedicated his work in a graceful sonnet to Sir Walter Scott, 'who,' he says, “persuaded me to resume the work, which had been thrown aside, on the ground that such labour was its own reward :'

Scott, for whom Fame a gorgeous garland weaves,

Who what was scattered to the wasting wind,

As grain too coarse to gather or to bind,
Bad'st me collect and gird in goodly sheaves ;
If this poor seed hath formed its stalks and leaves,

Transplanted from a softer clime, and pined
For lack of southern suns in soil unkind,
Where Ceres or Italian Flora grieves ;
And if some fruit, however dwindled, fill

The doubtful ear, though scant the crop and bare
Ah, how unlike the growth of Tuscan hill,

Where the glad harvest springs behind the share-
Peace be to thee! who taught me that to till

Was sweet, however paid the peasant's care. Besides his translations, Mr. Rose was author of a volume of poems, entitled 'The Crusade of St. Louis,' &c., 1810; and ‘Rhymes,' a small volume of epistles to his friends; tales, sonnets, &c. He was also an occasional contributor to the Edinburgh' and Quarterly Reviews.' Ill-health latterly compelled Mr. Rose to withdraw in a great measure from society; but in every event and situation of life,' says his biographer, Mr. Townsend, : whether of sorrow or sickness, joy or pleasure, the thoughtful politeness of a perfect gentleman never forsook him.'* And thus he became the best translator of Ariosto, one of whose merits was that even in jesting he never forgot that he was a gentleman, while in his most extraordinary narratives and adventures there are simple and natural touches of feeling and expression that command sympathy. The ottava rima stanza of Ariosto was followed by Rose. - Hook in his translation adopted the heroic couplet with marvellous success. As a specimen, we give two stanzas:

Let him make haste his feet to disengage,

Nor lime his wings, whom Love has made a prize ;
For love, in fine, is nought but frenzied rage,

By universal suffrage of the wise:

And albeit some may shew themselves more sage
Memoir prefixed to Bohn's edition of the Orlando Furioso, 1858.

Than Roland, they but sin in other guise.
For what proves folly more than on this shelf,
Thus for another to destroy one's self?
Various are love's effects; but from one source

All issue, though they lead a different way.
He is, as 'twere, a forest where, perforce,

Who enters its recesses go astray ;
And here and there pursue their devious course :

In sum, to you, I, for conclusion, say,
He who grows old in love, besides all pain
Which waits such passion, well deserves a chain.

WILLIAM TAYLOR.

One of our earliest translators from the German was WILLIAM TAYLOR of Norwich (1765-1836). In 1796 appeared his version of Burger's 'Lenore.' Before the publication of this piece, Mrs. Barbauld-who had been the preceptress of Taylor-read it to a party in Edinburgh at which Walter Scott was present. The impression made upon Scott was such that he was induced to attempt a version himself, and though inferior in some respects to that of Taylor, Scott's translation gave promise of poetical power and imagination. Mr. Taylor afterwards made various translations from the German, which he collected and published in 1830 under the title of 'A Survey of German Poetry.' 'Mr. Taylor,' says a critic in the 'Quarterly Review (1843), “must be acknowledged to have been the first who effectually introduced the modern poetry and drama of Germany to the English reader, and his version of the ‘Nathan' of Lessing, the 'Iphigenia' of Goethe, and Schiller's ‘Bride of Messina, are not likely to be supplanted, though none of them are productions of the same order with Coleridge's Wallenstein.' In 1843 an interesting Memoir of Taylor, containing his correspondence with Southey, was published in two volumes, edited by J. W. Robberds, Norwich.

THE EARL OF ELLESMERE

In 1823 this nobleman (1800-1857) published a translation of Goethe's “Faust' and Schiller’s ‘Song of the Bell.' This volume was followed in 1824 by another, Translations from the German, and Original Poems.' În 1830 he translated Hernani, or the Honcur of a Castilian,' a tragedy from the French of Victor Hugo. To the close of his life, this accomplished nobleman continued to adapt popular foreign works—as Pindemonte's ‘Donna Charitea, Michael Beer's “ Paria, the 'Henri Trois' of Dumas, &c. He translated and re-arranged Schimmer's ‘Siege of Vienna,' and edited the History of Pcter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon' (two vols., 1851). In 1039 he undertook a voyage to the Mediterranean in his yacht, and on his retura home printed for private circulation ‘The Pilgrimage, Mediterranean Sketches,' &c., which were afterwards publish-) with illustrations. A dramatic piece, ‘Bluebeard,' acted with suc