the ensign of the Welch nation, before we conquered you in the time of Edward the First? I ask this with reference to a short poem that I have lately written, in which a line is left incomplete for want of this information. I think it possible that as armorial bearings are supposed to have taken their rise at the time of the Crusades, and the Welch were not much engaged in that pious undertaking, they may perhaps have been without such a badge. enough of this. But My wife would have written to yours, if I had left room. She desires her love, in which I join, and remain, dear Price, yours faithfully, H. F. CARY. In the last of the foregoing letters mention is made of his having written a short poem; I believe it is the same as that alluded to in his Journal, July 2, of this year, under the title of "Visions of Roméo." The poem was never printed, but in after life, when he had some thoughts of publishing a volume of original poems, my father selected this as the one that should stand first in the collection. As I hope it will shortly make its appearance before the public, I will not anticipate the critics by further notice of it at present. Mr. Cary's Journal for this year proves him to have pursued his favourite studies with undiminished ardour. LITERARY JOURNAL, 1813. January. Read Il Negromante of Ariosto. Read the Bella Mano of Giusto de' Conti, a collection of sonnets, &c., so called from the fair hand of his mistress. Giusto died about the middle of the fifteenth century. There is some resemblance to Petrarch in his manner. Tiraboschi qualifies the praise he gives him by saying that he has molto di stentato e di languido: but though he may be laboured, yet I think he is scarcely ever languid. I have read Giusto in the Florence edition of 1715, with Salvini's notes. Read the Ninfale Fiesolano, a poem, by Boccacio, and the Rime Antiche printed with the above-mentioned edition of Giusto de' Conti. 8. Read Cumberland's translation of the Clouds. of Aristophanes, republished last year with a translation of three other of the plays. 9 and 10. Read in the same book a translation of the Plutus by Fielding and Young, of the Frogs by Dunster, and of the Birds by a nameless translator. A version of the Wasps, the Acharnians, the Peace, and the Knights, is promised, if the present attempt succeeds with the public. 12. Read the fifth Satire of Ariosto (in Rolli's edition, the first), on the choice of a wife;-and the first, beginning "Io desidero," addressed to Alessandro, his brother, and Lodovico da Bagno. It throws much light on the poet's private life and disposition. There is much feeling in the few words he says of his mother: L'età di nostra madre mi percuote Di pietà il cor, che da tutti in un tratto Senza infamia lasciata esser non puote. January 13. Read the second Satire of Ariosto to his brother Galeasso, bidding him prepare for his reception at Rome. This also illustrates some occurrences of his life. He inveighs freely against the clergy ;—and the third to Annibale Malagazzo. 14. Read the fourth Satire to Sigismondo Malagazzo, a very humorous complaint of the charge which had been given him by his patron. 15. Read the sixth Satire to Bembo on the Education of the Poet's two sons. 16. Read the seventh and last Satire to Bonaventura Pistofilo-his reasons for not wishing to go ambassador to Pope Clement VII. from the Duke of Ferrara. 17 to 20. Finished the remaining Canzoni of Ariosto;-and read the Rime of Francesco Manfredi, Florence, 1730-in the usual sweet and easy strain of Italian poetry. 27. Finished the seventh book of Thucydides. February 9. Began the eighth book.-Read the Theaetetus of Plato in Le Grou's translation. [This dialogue is merely a refutation of the several false definitions of 'Emiσтýμn, Science; among others, Locke's system is crushed. In one part Theaetetus ays he cannot follow the argument of Socrates; or I either. The Dissertation prefixed by Cousin to is translation pleases me much. In the translation e often copies Grou, word for word. Gray has noted most of the fine things. April 15, 1841.] February 16. Began reading Mosheim's Ecclesiasical History aloud. 19. Finished the eighth book of Thucydides. 20. Began Appian, edit. 1551, and read to page 21. 21. Read Salvator Rosa's Satire on Painters. March 25. Continued Mosheim.-Read Edward II., an historical play, by Marlow; The Spanish Tragedy, by an unknown author, both in the second volume of Dodsley's Old Plays; and The Marriage Night, a Tragedy, by Henry Lord Falkland, in the tenth volume. These three Plays have all of them very fine passages, none more so than the last; but the plots of all are bad. In a written marginal note on the last, some one has observed the story is like that in one of Fletcher's Plays, which he thinks is the Maid's Tragedy. 28 to 30. Read the Argonautics of Orpheus, in the edition of Eschernbach, small 8vo, 1689. Some critics suppose this poem to be the work of Onomacritus, an Athenian, in the time of Pisistratus, but I should doubt its being so old. Verse 86 he gives the epithet aрlevíns "virgin" to "the sea," as yet not past. This looks modern. V. 438, Chiron is finely described expressing his wonder at the trees moving and the beasts standing around, and his rapture at the song which Orpheus says he sung to him. Αυτὰρ ὁρῶν κένταυρος ἐθάμβες, χειρεσὶ καρπῷ Πυκνὸν ἐπισσείων οὔδας δ' ἤρασσεν ὁπλῆσι. The text is much in want of correction, particularly towards the latter part. V. 1179, Ierne is mentioned. Νῆσον ἄμειβεν Ιερνίδα. To April 1. Read the Hymns that go under the name of the same writer. I am most pleased with the five or six at the end. They all appear to be rather invocations made at sacrifices than hymns. 2. Read the Пepì Aloor which also goes under his name, a poem on the virtues of precious stones. May 5. Finished the Rime of Marini, printed at Venice, 1667. 21. Finished the Satire di Quinto Settano, the fictitious name of Lodovico Sergardi, born at Siena, March 27, 1660, deceased Nov. 7, 1720. He has the force, the poetical expression, and the freedom— or, rather, licentiousness, of Juvenal.-The Satires were written at first in Latin, but afterwards translated into Terza rima, as it is believed, by the author himself. The latter part of the fourteenth is particularly fine. 23. Finished Della Providenza di Dio Sermoni dieci di Teodoreto Vescovo di Ciro, nuovamente di Greca in volgare lingua tradotti par Lucio Paolo Rosello Padoano. Venez, 1551. These discourses |