s a labor of great and
unusual difficulty. The slightest awkwardness in the translation of
these mystical passages of prose and rhyme connected by a thread of fact
so fragile and so subtle that we must seem to have done it violence in
touching it, would be almost fatal to the reader's enjoyment, or even
patience. Their version demands deep knowledge, not only of the language
in which they first took form, but of all the civil and intellectual
conditions of the time and country in which they were produced, as well
as the utmost fidelity, and exquisite delicacy of taste. It appears to
us that Mr. Norton has met these requirements, and executed his task
with signal grace and success.

The translator of the "Vita Nuova" has not departed from the principle
which Mr. Longfellow's translation of the "Commedia" is to render sole
in the version of poetry. Indeed, there was a greater need, if possible,
of literalness in rendering the less than the greater work, while the
temptations to "improvement" and modification of the original must have
been even more constant. Yet there is a very notable difference between
Mr. Longfellow's literality and Mr. Norton's, which strikes at first
glance, and which goes to prove that within his proper limits the
literal translator can always find room for the play of individual
feeling. Mr. Longfellow seems to have developed to its utmost the Latin
element in our poetical diction, and to have found in words of a kindred
stock the best interpretation of the Italian, while Mr. Norton
instinctively chooses for the rendering of Dante's tenderness and
simplicity a diction almost as purely Saxon as that of the Bible. This
gives the prose of "The New Life" with all its proper archaic quality;
and those who read the following sonnet can well believe that it is not
unjust to the beauty of the verse:--

"So gentle and so modest doth appear
My lady when she giveth her salute,
That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute;
Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.
Although she hears her praises, she doth go
Benignly vested with humility;
And like a thing come down, she seems to be,
From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.
So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,
She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,
Which none can understand who doth not prove.
And from her countenance there seems to move
A spirit sweet, and in Love's very guise,