In the preface to "The Prophecy," Byron said that he had not
seen the _terza rima_ tried before in English, except by Hayley, whose
translation he knew only from an extract in the notes to Beckford's
"Vathek."

Shelley's knowledge and appreciation of Dante might be proved from
isolated images and expressions in many parts of his writings. He
translated the sonnet to Guido Cavalcanti with greater freedom and
elegance than Hayley, and wrote a short copy of verses on the Hunger
Tower at Pisa, the scene of Ugolino's sufferings. In the preface to
"Epipsychidion" he cites the "Vita Nuova" as the utterance of an
idealised and spiritualised love like that which his own poem records.
In the "Defence of Poetry" he pays a glowing tribute to Dante as the
second of epic poets and "the first awakener of entranced Europe." His
poetry is the bridge "which unites the modern and the ancient world."
Contrary to the prevailing critical tradition, Shelley preferred the
"Purgatory" and the "Paradise" to the "Hell." Shelley also employed
_terza rima_ in his fragmentary pieces, "Prince Athanase," "The Triumph
of Life," "The Woodman and the Nightingale," and in one of his best
lyrics, the "Ode to the West Wind," [17] written in 1819 "in a wood that
skirts the Arno, near Florence." This linked measure, so difficult for
the translator and which gives a hampered movement to Byron's and
Hayley's specimens of the "Inferno," Shelley may be said to have really
domesticated in English verse by his splendid handling of it in original
work:

"Make me thy lyre even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling, like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!"

Shelley expressed to Medwin his dissatisfaction with all English
renderings from Dante--even with Cary--and announced his intention, or
desire, to translate the whole of the "Divine Comedy" in _terza rima_.
Two specimens of this projected version he gave in "Ugolino," and
"Matilda Gathering Flowers" ("Purg.," xxviii., 1-51). He also made a
translation of the first canzone of the "Convito."

After the appearance of Cary's version, critical comprehension of Dante
grew rapidly. In the same year when Coleridge gave his lectures, Hallam
published his "Middle Ages," which contained a just though somewhat
coldly worded estimate of the great Italian