per's Homer, as adequate and popular as
translated poetry can be expected to be. Yet I doubt if either of those
poets could have succeeded so well with Petrarch. Lady Dacre has shown
much grace and ingenuity in the passages of our poet which she has
versified; but she could not transfer into English those graces of
Petrarchan diction, which are mostly intransferable. She could not bring
the Italian language along with her.

Is not this, it may be asked, a proof that Petrarch is not so genuine a
poet as Homer and Dante, since his charm depends upon the delicacies of
diction that evaporate in the transfer from tongue to tongue, more than
on hardy thoughts that will take root in any language to which they are
transplanted? In a general view, I agree with this proposition; yet,
what we call felicitous diction can never have a potent charm without
refined thoughts, which, like essential odours, may be too impalpable to
bear transfusion. Burns has the happiest imaginable Scottish diction;
yet, what true Scotsman would bear to see him _done_ into French? And,
with the exception of German, what language has done justice to
Shakespeare?

The reader must be a true Petrarchist who is unconscious of a general
similarity in the character of his sonnets, which, in the long perusal
of them, amounts to monotony. At the same time, it must be said that
this monotonous similarity impresses the mind of Petrarch's reader
exactly in proportion to the slenderness of his acquaintance with the
poet. Does he approach Petrarch's sonnets for the first time, they will
probably appear to him all as like to each other as the sheep of a
flock; but, when he becomes more familiar with them, he will perceive an
interesting individuality in every sonnet, and will discriminate their
individual character as precisely as the shepherd can distinguish every
single sheep of his flock by its voice and face. It would be rather
tedious to pull out, one by one, all the sheep and lambs of our poet's
flock of sonnets, and to enumerate the varieties of their bleat; and
though, by studying the subject half his lifetime, a man might classify
them by their main characteristics, he would find they defy a perfect
classification, as they often blend different qualities. Some of them
have a uniform expression of calm and beautiful feeling. Others breathe
ardent and almost hopeful passion. Others again show him jealous,
despondent, despairing; sometimes gloomily, and sometim