history of a literary tour, may
justly be censured on account of its faults of omission. We have already
said that, though rich in extracts from the Latin poets, it contains
scarcely any references to the Latin orators and historians. We must add
that it contains little, or rather no information, respecting the
history and literature of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance,
Addison does not mention Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni,
Lorenzo de' Medici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us, that at Ferrara
he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard the gondoliers
sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less than
for Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. The gentle flow of the
Ticin brings a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of
Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. But he has not a
word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce; he crosses the wood
of Ravenna without recollecting the Spectre Huntsman, and wanders up and
down Rimini without one thought of Francesca. At Paris, he had eagerly
sought an introduction to Boileau; but he seems not to have been at all
aware that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a poet with whom
Boileau could not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of
modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remarkable, because
Filicaja was the favorite poet of the accomplished Somers, under whose
protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account of the Travels is
dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared less, about
the literature of modern Italy. His favorite models were Latin. His
favorite critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read
seemed to him monstrous, and the other half tawdry.

His Travels were followed by the lively Opera of Rosamond. This piece
was ill set to music, and therefore failed on the stage; but it
completely succeeded in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The
smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which
they bound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We are inclined to
think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse
to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing airy and spirited songs,
his reputation as a poet would have stood far higher than it now does.
Some years after his death, Rosamond was set to new music by Doctor
Arne; and was performed with complete success. Several pass