The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives
of the Writers, Volume 1, by Leigh Hunt

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Title: Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1

Author: Leigh Hunt

Release Date: January 31, 2004 [EBook #10885]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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STORIES FROM THE ITALIAN POETS: WITH LIVES OF THE WRITERS.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.

MDCCCXLVI.

TO SIR PERCY SHELLEY, BART.

MY DEAR SIR PERCY,

As I know no man who surpasses yourself either in combining a love of
the most romantic fiction with the coolest good sense, or in passing
from the driest metaphysical questions to the heartiest enjoyment of
humour,--I trust that even a modesty so true as yours will not grudge me
the satisfaction of inscribing these volumes with your name.

That you should possess such varieties of taste is no wonder,
considering what an abundance of intellectual honours you inherit; nor
might the world have been the better for it, had they been tastes, and
nothing more. But that you should inherit also that zeal for justice to
mankind, which has become so Christian a feature in the character of the
age, and that you should include in that zeal a special regard for the
welfare of your Father's Friend, are subjects of constant pleasurable
reflection to

Your obliged and affectionate

LEIGH HUNT.

PREFACE.

The purpose of these volumes is, to add to the stock of tales from the
Italian writers; to retain as much of the poetry of the originals as it
is in the power of the writer's prose to compass; and to furnish careful
biographical notices of the authors. There have been several collections
of stories from the Novellists of Italy, but none from the Poets; and it
struck me that prose versions from these, of the kind here offered to
the public, might not be unwillingly received. The stories are selected
from the five principal narrative poets, Dante, Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto,
and Tasso; they comprise the most popula