FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51  
52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   >>   >|  
shut mine eyes, Lose the sweet look of that delightful face; The very soul within me droops and dies, To think that I may fail to gain her grace. No strong limbs now, no valour, will suffice To burst the spell that roots me to the place: No, nor reflection, nor advice, nor force; I see the better part, and clasp the worse.] [Footnote 3: [Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou, kai panta krataeseis.] "Make war with silver spears, and you'll beat all." The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases. It is a very good allegory; but allegory, by the due process of enchantment, becomes matter of fact; and it is pleasant to take it as such.] [Footnote 4: "Re Galagron, il maledetto cane"] [Footnote 5: The lions in the shield of England were leopards in the "olden time," and it is understood, I believe, ought still to be so,--as Napoleon, with an invidious pedantry, once permitted himself to be angry enough to inform us.] [Footnote 6: The character of Astolfo, the germ of which is in our own ancient British romances, appears to have been completed by the lively invention of Boiardo, and is a curious epitome of almost all which has been discerned in the travelled Englishmen by the envy of poorer and the wit of livelier foreigners. He has the handsomeness and ostentation of a Buckingham, the wealth of a Beckford, the generosity of a Carlisle, the invincible pretensions of a Crichton, the self-commitals and bravery of a Digby, the lucklessness of a Stuart, and the _nonchalance_ "under difficulties" of "_Milord What-then_" in Voltaire's _Princess of Babylon_, where the noble traveller is discovered philosophically reading the news-paper in his carriage after it was overturned. English beauty, ever since the days of Pope Gregory, with his pun about Angles and Angels, has been greatly admired in the south of Europe--not a little, perhaps, on account of the general fairness of its complexion. I once heard a fair-faced English gentleman, who would have been thought rather effeminate looking at home, called an "Angel" by a lady in Genoa.] [Footnote 7: "Stava disciolto, senza guardia alcuna, Ed intorno a la fonte sollazzava; Angelica nel lume de la luna, Quanto potea nascosa, lo mirava." There is something wonderfully soft and _lunar_ in the liquid monotony of the third line.] [Footnote 8: "La qual dormiva in atto tanto adorno, Che pensar non si puo, non ch'io lo scriv
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51  
52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Footnote

 

allegory

 

English

 

beauty

 

overturned

 
carriage
 

admired

 

Europe

 
greatly
 

Angels


Gregory

 

Angles

 

Babylon

 
commitals
 

Crichton

 
bravery
 

Stuart

 

lucklessness

 
pretensions
 

invincible


Buckingham

 

ostentation

 

wealth

 

Beckford

 

Carlisle

 

generosity

 

nonchalance

 

traveller

 
discovered
 

philosophically


reading

 
Princess
 

Milord

 

difficulties

 

Voltaire

 

wonderfully

 

monotony

 

liquid

 

mirava

 

Quanto


nascosa

 

pensar

 

adorno

 
dormiva
 

Angelica

 

handsomeness

 
thought
 
effeminate
 

gentleman

 

fairness