If novelty be any recommendation of the work now offered to the public, an English Ariosto may have that to plead, notwithstanding any translation that has yet. appeared. We have indeed two versions of the Orlando Furioso, the first of which, by Sir John Harington, before-mentioned, published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and dedicated to that Princess, is little known; the copies are become very scarce, and the genius of the performance, whatever merit it might claim at the time of the publication, affords now little encouragement to multiply them by a new impression. The last translation, sent into the world, was professedly given by its author as a literal version, the very idea of which will necessarily exclude the thought of its being generally read as an English book, of which every one will judge, who is acquainted with the different idioms of the two languages.

Although this poem, like all the Italian writings of the kind, is written in the octave stanza, the present translation will be found, in that respect, to differ from the two first, which are rendered in the same form of versification as the Italian. I am aware that it has been, and is still, the opinion of some, whose judgment claims no little deference, that the English couplet is improper for a work of this nature, and that the stanza is the only manner suitable to romance: to which it may be answered that the Italians, who made use of the first, applied it, and still continue to apply it, to the highest kind of poetry; it is therefore to be considered as their heroic style: It was not only used by Pulci, Boyardo, and Ariosto, in their compositions of the Gothic fiction, but is employed by Tasso in his truly Epic poem of the

Jesrusalem; and by many of the Italian writers in their translations of the Greek and Roman poets, which, I believe, few other modern translators would think of rendering in the stanza. The genius of our heroic verse admits of a great variety; and we have examples of very different species of writing in the works of Dryden and Pope, from the sublime style of Homer and Virgil, to the familiar narratives of Boccace and Chaucer.

But of all the various styles used by our best poets, none seems so well adapted to the mixed and familiar narrative as that of Dryden in his last productions, known by the name of his Fables, which, by their harmony, spirit, ease, and variety of versification, exhibit an admirable model for a translator of Ariosto.

In referring to the several commentators, I have been cautious how far I adopted their allegorical interpretations, as the temper of that class of writers frequently leads them to trace out a meaning which the poet himself was a stranger to: that allegory, which requires explanation, is certainly defective; and it is notorious, that an inventive genius can convert the plainest narrative into mystery, as Tasso has done by his Jerusalem, to which he has prefixed an allegory that renders the whole poem as completely visionary as the Fairy Queen of Spenser.

Should the English reader become more acquainted with this celebrated Italian, he will find the Orlando no bad elucidation of the Don Quixote of Cervantes, as a great part of the customs, at least the general genius of chivalry, may be learnt from it, without the drudgery. of travelling through the old romances.

Though it is not here recommended that any one should imitate the extravagances of the Italian writers, yet while the enthusiastic spirit, that hurries away the reader, continues to be regarded as the glorious criterion of true poetry, every follower of the Muses will find ample subject for admiration in the perusal of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, an author, whom, with all his faults, Dryden acknowledges to have been a GREAT POET; an author, lately included in the highest praise of creative genius by one of our first critics, who thus describes that general effect from which the power of every poet ought to be estimated. "Works of imagination excel by their allurements and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining attention. That book is good in vain which the reader throws away. He only is the master who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day."

THE

LIFE OF ARIOSTO:

EXTRACTED FROM

PIGNA, FORNARI, GARAFOLO, MAZZUCHELLI, AND OTHERS.

SOME authors, though with little authority, maintain, that the Ariosti derive their original from the Aristi, or Ariovisti: it is, however, certain that this family was very ancient in Bologna, where it had flourished in great estimation, when Obizzo III. marquis of Este, married Lippa Ariosta, a lady of excellent beauty and rare accomplishments, who, accompanying her husband to Ferrara, took with her several of her relations, and first established the house of the Ariosti in that place.

Among other branches of the name, lived Nicolo and his brothers, men of great consideration in Ferrara : Nicolo not only filled, under Hercules and Borso, dukes of Ferrara, the most important posts in the city, but was chosen to the government of Rheggio and Modena, and several times sent ambassador to the pope, the emperor, and the king of France: but nothing contributed more to deliver his name down to posterity, than being the Father of Ludovico.