Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of
Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on
into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not
only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of
Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo
and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he
probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be
easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian
influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in
general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the
harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education
addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed
in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give
sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies
us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton
in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of
the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the
vowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is just
this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels
that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his
diction to that of the Italians.

After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is
interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into
comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only
swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in
intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to
France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout
the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen Anne.
Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement of
English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence of
Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are no
insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and
Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the
beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then
the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of
'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron,
is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of B