erni, Folengo, and
the Abbe Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's
genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art
is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are
chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini.
Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets,
Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the
earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the
spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each
of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs.
Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped
in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a
tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are
portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is
more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth,
in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far
as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the
truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy
with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the
imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of
English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with
purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in
the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native
wood-notes in a tongue which is their own.

What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to
Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to
some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a
conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have
derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some
metres--especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter
has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by
Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become
acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey
upon the _versi sciolti_ of the Italians, has departed widely from
Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas
Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its
greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again,
is a new and orig