that he entertained a sorry opinion of this poet. Reading
the note referred to, Landor seemed to be greatly annoyed, and replied:
"This is a mistake. It was never my intention to condemn Alfieri so
sweepingly." A few days later I received the following correction.
"Keats, in whom the spirit of poetry was stronger than in any
contemporary, at home or abroad, delighted in Hellenic imagery and
mythology, displaying them admirably; but no poet came nearer than
Alfieri to the heroic, since Virgil. Disliking, as I do, prefaces and
annotations, excrescences which hang loose like the deciduous bark on a
plane-tree, I will here notice an omission of mine on Alfieri, in the
'Imaginary Conversations.' The words, '_There is not a glimpse of poetry
in his Tragedies_,' should be, as written, '_There is not an extraneous
glimpse_,' &c."

Since then Landor has addressed these lines to Alfieri:--

"Thou art present in my sight,
Though far removed from us, for thou alone
Hast touched the inmost fibres of the breast,
Since Tasso's tears made damper the damp floor
Whereon one only light came through the bars," &c.;

thus redeeming the unintentioned slur of many years' publicity.

Landor pronounced (as must everyone else) Niccolini to be the best of
the recent Italian poets. Of Redi, whose verses taste of the rich juice
of the grape in those good old days when Tuscan vines had not become
demoralized, and wine was cheaper than water, Landor spoke fondly. Leigh
Hunt has given English readers a quaff of Redi in his rollicking
translation of "Bacchus in Tuscany," which is steeped in
"Montepulciano," "the king of all wine."

But Redi is not always bacchanalian. He has a loving, human heart as
well, which Landor has shown in a charming translation given to me
shortly after our conversation concerning this poet. "I never publish
translations," he remarked at the time; but though translations may not
be fit company for the "Imaginary Conversations," the verses from Redi
are more than worthy of an abiding place here.

"Ye gentle souls! ye love-devoted fair!
Who, passing by, to Pity's voice incline,
O stay awhile and hear me; then declare
If there was ever grief that equals mine.

"There was a woman to whose sacred breast
Faith had retired, where Honor fixt his throne,
Pride, though upheld by Virtue she represt....
Ye gentle souls! that woman was my own.

"Beauty was