Perhaps I ought to blame my own ignorance, that I did not know Lorenzo as a beautiful poet:  I confess I did not.  Now I do, I own I admire some of his sonnets more than several-yes, even of Petrarch; for Lorenzo’s are frequently more clear, less alembiquis, and not inharmonious as Petrarch’s often are from being too crowded with words, for which room is made by numerous elisions, which prevent the softening alternacy of vowels and consonants.  That thicket of words was occasioned by the embarrassing nature of the sonnet:  a form of composition I do not love, and which is almost intolerable in any language but Italian, which furnishes such a profusion of rhymes.  To our tongue the sonnet is mortal, and the parent of insipidity.  The Mutation in some degree of it was extremely noxious to a true poet, our Spenser; and he was the more injudicious by lengthening his stanza in a language so barren of rhymes as ours, and in which several words, whose terminations are of similar sounds, are so rugged, uncouth, and unmusical.  The consequence was, that many lines which he forced into the service to complete the quota of his stanza are unmeaning, or silly, or tending to weaken the thought he would express.

Well, Sir:  but if you have led me to admire the compositions of Lorenzo, you have made me intimate with another poet, of whom I had never heard nor had the least suspicion; and who, though writing in a less harmonious language than Italian, outshines an able master of that country, as may be estimated by the fairest of all comparisons -which is, when one of each nation versifies the same ideas and thoughts.  That novel poet I boldly pronounce is Mr. Roscoe.  Several of his translations of’ Lorenzo are superior to the originals, and the verses more poetic; nor am I bribed to give this opinion by the present of your book, nor by any partiality, nor by the surprise of finding so pure a writer of history as able a poet.  Some good judges to whom I have shown your translations entirely agree with me.  I will name one most competent judge, Mr. Hoole, so admirable a poet himself, and such a critic in Italian, as he has proved by a translation of Ariosto.  That I am not flattering you, Sir, I will demonstrate; for I am not satisfied with one essential line in your version of the most beautiful, I think, of all Lorenzo’s stanzas.  It is his description of Jealousy, in page 268, equal, in my humble opinion, to Dryden’s delineations of the Passions, and the last line of which is—­

Mai dorme, ed ostinata, a se sol crede.

The thought to me is quite new, and your translation I own does not come up to it.  Mr. Hoole and I hammered at it, but could not content ourselves.  Perhaps by altering your last couplet you may enclose the whole sense, and make it equal to the preceding six.

I will not ask your pardon, Sir, for taking so much liberty with you.  You have displayed so much candour and are so free from pretensions, that I am confident you will allow that truth is the sole ingredient that ought to compose deserved incense; and if ever commendation was sincere, no praise ever flowed with purer veracity than all I have said in this letter does from the heart of, Sir, your infinitely obliged humble servant.