Page:Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him.djvu/12

viii. To the best of my recollection, the great majority of these translations must have been executed in the years 1846 to 1848; some of them may be even a little earlier, others probably as late as 1850, but I should say very few belong to any date subsequent to that. He found his materials partly at home, and partly in the library of the British Museum, which he haunted with much assiduity for the purpose. After completing his version of the Vita Nuova—which was probably neither the first nor the last of the translations—he projected bringing it out with etched illustrations from designs of his own; for meanwhile he was producing, in his profession as a painter, several water-colour and other illustrations of the kind. This project, however, fell through, from want of time and lack of opportunity or encouragement; and finally, early in 1861, the volume of The Early Italian Poets was published without any illustrations by Messrs. Smith & Elder—Mr. Ruskin, with his usual liberality, coming forward to advance or guarantee the requisite funds. As to the relation between The Early Italian Poets, issued in 1861, and Dante and his Circle, issued by Messrs. Ellis & White in 1874, the Prefaces written by my brother may be consulted for any necessary details. The only other scheme of Italian translation which he ever seriously entertained applied to the poems of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Towards 1873 re-studied these poems, and was greatly bent upon turning them into English: but after all he did not carry out, nor I think did he ever begin, this work.

, February 1892.