Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/14

8 Various almanacs, or rather calendars, with local views, came into fashion about 1910 (one for 1912 showed Houghton Mill, St. Ives, Hunts); but such things do not really belong to our subject.

—In his 'Studies

as

coming from the pen of Politian or Marsilio Ficino, or Ludovico Vives, or Pico della Mirandola." But some of the most eloquent lines of Poliziano's fervent ' Nutricia,' ' Argu- mentum cle poetica et poetis ' (1486), salute the founders of Italian literature with no mean praise. True, the great Renaissance scholar does not lavish upon the na-tive writers the erudition with which he chants Homer, Virgil, and above all Pindar, yet the following lines are assuredly not without grace and dignity sufficient to contradict Dean Plumptre's all too sweeping statement :

Nee tamen Aligerum fraudarim hoc munere

Dantem,

Per styga per stellas mediique per ardua mentis, Pulchra Beatricis sub uirginis ora, uolantem ; Quique Cupidineum repetit Petrarcha triumph urn ; Et qui bis quinis centum argumenta diebus Pingit ; et obscuri qui semina monstrat amoris : Unde tibi immensae ueniunt praeconia laudis, Ingeniis opibusque potens Florentia mater.

Thus Englished by Addington Symonds :

" Nor yet of this meed of honour would I cheat wing-bearing Dante, who flew 1 through hell, through the starry heavens, and o'er the inter- mediate hill of Purgatory beneath the beauteous brows of Beatrice ; and Petrarch too, who tells again the tale of Cupid's triumph ; or him who in ten days portrays a hundred stories ; or him who lays bare the seeds of hidden love : from whom unmeasured fame and name are thine, by wit and wealth twice potent, Florence, mother of great sons ! "

Del Lungo, who, in his ample commentary on Poliziano, rather carpingly characterizes these beautiful lines as " Scarso tributo, quasi un' elemosina, dell' aureo latinista alia povera poes'a volgare," is none the less bound to modify his judgement with " Xota felicita dei versi che dipingono il viaggio dantesco."

It is noticeable that Symonds punctuates the line " Pingit ; ..." thus: " Pingit et ob- scuri . . .," and renders "... hundred stories, and lays bare . . .," obviously taking it that "qui semina monstrat amoris" stil] refers to Boccaccio. I have ventured slightlv to alter the translation at this point, as it seems to me that the Latin, without unnecessary

harshness, will hardly bear Symonds's inter- pretation. Accordingly I here follow Del Lungo, who takes " qui semina monstrat amoris" to be Guido Cavalcanti, " di cui si allude (Obscuri ecc.) alia canzone sulla natura d'amore, comentata, a' suoi tempi e poi, largamente."

MONTAGUE J. SUMMERS.

HOGARTH : A CONTEMPORARY ITAUAN ADMIRER. Count Alessandro Verri, the first Italian to attempt to translate Shake- speare, was a confirmed Anglomaniae even before the few months he spent in London during the winter of 1766-7. He- wrote home some interesting letters to his brother, Count Pietro, the distinguished economist, describing his visit. He was not favourably impressed by our tragedies,, but in comedy he regards us as equal, if not superior, to the French.

" The Englishman has a more marked and pro- found sense of the ridiculous than the Frenchman,, who is too subtle and metaphysical. I have watched scenes in English comedy which, in their completeness, reach the highest point of the- ridiculous and the comic.

" You have only to compare an English carica- turist, such as Hogarth, with the famous Callot.

" English humour is more concentrated. I have seen prints in the shopwindows here that would keep me laughing whole days figures so weird, costumes so outrageous, so much that is ridiculous collected into a single point, that it Would be impossible to find more amusing pictures, in the whole world."

For Hogarth, especially for " Marriage a la mode,'' 1 he has a great admiration. His brother asks him to bring him a set, if it is not too dear. He willingly promisee, as it only costs eight shillings. He possessed one himself, and we find him sending for- another after his return to Milan.

LACY COLLISON-MORLEY.

SOME NOTES ON KENTISH WILLS. Having had occasion to transcribe sc me wills of the Commissary Court of Canterbury,. I have made the following memoranda,, which perhaps may be of some interest. Wills and testaments are usually spoken of indifferently, but a testament means properly a distribution of personal property, whereas a will may refer to either personal or real property ; and it may be noted that previously to the year 1476 all testaments were made in Latin, wills being indifferently made in either Latin or English. Then we find in 1551 a will wherein the names of witnesses were omitted, and the seal and signature of the testator added for the first time. In 1559 occurs the first codicil to a