Page:The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Siddal ed.djvu/15

&#160;&#160;&#160;The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Aldus recto.png cadence: often the beautiful turn of a stanza must be weakened to adopt some rhyme which will tally, and he sees the poet revelling in abundance of language where himself is scantily supplied. Now he would slight the matter for the music, and now the music for the matter; but no, he must deal to each alike. Sometimes too a flaw in the work galls him, and he would fain remove it, doing for the poet that which his age denied him; but no, it is not in the bond."

It may be as well to explain here a very small share which I myself took in the Vita Nuova translation. When the volume The Early Italian Poets was in preparation, my brother asked me (January 1861) to aid by "collating my Vita Nuova with the original, and amending inaccuracies." He defined the work further as follows: "What I want is that you should correct my translation throughout, removing inaccuracies and mannerisms. And, if you have time, it would be a great service to translate the analyses of the poems (which I omitted). This, however, if you think it desirable to include them. I did not at the time (on ground of readableness), but since think