artists in language. Wonderful as is the proof of it shown by his versions of Dante and his fellows, of Villon's and other ballad-songs of old France, the capacity of recasting in English an Italian poem of his own seems to me more wonderful; and what a rare and subtle piece of work has been done here they only can appreciate who have tried carefully and failed utterly to refashion in one language a song thrown off in another. This is the kind of test which stamps the supremacy of an artist, answering in poetry to the subtlest successes of the same hand in painting. Whether or not there be now living a master in colours who can match the peculiar triumphs of its touch, there is assuredly no master in words. The melodies of these in their Italian form can never die out of the ear and heart they have once pierced with their keen and sovereign sweetness. This song would suffice to redeem the whole story from the province of pain, even though the poet had not left upon us the natural charm of that hope which comes in with death, that the woman grown hard and bad was indeed no less a lie, an error, a spectral show, than the laughing ghost of her forged by bodily pain and recollection.
By this poem we may set for contrast, in witness of the artist's clear wide scope of work and power, the "Burden of Nineveh;" a study of pure thought and high meditation, perhaps for sovereignty of language and strong grasp of spirit the greatest of his poems. The contemplation that brings forth such fruit should be a cherub indeed, having wings and eyes as an eagle's. The solemn and splendid metre, if I mistake not, is a new instrument of music for English hands. In those of its fashioner it
