I have not the hardihood to
pretend that I have read all his works. I must confess that I found it
impossible to do so, though I came to their perusal inured to drought
by travel through Saharas of Italian verse. I can boast only of having
read the _Francesca da Rimini_, among the tragedies, and two or three
of the canticles,--or romantic stories of the Middle Ages, in blank
verse,--which now refuse to be identified. I know, from a despairing
reference to his volume, that his remaining poems are chiefly of a
religious cast.
II
A much better poet of the Romantic School was Tommaso Grossi, who,
like Manzoni and Pellico, is now best known by a prose work--a novel
which enjoys a popularity as great as that of "Le Mie Prigioni", and
which has been nearly as much read in Italy as "I Promessi Sposi". The
"Marco Visconti" of Grossi is a romance of the thirteenth century; and
though not, as Cantu says, an historic "episode, but a succession of
episodes, which do not leave a general and unique impression," it yet
contrives to bring you so pleasantly acquainted with the splendid,
squalid, poetic, miserable Italian life in Milan, and on its
neighboring hills and lakes, during the Middle Ages, that you cannot
help reading it to the end. I suppose that this is the highest praise
which can be bestowed upon an historical romance, and that it implies
great charm of narrative and beauty of style.
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