hardly bends itself to prose, though it is hard to reproduce the sweet simplicity of the original: — "E'en as a little fasting bird, who hears Struggles and pants within its downy nest, Thus I, when bright and warm and living rays, I move the pen my love but to impart; In another sonnet she speaks of the power of music, and asks, if such heavenly sounds can be made out of this material air, with such power to move the deep soul of man, what can be the glory of those heavenly harmonies, heard in the very presence of the Creator? We must accord a very high place to these sonnets, in spite of any want of variety or wide interest in their theme. The sentiment is always pure and tender, the style graceful and noble, and the expression poetic. While they can never again become generally popular, they will amply reward the student of Italian literature for much study, and will always find a welcome in tender and devout hearts, who have loved and suffered like their author. The criticism of our age on the poems, as on the life, of Vittoria Colonna, would be a want of health. She represents a phase of womanhood which we have idolized in the past, but which our century recognizes as incomplete and unsatisfactory. The eternal miserere of the middle ages has ceased to express our whole religious feeling. "Let us make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and show ourselves glad in him with psalms." The life of action, instead of contemplation, is demanded of all. Lady Franklin, organizing one expedition after another to search for her lost husband among the eter nal ice; the brave American who took command of the ship when her husband lay helpless below, and brought all safe into port, are to us truer types of conjugal devotion than the poetic tributes of a sorrow that knew no bounds and would accept no consolation. But our very tendency to emphasize this robust and healthy life of action makes it safe and profitable for us to pause, and weep with those who weep. "He who lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend. For life's worst woes to have no time to feel them. Vittoria gives us but one sad, sweet strain; very sad, it is true, but very sweet also. No doubt, no rebellion, no selfishness, mingles with her grief. It is her divinely ordained lot to mourn; and it is thus she holds herself near to that heaven, whither her loved one has gone, and towards which all her hopes are directed.* In spite of all the attention paid to foreign languages as a part of education, we yet know very little of foreign literature. Dante and Tasso are "done" by school-girls at an age when it is impossible for them to appreciate their merits or enjoy their beauties; and then the words of an opera are the only further use for their painfully acquired knowledge. And so there is little chance for the sad notes of Vittoria to sound upon our ears. Yet we would not willingly forget her. How gladly would we recall the beauty of that face which enamored all Italy! Sebastian del Piombo, the friend and assistant of Michael Angelo, and famous for the excellence of his portraits, has painted hers. We know it only from the rather poor engraving in Harford's Life taken from Hollar's print. The features are regular, the forehead high, the eyes full and large, the mouth rather small but well The works of Vittoria Colonna are very little known, and we have not succeeded in obtaining sight of a copy in our best libraries. The last and best edition was published as late as 1840. formed, and the blonde hair luxuriant and wavy. She has the full figure belonging to her fair complexion, increased perhaps by her sedentary and secluded life.* As we measure the height of a pyramid by the shadow it casts, so it is but fair to judge Vittoria Colonna not alone by the scanty poetic remains which have come to us, but by the effect which she produced on those who were the immediate recipients of her influence. Then as a wife we shall find her retaining the love, confidence, and esteem of her husband, through their union of eighteen years' duration; as a widow, she preserved her spotless constancy, untempted by the lures of ambition or vanity. Though denied a mother's dear name, yet as the guardian of her nephew she showed all the firmness tempered with love which should grace the motherly office. Beautiful, learned, and accomplished, while she won the passionate adoration of the other sex, she lost neither the love nor the confidence of her own. Living in relations of intimate friendship with the most distinguished men, in a most corrupt and licentious age, neither envy nor malice has tainted her reputation with a breath of slander. Worshipped as a saint, she remained humble and true as a woman. As a friend, she was faithful and affectionate, neither exacting in her demand for affection, nor niggardly in its return; and yet keeping this as all other human affections within the bounds of decorum and duty. She knew "the modest charm In the collection of Mr. Jarves, exhibited in Boston some years ago, was a picture called a portrait of Vittoria Colonna. It is a work of great merit, admirably drawn, and thoroughly real; but it is impossible to believe it to be a portrait of the beautiful Italian. The color of the hair and complexion alone is sufficient to decide the question. She was a beautiful blonde, but this was a robust brunette. We have since seen an entirely different picture, -an engraving, which is far truer to our conception of her character, having that refined and saintly expression belonging to a person of her exalted religious feeling. At the request of the Prince and Princess Torlonia, the Academy decided that a bust of Vittoria Colonna should be placed in the capitol. It was inaugurated with great pomp on the 12th of May, 1845. A countless number of odes and academic speeches graced the occasion; but we fear none of them will survive it, although they have been collected and printed in a curious volume. Thousands of spectators assisted at this apotheosis. The bust, executed by one of the best artists in Rome, is said to be worthy of his subject. VOL. LXXXIV. — NEW SERIES, VOL. V. NO. I. 4 of not too much." And, as a scholar and a poetess, she lived a life of intellectual activity, and tasted the sweets of literary fame, without sacrificing to it one jot of her womanhood, concealing the warm, true life of her heart, or dimming the clear, bright light of conscience within. Three hundred years have passed over her quiet grave; but still she is living within lov ing hearts, and we love to think of her in one of those groups of glorified spirits which her divine countryman has described to us, re-united to all whom she loved on earth, and chanting with them yet higher and nobler strains of love and joy and truth. We will add to our own feeble words two of the stanzas of Ariosto, and one of Michael Angelo's sonnets. The first are found in the thirty-seventh canto of the "Orlando Furioso." The translation is by Mr. Stuart Rose: How much deeper and more earnest is the tone of Michael Angelo, marred as is his verse by translation! No one but Wordsworth has ever worthily rendered him; and so great was his modest admiration, that he has left us only three sonnets, considering all his other attempts at translation failures. We should therefore fear to be classed with "fools who rush in where angels fear to tread," did we attempt a substitute for Mr. Harford's version, poor as we think it: TO VITTORIA COLONNA, MARCHIONESS OF PESCARA. "Midst endless doubts, shifting from right to left, And still, 'twixt vice and virtue balancing, My heart, confused, weighs down and wearies me; Present the blank page of my troubled mind; As to incur at length a fatal fall. Be you the writer who have taught me how To tread, by fairest paths, the way to heaven." We must add a little madrigal in a more playful vein, to show the more graceful and gallant side of their relation: |