PREFACE.

Ar the close of the year 1834, I forwarded a Tour, written in prose, to my Publishers, descriptive of what I had seen in the South.* I purposed to continue it, but found, that when standing before objects of the great and beautiful, in art, or nature, my thoughts involuntarily toned themselves to a higher strain of language than that which best accords with prose. I, therefore, most willingly returned to what most writers of verse are willing to consider their natural vocation; and if an author's own testimony to the closest possible fidelity on his part, with regard to description, thought, and feeling, can be supposed to give the reader any additional interest in the work, I can with truth aver that I have scarcely written a line except in the pre

Extracts have appeared in the Metropolitan Magazine-entitled Prose by A Poet.

sence of the objects described; and as in the whole limitless kingdoms of Art and Nature, as in the moral world, I believe the Good and the Beautiful everywhere presides, and, if sought for, is everywhere to be found, so I have only written when I have felt myself under their immediate influences.

I must aver with the like truth, however, that I did not visit Italy with the slightest design of writing a Poem. It was among the Statues and Paintings of the Tribune, at Florence, that I first wrote down the impressions of the hour; until I found, when at Rome and Naples, that the habit had entailed its necessity: the slender thread, or, rather, rivulet of Poetry, which, at first, had drawn me on, deepened and widened into a stream, to which I, insensibly, devoted every thought and feeling.

I have carefully avoided reference to Continental, or, indeed, to any politics, varying as they do with the time. Italy must, at last, be united, and recover her freedom: it is the ultimate destiny of all nations; but, as with Poland, her hour has not arrived. As the world of Nature is overcast by the sullen mists, and sluggish vapours of a Winter's sky, when the Sun, once so animating and enlivening, indicates his presence only by the common light in which all live and enjoy; so

under the more palpable oppressions of despotic sway, chilling and nipping all genial influences, and blighting or restraining all that vigorous growth, which, allowed to exercise its energies, would so adorn and benefit humanity, does an Empire draw on its languishing existence, awaiting the dawn, the glow, and the warmth of Liberty, which must as inevitably return to her as the Star to its wonted course, or as the Sun to the summer's morning.

I have dwelt only on those objects which are immutable and eternal: on her master-works of Art, both in Painting and in Sculpture; and on the sublimest forms of Nature in that glorious land, over which the Almighty seems more especially to cast his mantle of the Beautiful.

Italy stands like a winter's tree; the summers that shone upon it, and brought forth all its strength, and fruits, and foliage, have passed away; yet, though denuded of its once too rank luxuriance, its limbs motionless and lifeless, that life is dead in appearance only; the vital principle condenses round its heart; but a Kingdom, with all its giant energies and infinite existence, cannot be rooted up or overthrown; the sun, the freedom, and the life, that warmed, expanded, and invigorated its mighty ramifications, must again

burst forth. Nature, by her own immutable laws, must again assert her energies; and Nations, following her example, gather themselves together, and rejoice beneath its protecting shadows.

On works of Art, the Statues for example, whatever novelty, real or seeming, my stanzas may pretend to, consists in this; that I extract from them, and I endeavour to enforce, that moral feeling with which I am satisfied every Master-Artist of ancient times was impressed, and of which he endeavoured to make his work the reflection. I felt that it animated them all, each having its peculiar stamp of character; and feeling this, I have endeavoured to embody my impressions. I consider that Pliny, also, has expressed a similar sentiment, though couched in different language; for, speaking of a famous Painter, he observes-In unius hujus operibus intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur; et cum sit ars summa, ingenium tamen ultra artem est.*

Be it, also, borne in mind, that in addition to various objects in Florence and Rome, and much of classic ground hitherto untouched, the whole territory of Naples, with all its exhaustless treasuries, lay open to

* In the works of this man, more is always understood than is painted : and when he has attained the height of art, the mind of the Artist is felt beyond it.

the scholar, and, still more, to the reflective and the imaginative observer. Pompeii, Vesuvius, Baiæ, Cuma, Capri, with all their impressive reminiscences; Sorrento, Amalfi, and perhaps, above them all, Pæstum, may be considered by the Poet, as unbroken, almost as untrodden ground.

I found that copious notes were necessary to illustrate various passages: the greater part of them are drawn from standard authorities; when occasional anecdotes might be thought welcome, I have introduced them. I have, also, added notices set down, at the moment, from my own Journal; believing that such sketches, however hasty, are more graphic, and possess more the air of reality, than when elaborately finished. Occasional extracts of the deepest interest are quoted from the Roman poets and historians: but they grow so much out of the subject, that I feel assured not one of them will be deemed superfluous. My great object in these Notes has been to interest, to make them a part of the Poem. In this, I wish to hope that I have succeeded.

I have chosen the measure adopted by Spenser, Beattie, Thomson, and by a far higher name than the two latter, as that, which, uniting in itself the heroic and elegiac, allows, above all others, the greatest field of