Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso"; Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines"; and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his learning; witness such lines as these:--
"My parents natives of Lombardy were." "They'll come to blood and then the savage party." "Like as at Palo near the Quarnãro." "I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one, the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for which we may yet have to wait some time.
We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long since, bearing their imprint.
_City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.