THE

FOLLOWING LINES

Were written extempore by Lord Byron to his friend T. Moore, Esq., the author of Lalla Rookh.

Here's a sigh to those who love me
And a smile to those who hate,
And whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.

Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;

Though a desert should surround me,

It hath springs that may

be won.

Were't the last drop in the well,

As I gasp'd upon the brink,

Ere my fainting spirit fell,

'Tis to thee that I would drink.

In that water, as this wine,

The libation I would pour

Should be-peace to thine and mine,

And a health to thee Tom Moore.

MORGANTE MAGGIORE,

TRANSLATED

FROM THE ITALIAN OF PULCI.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto, The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style, Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one, and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr Merivale, are to be traced to the same source. It has never yet been decided entirely,

whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion, which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas, Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild, or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the << Tales of my Landlord,»

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names; as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc. as it suits his convenience, so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful, to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from