Spencer's French and Italian poesy; the
former of which is written sometimes in new and sometimes in old French,
and, occasionally, in a kind of tongue neither old nor new. We offer a
sample of the two former:
"'QU'EST CE QUE C'EST QUE LE GENIE?'
"Brillant est cet esprit prive de sentiment;
Mais ce n'est qu'un soleil trop vif et trop constant,
Tendre est ce sentiment qu' aucun esprit n'anime,
Mais ce n'est qu'un jour doux, que trop de pluie abime!
Quand un brillant esprit de ses rares couleurs,
Orne du sentiment les aimables douleurs,
Un _Phenomene_ en nait, le plus beau de la vie!
C'est alors que les ris en se melant aux pleurs,
Font ces _Iris de l'ame_, appelle le Genie!"
"C'y gist un povre menestrel,
Occis par maint ennuict cruel--
Ne plains pas trop sa destinee--
N'est icy que son corps mortel:
Son ame est toujours a Gillwell,
Et n'est ce pas la l'Elysee?"
We think that Mr. Spencer's Italian rhymes are better finished than his
French; and indeed the facility of composing in that most poetical of
all languages must be obvious: but, as a composer in Italian, he and all
other Englishmen are much inferior to Mr. Mathias. It is very
perceptible in many of Mr. S.'s smaller pieces that he has suffered his
English versification to be vitiated with Italian 'concetti'; and we
should have been better pleased with his compositions in a foreign
language, had they not induced him to corrupt his mother-tongue.
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