1 MARCH 1851, Page 17

MRS. OGILVY'S TRADITIONS OF TUSCANY. *

Tins agreeable volume contains a series of poetical stories upon striking events that have occurred or that might have occurred in Tuscany. The germs of some of them are to be found in Dante; some have been preserved by other authors, or disinterred by late discovery ; a few partake more of the reverie than the tale,—re- flections about a building with an anecdote attached, somewhat after the Annual fashion ; there is one which seems to have been invented, and it has the least substance or story of the whole.

As a poet, Mrs. Ogilvy is not of the highest order. The power of penetrating to the essence of a subject and clothing it in lan- guage that stamps itself on the mind—the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn "—will not be found in the volume. There is somewhat of diffuseness with reflection predominating; the metres are seldom happily chosen; and the ultra-natural school in its worst moods is too much followed. But Mrs. Ogilvy has one of the first qualifications for poetry or any other kind of writing: she has a knowledge of her subject, with the skill to select from it what is appropriate to the purpose. Hence there is a con- gruity in the accessories as well as fitness in the sentiments and images, which give a natural and truthful air to the 'whole; the reader sees that it is real Italy, not an Italy of the romancists. If Mrs. Ogilvy has not that power which at once takes the mind captive, she has poetical spirit, and the externals of poetry. Her verse, save when degenerating into the bald affected naturalness of the school already alluded to, is lucid, close, and flowing ; and, what after all is the most satisfactory test, the book is readable. In one thing much judgment is shown : Mrs. Ogilvy softens her originals when they seem to require it. The not very agreeable subject of a wife removed as dead, awakening from her trance, returning to her husband and family to be repulsed, and at last taking refuge with her old lover, comes out "better than new." The story, touched by Dante, of a young wife carried by a jealous husband into the Maremma to die of malaria, has a little softening on both sides : the guilt of the wife, against the opinion of the commentators, is left doubtful; the feelings of the husband par- take of those of Othello--" nought I did m hate, but all in ho- nour." There is a dramatic poem, or a series of scenes, from the life of that -Venetian Bianca, who, having eloped from Venice with a banker's clerk, became the mistress and finally the wife of the Grand Duke Francis • and the lady is made to appear better than in historical and popular estimation: she is represented throughout as what it is the fashion to call "the victim of circumstances." Whether in this case moral truth has not been sacrificed to artist ical effect, may be doubted.

One of the poems is on the subject of Andrea del Castagno the artist, who, having learned from a friend the secret of oil-painting., assassinated his instructor to retain the exclusive knowledge in Ins own possession. He remained unsuspected during a long life, but remorse was too strong for him at last, and when dying he confessed the deed. The time chosen by Mrs. Ogilvy is his death- bed; the following sketch of youthful autobiography is the com- mencement of the confession.

" Quoth Andrea, 'Good father, in sadness attend ; As God's minister judge me—forget thou'rt my friend : I have sinned past redemption, because past repair ; But in futile atonement the truth I'll declare.

"Thou knowest my birth, and the place whence I came, The flowering sweet chestnuts that gave me my name : In whose shadow, an orphan, I tended the flock, And mused away years with the kids of the rock. "Tormented by yearnings I could not define, I wandered one day to a small rustic shrine By the wayside—a graceful and delicate thing, 'Neath a tuft of acacias, new green with the spring.

"A painter sat near, on a low mossy stone; his quick-moving fingers soon made it his own : I gazed on his drawing, and thrilled through my frame, With the birth of a genius to equal the same.

"No colours, no canvass to me might belong ; But the hand will find means when the purpose is strong : • With my knife-point I scratched on the stones that were soft,

And-I 'chalked with rough figures the walls of my loft.

" Thenoh ! howl hated my sheep and my herd ! How I panted with fever of longings deferred!

But God served me better than e'er I served him And o'erruled to my vantage a rich noble's whim,.

"A son of the Medici heard of my aim, A Miran of art, as befitted his name ; He sent me to Florence to learn in the schools, He paid me for lodging, for colours, and tools.

"Yet I was but a stepson of Fortune—no grace Made the women turn round to look back in my face :

Harsh and moody of spirit, my brush took the tone'

And for stern savage grandeur my pictures were known.

"Yes, something they had men acknowledged as great, The impress of genius decided their fate ; I tasted of fame but so scanty a draught That my thirst grew to madness each drop that I quaffed.

• Traditions of Tuscany, in Verse. By Mrs. D. Ogilvy. Published by Bosworth. "May dream and my passion, by night and by day, Were how to be first in the artists' array : I hated each master of ravishing skill;

Ambition o'ealooded my heart and my will."

Each tradition has a prose introduction, partaking both of his- tory and travel, and often interesting in itself. This passage on premature interments in Italy is from the preface to "The Floren- tine Wife."

"The Italian custom of hurrying the corpse out of the house of mourning has given rise to many painful events. Often I have known those who died at five p. in. borne away at eight p. tn.; and, as may be supposed, stories are not wanting of revivals in the church, where they are left alone, cold and deserted. One woman I heard of who awoke and sat up on her bier ; the church was locked, and she was nearly crazed with terror at her situation be- fore the dead-cart arrived. A corpse happened to be with her in that ghastly place.

"I also heard at. Lucca of similar cases of recovery from trance and it left a painful impression on my mind whenever the chant of the de'athmen sounded in my ears. When a death occurs in Italy, the relations, if they can afford it, hasten from the house—the body is abandoned to hirelings- -the burial is hastened—the room cleaned and differently disposed—the family return and you may chance to find dancing and singing where you listened for sobbing or expected the silence of patient sorrow. The habit of carrying out the dead towards sunset used to sadden our evening walks in Florence. In such a large city you could not go far without encountering one or two funerals ; and the white shrouded bearers, or else black brethren of the Mise- riconlia, heralded by that peculiar deep chant, gave me a thrill of cold amid the gayety and insouciance of an Italian population. Lugubrious, dreary, suggestive of mouldy charnels, pits of decaying corpses—al horrid accom- paniments of mortality—is that peculiar ody. Nothing speaks of hope, nothing of resurrection, nothing of dem glory. g as has been objected, our English ritual be only meant to be said over the ashes of one certainly regenerate, the Romish chant is in its turn only suitable to be sung behind

sari of perdition, a soul irrecoverably lost for ever."