A History of Italian Literature. By Richard Garnett, C.B ,
LL.D. " Short Histories of the Literatures of the World." (W. Heinemann. 6s.)—This seems to us as satisfactory a book as could possibly be written on its subject, within the lines of the series to which it belongs. Far from being a mere primer for students, it is a delightful book to read, and few of its readers will not find themselves learning something new on almost every page. For the great literature of Italy was considerably more familiar to cultivated people in our grandfathers' days than it is now. To many of us Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, are the only writers really well known ; Guicciardini, Tasso, are little read ; Boiardo, Ariosto, and their followers are hardly more than names to the modern reader. Although Italy's roll of famous men is greater in art than in literature, her poets and prose-writers have a distinction surpassed by no other nation. Dr. Garnett reminds us that while Italy owes nothing to England, we owe her mach of the greatness of Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton ; and we think our debt should not be confined to those three names. This alone, the great influence of Italian literary art on the other literatures of Europe, should make it an absorbing subject of study. Putting Dante and the greater names aside, one learns from these chapters to know a hundred lesser lights with glory of their own. The latter part of the book is by no means the least interesting ; but the whole story is carried on with unflagging spirit, from its beginnings in Sicily, derived through the Provencal from the Latin, to the latest work of Carducci and D'Annunzio. The specimens of poetry given throughout the volume are excellently translated, belying indeed, in the case of Rossetti at least, Italy's own proverb. We see only one improvement to wish for, in the interest of those students who know something of Italian,—that the originals could have been placed side by side with the translations.
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