Early Italian Love Stories. Taken from the Originals by Una
Taylor. Illustrated by Henry J. Ford. (Longman and Co. 15s.)—These stories range from Boccaccio in the fourteenth century to Matteo Bandello in the sixteenth. The difficult work of translation, and, in places, of adaptation, has been well done, and the charm of "the love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry" which roused Coleridge from his dreary mood is still potent. In " The Lady of Belmonte," one of the best of these stories, we have Portia and Bassanio in slightly different surroundings. Most of the tales, indeed, have a Shakespearian flavour, if we may so put it. Mr. Ford has given us some beautiful illustra- tions. He must surely have been thinking of these lines from Coleridge's " The Garden of Boccaccio" while he was drawing the frontispiece I see no longer! I smelt am there, Sit on the ground-sward and the banquet share, 'rt. I that sweep that lute's love-echoing striuss, And gaze upon the maid who, gazing, sings."
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