xiii
ledgment,—the simile of the patches of moss to sunshine, in the second canto, was borrowed from Gilpin's Forest Scenery;—that of unfortunate poets to crushed perfumes, in the fourth, from one about good men in adversity in Bacon's Apophthegms;—Giovanni's praise of his dead brother, from the panegyric pronounced over Launcelot of the Lake, which the reader may find in Ellis's Specimens of Early Romances;—and part of the description of the nymphs, in the third canto, from Poussin's exquisite picture of Polyphemus piping on the mountain.
For the same reason, I suppress a good deal which I had intended to say on the versification of the poem,—or of that part of it, at least, where, in coming upon household matters calculated to touch us nearest, it takes leave, as it were, of a more visible march and accompaniment. I do not hesitate to say however, that Pope and the French