_For the Table Book._
In Chapman’s “All Fools,” 1605, (as quoted, by Charles Lamb, in _Table
Book_, vol. i. 192,) is the following passage, under the title of
“Love’s Panegyric.”--
------- “’tis nature’s second Sun,
Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines;
And as without the Sun, the world’s Great Eye,
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to man; so without Love
All beauties bred in women are in vain,
All virtues born in men lie buried;
For Love _informs_ them as the Sun doth colours,” &c.
Chapman might be acquainted with Italian poets, but at all events the
coincidence between the above and the following canzon, by Andrew
Navagero, is remarkable. Navagero was the friend of Boscan, the Spanish
poet: they became acquainted at Grenada, while Navagero was there
ambassador from Venice. Boscan died before 1544; and, as he himself
confesses, he learnt the sonnet and other Italian forms of poetry from
Navagero.
_Love the Mind’s Sun._
Sweet ladies, to whose lovely faces
Nature gives charms, indeed,
If those ye would exceed
And are desirous, too, of inward graces;
Ye first must ope your hearts’ enclosure,
And give Love entrance there.
Or ye must all despair
Of what ye wish, and bear it with composure.
For as the night than day is duller,
And what is hid by night
Glitters with morning light
In all the rich variety of colour;
So they, whose dark insensate bosoms
Love lights not, ne’er can know
The virtues thence that grow,
Wanting his beams to open virtue’s blossoms.
Our version is made from the original in Dolce’s Collection of _Rime
Diverse_, i. 98. It ought to be mentioned, that Boscan’s admission of
his obligations to Navagero is to be found in the Introduction to the
second book of his works.
_December, 1827._