A much better poet of the Romantic School was Tommaso Grossi, who,
like Manzoni and Pellico, is now best known by a prose work--a novel
which enjoys a popularity as great as that of “Le Mie Prigioni”, and
which has been nearly as much read in Italy as “I Promessi Sposi”. The
“Marco Visconti” of Grossi is a romance of the thirteenth century; and
though not, as Cantù says, an historic “episode, but a succession of
episodes, which do not leave a general and unique impression,” it yet
contrives to bring you so pleasantly acquainted with the splendid,
squalid, poetic, miserable Italian life in Milan, and on its
neighboring hills and lakes, during the Middle Ages, that you cannot
help reading it to the end. I suppose that this is the highest praise
which can be bestowed upon an historical romance, and that it implies
great charm of narrative and beauty of style. I can add, that the
feeling of Grossi's “Marco Visconti” is genuine and exalted, and that
its morality is blameless. It has scarcely the right to be analyzed
here, however, and should not have been more than mentioned, but for
the fact that it chances to be the setting of the author's best thing
in verse. I hope that, even in my crude English version, the artless
pathos and sweet natural grace of one of the tenderest little songs in
any tongue have not wholly perished.
{Illustration: TOMMASO GROSSI.}