strong devotional turn: and from this time, we find her poetry entirely consecrated to sacred subjects.

The first of these Rime spirituali is exquisitely beautiful. She allows that the anguish she had felt on the death of her noble husband, was not alleviated, but rather nourished and kept alive in all its first poignancy, by constantly dwelling on the theme of his virtues and her own regrets; that the thirst of fame, and the possession of glory, could not cure the pining sickness of her heart; and that she now turned to Heaven as a last and best resource against sorrow.

*

L'honneur d'avoir été, entre toutes les poëtes, la première à composer un recueil de poësies sacrées, appartient, toute entière, à Vittoria Colonna. (See Ginguené.) Her masterpieces, in this style, are said to be the sonnet on the death of our Saviour.—

"Gli Angeli eletti al gran bene infinito ;"

and the hymn

"Padre Eterno del cielo !"

which is sublime: it may be found in Mathias's Collection,

vol. iii.

Poichè 'l mio casto amor, gran tempo tenne
L' alma di fama accesa, ed ella un angue
In sen nudrio, per cui dolente or langue,—
Volta al Signor, onde il remedio venne.

Chiamar qui non convien Parnasso o Delo;
Ch' ad altra acqua s' aspira, ad altro monte
Si poggia, u' piede uman per se non sale.

Not the least of Vittoria's titles to fame, was the intense adoration with which she inspired Michel Angelo. Condivi says he was enamoured of her divine talents. "In particolare egli amò grandemente la Marchesana di Pescara, del cui divino spirito era inamorato:" and he makes use of a strong expression to describe the admiration and friendship she felt for him in return. She was fifteen years younger than Michel Angelo, who not only employed his pencil and his chisel for her pleasure, or at her suggestion, but has left among his poems several which are addressed to her, and which breathe that deep and fervent, yet pure and reverential love she was as worthy to inspire as he was to feel.

I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of adding here one of the Sonnets, addressed by Michel Angelo to the Marchesana of Pescara, as translated by Wordsworth, in a peal of grand harmony, almost as literally faithful to the expression as to the spirit of the original.

SONNET.

Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,

And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;

For if of our affections none find grace

In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea

Love cannot have, than that in loving thee

Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts

As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour:
But, in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power

Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,

That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.

He stood by her in her last moments; and when her lofty and gentle spirit had forsaken its fair

tenement, he raised her hand and kissed it with a sacred respect. He afterwards expressed to an intimate friend his regret, that being oppressed

by the awful feelings of that moment, he had not, for the first and last time, pressed his lips to hers.

Vittoria had another passionate admirer in Galeazzo di Tarsia, Count of Belmonte in Calabria, and an excellent poet of that time.* His attachment was as poetical, but apparently not quite so Platonic, as that of Michel Angelo. His beautiful Canzone beginning,

A qual pietra sommiglia

La mia bella Colonna,

contains lines rather more impassioned than the modest and grave Vittoria could have approved: for example—

Con lei foss' io da che si parte il sole,

E non ci vedesse altri che le stelle,

-Solo una notte-e mai non fosse l' Alba!

*Died 1535.

Marini and Bernardo Tasso were also numbered

among her poets and admirers.

Vittoria Colonna died at Rome, in 1547. She was suspected of favouring in secret the reformed doctrines; but I do not know on what authority Roscoe mentions this. Her noble birth, her admirable beauty, her illustrious marriage, her splendid genius, (which made her the worship of genius-and the theme of poets,) have rendered her one of the most remarkable of women;

-as her sorrows, her conjugal virtues, her innocence of heart, and elegance of mind, have rendered her one of the most interesting.

Where could she fix on mortal ground

Those tender thoughts and high?

Now peace, the woman's heart hath found,

And joy, the poet's eye !*

Antiquity may boast its heroines; but it required virtues of a higher order to be a Vittoria Colonna, or a Lady Russel, than to be a Portia

*Mrs. Hemans.