“It gives me particular pleasure, whenever I have an opportunity of addressing you, or enquiring after you, and your important as well as truly classical employments, for which the world of letters is so much indebted to you.
“Though you are in possession of all the Italian works
which I have offered to the public, yet, as I have just been induced to reprint
the two ‘Canzoni Toscane,’ which I took the liberty of
inscribing to you and Dr. Marcet,
separately from the volumes to which I originally prefixed them, I indulge a
hope that you will receive them in their new shape. I must also confess that
one very principal motive for my reprinting them was this;—that if any person
should be
| LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. | 275 |
‘All’ opre vostre e pellegrine e
nove Tue sacrerei la mia straniera
lira, Straniera sì, ma fida.* |
“I hope that you will excuse my having put up a few copies of the Canzone for such of your friends as you think might wish it should accompany either of your works. It seems as if Italy must at last retire into Great Britain from the insults and injuries of the Corsican tyrant, and she will repose with gratitude at your feet. I should be happy to hear that all your family are well, and that you have enjoyed health and leisure for the most pleasing of all your labours,—those which you devote to literature.”
