Poetry needs no Preface: if it do not speak for itself, no comment can render it explicit. I have only, therefore, to state that The Improvisatrice is an attempt to illustrate that species of inspiration common in Italy, where the mind is warmed from the earliest childhood by all that is beautiful in Nature and glorious in Art. The character depicted is entirely Italian,—a young female with all the loveliness, vivid feeling, and genius of her own impassioned land. She is supposed to relate her own history; with which are intermixed the tales and episodes which various circumstances call forth.

Some of the minor poems have appeared in The Literary Gazette.