It characterises almost every celebrated poem in the language.

Perhaps this is to be attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpture had attained a high degree of excellence in Italy before poetry had been extensively cultivated.

Men were debarred from books, but accustomed from childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in the thirteenth century, Italy began to produce.

Hence their imaginations received so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste for graphic delineation is discernible.

The progress of things in England has been in all respects different.