The consequence is, that English historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are pictures painted to the mind by means of words.

Of this national characteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost totally destitute.
His sonnets indeed, from their subject and nature, and his Latin Poems, from the restraints which always shackle one who writes in a dead language, cannot fairly be received in evidence.

But his Triumphs absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit no indications of it.
Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order.

His ardent, tender, and magnificent turn of thought, his brilliant fancy, his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must be acknowledged.

Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers.