Note 161 — CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 8)

Fanshaw's poem was published without his own corrections. Southey observes on this, that "though he might have sometimes improved the harmony of his verses, and sometimes have changed a word or expression for the better, the main fault is not one he was like to have corrected," that fault being the imitating the Italian poets in mingling familiar and burlesque expressions with the grave and ideal. This observation is singularly true: the copy of sir Richard Fanshaw's Lusiad which we have consulted, contains manuscript corrections in his own hand. In this he has frequently changed a word or transposed it; but not one of the faulty passages is amended.