Note 18 — THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE

It has extraordinary interest for the student of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's terza rima, poems with sdrucciolo or treble rhymes. This peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense.