CESAROTTI, Melchior, an Italian poet, was born at Padua in the year 1730, of a family of considerable rank but small fortune. He was educated at the academy of Padua, where he early showed a strong inclination for literary pursuits, and made such progress in study that he was raised to the chair of rhetoric in the academy where he had been brought up,' at a period of life when others were yet attending the lectures* Having been appointed to this charge, he devoted himself with the utmost zeal to the duties of his situation. He introduced several useful reforms into the system of education which was then practised, and endeavoured by incessant study to render his instructions as useful as possible to the youth committed to his care. The first fruits of his studies were Italian translations of the Prometheus of Aeschylus, and three tragedies of Voltaire, the merit of which, and the reputation he had acquired for learning and persevering application, successively procured him a distinguished employment at Venice, and the professorship of Greek and Hebrew in the university of Padua. Cesarotti had held this situation for nearly thirty years at the date of the first French invasion of Italy. This poct did not, like Alfieri, scorn the pecuniary favours of the republican government, nor shun the acquaintance of its chiefs. He published several political tracts and essays by their order; and when the general of the invading army assumed the title of King of Italy, he was rewarded with two pensions of considerable amount, and distinguished by various honours. He continued to reside partly at Padua, and partly at his country house of Selvaggiano, chiefly occupied with the composition of laudatory poems in return for the favours he had received, and with the superintendence of a complete edition of his works, when he was suddenly arrested by the hand of death on the 3d of November 1808.

Though held by Sismondi to be the first in point of celebrity of the modern Italian poets, Cesarotti is better known as a translator than as an original author. The Italians have always been distinguished for the elegance and spirit of their translations from the classics; the Lucretius of Marchetti, the Aeneid of Annibal Caro, and Anguillara’s free version of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, have deservedly exalted their reputation to the utmost height in this department of literature. Anguillara’s translation of Homer, however, had been less popular and successful than his Metamorphoses, and there still remained room in Italy for a translation of the prince of poets. The work of Cesa-rotti, however, is far from being literal; he has modernized and accommodated the Iliad to the prevailing taste of the age; he has abridged it in some places, and added to it in others, according to his taste or fancy; and he has often been reproached with having given to the Greek bard the style and language of his favourite Ossian. In the late edition of the works of Cesarotti, the poetical version is followed by a literal prose one, accompanied with critical notes and dissertations, partly translated from Pope and Dacier.

Cesarotti acquired more fame by his version of Ossian than by that of Homer; and certainly no translation had ever more appearance of originality and inspiration. He has completely preserved the spirit of the supposed bard of Morven—his gigantic and gloomy grandeur; and, at the same time, has given us that harmony of versification which we desiderate in the work of Macpherson. The Italian Ossian was first published at Padua in 1763, 2 vols. 8vo, at the expense of an English traveller, with whom Cesarotti had contracted a friendship. This edition was necessarily incomplete, as the translation of Macpherson at that time was so also; but the whole poems were printed at the same place about ten years afterwards, in 4 vols. small 8vo. The Poems of Ossian also occupy four volumes in the recent complete edition of the works of Cesarotti, where they are accompanied by an examination of the question so much agitated in this country with regard to the authenticity of these celebrated productions. Their appearance in this new form attracted much attention in Italy, and raised up many imitators of the Ossianic style, so different from the warm and glowing imagery of the earlier Italian poets.

His country was also indebted to Cesarotti for a number of valuable prose works. The Course of Greek Literature was his chief undertaking; but the plan on which he had commenced was too vast to be completed. His essays on the Sources of the Pleasure derived from Tragedy, and on the Origin and Progress of the Poetic Art, are distinguished by elegant and ingenious criticism; while his treatises Sulla Filosofia delle Lingue, et Sulla Filosojia dc Gusto (the last of which is principally intended as an apology for the peculiarities of his own style), show considerable acuteness and strength of understanding. In 1797 an Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres had been established at Padua, of which Cesarotti was nominated perpetual secretary. It was part of the duties of this situation to read, at the stated meetings of the academy, the various essays which had been prepared by its members. Frequently, however, these were of such extent that the secretary found it expedient merely to give, in his own language, a general account of the object of the author, and the result of his investigations. These readings produced his reports, entitled Pelazioni Academiche, each of which reports is divided into three parts; the first containing the essays on Experimental Philosophy, the second on Mathematics, and the third on Belles Lettres. The whole, however, may be regarded as a literary composition, since the departments of mathematics and philosophy exhibit only general views of the subject of inquiry. Almost all the prose works of Cesarotti are distinguished by extensive erudition and a philosophical spirit, while his style is for the most part lively and forcible. But the Italian prose of the eighteenth century was very different from that written by Giovanni Della Casa, Machiavel, and their contemporaries in the sixteenth; and those critics who have deplored the recent innovations on the ancient purity of the Tuscan tongue, chiefly attribute to Cesarotti the introduction of those Gallicisms and new modes of expression which have so greatly corrupted the language of the golden age of Leo.

All the works of Cesarotti above mentioned, including several volumes of correspondence, have been published in a complete edition, which was commenced at Padua in the year 1800, under the author’s own direction. It has been continued since his death by Joseph Barbieri, who was his successor in the chair of Greek and Hebrew at Padua, and who has also published Memoirs of the Life and Writings of his deceased friend, printed at Padua, 1810, 8vo.

It has been the fate of most literary men to be ranked [7:6:298]either higher or lower by their own age than by posterity. Cesarotti will probably belong to the former class, who perhaps, after all, enjoy the pleasanter sort of reputation. But, though the praise of great and original genius may in future times be denied him, every age will admit his learning and talents, and the meritorious assiduity of his literary researches. (q.)