the poet’s own handwriting.  But when we consider that very frequently Michael Angelo’s own autographs give twice as many various readings as there are lines in a sonnet, when we reflect that we do not always possess the copies which he finally addressed to his friends, and when, moreover, we find that their readings (e.g. those of the Riccio MS and those cited by Varchi) differ considerably from Michael Angelo’s rough copies, we must conclude that even the autographs do not invariably represent these poems in the final form which he adopted.  There is therefore much room left for critical comparison and selection.  We are, in fact, still somewhat in the same position as Michelangelo the younger.  Whether any application of the critical method will enable us to do again successfully what he so clumsily attempted—­that is, to reproduce a correct text from the debris offered to our selective faculty—­I do not feel sure.  Meanwhile I am quite certain that his principle was a wrong one, and that he dealt most unjustifiably with his material.  For this reason I cordially accept Signor Guasti’s labours, with the reservation I have attempted to express in this note.  They have indeed brought us far closer to Michael Angelo’s real text, but we must be careful to remember that we have not even now arrived with certainty at what he would himself have printed if he had prepared his own edition for the press.

[4] As far as I am aware, no complete translation of Michael Angelo’s sonnets has hitherto been made in English.  The specimens produced by Southey, Wordsworth, Harford, Longfellow, and Mr. Taylor, moreover, render Michelangelo’s rifacimento.

[5] ’Lezione di Benedetto Varchi sopra il sottoscritto Sonetto di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, fatta da lui pubblicamente nella Accademia Fiorentina la Seconda Domenica di Quaresima l’anno MDXLVI.’  The sonnet commented by Varchi is Guasti’s No xv.

[6] I have elsewhere recorded my disagreement with Signer Guasti and Signer Gotti, and my reasons for thinking that Vaichi and Michelangelo the younger were right in assuming that the sonnets addressed to Tommaso de’ Cavalieri (especially xxx, xxxi, lii) expressed the poet’s admiration for masculine beauty.  See ‘Renaissance in Italy, Fine Arts,’ pp. 521, 522.  At the same time, though I agree with Buonarroti’s first editor in believing that a few of the sonnets ’risguardano, come si conosce chiaramente, amor platonico virile,’ I quite admit—­as what student of early Italian poetry will not admit?—­that a woman is generally intended under the title of ‘Signore’ and ‘amico.’

[7] Ridurle is his own phrase.  He also speaks of trasmutare and risoluzione to explain the changes he effected.

[8] See Guasti’s ‘Discorso,’ p. xliv.

[9] See in particular ’Orazioni Tie in Salmodia Metafisicale ...  Canzone Prima ...  Madrigale iii;’ and ’A Berillo, Canzone di Pentimento, Madrigale ii.’