MELCHORRE, an Italian poet, born at Padua in 1730, of a noble but reduced family. He early showed a very decided inclination for literary pursuits, in which he made such progress at the college of his native city, that he was appointed to the chair of rhetoric at a period of life when others were yet attending the lectures. The first fruits of his studies were Italian translations of the Prometheus of Eschylus, and three tragedies of Voltaire, by the merit of which, and the reputation he had acquired for learning and persevering application, he procured successively the appointment of tutor to the children of Grimani, a nobleman of 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 poet did not, like Alfieri, scorn the pecuniary favours of the republican government. 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, Cesarotti received two pensions of considerable amount, and was made a knight of the iron crown. He continued to reside alternately at Padua and 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. While thus engaged he died suddenly on the 3rd November 1908.

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 Æneid of Annibale 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 Cesarotti, 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 his 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. He has completely preserved the spirit of the supposed bard of Morven, 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 1768, 2 vols. 8vo, at the expense of Mr Sackville, 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. Their appearance attracted much attention in Italy, and raised up many imitators of the Ossianic style.

Cesarotti also produced a number of valuable prose works. The Course of Greek Literature was his chief undertaking; but the plan on which he 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 Lengue, et Sulla Filosofia de Gesto (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. Almost all the literary 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 auspices of his own direction. It has been continued since his death by Guicciardi Barbiroli, who was also 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.

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