SPENSER, _Ecl. X._

In his seventeenth year, therefore, Bernardo placed his son at Padua, to

study jurisprudence, as Petrarch and Ariosto had been condemned to do

before him, by prudent parents, and like each of those hopeful sons, who

were

"born a father's hopes to cross,

And pen a stanza when he should engross,"

Torquato (though it is said that he dutifully and diligently applied

with his head to the study of the law) gave his heart and his hand in

secret to the unportioned muse. The issue of this affiance, while he was

yet embroiled in the nets of legal precedents and practice, was the

"Rinaldo" already mentioned, a romantic poem, in twelve cantos. The hero

is not his own champion of that name, the glory of his later poems, but

one of "the million" that figure in the "Orlando Furioso"--a work which

so possessed the mind of young Tasso, while he was at Venice, that he

tells us he could not sleep for the fame of Ariosto. This juvenile

performance is written more after the manner of that inimitable master

than the "Gerusalemme;" but, though deficient in the humour and vivacity

which constitute the all-binding and assimilating spell of Ariosto's

tissue of episodes, and by which the reader is reconciled to wink at all

the author's incongruities and caprices, Tasso's poem, nevertheless, by

a more serious kind of magic, laid hold upon public feeling and so

happily hit the expiring taste of his countrymen for the extravagances

of chivalrous fiction, that where his father, after years of hard toil

in the same fields had miscarried, the son, in ten months, achieved a

triumph, of which the trophies remain to this day; "Rinaldo" being yet

one of the metrical romances which are interwoven with the party

coloured staple of Italian literature.

Well might Bernardo be astonished and delighted, yet humbled and

chagrined (in some measure), when the manuscript of his son's poem was

presented to him, seeing himself already eclipsed in his meridian

altitude (which he fondly imagined he had attained in the "Amadigi") by

this morning-star of promise just "flaming in the forehead of the orient

sky;" and perceiving, as he must have done, that his purpose was for

ever thwarted, of placing the boy in that path where fortune scatters

her golden apples before the feet of competitors in the race for her

favour, rather than indulging them with golden dreams under the shadows

of laurels planted by the wayside, the most precious rewards which she

bestows on the most successful among poets. The father, however, was too

great a lover of song to ruin a good poet in making a bad lawyer, as

might have been the case had he persevered in his former views with his

son. Wherefore, after some delay, he reluctantly, yet willingly, (a

state of mind perfectly possible, though hard to reconcile,) gave his

consent to the publication of the "Rinaldo." He who in the letter to his

daughter formerly quoted, so tenderly and beautifully anticipated the

happiness of being himself, with his very features, perpetuated in her

infant progeny, could not but be transported to see himself, with the

features of his very soul, perpetuated in the glorious offspring of his

son's congenial yet surpassing mind. With a smile and a sigh, therefore,

he permitted the poem to appear, surrendering at the same time his

cherished expectation of seeing that son as eminent in the law as he was

now likely to be in that which is remotest from law practice and law

profits. "Let who will make the laws," said Fletcher of Saltoun, "let me

make the songs of a people, and by these I will govern them." Tasso's

songs have assuredly had larger dominion, and had deeper, wider, more

enduring influence in modifying the subsequent character of his

countrymen than any legislative enactments, in which it may be imagined

that he would never have been concerned, could have exercised. But then

he might have enriched and ennobled himself; he might have escaped most

of the calamities which hunted him to death in the midst of life; and he

might not only have been happier himself, but a more useful member of

that society in which he was born, which he served in his day, and in

which he died without any monument except some splendid sculpture to

record his name. It came otherwise to pass; and whether the world has

been made better or worse by his labours, it must be acknowledged that

the fame which he sought, and for which he sacrificed all beside, was

dearly purchased to himself by the sufferings which it cost him to win.

It is reported that when Bernardo remonstrated with him on his

indiscreet preference of philosophy (for with him philosophy and poetry

were identified) to jurisprudence, and angrily demanded, "What has your

philosophy done for you?" he replied, "It has taught me to bear with

meekness the reproofs of a father."

The appearance of Torquato's "Rinaldo" was not only the dawn of his own

day of glory, but the dawn of a new day in the literature of his

country. The age of absolute romance was succeeded by one of transition

in public taste, during which what was most truly wonderful and

meritoriously captivating in the wild fictions of knight-errantry was

engrafted upon a stock of classical invention, design, and execution.

This was in fact the nearest recurrence that could be made in epic

poetry to the models of the ancients,--for the mythological machinery of

Greece and Rome could not again be revived in poetry any more than in

religion; Jupiter could never again resume his thunder and his throne;

Neptune his trident; Pallas her ægis, or Venus her cestus; nor could

the supernatural interposition of the supreme God, the agency of angels

and sainted spirits, or of Saturn and his legions, be extensively

employed (without constructive irreverence, not to say rank blasphemy)

as auxiliaries in heroic fable, disguised as true history, or true

history disguised as heroic fable. Tasso, Marino, Camoëns, and Milton

have indeed presumed upon the perilous experiment of enlisting the

armies of heaven and hell in conflict with each other, and intermeddling

with earthly affairs; yet, with the exception of our countryman--and he

would be a bold critic who should dare to arraign him for impiety in the

use of what nothing but the most signal, unexampled, and inimitable

felicity of success could justify,--it may be added, that he would be a

critic not less bold, who, as a believer in the Christian faith, should

venture to defend even Milton to the extent in which he has exercised

this questionable, though hitherto unlitigated, license of

fiction;--with the exception of our countryman, the authors aforenamed

have, for the most part, grievously miscarried in the management of

their agents of this class, whether good or evil, these being among the

most indifferent and ineffective personages in their respective poems.

Epic poetry, indeed, either upon classic or romantic precedent, may be

said to have become extinct from the time of Tasso. "Paradise Lost"

cannot be classed with either; he having achieved the only work of the

kind, which, being neither the one nor the other, but combining the

merits of each, touched the point beyond which improvement could not be

carried. He may be said to have lived in the last age in which

supernatural agents and miraculous interventions could be successfully

introduced into narrative verse, as being consistent with popular

credulity or superstitious belief--an absolutely indispensable requisite

for the employment of such means to illustrate human affairs. For

example, a poem equal to Homers or Ariosto's, written now on the plan,

and with the gods of the one or the enchantments of the other, would be

insufferable: no power of genius could create an interest in behalf of

Apollo and Venus, no longer believed in by the poet or by his readers;

nor would the achievements of giants and witches, if celebrated by one

born in this "age of reason," find mercy from criticism, or indulgence

even from the vulgar students of our _penny_ literature. Monk Lewis's

Tales of Wonder, and the monstrosities of the German drama, have been

long ago forgotten; the "Michael Scott" of the great minstrel "of that

ilk!" alone keeps his ground; but all the other preternatural machines

of the same creative hand would have perished utterly, had they not been

associated with records of the doings and sufferings of beings of flesh

and blood like ourselves, though existing in a state of semi-barbarous

society exceedingly different from our own.

The "Rinaldo" was the first form of the abstract conception of a regular

poem, at once to rival Virgil and Ariosto, which originated in the mind

of Torquato while yet a youth of seventeen, but was not wholly developed

till, at twice that age, he had produced the "Gerusalemme Liberata." All

the characteristics of his peculiar genius are perceptible in the

incidents, style, embellishments, and conduct of this juvenile essay;

which, contrasted with the matured form and perfect majesty of that

later offspring of his genius, is, as his own Gabriel, sent to comfort

Godfrey, at the opening of the siege of Jerusalem:--take the image in

Fairfax's version,--

"A stripling seem'd he, thrice five winter's old,

And radiant beams adorn'd his locks of gold,"--

compared with Milton's "Raphael," "in prime of manhood, where youth

ended," alighting on the eastern cliff of Paradise, where,--

"like Maia's son he stood,

And shook his wings, that heavenly fragrance fill'd

The circuit wide."[40]

This prodigy of youthful genius no sooner appeared than it was hailed

with acclamation throughout Italy, and eager inquiries from every

quarter were made concerning the author--that prodigality of praise

might be lavished upon him by the learned, and parsimony of recompence,

doled out to him by princes, ambitious of attaching so great a "natural

curiosity" to the collection of live rarities about their palaces. For

the great of those times coveted the glory, little as they liked the

expense, of retaining men of talents in the train of their sycophants

and dependents, even when they regarded them only as remarkable among

their species, in the same manner as the lions, tigers, eagles,

peacocks, and other strange and beautiful animals in their menageries

were in comparison with the meaner ranks of brutes. Ariosto, who had

experienced all the bitterness of such favour, and felt keenly the

ignominy of such distinction, plainly tells us, that the patrons of his

day loved those of their parasites who would minister to their personal

necessities, pull off and on their boots, share in their orgies, and

pander to their vices,--rather than those, whose proud stomachs

disdained to allow them to be any thing less than themselves within the

precincts of courts,--poets among princes, who could give enduring

lustre to the names of inglorious patrons, which otherwise would have

found no better memorial than the registers of their births, marriages,

and deaths in their family genealogies.

After Torquato's emancipation from the trammels of law by the hand of

the parent who had so carefully involved him in them,--flushed with the

new wine of liberty, obtained at the surrender of every thing else in

prospect, and with nothing but itself in possession,--he repaired to

Bologna, to pursue his philosophical studies and indulge in his poetical

passion;--for poetry was truly to him a passion, and the ruling one of

his existence,--honour, fortune, ease, pleasure, were all in turns but

ministers _to_ this, while _by_ this he aimed at the acquisition of each

of them, as the one or the other were, for the moment, the object of

desire or the subject of lamentation for having lost it. But from Bologna

he was expelled for a literary squib, the only thing of the kind by which

he has gained any celebrity, whether it were his own or not. Some

anonymous censor had been amusing himself with publishing pasquinades,

ridiculing the principal people of the city, as well as the students of

the college, with "much malice and a little wit." Those who were exposed

to these sarcasms were exceedingly galled by the firing from this

ambuscade of the pen, and the more so as they knew not on whom to wreak

their vengeance. Torquato, in the reckless gaiety of a youth of twenty,

on a certain occasion making himself merry among his companions by

repeating one of these, was immediately pounced upon as the author, not

only of the unlucky lines, with which he had been caught in his mouth,

but he was assailed as being the secret manufacturer of all the rest. It

was in vain that he denied the charge indignantly, and challenged his

accusers for the proofs, urging that he himself had been the butt of the

sharp-shooter's shafts, flying out of darkness and hitting in broad day.

His papers were seized and examined before the criminal magistrate; but

nothing being discovered to fix the imputation upon him, he was

nominally acquitted, though the suspicion was not so easily effaced from

the minds of the offended individuals. He took the matter himself in

such dudgeon, that he precipitately left Bologna, and removed to Padua,

whither he had been Invited by his early friend Scipio Gonzaga, who had

lately established in the latter city the academy _Degli Eterei_, of

which Tasso--certainly one of the most congenial spirits of the age--was

worthily enrolled a member, and, according to the pedantic fashion of

those pompous but puerile institutions, assumed the name of

_Pentito_--for some fanciful reason not well explained, though there has

been no small wrangling about it.

To enlarge his mind, to exalt his imagination, and to enrich his

eloquence, Torquato now devoted much of his attention to the works of

Aristotle and Plato; but while the former subjected his reason to the

severest discipline in the ascertainment of principles of truth, he gave

his whole soul to the guidance of the latter, whose visionary splendour

and profound speculations, on subjects the highest that created

intelligences can conceive, and of which comparatively so little can be

learned without "light from heaven" to illumine the "light of

nature,"--while infinite space is afforded for everlasting conjectures,

showing at once the capabilities and the limitations of the human

intellect,--these peculiarly suited the young student's cast of thought

and intense delight in contemplating the things that are invisible and

eternal, as associated with things seen and perishable. Nor was the

philosophical poet an unworthy disciple of the poetical philosopher,

even upon his own ground and in his own style. Many of Tasso's sublimest

compositions are in the form of dialogues, in which he discourses with

an elevation of sentiment and a power of diction which might have gained

admiration in the school of his master himself.

Meanwhile the germ of his great poem, which had been quickened, probably

not later than the publication of the "Rinaldo," was growing up in his

thought,--for Tasso, by the necessity of his nature, was ever ruminating

on some premeditated or progressive theme; and some mightier conception

followed the disburdenment of every matured production of his

inexhaustibly inventive genius. While this new and magnificent project

was gradually assuming shape and character before he entered upon the

deliberate execution of it, he prepared himself for the task by

composing his "Discourses on Heroic Poetry," which place him among

critics in as high a rank as that which he holds among poets. The merit

of these essays, indeed, is so remarkable, that his principal English

biographer, Mr. Black, is almost seduced by them to assert the

universality of the author's genius, in the following plausible remark

and happy quotations from high authority concerning another

extraordinary poetic genius, which seemed capable of excelling in

whatever it undertook, whether in prose or rhyme:--"Of the 'Discourses

on Heroic Poetry' there appear to have been four, only three of which

have been printed. Though composed at the age of twenty, and published

without the knowledge and corrections of the author, they are

exceedingly valuable; and while they display a most refined taste,

discover also much metaphysical acuteness and geometrical precision.

Indeed, I am more and more of opinion that what Mr. Stewart says of

Burns is true in general of every great poetical genius, 'All the

faculties of Burns's mind,' says he, 'were, as far as I could judge,

equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result

of his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius

exclusively adapted to that species of composition.'"

In this year, 1564, Torquato visited his venerable father, now literally

"_dagl' anni e da fortuna oppresso_," "borne down by years and evil

fortune." The transport of affection with which two of the greatest men

of their age, in the most seductive walk of human ambition, met at

Mantua, in the relationship of parent and offspring, must have been

chastened, yet rendered more exquisitely endearing, when the father,

from his own sad experience, must have foreseen, by "his prophetic

soul," the sorrows to come which his son would encounter in the course

that he had chosen; while the son, with emotions not less painful, must

have looked upon his father, remembering the sorrows past, which he had

endured in the vain pursuit of fame from the multitude, and fortune from

patrons, in whose cause he had sacrificed two sources of competence--his

own small patrimony, and his wife's dowry.

During this visit the youth was attacked by a dangerous illness, from

which being rescued by the skill of a physician named Coppino, the

grateful father rewarded the doctor with the fee of a stanza to his

honour in a new poem, entitled "Floridante," which the aged minstrel,

whom no medicine could cure of the disease of rhyme, was composing in

his seventy-third year. This daughter, as she might be called, of his

"Amadigi," to which it is a sequel, and his own last child of

imagination, proved as short-lived as its romantic, and almost as its

natural, parent, though the dutiful Torquato endeavoured himself to

revive it, in his own dark days; but "Floridante," of whom it could not

be said that "she had no poet," died though she had two, and those of no

mean name. Bernardo Tasso himself survived for five years, dying in

1669, at the age of seventy-six. However undervalued by posterity, he

was unquestionably the greatest poet who had appeared between Ariosto

and his son Torquato.

About this time Torquato received an intimation that the cardinal

d'Este, brother to the duke of Ferrara, had nominated him one of his

personal attendants, and expected him forthwith in that city.

Notwithstanding the warnings of his father's old friend, Sperone, and

afterwards his own, Zoilus, who, exasperated by the disappointment of

hopes of preferment which he had cherished when he went to Rome, gave

loose to the most violent invectives against courts and courtiers, and

earnestly dissuaded Torquato from trusting himself where nothing but

allurements to ruin would be placed in his way, from which it was hardly

possible for virtue to escape unscathed or uncorrupted, the young poet,

however, determined not to profit by the experience of the old one, but

to learn for himself what experience alone can teach, and what he indeed

learned at an awful cost in the issue. He resolutely, therefore,

determined to put both his virtue and his fortune to the hazard of

temptation, not doubting that he could secure the former and advance the

latter, where the most illustrious court in Italy was held by a

descendant of the patron of Ariosto. Accordingly he hastened to Ferrara,

anticipating every thing that _never_ came to pass, except the one thing

on which, indeed, his mind was most bent, that there he should complete

his contemplated epic, and establish a name which should associate him

with the most renowned of his predecessors. What a bright morning was

that, forerunning a day of darkness and despair, on which he entered the

city, happily unsuspecting the troubles that awaited him there! The

kings of England, of the house of Hanover, are lineally descended from

the family of Este. These much celebrated princes, in the best period of

their ascendency, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were

the magnificent, if not the liberal, patrons of most of the men of

genius in the finer arts who were contemporary with them; and none was

more so than the reigning duke, Alfonso II., under whose benign

influence for a while, but under whose blighting displeasure afterwards,

poor Tasso flourished and faded.

On the last day of October, 1565, Torquato arrived at Ferrara, where the

most superb preparations were making for the nuptials of Alfonso with

Barbara, daughter of the emperor Ferdinand, and sister to Maximilian II.

He was cordially welcomed, and immediately received into the service of

the duke's brother, cardinal Luigi, whose establishment consisted of

nearly 800 persons, ministering to his pleasure or subsisting on his

bounty. This prince was not less dignified than his brother, but

altogether more amiable and engaging. On the 2d of December the queen

(as she was styled from her imperial lineage) entered Ferrara, crowned,

and accompanied by a gorgeous retinue. The marriage was celebrated by a

succession of the most imposing spectacles and profuse festivities,

which continued for six days, when they were suddenly broken off on the

arrival of intelligence of the death of the pope, Pius IV. Among the

throng of the great and the small, who had assembled from all parts of

Italy to witness the tournaments, the pantomimes, the balls, and the

banquets given on this occasion, Torquato was but a solitary unit;

observing and treasuring up in his memory all that he saw and heard, as

materials for celebration in another form of the same scenes of luxury

and splendour upon a grander scale, and, though in an ideal field, of

more enduring exhibition. Myriads of eyes may have glanced upon the

contemplative youth, and passed over him as one of the most

insignificant personages in the city; but, after the lapse of nearly

three centuries, even these gorgeous ceremonials are principally

subjects of interest because he was present at them. Not a human being

in existence at this remote period (one might imagine) can feel any

personal sympathy with the bridegroom, the bride, or any other actor or

spectator, native or stranger, upon the spot; yet even "the

representation of the Temple of Love, which was erected in the ducal

gardens, with a stupendous scenery of porticoes and palaces, of woods

and mountains," is worthy of being remembered, because of the

far-surpassing glory of imaginative palaces and gardens which were

suggested to the admiring poet by the tawdry pageant, "which lasted six

hours _without appearing tedious to the spectators_," as Muratori

states; though, according to the pithy remark of Gibbon, the latter is

"the most incredible circumstance" connected with the whole account.

During the four months which intervened between the demise of Pius IV.

and the election of a new pope, who assumed the name of Pius V.,

Torquato's patron, the cardinal Luigi, being absent, he was left at

Ferrara to make his way into favour wherever an opening might be

presented; and it was then that he became more particularly acquainted

with the princesses Lucretia and Leonora of Este, by whom he was brought

under the notice of their brother the duke, who, after all that has been

said and conjectured, seems never to have regarded him otherwise than

with stately or selfish condescension. That a youth so gifted with

genius, so early distinguished among his countrymen, favoured by nature

with more than ordinary personal advantages, and in many other ways

gallantly accomplished, should have attracted the esteem of these

illustrious ladies, who appear to have been more than mere court

beauties, both in intellect and sensibility, delighting in poetry, and

occasionally exercising themselves in it, was almost a necessary

consequence of the parties becoming acquainted. Under such

circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that, on either side,

secret presentiments of the most gratifying kind should unconsciously

spring up and be covertly cherished by the several individuals; never,

indeed, as must be inferred from the sequel, to be fully disclosed, nor

even, perhaps, perfectly understood by themselves. If, in the age of

chivalry, it was imperative upon true knights to assert the beauty and

maintain the honour of their ladies in all due seasons, and in all

proper places, it was, in the seventeenth century, equally the duty of

true poets to celebrate the same virtues and adornments in their verses

upon those of the better sex, who were either their mistresses or their

patronesses. Torquato, dazzled by the transition from schools, law

offices, and colleges of philosophy, to the court region of enchantment,

has described his own emotions and the influence of the change upon him

in the language which he puts into the mouth of _Tirsi_ (the

representative of himself in his "Amintor"), where, after taking

vengeance on his father's friend, but his own very questionable one

(Sperone), for having dissuaded him from going to the city, which, he

assured him, was given up wholly to deceit, voluptuousness, avarice, and

ambition, the shepherd tells his companions how bravely he was disabused

when he beheld the marvellous reality; for there, "as gracious heaven

would have it, I happened to pass near the blissful dwelling, whence

issued sweet, harmonious voices of swans, of nymphs, of syrens--heavenly

syrens! and sounds of music soft and clear, with other ravishments so

strange, that for a while I stood entranced with joy and admiration."

Being courteously invited to enter by one of noble aspect, who appeared

the guardian of the enchanted spot, he exclaims, "O then what saw, what

felt I? I beheld nymphs, goddesses, and minstrels--luminaries new and

beautiful--all without veil or cloud, as to the immortals, scattering

silver dews and golden rays, Aurora seems; Apollo and the Muses, too, I

saw, and in that moment felt myself as growing greater. Filled with new

virtue, new divinity, I sang of wars and heroes, disdaining my rude

pastoral pipe. But though I soon returned to these calm shades (to

please another), I still retained a portion of that nobler spirit; my

simple reed no longer warbled as before, but, rivalling the trumpet,

filled the woods with notes more lofty and sonorous. Mopso (Sperone)

heard it, and, with evil eye, looked on me and bewitched me, so that I

grew hoarse, and long continued mute. The shepherds thought I had been

glared at by a wolf--a wolf, indeed, he was to me!" The last allusion is

to Sperone's savage criticisms on the "Gerusalemme," when submitted to

his examination in manuscript. Torquato, however, had reason to think,

after years of disappointing experience, that Sperone's notions of

courts and courtiers were quite as near the truth as his own, during his

first visit and sojourn at Ferrara.

Of the duke, his brother the cardinal, and their three sisters, it is

recorded that thirteen years before this date, on a public occasion, in

presence of their father, Hercules II., and pope Paul III., the

"Adelphi" of Terence, in the original, was recited by them with great

spirit and effect, the parts being sustained by the princesses Anna,

aged twelve, Lucretia, eight, Leonora, six, the princes Alfonso, ten,

and Luigi, five years of age. Mr. Black observes, with apparent justice,

that the court of Alfonso united, "like the poems of Tasso, classic

elegance with the richness of romance; and every thing conspired to

kindle the fancy and refine the taste of the youthful bard."

Anna, the eldest of the three sisters above named, in 1548 was married

to the celebrated Francis, duke of Guise, and, after his decease, to

James of Savoy, duke of Nemours. Lucretia, some years later than Tasso's

arrival at her brother's court, was married to the prince of Urbino,

only fifteen years old, when she herself was thirty-seven. This was one

of those state alliances which so little resemble treaties of peace,

that they deserve to be branded as treaties of discord, in which royal

and noble parents sacrifice their children, if not to Moloch, at least

to Mammon--nay, too often to both,--for purposes of family

aggrandisement, by adding territory to territory, and confounding blood

with blood. On the occasion of these unhappy nuptials, Tasso, "as in

duty bound," wrote an epithalamium, which had, in its predictions of

felicity, the equivocal qualification for excelling in that kind of

poetry which Waller, with experienced adroitness, hinted to Charles II.,

when rallied by his majesty on having composed a far finer panegyric on

Cromwell than on himself--the qualification of fiction; for scarcely had

the ill-paired couple had time to fall out, when the gallant prince left

his bride to volunteer in a crusade against the Turks, with whom

everlasting warfare, in every petty form of hostility, was wont to be

carried on by the states of Italy. The union ultimately was dissolved,

without the intervention of death; and Lucretia, as duchess of Urbino,

returned to Ferrara. For many years afterwards, she was, more openly

than either her brother or her younger sister, the patron of Tasso, and

to her are some of his most graceful lyrics addressed.

Leonora, the third and younger sister, remained unmarried. Being highly

attractive in person, in manner, and in mind, it is no wonder if

Torquato, having many opportunities of ingratiating himself in her

favour, should be gradually betrayed, under the guise of that romantic

strain of adulation to rank and beauty (especially in verse) which the

fashion of the times not only tolerated but sanctioned, to insinuate all

the fervour of a passion which, though hardly aware of it himself, and

altogether unacknowledged by its sensitive object, might yet be

harboured in the bosoms of both, though so secretly, that each more

complacently and jealously watched the symptoms of a tender attachment

in the other, than cared to examine the reality of the same in

themselves. The mystery, thus cherished, for the tantalising delight of

a hope too remote to be fulfilled, except at the sacrifice of every

thing but that love, for which, if true, nothing might be deemed too

much to be sacrificed, has never been cleared up, and all reasoning and

conjecture on the subject, at this distance of time, must be vain. It

has been with equal confidence both affirmed and denied, that the poet

imprudently aspired to the hand of the princess, and that the princess

as imprudently surrendered her heart to the poet, though, from

necessity, she withheld her hand. From the numberless _canzoni_ and

_sonetti_, of which love is the theme, among the _rime_ of Tasso, no

premises towards the solution of this problem can be drawn. Dante and

Petrarch, in all their effusions of the kind, are constant each to his

respective mistress. Beatrice and Laura are the perpetual idols of their

amorous devotion; but to so many--or, if to one, under so many different

names and characters,--are Tasso's adorations addressed, that he may

have had fifty fits of passion for as many flames, and been as true in

turn to each and equally volatile to all. It is, however, a remarkable

circumstance, that three of the greatest poets of Italy should owe as

much of their posthumous renown to their questionable love as to their

acknowledged genius, having been avowedly attached to ladies whose very

existence is unascertained at this day, though volumes have been

written, proving nothing more than (to borrow the comprehensive judgment

of sir Roger de Coverley) that "much may be said on both sides."

In the mean time, whatever was the subsequent conduct of Alfonso towards

Tasso, there seems to be no doubt that, for a considerable period during

which the poet was engaged upon his great work, the duke countenanced

him in the way most agreeable to his literary ambition and his personal

vanity; for he loved rich apparel, splendid apartments, sumptuous fare,

and to be associated with persons of the highest rank--feeling that he

could adorn and dignify the circle in which he moved, both as a man of

genius exalted above competition by intellectual endowments, and as a

man of the world qualified to shine in external demeanour among

gentlemen and soldiers as well as among students and men of letters.

During this prosperous period--when the smiles of princesses, who were

pleased to receive the homage of his muse, flattered his gentler

affections, and the favour of sovereigns gratified the pride of a heart

easily elevated to an eminence of self-satisfaction, from which the fall

when it came was the more terrible, and the dashing to pieces of its

hopes and its claims the more humiliating and deplorable--Tasso

accompanied the cardinal Luigi as legate to the court of France. Here

his fame had prepared the way for his reception with peculiar honour by

Charles IX., himself both a lover of verse and a versifier. It is said

that the king offered the poet some splendid presents, which the latter

declined to accept, though he was so scantily provided with a wardrobe,

that he left the kingdom, at the end of twelve months, in the same suit

of clothes in which he entered it. The snake has but one skin, but while

that is wearing out another is forming beneath: it would be well for

poets, who live on court expectations, if they were as well provided.

As not many personal anecdotes are related of our poet, two or three

indifferent ones may be given here as specimens of the tone of his

conversation and address in public. A poet of some repute having

committed a crime for which he was condemned to die, Tasso resolved to

obtain, if possible, a mitigation of the punishment. At the palace he

learned that the sentence was about to be executed immediately.

Undiscouraged, however, he pressed forward; and being admitted to the

presence, he thus addressed the king:--"May it please your majesty, I am

come to implore you to put to death a wretch, who has brought disgrace

upon philosophy, by showing that she cannot stand out against human

depravity." The king, struck with the turn of the request, spared the

criminal. Being asked by his majesty one day, "Whether men most

resembled God in happiness, in sovereign power, or in the ability to do

good?" Tasso replied, "Men can resemble God only by their

virtue."--Again, before the same monarch a discussion was held to

determine what condition in life is most unfortunate. "In my opinion,"

said Tasso, "the most deplorable condition is that of an impatient old

man, borne down by poverty, who has neither fortune to preserve him from

want, nor philosophy to support himself under suffering."

In the course of this journey, whatever he may have gained in honour at

the French court, gratification in the society of eminent

contemporaries, and knowledge of the country and people of his hero,

Godfrey, Torquato lost the favour of cardinal Luigi, as Ariosto

forfeited that of the cardinals kinsman and predecessor, Hippolyto of

Este; though not for the same reason--want of servility to his highness

(Luigi probably not exacting such base homage as Ariosto's barbarian

patron had done), but for having manifested more zeal for the catholic

faith than, in the opinion of some of his confidants, was deemed politic

at a time, when, for the most treacherous purposes, previous to the

massacre of St. Bartholomew, the protestants were treated with unwonted

indulgence, to throw them off their guard. Hereupon he returned to

Italy, though not immediately to Ferrara; for, travelling in company

with Manzuoli, the secretary of the late embassy, we find that he

arrived at Rome in January, 1572. Here he was cordially welcomed by many

of his father's old acquaintances, as well as greatly distinguished for

his own sake. Pope Pius V. honoured him with an audience, and the

privilege of kissing his foot.

Through the mediation of the duchess of Urbino and Leonora, he was soon

afterwards formally admitted into the service of Alfonso, with a pension

of a hundred and eighty gold crowns a year, and the understanding that

no personal duties would be required of him; but that he should be at

liberty to pursue his studies and finish his poem at his own leisure.

Generous as this provision undoubtedly was, it yet made him a captive in

golden chains, too weak to bind the limbs, but strong enough to enthral

the soul and enslave the mind. So, at least, Torquato found his

obligation; and even when on both sides it had been broken, after his

second imprisonment, he was never in spirit enfranchised from the yoke

of Alfonso, till death set him free. His own testimony concerning his

patron's munificence at this time, long after he had lost his favour, is

honourable to both:--"He raised me from the darkness of my low estate to

the light and glory of his court; he removed me from penury to

abundance; he exceedingly enhanced the value of my works, by often and

willing listening while I read, and treating their author with every

mark of esteem. He placed me at his table, and countenanced me with his

personal attention; and he never denied me a favour which I requested."

Under these auspices, while Tasso was still vigorously prosecuting that

splendid crusade of his muse, the poetical siege of Jerusalem, and had

now nearly made himself master of it for an everlasting stronghold of

his poetical sovereignty, his exuberant mind poured out multitudes of

sonnets, canzoni, and other miscellanies in verse and prose--almost

entirely on transient themes, love fancies, and panegyrical attempts--

----"to give a deathless lot

To names inglorious, born to be forgot."

Among these, in the composition of which it might be questioned whether

he was wasting his genius or cultivating it, he produced something more

excellent, in the form of a pastoral drama. Accordingly, the most

beautiful offspring of his imagination--so far as refers to exquisite

grace of diction, and consummate skill in adorning a subject altogether

artificial, and feigning a state of society that never did, never could,

never ought to exist,--in a story not very natural though the incidents

are few, nor very happily connected or intelligibly developed,--his

"Aminta" appeared, written in flowing verse of various measures without

rhyme, and enriched with lyric chorusses of extraordinary elegance. How

the public exhibition of such a drama could be tolerated, before the

most exalted personages of the state, ladies of the highest character,

and religionists of the most plausible professions, is very difficult

for us, in our cold climate, and with our severer as well as juster

sentiments of decorum, to imagine. All that can be said in extenuation

of the audience, and perhaps of the poet, comes to this presumption,

that, though the piece abounds with descriptions and allusions the most

voluptuous and fascinating to awaken the most perilous passions in

youth, and which no gravity of age ought to endure, such were the

manners of the day, and so little of evil was apprehended, where the

serpent, that allured Eve with his wiles of beauty among the flowers of

paradise, put on this pastoral disguise of the innocence of the golden

age, that the fair and the virtuous alike imagined themselves as

guiltless in listening to his blandishments, as Milton represents the

mother of mankind to have been unsuspicious of danger, when she followed

the tempter to the forbidden tree, and entered into a parley with him

there, till at length, beguiled by his subtilty, "she plucked, she ate."

And here a subject too delicate to be handled on the present occasion

must be left to every one's conscience who indulges in the luxury of

such reading as the work under consideration furnishes. It is remarkable

that the author, designating himself under the name of _Tirsi_, seems to

have been forewarned of the malady which soon afterwards overwhelmed

him, and to which, no doubt, from constitutional temperament he had been

prone from his youth upward, and which, in premature old age, cast such

clouds of mystery over the gloom and splendour of his latter life.

"Knowest thou not what _Tirsi_ wrote, when, fired with frenzy, he

wandered through the forest, at once moving laughter and pity among the

lovely nymphs and shepherds? Nor _wrote_ he even then 'things worthy to

be laughed at, although he _did_ such things.'"

The duchess of Urbino being absent from Ferrara, when Tasso's muse, like

Habington's "halcyon," produced

"The happy miracle of this rare birth,"

invited him to her delightful retirement of Casteldurante, where she

heard the pastoral strains from his own lips, which, though not eloquent

from natural infirmity, would yet convey the soul and passion, the

delicacy and pathos, of every passage, with an impression which no actor

on the stage, nor indeed any reader but himself, could give. The living

voice, in this case, would be the actual language of the spirit that

conceived the thoughts, speaking to the spirit of her who received them

through the ear, fresh and flowing from the fountain in his heart; for

the written copy, to the eye, would be but a translation, wanting the

incommunicable accompaniments of tone, look, expression, and perfect

intelligence of the whole in all its bearings and meanings, such as the

original author alone could possess; for, as Dr. Johnson said, "no

_words_ can convey _sounds_;" and both sounds and words were requisite

to do justice to such verse as his. Tasso remained several months with

the duchess.

All Italy soon echoed with the fame of this poetical phenomenon, which,

though not the first of the kind, (an indifferent model having been

produced six years before, by one Arienti,) it was the first that had

power to compel almost universal admiration, and establish a precedent

and authority for that fantastic species of literary composition.

Imitations, by the most gifted of his contemporaries, sprang up in rapid

succession, and passed away as rapidly, with the exception of one, the

"Pastor Fido" of Guarini, which not only maintained its ground, but even

disputed that on which its forerunner stood, and from which no rivalry

has ever yet been able to remove it. The renown which Tasso acquired by

the "Aminta" naturally exasperated envy in proportion as it commanded

applause, and among the multitude of competitors who could not soar to

his elevation, there were not wanting those who employed every artifice

to bring him down to their level, that they might trample him under

foot. Whatever were the causes, Tasso to the end of his life was

persecuted as much by unmerciful critics as he was oppressed by

hard-hearted patrons.

But the "Aminta" was not the only episodal enterprise of Tasso, while he

was slowly but unweariedly proceeding with the "Gerusalemme." Flushed

with the success of his pastoral drama, he set earnestly about the

construction of a regular tragedy; but he had not advanced far in the

second act, when the project was suspended, and the fragment of fine

promise which remains, compared with the completed performance long

afterwards, when his faculties were on the decline, exhibits a brilliant

but melancholy contrast of "the change" that had come "o'er the spirit

of his dream"--his dream of life, love, and glory, blighting his "May of

youth," and causing him in the prime of manhood to "fall into the sere

and yellow leaf." His "Torindo," as this failure was styled, was less a

failure than the "Torrismondo," as the resumed and perfected task was

called.

Towards the conclusion of his toils on his main work (as he fondly

hoped), but the beginning of a series of miseries consequent upon it,

from which he found no end but in the grave, Tasso was seized with a

violent fever. This left him in such a state of bodily exhaustion, that

it was not till the following spring (1575), that from the last lines of

his poem he could look back upon all the intervening ones to the first,

as the links of a chain, more subtle than air, yet stronger than

adamant, which should deliver his thoughts as he had bound them in his

words, from generation to generation, to delight millions of minds, so

long as his country's language should be understood. He had already

enjoyed such exhilarating foretastes of fame by the circulation in

manuscript of portions of the poem, as they came completed from his

hands, that he was the less prepared to encounter the enmity and

opposition, which rancorous and intriguing rivals, or fanatic and

supercilious ecclesiastical censors of the press, immediately commenced,

and inveterately continued to manifest towards him to the close of life.

There was in Tasso--conscious as he must have been of his powers, and

confident as he must have felt in the exercise of his own judgment--a

readiness to submit to learned and candid criticism, and a willingness

to concede to dissentient opinions on minor points of taste, so far as

was consistent with manly independence,--which can rarely be found among

men of first-rate talents, but yet might be expected from a court poet,

accustomed in other matters to defer to superiors, be compliant towards

equals, and condescending to inferiors. This disposition, however, which

ought to have conciliated envy herself, only provoked her the more to

assume every shape of candour or malignity, as best suited her humour,

to torment and distract him, that she might revel over his wretchedness,

if she could not accomplish his fall. Years intervened while the

"Gerusalemme Liberata," in its finished form, was undergoing as many

ordeals almost as he had friends, and its author suffering almost as

many martyrdoms as he had enemies. Into the particulars of these

persecutions it is not necessary to enter here. The poet was certainly

induced by the force of arguments used by some, and the terror of

inquisitorial powers exercised by others of his critics, to alter,

expunge, and amend many parts of the poem, which, after all, suffered

little from the processes to which it was thus exposed before its

publication. That publication, however, was long delayed by such

vexatious hinderances, and at last was effected surreptitiously, to the

great offence and injury of the author, then in confinement as a

lunatic.

Tasso's malady was grievously aggravated by these excruciating

criticisms, when he found himself, on the one hand, charged with heresy

against Aristotle and good taste, and, on the other, with heresy against

the church and good morals. Fevers, headaches, strange dreams, waking

suspicions, restlessness, disappointment, dissatisfaction with his

patron, to whom he had dedicated his poem, and in honour of whom he had

created his imaginary hero, Rinaldo,--perhaps, too, the bitterness of

desponding passion, though that is questionable,--suggested to him the

idea of absconding from Ferrara and taking refuge at Rome, where he

purposed to bring out the "Gerusalemme," at his own pleasure, and hoped

to reap a considerable pecuniary benefit from the sale. Alfonso,

however, was not willing to lose the glory of the dedication to himself,

though he seems to have wanted the generosity, the humanity, the justice

to deal with the author except as an impotent creature in his power, who

could do him much honour by flattering his pride, but to whom he showed

at best but stinted kindness. To secure his selfish object, he made the

poet a prisoner near his own person,--both at Ferrara, and at his palace

of Belriguardo in the country,--a prisoner at large, indeed, but under

perpetual observation. Of this the sufferer was aware; and the very idea

of a human eye for ever upon him, restraining his looks, words, and

actions, poring over him while he slept, haunting his dreams, and

entering into his very thoughts--for so he must have felt as though it

did--this alone was enough to madden a man of iron heart and millstone

brain, much more a poor hypochondriac, as Tasso had already become.

Notwithstanding the jealousies of Alfonso, and the fascinations of his

sisters to detain him, the capricious bard escaped from his splendid

captivity to Rome,--and escaped even with the permission of the duke;

who gave him a letter of recommendation to the cardinal Hippolyto, to

befriend him as a stranger there, for the avowed purpose of obtaining

the accustomed indulgence granted to visiters during the jubilee. Here

he met with the cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici, afterwards grand duke of

Tuscany, who renewed to him in person the tender of an honourable asylum

(formerly intimated to him in private), should he be disposed to leave

altogether the service of Alfonso. The offer was gratefully

acknowledged, but not formally accepted; and after six weeks of holidays

(as he felt them to be) spent in the luxury of literary intercourse, and

the renewal of the impressions which the scene of Rome's posthumous

glory in her magnificent ruins, and her not less imposing revival in her

hierarchal pomp, had left on his mind in youth, he returned by way of

Sienna and Florence to Ferrara. Here, while his poem was going through a

second round of critical purgatory, and his soul was sinking under the

burden of censures laid upon him, like the spirits of the proud in

Dante, condemned to bear enormous stones along the uneven uphill road,

he received the appointment of historiographer to the house of Este,

with a small stipend, which laid upon him another cobweb obligation to

remain at Ferrara. What were the duties of this office it is of no

consequence to inquire; he does not seem even to have performed any, nor

perhaps did he owe any; his fable of the origin of that family from his

hero Rinaldo--the Rinaldo of his "Gerusalemme"--had already conferred on

it more of that glory which princes covet, than the true history of all

its ancestors might have done. When the results of the aforesaid second

revisal of his poem were communicated to him, in despair of conciliating

his critics, and determined not to yield altogether to their incompetent

authority, on points where he felt himself strong in poetical power to

produce the very effects which they deprecated, but which he had aimed

at and achieved most triumphantly, he composed an interpretation of the

whole as an extended allegory, spiritualising its heroes and its scenes,

with more perverse ingenuity than felicity of success. Of this it may be

fairly said, that if the original were mainly fiction, the moral was

wholly so. His censors, however, persisted in condemning the voluptuous

passages to which he himself was most attached, because he knew them to

be the most beautiful, and recked not that they were the most seductive.

In this respect the poet himself was the Rinaldo of his sorceress muse,

who by her enchantments had wholly captivated his heart, and carried him

away to her "limbo of vanity;" from which Sperone and Antoniano, his

remorseless critics, in vain endeavoured to deliver him; as Carlo and

Ubaldo had rescued his hero from the thralls of Armida in her island of

sensual delights. He never yielded all, though he conceded many things,

and sacrificed several extravagant inventions, by which the poem, was

rather mended than mutilated.

An incident occurred about this time, which exhibited Tasso not less in

the character of a hero than he had hitherto figured in that of the

laureate of heroes. Suspecting one of his friends to have been guilty of

opening his trunks with false keys, to pry into his secrets among his

papers, he gently remonstrated with the offender, who resented the

charge by giving him the lie, and received in return a blow upon the

face. This rencontre took place in the court of the palace, and was

therefore sufficiently notorious. The cowardly aggressor--one Maddalo, a

notary--walked away with the dishonour on his brow, but meditating in

his heart the most atrocious vengeance. Accordingly, having enlisted

three of his kindred in the quarrel, they sallied forth, armed, to

assail the poet; and finding him abroad in the street, they fell upon

him from behind. Tasso promptly turned round, drew his sword, and dealt

so dexterously with it, that the ruffians were soon put to flight;

though their fears of being apprehended, no doubt, to their "speed lent

wings," till they found refuge under the roofs of various friends. The

circumstance gained him no small reputation, and gave rise to a couplet

which was often repeated:--

"Con la penna e con la spada

Nessun vai quanto Torquato."

"With the sword and with the pen,

Tasso beats all other men."

It is not practicable, in this succinct memoir, to trace the sufferer

through all the details which have been recorded of his miseries from

penury, pride, ambition, and disappointment, the wrongs inflicted on him

by patrons and rivals, and above all, those growing symptoms of a mind

diseased, occasioning suspicions, jealousies, misunderstandings, and

quarrels with his friends and contemporaries; while that insidious

malady, which no medicine can reach, was making its unchecked ravages

upon his constitution, and inveterately fixing upon him its evil

influences, so that, with brief and distant lucid intervals, his

remaining days were passed in horror and despondency, whether amidst the

darkness of the dungeons of Ferrara, or wandering amidst the broad

sunshine on foot, and depending for bread and shelter upon casual

hospitality, from province to province throughout Italy. Imagining that

his enemies--enemies as imaginary, in this case, as were his fears of

them--had accused him to Alfonso of treason, and to the pope of heresy,

he at length grew so outrageous, that, one day, for some unaccountable

provocation, he drew a dagger upon a servant, and assaulted him in an

apartment of the duchess of Urbino. Being instantly disarmed, he was

confined, by order of the duke, within the precincts of the palace.

Here, when for the first time he found himself a prisoner, he was

overwhelmed with anguish, and bitterly bewailed his fate. As soon as he

could again command his passion, he wrote a very penitential letter to

Alfonso, suing for pardon and release. Both were granted to him; and he

was removed, under the eye of the duke himself, to the palace of

Belriguardo, in the country, that he might recover his health and

spirits, amidst scenes and with the society in which he had formerly

delighted to be placed. With a delicate regard to one of his most

grievous temptations--that he had been guilty of heresy, Alfonso

introduced to him the head of the holy inquisition at Ferrara, who,

after duly examining him, fully absolved him from all imputations of the

kind, and assured him that he was yet a good catholic. Not contented

with this, he suddenly left Belriguardo, and took refuge in a convent of

St. Francis, from which he sent word to his patron, that as soon as he

should be sufficiently restored he intended to enter himself among the

fraternity. But nothing could calm the troubled waters of his mind; he

still conceived himself under the displeasure of the duke, and that his

acquittal by the inquisitor was invalid. In this turmoil of doubts and

self-reproaches, he importuned Alfonso and the duchess of Urbino with

letters concerning his imaginary offences, and imploring comfort and

assurance which they could not give, because he would not receive. With

Leonora he appears never to have had that freedom and frequency of

correspondence which he had hitherto been permitted to hold with her

elder sister. Whether this be in favour of his presumed passion or not

must be left to those who are skilled in the mysteries of love-making

between unequal parties. On this subject, as on the poet's strange

melancholy, and the severity with which it was visited by his patron,

whether for the punishment of the lover or the cure of the maniac, it

would be futile to argue here. After all the explanation and

mystification by Tasso's biographers, the general impression has been,

is, and probably will remain, that his love for Leonora was real; that

his imprisonment was vindictive on the part of her brother, and that his

frenzy was the effect of hopeless passion and impotent resentment

against oppression. "Historians," says Ugo Foscolo, "will be ever

embarrassed to explain aright the reasons of Tasso's imprisonment: it is

involved in the same obscurity as the exile of Ovid. Both were among

those thunder-strokes that despotism darts forth. In crushing their

victims they terrified them, and reduced spectators to silence. There

are incidents in courts, that, although known to many persons, remain in

eternal oblivion--contemporaries dare not reveal, and posterity can only

divine them."

In the following summer, Tasso, bewildered and desperate, and not

knowing whither to turn, or in whom to confide, at length fled secretly

from Ferrara to visit his sister at Torrento, whom he had not seen since

they were children together. She was now a widow, the mother of two

sons, and dependent upon her uncles, who still withheld her mother's

dowry, for the means of subsistence. With that caution to do every thing

by stealth, which characterises the hallucination of one who fancies all

the world conspiring to do him harm, he presented himself before her in

the habit of a shepherd, affecting to be the bearer of certain letters

from himself. He found her alone; her children being absent. The letters

represented her brother at Ferrara as surrounded by enemies, and in the

most imminent danger of his life, unless she interposed in his behalf,

and rescued him from their machinations. When she had read the

distressing intelligence, she implored the supposed messenger to tell

her all, the worst, at once. He answered by a recital of miseries so

aggravated, in a tone so earnest and impassioned, that, whether she

suspected him or not, she fainted with alarm. When she had been

sufficiently recovered, the cunning minstrel changed the hand that

played upon her, like Timotheus on his harp, and, from excess of pity

for her brother's sufferings, gently awoke all her tenderness of

affection, by old and beautiful recollections of former days, and hopes

yet possible to be realised in years to come. At length, when she was

well prepared, he discovered himself fully to her, and they were brother

and sister again in a moment, and thenceforth to the end of life. With

her he remained in comparative tranquillity for several months, being

all the while unacknowledged in the neighbourhood, except as Cornelia's

cousin from Bergamo, who, coming to Rome, had availed himself of the

opportunity to visit her.

But, as might be expected, his self-tormenting mind became unquiet

amidst scenes of repose, which, from day to day, delighted him at first,

but, from day to day, presenting little change of aspect or incident, he

sighed again for Ferrara, choosing rather the agony of life to that rest

which was no longer supportable. Thither, then, he returned, on the

assurance of pardon from the duke, and the restoration of his papers. It

was soon after his arrival, that an act of indiscretion attributed to

him by some, and denied by others of his biographers, is said to have

caused him to be put in ward as a person of deranged intellect. Being in

company with Alfonso and his sisters, in the presence of the court, in

reply to a question from Leonora, Tasso gave her an involuntary salute,

their faces being so near together that he felt attraction to be

irresistible. The duke, astonished and indignant, turned to his

attendants and exclaimed, "See to what a lamentable condition this great

man has been brought by the loss of his reason!" But the date of this

circumstance happens to be as disputable as the fact; for it is certain

that the poet had not long resided at Ferrara, when, still unsatisfied

with the duke's conduct towards him, he again withdrew from the city,

and successively sought temporary refuge at Mantua, Urbino, Florence,

Padua, Turin, and Venice. Being ill at ease every where, by a fatality

of instinct, as it might be deemed, he returned to Ferrara, and thence

departed no more till after a confinement of seven years. For, imagining

himself coldly received at court, and unworthily repulsed when he sought

an audience, he vented his anguish of disappointment in bitter

invectives against the duke, who, amidst the festivities of his new

nuptials with a young bride, his third wife, a daughter of the duke of

Mantua, was little inclined to hearken to the complaints and

supplications of one whom he had long looked upon as insane. On this

ground he was committed to St. Anne's hospital, as a lunatic, which in

those days of medical ignorance of the proper treatment of such patients

was to be punished as a criminal for his misfortune. The following

extract must stand in place of multifarious details of the poet's

feelings under this long restraint. His imprisonment commenced in March,

1579. Soon afterwards he thus expressed himself in a letter to his

friend Scipio Gonzaga:--

"Ah me! I had intended to compose two heroic poems of noble argument,

and four tragedies, of which I had contrived the plots. Many works in

prose also, on the most exalted and useful subjects, I had contemplated;

purposing so to unite philosophy and eloquence, that I might leave an

eternal monument to my memory in the world. Alas! I hoped to close my

life with glory and renown, but now, borne down under the load of my

misfortunes, I have lost all prospect of fame and distinction. Indeed I

should consider myself abundantly happy, if, without suspicion, I could

but quench the thirst with which I am tormented; and if, as one of the

multitude, I could lead a life of freedom in some poor cottage, if not

in health, which I can no longer be, yet exempt from this anguish. If I

were not honoured, it would be enough for me not to be abominated; and

if I could not live like men, I might at least quench the thirst that

consumes me, like the brutes which freely drink from stream and

fountain. Nor do I fear so much the vastness as the duration of this

calamity; and the thought of this is horrible to me, especially as in

this place I can neither write nor study. The dread, too, of perpetual

imprisonment increases my melancholy, and the indignities which I suffer

exasperate it; while the squalor of my beard, my hair, and my dress, the

sordidness and the filth of the place, exceedingly annoy me. But, above

all, I am afflicted by solitude, my cruel and natural enemy; which; even

in my best state; was sometimes so distressing, that often, at the most

unseasonable hours, I have gone in search of company. Sure I am, that if

she who so little has corresponded to my attachment, if she saw me in

such a condition; and in such misery, she would have some compassion

upon me."

Though such statements must be received with some allowance for the

power of self-torturing which he possessed in no small degree, and

exercised with as little forbearance as though he were his own most

implacable enemy, yet, according to Tasso's representation, the

treatment which he experienced under the hands of his brother-poet,

Agostino Morti, formerly a disciple of Ariosto, the keeper of the

hospital, was almost as bad as that which he received at his own. He

says that by this man he was not allowed the necessaries of life, the

medicines which his bodily disease required, nor the spiritual

consolations which his heart-sickness needed: moreover, that his

meditations were disturbed by the inmates of the house, so that he could

not proceed with the preparation of his works for the press; but above

all, that he was under the power of witchcraft, Morti being in league

with certain magicians to destroy him by enchantments; and as this was a

capital crime, he threatens to accuse the keeper to the duke.[41] His

sonnets to the cats of the hospital, imploring them to lend him the

light of their eyes to write by, are specimens of that _kind_ of mirth

which suits and sets off melancholy, in a certain "humorous sadness."

Their genuineness, however, is not certain, and they are hardly

translatable.

Whatever were the actual circumstances of Tasso's mental alienation and

corporal sufferings from disease or ill usage, his life, from the period

of his first imprisonment, was to himself like one of _the opium-eater's

dreams_--splendours and horrors, alternations of agony and rapture,

changes sudden, frequent, and strangely contrasted: he inhabited a world

of _unrealities_, of which the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears,

were the more real in proportion as they were ideal, and therefore

incurable; acting upon the soul itself like that effect upon the bodily

senses, excruciatingly susceptible of impressions of pain, so happily

imagined, and not less felicitously expressed by the most polished of

our own poets:--

"Say what their use, were finer optics given?

To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven;

Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonise at every pore;

Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain,

Die of a rose in aromatic pain;

If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres.

How would he wish that heaven had left him still

The whispering zephyr and the purling rill."

POPE's _Essay on Man_, Epist. I.

And such a being, too exquisitely sensitive, is every poet, whose

imagination or whose passion overmasters his reason and his judgment.

Tasso was eminently such--a poet in every thing, and all life long.

Meanwhile editions of his "Gerusalemme" were multiplying throughout

Italy, and beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees; while the mind that

conceived and produced it was wandering, like a lost star through the

infinity of space, unaccompanied by any kindred planet, and unattracted

by any parent sun; and the poet himself--he whom monarchs had delighted

to honour, the associate of sovereigns, who had been the favourite of

princesses, and the admiration or the envy of the highest intellects of

his age--was treated as a brute, out of whose living frame the rational

soul had departed, and whose animal appetites were to be subdued by

severe abstinence, or controlled by harsh discipline.

Yet in his solitude, when the first rigours of his imprisonment had been

relaxed, and an apartment of less discomfort was allotted to him, he

pursued, with unabated ardour and intensity, his studies, so far as he

had the means, and poured out, as he was ever wont, his sorrows and his

hopes, his remembrances and his imaginations, in every form of verse.

Indeed, many of his most beautiful compositions are dated within the

term of his captivity. In course of time, as he grew calmer, his

friends, and illustrious strangers attracted by his fame, were permitted

to visit him. Occasionally, too, a day of light and liberty was granted,

and he was brought out of his prison-house to those splendid mansions

which he loved to inhabit, and which he was so well qualified to adorn.

Marfisa of Este, cousin to the duke, especially befriended him in this

manner, and entertained him at her delightful villa, where, in company

with her distinguished household and visiters, he looked abroad again in

sunshine, with all a poet's transport and all an invalid's delight, when

mere existence, void of suffering, is enjoyment.

"See the wretch, who long has tost

On the thorny bed of pain,

At length repair his vigour lost,

And breathe and walk again:

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

The common air, the earth, the skies,

To him are opening paradise."

So sang Gray, and so felt Tasso for a few hours of freedom,--but soon

remanded back to his lonely abode, he relapsed into despondency; and

though one such day, while it lasted, might seem to compensate for all

the past, yet when it was gone, its pleasures appeared too dearly

purchased by the misery of another day rendered more bitter by the

transient change.

Having collected a volume of his fugitive verses, principally composed

in prison, he published it with a dedication to the princesses, the

duchess of Urbino and Leonora; but the latter lived not to receive this

mournful proof of the fidelity of his gratitude, if not of his love. She

died, after a long illness, in 1581, aged 43 years. Tasso enquired

earnestly after her during her sickness, and offered to do any thing in

the power of his muse to beguile that part of her suffering which song

might soothe, while patiently bearing the rest, for which there was no

relief but from Heaven. After her death he became mute on that theme,

which most of his biographers would fain prove to have been the real

though covert one of many an amorous effusion among his sonnets and

lyrics. "Great griefs are silent."

Among his wild imaginations, Tasso thought himself haunted in his prison

by a sprite--something akin to our old English Robin-good-fellow--who

(probably in the very person of his knavish attendant) played all manner

of petty mischievous pranks to plague him. One extract from a letter on

this subject will show how little command of his reason he had at this

time. He says, "The little thief has stolen from me many crowns, I know

not what number--for I do not, like misers, keep an account of them--but

perhaps they may amount to twenty. He turns all my hooks topsy-turvy,

opens my chests, and steals my keys, so that I can keep nothing. I am

unhappy at all times, especially during the night, nor _do I know if my

disease be frenzy, or what is its nature._" Far more frightful

visitations he complains of during this dreadful interval, all which

seem to prove a lamentable derangement of intellect, of which he was

himself sometimes so conscious, that he rouses all his powers of

reasoning to convince himself that he has not really lost his wits. To a

friend he writes--"I cannot defend any thing from my enemies, nor from

the devil, _except my will_, with which I will never consent to learn

any thing from him or his followers, or have any _familiarity with him

or with his magicians._ * * * * Amidst so many terrors and pains, there

appeared to me in the air the image of the glorious Virgin, with her Son

in her arms, encircled with clouds of many colours, so that I ought by

no means to despair of her grace. _And though this might be an illusion,

because I am frenetic_,--troubled with various phantasms, and full of

infinite melancholy,--yet, by the grace of God, I can sometimes

_cohibere assensum_ (withhold my assent), which, as Cicero says, being

the act of a sound mind, I am inclined to believe it was a miracle of

the Virgin."--This vision he celebrates in one of his most brilliant

sonnets, and also in an elegant madrigal, ascribing to her grace the

marvellous cure of his mental affliction.

In whatever way that cure may have been temporarily effected, Tasso,

after more than seven years' confinement, was liberated in 1586, at the

special intercession of the prince of Mantua. Alfonso refused to allow

him an audience, and he left Ferrara like a transport released from

prison, to go into perpetual banishment; for the duke remained

inexorable, and, indeed, implacable, to the end of his victim's life.

For a while Tasso enjoyed the sudden transition, again being lodged in

the palace of Mantua, faring sumptuously, and being admitted to the

high, amiable, and intellectual society of nobles, ladies, and scholars.

This pleasant season was not, however, without relapses of his fearful

disease: the evil spirit came upon him at times, and all the enchantment

of his harp could not drive it away.

During several years afterwards, the poet wandered about, as his father

had done, from city to city, and from court to court, experiencing all

the vicissitudes of what is called fortune, but which, in his case,

appears to have been the lot which he chose and cut out for himself.

Princes were ever ready to open their doors to him, and wherever he was

known, he was honoured according to the reputation which he had so

painfully but unprofitably acquired; his patrons having only afforded

him hospitality while he abode with them, and booksellers having been

enriched at his expense by the spoils of his genius, in a country where

the property of literary men in their own works was little acknowledged

and less respected. His controversy with the _Della Cruscan_ academy

during his imprisonment, the members of which had invidiously prejudiced

the public mind against him, the living, whom their favour might have

benefited, by exalting Ariosto, the dead, whom their preference could

not serve,--while it grievously galled him, rather tended to spread the

knowledge, and, necessarily with that knowledge, the fame of his

"Gerusalemme," than permanently to injure his fair fame. But he himself,

from scruples of conscience and infirmity of mind, became dissatisfied

with it, and employed no small portion of his brief remaining life in

remodelling it, under the title of "Gerusalemme Conquistata,"--a scheme

in which he utterly miscarried. His last great poetical attempt, and

worthy of him in his palmy state, was a work on the creation, entitled

the "Sette Giornate" (the Seven Days), which he left unfinished. It was

composed in _versi scidti_, which nearly correspond to English blank

verse. There are many passages in this magnificent fragment, which were

evidently so familiar to Milton's mind, that he fell into the same

trains of thought, and imitated them in the style peculiar to himself,

repaying as much as he borrowed, "stealing and giving odours."

Tasso, soon tiring of Mantua, and even languishing for Ferrara, though

never permitted to return thither, wore away the residue of his

desultory life, principally at Bergamo, Florence, Rome, and Naples. In

the latter city (his sister being dead), when it was too late for him to

enjoy the possession of it, he recovered his mother's long-disputed

dowry, or such a portion of it as, at an earlier period, might have

rendered him independent of those eleemosynary supplies from precarious

hands, on which he generally subsisted. About the same time the pope

also settled a pension upon him, and consented to allow him the honour

of a coronation, such as had been granted to Petrarch, two centuries

before. But wealth and honour, such as mortal hands could confer or

withhold at pleasure, came too late for him. In his latter years, too,

he became acquainted with Manso, marquis of Villa, his last patron, and

his first biographer; known in this country as, in his old age,

befriending our Milton, then a youth, on his travels in Italy, as, in

his own youth, he had befriended Tasso sinking to the grave under

premature decay.

One of the most remarkable circumstances of the last days of Tasso was

the imagination, that he was occasionally visited by a spirit--not the

mischievous Robin-good-fellow of his prison, but a being of far higher

dignity, with whom, alone or in company, he could hold sublime and

preternatural discourse, though of the two interlocutors none present

could see or hear more than the poet himself, rapt into ecstasy, and

uttering language and sentiments worthy of one who, with his bodily, yet

marvellously enlightened eyes and purged ears, could distinguish the

presence and the voice of his mysterious visitant. Manso gives a strange

account of such an interview, when he himself stood by, yet perceived

nothing but the half-part which the poet acted in the scene.

"One day," says the marquis, "as we were sitting alone by the fire, he

turned his eyes towards the window, and held them a long time so

intensely fixed, that when I called him he did not answer. At last,

'Lo!' said he, the courteous spirit, which has come to talk with me;

lift up your eyes and you shall see the truth.' I turned my eyes thither

immediately; but though I looked as keenly as I could I beheld nothing

but the rays of the sun, which streamed through the window-panes into

the chamber. Meanwhile Torquato began to hold, with this unknown being,

a most lofty converse. I heard, indeed, and saw nothing but himself;

nevertheless his words, at one time questioning, and at another

replying, were such as take place between those who reason closely on

some important subject. * * * * Their discourse was marvellously

conducted, both in the sublimity of the topics, and a certain unwonted

manner of talking, that exalted myself into an ecstasy; so that I did

not dare to interrupt Torquato about the spirit which he had announced

to me, but which I could not see. In this way, while I listened between

transport and stupefaction, a considerable time elapsed; at length the

spirit departed, as I learned from the words of Torquato, who, turning

to me, said, 'From this day forward, all your doubts will be

removed.'--'Rather,' I replied, 'they are increased; for though I have

heard many wonderful things, I have seen nothing to dispel my doubts.'

He smiled, and said, 'You have seen and heard more of him than

perhaps--' here he broke off, and I, unwilling to trouble him, forbore

to ask further questions; as it was more likely that his visions and

frenzies would disorder my own mind, than that I should extirpate his

true or imaginary opinion."

Throughout the year 1594 the poet was so manifestly breaking down, both

in his bodily and mental faculties, that his early dissolution was

anticipated by all his friends. He arrived at Rome on the 10th of

November; when on being introduced to the pope, his holiness, in the

most condescending terms, told him that he intended to bestow upon him

"the crown of laurel, that from him it might receive as much honour as,

in times past, it had conferred on others." The winter proving very

tempestuous, the ceremonial was deferred till the succeeding spring. As

the time approached when all his dreams of ambition were to be thus

consummated, Tasso drooped daily both in spirits and in strength, so

that from the 10th of April, when he was seized with violent fever, no

hope could be entertained of preserving his life. Being informed of his

danger, he thanked the physician for communicating tidings so welcome.

Instead, then, of the vain glories of coronation in this world, he set

himself to prepare, according to his religious views, for his last

change to that eternal state, where nothing could avail him but to have

found that mercy, which is the only hope of sinful man beyond the grave.

On the 25th of April he quietly expired, with the words upon his lips

(of which the last were inaudible), "_Into thy hands, O Lord! I commend

my spirit._" He was aged fifty-one years.

The personal and poetical character of Tasso are so strikingly betokened

in the incidents of his life, that, in a memoir, necessarily so

circumscribed as the present, no further remark on either need be

introduced here. To enter into a critical examination of his writings,

which should at all do justice to their extent, their diversity and

their excellence, of various kinds whether in prose or verse, would

require a distinct essay, equal in length to the whole of this article.

This, however, is little to be regretted, for, of all the Italian poets,

Tasso is the best known in our country; indeed, he has been almost

naturalised, for his greatest work has been oftener translated than any

other continental poem,--so that the style, the story, the sentiments,

the actors, the scenes, the whole fable, with all its embellishments and

adjuncts, are better known to general readers than those of the "Faerie

Queene," and, perhaps, it may be said, than those of "Paradise Lost"

itself, except among that "fit audience," which, "though few," Spenser

and Milton must for ever "find," while English poetry holds its

place--and that the highest, hitherto--in the literature of Christendom.

Besides several inferior versions, those of the "Jerusalem Delivered,"

by Fairfax, Hoole, Hunt, and Wiffin, have each some peculiar merit,

though it must be confessed, that, in each, so far as regards the

diction, that peculiar merit belongs rather to the translation than to

the author, the grace and harmony of whose verse, unsurpassed in his own

language, is absolutely unapproachable in ours. Fairfax's version, in

the original stanza, is masculine and free; Hoole's, in the heroic

couplet, is easy and commonplace, but as a mere entertaining tale, the

most _readable_ of the four; Hunt's, in the same measure, may lay great

claim to indulgence for any defect in vigour, on the score of the

classic taste and learning which it displays. Wiffin's is unquestionably

the best; and it is his own fault that it is not as good as any

reasonable judge could desire a translation of Tasso to be: but, having

chosen to hamper himself, and to encumber his author, with the intricate

stanza of Spenser, containing an extra-Alexandrine line beyond the

Italian octave, he has been compelled to amplify his original _one

eighth_, which must deduct at least in the same proportion from the

compactness, precision, and symmetry of every corresponding section. How

could a master of versification like Mr. Wiffin, himself a genuine poet,

choose to run such a race, carrying such a weight? He has won it,

nevertheless, though not in the style that might have been wished; yet

he that shall hereafter beat him must be a rival, who, beyond the Alps,

would have been a worthy competitor with Tasso himself, had they been

countrymen and contemporaries.

[Footnote 37: The translation is from Dr. Black's valuable Life of

Tasso, from which other occasional quotations may be hereafter made,

with this brief but grateful acknowledgment.]

[Footnote 38: See note, page 117.]

[Footnote 39: It is curious and provoking to observe in how momentary

and contemptible a circumstance originated this enduring injury to the

reputation of one of the greatest poets by one of the greatest critics.

In a note to the clause in Satire IX., Boileau says, "_Un homme de

qualité fit un jour ce beau jugement en ma présence._" So, because "a

fool of quality" ("_un sot de qualité_," as he words it in the verse)

once happened to "say, in the hearing of a wit, that he preferred the

"Gerusalemme" to the "Æneid," "all Europe" has been made to "ring from

side to side," for a century and a half, with the _clinquant_ of Tasso

against the gold of Virgil.]

[Footnote 40: Milton, in the context, has manifestly imitated both Tasso

and Fairfax;--Tasso in the description of the angel's descent, and

Fairfax in the lively circumstance here quoted, and which is not in the

original:--

"On Libanon at first his foot he set,

_And shook his wings_, with rory May dews wet."

The "fragrance" is Milton's own; and here we have the process of one

thought, carried onward by three poets, to consummate beauty and

perfection in the last.]

[Footnote 41: Well might Collins, a kindred spirit, both in his powers

of song and in his "moody madness," thus celebrate the great Italian,

whose "Godfrey of Bulloigne" he only knew through Fairfax's

translation:--

----"In scenes, which, daring to depart

From sober truth, are still to nature true,

And call forth fresh delight to fancy's view,

The heroic muse employ'd her Tasso's art.

How have I trembled when, at Tancred's stroke,

Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd;

When each live plant with mortal accents spoke,

And the wild blast upheaved the vanish'd sword;

How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,

To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung!

Prevailing poet! _whose undoubting mind_

_Believed the magic wonders which he sung._"

_Ode on the Highland Superstitions._]