iii. 329) are exactly like one of the sublimest flights in the

Paradise Lost.

Tu per soffrir della cui luce i rai Si fan con l’ale i serafini un velo.

Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear: Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.

|Gaspara Stampa. Her love for Collalto.|

|Is ill-requited.|

|Her second love.|

12. The sorrows of Gaspara Stampa were of a different kind, but not less genuine than those of Rota. She was a lady of the Paduan territory, living near the small river Anaso, from which she adopted the poetical name of Anasilla. This stream bathes the foot of certain lofty hills, from which a distinguished family, the Counts of Collalto, took their appellation. The representative of this house, himself a poet as well as a soldier, and, if we believe his fond admirer, endowed with every virtue except constancy, was loved by Gaspara with enthusiastic passion. Unhappily she learned only by sad experience the want of generosity too common to man, and sacrificing, not the honour, but the pride of her sex, by submissive affection, and finally by querulous importunity, she estranged a heart never so susceptible as her own. Her sonnets, which seem arranged nearly in order, begin with the delirium of sanguine love; they are extravagant effusions of admiration, mingled with joy and hope; but soon the sense of Collalto’s coldness glides in and overpowers her bliss.[1150] After three years’ expectation of seeing his promise of marriage fulfilled, and when he had already caused alarm by his indifference, she was compelled to endure the pangs of absence by his entering the service of France. This does not seem to have been of long continuance; but his letters were infrequent, and her complaints, always vented in a sonnet, become more fretful. He returned, and Anasilla exults with tenderness, yet still timid in the midst of her joy.

Oserò io, con queste fide braccia, Cingerli il caro collo, ed accostare La mia tremante alla sua viva faccia?

But jealousy, not groundless, soon intruded, and we find her doubly miserable. Collalto became more harsh, avowed his indifference, forbade her to importune him with her complaints; and in a few months espoused another woman. It is said by the historians of Italian literature, that the broken heart of Gaspara sunk very soon under these accumulated sorrows into the grave.[1151] And such, no doubt, is what my readers expect, and (at least the gentler of them), wish to find. But inexorable truth, to whom I am the sworn vassal, compels me to say that the poems of the lady herself contain unequivocal proof that she avenged herself better on Collalto,--by falling in love again. We find the acknowledgment of another incipient passion, which speedily comes to maturity; and, while declaring that her present flame is much stronger than the last, she dismisses her faithless lover with the handsome compliment, that it was her destiny always to fix her affections on a noble object. The name of her second choice does not appear in her poems; nor has any one hitherto, it would seem, made the very easy discovery of his existence. It is true that she died young; “but not of love.”[1152]

[1150] In an early sonnet she already calls Collalto, “il Signor, _ch’io amo, e ch’io pavento_;” an expression descriptive enough of the state in which poor Gaspara seems to have lived several years.

[1151] She anticipated her epitaph, on this hypothesis of a broken heart, which did not occur.

Per amar molto, ed esser poco amata Visse e mori infelice; ed or quì giace La più fedel amante che sia stata. Pregale, viator, riposo e pace, Ed impara de lei si mal trattata A non seguire un cor crudo e fugace.

[1152] It is impossible to dispute the evidence of Gaspara herself in several sonnets, so that Corniani, and all the rest, must have read her very inattentively. What can we say to these lines?

Perchè mi par vedere a certi segni Ch’ordisci (Amor) nuovi lacci e nuove faci, E di ritrarme al giogo tuo t’ingegni.

And afterwards more fully:

Qual darai fine, Amor, alle mie pene, Se dal cinere estinto d’uno ardore Rinasce l’altro, tua mercè, maggiore, E si vivace a consumar mi viene? Qual nelle più felici e calde arene Nel nido acceso sol di vario odore D’una fenice estinta esce poi fuore Un verme, che fenice altra diviene. In questo io debbo à tuoi cortesi strali Che sempre è degno, ed onorato oggetto Quello, onde mi ferisci, onde m’assali. Ed ora è tale, e tanto, e sì perfetto, Ha tante doti alla bellezza eguali, Ch’ardor per lui m’è sommo alto diletto.

|Style of Gaspara Stampa.|

13. The style of Gaspara Stampa is clear, simple, graceful; the Italian critics find something to censure in the versification. In purity of taste, I should incline to set her above Bernardino Rota, though she has less vigour of imagination. Corniani has applied to her the well-known lines of Horace upon Sappho.[1153] But the fires of guilt and shame, that glow along the strings of the Æolian lyre, ill resemble the pure sorrows of the tender Anasilla. Her passion for Collalto, ardent and undisguised, was ever virtuous; the sense of gentle birth, though so inferior to his, as perhaps to make a proud man fear disparagement, sustained her against dishonourable submission.

E ben ver, che ’l desio, con che amo voi, E tutto d’onestà pieno, e d’Amore;[1154] Perchè altrimente non convien tra noi.[1155]

But not less in elevation of genius than in dignity of character, she is very far inferior to Vittoria Colonna, or even to Veronica Gambara, a poetess, who, without equalling Vittoria, had much of her nobleness and purity. We pity the Gasparas; we should worship, if we could find them, the Vittorias.

[1153] ... spirat adhuc amor, Vivuntque commissi calores Æoliæ fidibus puellæ.

Corniani, v. 212, and Salfi in Ginguéné, ix. 406, have done some justice to the poetry of Gaspara Stampa, though by no means more than it deserves. Bouterwek, ii. 150, observes only, viel Poesie zeigt sich nicht in diesen Sonetten; which, I humbly conceive, shows, that either he had not read them, or was an indifferent judge; and from his general taste I prefer the former hypothesis.

[1154] _Sic._ leg. onore?

[1155] I quote these lines on the authority of Corniani, v. 215. But I must own that they do not appear in the two editions of the Rime della Gaspara Stampa which I have searched. I must also add that, willing as I am to believe all things in favour of a lady’s honour, there is one very awkward sonnet among those of poor Gaspara, upon which it is by no means easy to put such a construction as we should wish.

|La Nautica, of Baldi.|

14. Among the longer poems which Italy produced in this period two may be selected. The Art of Navigation, La Nautica, published by Bernardino Baldi in 1590, is a didactic poem in blank verse, too minute sometimes and prosaic in its details, like most of that class, but neither low, nor turgid, nor obscure, as many others have been. The descriptions, though never very animated, are sometimes poetical and pleasing. Baldi is diffuse; and this conspires with the triteness of his matter to render the poem somewhat uninteresting. He by no means wants the power to adorn his subject, but does not always trouble himself to exert it, and is tame where he might be spirited. Few poems bear more evident marks that their substance had been previously written down in prose.

|Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso.|

15. Bernardo Tasso, whose memory has almost been effaced with the majority of mankind by the splendour of his son, was not only the most conspicuous poet of the age wherein he lived, but was placed by its critics, in some points of view, above Ariosto himself. His minor poetry is of considerable merit.[1156] But that to which he owed most of his reputation is an heroic romance on the story of Amadis, written about 1540, and first published in 1560. L’Amadigi is of prodigious length, containing 100 cantos, and about 57,000 lines. The praise of facility, in the best sense, is fully due to Bernardo. His narration is fluent, rapid, and clear; his style not in general feeble or low, though I am not aware that many brilliant passages will be found. He followed Ariosto in his tone of relating the story: his lines perpetually remind us of the Orlando; and I believe it would appear on close examination that much has been borrowed with slight change. My own acquaintance, however, with the Amadigi is not sufficient to warrant more than a general judgment. Ginguéné, who rates this poem very highly, praises the skill with which the disposition of the original romance has been altered and its canvas enriched by new insertions, the beauty of the images and sentiments, the variety of the descriptions, the sweetness, though not always free from languor, of the style, and finally recommends its perusal to all lovers of romantic poetry, and to all who would appreciate that of Italy.[1157] It is evident, however, that the choice of a subject become frivolous in the eyes of mankind, not less than the extreme length of Bernardo Tasso’s poem, must render it almost impossible to follow this advice.

[1156] “The character of his lyric poetry is a sweetness and abundance of expressions and images, by which he becomes more flowing and full (più morbido e più pastoso, metaphors not translatable by single English words) than his contemporaries of the school of Petrarch.” Corniani, v. 127.

A sonnet of Bernardo Tasso, so much admired at the time, that almost every one, it is said, of a refined taste had it by heart, will be found in Panizzi’s edition of the Orlando Innamorato, vol. i. p. 376, with a translation by a lady well known for the skill with which she has transferred the grace and feeling of Petrarch into our language. The sonnet, which begins, Poichè la parte men perfetta e bella, is not found in Gobbi or Mathias. It is distinguished from the common crowd of Italian sonnets in the sixteenth century by a novelty, truth, and delicacy of sentiment, which is comparatively rare in them.

[1157] Vol. v. p. 61-108. Bouterwek (vol. ii. 159), speaks much less favourably of the Amadigi, and, as far as I can judge, in too disparaging a tone. Corniani, a great admirer of Bernardo, owns that his _morbidezza_ and fertility have rendered him too frequently diffuse and flowery. See also Panizzi, p. 393, who observes that the Amadigi wants interest, but praises its imaginative descriptions as well as its delicacy and softness.

|Satirical and burlesque poetry; Aretin.|

16. The satires of Bentivoglio, it is agreed, fall short of those by Ariosto, though some have placed them above those of Alamanni.[1158] But all these are satires on the regular model, assuming at least a half-serious tone. A style more congenial to the Italians was that of burlesque poetry, sometimes poignantly satirical, but as destitute of any grave aim, as it was light and familiar, even to popular vulgarity, in its expression, though capable of grace in the midst of its gaiety, and worthy to employ the best master of Tuscan language.[1159] But it was disgraced by some of its cultivators, and by none more than Peter Aretin. The character of this profligate and impudent person is well known; it appears extraordinary that, in an age so little scrupulous as to political or private revenge, some great princes, who had never spared a worthy adversary, thought it not unbecoming to purchase the silence of an odious libeller, who called himself their scourge. In a literary sense, the writings of Aretin are unequal; the serious are for the most part reckoned wearisome and prosaic; in his satires a poignancy and spirit, it is said, frequently breaks out; and though his popularity, like that of most satirists, was chiefly founded on the ill-nature of mankind, he gratified this with a neatness and point of expression, which those who cared nothing for the satire might admire.[1160]

[1158] Ginguéné, ix. 198. Biogr. Univ. Tiraboschi, x. 66.

[1159] A canzon by Coppetta on his cat, in the twenty-seventh volume of the Parnaso Italiano, is rather amusing.

[1160] Bouterwek, ii. 207. His authority does not seem sufficient; and Ginguéné, ix. 212, gives a worse character of the style of Aretin. But Muratori (della Perfetta Poesia, ii. 284), extols one of his sonnets, as deserving a very high place in Italian poetry.

|Other burlesque writers.|

|Attempts at Latin metres.|

17. Among the writers of satirical, burlesque, or licentious poetry, after Aretin, the most remarkable are Firenzuola, Casa (one of whose compositions passed so much all bounds as to have excluded him from the purple, and has become the subject of a sort of literary controversy, to which I can only allude),[1161] Franco, and Grazzini, surnamed Il Lasco. I must refer to the regular historians of Italian literature for accounts of these, as well as for the styles of poetry called _macaronica_ and _pedantesca_, which appear wholly contemptible, and the attempts to introduce Latin metres, a folly with which every nation has been inoculated in its turn.[1162] Claudio Tolomei, and Angelo Costanzo himself, by writing sapphics and hexameters, did more honour to so strange a pedantry than it deserved.

[1161] A more innocent and diverting capitolo of Casa turns on the ill luck of being named John.

S’io avessi manco quindici o vent’anni, Messer Gandolfo, io mi sbattezzerei, Per non aver mai più nome Giovanni. Perch’io non posso andar pe’ fatti miei, Nè partirmi di qui per ir si presso Ch’io nol senta chiamar da cinque e sei.

He ends by lamenting that no alteration mends the name.

Mutalo, o sminuiscil, se tu sai, O Nanni, o Gianni, o Giannino, o Giannozzo, Come più tu lo tocchi, peggio fai, Che gli è cattivo intero, e peggior mozzo.

[1162] Macaronic verse was invented by one Folengo, in the first part of the century. This worthy had written an epic poem, which he thought superior to the Æneid. A friend, to whom he showed the manuscript, paid him the compliment, as he thought, of saying that he had _equalled_ Virgil. Folengo, in a rage, threw his poem into the fire, and sat down for the rest of his life to write Macaronics. Journal des Savans, Dec. 1831.

|Poetical translations.|

18. The translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid by Anguillara, seems to have acquired the highest name with the critics;[1163] but that of the Æneid by Caro is certainly the best known in Europe. It is not, however, very faithful, though written in blank verse, which leaves a translator no good excuse for deviating from his original; the style is diffuse, and, upon the whole, it is better that those who read it should not remember Virgil. Many more Italian poets ought, possibly, to be commemorated; but we must hasten forward to the greatest of them all.

[1163] Salfi (continuation de Ginguéné), x. 180. Corniani, vi. 113.

|Torquato Tasso.|

19. The life of Tasso is excluded from these pages by the rule I have adopted; but I cannot suppose any reader to be ignorant of one of the most interesting and affecting stories that literary biography presents. It was in the first stages of a morbid melancholy, almost of intellectual derangement, that the Gierusalemme Liberata was finished; it was during a confinement, harsh in all its circumstances, though perhaps necessary, that it was given to the world. Several portions had been clandestinely published, in consequence of the author’s inability to protect his rights; and even the first complete edition in 1581 seems to have been without his previous consent. In the later editions of the same year he is said to have been consulted; but his disorder was then at a height, from which it afterwards receded, leaving his genius undiminished, and his reason somewhat more sound, though always unsteady. Tasso died at Rome in 1595, already the object of the world’s enthusiastic admiration, rather than of its kindness and sympathy.

|The Jerusalem excellent in choice of subject.|

20. The Jerusalem is the great epic poem, in the strict sense, of modern times. It was justly observed by Voltaire, that in the choice of his subject Tasso is superior to Homer. Whatever interest tradition might have attached among the Greeks to the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector, was slight to those genuine recollections which were associated with the first crusade. It was not the theme of a single people, but of Europe; not a fluctuating tradition, but certain history; yet history so far remote from the poet’s time, as to adapt itself to his purpose with almost the flexibility of fable. Nor could the subject have been chosen so well in another age or country; it was still the holy war, and the sympathies of his readers were easily excited for religious chivalry; but, in Italy, this was no longer an absorbing sentiment; and the stern tone of bigotry, which perhaps might still have been required from a Castilian poet, would have been dissonant amidst the soft notes that charmed the court of Ferrara.

|Superior to Homer and Virgil in some points.|

21. In the variety of occurrences, the change of scenes and images, and of the trains of sentiment connected with them in the reader’s mind, we cannot place the Iliad on a level with the Jerusalem. And again, by the manifest unity of subject, and by the continuance of the crusading army before the walls of Jerusalem, the poem of Tasso has a coherence and singleness, which is wanting to that of Virgil. Every circumstance is in its place; we expect the victory of the Christians, but acknowledge the probability and adequacy of the events that delay it. The episodes, properly so to be called, are few and short; for the expedition of those who recall Rinaldo from the arms of Armida, though occupying too large a portion of the poem, unlike the fifth and sixth, or even the second and third books of the Æneid, is an indispensable link in the chain of its narrative.

|Its characters.|

22. In the delineation of character, at once natural, distinct, and original, Tasso must give way to Homer, perhaps to some other epic and romantic poets. There are some indications of the age in which he wrote, some want of that truth to nature, by which the poet, like the painter, must give reality to the conceptions of his fancy. Yet here also the sweetness and nobleness of his mind, and his fine sense of moral beauty are displayed. The female warrior had been an old invention, and few, except Homer, had missed the opportunity of diversifying their battles with such a character. But it is of difficult management; we know not how to draw the line between the savage virago, from whom the imagination revolts, and the gentler fair one, whose feats in arms are ridiculously incongruous to her person and disposition. Virgil first threw a romantic charm over his Camilla; but he did not render her the object of love. In modern poetry, this seemed the necessary compliment to every lady; but we hardly envy Rogero the possession of Bradamante, or Arthegal that of Britomart. Tasso alone, with little sacrifice of poetical probability, has made his readers sympathise with the enthusiastic devotion of Tancred for Clorinda. She is so bright an ideality, so heroic, and yet, by the enchantment of verse, so lovely, that no one follows her through the combat without delight, or reads her death without sorrow. And how beautiful is the contrast of this character with the tender and modest Erminia! The heroes, as has been hinted, are drawn with less power. Godfrey is a noble example of calm and faultless virtue, but we find little distinctive character in Rinaldo. Tancred has seemed to some rather too much enfeebled by his passion, but this may be justly considered as part of the moral of the poem.

|Excellence of its style.|

23. The Jerusalem is read with pleasure in almost every canto. No poem, perhaps, if we except the Æneid, has so few weak or tedious pages; the worst passages are the speeches, which are too diffuse. The native melancholy of Tasso tinges all his poem; we meet with no lighter strain, no comic sally, no effort to relieve for an instant the tone of seriousness that pervades every stanza. But it is probable, that some become wearied by this uniformity which his metre serves to augment. The _ottava rima_ has its inconveniences; even its intricacy, when once mastered, renders it more monotonous, and the recurrence of marked rhymes, the breaking of the sense into equal divisions, while they communicate to it a regularity that secures the humblest verse from sinking to the level of prose, deprive it of that variety which the hexameter most eminently possesses. Ariosto lessened this effect by the rapid flow of his language, and perhaps by its negligence and inequality; in Tasso, who is more sustained at a high pitch of elaborate expression than any great poet except Virgil, and in whom a prosaic or feeble stanza will rarely be found, the uniformity of cadence may conspire with the lusciousness of style to produce a sense of satiety in the reader. This is said rather to account for the injustice, as it seems to me, with which some speak of Tasso, than to express my own sentiments; for there are few poems of great length which I so little wish to lay aside as the Jerusalem.

24. The diction of Tasso excites perpetual admiration; it is rarely turgid or harsh; and though more figurative than that of Ariosto, it is so much less than that of most of our own or the ancient poets, that it appears simple in our eyes. Virgil to whom we most readily compare him, is far superior in energy, but not in grace. Yet his grace is often too artificial, and the marks of the file are too evident in the exquisiteness of his language. Lines of superior beauty occur in almost every stanza; pages after pages may be found, in which, not pretending to weigh the style in the scales of the Florentine academy, I do not perceive one feeble verse or improper expression.

|Some faults in it.|

25. The conceits so often censured in Tasso, though they bespeak the false taste that had begun to prevail, do not seem quite so numerous as his critics have been apt to insinuate; but we find sometimes a trivial or affected phrase, or, according to the usage of the times, an idle allusion to mythology, when the verse or stanza requires to be filled up. A striking instance may be given from the admirable passage where Tancred discovers Clorinda in the warrior on whom he has just inflicted a mortal blow--

La vide, e la conobbe; e restò senza E moto e senso----

The effect is here complete, and here he would have desired to stop. But the necessity of the verse induced him to finish it with feebleness and affectation. _Ahi vista! Ahi conoscenza!_ Such difficult metres as the ottava rima demand these sacrifices too frequently. Ariosto has innumerable lines of necessity.

|Defects of the poem.|

26. It is easy to censure the faults of this admirable poem. The supernatural machinery is perhaps somewhat in excess; yet this had been characteristic of the romantic school of poetry, which had moulded the taste of Europe, and is seldom displeasing to the reader. A still more unequivocal blemish is the disproportionate influence of love upon the heroic crusaders, giving a tinge of effeminacy to the whole poem, and exciting something like contempt in the austere critics, who have no standard of excellence in epic song but what the ancients have erected for us. But while we must acknowledge that Tasso has indulged too far the inspirations of his own temperament, it may be candid to ask ourselves, whether a subject so grave, and by necessity so full of carnage, did not require many of the softer touches which he has given it. His battles are as spirited and picturesque as those of Ariosto, and perhaps more so than those of Virgil; but to the taste of our times he has a little too much of promiscuous slaughter. The Iliad had here set an unfortunate precedent, which epic poets thought themselves bound to copy. If Erminia and Armida had not been introduced, the classical critic might have censured less in the Jerusalem; but it would have been far less also the delight of mankind.

|It indicates the peculiar genius of Tasso.|

27. Whatever may be the laws of criticism, every poet will best obey the dictates of his own genius. The skill and imagination of Tasso made him equal to descriptions of war; but his heart was formed for that sort of pensive voluptuousness which most distinguishes his poetry, and which is very unlike the coarser sensuality of Ariosto. He lingers around the gardens of Armida, as though he had been himself her thrall. The Florentine critics vehemently attacked her final reconciliation with Rinaldo in the twentieth canto, and the renewal of their loves; for the reader is left with no other expectation. Nor was their censure unjust; since it is a sacrifice of what should be the predominant sentiment in the conclusion of the poem. But Tasso seems to have become fond of Armida, and could not endure to leave in sorrow and despair the creature of his ethereal fancy, whom he had made so fair and so winning. It is probable that the majority of readers are pleased with this passage, but it can never escape the condemnation of severe judges.

|Tasso compared to Virgil;|

28. Tasso, doubtless, bears a considerable resemblance to Virgil. But, independently of the vast advantages which the Latin language possesses in majesty and vigour, and which render exact comparison difficult as well as unfair, it may be said that Virgil displays more justness of taste, a more extensive observation, and, if we may speak thus in the absence of so much poetry which he might have imitated, a more genuine originality. Tasso did not possess much of the self-springing invention which we find in a few great poets, and which, in this higher sense, I cannot concede to Ariosto; he not only borrows freely, and perhaps studiously, from the ancients, but introduces frequent lines from earlier Italian poets, and especially from Petrarch. He has also some favourite turns of phrase, which serve to give a certain mannerism to his stanzas.

|to Ariosto;|

29. The Jerusalem was no sooner published, than it was weighed against the Orlando Furioso, and neither Italy nor Europe have yet agreed which scale inclines. It is indeed one of those critical problems, that admit of no certain solution, whether we look to the suffrage of those who feel acutely and justly, or to the general sense of mankind. We cannot determine one poet to be superior to the other, without assuming premises which no one is bound to grant. Those who read for a stimulating variety of circumstances, and the enlivening of a leisure hour, must prefer Ariosto; and he is probably, on this account, a poet of more universal popularity. It might be said perhaps by some, that he is more a favourite of men, and Tasso of women. And yet, in Italy, the sympathy with tender and graceful poetry is so general, that the Jerusalem has hardly been less in favour with the people than its livelier rival; and its fine stanzas may still be heard by moonlight from the lips of a gondolier, floating along the calm bosom of the Giudecca.[1164]

[1164] The following passages may perhaps be naturally compared, both as being celebrated, and as descriptive of sound. Ariosto has however much the advantage, and I do not think the lines in the Jerusalem, though very famous, are altogether what I should select as a specimen of Tasso.

Aspri concenti, orribile armonia d’Alte querele, d’ululi, e di strida Della misera gente, che peria Nel fondo per cagion della sua guida, Istranamente concordat s’udia Col fiero suon della flamma omicida. Orland. Fur. c. 14.

Chiama gli abitator dell’ombre eterne Il rauco suon della tartarea tromba; Treman le spaziose atre caverne, E l’aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba. Nè si stridendo mai dalle superne Regioni del cielo il folgor piomba; Nè si scossa giammai trema la terra Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra. Gierus. Lib. c. 4.

In the latter of these stanzas there is rather too studied an effort at imitative sound; the lines are grand and nobly expressed, but they do not hurry along the reader like those of Ariosto. In his there is little attempt at vocal imitation, yet we seem to hear the cries of the suffering, and the crackling of the flames.

30. Ariosto must be placed much more below Homer, than Tasso falls short of Virgil. The Orlando has not the impetuosity of the Iliad; each is prodigiously rapid, but Homer has more momentum by his weight; the one is a hunter, the other a war-horse. The finest stanzas in Ariosto are fully equal to any in Tasso, but the latter has by no means so many feeble lines. Yet his language, though never affectedly obscure, is not so pellucid, and has a certain refinement which makes us sometimes pause to perceive the meaning. Whoever reads Ariosto slowly, will probably be offended by his negligence; whoever reads Tasso quickly, will lose something of the elaborate finish of his style.

|to the Bolognese painters.|

31. It is not easy to find a counterpart among painters for Ariosto. His brilliancy and fertile invention might remind us of Tintoret; but he is more natural, and less solicitous of effect. If indeed poetical diction be the correlative of colouring in our comparison of the arts, none of the Venetian school can represent the simplicity and averseness to ornament of language which belong to the Orlando Furioso; and it would be impossible, for other reasons, to look for a parallel in a Roman or Tuscan pencil. But with Tasso the case is different: and though it would be an affected expression to call him the founder of the Bolognese school, it is evident that he had a great influence on its chief painters, who came but a little after him. They imbued themselves with the spirit of a poem so congenial to their age, and so much admired in it. No one, I think, can consider their works without perceiving both the analogy of the place each hold in their respective arts, and the traces of a feeling, caught directly from Tasso as their prototype and model. We recognise his spirit in the sylvan shades and voluptuous forms of Albano and Domenichino, in the pure beauty that radiates from the ideal heads of Guido, in the skilful composition, exact design, and noble expression of the Caracci. Yet the school of Bologna seems to furnish no parallel to the enchanting grace and diffused harmony of Tasso; and we must, in this respect, look back to Correggio as his representative.

SECT. II.--ON SPANISH POETRY.

_Luis de Leon--Herrera--Ercilla--Camoens--Spanish Ballads._

|Poetry cultivated under Charles and Philip.|

32. The reigns of Charles and his son have long been reckoned the golden age of Spanish poetry; and if the art of verse was not cultivated in the latter period by any quite so successful as Garcilasso and Mendoza, who belonged to the earlier part of the century, the vast number of names that have been collected by diligent inquiry show, at least, a national taste which deserves some attention. The means of exhibiting a full account of even the most select names in this crowd are not readily at hand. In Spain itself, the poets of the age of Philip II., like those who lived under his great enemy in England, were, with very few exceptions, little regarded till after the middle of the eighteenth century. The Parnaso Español of Sedano, the first volumes of which were published in 1768, made them better known; but Bouterwek observes, that it would have been easy to make a better collection, as we do not find several poems of the chief writers, with which the editor seems to have fancied the public to be sufficiently acquainted. An imperfect knowledge of the language, and a cursory view of these volumes, must disable me from speaking confidently of Castilian poetry; so far as I feel myself competent to judge, the specimens chosen by Bouterwek do no injustice to the compilation.[1165]

[1165] “The merit of Spanish poems,” says a critic equally candid and well-informed, “independently of those intended for representation, consists chiefly in smoothness of versification and purity of language, and in facility rather than strength of imagination.” Lord Holland’s Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 107. He had previously observed that these poets were generally voluminous: “it was not uncommon even for the nobility of Philip IV.’s time (later of course than the period we are considering) to converse for some minutes in extemporaneous poetry; and in carelessness of metre, as well as in commonplace images, the verses of that time often remind us of the _improvisatori_ of Italy,” p. 106.

|Luis de Leon.|

33. The best lyric poet of Spain in the opinion of many, with whom I venture to concur, was Fra Luis Ponce de Leon, born in 1527, and whose poems were probably written not very long after the middle of the century. The greater part are translations, but his original productions are chiefly religious, and full of that soft mysticism which allies itself so well to the emotions of a poetical mind. One of his odes, De la Vida del Cielo, which will be found entire in Bouterwek, is an exquisite pieces of lyric poetry, which, in its peculiar line of devout aspiration, has perhaps never been excelled.[1166] But the warmth of his piety was tempered by a classical taste, which he had matured by the habitual imitation of Horace. “At an early age,” says Bouterwek, “he became intimately acquainted with the odes of Horace, and the elegance and purity of style which distinguish those compositions made a deep impression on his imagination. Classical simplicity and dignity were the models constantly present to his creative fancy. He, however, appropriated to himself the character of Horace’s poetry too naturally ever to incur the danger of servile imitation. He discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace in romantic measures of syllables and rhymes; more just feeling for the imitation of the ancients was never evinced by any modern poet. His odes have, however, a character totally different from those of Horace, though the sententious air which marks the style of both authors imparts to them a deceptive resemblance. The religious austerity of Luis de Leon’s life was not to be reconciled with the epicurism of the Latin poet; but notwithstanding this very different disposition of the mind, it is not surprising that they should have adopted the same form of poetic expression, for each possessed a fine imagination, subordinate to the control of a sound understanding. Which of the two is the superior poet, in the most extended sense of the word, it would be difficult to determine, as each formed his style by free imitation, and neither overstepped the boundaries of a certain sphere of practical observation. Horace’s odes exhibit a superior style of art; and from the relationship between the thoughts and images, possess a degree of attraction which is wanting in those of Luis de Leon; but, on the other hand, the latter are the more rich in that natural kind of poetry, which may be regarded as the overflowing of a pure soul, elevated to the loftiest regions of moral and religious idealism.”[1167] Among the fruits of these Horatian studies of Luis de Leon, we must place an admirable ode suggested by the prophecy of Nereus, wherein the genius of the Tagus, rising from its waters to Rodrigo, the last of the Goths, as he lay encircled in the arms of Cava, denounces the ruin which their guilty loves were to entail upon Spain.[1168]

[1166] P. 248.

[1167] P. 243.

[1168] This ode I first knew many years since by a translation in the poems of Russell, which are too little remembered, except by a few good judges. It has been surmised by some Spanish critics to have suggested the famous vision of the Spirit of the Cape to Camoens; but the resemblance is not sufficient, and the dates rather incompatible.

|Herrera.|

34. Next to Luis de Leon in merit, and perhaps above him in European renown, we find Herrera surnamed the divine. He died in 1578; and his poems seem to have been first collectively published in 1582. He was an innovator in poetical language, whose boldness was sustained by popularity, though it may have diminished his fame. “Herrera was a poet,” says Bouterwek, “of powerful talent, and one who evinced undaunted resolution in pursuing the new path which he had struck out for himself. The noble style, however, which he wished to introduce into Spanish poetry, was not the result of a spontaneous essay, flowing from immediate inspiration, but was theoretically constructed on artificial principles. Thus, amidst traits of real beauty, his poetry everywhere presents marks of affectation. The great fault of his language is too much singularity; and his expression, where it ought to be elevated, is merely far fetched.”[1169] Velasquez observes that, notwithstanding the genius and spirit of Herrera, his extreme care to polish his versification has rendered it sometimes unpleasing to those who require harmony and ease.[1170]

[1169] P. 229.

[1170] Geschichte der Spanischen Dichtkunst, p. 207.

35. Of these defects in the style of Herrera I cannot judge; his odes appear to possess a lyric elevation and richness of phrase, derived in some measure from the study of Pindar, or still more, perhaps, of the Old Testament, and worthy of comparison with Chiabrera. Those on the battle of Lepanto are most celebrated; they pour forth a torrent of resounding song, in those rich tones which the Castilian language so abundantly supplies. I cannot so thoroughly admire the ode addressed to sleep, which Bouterwek as well as Sedano extol. The images are in themselves pleasing and appropriate, the lines steal with a graceful flow on the ear; but we should desire to find something more raised above the commonplaces of poetry.

|General tone of Castilian poetry.|

36. The poets of this age belong generally, more or less, to the Italian school. Many of them were also translators from Latin. In their odes, epistles, and sonnets, the resemblance of style, as well as that of the languages, make us sometimes almost believe that we are reading the Italian instead of the Spanish Parnaso. There seem however to be some shades of difference even in those who trod the same path. The Castilian amatory verse is more hyperbolical, more full of extravagant metaphors, but less subtle, less prone to ingenious trifling, less blemished by verbal conceits than the Italian. Such at least is what has struck me in the slight acquaintance I have with the former. The Spanish poets are also more redundant in descriptions of nature, and more sensible to her beauties. I dare not assert that they have less grace and less power of exciting emotion; it may be my misfortune to have fallen rarely on such passages.

|Castillejo.|

37. It is at least evident that the imitation of Italy, propagated by Boscan and his followers, was not the indigenous style of Castile. And of this some of her most distinguished poets were always sensible. In the Diana of Montemayor, a romance which, as such, we shall have to mention hereafter, the poetry, largely interspersed, bears partly the character of the new, partly that of the old or native school. The latter is esteemed superior. Castillejo endeavoured to restore the gay rhythm of the redondilla, and turned into ridicule the imitators of Petrarch. Bouterwek speaks rather slightingly of his generally poetic powers; though some of his canciones have a considerable share of elegance. His genius, playful and witty, rather than elegant, seemed not ill-fitted to revive the popular poetry.[1171] But those who claimed the praise of superior talents did not cease to cultivate the polished style of Italy. The most conspicuous, perhaps, before the end of the century were Gil Polo, Espinel, Lope de Vega, Barahona de Soto, and Figueroa.[1172] Several other names, not without extracts, will be found in Bouterwek.

[1171] P. 267.

[1172] Lord Holland has given a fuller account of the poetry of Lope de Vega than either Bouterwek or Velasquez and Dieze; and the extracts in his “Lives of Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro,” will not, I believe, be found in the Parnaso Español, which is contrived on a happy plan of excluding what is best. Las Lagrimas de Angelica, by Barahona de Soto, Lord H. says, “has always been esteemed one of the best poems in the Spanish language,” vol. i. p. 33. Bouterwek says he has never met with the book. It is praised by Cervantes in Don Quixote.

The translation of Tasso’s Aminta, by Jauregui, has been preferred by Menage as well as Cervantes to the original. But there is no extraordinary merit in turning Italian into Spanish, even with some improvement of the diction.

|Araucana of Ercilla.|

38. Voltaire, in his early and very defective essay on epic poetry, made known to Europe the Araucana of Ercilla, which has ever since enjoyed a certain share of reputation, though condemned by many critics as tedious and prosaic. Bouterwek depreciates it in rather more sweeping a manner than seems consistent with the admissions he afterwards makes.[1173] A talent for lively description and for painting situations, a natural and correct diction, which he ascribes to Ercilla, if they do not constitute a claim to a high rank among poets, are at least as much as many have possessed. An English writer of good taste has placed him in a triumvirate with Homer and Ariosto for power of narration.[1174] Raynouard observes, that Ercilla has taken Ariosto as his model, especially in the opening of his cantos. But the long digressions and episodes of the Araucana, which the poet has not had the art to connect with his subject, render it fatiguing. The first edition, in 1569, contains but fifteen books; the second part was published in 1578, the whole together in 1590.[1175]

[1173] P. 407.

[1174] Pursuits of Literature.

[1175] Journal des Savans, Sept. 1824.

|Many epic poems in Spain.|

39. The Araucana is so far from standing alone in this class of poetry, that not less than twenty-five epic poems appeared in Spain within little more than half a century. These will be found enumerated, and, as far as possible, described and characterised, in Velasquez’s History of Spanish Poetry, which I always quote in the German translation with the valuable notes of Dieze.[1176] Bouterwek mentions but a part of the number, and a few of them may be conjectured by the titles not to be properly epic. It is denied by these writers, that Ercilla excelled all his contemporaries in heroic song. I find, however, a different sentence in a Spanish poet of that age, who names him as superior to the rest.[1177]

[1176] P. 376-407. Bouterwek, p. 413.

[1177] Oyle el estilo grave, el blando acento, Y altos concentos del varon famoso Que en el heroyco verso fue el primero Que honro a su patria, y aun quiza el postrero. Del fuerte Arauco el pecho altivo espanta _Don Alonso de Ercilla_ con el mano, Con ella lo derriba y lo levanta, Vence y honra venciendo al Araucano; Calla sus hechos, los agenos canta, Con tal estilo que eclipsó al Toscano: Virtud que el cielo para sí reserva Que en el furor de Marte esté Minerva.

La Casa de la Memoria, por Vicente Espinel, in Parnaso Espanol, viii. 352.

Antonio, near the end of the seventeenth century, extols Ercilla very highly, but intimates that some did not relish his simple perspicuity. Ad hunc usque diem ob iis omnibus avidissime legitur, qui facile dicendi genus atque perspicuum admittere vim suam et nervos, nativaque sublimitate quadam attolli posse, cothurnatumque ire non ignorant.

|Camoens.|

|Defects of the Lusiad.|

40. But in Portugal there had arisen a poet, in comparison of whose glory that of Ercilla is as nothing. The name of Camoens has truly an European reputation, but the Lusiad is written in a language not generally familiar. From Portuguese critics it would be unreasonable to demand want of prejudice in favour of a poet so illustrious, and of a poem so peculiarly national. The Æneid reflects the glory of Rome as from a mirror; the Lusiad is directly and exclusively what its name “The Portuguese” (Os Lusiadas) denotes, the praise of the Lusitanian people. Their past history chimes in, by means of episodes, with the great event of Gama’s voyage to India. The faults of Camoens, in the management of his fable and the choice of machinery, are sufficiently obvious; it is, nevertheless, the first successful attempt in modern Europe to construct an epic poem on the ancient model; for the Gierusalemme Liberata, though incomparably superior, was not written or published so soon. In consequence, perhaps, of this epic form, which, even when imperfectly delineated, long obtained, from the general veneration for antiquity, a greater respect at the hands of critics than perhaps it deserved, the celebrity of Camoens has always been considerable. In point of fame he ranks among the poets of the south, immediately after the first names of Italy; nor is the distinctive character that belongs to the poetry of the southern languages anywhere more fully perceived than in the Lusiad. In a general estimate of its merits it must appear rather feeble and prosaic; the geographical and historical details are insipid and tedious; a skilful use of poetical artifice is never exhibited; we are little detained to admire an ornamented diction, or glowing thoughts, or brilliant imagery; a certain negligence disappoints us in the most beautiful passages; and it is not till a second perusal, that their sweetness has time to glide into the heart. The celebrated stanzas on Inez De Castro are a proof of this.

|Its excellencies.|

41. These deficiencies, as a taste formed in the English school, or in that of classical antiquity, is apt to account them, are greatly compensated, and doubtless far more to a native than they can be to us, by a freedom from all that offends, for he is never turgid, nor affected, nor obscure, by a perfect ease and transparency of narration, by scenes and descriptions, possessing a certain charm of colouring, and perhaps not less pleasing from the apparent negligence of the pencil, by a style kept up at a level just above common language, by a mellifluous versification, and, above all, by a kind of soft languor which tones, as it were, the whole poem, and brings perpetually home to our minds the poetical character and interesting fortunes of its author. As the mirror of a heart so full of love, courage, generosity, and patriotism, as that of Camoens, the Lusiad can never fail to please us, whatever place we may assign to it in the records of poetical genius.[1178]

[1178] “In every language,” says Mr. Southey, probably, in the Quarterly Review, xxvii. 38, “there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the Sesame in the Arabian tale,--you may retain the meaning, but if the words be changed the spell is lost. The magic has its effect only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their mother tongue, hardly indeed upon any but those to whom it is really such. Camoens possesses it in perfection, it is his peculiar excellence.”

|Mickle’s translation.|

42. The Lusiad is best known in England by the translation of Mickle, who has been thought to have done something more than justice to his author, both by the unmeasured eulogies he bestows upon him, and by the more substantial service of excelling the original in his unfaithful delineation.[1179] The style of Mickle is certainly more poetical, according to our standard, than that of Camoens, that is, more figurative and emphatic; but it seems to me replenished with commonplace phrases, and wanting in the facility and sweetness of the original; in which it is well known that he has interpolated a great deal without a pretence.

[1179] Several specimens of Mickle’s infidelity in translation, which exceed all liberties ever taken in this way, are mentioned in the Quarterly Review.

|Celebrated passage in the Lusiad.|

43. The most celebrated passage in the Lusiad is that wherein the Spirit of the Cape, rising in the midst of his stormy seas, threatens the daring adventurer that violates their unploughed waters. In order to judge fairly of this conception, we should endeavour to forget all that has been written in imitation of it. Nothing has become more commonplace in poetry than one of its highest flights, supernatural personification; and, as children draw notable monsters when they cannot come near the human form, so every poetaster, who knows not how to describe one object in nature, is quite at home with a goblin. Considered by itself, the idea is impressive and even sublime. Nor am I aware of any evidence to impeach its originality, in the only sense which originality of poetical invention can bear; it is a combination which strikes us with the force of novelty, and which we cannot instantly resolve into any constituent elements. The prophecy of Nereus, to which we have lately alluded, is much removed in grandeur and appropriateness of circumstance from this passage of Camoens, though it may contain the germ of his conception. It is, however, one that seems much above the genius of its author. Mild, graceful, melancholy, he has never given in any other place signs of such vigorous imagination. And when we read these lines on the Spirit of the Cape, it is impossible not to perceive that, like Frankenstein, he is unable to deal with the monster he has created. The formidable Adamastor is rendered mean by particularity of description, descending even to yellow teeth. The speech put into his mouth is feeble and prolix; and it is a serious objection to the whole, that the awful vision answers no purpose but that of ornament, and is impotent against the success and glory of the navigators. A spirit of whatever dimensions, that can neither overwhelm a ship, nor even raise a tempest, is incomparably less terrible than a real hurricane.

|Minor poems of Camoens.|

44. Camoens is still, in his shorter poems, esteemed the chief of Portuguese poets in this age, and possibly in every other; his countrymen deem him their model, and judge of later verse by comparison with his. In every kind of composition then used in Portugal, he has left proofs of excellence. “Most of his sonnets,” says Bouterwek, “have love for their theme, and they are of very unequal merit; some are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness, others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learning, or full of tedious pictures of the conflicts of passion with reason. Upon the whole, however, no Portuguese poet has so correctly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens. Without apparent effort, merely by the ingenious contrast of the first eight with the last six lines, he knew how to make these little effusions convey a poetic unity of ideas and impressions, after the model of the best Italian sonnets, in so natural a manner, that the first lines or quartets of the sonnet excite a soft expectation, which is harmoniously fulfilled by the tercets or last six lines.”[1180] The same writer praises several other of the miscellaneous compositions of Camoens.

[1180] Hist. of Portuguese Literature, p. 187.

|Ferreira.|

45. But, though no Portuguese of the sixteenth century has come near to this illustrious poet, Ferreira endeavoured with much good sense, if not with great elevation, to emulate the didactic tone of Horace, both in lyric poems and epistles, of which the latter have been most esteemed.[1181] The classical school formed by Ferreira produced other poets in the sixteenth century; but it seems to have been little in unison with the national character. The reader will find as full an account of these as, if he is unacquainted with the Portuguese language, he is likely to desire, in the author on whom I have chiefly relied.

[1181] Id. p. 111.

|Spanish ballads.|

46. The Spanish ballads or romances are of very different ages. Some of them, as has been observed in another place, belong to the fifteenth century; and there seems sufficient ground for referring a small number to even an earlier date. But by far the greater portion is of the reign of Philip II., or even that of his successor. The Moorish romances, in general, and all those on the Cid, are reckoned by Spanish critics among the most modern. Those published by Depping and Duran have rarely an air of the raciness and simplicity which usually distinguish the poetry of the people, and seem to have been written by poets of Valladolid or Madrid, the contemporaries of Cervantes, with a good deal of elegance, though not much vigour. The Moors of romance, the chivalrous gentlemen of Granada, were displayed by these Castilian poets in attractive colours;[1182] and much more did the traditions of their own heroes, especially of the Cid, the bravest and most noble-minded of them all, furnish materials for their popular songs. Their character, it is observed by the latest editor, is unlike that of the older romances of chivalry, which had been preserved orally, as he conceives, down to the middle of the sixteenth century, when they were inserted in the Cancionero de Romances at Antwerp, 1555.[1183] I have been informed that an earlier edition printed in Spain has lately been discovered. In these there is a certain prolixity and hardness of style, a want of connection, a habit of repeating verses or entire passages from others. They have nothing of the marvellous, nor borrow anything from Arabian sources. In some others of the more ancient poetry there are traces of the oriental manner, and a peculiar tone of wild melancholy. The little poems scattered through the prose romance, entitled, Las Guerras de Granada, are rarely, as I should conceive, older than the reign of Philip II. These Spanish ballads are known to our public, but generally with inconceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lockhart.[1184]

[1182] Bouterwek, Sismondi, and others, have quoted a romance, beginning Tanta Zayda y Adalifa, as the effusion of an orthodox zeal, which had taken offence at these encomiums on infidels. Whoever reads this little poem, which may be found in Depping’s collection, will see that it is written more as a humorous ridicule on contemporary poets, than a serious reproof. It is much more lively than the answer, which these modern critics also quote. Both these poems are of the end of the sixteenth century. Neither Bouterwek nor Sismondi have kept in mind the recent date of the Moorish ballads.

[1183] Duran in preface to his Romancero of 1832. These Spanish collections of songs and ballads, called Cancioneros and Romanceros, are very scarce, and there is some uncertainty among bibliographers as to their editions. According to Duran, this of Antwerp contains many romances unpublished before and far older than those of the fifteenth century, collected in the Cancionero General of 1516. It does not appear, perhaps, that the number which can be referred with probability to a period anterior to 1400 is considerable, but they are very interesting. Among these are Los Fronterizos, or songs which the Castilians used in their incursions on the Moorish frontier. These were preserved orally, like other popular poetry. We find in these early pieces, he says, some traces of the Arabian style, rather in the melancholy of its tone than in any splendour of imagery, giving as an instance some lines quoted by Sismondi, beginning, “Fonte frida, fonte frida, Fonte frida y con amor,” which are evidently very ancient. Sismondi says (Littérature du Midi, iii. 240) that it is difficult to explain the charm of this little poem, but “by the tone of truth and the absence of all object;” and Bouterwek calls it very nonsensical. It seems to me that some real story is shadowed in it under images in themselves of very little meaning, which may account for the tone of truth and pathos it breathes.

The older romances are usually in alternate verses of eight and seven syllables, and the rhymes are _consonant_, or real rhymes. The _assonance_ is however older than Lord Holland supposes, who says (Life of Lope de Vega, vol. ii. p. 12), that it was not introduced till the end of the sixteenth century. It occurs in several that Duran reckons ancient.

The romance of the Conde Alarcos is probably of the fifteenth century. This is written in octosyllable consonant rhymes, without division of strophes. The Moorish ballads, with a very few exceptions, belong to the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., and those of the Cid, about which so much interest has been taken, are the latest, and among the least valuable of all. All these are, I believe, written on the principle of assonances.

[1184] An admirable romance on a bull-fight, in Mr. Lockhart’s volume, is faintly to be traced in one introduced in Las Guerras de Granada; but I have since found it much more at length in another collection. It is still, however, far less poetical than the English imitation.

SECT. III.--ON FRENCH AND GERMAN POETRY.

_French Poetry--Ronsard--His Followers--German Poets._

|French poets numerous.|

47. This was an age of verse in France; and perhaps in no subsequent period do we find so long a catalogue of her poets. Goujet has recorded not merely the names, but the lives, in some measure, of nearly two hundred, whose works were published in this half century. Of this number scarcely more than five or six are much remembered in their own country. It is possible indeed that the fastidiousness of French criticism, or their idolatry of the age of Louis XIV., and of that of Voltaire, may have led to a little injustice in their estimate of these early versifiers. Our own prejudices are apt of late to take an opposite direction.

|Change in the tone of French poetry.|

48. A change in the character of French poetry, about the commencement of this period, is referrible to the general revolution of literature. The allegorical personifications which, from the æra of the Roman de la Rose, had been the common field of verse, became far less usual, and gave place to an inundation of mythology and classical allusion. The _Désir_ and _Reine d’Amour_ of the older school became Cupid with his arrows and Venus with her doves; the theological and cardinal virtues, which had gained so many victories over _Sensualité_ and _Faux Semblant_, vanished themselves from a poetry which had generally enlisted itself under the enemy’s banner. This cutting off of an old resource rendered it necessary to explore other mines. All antiquity was ransacked for analogies; and, where the images were not wearisomely commonplace, they were absurdly far-fetched. This revolution was certainly not instantaneous; but it followed the rapid steps of philological learning, which had been nothing at the accession of Francis I., and was everything at his death. In his court, and in that of his son, if business or gallantry rendered learning impracticable, it was at least the mode to affect an esteem for it. Many names in the list of French poets are conspicuous for high rank, and a greater number are among the famous scholars of the age. These, accustomed to writing in Latin, sometimes in verse, and yielding a superstitious homage to the mighty dead of antiquity, thought they ennobled their native language by destroying her idiomatic purity.

|Ronsard.|

49. The prevalence however of this pedantry, was chiefly owing to one poet, of great though short-lived renown, Pierre Ronsard. He was the first of seven contemporaries in song under Henry II., then denominated the French Pleiad; the others were Jodelle, Bellay, Baif, Thyard, Dorat, and Belleau. Ronsard, well acquainted with the ancient languages, and full of the most presumptuous vanity, fancied that he was born to mould the speech of his fathers into new forms more adequate to his genius.

Je fis des nouveaux mots, J’en condamnai les vieux.[1185]

His style, therefore, is as barbarous, if the continual adoption of Latin and Greek derivatives renders a modern language barbarous, as his allusions are pedantic. They are more ridiculously such in his amatory sonnets; in his odes these faults are rather less intolerable, and there is a spirit and grandeur which show him to have possessed a poetical mind.[1186] The popularity of Ronsard was extensive; and, though he sometimes complained of the neglect of the great, he wanted not the approbation of those whom poets are most ambitious to please. Charles IX. addressed some lines to Ronsard, which are really elegant, and at least do more honour to that prince than anything else recorded of him; and the verses of this poet are said to have enlightened the weary hours of Mary Stuart’s imprisonment. On his death in 1586 a funeral service was performed in Paris with the best music that the king could command; it was attended by the Cardinal de Bourbon and an immense concourse; eulogies in prose and verse were recited in the university; and in those anxious moments, when the crown of France was almost in its agony, there was leisure to lament that Ronsard had been withdrawn. How differently attended was the grave of Spenser![1187]

[1185] Goujet, Bibliothéque Française xii. 199.

[1186] Id. 216.

[1187] Id. 207.

50. Ronsard was capable of conceiving strongly, and bringing his conceptions in clear and forcible, though seldom in pure or well-chosen language before the mind. The poem, entitled Promesse, which will be found in Auguis’s Recueil des Anciens Poëtes, is a proof of this, and excels what little besides I have read of this poet.[1188] Bouterwek, whose criticism on Ronsard appears fair and just, and who gives him, and those who belonged to his school, credit for perceiving the necessity of elevating the tone of French verse above the creeping manner of the allegorical rhymers, observes that, even in his errors, we discover a spirit striving upwards, disdaining what is trivial, and restless in the pursuit of excellence.[1189] But such a spirit may produce very bad and tasteless poetry. La Harpe, who admits Ronsard’s occasional beauties and his poetic fire, is repelled by his scheme of versification, full of _enjambemens_, as disgusting to a correct French ear as they are, in a moderate use, pleasing to our own. After the appearance of Malherbe, the poetry of Ronsard fell into contempt, and the pure correctness of Louis XIV.’s age was not likely to endure his barbarous innovations and false taste.[1190] Balzac not long afterwards turns his pedantry into ridicule, and admitting the abundance of the stream, adds that it was turbid.[1191] In later times more justice has been done to the spirit and imagination of this poet, without repealing the sentence against his style.[1192]

[1188] Vol. iv. p. 135.

[1189] Geschichte der Poësie, v. 214.

[1190] Goujet, 245. Malherbe scratched out about half from his copy of Ronsard giving his reasons in the margin. Racan, one day looking over this, asked whether he approved what he had not effaced. Not a bit more, replied Malherbe, than the rest.

[1191] Encore aujourd’hui il est admiré par les trois quarts du parlement de Paris, et géneralement par les autres parlemens de France. L’université et les Jesuites tiennent encore son part contre la cour, et contre l’académie.... Ce n’est pas un poëte bien entier, c’est le commencement et la matière d’un poëte. On voit, dans ses œuvres, des parties naissantes, et a demi animées, d’un corps qui se forme, et qui se fait, mais qui n’a garde d’estre achevé. C’est une grande source, il faut l’avouer; mais c’est une source troublée et boueuse; une source, où non seulement il y a moins d’eau que de limon, mais où l’ordure empêche de couler l’eau. Œuvres de Balzac, i. 670, and Goujet ubi supra.

[1192] La Harpe, Biogr. Univ.

|Other French poets.|

51. The remaining stars of the Pleiad, except perhaps Bellay, sometimes called the French Ovid, and whose “Regrets,” or lamentations for his absence from France during a residence at Rome, are almost as querulous, if not quite so reasonable, as those of his prototype on the Ister,[1193] seem scarce worthy of particular notice; for Jodelle, the founder of the stage in France, has deserved much less credit as a poet, and fell into the fashionable absurdity of making French out of Greek. Raynouard bestows some eulogy on Baif.[1194] Those who came afterwards were sometimes imitators of Ronsard, and, like most imitators of a faulty manner, far more pedantic and far-fetched than himself. An unintelligible refinement, that every nation in Europe seems in succession to have admitted into its poetry, has consigned much then written in France to oblivion. As large a proportion of the French verse in this period seems to be amatory as of the Italian; and the Italian style is sometimes followed. But a simpler and more lively turn of language, though without the naïveté of Marot, often distinguishes these compositions. These pass the bounds of decency not seldom; a privilege which seems in Italy to have been reserved for certain Fescennine metres, and is not indulged to the solemnity of the sonnet or canzone. The Italian language is ill-adapted to the epigram, in which the French succeed so well.[1195]

[1193] Goujet, xii. 128. Augis.

[1194] “Baif is one of the poets who, in my opinion, have happily contributed by their example to fix the rules of our versification.” Journal des Savans, Feb. 1825.

[1195] Goujet devotes three volumes, the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, of his Bibliothèque Française, to the poets of these fifty years. Bouterwek and La Harpe have touched only on a very few names. In the Recueil des Anciens Poëtes, the extracts from them occupy about a volume and a half.

|Du Bartas.|

52. A few may be selected from the numerous versifiers under the sons of Henry II. Amadis Jamyn, the pupil of Ronsard, was reckoned by his contemporaries almost a rival, and is more natural, less inflated and emphatic than his master.[1196] This praise is by no means due to a more celebrated poet, Du Bartas. His productions, which are numerous, unlike those of his contemporaries, turn mostly upon sacred history; but his poem on the Creation, called La Semaine, is that which obtained most reputation, and by which alone he is now known. The translation by Silvester has rendered it in some measure familiar to the readers of our old poetry; and attempts have been made, not without success, to show that Milton had been diligent in picking jewels from this mass of bad taste and bad writing. Du Bartas, in his style, was a disciple of Ronsard; he affects words derived from the ancient languages, or, if founded on analogy, yet without precedent, and has as little naturalness or dignity in his images as purity in his idiom. But his imagination, though extravagant, is vigorous and original.[1197]

[1196] Goujet, xiii. 229. Biogr. Univ.

[1197] Goujet, xiii. 304. The Semaine of Du Bartas was printed thirty times within six years, and translated into Latin, Italian, German, and Spanish, as well as English. Id. 312, on the authority of La Croix du Maine.

Du Bartas, according to a French writer of the next century, used methods of exciting his imagination which I recommend to the attention of young poets. L’on dit en France, que Du Bartas auparavant que de faire cette belle description de cheval ou il a si bien rencontré, s’enfermoit quelquefois dans une chambre, et se mettant à quatre pattes, souffloit, hennissoit, gambadoit, tirait des ruades, alloit l’amble, le trot, le galop, â courbette, et tachoit par toutes sortes de moyens à bien contrefaire le cheval. Naudé’s Considérations sur les Coups d’Estat. p. 47.

|Pibrac; Desportes.|

53. Pibrac, a magistrate of great integrity, obtained an extraordinary reputation by his quatrains; a series of moral tetrastichs in the style of Theognis. These first appeared in 1574, fifty in number, and were augmented to 126 in later editions. They were continually republished in the seventeenth century, and translated into many European and even oriental languages. It cannot be wonderful that, in the change of taste and manners, they have ceased to be read.[1198] An imitation of the sixth satire of Horace, by Nicolas Rapin, printed in the collection of Auguis is good and in very pure style.[1199] Philippe Desportes somewhat later chose a better school than that of Ronsard; he rejected its pedantry and affectation, and by the study of Tibullus, as well as by his natural genius, gave a tenderness and grace to the poetry of love which those pompous versifiers had never sought. He has been esteemed the precursor of a better æra; and his versification is rather less lawless,[1200] according to La Harpe, than that of his predecessors.

[1198] Goujet, xii. 266. Biogr. Univ.

[1199] Recueil des Poëtes, v. 361.

[1200] Goujet, xiv. 63. La Harpe. Auguis, v. 343-377.

|French metre and versification.|

54. The rules of metre became gradually established. Few writers of this period neglect the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes;[1201] but the open vowel will be found in several of the earlier. Du Bartas almost affects the _enjambement_, or continuation of the sense beyond the couplet; and even Desportes does not avoid it. Their metres are various; the Alexandrine, if so we may call it, or verse of twelve syllables, was occasionally adopted by Ronsard, and in time displaced the old verse of ten syllables, which became appropriated to the lighter style. The sonnets, as far as I have observed, are regular; and this form, which had been very little known in France, after being introduced by Jodelle and Ronsard, became one of the most popular modes of composition.[1202] Several attempts were made to naturalise the Latin metres; but this pedantic innovation could not long have success. Specimens of it may be found in Pasquier.[1203]

[1201] Grevin, about 1558, is an exception. Goujet, xii. 159.

[1202] Bouterwek, v. 212.

[1203] Recherches de la France, l. vii. c. 11. Baif has passed for the inventor of this foolish art in France, which was more common there than in England. But Prosper Marchand ascribes a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey into regular French hexameters to one Moysset, of whom nothing is known; on no better authority, however, than a vague passage of d’Aubigné, who “remembered to have seen such a