Tasso com. pared to Virgil; to Ariosto; 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 may 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. 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 Guidecca.* *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 Nel fondo per cagion della sua guida, Istranamente concordar s' udia Chiama gli abitator dell' ombre eterne 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 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 Bolognese 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 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. 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. Louis de Leon · Herrera Ercilla Camoens Poetry culti Charles and Spanish Ballads. 32. THE reigns of Charles and his son have long been reckoned the golden age of Spanish poetry; and if vated under the art of verse was not cultivated in the latter Philip. 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 superior 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. * "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 common-place images, the verses of that time often remind us of the improvisatori of Italy." p. 106. Leon. 33. The best lyric poet of Spain in the opinion of many, with whom I venture to concur, was Fra Luis Ponce Luis de 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 piece of lyric poetry, which, in its peculiar line of devout aspiration, has perhaps never been excelled. * 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 • p. 248. 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." * 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 Gothic kings, as he lay encircled in the arms of Cava, denounces the ruin which their guilty loves were to entail upon Spain. † 34. Next to Luis de Leon in merit, and perhaps above him in European renown, we find Herrera, surHerrera. named 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 novel 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 every where 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." 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. § 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 * p. 243. 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 § Geschichte der Spanischen Dichtkunst, p. 207. |