in the remarkable revival of a poetical and artistic spirit which has pervaded France during the last ten years, the Lyric Drama will not have its share of benefit, would be a morose and uncalled-for despondency; but let not Paris be made too earnest and too profound to enjoy and maintain her Opéra Comique. The times are not such as enable us to dispense with Mirth and Fancy, and never do they move more pleasantly in conjunction than when they call upon Music to give them language, and a Frenchwoman-no matter what be her age-to interpret them to the public.

We have now done. It is needless, we trust, in closing this very rapid and imperfect sketch, to remind the reader, that to give an entire outline of a subject so wide has been impossible in so limited a space. If but a few points have been laid down, which, when combined by the thinker, offer our idea of the leading characteristics of Italian, German and French Opera, the proposed task is accomplished. There is hope in every school as regards the future. The limited powers of the human voice, which must of necessity have a principal share in the entertainment, will restrain the wildest instrumentalist who wishes to impose the vast mechanical improvements of the age in extravagant proportions upon the dramatist and the singer. Neither is it to be reasonably feared that Sense-in-Song will die Tarpeia's death, and be smothered beneath the caparisons and trappings of Spectacle. There has been nothing since so outrageously magnificent in its pomps and vanities as Domenico Freschi's 'Berenice,' produced at Padua in 1680, with its chorus of a hundred virgins and a hundred soldiers, a hundred performers on divers instruments, riding and walking, with lions, elephants, "six coaches for the procession," and, to crown the whole, a stupendous globe descending from the heaven, "on which were seen allegorical figures of Fame, Honour, Nobility, Virtue and Glory." These glories have long since mouldered; but not so the gentler sympathies awakened by 'La Sonnambula' and Fidelio' and 'Le Philtre.' On these we have a reliance to keep Music from utterly falling into the hands of the property-man and the ballet-master, whether in Italy, Germany or France.

257

ARTICLE VII.

1. Orlando Innamorato di Bojardo; Orlando Furioso di Ariosto : with an Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians, Memoirs and Notes, by ANTONIO PANIZZI. London: Pickering, 1830-1834. 9 vols. 8vo.

2. Matteo Maria Boyardo's Grafen von Scandiano, Verliebter Roland. Zum erstenmale verdeutscht und mit Anmerkungen versehen von J. D. GRIES. Stuttgart, 18351839, 4 vols. 8vo.

3. L'Orlando Innamorato, di Matteo Maria Bojardo (per cura del Dottor Adolfo Wagner). Lipsia, 1833. 4to.

4. Zur Geschichte der italienischen Poesie, von RANKE. (Gelesen in der Akademie der Wissenschaften am 5 Nov. 1835.) Berlin, 1837. 4to.

THE titles of the works mentioned at the head of this article are set forth in their chronological order of publication, and, for reasons which will appear in the course of our observations, we shall speak of them in the same order. It is not a little curious, that these editions, either of the poems of two ancient and famous bards, or of observations on their writings as well as on those of some of their most distinguished countrymen, should be the production of the German and English press, most of the observations themselves written in German or in English; the latter language being preferred even by the Italian editor and author of the volumes mentioned before the others. This is as creditable to the Italian scholars of Germany and of England as it is disgraceful to the natives, who seem to have forgotten Bojardo, whom Ariosto avowedly followed and not seldom imitated.

In the essay which Mr. Panizzi has prefixed to his edition of the two Orlandos, he has first of all endeavoured to account for the origin of this sort of poems, and his theory is briefly as follows. The earliest historians are poets who sing the feats of arms, more particularly of the warriors of heroic VOL. XII.-No. XXIII.

S

or chivalrous ages; and these poems are transmitted to posterity.

"The songs in honour of heroes being, in fact, the national annals, the descendants of those thus celebrated were anxious for the preservation of such records. The nation at large had an equal interest in perpetuating the memory of ancient glories, as the most powerful means of exciting the descendants to imitate their forefathers. Hence, in the earliest ages, the praises of heroes were made the means of awakening noble emulation, and were sung at the moment of attacking an enemy. This preservation of the songs commemorative of ancient warriors, was one of the occupations of Charlemagne.

"From these popular songs the long prose romances have been derived, and to the latter the Italian poets were indebted for the subjects of their poems. The poetical romances of any length and well-ascertained antiquity, are but improvements on the originals now lost, which must necessarily have been brief, since the committing them to writing would have cost more trouble and expense than most men could afford, and the only means whereby they could have been preserved was to learn them by heart. The fact of the prose romances having been taken from old popular songs is so repeatedly avowed even in the books themselves, that no doubt can be reasonably entertained on the subject. And even were it not thus openly admitted, the bulky black-letter volumes afford sufficient internal evidence of it. The rhymes in question passing thus from mouth to mouth were subject to many alterations, partly owing to the ignorance, and partly to the fancy of the minstrels who sang them; not unfrequently attributing the feats of one hero to another; shortening or extending the lay, or adding to it lines from some other ballad*. Thus it is that in old romances we are often perplexed by finding the same hero the son of different fathers, or living in two different countries, or even in two ages widely distant. On the other hand, it seems inexplicable how writers could so unblushingly copy from each other some of the most important events concerning their respective heroes. A striking illustration of this remark may be seen in the madness of Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristram.

"The ancient songs being short, those who turned them into prose, and formed a long book from them, were obliged to make a kind of patchwork of their materials, in the best way possible, without much regard to the sources from whence such materials were taken. Hence subjects the most various, from several small poems, were arranged side by side, without any previous connexion having subsisted between them. This will account for the piece-meal peculiarity of the old romances (the Amadis excepted). No kind of order is observed in these compositions; and frequently the hero, from whom the work takes its name, is more rarely mentioned than many others in the book. Moreover, the prose romances, written in this style, abound in sudden starts and transitions from one subject to another; and

* Sir W. Scott,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' vol. iii. p. 269.

we have reason to be grateful when the author deigns to apprise us of his intentions to change the subject. We must be content if he does not enter on a topic altogether new, or recur to that which he so abruptly broke off, just when, after great trouble, we were becoming familiar with it. Writing, as these compilers professedly did, to reduce into prose the stories which were already recorded in verse, and fearful lest they might be suspected of altering their text, they often referred to their originals, whether this were requisite or not; sometimes even for the purpose of sanctioning some alteration which they took the liberty to introduce. This will explain the formula so frequently to be met with at every other line: or dit le conte, or dit l'histoire, or dit le livre,' &c. The popular story-tellers and romancers took, at a still later period, their compositions from these disjointed prose volumes, and by a rigorous adherence to the forms there adopted, the romanesque narrative poems gradually acquired a peculiar character, and constituted a distinct species of epopee. Their unconnectedness, their frequent interruptions, and their quotations from Turpin or Alcuin are thus accounted for."-Essay, p. 29, et seq.

With respect to the Carlovingian heroes celebrated by the Italian poets, there is direct evidence that lays existed celebrating them. There were songs respecting Oel, Count of Nantes, as also Charlemagne himself, and Roland, which, being mentioned by writers of the twelfth and thirteenth century, must have been of considerable antiquity*. The deeds of Charlemagne were preferred to those of Arthur (of whose exploits, however, songs as old as those respecting Charlemagne are recorded†) because the wars made by Charlemagne against the Saracens rendered his name venerable as the champion of Christianity, and popular with those whom he had successfully led against a ruthless and implacable enemy; whilst his victories had given him a fearful and heroic fame. The traditions respecting Charlemagne, Orlando, and Olivieri possessed moreover a national interest in Italy, which was not equally felt in the traditions respecting Arthur§, from which, however, many hints, episodes, ornaments, and secondary stories are taken ||. Another reason of the popularity of the Carlovingian events and traditions was, that the Italians were considered to have taken a considerable part in

† Essay, p. 55.

* Essay, pp. 26, 54, and 148. Essay, p. 50. "Fiovo alcuna volta udiva biasimare il re Artù perchè non avea acquistati molti paesi e fattoli fare Cristiani."—Reali di Francia, lib.i.cap.23. Essay, p. 49. The Reali di Francia, according to the romance of this name, originated from Italians. | Essay, p. 48.

them, a circumstance which has escaped Mr. Panizzi's attention. In the poem La Spagna (c. 22), we read that the city of Pamplona had been in vain besieged by Charlemagne and his heroes, when the Lombards, led by Desiderio, their king, joined the besiegers with ten thousand horsemen and twenty thousand carpenters or engineers, who made so many engines of war, that by their assistance a breach was made and the fortress stormed by the Italians alone, to the great astonishment of the rest of the army. This is probably taken from the first crusade, in which it is recorded that Jerusalem was chiefly conquered owing to the engines of war made by the Italians*. With respect to the romances concerning Charlemagne, Mr. Panizzi thinks there are peculiar historical grounds for supposing that the lays relating to several individuals were applied only to one. These grounds are, 1st, the succession of French sovereigns of the name of Charles, who are still frequently perplexing; 2nd, their making war against infidels of various kinds, although at different times, at the same place, and against chiefs of the same name. The Lombards did not join Charlemagne against the Saracens, but they did join Charles Martel, and assisted him in driving the Saracens from the coasts of the Mediterranean and in chastising the faithless vassals, who, like Lupus at Roncesvalle, in the time of Charlemagne, had betrayed their religion and their country to the Saracens.

"The name Rinaldo, or Rinaldus, or Reginaldus, is very common in the earlier Carlovingian annals. A count of that name is mentioned in history, but he lived later than Charlemagne, having been killed in 843, under Charles the Bald. But for this circumstance his history agrees very well with what we know of the Rinaldo of the romancers. He was a distinguished chieftain under the banner of Charles, was from Aquitania, bore the title of Count of Nantest, and fell in a battle against the Britons, in which the Franks were defeated with great loss. The cause of this disaster was the treachery of Lambertus, or Lantbertus, who went over to the enemy. The name Lambertus occurs before this, in the annals of Charles the Bald, and of his father, under whom he appears to have enjoyed credit and power,

*Guilel. Tyr. lib. viii. ch. 10.

Close to Ancenis, to the west of Nantes, is Clairmont, and on the east, at the mouth of the Villaine, we find, La Roche Bernard. Rinaldo's family name was Clairmont (Chiaramonte), and Bernard of Clairmont or Clermont was his grandfather.