ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Ariosto: the greatest difference of these two poets is, that the adventures of the English poet are supported by shadowy characters, that set forth one continued allegory; whereas the Italian author gives a narrative of incidents, in which an allegory is only occasionally introduced. Hughes, in the preface to his edition of Spenser's works, prefers the Fairy Queen on this account, alleging, that, "though his fable is often wild, yet it is always emblematical." But, perhaps, upon appealing to the sensations of the reader, Ariosto may even, for this very reason, be found to have the preference; as it will admit of some doubt, whether the constant allegory does not considerably weaken the pathetic effect of the narrative: for what sympathy can we experience, as men, for the misfortunes of an imaginary being, whom we are perpetually reminded to be only the type of some moral, or religious virtue?

With regard to the fables contained in the Italian poets and the old romance writers, the same critic before cited has the following observations, containing an opinion which had been started before by Gravina.

"The writers of the old romances, from whom Ariosto and Spenser have borrowed so largely, are supposed to have had copious imaginations; but may they not be indebted for their invulnerable heroes, their monsters, their enchantments, their gardens of pleasure, their winged steeds, and the like, to the Echidna, to the Circe, to the Medea, to the Achilles, to the Syrens, to the Harpies, to the Phryxus, to the Bellerophon of the ancients? The cave of Polypheme might furnish out the ideas of their giants, and Andromeda might give occasion för stories of distressed damsels on the point of

being devoured by dragons, and delivered at such a critical season by their favourite knights. Some faint traditions of the ancients might have been kept glimmering and alive through the whole barbarous ages, as they are called; and it is not impossible but these have been the parents of the Genii in the eastern, and the Fairies in the western world. To say that Amadis and Sir Tristan have a classical foundation, may at first sight appear paradoxical; but if the subject were examined to the bottom, I am inclined to think that the wildest chimeras in these books of chivalry, with which Don Quixote's library was furnished, would be found to have a close connexion with ancient mythology*.

But although Ariosto's poem is acknowledged to be defective in plan and regularity, yet every particular beauty of the highest species of poetry is to be found in the several parts of it, in which respect Boyardo is greatly deficient, who seldom attains more than to amuse the imagination by the pleasing variety of his fictions. But I must not here omit to take notice of one noble passage in the Inamorato, where the encounter of Orlando and Agrican is compared to the meeting of two thunder clouds. Our great Milton has the same simile in the second book of Paradise Lost, when Satan and Death prepare to engage. The Orlando Furioso may be considered as an Epic, formed on the manners of chivalry. Where the subject of Ariosto rises, Tasso does not appear with greater dignity.

All the battles and single combats in Ariosto are excellent in the last he is greatly superior to Tasso, and

* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. ii. page 3.

indeed to most other poets; for in this respect there appears some defect even in the poems of Homer and Virgil, in which there are few good descriptions of this kind. Our own countryman, Spenser, has succeeded best in these passages, for which perhaps he is not a little indebted to the Italian.

Though the general battles of the Iliad and Æneid are supported with wonderful fire, and every circumstance of terror inimitably introduced to keep the mind suspended and anxious for the event, yet those great poets do not seem to have attended, in the same manner, to the single encounters of their heroes, the issue of which, being generally soon determined, or at least foreseen, seldom raises much anxiety for the fate of the combatants. Virgil, it is true, has improved upon Homer, and the last important action, between Æneas and Turnus, in the x11th book, is conducted with more judgment than any single combat in the Iliad.

Homer, indeed, introduces the duel between Hector and Ajax with unexampled sublimity: but when the combatants meet, how soon is the conflict over, and how little are the readers kept in suspense!

Tasso has imitated this combat, with its attendant circumstances; and however he may fall short of his great original in some parts, he certainly has the advantage with respect to such particulars as tend to aggran dize the valour of his heroes.

I shall produce one more instance from Homer to support the foregoing assertion. When the mind has been long prepared for an engagement between the two great heroes of the poem, how must the expectation be excited from the idea of such a combat! But here, I

[blocks in formation]

believe, every unprejudiced reader will confess his disappointment, where Hector is represented flying at the mere sight of Achilles; and when, after having been thrice chased round the walls of Troy, he turns, at the instigation of Pallas, to engage his enemy, how little appears the prowess of the gallant Hector, who had so often stood the bulwark of his country; of that Hector who, notwithstanding the united efforts of an army, had set fire to the Grecian fleet, and whom the poet had opposed to Neptune himself!

:

The last combat of Tancred and Argantes in the XIXth book of the Jerusalem, excels every similar passage in the Iliad or Eneid: in the Italian poet the mind is kept in suspense for the event; and the several turns of fortune, between the two combatants, are well ima→ gined at the same time it must be confessed, that Tasso has not always shewn equal judgment: he has sometimes, through a partial reverence for the examples of antiquity, followed his Greek master to a fault; amongst other instances, the death of Solyman by the hand of Rinaldo, in the xxth book, must in some sort offend the reader, like that of Hector by Achilles.

If we peruse Ariosto attentively, we shall find him free from every objection of this kind: his great art, in these rencounters, is to keep up the attention between hope and fear, and when he has involved the reader in distress for the danger of some favourite warrior, he, by an unexpected turn, relieves the anxiety he has raised, and gives victory to the seemingly conquered party.

Nor will our poet be found deficient in the tender and pathetic, which every reader of taste must acknowledge, when he peruses the stories of Zerbino and Brandimart,

the episode of Cloridan and Medoro, and more especially the detail of Orlando's madness in the xx1d Book, wherein the author has displayed the most intimate acquaintance with the human heart.

the

From the general plan of Ariosto's fable, which admits

agency of necromancers, witches, spirits, and other preternatural powers, it will be easily expected, that the marvellous should be carried to an excessive length; and yet many of his fictions are not more incredible than those of the Greek and Latin poets. The metamorphosis of the ships to nymphs, in the Eneid, is as violent a machine as the leaves to ships in the Orlando. The stories of the Italian poet are not more extravagant, than the legendary tales of the saints, which were currently believed in his time, and are still objects of faith with the vulgar. Yet let it not be supposed, that this apology for Ariosto, which respects the times in which he wrote, is meant as a general defence for such kind of fictions, critically, or even poetically considered, for some of these the warmest of Ariosto's admirers must give up as not to be defended.

Yet, while we candidly allow the force of objection to such passages of Ariosto as are justly reprehensible, let us not adopt the fastidious pedantry of those French critics, who, having little taste for the works of imagination of other nations, and no examples of such in their own, were continually declaiming against the false style, extravagant conceits, and absurd fictions, of the Italian poets, principally Ariosto and Tasso. Father Bouhours, in many respects an excellent and judicious critic, has undoubtedly produced several exceptionable passages in their writings; but has too hastily given the following

« 前へ次へ »