pen at such an advanced age, but whose writings more frequently appeal to the imagination, than judgment of his reader: I have formerly had occasion to combat some of his strictures on Tasso *; and we have a pregnant instance of his criticisms in his several attacks on Shakespeare, which have been exposed in a most elegant and judicious dissertation on the genius of that immortal poet +.

A remarkable letter remains of Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato, in which there is this passage: "Ne so io s'Aristotele nascesse a questo età e vedesse il vaghissimo poema del' Ariosto, conoscendo la forza del uso, e vedendo che tanto diletta, come l'esperienza si dimostra, mutasse opinione, e consentisse che si potesse far poema eroico di piu azzione. Con la sua mirabil dottrina e giudicio, dandogli nova norma e prescrivuondogli novi leggi .

Giuseppe Malatesta published a Dialogue on the New Poetry, or a Defence of the Furioso, and undertook to show, that this poem was composed agreeably to the several rules of poetry, and that it excelled the beauties of Homer and Virgil.

The only poem we have in English of the Gothic romance kind, is the FAIRY QUEEN of Spenser; a poet, whose story and style bear the nearest resemblance to

* See preface to the translation of Tasso.

+ Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare.

I question if Aristotle had been born in our times to have seen the poem of Ariosto, and had experienced the wonderful de light afforded by the perusal, whether he would not have altered his sentiments, and agreed that an heroic poem might consist of more than one action, and whether his admirable judgment would not have extended the poetic license, and given new laws for epic poetry.

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 for 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 neid 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 aggrandize 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

believe, every unprejudiced reader will confess his dis appointment, 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 Æneid: in the Italian poet the mind is kept in susperse for the event; and the several turns of fortune, between the two combatants, are well imagined at the same time it must be confessed, that Tasso has not always shewn équal 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 hook, 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,