And, while repeating it, I recollected that the epithet black [nero,] is not suitable, since an adust soil is rather white than black, and the dark colour of the ground is a proof of fatness and humidity. I again fell asleep, and, in a dream, I read in Strabo, that the sand of Ethiopia and of Arabia is extremely white, and this morning I have found the place. You see what learned dreams I have; but as to the verse, which is in the last canto, it will be necessary to change it, and to say, E i due, che manda il più fervente suolo."* In the same letter,* Tasso mentions another doubt which had occurred in a dream, with regard to the correctness of a verse in his Jerusalem. From these passages it appears, that the muse visited "his slumbers nightly," and that he was not less anxious about poetic beauty than natural truth. We learn still farther, that the mind of our poet, exhausted by extreme labour, excited by the fictions which the nature of its employment made it necessary to conjure up, irritated by opposition, and enflamed by passion, was gradually losing its voluntary power, and was progressively sinking under the influence of diseased perceptions, and of feverish illusions. CHAP IX. A.D. 1575. Aet, 31. †The two sent there by the most fervid soil. Ger. lib. Can. XX. St. 23. CHAPTER X. Jealousies of the families of Este and of Medici.-Explanation which this affords of a circumstance relating to Ariosto, and of some events in the life of Tasso.-Our poet visits Rome and Florence. His verses to Leonora, Countess of Scandiano. -A second revision of his poem is begun.—He is made Historiographer of the family of Este. Awkward situation in which this places him. CHAP. X. A. D. 1575. A. D. 1575 - 1576. AET. 31-32. THERE are two great problems in the life of Tasso; the first of which is, the cause or causes which led to his profound and sometimes frantic melancholy; the second is the completely altered conduct of the duke of Ferrara. That prince, as we shall soon see, appears to have lost all regard for his once favoured poet and panegyrist; and treated him for many years, not merely with harshness, but even with barbarity. Of this latter circumstance, the following seems 3 A.D. 1575. the most natural account, and it is introduced here as in CHAP. X. some degree affording a thread, to conduct through the labyrinth of succeeding events. The princes of the house of Este had always looked with jealousy and dislike on the comparatively upstart family of the Medici, who, as the action and reaction of sentiment is equal and contrary, returned with undiminished energy the aversion they inspired. The two pontiffs of the family of Medici had also, for political reasons, been extremely hostile to the dukes of Ferrara; especially Leo X., who persecuted the first Alphonso with the most unrelenting severity. For a considerable time before the reformation, almost every pope had endeavoured to extend the domain of the church, or, what was still more common, to erect a principality for one of his family, from the spoils of some of the petty princes of Italy. Leo imitated his predecessor, the turbulent Julius II. in selecting the states of Alphonso for the subject of his pillage; he not only retained Reggio and Modena, but wished to deprive him of Ferrara itself; nor was he satisfied with employing against him the fair ecclesiastical weapon of excommunication, but even, if we may believe Muratori, endeavoured to procure his assassination. * It has often been won Aet. 31. Jealousies of the families of Medici. * Antichità Estensi, vol. II. p. 323. "Conoscendo che Ferrara ben fortificata da lui (Alfonso 1.) era osso troppo duro da rodere, e che le insidie passate erano andate a voto, ricorse (Leone X.) ad un vilissimo mezzo, di cui l'animo grande di Papa Giulio non sarebbe stato capace, e fu di tentare di far assassinare Alfonso. Mi vergognerei Io di riferir cose cotanto ripugnanti al decoro di chi sostenteva la più riverita dignità del Crsitianesimo, se il famoso Storico F. Guicciardino, ufficiale del medesimo Papa Leone, e CHAP. X. A. D. 1575. a circumstance in the life of Ariosto. dered at, that Leo, who was such a promoter of literature, should have bestowed no reward on his acquaintance Ariosto, a circumstance of which the explanation is easy. That Explanation of poet was a most zealous servant of the prince so detested by the pontiff; his whole poem was filled with praises of the house of Ferrara, so that little was to be hoped from a person, who, to the political and literary jealousy of his family, united private hatred against the immortalized patrons of the enchanting bard. In such circumstances, the "holy kiss," and the usual concession of a bull for the publication of his poem, was fully as much as Ariosto had reason to expect. * Governatore di Modena, e mischiato innocentemente nell' affare, concorde anche in ciò con gli Storici Ferraresi, non avesse tanto tempo fa, levato il velo a tentativo si enorme." On the death of Leo, Alphonso I. struck a medal, with his own head on one side, and on the other a man who draws a lamb from the mouth of a lion rampant, with the motto from 1 Kings, C. XVII. 37. DE MANU LEONIS. Clement VII. succeeded Leo X. in hatred to the family of Este; and, amongst other schemes of offence, formed the plan of attacking" All' improvviso di notte Ferrara allorchè la peste faceva ivi strage." Ant. Est. tom. II. p. 354. * Piegossi a me dalla beata Sede, La mano, e poi le gote ambe mi prese, Ariosto, Satira, 4ta. When first I knelt before his sacred feet, Aet. 31. Alphonso II. the patron of Tasso, had, before his marriage CHAP. X. with Barbara of Austria, espoused in early youth Lucretia, A. D. 1575, daughter of Cosmo de Medici. That lady did not live long ; and, owing to certain circumstances, this marriage, instead of cementing, only widened the breach between the two courts. But what principally disgusted the duke of Ferrara, and, in a person of his haughty disposition, fermented rage into malignity, was a violent dispute about precedence, which had for several years subsisted between him and Cosmo his father-in-law. This, after the keenest contest, had been lately, and, it would appear, unjustly, given against him by Pius V., who conferred on his rival the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany. The rancour which this occasioned in the lofty mind of Alphonso (who thus seemed to have fallen from the elevation of his ancestors,) is scarcely to be conceived; Nay more, the common bull allow'd with ease, And I, much favour'd man! discharg'd the fees. The Ferrarese poet had seen so much of papal pretension, that he seems to have lost some of his orthodoxy, and in his Limbo of Vanity in the Moon, places the famous deed of Constantine, upon which the Roman pontiffs founded so much. The passage is to be found in Orlando Furioso, Canto 34. St. 80., and is thus translated by Milton: And to be short, at last his guide him brings |