CHAPTER V. CHAP. V. Torquato studies Law at Padua, but is disgusted with that employment.-Writes his Rinaldo.-Reflections on this poem.— Is permitted by his father to print it, and to abandon the study of law.-Resides at Bologna, and plans his Jerusalem. Reflections on the Crusades, and on their peculiar fitness as a subject of poetical embellishment. Torquato leaves Bologna and returns to Padua.-Visits his father at Mantua.-Writes at Padua his Discourses on Heroic Poetry.-Is received into the service of the Cardinal Lewis of Este. IN a former chapter it has been mentioned, that Torquato went to Padua in the beginning of November 1560, being aged sixteen years and a half. * As his father had experienced of how little effect the study of poetry, or the service of princes, was to the attainment of independence, he *Page 61. 3 CHAP. V. Aet. 16. wished him to compensate the loss of patrimony by engaging in some lucrative but learned profession. The study of A.D. 1560. law has always been much followed in Italy, as there is much employment given to its professors in the different states of that country, and as it paves the way, not only to high civil, but to great ecclesiastical, honours. Much attention is paid in Italy to one great branch of law, the canon, or that which relates to ecclesiastical jurisprudence ; a study which is comparatively little pursued in other countries. Accordingly, to law the greater number of young men. of talents or family have applied themselves; and almost all the eminent poets of that country, as Petrarch, Ariosto, Marino, and in later times Metastasio, have been won by the muses from this pursuit.* Montesquieu had not yet ap * The verses in which Ariosto (in the sixth of his satires) bewails the time he had spent in the study of law, are extremely beautiful, and were probably often conned over by Torquato during the first year of his residence at Padua. "Ahi lasso, quando ebbi al Pegaseo melo (Non che con sproni) a volger testi, e chiose, Ma poichè vide poco fruttuose L'opre, ed il tempo in van gittarsi, dopo Alas! when eager for the vocal string, peared, and connected jurisprudence with philosophy, so that it must have seemed a mere collection of detached opinions, repulsive by its sterility to the poetical, and by its want of certainty, to the scientific mind. In general, indeed, Long ere the tender down had yet began To bloom upon my cheek, and promise man; In vain, five tedious years quite thrown away; He dropp'd at last the long contested cause. CROKER. It was no doubt from a consideration of the intellectual hardships suffered by his fa vourite Italian poets in this matter, that Milton, in his fine poem to his father, thanks him for his forbearance. "Nec rapis ad leges, malé custoditaque gentis Ad Patrem, v. 71. Nor did you force me, mid the bar's hoarse throng, To gather riches from a nation's wrong: To higher hopes you bade me lift my mind, And leave the town, and civic din behind; Mid sweet retreats, where streams Aonian glide, You plac'd me happy by Apollo's side. On all occasions, indeed, Milton speaks of the study of law with indignation or contempt. "Some allured to the trade of law, (says he in his Tractate of Education) grounding their purposes, not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, CHAP. V. A. D. 1560. the municipal laws of every country are a mass of opinions, not a collection of truths; a farrago of regulations, adopted Aet. 16. to meet the exigencies of the moment, without any reference to the law of nature. In addition to this, nothing can be more disagreeable, either to a poetical or philosophical mind, than the bustle of business, and the chicanery of the bar; while the sale of opinion, or at least of assertion, has a considerable tendency to injure, not the radical principle, or great branches, but certainly the fine etherial blossom, and (if I may use the expression) the Mimosa delicacy of moral sentiment. gusted with law. Torquato attended the lectures of Guido Panciroli, a ci- Torquato disvilian of very considerable eminence. But he now began to be tormented at once by the activity of his genius, and by that appetite for fame which, before it is gratified, renders the aspiring youth a burden to himself. Nature, who has adapted ends to means, has perhaps given a thirst for celebrity in proportion to the power of acquiring it; and the young poet, glowing with enthusiasm, and with hope, beheld before him the laurels for which he sighed, without seeing the serpents which basked amidst their leaves. "An which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees." Tasso is much better humoured, but still he does not view with a very favourable eye his juvenile employment. "Dubbio sono (says he in one of his letters) se la cognizion delle Leggi sia scienza, alle quali nella prima mia gioventù, prima chio studiassi filosofia, attesi un anno; anzi per dir vero pendo all' opinione, ch' ella non sia scienza." Opere, vol. X. p. 271. CHAP. V. A. D. 1560. Writes his Rinaldo. 1561. Aet. 17. inward prompting (as Milton tells us of himself *) now grew daily upon❞ him," that, by labour and intense study, joined with the strong propensity of nature," he " might perhaps leave something so written to after times, as they should not willingly let it die." The taste of the age, the example of his father, his own inclination, and the boldness of his fancy, led him to the composition of a romantic poem. Like his great English compeer just mentioned, his “ younger feet" had "wandered among those lofty fables which recount, in solemn cantos, the deeds of knighthood;" nor would it perhaps be easy to determine which of the two was better acquainted with the history of all those occurrences which never had occurred. To his poem Torquato gave the title of Rinaldo, from the name of the Paladin whose atchievements it describes; and certainly, if we consider the youth of the author, and the short time in which it was composed, it is the most wonderful work that ever was written by man. It was finished in 1561, amidst the distraction of other studies, in the short space of ten months; this the young poet tells us himself in his preface, and he appeals for the proof of his assertion to the testimony of several gentlemen of distinction. At the conclusion of the poem, too, Torquato takes occasion to lament the difficult circumstances in which it was composed, alludes to his early age, and pays a high *P. Works, vol. I. p. 120. |