52. Parte, e porta un desio d'eterna, ed alma Gir fra i nemici: ivi ò cipresso, ò palma Acquistar per la fede, ond' è campione ; Fuor d'incognito fonte il Nilo move.* CHAP. XXIV. A. D. * Aet. * But, above all, the principal charm of the Jerusalem De- Armida livered, is the enchantress Armida, and the adventures and events to which she gives birth. Never did the imagination conceive a woman so bewitching; never did genius array with such seducing charms an ideal being. Her boldness in undertaking the preservation of her faith; her arts in the attempt; these arts yielding to her love for Rinaldo; her ge A. D. Aet. * CHAP.XXIV. nius, her vivacity, her profound sensibility, affect, in the strongest degree, the fancy and the heart. The enchantresses of other poets; the Alcina of Ariosto, and Duessa of Spenser, are foul and filthy hags; and Tasso seems, first of the romantic poets, to have perceived that there is no witchery so powerful, as natural and virgin grace. In every country, Armida, and the gardens of Armida, are proverbial terms for beauty and delight; and there is no reader of sensibility, who does not adopt, or at least confess the justness of the sentiments which Quinault, in his opera on this subject, puts into the mouth of the enamoured Rinaldo: Tasso's paintings of the spiritual world. Que j'etois insensé de croire Qu'un vain laurier, donné par la victoire, De tous les biens fut le plus precieux! Est il un bien si charmant, et si rare, Que celui dont l'Amour veut combler mon espoir? * To an English reader, some of Tasso's paintings of the spiritual world may, perhaps, seem mean, owing to the elevation of our ideas of this kind, by the sublime pictures which have been pourtrayed by the genius of Milton. This, however, can only apply to his description of the Devil, and the infernal scenes; for the angels of Tasso are beautiful as those of Raphael, and have evidently been the principal study of * Acte 5, Scene 1. CHAP. XXIV. Aet. the English poet. What vision of the Paradise Lost is more happily conceived, or more exquisitely delineated, than A.D.** the picture of Gabriel, in the first canto of the Jerusalem, or the descent of Michael, in the ninth. Tasso, has indeed, in the description of his Devil, injured the picture, by some disgusting strokes, but it was not his object to exhibit that being as the rival of the Omnipotent. Satan is not, as in the Paradise Lost, the principal character of the Jerusalem; nor was it the purpose of the poet to depict him as sublime, but horrible. Nevertheless, he has raised the leader of the infernal regions higher than Michael Angelo, or any painter or poet who preceded him, and has described him as towering, terrible, and majestic as Atlas. One of the commentators, indeed, of Tasso, apologises for his attributing majesty to the Devil; nor is it probable, that, if he had conceived an idea of this being similar to that of Milton, that he would have dared to embody it.* In the Jerusalem Delivered, however, the speech of Lucifer is equally dignified with any in the Paradise Lost; and from it, the English poet has manifestly derived several of those dauntless sentiments and proud resolves, which wake alternately our pity and admiration for the fallen angel. * Non è fuor di proposito (says Beni, in his Commentary on the Jerusalem, p. 511,) avvertir' in questo luogo che non si turba il decoro nel darsi maestà à Lucifero, posciache nell' istesso tempo si deturpa chiamandola horrida. If the revisors of Tasso raised such an outcry about his adoption of the word Mago, what would they have said if that poet had made an exalted hero of the Devil? CHAP. XXIV, A. D. * Aet, * Ah non fia ver; che non sono anco estinti Rimase a noi d'invitto ardir la gloria.* Of the enemies of the reputation of Tasso, one of the most formidable has been Boileau, who, though he confesses, in his Art of Poetry, that this writer has de son livre illustré l'Italie, has a most illiberal verse on the subject in the ninth of his satires. For this line the satyrist has been often reproached by Voltaire, and by other critics of sensibility: but it received, in this country, both notoriety and authority from Addison, whose critical discernment was quite subdued by Bouhours, Boileau, Bossu, and other French writers, the fashionable Aristarchi of those days. My reflections on this subject, I shall subjoin to a passage taken from Bishop Hurd's Remarks on the Plan and Conduct of the Faerie Queene, which, though of considerable length, is so connect * Oh be nothen the courage fled away, That courage proud, which in your breasts prevail'd, I grant, we fell-I grant, oppress'd we lay, Canto IV. Stanza 15. A. D. * Admiration great authors have had for the Jerusalem. ed with the topics I am now treating of, and so important, CHAP. XXIV. that I should deem myself unpardonable not to give it a place in the Appendix.* Meanwhile, I may remark, that, if Tasso's merit is to be decided by his popularity, his admirers can point out an hundred and sixty editions of the Jerusalem, and above forty translations; if it is to be estimated by authority, his glory is equally secure. We have already seen the admiration which Voltaire entertained for the which many Italian bard, an admiration which appears in a great number of passages in his works. "With regard to the Iliad," says he, in his Essay on Universal History," let each reader consult his feelings, and tell us what would be his opinion upon the first reading of this poem, and that of Tasso, without knowing the names of the authors, and the period at which they wrote, but determining only by the pleasure be received from each. Could he avoid giving the preference to Tasso in every respect? Would he not find in the Italian more conduct, interest, variety, exactness, graces, and that tenderness which gives relief to the sublime?—In a few ages hence, I question whether they will even be compared."+ * Appendix, (No. XXXVII.) A l'égard de l'Iliade, que chaque lecteur se demande à lui-même ce qu'il penserait s'il lisait pour la première fois ce pöeme et celui du Tasse, en ignorant les noms des auteurs, et les temps où ces ouvrages furent composés, en ne prenant enfin pour juge que son plaisir. Pourrait-il ne pas donner en tout sens la préférence au Tasse? ne trouverait-il pas dans l'Italien plus de conduite, d'interêt, de variété, de justesse, de grâces, et |