GASPARA STAMPA.
[1500.]
HALLAM.
HE was a lady of the Paduan territory, living near the small river Anaso, from which she adopted the poetical name of Anasilla. This stream bathes the foot of certain lofty hills, from which a distinguished family, the counts of Collalto, took their appellation. The representative of this house, himself a poet as well as soldier—and, if we believe his fond admirer, endowed with every virtue except constancy—was loved by Gaspara with enthusiastic passion. Unhappily she learned, only by sad experience, the want of generosity too common to man; and sacrificing, not the honour, but the pride of her sex, by submissive affection, and finally by querulous importunity, she estranged a heart never so susceptible as her own. Her sonnets, which seem arranged nearly in order, begin with the delirium of sanguine love. They are extravagant effusions of admiration, mingled with joy and hope; but soon the sense of Collalto's coldness glides in and overpowers her bliss. After three years of expectation of seeing his promise fulfilled, and when he had already caused alarm by his indifference, she was compelled to endure the pangs of absence, by his entering the service of France. This does not seem to have been of long continuance; but his letters were infrequent, and her complaints, always vented in a sonnet, become more fretful. He returns, and Anasilla exults with tenderness, but still timid in the midst of her joy.
But jealousy, not groundless, soon intruded, and we find her doubly miserable. Collalto became more harsh, avowed his indifference, forbade her to importune him with her complaints, and in a few months espoused another woman. It is said by the historian of Italian literature, that the broken heart of Gaspara sunk very soon under these accumulated sorrows into the grave; and such, no doubt, is what my readers expect, and, at least the gentler of them, wish to find. But inexorable truth, to whom I am the sworn vassal, compels me to say that the poems of the lady herself contain unequivocal proofs that she avenged herself better on Collalto by falling in love again. We find the acknowledgment of another incipient passion, which speedily comes to maturity; and while declaring that her present flame is much stronger than the last, she dismisses her faithless lover with the handsome compliment, that it was her destiny always to fix her affections on a noble object. The name of her second choice does not appear in her poems, nor has any one hitherto, it would seem, made the very easy discovery of his existence. It is true that she died young, but not of love.
The style of Gaspara Stampa is clear, simple, graceful. The Italian critics find something to censure in the versification. In purity of taste I should incline to set her above Bernardino Rota, though she has less vigour of imagination. Corniano has applied to her the well-known lines of Horace upon Sappho. But the fires of guilt and shame that glow along the strings of the Æolian lyre ill resemble the pure sorrows of the tender Anasilla. Her passion for Collalto, ardent and undisguised, was ever virtuous; the sense of gentle birth, though so inferior to his as perhaps to make a proud man fear disparagement, sustained her against dishonourable submission. But, not less in elevation of genius than in dignity of character, she is very inferior to Vittoria Colonna, or even to Veronica Gambara, a poetess who, without equalling Vittoria, had much of her nobleness and purity. We pity the Gasparas. We should worship, if we could find them the Vittorias.
