Superior to Homer and Virgil in some points. 21. In the variety of occurrences, the change of scenes and images, and of the trains of sentiment connected with them in the reader’s mind, we cannot place the Iliad on a level with the Jerusalem. And again, by the manifest unity of subject, and by the continuance of the crusading army before the walls of Jerusalem, the poem of Tasso has a coherence and singleness, which is wanting to that of Virgil. Every circumstance is in its place; we expect the victory of the Christians, but acknowledge the probability and adequacy of the events that delay it. The episodes, properly so to be called, are few and short; for the expedition of those who recall Rinaldo from the arms of Armida, though occupying too large a portion of the poem, unlike the fifth and sixth, or even the second and third books of the Æneid, is an indispensable link in the chain of its narrative.
Its characters. 22. In the delineation of character, at once natural, distinct, and original, Tasso must give way to Homer, perhaps to some other epic and romantic poets. There are some indications of the age in which he wrote, some want of that truth to nature, by which the poet, like the painter, must give reality to the conceptions of his fancy. Yet here also the sweetness and nobleness of his mind, and his fine sense of moral beauty are displayed. The female warrior had been an old invention, and few, except Homer, had missed the opportunity of diversifying their battles with such a character. But it is of difficult management; we know not how to draw the line between the savage virago, from whom the imagination revolts, and the gentler fair one, whose feats in arms are ridiculously incongruous to her person and disposition. Virgil first threw a romantic charm over his Camilla; but he did not render her the object of love. In modern poetry, this seemed the necessary compliment to every lady; but we hardly envy Rogero the possession of Bradamante, or Arthegal that of Britomart. Tasso alone, with little sacrifice of poetical probability, has made his readers sympathise with the enthusiastic devotion of Tancred for Clorinda. She is so bright an ideality, so heroic, and yet, by the enchantment of verse, so lovely, that no one follows her through the combat without delight, or reads her death without sorrow. And how beautiful is the contrast of this character with the tender and modest Erminia! The heroes, as has been hinted, are drawn with less power. Godfrey is a noble example of calm and faultless virtue, but we find little distinctive character in Rinaldo. Tancred has seemed to some rather too much enfeebled by his passion, but this may be justly considered as part of the moral of the poem.
Excellence of its style. 23. The Jerusalem is read with pleasure in almost every canto. No poem, perhaps, if we except the Æneid, has so few weak or tedious pages; the worst passages are the speeches, which are too diffuse. The native melancholy of Tasso tinges all his poem; we meet with no lighter strain, no comic sally, no effort to relieve for an instant the tone of seriousness that pervades every stanza. But it is probable, that some become wearied by this uniformity which his metre serves to augment. The ottava rima has its inconveniences; even its intricacy, when once mastered, renders it more monotonous, and the recurrence of marked rhymes, the breaking of the sense into equal divisions, while they communicate to it a regularity that secures the humblest verse from sinking to the level of prose, deprive it of that variety which the hexameter most eminently possesses. Ariosto lessened this effect by the rapid flow of his language, and perhaps by its negligence and inequality; in Tasso, who is more sustained at a high pitch of elaborate expression than any great poet except Virgil, and in whom a prosaic or feeble stanza will rarely be found, the uniformity of cadence may conspire with the lusciousness of style to produce a sense of satiety in the reader. This is said rather to account for the injustice, as it seems to me, with which some speak of Tasso, than to express my own sentiments; for there are few poems of great length which I so little wish to lay aside as the Jerusalem.
24. The diction of Tasso excites perpetual admiration; it is rarely turgid or harsh; and though more figurative than that of Ariosto, it is so much less than that of most of our own or the ancient poets, that it appears simple in our eyes. Virgil to whom we most readily compare him, is far superior in energy, but not in grace. Yet his grace is often too artificial, and the marks of the file are too evident in the exquisiteness of his language. Lines of superior beauty occur in almost every stanza; pages after pages may be found, in which, not pretending to weigh the style in the scales of the Florentine academy, I do not perceive one feeble verse or improper expression.
Some faults in it. 25. The conceits so often censured in Tasso, though they bespeak the false taste that had begun to prevail, do not seem quite so numerous as his critics have been apt to insinuate; but we find sometimes a trivial or affected phrase, or, according to the usage of the times, an idle allusion to mythology, when the verse or stanza requires to be filled up. A striking instance may be given from the admirable passage where Tancred discovers Clorinda in the warrior on whom he has just inflicted a mortal blow—
La vide, e la conobbe; e restò senza
E moto e senso——
The effect is here complete, and here he would have desired to stop. But the necessity of the verse induced him to finish it with feebleness and affectation. Ahi vista! Ahi conoscenza! Such difficult metres as the ottava rima demand these sacrifices too frequently. Ariosto has innumerable lines of necessity.
Defects of the poem. 26. It is easy to censure the faults of this admirable poem. The supernatural machinery is perhaps somewhat in excess; yet this had been characteristic of the romantic school of poetry, which had moulded the taste of Europe, and is seldom displeasing to the reader. A still more unequivocal blemish is the disproportionate influence of love upon the heroic crusaders, giving a tinge of effeminacy to the whole poem, and exciting something like contempt in the austere critics, who have no standard of excellence in epic song but what the ancients have erected for us. But while we must acknowledge that Tasso has indulged too far the inspirations of his own temperament, it may be candid to ask ourselves, whether a subject so grave, and by necessity so full of carnage, did not require many of the softer touches which he has given it. His battles are as spirited and picturesque as those of Ariosto, and perhaps more so than those of Virgil; but to the taste of our times he has a little too much of promiscuous slaughter. The Iliad had here set an unfortunate precedent, which epic poets thought themselves bound to copy. If Erminia and Armida had not been introduced, the classical critic might have censured less in the Jerusalem; but it would have been far less also the delight of mankind.
It indicates the peculiar genius of Tasso. 27. Whatever may be the laws of criticism, every poet will best obey the dictates of his own genius. The skill and imagination of Tasso made him equal to descriptions of war; but his heart was formed for that sort of pensive voluptuousness which most distinguishes his poetry, and which is very unlike the coarser sensuality of Ariosto. He lingers around the gardens of Armida, as though he had been himself her thrall. The Florentine critics vehemently attacked her final reconciliation with Rinaldo in the twentieth canto, and the renewal of their loves; for the reader is left with no other expectation. Nor was their censure unjust; since it is a sacrifice of what should be the predominant sentiment in the conclusion of the poem. But Tasso seems to have become fond of Armida, and could not endure to leave in sorrow and despair the creature of his ethereal fancy, whom he had made so fair and so winning. It is probable that the majority of readers are pleased with this passage, but it can never escape the condemnation of severe judges.
Tasso compared to Virgil; 28. Tasso, doubtless, bears a considerable resemblance to Virgil. But, independently of the vast advantages which the Latin language possesses in majesty and vigour, and which render exact comparison difficult as well as unfair, it may be said that Virgil displays more justness of taste, a more extensive observation, and, if we may speak thus in the absence of so much poetry which he might have imitated, a more genuine originality. Tasso did not possess much of the self-springing invention which we find in a few great poets, and which, in this higher sense, I cannot concede to Ariosto; he not only borrows freely, and perhaps studiously, from the ancients, but introduces frequent lines from earlier Italian poets, and especially from Petrarch. He has also some favourite turns of phrase, which serve to give a certain mannerism to his stanzas.