to Ariosto; 29. The Jerusalem was no sooner published, than it was weighed against the Orlando Furioso, and neither Italy nor Europe have yet agreed which scale inclines. It is indeed one of those critical problems, that admit of no certain solution, whether we look to the suffrage of those who feel acutely and justly, or to the general sense of mankind. We cannot determine one poet to be superior to the other, without assuming premises which no one is bound to grant. Those who read for a stimulating variety of circumstances, and the enlivening of a leisure hour, must prefer Ariosto; and he is probably, on this account, a poet of more universal popularity. It might be said perhaps by some, that he is more a favourite of men, and Tasso of women. And yet, in Italy, the sympathy with tender and graceful poetry is so general, that the Jerusalem has hardly been less in favour with the people than its livelier rival; and its fine stanzas may still be heard by moonlight from the lips of a gondolier, floating along the calm bosom of the Giudecca.[1164]
[1164] The following passages may perhaps be naturally compared, both as being celebrated, and as descriptive of sound. Ariosto has however much the advantage, and I do not think the lines in the Jerusalem, though very famous, are altogether what I should select as a specimen of Tasso.
Aspri concenti, orribile armonia
D’alte querele, d’ululi, e di strida
Della misera gente, che peria
Nel fondo per cagion della sua guida,
Istranamente concordat s’udia
Col fiero suon della flamma omicida.
Orland. Fur. c. 14.
Chiama gli abitator dell’ombre eterne
Il rauco suon della tartarea tromba;
Treman le spaziose atre caverne,
E l’aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba.
Nè si stridendo mai dalle superne
Regioni del cielo il folgor piomba;
Nè si scossa giammai trema la terra
Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra.
Gierus. Lib. c. 4.
In the latter of these stanzas there is rather too studied an effort at imitative sound; the lines are grand and nobly expressed, but they do not hurry along the reader like those of Ariosto. In his there is little attempt at vocal imitation, yet we seem to hear the cries of the suffering, and the crackling of the flames.
30. Ariosto must be placed much more below Homer, than Tasso falls short of Virgil. The Orlando has not the impetuosity of the Iliad; each is prodigiously rapid, but Homer has more momentum by his weight; the one is a hunter, the other a war-horse. The finest stanzas in Ariosto are fully equal to any in Tasso, but the latter has by no means so many feeble lines. Yet his language, though never affectedly obscure, is not so pellucid, and has a certain refinement which makes us sometimes pause to perceive the meaning. Whoever reads Ariosto slowly, will probably be offended by his negligence; whoever reads Tasso quickly, will lose something of the elaborate finish of his style.
to the Bolognese painters. 31. It is not easy to find a counterpart among painters for Ariosto. His brilliancy and fertile invention might remind us of Tintoret; but he is more natural, and less solicitous of effect. If indeed poetical diction be the correlative of colouring in our comparison of the arts, none of the Venetian school can represent the simplicity and averseness to ornament of language which belong to the Orlando Furioso; and it would be impossible, for other reasons, to look for a parallel in a Roman or Tuscan pencil. But with Tasso the case is different: and though it would be an affected expression to call him the founder of the Bolognese school, it is evident that he had a great influence on its chief painters, who came but a little after him. They imbued themselves with the spirit of a poem so congenial to their age, and so much admired in it. No one, I think, can consider their works without perceiving both the analogy of the place each hold in their respective arts, and the traces of a feeling, caught directly from Tasso as their prototype and model. We recognise his spirit in the sylvan shades and voluptuous forms of Albano and Domenichino, in the pure beauty that radiates from the ideal heads of Guido, in the skilful composition, exact design, and noble expression of the Caracci. Yet the school of Bologna seems to furnish no parallel to the enchanting grace and diffused harmony of Tasso; and we must, in this respect, look back to Correggio as his representative.
Sect. II.—On Spanish Poetry.
Luis de Leon—Herrera—Ercilla—Camoens—Spanish Ballads.
Poetry cultivated under Charles and Philip. 32. The reigns of Charles and his son have long been reckoned the golden age of Spanish poetry; and if the art of verse was not cultivated in the latter period by any quite so successful as Garcilasso and Mendoza, who belonged to the earlier part of the century, the vast number of names that have been collected by diligent inquiry show, at least, a national taste which deserves some attention. The means of exhibiting a full account of even the most select names in this crowd are not readily at hand. In Spain itself, the poets of the age of Philip II., like those who lived under his great enemy in England, were, with very few exceptions, little regarded till after the middle of the eighteenth century. The Parnaso Español of Sedano, the first volumes of which were published in 1768, made them better known; but Bouterwek observes, that it would have been easy to make a better collection, as we do not find several poems of the chief writers, with which the editor seems to have fancied the public to be sufficiently acquainted. An imperfect knowledge of the language, and a cursory view of these volumes, must disable me from speaking confidently of Castilian poetry; so far as I feel myself competent to judge, the specimens chosen by Bouterwek do no injustice to the compilation.[1165]
[1165] “The merit of Spanish poems,” says a critic equally candid and well-informed, “independently of those intended for representation, consists chiefly in smoothness of versification and purity of language, and in facility rather than strength of imagination.” Lord Holland’s Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 107. He had previously observed that these poets were generally voluminous: “it was not uncommon even for the nobility of Philip IV.’s time (later of course than the period we are considering) to converse for some minutes in extemporaneous poetry; and in carelessness of metre, as well as in commonplace images, the verses of that time often remind us of the improvisatori of Italy,” p. 106.