His bereavement was thus intimated by Torquato to the Duke of Urbino: "On the 4th of September it pleased the Lord God to call to himself the blessed soul of my father, whose death, although in all respects mature, is nevertheless felt by me as most untimely, and, I am persuaded, will be very unacceptable to your Excellency, who by so many proofs of regard considered him among your most esteemed servants, and towards whom I know his especial reverence. Of this respect, and of the infinite obligations under which he lay to your Excellency, I am most willingly the representative; and if that favour which your Excellency ever extended for his protection, and that of his interests, be devolved upon me, I shall deem it an ample patrimony that he has left me. And herewith praying a happy issue to all your honoured desires, I humbly kiss your hands. From Ferrara, the 28th September, 1569."
An amiable disposition and agreeable manners procured for Bernardo Tasso, in all the fluctuations of his career, troops of friends, including the brightest names of his age. In the many situations of trust which he filled, his prudence and address, his fidelity and sincerity, acquired for him general estimation. Although his literary reputation now hangs, in a great degree, upon that of his son, his contemporaries, who knew not what the latter had in store for them, regarded him as the first epic poet of his age, comparing him even with Ariosto, whom he freely and avowedly imitated. To draw out some fifty-seven thousand verses on a borrowed and almost barren theme, in a style anticipated by several preceding minstrels, was an effort repugnant to fine genius, and susceptible of no marked success. Its necessary failing is diffuseness, varying from inflation to languor; its redeeming merit an acknowledged facility, sustained at times by fertile images, and by delicately beautiful descriptions. It is generally flowing, though, at times, feeble; yet is considered by Panizzi "unquestionably the best romantic narrative from amongst those not founded on the traditions respecting Charlemagne." Indeed, his poetry, while sharing with coeval productions the blemishes of exuberant ornament and quaint conceits, is seldom surpassed in pathos, and his dulcet numbers reconcile us to his faults of manner. What, to its author, was probably its most important quality, is now, perhaps, its greatest defect,—the profuse flattery of which it was made the medium. "To eat the bread of others" was the often hard, usually degrading, tenure self-imposed on court poets; and to such, a subject admitting of endless episodes, and the frequent introduction of existing personages, in their real characters or under transparent allegories, was a harvest of princely favour and of wealth. This, however, was an error of the age, which ought not to be charged on any single poet, least of all on one who had given his best and worthiest efforts to a barren soil. The fugitive poetry of Tasso partakes largely of this adulatory colouring. But, for him is claimed such praise as the invention of the Ode deserves; and this was deemed creditable service to a literature which has often invested trifles with undue importance.
Bernardo was a secretary ere he became a poet, and his reputation rests more surely upon his correspondence than on his verses. That rhetoric which Bembo inculcated by precept and practice had become a fashion among men of literary pretension; their letters were composed as models of style, and manuscript or printed collections of them were in very general circulation. Such compositions, when thus written for the public, wanted the freshness and simplicity which constitute their best charm; but they gained attractions of another sort, and came to be read more for their manner than their matter. To this class belong the letters of the elder Tasso: nitid in style, but cold in feeling, they exhibit the niceties of Italian idiom, rather than the familiarities of Italian life. A very favourable specimen, but too long for insertion here, is that in which he proposes to his wife the principles which ought to guide her in bringing up their children, and in the formation of their manners and character. Though sometimes smoothed down to commonplace, it breathes a fine spirit of paternal affection, and combines religious observance with a becoming knowledge of the world.
[CHAPTER LI]
Torquato Tasso—His insanity—Theories of Dr. Verga and Mr. Wilde—His connection with Urbino—His intercourse with the Princess of Este—His portraits—His letter to the Duke of Urbino—His confinement—His death—His poetry—Battista Guarini.
OUR passing notice of Italian song would be incomplete without the name of Italy's favourite bard, even had Tasso[*178] found no hospitality at Urbino, no sympathy from its Duchess Lucrezia. Yet what shall we say of one whose loves and woes have filled many volumes,—whose life, character, and motives, after baffling biographers, and puzzling moralists, are still matter rather of controversy than of history, of speculation than of fact. That he was imbued with true genius, with its failings as well as its powers, is fixed by the unanimous verdict of posterity. That his misfortunes have tended greatly to enhance the sympathising veneration which hangs around his name, may be quoted in proof of the eternal justice of Providence. The rolls of Parnassus may exhibit names more gifted, the annals of human suffering are inscribed with greater calamities and deeper griefs, but in no other case, perhaps, have talents and trials been more mingled together on an equally prominent stage. His supposed persecutor was elevated enough to command the world's gaze, and upon him there accordingly has been heaped the blame of a wretchedness in a great measure self-imposed, and inseparable from a morbid and diseased temperament. The complaints of the poet have been embodied in notes alternately of wailing and of fire, by a poet of a nation whom he would have deemed barbarous.[179] The charge which history has recorded against Tasso is to this purpose. That, whilst a retainer of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, his heart was enslaved by that Duke's sister, Princess Leonora d'Este, and that his passion was ill-concealed in the verses it inspired. That Alfonso having suspected the audacious fault, harshly visited it with a series of persecutions, and finally shut him up for seven years in bedlam as a lunatic.
