This prodigy of youthful genius no sooner appeared than it was hailed with acclamation throughout Italy, and eager inquiries from every quarter were made concerning the author—that prodigality of praise might be lavished upon him by the learned, and parsimony of recompence, doled out to him by princes, ambitious of attaching so great a "natural curiosity" to the collection of live rarities about their palaces. For the great of those times coveted the glory, little as they liked the expense, of retaining men of talents in the train of their sycophants and dependents, even when they regarded them only as remarkable among their species, in the same manner as the lions, tigers, eagles, peacocks, and other strange and beautiful animals in their menageries were in comparison with the meaner ranks of brutes. Ariosto, who had experienced all the bitterness of such favour, and felt keenly the ignominy of such distinction, plainly tells us, that the patrons of his day loved those of their parasites who would minister to their personal necessities, pull off and on their boots, share in their orgies, and pander to their vices,—rather than those, whose proud stomachs disdained to allow them to be any thing less than themselves within the precincts of courts,—poets among princes, who could give enduring lustre to the names of inglorious patrons, which otherwise would have found no better memorial than the registers of their births, marriages, and deaths in their family genealogies.
After Torquato's emancipation from the trammels of law by the hand of the parent who had so carefully involved him in them,—flushed with the new wine of liberty, obtained at the surrender of every thing else in prospect, and with nothing but itself in possession,—he repaired to Bologna, to pursue his philosophical studies and indulge in his poetical passion;—for poetry was truly to him a passion, and the ruling one of his existence,—honour, fortune, ease, pleasure, were all in turns but ministers to this, while by this he aimed at the acquisition of each of them, as the one or the other were, for the moment, the object of desire or the subject of lamentation for having lost it. But from Bologna he was expelled for a literary squib, the only thing of the kind by which he has gained any celebrity, whether it were his own or not. Some anonymous censor had been amusing himself with publishing pasquinades, ridiculing the principal people of the city, as well as the students of the college, with "much malice and a little wit." Those who were exposed to these sarcasms were exceedingly galled by the firing from this ambuscade of the pen, and the more so as they knew not on whom to wreak their vengeance. Torquato, in the reckless gaiety of a youth of twenty, on a certain occasion making himself merry among his companions by repeating one of these, was immediately pounced upon as the author, not only of the unlucky lines, with which he had been caught in his mouth, but he was assailed as being the secret manufacturer of all the rest. It was in vain that he denied the charge indignantly, and challenged his accusers for the proofs, urging that he himself had been the butt of the sharp-shooter's shafts, flying out of darkness and hitting in broad day. His papers were seized and examined before the criminal magistrate; but nothing being discovered to fix the imputation upon him, he was nominally acquitted, though the suspicion was not so easily effaced from the minds of the offended individuals. He took the matter himself in such dudgeon, that he precipitately left Bologna, and removed to Padua, whither he had been Invited by his early friend Scipio Gonzaga, who had lately established in the latter city the academy Degli Eterei, of which Tasso—certainly one of the most congenial spirits of the age—was worthily enrolled a member, and, according to the pedantic fashion of those pompous but puerile institutions, assumed the name of Pentito—for some fanciful reason not well explained, though there has been no small wrangling about it.
To enlarge his mind, to exalt his imagination, and to enrich his eloquence, Torquato now devoted much of his attention to the works of Aristotle and Plato; but while the former subjected his reason to the severest discipline in the ascertainment of principles of truth, he gave his whole soul to the guidance of the latter, whose visionary splendour and profound speculations, on subjects the highest that created intelligences can conceive, and of which comparatively so little can be learned without "light from heaven" to illumine the "light of nature,"—while infinite space is afforded for everlasting conjectures, showing at once the capabilities and the limitations of the human intellect,—these peculiarly suited the young student's cast of thought and intense delight in contemplating the things that are invisible and eternal, as associated with things seen and perishable. Nor was the philosophical poet an unworthy disciple of the poetical philosopher, even upon his own ground and in his own style. Many of Tasso's sublimest compositions are in the form of dialogues, in which he discourses with an elevation of sentiment and a power of diction which might have gained admiration in the school of his master himself.
Meanwhile the germ of his great poem, which had been quickened, probably not later than the publication of the "Rinaldo," was growing up in his thought,—for Tasso, by the necessity of his nature, was ever ruminating on some premeditated or progressive theme; and some mightier conception followed the disburdenment of every matured production of his inexhaustibly inventive genius. While this new and magnificent project was gradually assuming shape and character before he entered upon the deliberate execution of it, he prepared himself for the task by composing his "Discourses on Heroic Poetry," which place him among critics in as high a rank as that which he holds among poets. The merit of these essays, indeed, is so remarkable, that his principal English biographer, Mr. Black, is almost seduced by them to assert the universality of the author's genius, in the following plausible remark and happy quotations from high authority concerning another extraordinary poetic genius, which seemed capable of excelling in whatever it undertook, whether in prose or rhyme:—"Of the 'Discourses on Heroic Poetry' there appear to have been four, only three of which have been printed. Though composed at the age of twenty, and published without the knowledge and corrections of the author, they are exceedingly valuable; and while they display a most refined taste, discover also much metaphysical acuteness and geometrical precision. Indeed, I am more and more of opinion that what Mr. Stewart says of Burns is true in general of every great poetical genius, 'All the faculties of Burns's mind,' says he, 'were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition.'"
In this year, 1564, Torquato visited his venerable father, now literally "dagl' anni e da fortuna oppresso," "borne down by years and evil fortune." The transport of affection with which two of the greatest men of their age, in the most seductive walk of human ambition, met at Mantua, in the relationship of parent and offspring, must have been chastened, yet rendered more exquisitely endearing, when the father, from his own sad experience, must have foreseen, by "his prophetic soul," the sorrows to come which his son would encounter in the course that he had chosen; while the son, with emotions not less painful, must have looked upon his father, remembering the sorrows past, which he had endured in the vain pursuit of fame from the multitude, and fortune from patrons, in whose cause he had sacrificed two sources of competence—his own small patrimony, and his wife's dowry.
During this visit the youth was attacked by a dangerous illness, from which being rescued by the skill of a physician named Coppino, the grateful father rewarded the doctor with the fee of a stanza to his honour in a new poem, entitled "Floridante," which the aged minstrel, whom no medicine could cure of the disease of rhyme, was composing in his seventy-third year. This daughter, as she might be called, of his "Amadigi," to which it is a sequel, and his own last child of imagination, proved as short-lived as its romantic, and almost as its natural, parent, though the dutiful Torquato endeavoured himself to revive it, in his own dark days; but "Floridante," of whom it could not be said that "she had no poet," died though she had two, and those of no mean name. Bernardo Tasso himself survived for five years, dying in 1669, at the age of seventy-six. However undervalued by posterity, he was unquestionably the greatest poet who had appeared between Ariosto and his son Torquato.
About this time Torquato received an intimation that the cardinal d'Este, brother to the duke of Ferrara, had nominated him one of his personal attendants, and expected him forthwith in that city. Notwithstanding the warnings of his father's old friend, Sperone, and afterwards his own, Zoilus, who, exasperated by the disappointment of hopes of preferment which he had cherished when he went to Rome, gave loose to the most violent invectives against courts and courtiers, and earnestly dissuaded Torquato from trusting himself where nothing but allurements to ruin would be placed in his way, from which it was hardly possible for virtue to escape unscathed or uncorrupted, the young poet, however, determined not to profit by the experience of the old one, but to learn for himself what experience alone can teach, and what he indeed learned at an awful cost in the issue. He resolutely, therefore, determined to put both his virtue and his fortune to the hazard of temptation, not doubting that he could secure the former and advance the latter, where the most illustrious court in Italy was held by a descendant of the patron of Ariosto. Accordingly he hastened to Ferrara, anticipating every thing that never came to pass, except the one thing on which, indeed, his mind was most bent, that there he should complete his contemplated epic, and establish a name which should associate him with the most renowned of his predecessors. What a bright morning was that, forerunning a day of darkness and despair, on which he entered the city, happily unsuspecting the troubles that awaited him there! The kings of England, of the house of Hanover, are lineally descended from the family of Este. These much celebrated princes, in the best period of their ascendency, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were the magnificent, if not the liberal, patrons of most of the men of genius in the finer arts who were contemporary with them; and none was more so than the reigning duke, Alfonso II., under whose benign influence for a while, but under whose blighting displeasure afterwards, poor Tasso flourished and faded.
On the last day of October, 1565, Torquato arrived at Ferrara, where the most superb preparations were making for the nuptials of Alfonso with Barbara, daughter of the emperor Ferdinand, and sister to Maximilian II. He was cordially welcomed, and immediately received into the service of the duke's brother, cardinal Luigi, whose establishment consisted of nearly 800 persons, ministering to his pleasure or subsisting on his bounty. This prince was not less dignified than his brother, but altogether more amiable and engaging. On the 2d of December the queen (as she was styled from her imperial lineage) entered Ferrara, crowned, and accompanied by a gorgeous retinue. The marriage was celebrated by a succession of the most imposing spectacles and profuse festivities, which continued for six days, when they were suddenly broken off on the arrival of intelligence of the death of the pope, Pius IV. Among the throng of the great and the small, who had assembled from all parts of Italy to witness the tournaments, the pantomimes, the balls, and the banquets given on this occasion, Torquato was but a solitary unit; observing and treasuring up in his memory all that he saw and heard, as materials for celebration in another form of the same scenes of luxury and splendour upon a grander scale, and, though in an ideal field, of more enduring exhibition. Myriads of eyes may have glanced upon the contemplative youth, and passed over him as one of the most insignificant personages in the city; but, after the lapse of nearly three centuries, even these gorgeous ceremonials are principally subjects of interest because he was present at them. Not a human being in existence at this remote period (one might imagine) can feel any personal sympathy with the bridegroom, the bride, or any other actor or spectator, native or stranger, upon the spot; yet even "the representation of the Temple of Love, which was erected in the ducal gardens, with a stupendous scenery of porticoes and palaces, of woods and mountains," is worthy of being remembered, because of the far-surpassing glory of imaginative palaces and gardens which were suggested to the admiring poet by the tawdry pageant, "which lasted six hours without appearing tedious to the spectators," as Muratori states; though, according to the pithy remark of Gibbon, the latter is "the most incredible circumstance" connected with the whole account.
During the four months which intervened between the demise of Pius IV. and the election of a new pope, who assumed the name of Pius V., Torquato's patron, the cardinal Luigi, being absent, he was left at Ferrara to make his way into favour wherever an opening might be presented; and it was then that he became more particularly acquainted with the princesses Lucretia and Leonora of Este, by whom he was brought under the notice of their brother the duke, who, after all that has been said and conjectured, seems never to have regarded him otherwise than with stately or selfish condescension. That a youth so gifted with genius, so early distinguished among his countrymen, favoured by nature with more than ordinary personal advantages, and in many other ways gallantly accomplished, should have attracted the esteem of these illustrious ladies, who appear to have been more than mere court beauties, both in intellect and sensibility, delighting in poetry, and occasionally exercising themselves in it, was almost a necessary consequence of the parties becoming acquainted. Under such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that, on either side, secret presentiments of the most gratifying kind should unconsciously spring up and be covertly cherished by the several individuals; never, indeed, as must be inferred from the sequel, to be fully disclosed, nor even, perhaps, perfectly understood by themselves. If, in the age of chivalry, it was imperative upon true knights to assert the beauty and maintain the honour of their ladies in all due seasons, and in all proper places, it was, in the seventeenth century, equally the duty of true poets to celebrate the same virtues and adornments in their verses upon those of the better sex, who were either their mistresses or their patronesses. Torquato, dazzled by the transition from schools, law offices, and colleges of philosophy, to the court region of enchantment, has described his own emotions and the influence of the change upon him in the language which he puts into the mouth of Tirsi (the representative of himself in his "Amintor"), where, after taking vengeance on his father's friend, but his own very questionable one (Sperone), for having dissuaded him from going to the city, which, he assured him, was given up wholly to deceit, voluptuousness, avarice, and ambition, the shepherd tells his companions how bravely he was disabused when he beheld the marvellous reality; for there, "as gracious heaven would have it, I happened to pass near the blissful dwelling, whence issued sweet, harmonious voices of swans, of nymphs, of syrens—heavenly syrens! and sounds of music soft and clear, with other ravishments so strange, that for a while I stood entranced with joy and admiration." Being courteously invited to enter by one of noble aspect, who appeared the guardian of the enchanted spot, he exclaims, "O then what saw, what felt I? I beheld nymphs, goddesses, and minstrels—luminaries new and beautiful—all without veil or cloud, as to the immortals, scattering silver dews and golden rays, Aurora seems; Apollo and the Muses, too, I saw, and in that moment felt myself as growing greater. Filled with new virtue, new divinity, I sang of wars and heroes, disdaining my rude pastoral pipe. But though I soon returned to these calm shades (to please another), I still retained a portion of that nobler spirit; my simple reed no longer warbled as before, but, rivalling the trumpet, filled the woods with notes more lofty and sonorous. Mopso (Sperone) heard it, and, with evil eye, looked on me and bewitched me, so that I grew hoarse, and long continued mute. The shepherds thought I had been glared at by a wolf—a wolf, indeed, he was to me!" The last allusion is to Sperone's savage criticisms on the "Gerusalemme," when submitted to his examination in manuscript. Torquato, however, had reason to think, after years of disappointing experience, that Sperone's notions of courts and courtiers were quite as near the truth as his own, during his first visit and sojourn at Ferrara.
Of the duke, his brother the cardinal, and their three sisters, it is recorded that thirteen years before this date, on a public occasion, in presence of their father, Hercules II., and pope Paul III., the "Adelphi" of Terence, in the original, was recited by them with great spirit and effect, the parts being sustained by the princesses Anna, aged twelve, Lucretia, eight, Leonora, six, the princes Alfonso, ten, and Luigi, five years of age. Mr. Black observes, with apparent justice, that the court of Alfonso united, "like the poems of Tasso, classic elegance with the richness of romance; and every thing conspired to kindle the fancy and refine the taste of the youthful bard."