"The happy miracle of this rare birth,"
invited him to her delightful retirement of Casteldurante, where she heard the pastoral strains from his own lips, which, though not eloquent from natural infirmity, would yet convey the soul and passion, the delicacy and pathos, of every passage, with an impression which no actor on the stage, nor indeed any reader but himself, could give. The living voice, in this case, would be the actual language of the spirit that conceived the thoughts, speaking to the spirit of her who received them through the ear, fresh and flowing from the fountain in his heart; for the written copy, to the eye, would be but a translation, wanting the incommunicable accompaniments of tone, look, expression, and perfect intelligence of the whole in all its bearings and meanings, such as the original author alone could possess; for, as Dr. Johnson said, "no words can convey sounds;" and both sounds and words were requisite to do justice to such verse as his. Tasso remained several months with the duchess.
All Italy soon echoed with the fame of this poetical phenomenon, which, though not the first of the kind, (an indifferent model having been produced six years before, by one Arienti,) it was the first that had power to compel almost universal admiration, and establish a precedent and authority for that fantastic species of literary composition. Imitations, by the most gifted of his contemporaries, sprang up in rapid succession, and passed away as rapidly, with the exception of one, the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini, which not only maintained its ground, but even disputed that on which its forerunner stood, and from which no rivalry has ever yet been able to remove it. The renown which Tasso acquired by the "Aminta" naturally exasperated envy in proportion as it commanded applause, and among the multitude of competitors who could not soar to his elevation, there were not wanting those who employed every artifice to bring him down to their level, that they might trample him under foot. Whatever were the causes, Tasso to the end of his life was persecuted as much by unmerciful critics as he was oppressed by hard-hearted patrons.
But the "Aminta" was not the only episodal enterprise of Tasso, while he was slowly but unweariedly proceeding with the "Gerusalemme." Flushed with the success of his pastoral drama, he set earnestly about the construction of a regular tragedy; but he had not advanced far in the second act, when the project was suspended, and the fragment of fine promise which remains, compared with the completed performance long afterwards, when his faculties were on the decline, exhibits a brilliant but melancholy contrast of "the change" that had come "o'er the spirit of his dream"—his dream of life, love, and glory, blighting his "May of youth," and causing him in the prime of manhood to "fall into the sere and yellow leaf." His "Torindo," as this failure was styled, was less a failure than the "Torrismondo," as the resumed and perfected task was called.
Towards the conclusion of his toils on his main work (as he fondly hoped), but the beginning of a series of miseries consequent upon it, from which he found no end but in the grave, Tasso was seized with a violent fever. This left him in such a state of bodily exhaustion, that it was not till the following spring (1575), that from the last lines of his poem he could look back upon all the intervening ones to the first, as the links of a chain, more subtle than air, yet stronger than adamant, which should deliver his thoughts as he had bound them in his words, from generation to generation, to delight millions of minds, so long as his country's language should be understood. He had already enjoyed such exhilarating foretastes of fame by the circulation in manuscript of portions of the poem, as they came completed from his hands, that he was the less prepared to encounter the enmity and opposition, which rancorous and intriguing rivals, or fanatic and supercilious ecclesiastical censors of the press, immediately commenced, and inveterately continued to manifest towards him to the close of life. There was in Tasso—conscious as he must have been of his powers, and confident as he must have felt in the exercise of his own judgment—a readiness to submit to learned and candid criticism, and a willingness to concede to dissentient opinions on minor points of taste, so far as was consistent with manly independence,—which can rarely be found among men of first-rate talents, but yet might be expected from a court poet, accustomed in other matters to defer to superiors, be compliant towards equals, and condescending to inferiors. This disposition, however, which ought to have conciliated envy herself, only provoked her the more to assume every shape of candour or malignity, as best suited her humour, to torment and distract him, that she might revel over his wretchedness, if she could not accomplish his fall. Years intervened while the "Gerusalemme Liberata," in its finished form, was undergoing as many ordeals almost as he had friends, and its author suffering almost as many martyrdoms as he had enemies. Into the particulars of these persecutions it is not necessary to enter here. The poet was certainly induced by the force of arguments used by some, and the terror of inquisitorial powers exercised by others of his critics, to alter, expunge, and amend many parts of the poem, which, after all, suffered little from the processes to which it was thus exposed before its publication. That publication, however, was long delayed by such vexatious hinderances, and at last was effected surreptitiously, to the great offence and injury of the author, then in confinement as a lunatic.
Tasso's malady was grievously aggravated by these excruciating criticisms, when he found himself, on the one hand, charged with heresy against Aristotle and good taste, and, on the other, with heresy against the church and good morals. Fevers, headaches, strange dreams, waking suspicions, restlessness, disappointment, dissatisfaction with his patron, to whom he had dedicated his poem, and in honour of whom he had created his imaginary hero, Rinaldo,—perhaps, too, the bitterness of desponding passion, though that is questionable,—suggested to him the idea of absconding from Ferrara and taking refuge at Rome, where he purposed to bring out the "Gerusalemme," at his own pleasure, and hoped to reap a considerable pecuniary benefit from the sale. Alfonso, however, was not willing to lose the glory of the dedication to himself, though he seems to have wanted the generosity, the humanity, the justice to deal with the author except as an impotent creature in his power, who could do him much honour by flattering his pride, but to whom he showed at best but stinted kindness. To secure his selfish object, he made the poet a prisoner near his own person,—both at Ferrara, and at his palace of Belriguardo in the country,—a prisoner at large, indeed, but under perpetual observation. Of this the sufferer was aware; and the very idea of a human eye for ever upon him, restraining his looks, words, and actions, poring over him while he slept, haunting his dreams, and entering into his very thoughts—for so he must have felt as though it did—this alone was enough to madden a man of iron heart and millstone brain, much more a poor hypochondriac, as Tasso had already become.
Notwithstanding the jealousies of Alfonso, and the fascinations of his sisters to detain him, the capricious bard escaped from his splendid captivity to Rome,—and escaped even with the permission of the duke; who gave him a letter of recommendation to the cardinal Hippolyto, to befriend him as a stranger there, for the avowed purpose of obtaining the accustomed indulgence granted to visiters during the jubilee. Here he met with the cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici, afterwards grand duke of Tuscany, who renewed to him in person the tender of an honourable asylum (formerly intimated to him in private), should he be disposed to leave altogether the service of Alfonso. The offer was gratefully acknowledged, but not formally accepted; and after six weeks of holidays (as he felt them to be) spent in the luxury of literary intercourse, and the renewal of the impressions which the scene of Rome's posthumous glory in her magnificent ruins, and her not less imposing revival in her hierarchal pomp, had left on his mind in youth, he returned by way of Sienna and Florence to Ferrara. Here, while his poem was going through a second round of critical purgatory, and his soul was sinking under the burden of censures laid upon him, like the spirits of the proud in Dante, condemned to bear enormous stones along the uneven uphill road, he received the appointment of historiographer to the house of Este, with a small stipend, which laid upon him another cobweb obligation to remain at Ferrara. What were the duties of this office it is of no consequence to inquire; he does not seem even to have performed any, nor perhaps did he owe any; his fable of the origin of that family from his hero Rinaldo—the Rinaldo of his "Gerusalemme"—had already conferred on it more of that glory which princes covet, than the true history of all its ancestors might have done. When the results of the aforesaid second revisal of his poem were communicated to him, in despair of conciliating his critics, and determined not to yield altogether to their incompetent authority, on points where he felt himself strong in poetical power to produce the very effects which they deprecated, but which he had aimed at and achieved most triumphantly, he composed an interpretation of the whole as an extended allegory, spiritualising its heroes and its scenes, with more perverse ingenuity than felicity of success. Of this it may be fairly said, that if the original were mainly fiction, the moral was wholly so. His censors, however, persisted in condemning the voluptuous passages to which he himself was most attached, because he knew them to be the most beautiful, and recked not that they were the most seductive. In this respect the poet himself was the Rinaldo of his sorceress muse, who by her enchantments had wholly captivated his heart, and carried him away to her "limbo of vanity;" from which Sperone and Antoniano, his remorseless critics, in vain endeavoured to deliver him; as Carlo and Ubaldo had rescued his hero from the thralls of Armida in her island of sensual delights. He never yielded all, though he conceded many things, and sacrificed several extravagant inventions, by which the poem, was rather mended than mutilated.
An incident occurred about this time, which exhibited Tasso not less in the character of a hero than he had hitherto figured in that of the laureate of heroes. Suspecting one of his friends to have been guilty of opening his trunks with false keys, to pry into his secrets among his papers, he gently remonstrated with the offender, who resented the charge by giving him the lie, and received in return a blow upon the face. This rencontre took place in the court of the palace, and was therefore sufficiently notorious. The cowardly aggressor—one Maddalo, a notary—walked away with the dishonour on his brow, but meditating in his heart the most atrocious vengeance. Accordingly, having enlisted three of his kindred in the quarrel, they sallied forth, armed, to assail the poet; and finding him abroad in the street, they fell upon him from behind. Tasso promptly turned round, drew his sword, and dealt so dexterously with it, that the ruffians were soon put to flight; though their fears of being apprehended, no doubt, to their "speed lent wings," till they found refuge under the roofs of various friends. The circumstance gained him no small reputation, and gave rise to a couplet which was often repeated:—
"Con la penna e con la spada
Nessun vai quanto Torquato."
"With the sword and with the pen,
Tasso beats all other men."