The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, A something which all softness did surpass- [Not long after his imprisonment, Tasso appealed to the mercy of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, couched in terms so respectful and pathetic, as must have moved, it might be thought, the severest bosom to relent. The heart of Alfonso was, however, impregnable to the appeal; and Tasso, in another ode to the princesses, whose pity he invoked in the name of their own mother, who had herself known, if not the like horrors, the like solitude of imprisonment, and bitterness of soul, made a similar appeal. "Considered merely as poems. says Black, "these canzoni are extremely beautiful; but, if we contemplate them as the productions of a mind diseased, they form important documents in the history of man."-Life of Tasso, vol. ii. p. 408.] [As to the indifference which the Princess is said to have exhibited for the misfortunes of Tasso, and the little effort she made to obtain his liberty, this is one of the negative arguments founded on an hypothesis that may be easily destroyed by a thousand others equally plausible. Was not the Princess anxious to avoid her own ruin? In taking too warm an interest for the poet, did she not risk destroying herself, without saving him?- FOSCOLO.] Where I did lay me down within the shade I found the thing I sought-and that was thee; VII. I loved all Solitude- but little thought Yet do I feel at times my mind decline, 5 3 [Tasso's profound and unconquerable love for Leonora, sustaining itself without hope throughout years of darkness and solitude, breathes a moral dignity over all his sentiments, and we feel the strength and power of his noble spirit in the un-upbraiding devotedness of his passion. WILSON.] [“ My mind like theirs adapted to its grave."— MS.] 5 ["Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement, "that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, passing all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind. My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive stupor." Opere, t. viii. p. 258.] Why in this furnace is my spirit proved I once was quick in feeling-that is o'er; A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,- Ode on Venice." I. Он Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls A loud lament along the sweeping sea! 1["Which nations yet shall visit for my sake."- MS.] after days ? [Those who indulge in the dreams of earthly retribution will observe, that the cruelty of Alfonso was not left without its recompense, even in his own person. He survived the affection of his subjects and of his dependants, who deserted him at his death; and suffered his body to be interred without princely or decent honours. His last wishes were neglected; his testament cancelled. His kinsman, Don Cæsar, shrank from the excommunication of the Vatican, and, after a short struggle, or rather suspense, Ferrara passed away for ever from the dominion of the house of Este. - HOBHOUSE.] 3 [In July, 1586, after a confinement of more than seven years, Tasso was released from his dungeon. In the hope of receiving his mother's dowry, and of again beholding his sister Cornelia, he shortly after visited Naples, where his presence was welcomed with every demonstration of esteem and admiration. Being on a visit at Mola di Gaeta, he received the following remarkable tribute of respect. Marco di Sciarra, the notorious captain of a numerous troop of banditti, hearing where the great poet was, sent to compliment him, and offered him not only a free passage, but protection by the way, and assured him that he and his followers would be proud to execute his orders. See Manso, Vita del Tasso, p. 219.] [The "pleasures of imagination" have been explained And every monument the stranger meets, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds and justified by Addison in prose, and by Akenside in verse: but there are moments of real life when its miseries and as necessities seem to overpower and destroy them. The history of mankind, however, furnishes proofs that no body suffering, no adverse circumstances, operating on our material nature, will extinguish the spirit of imagination. Perhaps there is no instance of this so very affecting and so very sublime as the case of Tasso. They who have seen the dark, horror-striking dungeon-hole at Ferrara, in which he was confined seven years under the imputation of madness, w have had this truth impressed upon their hearts in a mark ? never to be erased. In this vault, of which the sight makes the hardest heart shudder, the poet employed himself in 6nishing and correcting his immortal epic poem. Lord Bynn a "Lament" on this subject is as sublime and profound a irsson in morality, and in the pictures of the recesses of the human soul, as it is a production most eloquent, most pathete, most vigorous, and most elevating among the gifts of the Muse. The bosom which is not touched with it- the ty which is not warmed, the understanding which is not eslightened and exalted by it, is not fit for human intercouİSİ If Lord Byron had written nothing but this, to deny him the praise of a grand poet would have been flagrant injustice gross stupidity. - BRYDGES.] 5 [This Ode was transmitted from Venice, in 1819, alang with "Mazeppa."] When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, II. There is no hope for nations! - Search the page Hath taught us nought or little still we lean A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. Glory and Empire! once upon these towers IV. The name of Commonwealth is past and gone The Morgante Maggiore OF PULCI.1 ADVERTISEMENT. THE Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto. The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, [The following translation was executed at Ravenna, in February, 1820, and first saw the light in the pages of the unfortunate journal called "The Liberal." The merit of it, as Lord Byron over and over states in his letters, consists in the wonderful verbum pro verbo closeness of the version. It was, in fact, an exercise of skill in this art, and cannot be fairly estimated, without continuous reference to the original Italian, which the reader will therefore now find placed opposite to the text. Those who want full information, and clear philosophical views, as to the origin of the Romantic Poetry of the Italians, will do well to read at length an article on that subject, from the pen of the late Ugo Foscolo, in the forty-second number of the Quarterly Review. We extract from it the passage in which that learned writer applies himself more particularly to the Morgante of Pulci. After showing that all the poets of this class adopted as the groundwork of their fictions, the old wild materials which had for ages formed the stock in trade of the professed story-tellers.-in those days a class of persons holding the same place in Christendom, and more especially in Italy, which their brothers still maintain all over the East,- Foscolo thus proceeds: "The customary forms of the narrative all find a place in romantic poetry such are the sententious reflections suggested by the matters which he has just related, or arising in anticipation of those which he is about to relate, and which the story-teller always opens when he resumes his recitations; his defence of his own merits against the attacks of rivals in trade; and his formal leave-taking when he parts from his audience, and invites them to meet him again on the morrow. This method of winding up each portion of the poem is a favourite among the romantic poets; who constantly finish their cantos with a distich, of which the words may vary, but the sense is uniform. All' altro canto ve farò sentire, Se all' altro canto mi verrete a udire.'- ARIOSTO. Or at the end of another canto, according to Harrington's translation, I now cut off abruptly here my rhyme, And keep my tale unto another time.' "The forms and materials of these popular stories were adopted by writers of a superior class, who considered the vulgar tales of their predecessors as blocks of marble finely tinted and variegated by the hand of nature, but which might afford a masterpiece, when tastefully worked and polished. The romantic poets treated the traditionary fictions just as Dante did the legends invented by the monks to maintain their mastery over weak minds. He formed them into a poem, which became the admiration of every age and nation; but Dante and Petrarca were poets, who, though universally celebrated, were not universally understood. The learned found employment in writing comments upon their poems; but the nation, without even excepting the higher ranks, knew them only by name. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, a few obscure authors began to write romances in prose and in rhyme, taking for their subject the wars of Charlemagne and Orlando, or sometimes the adventures of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These works were so pleasing, that they were rapidly multiplied: but the bards of romance cared little about style or versification, they sought for adventures, and enchantments, and miracles. We here obtain at least a partial explanation of the rapid decline of Italian poetry, and the amazing corruption of the Italian language, which took place immediately after the death of Petrarch, and which proceeded from bad to worse until the era of Lorenzo de' Medici. "It was then that Pulci composed his Morgante for the amusement of Madonna Lucrezia, the mother of Lorenzo; and he used to recite it at table to Ficino, and Po irian, and Lorenzo, and the other illustrious characters who then flourished at Florence: yet Pulci adhered strictly to the original plan of the popular story tellers; and if his successors have embellished them so that they can scarcely be recognised, it is certain that in no other poem can they be found so genuine and native as in the Mor gante. Pulci accommodated himself, though sportively, to the genius of his age; classical taste and sound criticisin began to prevail, and great endeavours were making by the learned to separate historical truth from the chaos of fable and tradition: so that, though Pulci introduced the most extravagant fables, he affected to complain of the errors of his predecessors. I grieve,' he said, for my emperor Charlemagne : for I see that his history has been badly written and worse understood." E del mio Carlo imperador m' increbbe; "And whilst he quotes the great historian Leonardo Aretino with respect, he professes to believe the authority of the holy Archbishop Turfin, who is also one of the heroes of the poem. In another passage, where he imitates the apologies of the story-tellers, he makes a neat allusion to the taste of his audience. 1 know, he says, that I must proceed straightforward, and not tell a single lie in the course of my tale. This is not a in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one; and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor | and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of story of mere invention: and if I go one step out of the right road, me chastises, another criticises, a third scolds-they try to drive me rad but in fact they are out of their senses." "Pulci's versification is remarkably fluent. Yet he is deficient in melody; his language is pure, and his expressions flow naturali. phrases are abrupt and unconnected, and he frequently we Wzə tically. His vigour degenerates into harshness; and his love of recy presents the developement of his poetical imagery. He bears af the marks of rude genius; he was capable of delicate Fietsantry, yet he MTLAS are usually bitter and severe. His humour never an es fren po ate, from unexpected situations strongly contrasted. The Enpera magne sentences King Marsilius of Spain to be hanged for has treat. and Archbishop Turpin kindly offers his services on the occasun. E' disse: Io vo', Marsilio, che tu muoja Dove tu ordinasti il tradimento. Disse Turpino: Jo voglio fare il boja. Carlo rispose. Ed io son ben contento Che sia trattato di questi due cani L'opera santa con le sante mani.' "Here we have an emperor superintending the execution of a king, who is hanged in the presence of a vast multitude, all of whore are gre al fied at beholding an archbishop officiating in the character of the law. Before this adventure took place, Caradoro Es despat ambassador to the emperor, complaining of the shameful or act of a wicked Paladin, who had seduced the princess his daughter. The mas does not present himself with modern diplomatic courtesy. 'Macon t'abbatta come traditore, O disleale e ingiusto imperadore! A Caradora è stato scritto, O Carlo, "O Charles,' he cried, Charles, Charles!-- and as he cried "Such scenes may appear somewhat strange; but Caradoro's emkowni and the execution of King Marsilius, are tokl in strict cenfare, t notions of the common people, and as they must still be cen? wished to imitate the popular story-tellers. If Puic. be cocass fined and delicate, his snatches of amenity resulted from the nat racter of the Florentines, and the revival of letters. But at the we must trace to national character, and to the influence of tué panions, the buffoonery which, in the opinion of foreigners, tres, Cert graces the poem. M. Ginguené has criticised Pulca in the ta countrymen. He attributes modern manners to ancient times, and takes it for granted that the individuals of every other nation think a modern Frenchmen. On these principles, he corcludes that Pu, with respect to his subject and to his mode of treating it, intered Gyna write burlesque poetry; because, as he says, such buffooner have been introduced into a composition recited to Lorenzo de' Mrs his enlightened guests, if the author had intended to be in cipat. fine portrait of Lorenzo given by Machiavelli at the end of his Fre history, the historian complains that he took more pleasure in the of jesters and buffoons than beseemed such a man. It is a tus that Benedetto Varchi, a contemporary historian, mikes the w plaint of Machiavelli himself. Indeed, many know anced tes of Ka velli, no less than his fugitive pieces, prove that it was may be ba acting the statesman that he wished to be grave; and that he e like other men when he laid aside his dignity. We do o was in the wrong. But, whatever opinion may be formed on the . we shall yet be forced to conclude that great men may be ve blame the manners of their times, without being a le to wat influence. In other respects, the poem of Pulci is stalas, beb and in tone. And here we shall repeat a genera! o'nervay advise our readers to apply to all the romantic porms of the I That their comic humour arises from the contrast hears the deavours of the writers to adhere to the forms and our to story-tellers, and the efforts made at the subar timer by the writers to render such materials interesting and sure. "This simpl: elucidation of the causes of the port cal chira, tee of Morgante has been overlooked by the critics; and they have the puted with great earnestness during the last two centuries, « Morgante is written in j.st or earnest; and whether Ful atheist, who wrote in verse for the express purpose of scaffing Mr. Merivale inclines, in his Orlando in Roncesvales, riche M. Ginguéné, that the Morgante is decidedly to be conẺ THć 2 lesque poem, and a satire against the Christian region. vale himself acknowledges that it is wound up with a trugi dignified by religious sentiment; and is therefore freÁ A question amongst the unexplained, and perhaps besos, of the human mind.' If a similar question had not both in regard to Shakspeare and to Ariasto, it might be w dispute whether the former intended to write tragedies, and we intibact the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source. It has never yet been decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas, Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild, - or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord." In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names; as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, &c., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's other did not mean to burlesque his heroes. It is a happy thing that, with regard to those two great writers, the war has ended by the fortunate intervention of the general body of readers, who, on such occasions, form their judgment with less erudition and with less prejudice than the critics. But Pulci is little read, and his age is little known. We are told by Mr. Merivale, that the points of abstruse theology are discussed in the Morgante with a degree of sceptical freedom which we should imagine to be altogether remote from the spirit of the fifteenth century. Mr. Merivale follows M. Ginguéné, who follows Voltaire. And the philosopher of Ferney, who was always beating up in all quarters for allies against Christianity, collected all the scriptural passages of Pulci, upon which he commented in his own way. But it is only since the Council of Trent, that any doubt which might be raised on a religious dogma exposed an author to the charge of impiety; whilst, in the fifteenth century, a Catholic might be sincerely de rout, and yet allow himself a certain degree of latitude in theological doubt. At one and the same time the Florentines might well believe in the Gospel and laugh at a doctor of divinity: for it was exactly at this era that they had been spectators of the memorable controversies between the representatives of the eastern and western churches. Greek and Latin bishops from every corner of Christendom had assembled at Florence for the purpose of trying whether they could possibly understand each other; and when they separated, they hated each other worse than before. At the very time when Pulci was composing his Morgante, the clergy of Florence protested against the excommunications pronounced by Sixtus IV., and with expressions by which his holiness was anathematised in his turn. During these proceedings, an archbishop, convicted of being a papal emis sary, was hanged from one of the windows of the government palace at Florence: this event may have suggested to Pulci the idea of converting another archbishop into a hangman. The romantic poets substituted literary and scientific observations for the trivial digressions of the storytellers. This was a great improvement; and although it was not well managed by Pulci, yet he presents us with much curious incidental matter. In quoting his philosophical friend and contemporary Matteo Palmieri, he explains the instinct of brutes by a bold hypothesis-he supposes that they are animated by evil spirits. This idea gave no offence to the theologians of the fifteenth century; but it excited much orthodox indignation when Father Bougeant, a French monk, brought it forward as a new theory of his own. Mr Merivale, after observing that Pulci died before the discovery of America by Columbus, quotes a passage which will become a very in teresting document for the philosophical historian. We give it in his prose translation: The water is level through its whole extent, although, like the earth, it has the form of a globe. Mankind in those ages were much more ignorant than now. Hercules would blush at this day for having fixed his columns. Vessels will soon pass far beyond them. They may soon reach another hemisphere, because every thing tends to its centre; in like manner as, by a divine mystery, the earth is suspended in the midst of the stars; here below are cities and empires, which were ancient. The inhabitants of those regions were called Antipodes. They have plants and animals as well as you, and wage wars as well as you.'- Morgante, c. xxv. 249, &c. "The more we consider the traces of ancient science, which break in transient flashes through the darkness of the middle ages, and which gradually re-illuminated the horizon, the more shall we be disposed to adopt the hypothesis suggested by Bailly, and supported by him with seductive eloquence. He maintained that all the acquirements of the Greeks and Romans had been transmitted to them as the wrecks and fragments of the knowledge once possessed by primeval nations, by empires of sages and philosophers, who were afterwards swept from the face of the globe by some overwhelming catastrophe. His theory may be considered as extravagant; but if the literary productions of the Romans were not ret Extant, it would seem incredible, that, after the lapse of a few centuries, the civilisation of the Augustan age could have been succeeded in Italy by such barbarity. The Italians were so ignorant, that they forgot their family names; and before the eleventh century individuals were known only by their Christian names. They had an indistinct idea, in the middle ages, of the existence of the antipodes; but it was a reminiscence of ancient knowledge. Dante has indicated the number and position of the stars composing the polar constellation of the Austral hemisphere. At the same time he tells us, that when Lucifer was hurled from the celestial regions, the arch-devil transfixed the globe; half his body remained on our side of ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well as of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned. the centre of the earth, and half on the other side. The shock given to the earth by his fall drove a great portion of the waters of the ocean to the southern hemisphere, and only one high mountain remained uncovered, upon which Dante places his purgatory. As the fall of Lucifer happened before the creation of Adam, it is evident that Dante did not admit that the southern hemisphere had ever been inhabited; but, about thirty years afterwards, Petrarch, who was better versed in the ancient writers, ventured to hint that the sun shone upon mortals who were unknown to us. Nella stagion che il ciel rapido inchina “ In the course of half a century after Petrarch, another step was gained. The existence of the antipodes was fully demonstrated. Pulci raises a devil to announce the fact; but it had been taught to him by his fellow-citizen Paolo Toscanelli, an excellent astronomer and mathematician, who wrote in his old age to Christopher Columbus, exhorting him to undertake his expedition. A few stanzas have been translated by Mr. Merivale, with some slight variations, which do not wrong the original. They may be considered as a specimen of Pulci's poetry, when he writes with imagination and feeling. Orlando bids farewell to his dying horse. "His faithful steed, that long had served him well Stretch'd on the field, that crystal fount beside, And, O my much-loved steed, my generous friend, And have I lived to see so sad an end Of all thy toils, and thy brave spirit fled. O pardon me, if e'er I'did offend With hasty wrong that mild and faithful head!'- Just then, his eyes a momentary light Flash'd quick; - then closed again in endless night.' "When Orlando is expiring on the field of battle, an angel descends to him, and promises that Alda his wife shall join him in paradise. 'Bright with eternal youth and fadeless bloom, Thine Aldabella thou shalt behold once more, Partaker of a bliss beyond the tomb With her whom Sinai's holy hills adore, Crown'd with fresh flowers, whose colour and perfume Surpass what Spring's rich bosom ever bore Thy mourning widow here she will remain, And be in Heaven thy joyful spouse again. "Whilst the soul of Orlando was soaring to heaven, a soft and plaintive strain was heard, and angelic voices joined in celestial harmony. They sang the psalm, When Israel went out of Egypt;' and the singers were known to be angels from the trembling of their wings. 'Poi si senti con un suon dolce e fioco * * * * * ، In eriku Israel, cantar, de Egypto, Sentito fu dagli angeli solenne Che si conobbe al tremolar le penne.' "Dante has inserted passages from the Vulgate in his Divina Commedia; and Petrarch, the most religious of poets, quotes Scripture even when he is courting. Yet they were not accused of impiety. Neither did Pulci incur the danger of a posthumous excommunication until after the Reformation, when Pius V. (a Dominican, who was turned into a saint by a subsequent pope) promoted the welfare of holy mother church by burning a few wicked books, and hanging a few troublesome authors. The notion that Pulci was in the odour of heresy influenced the opinion of Milton, who only speaks of the Morgante as a sportful romance.' Milton was anxious to prove that Catholic writers had ridiculed popish divines, and that the Bible |