These apartments were furnished as handsomely as his impoverished resources allowed, in the hope that he might have his wife and children to live with him. But in spite of all his efforts and entreaties his wife was not allowed by her brothers to rejoin him; while his own position as an outlaw made it impossible for him to enter the kingdom of Naples to rescue her. The only concession he could get from the authorities was permission for her to enter with her daughter Cornelia as pensioners among the nuns in the convent of San Festo; and no sooner was this step taken than her friends openly seized her dowry, on the plea that it would otherwise belong to the convent, as her husband's outlawry cancelled his claims to it. Her boy, of course, could not enter the convent with her; he was therefore sent to his father in Rome. The separation between mother and son, we are told, was most affecting. To her it was the climax of her trials; and, bowed down beneath the weight of her acc.u.mulated sufferings, she fell an easy victim to an attack of fever, which, in the short s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours, ended her wretched life. Upon Ta.s.so the parting from a mother whom he was never to see again, and whose personal qualities and grievous trials had greatly endeared her to him, produced an impression which even the great troubles of his after life could never efface.

With a mind richly stored, notwithstanding his youthful age, with cla.s.sic lore, and quickened and made sensitive by a varied and sorrowful career, Torquato Ta.s.so came to Rome. The first occasion of seeing the imperial city must have been exciting and awakening in a high degree to such a boy. He was leaving behind the pa.s.sive simplicity of the child, and had already a keen interest in the things enn.o.bled by history and cared for by grown-up men. This dawn of a higher consciousness found a congenial sphere in the city of the soul.

With what absorbing eagerness his young mind would be drawn to the study of the immortal deeds, which were the inheritance of his race, on the very spot where they were done. He would behold with his eyes the glorious things of which he had heard. There would be much that would shock and disappoint him when he came to be familiar with it.

Many of the ancient monuments had been destroyed; and many of the ancient sites, especially the Forum and the Palatine, were deserted wastes which had not yet yielded up their buried treasures of art to the pick and spade of the antiquarian. The ravages inflicted by the ferocious hordes of the Constable Bourbon in 1527 had not yet been obliterated by the restorations and repairs undertaken by Pope Paul III. The city had lost much of its ancient glory, and had not yet exchanged its gloomy medieval aspect for that of modern civilisation.

But, in spite of every drawback, he could not sufficiently admire the buildings and the sites which bore witness of all that was grandest in human history. Along with a young relative, Christopher Ta.s.so, he pursued his cla.s.sical studies in the midst of all these stimulating a.s.sociations under the tutorship of Maurizio Cattaneo, the most learned master in Italy. The companionship of a youth of his own age did him a great deal of good. It satisfied his affections, it saved him from the loneliness to which his father's ill-health at the time would otherwise have consigned him, and it spurred him on to a healthful exercise of his mental powers. For a short time he led a comparatively happy life in Rome. His father's prospects had somewhat improved. Cardinal Caraffa, who was a personal friend of his, ascended the pontifical throne under the name of Paul IV.; and as they were on the same political side, he hoped that his fortunes would now be retrieved. But this gleam of prosperity speedily vanished. The imperial enmity, which had been the cause of all his previous misfortunes, continued to pursue him like a relentless fate. Philip II. of Spain and the Pope having quarrelled, the formidable Duke of Alba, the new Viceroy of Naples, invaded the Papal States, took Ostia and Tivoli, and threatened Rome itself. With extreme difficulty Bernardo Ta.s.so managed to make his escape to Ravenna, with nothing left him but the ma.n.u.script of his _Amadigi_. In the meantime his son was taken to his relatives at Bergamo. In this city, under the shadow of the Alps, Torquato remained for a year in the home of his Roman schoolfellow. The inhabitants have ever since cherished with pride the connection of the Ta.s.sos with their town, and have erected a splendid monument to Torquato in the market-place. The exquisite scenery in the neighbourhood had a wonderful effect upon the mind of the youthful poet. It put the finishing touch to his varied education. The snows of the North and the fires of the South, the wild grandeur of the mountains and the soft beauty of the sea, the solitudes of Nature where only the effects of storm and sunshine are chronicled, and the crowded scenes of the most inspiring events in human history, had their share in moulding his temperament and colouring his poetry.

From Bergamo Torquato was summoned to Pesaro, since known as the birthplace of Rossini, hence called the "Swan of Pesaro." His father had found a home with the Duke of Urbino, who treated him with the utmost kindness. In the Villa Barachetto, on the sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery and by the finest treasures of art, which have long since been transferred to Paris and Rome, Bernardo Ta.s.so at last completed his _Amadigi_; while, captivated by his grace and intelligence, the duke made Torquato the companion of his son, Francesco Maria, in all his studies and amus.e.m.e.nts. For two years father and son enjoyed in this place a grateful repose from the buffetings of fortune. But, fired by ambition, Bernardo left Pesaro for Venice, in order to see his poem through the press of Aldus Manutius; and being not only welcomed with open arms by his literary friends in that city, but also appointed secretary of the great Venetian Academy "Della Fama," with a handsome salary, he sent for his son, took a house in a good situation, and resolved to settle down in the place. There was much to captivate the imagination of the youthful Torquato in this wonderful city of the sea, then in the zenith of its fame, surpa.s.sing all the capitals of transalpine Europe in the extent of its commerce, in refinement of manners, and in the cultivation of learning and the arts. Its romantic situation, its weird history, its splendid palaces, its silent water-ways, its stirring commerce, its inspiring arts, must have kindled all the enthusiasm of his nature. But he did not yield himself up to the siren attractions of the place, and muse in idleness upon its varied charms. On the contrary, the time that he spent in Venice was the busiest of his life. He was absorbed in the study of Dante and Petrarch; and the results of his devotion may still be seen in the numerous annotations in his handwriting in the copies of these poets which belonged to him, now preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome and the Laurentian Library in Florence. He was also employed by his father in transcribing for the press considerable portions of his poetical works; and these studies and exercises were of much use to him in enabling him to form a graphic and elegant literary style. His own compositions, both in prose and verse, were by this time pretty numerous, though nothing of his had found its way into print as yet.

His father saw with much concern the development of his son's genius.

Anxious to save him from the trials which he himself had experienced in his literary career, he sent him to the University of Padua to study law, which he thought would be a surer provision for his future life than a devotion to the Muses. One great branch of law, that which relates to ecclesiastical jurisprudence, has always been much esteemed in Italy, and the study of it, in many instances, has paved the way to high honours. Almost all the eminent poets of Italy, Petrarch, Ariosto, Marino, Metastasio, spent their earlier years in this pursuit; but, like Ovid and our own Milton, their nature rebelled against the bondage. They took greater pleasure in the study of the laws for rhyme than in the study of the Pandects of Justinian or the Decretals of Isidore. It was so with Ta.s.so. He attended faithfully the lectures of Guido Panciroli, although these were not compulsory, and waited patiently at the University during the three years of residence which is required for a law degree. But all the time his mind was occupied with other thoughts than those connected with his law studies. Still, uncongenial as they must have been to him, he could not have attended for three years to such studies without unconsciously deriving much benefit from them. They must have impressed upon him those ideas of order and logical arrangement which he afterwards carried out in his writings, and which separate them so markedly from the confused, inconsistent license of the older literature of Italy; and he could not have resided in the birthplace of Livy, in constant a.s.sociation with the highest minds of the time, as a member of a University then the most famous in Europe, numbering no less than ten thousand students from all parts of the world, without his intellectual life being greatly quickened.

During ten months of enthusiastic work he produced his first great poem, which, considering his age--for he was then only in his eighteenth year--and the short time occupied in its composition, is one of the most remarkable efforts of genius. He called his poem _Rinaldo_, after the name of the knight whose romantic adventures it celebrates--not the Rinaldo of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, but the Paladin of whom so much is said in the poems of Boiardo and Ariosto,--and dedicated it to Cardinal Lewis of Este, then one of the most distinguished patrons of literature in Italy. It contains a beautiful allusion to his father's genius as the source of his own inspiration. It abounds in the supernatural incidents and personified abstractions characteristic of the romantic school of poetry; and though Galileo said of it that it reminded him of a picture formed of inlaid work, rather than of a painting in oil, it has nevertheless a unity of plot, a sustained interest, and a uniform elevation of style, which distinguishes it from all the poetry of the period. Our own Spenser has imbibed the spirit of some of its most beautiful pa.s.sages; and several striking coincidences between his _Faerie Queen_ and the _Rinaldo_ can be traced, particularly in the account of the lion tamed by Clarillo, and the well-known incident of Una and the lion in Spenser. The poem of _Rinaldo_ will always be read with interest, as it strikes the keynote of Ta.s.so's great epic, the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, many of the finest fictions of which were adopted with very little modification from the earlier work. His letter asking his father's permission to publish it came at a very inopportune moment.

Bernardo was smarting just then under the disappointments connected with the reception of his own poem, the _Amadigi_. It produced little impression upon the general public; the copies which he distributed among the Italian n.o.bles procured him nothing but conventional thanks and polite praise; while the magnificent edition which he prepared specially for presentation to Philip II. of Spain, in the hope that he might thereby be induced to interest himself in the restoration of his wife's property at Naples, was not even acknowledged. Wounded thus in his deepest sensibilities, and bewailing the misfortunes of his literary career, we need not wonder that he should have sent a reply peremptorily commanding his son to give up poetry and stick to the law. The young poet in his distress sought the intervention of some of his father's literary friends, and through their mediation the destiny of Torquato Ta.s.so and of Italian poetry was accomplished, and the poem of _Rinaldo_ was given to the world through the renowned press of the Franceschi of Venice. No sooner was it published than it achieved an extraordinary success, for Cervantes had not yet made this cla.s.s of fiction for ever ridiculous.

Notwithstanding that the public were surfeited with romantic poetry, the merits of this new work, constructed upon different principles and carried out in an original style, were such that the literary schools were carried by storm, and the young Ta.s.so, or Ta.s.sino, as he was now called to distinguish him from his father, at once leapt into fame. So great was his reputation, that the newly-restored University of Bologna invited him to reside there, so that it might share in the distinction conferred by his name. In this magnificent seat of learning he remained, enjoying the advantage of literary intercourse with the great scholars who then occupied the chairs of the University, until the publication of some anonymous pasquinades, reflecting severely upon the leading inhabitants, of which he was falsely supposed to be the author. In his absence the Government officials visited his rooms and seized his papers. The sensitive poet regarded this suspicion as a stain upon his honour, and the outrage he never forgave. Shaking the dust from his shoes, he departed from Bologna, and for some time led an unsettled life, enjoying the generous hospitality of the n.o.bles whose names he had celebrated in his _Rinaldo_. Returning at length to Padua, where he engaged in the study of Aristotle and Plato, and delivered three discourses on Heroic Poetry in the Academia degli Eterei, or the Ethereals--in which he developed the whole theory of his poetical design--which were afterwards published, the office of Laureate at the court of Ferrara was offered to him by Cardinal Lewis of Este, to whom, as I have said, he had dedicated his _Rinaldo_.

Torquato Ta.s.so was now in the full bloom of opening manhood. He was distinguished, like his father, for his personal beauty and grace, with a high, n.o.ble forehead, deep gray melancholy eyes, regular well-cut features, and hair of a light brown. He had the advantage of all the culture of his time. His manners were refined by familiar intercourse with the highest n.o.bles of the land, and his mind richly furnished, not only with the stores of cla.s.sic literature, but also with the literary treasures of his own country; while a residence, more or less prolonged, in the most famous towns, and among the most romantic scenes of Italy, had widened his mental horizon and expanded his sympathies. He had already mounted almost to the highest step of the literary ladder. Nothing could exceed the tokens of respect with which he was everywhere received. But, in spite of all these advantages, Ta.s.so was now beginning to realise the shadows that accompany even the most splendid literary career. His own experience was now confirming to him the truth of what his father had often sought to impress upon his mind,--that the favour of princes was capricious, and that a life of dependence at a court was of all others the most unsatisfactory. Const.i.tutionally disposed to melancholy, irritable and sensitive to the last degree, he brooded over the fancied wrongs and slights which he had received; and at first he was disposed to accept the advice of his father's friend, the well-known Sperone, who strongly dissuaded him from going to the court of Ferrara, painting the nature of the life he would lead there in the most forbidding colours. It would have been well had he listened to this wise counsel, strengthened as it was by his own better judgment; for in that case he might have been spared the mortifications which made the whole of his after life one continued martyrdom. But recovering from a protracted illness, into which the agitation of his spirits threw him, when on a visit to his father at the court of the Duke of Mantua, he pa.s.sed from the depths of despondency to the opposite extreme of eagerness, and, fired by ambition, he resolved to enter upon the path to distinction which now opened before him. And here we come to the crisis of his life.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a state of things existed in Italy somewhat similar to that which existed in the Highlands of Scotland in earlier times. Each Highland chief maintained an independent court, and among his personal retainers a bard who should celebrate his deeds was considered indispensable. So was it with the princes of Italy. In their train was always found a man of letters whose poetic Muse was dedicated to laureate duties, and was valued in proportion as it recorded the triumphs of the protecting court. For this patronage of art and letters no court was more distinguished than that of Ferrara.

"Whoe'er in Italy is known to fame, This lordly home as frequent guest can claim."

The family of Este was the most ancient and ill.u.s.trious in Italy. The house of Brunswick, from which our own royal family is descended, was a shoot from this parent stock. It intermarried with the princ.i.p.al reigning families of Europe. Leibnitz, Muratori, and our own great historian, Gibbon, have traced the lineage and chronicled the family incidents of this ducal house. Lucrezia Borgia and the Parasina of Byron were members of it. For several generations the men and women were remarkable for the curious contrasts of a violent character and the pursuits of the arts of peace which they displayed. Poisonings, a.s.sa.s.sinations, adulteries, imprisonments for life, conspiracies, were by no means uncommon incidents in their tragical history. And yet under their government Ferrara became the first really modern city in Europe, with well-built streets, a large population, and flourishing trade, attracting wealthy settlers from all parts of Italy. Nearly all the members of the reigning house were distinguished for their personal attractions and their mental capacities. They were also notorious for their love of display. We have books, such as the _Antiquities of the House of Este_ by Muratori, the _Chivalries of Ferrara_, the _Borseid_, and the _Hecatommiti_ of Giraldi, which were written almost to order for the purpose of gratifying this vanity.

Borso, the first duke, caused his portrait to be painted in a series of historical representations in one of his princ.i.p.al palaces; Hercules I. kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a splendid procession, which was compared to the festival of Corpus Christi; an Order, which had nothing in common with medieval chivalry, called the Order of the Golden Spur, was inst.i.tuted by his court, and conferred upon those who reflected l.u.s.tre by their deeds or their literary gifts upon the house of Este; while, to crown all, we read at this day on the tower of the cathedral of Ferrara the dedicatory inscription beginning with "To the G.o.d Hercules II.," which the complaisant inhabitants had put there,--an apotheosis which reminds us of the worst slavery of imperial Rome under Caligula and Domitian.

Some of the greatest names of Italy, such as Petrarch, Boiardo, Ariosto, the wonderful prodigy Olympia Morata, and the celebrated poetess Vittoria Colonna--the friend of Michael Angelo--were connected with this brilliant court. The well-known French poet Clement Marot fled to it to escape persecution in his native country. Calvin found a refuge there for some months under the a.s.sumed name of Charles d'Heppeville, during which he converted the d.u.c.h.ess to the reformed faith. The father of Ta.s.so visited it when it was at the height of its splendour and renown. Hercules II., the then reigning prince, son of Lucrezia Borgia, had earned a great reputation for his literary works and patronage of the fine arts; and his wife, the friend of Calvin, the youngest daughter of Louis XII. of France, was even more remarkable for her talents, being equally skilled in the Latin and Greek languages. This renowned couple drew around them a circle of the most accomplished men and women in Europe, in whose congenial society Bernardo Ta.s.so spent a few months of great enjoyment, delighting all by his wit and social qualities.

But notwithstanding all this magnificence and love of learning, the house of Este, among its other contradictory qualities, was distinguished for capriciousness and meanness. Even Muratori, their ardent panegyrist, does not attempt to conceal this blemish. We must deduct a good deal from the high-sounding praise which the courtly writers of Italy bestowed upon this house for its splendid patronage of literature, when we remember that Ariosto, who pa.s.sed his life in its service, was treated with n.i.g.g.ardliness and contempt. He had a place a.s.signed him among the musicians and jugglers, and was regarded as one of the common domestics of the establishment. Guarini, the well-known author of the _Pastor Fido_, contemporary with Ta.s.so, met with much indignity in the service of Alphonso II.; while Panigarola and several other distinguished men were compelled to leave the service of the ducal family by persecution. Benvenuto Cellini, who resided at the court of Ferrara twenty-five years before Ta.s.so, gives a very unfavourable account of the avarice and rapacity which characterised it; and Sera.s.si, the biographer of Ta.s.so, remarks that the court seems to have been extremely dangerous, especially to literary men. It was not therefore, we may suppose, without other reasons than his being merely a Guelph, that Dante in his _Inferno_ placed one of the scions of the house in h.e.l.l, and uniformly regarded the family with dislike. Ta.s.so himself was destined to experience both the favour and the hostility, the generosity and the neglect, of this capricious house.

Ferrara is now a dull sleepy city of less than thirty thousand inhabitants. It is a place that continues to exist not because of its vitality, but by the mere force of habit. Its broad deserted streets and decaying palaces lie silent and sad in the drowsy noon sunshine, like the aisles of a September forest. But in the days of Ta.s.so it was one of the gayest cities of Italy, which looked upon itself as the centre of the world, and all beyond as mere margin. It was always _festa_, always carnival, in Ferrara; and when the poet came to it in his twentieth year, on the last day of October 1565, he found it one brilliant theatre. The reigning duke, Alphonso II., had just been married to the daughter of Ferdinand I., Emperor of Austria; and this splendid alliance was celebrated by tournaments, b.a.l.l.s, feasts, and other pageantry, which transcended everything of the kind that had previously been seen in Italy, with the exception, perhaps, of the fetes connected with the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to his grandfather. The ardent mind of the poet, it need hardly be said, was completely fascinated. He saw himself surrounded daily with all the splendours of chivalry, and lived in the midst of scenes such as haunt the dreams of poets and inspire the pages of romance. Goethe, in his _Torquato Ta.s.so_, an exquisite poem, it may be said, but wanting in dramatic action, gives a vivid picture of the poet's life at the court of Ferrara, which bore some resemblance to his own at the court of Weimar.

Two sisters of the reigning prince lived in the palace, and by their beauty and accomplishments imparted to the court an air of great refinement. The younger, the famous Leonora of Este, was about thirty years of age at this time, and therefore considerably older than Ta.s.so. A severe and protracted illness had shut her out from the festivities connected with her brother's marriage, and communicated to her mind a touch of sadness, and to her features a spiritual delicacy which greatly increased her attractiveness. The numerous writers by whom she is mentioned talk with rapture, not only of her beauty and genius, but also of her saintly goodness, which was so great that a single prayer of hers on one occasion was said to have rescued Ferrara from the wrath of Heaven evinced in the inundation of the Po. In the society of these ladies Ta.s.so spent a great deal of his time; and perhaps his intercourse with them, unconstrained by court conventionalities, was not altogether free from those tender feelings which the charms of a lovely and accomplished woman, whatever her rank, might readily excite in a poetic temperament. The author of the _Sorrows of Werther_ did not, therefore, perhaps draw exclusively upon his imagination in picturing the rise and struggle of an unhappy pa.s.sion for Leonora d'Este in the bosom of the young poet. Whatever may be said regarding this pa.s.sion, however, there can be no doubt that his heart was at this time enslaved by younger and humbler beauties. He had much of the temperament of his father, who, although exemplary in his single and married life, was distinguished for his Platonic gallantry, and cherished a poetic attachment, according to the fashion of the day, for various ladies throughout his career, such as Genevra Malatesta, the beautiful Tullia of Arragon, and Marguerite de Valois, sister of Henry III. These follies were but the froth of his genius, however; and in this respect his son followed his example.

Lucrezia Bendidio, a young lady at court gifted with singular beauty and musical talent, reigned for a while supreme over his affections.

But she had other suitors, including the author of the _Pastor Fido_, and the poet Pigna, who was the secretary and favourite of the reigning duke. The Princess Leonora tried to cure Ta.s.so of this pa.s.sion by persuading him to ill.u.s.trate the verses of his rival Pigna.

Nothing came of this first love, therefore, and the object of it soon after married into the house of Machiavelli.

In the congenial atmosphere of the court of Ferrara, surrounded by the flower of beauty and chivalry, stimulated by the a.s.sociations of his master Ariosto, which every object around recalled, and encouraged by the praises of the sweetest lips in the palace, Ta.s.so set himself diligently to the composition of the great work of his life, the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, the plan of which he had formed before he left the University of Padua. Among the treasures of the Vatican Library I have seen a sketch in the poet's own handwriting of the first three cantos. This sketch he now modified and enlarged, and in the s.p.a.ce of a few months completed five entire cantos. He read the poem as it proceeded to the fair sisters of his patron, and received the benefit of their criticisms. This work, which is "the great epic poem in the strict sense of modern times," occupied altogether eighteen years of the author's life. It was begun in extreme youth, and finished in middle age, and is a most remarkable example of a young man's devotion to one absorbing object. The opening chapters were written amid the bright dreams of youth, and in the happiest circ.u.mstances; the closing ones were composed amid the dark clouds of a morbid melancholy, and during an imprisonment tyrannical in all its features. Placed side by side with Homer and Virgil, it may be said with Voltaire that Ta.s.so was more fortunate than either of these immortals in the choice of his subject. It was based, not upon tradition, but upon true history. It appealed not merely to the pa.s.sions of love and ambition, but to the deepest feelings of the soul, to faith in the unseen and eternal. To humanity at large the wars of the Cross must be more interesting than the wrath of Achilles, and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre than the siege of Troy. No theme could be more susceptible of poetic treatment than the Crusades. They were full of stirring incident, of continually changing objects and images. The strife took place amid scenes from which the most familiar stories of our childhood have come, and around which have gathered the most sacred a.s.sociations of the heart. And Ta.s.so's mind was one that was peculiarly adapted to reflect all the special characteristics of the theme. It was deeply religious in its tone, and therefore could enter into the struggle with all the sympathy of real conviction. His luxuriant imagination was chastened by his cla.s.sical culture; while the pervading melancholy of his temperament gave to the scenes which he described an effect such as a thin veil of mist that comes and goes gives to a mountain landscape.

The gorgeous Oriental world of the palm tree and the camel, seen through this sad poetic haze, has all the shadows of the deep northern forests and the tender gloom of the western hills. The rigid outlines of history fade in it to the indefiniteness of fable, and fact becomes as flexible as fancy.

The circ.u.mstances of the times were also peculiarly favourable for the composition of such a poem. He was at the proper focal distance to appreciate the full interest of the Crusades, not too near to be absorbed in observation and engrossed in the immediate results; not too far off to lose the sympathy for the religious chivalry which inspired the Holy War. Earlier, in the intensely prosaic period that immediately succeeded, the romance of the Crusades was gone; later, Europe was girding itself for the sterner task of reformation. Before the time of Ta.s.so, Peter the Hermit would have been deemed a foolish enthusiast; later, he would have been sent to a lunatic asylum. But just at the time when Ta.s.so wrote there was much, especially in Italy, of that spirit which roused and quickened Europe in the eleventh century, much that appealed to the natural poetry in the human heart.

The recent victory of the Christian forces at the famous battle of Lepanto checked the spread of Mohammedanism in Eastern Europe, and turned men's thoughts back into the old channel of the Crusades; so that Gregory XIII., who ascended the pontifical throne about the time that Ta.s.so had resumed the writing of his _Gerusalemme_, had actually planned an expedition to the Holy Land, like that which his predecessor, Urban II., had sent out. And one of the princ.i.p.al events which the poet witnessed after his arrival at Ferrara, when the marriage rejoicings were over, was the departure of the reigning duke with a company of three hundred gentlemen of his court, arrayed in all the pomp and splendour of the famous Paladins of the first Crusade, to a.s.sist the Emperor of Austria in repelling an invasion of the Turks into Hungary. Many of the n.o.ble houses of Europe at this time were extremely anxious to trace their origin to the Crusades; and the vanity of the house of Este required that Ta.s.so should make the great hero of his epic--the brave and chivalrous Rinaldo--an ancestor of their family. The scenes and a.s.sociations, too, in the midst of which his daily life was spent, helped him to realise vividly the pageantry connected with the heroes of his epic.

Thus happy in the choice of a subject, and favoured by the spirit of the time and the circ.u.mstances in which he was placed, Ta.s.so gave himself up to the composition of his poem with a most absorbing devotion. Like Virgil, he first sketched out his work in prose, and on this groundwork elaborated the charms of colouring and harmony which distinguish the poem. So carefully did he study the military art of his day that all his battles and contests are scientifically described, and are in entire accordance with the most rigorous rules of war; and so thoroughly did he make himself acquainted with the topography of the Holy Land by the aid of books, that Chateaubriand, who read the _Gerusalemme_ under the walls of Jerusalem, was struck with the fidelity of the local descriptions. Ta.s.so occasionally sought relief from his great task by the composition of sonnets and lyrics, which were published in the Rime of the Paduan Academy, and contributed to make him still more popular all over Italy. He also took part in those literary disputations in public which were characteristic of the age; and for three days in the Academy of Ferrara, in the presence of the court, defended against both s.e.xes fifty "Amorous Conclusions" which he had drawn up--a form of controversy which seems to have been a relic of the courts or parliaments of love, very popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One of the ladies of the court impugned with success his twenty-first conclusion "that man loves more intensely and with more stability than woman;" but whether this success was the result of the goodness of her cause, and not rather of her own ability or of Ta.s.so's gallantry, may be left an open question. He afterwards published the whole series of the "Amorous Conclusions," and dedicated them to Genevra Malatesta, who now, as an old married woman, was greatly touched by receiving such a compliment from the son of her former lover.

Ta.s.so's father was now dying at Ostiglia, a small place on the Po, of which the Duke of Mantua had made him governor. With talents unimpaired, at the age of seventy-six, and while preparing a new poem upon the episode of Floridante in the _Amadigi_, he was seized with his last illness. His son, full of filial anxiety, hastened to see him, and found the house in wretched disorder; the servants having taken advantage of the helplessness of their master to neglect their duties and steal any valuable property they could lay their hands upon, so that Ta.s.so had not only to take charge of the household affairs, but also to defray out of his own scanty resources the domestic expenditure. After a month's severe struggle his father died in his arms, to the regret of all Italy, and his remains were interred with great pomp by the Duke of Mantua in a marble cenotaph in the princ.i.p.al church of his capital, and were afterwards transferred by Ta.s.so to the church of St. Paul in Ferrara, where they now lie. Thus pa.s.sed away one of the most conspicuous and unfortunate persons of his age, of whom it has been said that he was "a politician, unlucky in the choice of his party; a client, unlucky in the choice of his patrons; and a poet, unlucky in the choice of his theme."

The fatigue and sorrow connected with this bereavement brought on a severe illness, from which Torquato recovered with a sense of loneliness and depression which only deepened as the years went on.

From this melancholy he enjoyed, however, a temporary respite by a visit to Paris. The house of Este by frequent intermarriages was connected with the French court, in consequence of which they had a right to use the golden lilies of France in their armorial bearings; and many of the ecclesiastics of the family held rich benefices in that country as well as in their own. Cardinal Lewis, the brother of the reigning duke, resolved to inspect the abbeys that belonged to him in France, and to strengthen the Roman Catholic cause, which had received a severe blow from the Reformation; and among the gentlemen of his train he took with him Ta.s.so, in order to introduce him to his cousin Charles IX., who himself dabbled in poetry and had a fine literary taste. From the French monarch the poet obtained a gracious reception; and by the whole court he was warmly welcomed as one who had worthily commemorated the gallant deeds of the Paladins of France at the siege of Jerusalem. For nearly a year he resided in different parts of France, and notwithstanding the numerous distractions of such a novel mode of life, he added many admirable stanzas to his great epic, inspired by the very scenes among which his hero, G.o.dfrey, and his knights had lived. He left just in time to escape the dreadful ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; but he may be said to have suffered indirectly on account of it. Though treated with distinction by the French court, his personal wants were left unsupplied, and his patron, Cardinal Lewis, did not make up for this meanness. Voltaire, therefore, had reason to indulge in a cynical sneer at the glowing accounts of his visit given by Italian writers; and Balzac's statement that Ta.s.so left France in the same suit of clothes that he brought with him, after having worn it for a year, is not without foundation.

This shabby treatment, however, was part of a wider State policy. The year of Ta.s.so's residence in France was one of preparation for the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; but in order to avert the suspicions of the intended victims, the Huguenots were treated with such extraordinary favour by the authorities that the Pope himself was incensed, and remonstrated with the King. Ta.s.so, ignorant of the dreadful secret, spoke candidly and vehemently against the reformed doctrines and those who professed them. His patron therefore simulated deep indignation on account of this imprudence; and as the step fell in both with his personal avarice and his State policy, he broke off the cordial relations that formerly existed between them.

On the return of Ta.s.so to Ferrara he occupied himself for about two months with the composition of a pastoral drama called the _Aminta_.

This species of poem, which originated with Theocritus, who represented the shepherds of Sicily nearly as they were, and was imitated by Virgil, who idealised the shepherd life, was revived at the court of Ferrara; and some years before a local poet wrote a pastoral describing a romantic Arcadia, which was acted at the palace, and seems to have inspired Ta.s.so with the idea of writing one too. But all previous pastorals--the _Sacrifizio_ of Beccari, the _Aretusa_ of Lollio, the _Sfortunato_ of Argenti--were rough and incongruous medleys compared with the finished production of Ta.s.so, which may be said to mark an era in the history of dramatic poetry. Although Ta.s.so himself did not think much of it, and did not take any steps to publish it, the judgment of his contemporaries and of posterity has placed it next in point of merit to the _Gerusalemme_; and by Italians it is especially admired for its graceful elegance of diction. Leigh Hunt executed a very good translation of it, which he dedicated to Keats. Its choruses, which are so many "lyrical voices floating in the air," are very beautiful. It was designed for the theatre, and was acted with great splendour at the court of Ferrara, and a few years later at Mantua, when the well-known artist and architect Buontalenti painted the scenery. This fact, however, shows how primitive was the state of the theatre at this time; and how the spectators, little accustomed to histrionic representations, were content to witness dramas that had no plot or action, and to follow the progress of a beautiful poem rather than a dramatic development. The _Aminta_ long retained its popularity as an acted poem in Italy. It was often represented in open-air theatres, like the ancient Greek plays, in gardens or in woods, where Nature supplied the scenery, and the _scalinata_ or stage was only some rising piece of ground. Traces of one of these sylvan theatres may still be seen in the grounds of the Villa Madama, on the eastern slopes of Monte Mario near Rome; and one cannot help thinking that a poem so redolent of the open air, so full of Nature and still natural life, which Ta.s.so himself called Favola Boschereccia, or a Sylvan Fable, was better adapted for such a stage than for the heated air and artificial surroundings of the Italian theatres. Such a pastoral was in entire keeping with the manners of the Italian peasants; and the scenes of Arcadia which it represented might be seen almost everywhere in the beautiful valleys and chestnut-covered hills of their native land. The exquisite loveliness of the climate, and the simplicity and indolence of the people, lent themselves naturally to such ideal dreams. And Ta.s.so in his _Aminta_ only gave expression to the same happy thoughts which the same scenery and the same people had ages before inspired in the mind of Virgil when he wrote his Eclogues.

After a few months' quiet sojourn with Lucrezia d'Este, now d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino, at that court, he was appointed secretary to the Duke of Ferrara, in room of his rival Pigna, who for this reason became his mortal enemy, and stirred up against him the persecution which embittered his whole subsequent life. But standing high, as he did, in the favour of the duke, he enjoyed for a while a season of calm repose, during which he finished the great epic poem, which was eagerly looked for throughout Italy. Anxious to make this cherished work of his genius as perfect as possible, he unfortunately was imprudent enough to submit portions of his work to all his learned friends for their opinion. Besides in this way getting the most contradictory advices, sacrificing his own independent judgment, and imposing an unworthy yoke upon his genius, the result was that the fragments of the poem pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and so got into the possession of the printers, who, eager to profit by the public curiosity, pieced them together, and clandestinely printed them. Even in this fragmentary form, the cantos that appeared in various cities of Italy were received with unbounded applause. The author, as may be imagined, was intensely annoyed at this wrong that had been done to him, and wrote to the Pope, to the Republic of Genoa, and to all the Italian princes who had any authority in the case, to put a stop to the publication of a work which had been circulated without his sanction, but in vain. Even the first complete edition, which was issued in 1581, seems to have been without his consent; for the author complains that he was compelled, by the surrept.i.tious publication of parts of his poem, to finish the work in haste, and he wished for more time to elaborate the plot and polish the style. In the later editions, no less than seven of which appeared the same year, Ta.s.so seems to have been to some extent consulted; but it may be said that the great epic was given to the world in the form in which we now have it, without the author's imprimatur, and without the benefit of his finishing touches. But in spite of this disadvantage it took the whole country at once by storm. Two thousand copies were sold in two days.

Throughout literary circles nothing else was spoken of. The exquisite stanzas, full of the true chivalric spirit, touched a responsive chord in every Italian bosom. Not only in the academies of the learned was the poem discussed, not only was it recited before princes amid the splendours of courts, but priests mused over it in the solitude of the cloister, and peasants chanted its sonorous strains as they worked in the fields. Quotations from it, we are told, might be heard from the gondolier on the Grand Ca.n.a.l of Venice, as he greeted his neighbour in pa.s.sing by, and from the brigand on the far heights of the Abruzzi, as he lay in wait for the unsuspecting traveller; and "a portion of the Crusader's Litany was a favourite chant of the galley-slaves of Leghorn, as, chained together, they dragged their weary steps along the sh.o.r.e."

There is no book which it is easier to find fault with than the _Gerusalemme_ when estimated by the satiated critical spirit of modern times, which insists upon brevity, and demands in each line a certain poetic excellence; especially if the poem is known only through the medium of a translation, which, however faithful, is but the turning of the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. We may object to the want of originality in the leading characters, to the occasional inflated style, and the conceits and plays upon words now and then introduced, to the apparently disproportionate influence of love upon the action of the poem, as Hallam has remarked, giving it an effeminate tone, and, above all, to the introduction of so much supernatural machinery in the form of magic and demons; for such supernaturalism is out of keeping altogether with our vaster knowledge of the universe, and our more solemn ideas of Him who pervades it. But it is not by an a.n.a.lysis of particular parts, or a criticism of special peculiarities, that the _Gerusalemme_ should be judged. It is by its effect as a whole, as a highly finished work of art. A single campaign of the first crusade--that of 1099--embraces the whole action of the poem; but the numerous episodes form each a perfect picture, that, like a flower floating on a stream, and illumined by a special gleam of sunlight, does not interrupt the continuous flow of the narrative. In a state of society characterised by much corruption, the sentiments are uniformly pure; and in an artificial age, when Nature was regarded as only the background of human action, the descriptions of the objects of Nature are wonderfully accurate; and the mind of the poet towards the flowers and trees, the woods and hills and streams, was in a childlike state, and had all the freshness and joyousness of childhood. The student is not to be envied who can read without emotion the enthusiastic description of the Crusader's first sight of Jerusalem, the touching pathos of Clorinda's death, and the sublime account of the ruins of Carthage. It would indeed refresh many a mind, surfeited by the vast ma.s.s of our modern literature, to go back to the green pastures and still waters of this grand old poem.

Every visitor to Florence knows the venerable monastery of San Marco, with its hallowed relics of Savonarola, and its beautiful frescoes of Fra Angelico. In a large apartment of this monastery, which was formerly the library of the monks, are now held the meetings of the famous Della Cruscan Academy, inst.i.tuted in 1582 for the purpose of purifying the national language. At that time every town of the least importance in Italy had its academy with some strange fantastic name, which was an important element in the intellectual life of the people, and exercised a critical control over the literature of the day. Up to the year 1814 the Della Cruscans a.s.sembled in the Palazzo Riccardi, the ancient palace of the Medici; but that stately building being required for Government purposes, the members have since been accommodated in San Marco, where they have sunk into obscurity, many of the inhabitants of Florence being altogether ignorant of the existence of such an inst.i.tution in their city. I had considerable difficulty in finding out the locality. The furniture of the apartment is exceedingly curious, and is meant to indicate the object of the Academy, which--as its name literally translated, _of the_ bran or _chaff_, signifies--is to sift the fine flour of the language from the corrupt bran that has gathered around it. The chairs are made in imitation of a baker's basket, turned bottom upwards and painted red.

On the wall behind each chair is suspended a shovel, with the name of its owner painted upon it, along with a group of flowers in allusion to the famous motto of the Academy, "Il piu bel fior ne coglie," "It plucks the fairest flower." On the table, during my visit, there was a model of a flour-dressing machine and some meal sacks; while several printed sheets of a new edition of the Italian Dictionary, which the members were engaged in publishing at the time, with ma.n.u.script corrections, were scattered about. At present the Academy, besides doing this important work, occasionally holds public sessions; but it is an effete inst.i.tution, that has little more than an archaeological interest. It was very different, however, in the sixteenth century.

Then, in point of numbers and reputation, it was the outstanding literary academy of Italy, and occupied the commanding position from which the all-powerful humanists of the previous age had been driven by the counter reformation. It is chiefly, however, by its attacks upon Ta.s.so that it is now known to fame.

No sooner was the _Gerusalemme_ published than comparisons began to be inst.i.tuted between it and the _Orlando Furioso_ of Ariosto. This latter poem was then in the zenith of its reputation; it was regarded as the supreme standard of literary excellence, and it was slavishly imitated by all the inferior poets of Italy. It was inevitable, therefore, that the two works should be compared together. But as well might the _aeneid_ of Virgil be compared with the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. The _Orlando Furioso_ is a romantic poem in the manner of Ovid, whereas the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is an epic poem in the manner of Homer and Virgil. No Italian poet previous to Ta.s.so had written an epic; and Ta.s.so himself distinctly avowed that he had chosen that form of poetry deliberately; not only as being more congenial to his own mind, but also that he might avoid following in the steps of Ariosto, whose work he regarded as, in its own department, incapable of being excelled, or even equalled. In reply to the generous letter of Ariosto's nephew, who wrote him a letter of congratulation, he said, "The crown you would honour me with already adorns the head of the poet to whom you are related, from whence it would be as easy to s.n.a.t.c.h it as to wrest the club from the hand of Hercules. I would no more receive it from your hand than I would s.n.a.t.c.h it myself."

But in spite of the altogether different nature of the two poems, and in spite of the distinct disavowals of Ta.s.so, the critics persisted in accusing him of the presumption of entering the lists with Ariosto.

And in this idea they were strengthened by the injudicious praises of Camillo Pellegrini, who in a dialogue ent.i.tled _Caraffa_ or _Epic Poetry_, likened the _Orlando Furioso_ to a palace, the plan of which is defective, but which contains superb rooms splendidly adorned, and is therefore very captivating to the simple and ignorant; while the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ resembles a smaller palace, whose architecture is perfect, and whose rooms are suitable and elegant without being gaudy, delighting the true masters of art. This squib was published in Florence, and at once aroused the hostility of the Della Cruscans.

They were already prejudiced against Ta.s.so on account of his connection with the court of Ferrara, between which and the court of Florence there was a bitter rivalry; and that offence was intensified by the unguarded way in which he spoke of the Florentines as being under the yoke of the Medici, whom he denounced as tyrants. The Academy, which at the time enjoyed the patronage of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was therefore too glad to seize upon Pellegrini's squib as a pretext for a vehement attack upon Ta.s.so's epic. Ariosto was dead, had pa.s.sed among the immortals, and was therefore beyond all envy; but here was a _living_ poet, who belonged to a court which had cruelly treated the daughter of their ruler, Lucrezia de Medici, the first wife of Alfonso of Ferrara, and was a mere youth, who was guilty of the sacrilege of seeking to dethrone their favourite. Ariosto had greatly admired Florence, and celebrated its beauties in one of his finest poems; and was it to be borne that this young upstart, who had presumed to speak disparagingly of their city, should be preferred to him? It would be a useless waste of time to go over in detail the absurd criticisms by which they attempted to throw ridicule upon the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. They would have pa.s.sed into utter oblivion had not Ta.s.so himself, by condescending to reply to them, given to them an immortality of shame. Not contented with abusing his poem and himself, they also attacked his father, a.s.serting that his _Amadigi_ was a most miserable work, and was pillaged wholesale from the writings of others, and thus wounded the poet in the most tender part.

By this combination of critical cavils against him, Ta.s.so was thrown back from the land of poetical vision into a dreary mental wilderness.

The effect upon one of his most sensitive nature, predisposed by temperament and the vicissitudes of his life to profound melancholy, was most disastrous. We can trace to this cause the commencement of those mental disorders which, if they never reached actual insanity, bordered upon it, and darkened the rest of his life. His overwrought mind gave way to all kinds of morbid fancies. His body became enfeebled by the agitation of his mind; and the powerful medicines which he was prevailed upon to take to cure his troubles only increased them. Like Rousseau during his sad visit to England, he became suspicious of every one, and lost faith even in himself.

Religious doubts commenced to agitate his mind. Distracted by this worst of all evils, he put himself into the hands of the Holy Fraternity at Bologna; and though the inquisitors had sense enough to see that what he considered atheistical doubts were only the illusions of hypochondria, and tried to rea.s.sure him as to their belief in the soundness of his faith, he was not satisfied with the absolution which they had given to him.

The court of Ferrara was full of unscrupulous intriguers. Ta.s.so's wonderful success could not be forgiven by some of the petty aspirants after literary fame who haunted the ducal precincts. Pigna, whose place as secretary he had usurped, stirred up the jealousy of the other courtiers into open persecution. Leonardo Salvinati, the leader of the Della Cruscan Academy, wishing to ingratiate himself with the court, joined in the hostility. Ta.s.so's papers were stolen, and his letters intercepted and read, and a false construction was put upon everything he did. At first the duke refused to hear the various accusations that were brought against him, and continued to show him every mark of esteem. He had the privilege, in that ceremonious age a very high one, of dining daily with the prince at his own private table. He accompanied the princesses to their country retreats at Urbino, Belriguarda, or Consandoli, where in healthy country pursuits he forgot for a time his troubles. At Urbino he wrote the unfinished canzone to the river Metauro, one of the most touching of his compositions, in which he laments the wounds which fortune had inflicted upon him through the whole of his hapless life.

But the tenure of princely favour at Italian courts, amid so many ambitious patrons and anxious suitors, was very precarious. It was uncommonly so at Ferrara. After a while a sudden change pa.s.sed over the mind of the duke towards Ta.s.so. Whether tired of the poet's incessant complaints, irritated at his incautious conduct--going the length on two occasions of drawing his sword, when provoked, upon members of the ducal household,--or whether his suspicions were aroused regarding the relations between him and his sister Leonora, is not known, but from this time he began to treat Ta.s.so as if he were a madman. He was placed under the charge of the ducal physicians and servants, who reported to their employer every careless word. Removed from Belriguarda, he was ordered to be confined in the Ferrarese convent of San Francisco; and two friars were appointed to watch over him continually. Such a life was unendurable to the proud poet, who disliked the nauseous medicines of the convent as much as its restraint; and taking advantage of a _festa_, when his keepers were unusually negligent, he made his escape by a window. In the disguise of a shepherd he travelled on foot over the mountains of the Abruzzi, getting a morsel of bread and a lodging from the peasants by the way, to his sister's house at Sorrento, now the Vigna Sersale. There he remained during the whole summer, soothed by his sister's affectionate kindness. The monotony of the life, however, began to pall upon him, and he longed to get back to his old scenes of excitement. Undeterred by an evasive reply which the duke sent to an urgent letter of his, he set out for Ferrara; and on his arrival, meeting with a cold reception, he was obliged again to leave the place where he had once been so happy. For a year and a half he wandered over almost the whole of Northern Italy, visiting in turn Venice, Urbino, Mantua, Padua, Rome, and Turin. At the last place he arrived without a pa.s.sport, and in such a miserable condition that the guards at the gates of the city would not have admitted him had he not been recognised by a Venetian printer who happened to be present. His startled looks, his nervous manner, and his perpetual restlessness, confirmed wherever he went the rumour of his madness; and, even if he were not mad, the object of Alfonso of Este's anger might be a dangerous a.s.sociate. During all this time he was in the greatest poverty, being obliged to sell for bread the splendid ruby and collar of gold which the d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino had presented to him when he recited to her at her own court his pastoral poem of _Aminta_.

From the Duke of Urbino and Prince Charles Emanuel of Savoy, however, he received generous treatment; but a fatal spell carried him back a third time to Ferrara. His arrival by an unfortunate coincidence happened to be on the very day that Margaret Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, was to come home as the third bride of Alfonso. The duke, preoccupied with the stately ceremonies connected with his nuptials, took no notice of him; and many of the courtiers from whom he expected an affectionate welcome, taking their cue from their master, turned their backs upon him. What a contrast to his first reception at that court fourteen years before, when he stood among the n.o.ble spectators of Alfonso's marriage with his first wife, the Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria, as one of the most honoured of the guests! He now gazed upon the splendours of this third marriage ceremony, by far the greatest poet of his age, but a homeless vagrant, a reputed maniac, treated with neglect or contumely on every side! No wonder that his cup of misery, which had previously been filled to the brim, overflowed with this last and crowning insult; and, scarce knowing what he did, he broke forth into the most vehement denunciations of the duke and his whole court, declaring that they were all "a gang of poltroons, ingrates, and scoundrels." These fiery reproaches, which his misery had wrung from the poor poet, were carried by his enemies to the ear of the Duke, and Ta.s.so was immediately seized and imprisoned as a lunatic in the hospital of Santa Anna in Ferrara--in the same year and the same month, it may be mentioned, in which another of the great epic poets of the world, Camoens, the author of the _Lusiad_, finished as a pauper in an hospital his miserable career.

While madness was alleged as the ostensible reason, the real motives of this step are involved in as deep a mystery as the cause of Ovid's banishment to Tomi, on the Euxine. Muratori, the author of the _Antiquities of the House of Este_, says that he was confined princ.i.p.ally in order that he might be cured; while the Abbate Sera.s.si, who wrote a life of the poet, attributes his imprisonment to his insolence to the duke and his court, and to his desire, repeatedly expressed and acted upon, to leave his patron's service. But both these writers considered the interests of the house of Este more sacred than those of truth. The cause generally accepted is Ta.s.so's supposed attachment to Leonora, the sister of the duke. For a long time he is said to have cherished this pa.s.sion in secret, concealing it even from the object of it, although evidences of it may be found in some marked form or playful allusion in nearly all his poetical writings; the episode of Olinda and Sophronia in the _Gerusalemme_, which he was urged in vain by his friends to withdraw on the ground of its irrelevancy, being intended to represent his own ill-fated love.

On one occasion, however, in a confiding mood, he told the secret to one of the courtiers of Ferrara, whom he believed to be his devoted friend. But what was thus whispered in the closet was proclaimed upon the house-top; and a duel was the result, in which Ta.s.so, as expert in the use of the sword as of the pen, put to flight the cowardly traitor and his two brothers, whom he had brought with him to attack the poet.

This adventure, and the cause of it, reached the ears of the duke, whose resentment was kindled by the audacity of a poor poet and dependant of his court in falling in love with a lady of royal birth.

On the strength of this suspicion his papers were seized, and all the sonnets, madrigals, and canzones that were supposed to give countenance to it, confiscated. The ma.n.u.script of the _Gerusalemme_ itself was retained, and a deaf ear was turned to the poet's entreaties for its restoration. Gibbon, in his _Antiquities of the House of Brunswick_, relates that one day at court, when the duke and his sister Leonora were present, Ta.s.so was so struck with the beauty of the princess, that, in a transport of pa.s.sion, he approached and kissed her before all the a.s.sembly; whereupon the duke, gravely turning to his courtiers, expressed his regret that so great a man should have been thus suddenly bereft of reason, and made the circ.u.mstance the pretext for shutting him up in the madhouse of St.

Anne. An abortive attempt was made to prove the attachment, about fifty years ago, by a certain Count Alberti, who published a ma.n.u.script correspondence purporting to be between Ta.s.so and Leonora, which he discovered in the library of the Falconieri Palace at Rome.

The alleged discovery excited an immense amount of interest in this country and on the Continent; but ere the edition was completed the author was accused of having forged the ma.n.u.scripts in question, and was condemned to the galleys.

The story of this hapless love is so romantic in itself, and has been made the theme of so much pathetic poetry, that it would be almost a pity to destroy by proof any foundation upon which it may rest. And yet it is difficult to agree with Professor Rosini, who has ably treated the whole question in a work ent.i.tled _Amore de Ta.s.so_, and has come to the conclusion, after carefully weighing all the evidence, that this was the rock upon which Ta.s.so's life made shipwreck. On this theory several circ.u.mstances are altogether inexplicable. We may dismiss at once the famous kiss as certainly a myth. Besides the disparity of age, the ill-health, severe piety, and exalted rank of Leonora were formidable barriers in the way of Ta.s.so's contracting a pa.s.sion for her; and it is well known that the poet, who could not have forgotten so soon a devoted love, did not offer a single tribute of regret to her memory when she died a few years afterwards. It is also but too certain that Leonora left her supposed lover to languish in a dungeon without any reply to his pathetic complaints. The force of gravitation is a mutual thing; and just as the great sun himself cannot but bend a little in turn to the smallest orb that wheels around him, so the august Princess of Este could not but have regarded with womanly interest a devoted admirer, however humble. The poetical gallantry of the day will account for all Ta.s.so's lyrical effusions in praise of Leonora. They were in most instances simply the tributes that were expected from the laureate of a court, especially a laureate who was accused, with some show of reason, by the courtiers of Ferrara, of an enthusiastic devotion to women, and of wasting his life with the day-dreams of love and chivalry.

Regarding the question of his madness, which was, as I have said, the ostensible cause of his imprisonment, we are left in almost equal uncertainty. His morbid sensibility, irritated by the treatment which he received alike from his friends and foes, his repeated complaints and occasional violences and extravagances of conduct, may have seemed to a selfish prince to border closely upon mental derangement. But his whole conduct during his imprisonment, the nature of the numerous writings which he produced during that dark period, forbid us to suppose that his intellect ever crossed the line which separates reason from insanity. From out the gloom that surrounds the whole case two points stand out clear and indisputable, that no indiscretion of conduct or aberration of mind on the part of Ta.s.so can possibly have merited the sufferings to which he was subjected, and that whatever may have been Alfonso's suspicions, his fiendish vengeance is one of history's darkest crimes, and covers the tyrant with everlasting disgrace.

Three objects attract the steps of the modern pilgrim in desolate gra.s.s-grown Ferrara; the house, distinguished by a tablet, in which Ariosto was born; the ancient castle in the centre of the town, in whose courtyard Ugo and Parasina, whom Byron has immortalised, were beheaded; and next door to the chief hotel--the Europa--and beside the post-office, the huge hospital of St. Anne, in which Ta.s.so was confined. This last object is by far the most interesting. The sight of it is not needed to sadden one more than the deserted streets themselves do. The dungeon, indicated by a long inscription over the door, is below the ground-floor of the hospital; it is twelve feet long, nine feet wide, and seven feet high, and the light penetrates through its grated windows from a small yard. By several authors, including Goethe, considerable doubts have been expressed regardin