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Title: Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol.
2 (of 3)

Author: James Montgomery
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Editor: Dionysius Lardner

Release date: April 19, 2021 [eBook #65110]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN OF ITALY, SPAIN, AND
PORTUGAL. VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***

THE

CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA.
CONDUCTED BY THE

REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL.D. F.R.S. L. & E.

M.R.I.A. F.R.A.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. &c. &c.

ASSISTED BY

EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN
OF ITALY, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW;
AND JOHN TAYLOR,
UPPER GOWER STREET.

1835.

CONTENTS

GALILEO
GUICCIARDINI
VITTORIA COLONNA
GUARINI
TASSO
CHIABRERA
TASSONI
MARINI
FILICAJA
METASTASIO
GOLDONI
ALFIERI
MONTI
UGO FOSCOLO

LIVES

OF

EMINENT

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

GALILEO

1564-1642.

The history of the life and labours of Galileo is pregnant with a peculiar
interest to the general reader, as well as to the philosopher. His brilliant
discoveries, the man of science regards as his peculiar property; the means
by which they were made, and the developement of his intellectual
character, belong to the logician and to the philosopher; but the triumphs
and the reverses of his eventful life must be claimed for our common
nature, as a source of more than ordinary instruction.
The lengthened career which Providence assigned to Galileo was filled up
throughout its rugged outline with events even of dramatic interest. But
though it was emblazoned with achievements of transcendent magnitude,
yet his finest discoveries were the derision of his contemporaries, and were
even denounced as crimes which merited the vengeance of Heaven. Though
he was the idol of his friends, and the favoured companion of princes, yet
he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spent some of his last
hours within the walls of a prison; and though the Almighty granted him, as
it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds in the obscurity of space, yet
the eyes which were allowed to witness such wonders, were themselves
doomed to be closed in darkness.
Such were the lights and shadows in which history delineates

"The starry Galileo with his woes."[1]

But, however powerful be their contrasts, they are not unusual in their
proportions. The balance which has been struck between his days of good
and evil, is that which regulates the lot of man, whether we study it in the
despotic sway of the autocrat, in the peaceful enquiries of the philosopher,
or in the humbler toils of ordinary life.
Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa, on the 15th of February, 1564, and was the
eldest of a family of three sons and three daughters. Under the name of
Bonajuti, his noble ancestors had filled high offices at Florence; but about
the middle of the 14th century they seem to have abandoned this surname
for that of Galileo. Vincenzo Galilei, our author's father, was himself a
philosopher of no mean powers; and though his talents seem to have been
applied only in the composition of treatises on the theory and practice of
music, yet he appears to have anticipated even his son in a just estimate of

the philosophy of the age, and in a distinct perception of the true method of
investigating truth.[2]
The early years of Galileo were, like those of almost all great experimental
philosophers, spent in the construction of instruments and pieces of
machinery, which were calculated chiefly to amuse himself and his school-
fellows. This occupation of his hands, however, did not interfere with his
regular studies; and though, from the straitened circumstances of his father,
he was educated under considerable disadvantages, yet he acquired the
elements of classical literature, and was initiated into all the learning of the
times. Music, drawing, and painting were the occupations of his leisure
hours; and such was his proficiency in these arts, that he was reckoned a
skilful performer on several musical instruments, especially the lute; and his
knowledge of pictures was held in great esteem by some of the best artists
of his day.
Galileo seems to have been desirous, of following the profession of a
painter: but his father had observed decided indications of early genius;
and, though by no means able to afford it, he resolved to send him to the
university to pursue the study of medicine. He accordingly enrolled himself
as a scholar in arts at the university of Pisa, on the 5th of November, 1581,
and pursued his medical studies under the celebrated botanist Andrew
Cæsalpinus, who filled the chair of medicine from 1567 to 1592.
In order to study the principles of music and drawing, Galileo found it
necessary to acquire some knowledge of geometry. His father seems to have
foreseen the consequences of following this new pursuit, and though he did
not prohibit him from reading Euclid under Ostilio Ricci, one of the
professors at Pisa, yet he watched his progress with the utmost jealousy, and
had resolved that it should not interfere with his medical studies. The
demonstrations, however, of the Greek mathematician had too many charms
for the ardent mind of Galileo. His whole attention was engrossed with the
new truths which burst upon his understanding; and after many fruitless
attempts to check his ardour and direct his thoughts to professional objects,
his father was obliged to surrender his parental control, and allow the fullest
scope to the genius of his son.
From the elementary works of geometry, Galileo passed to the writings of
Archimedes; and while he was studying the hydrostatical treatise[3] of the

Syracusan philosopher, he wrote his essay on the hydrostatical balance[4], in
which he describes the construction of the instrument, and the method by
which Archimedes detected the fraud committed by the jeweller in the
composition of Hiero's crown. This work gained for its author the esteem of
Guido Ubaldi, who had distinguished himself by his mechanical and
mathematical acquirements, and who engaged his young friend to
investigate the subject of the centre of gravity in solid bodies. The treatise
on this subject, which Galileo presented to his patron, was the source of his
future success.
Through the cardinal del Monte, the brother-in-law of Ubaldi, the reigning
duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de' Medici, was made acquainted with the
merits of our young philosopher; and, in 1589, he was appointed lecturer on
mathematics at Pisa. By the drudgery of private teaching he was obliged to
add to the small salary of sixty crowns which was attached to the office.
With this moderate Competency, Galileo commenced his philosophical
career. At the early age of eighteen, when he had entered the university, he
displayed his innate antipathy to the Aristotelian philosophy. This feeling
was strengthened by his earliest inquiries; and upon his establishment at
Pisa, he seems to have regarded the doctrines of Aristotle as the intellectual
prey which, in his chace of glory, he was destined to pursue. Nizzoli, who
flourished near the beginning of the sixteenth century, and Giordano Bruno,
who was burned at Rome in 1600, led the way in this daring pursuit; but it
was reserved for Galileo to track the Thracian boar through its native
thickets, and, at the risk of his own life, to strangle it in its den.
With the resolution of submitting every opinion to the test of experiment,
Galileo's first inquiries at Pisa were directed to the mechanical doctrines of
Aristotle. Their incorrectness and absurdity soon became apparent; and with
a zeal, perhaps, bordering on indiscretion, he denounced them to his pupils
with an ardour of manner and of expression proportioned to his own
conviction of the truth. The detection of long-established errors is apt to
inspire the young philosopher with an exultation which reason condemns.
The feeling of triumph is apt to clothe itself in the language of asperity; and
the abettor, of erroneous opinions is treated as a species of enemy to
science. Like the soldier who fleshes his first spear in battle, the
philosopher is apt to leave the stain of cruelty upon his early achievements.
It is only from age and experience, indeed, that we can expect the discretion

of valour, whether it is called forth in controversy or in battle. Galileo
seems to have waged this stern warfare against the followers of Aristotle;
and such was the exasperation which was excited by his reiterated and
successful attacks, that he was assailed, during the rest of his life, with a
degree of rancour which seldom originates in a mere difference of opinion.
Forgetting that all knowledge is progressive, and that the errors of one
generation call forth the comments, and are replaced by the discoveries, of
the next, Galileo did not anticipate that his own speculations and
incompleted labours might one day provoke unmitigated censure; and he
therefore failed in making allowance for the prejudices and ignorance of his
opponents. He who enjoys the proud lot of taking a position in advance of
his age, need not wonder that his less gifted contemporaries are left behind.
Men are not necessarily obstinate because they cleave to deeply rooted and
venerable errors, nor are they absolutely stupid when they are long in
understanding and embracing newly discovered truths.
It was one of the axioms of the Aristotelian mechanics, that the heavier of
two falling bodies would reach the ground sooner than the other, and that
their velocities would be proportional to their weights. Galileo attacked the
arguments by which this opinion was supported; and when he found his
reasoning ineffectual, he appealed to direct experiment. He maintained, that
all bodies would fall through the same height in the same time, if they were
not unequally retarded by the resistance of the air: and though he performed
the same experiment with the most satisfactory results, by letting heavy
bodies fall from the leaning tower of Pisa; yet the Aristotelians, who with
their own eyes saw the unequal weights strike the ground at the same
instant, ascribed the effect to some unknown cause, and preferred the
decision of their master to that of nature herself.
Galileo could not brook this opposition to his discoveries; and the
Aristotelians could not tolerate the rebukes of their young instructor. The
two parties were, consequently, marshalled in hostile array; when,
fortunately for both, an event occurred, which placed them beyond the
reach of danger. Don Giovanni de' Medici, a natural son of Cosmo, had
proposed a method of clearing out the harbour of Leghorn. Galileo, whose
opinion was requested, gave such an unfavourable report upon it, that the
disappointed inventor directed against him all the force of his malice. It was
an easy task to concentrate the malignity of his enemies at Pisa; and so

effectually was this accomplished, that Galileo resolved to accept another
professorship, to which he had been previously invited.
The chair of mathematics in the university of Padua having been vacant for
five years, the republic of Venice had resolved to fill it up; and, on the
recommendation of Guido Ubaldi, Galileo was appointed to it, in 1592, for
a period of six years.
In 1591, Galileo lost his father, who died at an advanced age, and devolved
upon his eldest son the support of the family. This event, probably,
increased his anxiety to better his situation, and must have added to his
other inducements to quit Pisa. In September, 1592, he removed to Padua,
where he had a salary of only 180 florins, and where he was obliged to add
to his income by the labours of tuition. Notwithstanding this fruitless
occupation of his time, he appears to have found leisure for composing
several of his works, and completing various inventions, which will be
afterwards described. His manuscripts were circulated privately among his
friends and pupils; but some of them strayed beyond this sacred limit, and
found their way into the hands of persons who did not scruple to claim and
publish, as their own, the discoveries and inventions which they contained.
It is not easy to ascertain the exact time when Galileo became a convert to
the doctrines of Copernicus, or the particular circumstances under which he
was led to adopt them. It is stated by Gerard Voss, that a public lecture of
Mæstlin, the instructor of Kepler, was the means of making Galileo
acquainted with the true system of the universe. This assertion, however, is
by no means probable; and it has been ably shown, by the latest biographer
of Galileo[5], that, in his dialogues on the Copernican system, our author
gives the true account of his own conversion. This passage is so interesting,
that we shall give it entire.
"I cannot omit this opportunity of relating to you what happened to myself
at the time when this opinion (the Copernican system) began to be
discursed. I was then a very young man, and had scarcely finished my
course of philosophy, which other occupations obliged me to leave off,
when there arrived in this country, from Rostoch, a foreigner, whose name,
I believe, was Christian Vurstisius (Wurteisen), a follower of Copernicus.
This person delivered, on this subject, two or three lectures in a certain
academy, and to a crowded audience. Believing that several were attracted

more by the novelty of the subject than by any other cause, and being firmly
persuaded that this opinion was a piece of solemn folly, I was unwilling to
be present. Upon interrogating, however, some of those who were there, I
found that they all made it a subject of merriment, with the exception of
one, who assured me that it was not a thing wholly ridiculous. As I
considered this individual to be both prudent and circumspect, I repented
that I had not attended the lectures; and, whenever I met any of the
followers of Copernicus, I began to inquire if they had always been of the
same opinion. I found that there was not one of them who did not declare
that he had long maintained the very opposite opinions, and had not gone
over to the new doctrines till he was driven by the force of argument. I next
examined them one by one, to see if they were masters of the arguments on
the opposite side; and such was the readiness of their answers, that I was
satisfied they had not taken up this opinion from ignorance or vanity. On
the other hand, whenever I interrogated the Peripatetics and the Ptolemeans
(and, out of curiosity, I have interrogated not a a few), respecting their
perusal of Copernicus's work, I perceived that there were few who had seen
the book, and not one who understood it. Nor have I omitted to enquire
among the followers of the Peripatetic doctrines, if any of them had ever
stood on the opposite side; and the result was, that there was not one.
Considering, then, that nobody followed the Copernican doctrine, who had
not previously held the contrary opinion, and who was not well acquainted
with the arguments of Aristotle and Ptolemy; while, on the other hand,
nobody followed Ptolemy and Aristotle, who had before adhered to
Copernicus, and had gone over from him into the camp of Aristotle;
weighing, I say, these things, I began to believe that, if any one who rejects
an opinion which he has imbibed with his milk, and which has been
embraced by an infinite number, shall take up an opinion held only by a
few, condemned by all the schools, and really regarded as a great paradox, it
cannot be doubted that he must have been induced, not to say driven, to
embrace it by the most cogent arguments. On this account, I have become
very curious to penetrate to the very bottom of the subject."[6]
It appears, on the testimony of Galileo himself, that he taught the Ptolemaic
system, out of compliance with the popular feeling, after he had convinced
himself of the truth of the Copernican doctrines. In the treatise on the
sphere, indeed, which bears his name[7], and which must have been written

soon after he went to Padua, and subsequently to 1592, the stability of the
earth, and the motion of the sun, are supported by the very arguments which
Galileo afterwards ridiculed; but we have no means of determining whether
or not he had then adopted the true system of the universe. Although he
might have taught the Ptolemaic system in his lectures, after he had
convinced himself of its falsehood; yet it is not likely that he would go so
far as to publish to the worlds as true, the very doctrines which he despised.
In a letter to Kepler, dated in 1597, he distinctly states that he had, many
years ago, adopted the opinions of Copernicus; but that he had not yet
dared to publish his arguments in favour of them, and his refutation of the
opposite opinions. These facts would leave us to place Galileo's conversion
somewhere between 1593 and 1597; although many years cannot be said to
have elapsed between these two dates.
At this early period of Galileo's life, in the year 1593, he met with an
accident; which had nearly proved fatal. A party at Padua; of which he was
one, were enjoying; at an open window; a current of air, which was
artificially cooled by a fall of water. Galileo unfortunately fell asleep under
its influence; and so powerful was its effect upon his robust constitution;
that he contracted a severe chronic disorder, accompanied with acute pains
in his body, and loss of sleep and appetite, which attacked him at intervals
during the rest of his life. Others of the party suffered still more severely,
and perished by their own rashness.
Galileo's reputation was now widely extended over Europe; and the
archduke Ferdinand (afterwards emperor of Germany), the landgrave of
Hesse, and the princes of Alsace and Mantua honoured his lectures with
their presence. Prince Gustavus of Sweden also received instructions from
him in mathematics, during his sojourn in Italy; and it has been supposed
that this was the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus.
When Galileo had completed the first period of his engagement at Padua, he
was re-elected for other six years, with an increased salary of 320 florins.
This liberal addition to his income is ascribed by Fabbroni to the malice of
one of his enemies, who informed the senate that Galileo was living in
illicit intercourse with Marina Gamba. Without inquiring into the truth of
the accusation, the senate is said to have replied, that if "he had a family to
support, he had the more need of an increased salary." It is more likely that
the liberality of the republic had been called forth by the high reputation of

their professor, and that the terms of their reply were intended only to
rebuke the malignity of the informer. The mode of expression would seem
to indicate that one or more of Galileo's children had been born previous to
his re-election in 1598; but as this is scarcely consistent with other facts, we
are disposed to doubt the authenticity of Fabbroni's anecdote.
The new star, which attracted the notice of astronomers in 1604, excited the
particular attention of Galileo. The observations which he made upon it, and
the speculations which they suggested, formed the subject of three lectures,
the beginning of the first of which only has reached our times. From the
absence of parallax, he proved that the common hypothesis of its being a
meteor was erroneous, and that, like the fixed stars, it was situated far
beyond the bounds of our own system. The popularity of the subject
attracted crowds to his lecture-room; and Galileo had the boldness to
reproach his hearers for taking so deep an interest in a temporary
phenomenon, while they passed unnoticed the wonders of creation which
were daily presented to their view.
In the year 1606, Galileo was again appointed to the professorship at Padua,
with an augmented stipend of 520 florins. His popularity had now risen so
high, that his audience could not be accommodated in his lecture-room; and
even when he had assembled them in the school of medicine, which
contained 1000 persons, he was frequently obliged to adjourn to the open
air.
Among the variety of pursuits which occupied his attention, was the
examination of the properties of the loadstone. In 1607, he commenced his
experiments; but, with the exception of a method of arming loadstones,
which; according to the report of Sir Kenelm Digby, enabled them to carry
twice as much weight as others, he does not seem to have made any
additions to our knowledge of magnetism. He appears to have studied with
care the admirable work of our countryman; Dr. Gilbert; "De Magnete,"
which was published in 1600; and he recognised; in the experiments and
reasonings of the English philosopher; the principles of that method of
investigating truth which he had himself adopted. Gilbert died in 1603; in
the 63d year of his age, and probably never read the fine compliment which
was paid to him by the Italian philosopher:—"I extremely praise, admire,
and envy this author."

In the preceding pages we have brought down the history of Galileo's
labours to that auspicious year in which he first directed the telescope to the
heavens. No sooner was that noble instrument placed in his hands, than
Providence released him from his professional toils, and supplied him with
the fullest leisure and the amplest means for pursuing and completing the
grandest discoveries.
Although he had quitted the service and the domains of his munificent
patron; the grand duke of Tuscany, yet he maintained his connection with
the family, by visiting Florence during his academic vacations, and giving
mathematical instruction to the younger branches of that distinguished
house. Cosmo, who had been one of his pupils, now succeeded his father
Ferdinand; and having his mind early imbued with a love of knowledge,
which had become hereditary in his family, he felt that the residence of
Galileo within his dominions—and still more his introduction into his
household—would do honour to their common country, and reflect a lustre
upon his own name. In the year 1609, accordingly, Cosmo made proposals
to Galileo to return to his original situation at Pisa. These overtures were
gratefully received; and in the arrangements which Galileo on this occasion
suggested, as well as in the manner in which they were urged, we obtain
some insight into his temper and character. He informs the correspondent
through whom Cosmo's offer was conveyed, that his salary of 520 florins at
Padua would be increased to as many crowns at his re-election; and that he
could enlarge his income to any extent he pleased, by giving private
lectures, and receiving pupils. His public duties, he stated, occupied him
only sixty half-hours in the year; but his studies suffered such interruptions
from the domestic pupils and private lectures, that his most ardent wish was
to be relieved from them, in order that he might have sufficient rest and
leisure, before the close of his life, to finish and publish those great works
which he had in hand. In the event, therefore, of his returning to Pisa, he
hoped that it would be the first object of his serene highness to give him
leisure to complete his works without the drudgery of lecturing. He
expresses his anxiety to gain his bread by his writings, and he promises to
dedicate them to his serene master. He enumerates, among these books, two
on the system of the universe; three on local motion; three books of
mechanics; two on the demonstration of principles, and one of problems;
besides treatises on sound and speech, on light and colours, on the tides, on
the composition of continuous quantity, on the motions of animals, and on

the military art. On the subject of his salary, he makes the following curious
observations:—
"I say nothing," says he, "on the amount of my salary; being convinced that,
as I am to live upon it, the graciousness of his highness would not deprive
me of any of those comforts, of which, however, I feel the want of less than
many others; and, therefore, I say nothing more on the subject. Finally, on
the title and profession of my service, I should wish that, to the title of
mathematician, his highness would add that of philosopher, as I profess to
have studied a greater number of years in philosophy, than months in pure
mathematics; and how I have profited by it, and if I can or ought to deserve
this title, I may let their highnesses see, as often as it shall please them to
give me an opportunity of discussing such subjects in their presence with
those who are most esteemed in this knowledge."
During the progress of this negotiation, Galileo went to Venice, on a visit to
a friend, in the month of April or May, 1609. Here he learned, from
common rumour, that a Dutchman, of the name of Jansen, had presented to
prince Maurice of Nassau an optical instrument, which possessed the
singular property of causing distant objects to appear nearer and larger to
the observer. A few days afterwards, the truth of this report was confirmed
by a letter which he received from James Badovere at Paris, and he
immediately applied himself to the consideration of the subject. On the first
night after his return to Padua, he found, in the doctrines of refraction, the
principle which he sought. He placed at the ends of a leaden tube two
spectacle glasses, both of which were plain on one side, while one of them
had its other side convex, and the other its second side concave, and having
applied his eye to the concave glass, he saw objects pretty large and pretty
near him. This little instrument, which magnified only three times, he
carried in triumph to Venice, where it excited the most intense interest.
Crowds of the principal citizens flocked to his house to see the magical toy;
and after nearly a month had been spent in gratifying this epidemical
curiosity, Galileo was led to understand from Leonardo Deodati, the doge of
Venice, that the senate would be highly gratified by obtaining possession of
so extraordinary an instrument. Galileo instantly complied with the wishes
of his patrons, who acknowledged the present by a mandate conferring
upon him for life his professorship at Padua, and generously raising his
salary from 520 to 1000 florins.

Although we cannot doubt the veracity of Galileo, when he affirms that he
had never seen any of the Dutch telescopes, yet it is expressly stated by
Fuccarius, that one of these instruments had at this time been brought to
Florence. In a letter from Lorenzo Pignoria to Paolo Gualdo, dated from
Padua, on the 31st of August, 1609, it is expressly said, that, at the re-
election of the professors, Galileo had contrived to obtain 1000 florins for
life, which was alleged to be on account of an eye-glass like the one which
was sent from Flanders to the Cardinal Borghese.
In a memoir so brief and general as the present, it would be out of place to
discuss the history of this extraordinary invention. We have no hesitation in
asserting that a method of magnifying distant objects was known to Baptista
Porta and others; but it seems to be equally certain that an instrument for
producing these effects was first constructed in Holland, and that it was
from that kingdom that Galileo derived the knowledge of its existence. In
considering the contending claims, which have been urged with all the
ardour and partiality of national feeling, it has been generally overlooked,
that a single convex lens, whose focal length exceeds the distance at which
we examine minute objects, performs the part of a telescope, when an eye,
placed behind it, sees distinctly the inverted image which it forms. A lens,
twenty feet in focal length, will in this manner magnify twenty times; and it
was by the same principle that Sir William Herschel discovered a new
satellite of Saturn, by using only the mirror of his forty-feet telescope. The
instrument presented to prince Maurice, and which the marquis Spinola
found in the Dutch optician's shop, performing the part of a philosophical
toy, by exhibiting a magnified and inverted image of a distant weathercock,
must have been a single lens such as we have mentioned, or an
astronomical telescope consisting of two convex lenses. Upon either of
these suppositions, it differed entirely from that which Galileo constructed;
and the Italian philosopher will be justly entitled to the honour of having
invented that form of the telescope which still bears his name.
The interest which the exhibition of the telescope excited at Venice did not
soon subside: Serturi describes it as amounting almost to phrensy. When he
himself had succeeded in making one of these instruments, he ascended the
tower of St. Mark, where he might use it without molestation. He was
recognised, however, by a crowd in the street; and such was the eagerness
of their curiosity, that they took possession of the wondrous tube, and

detained the impatient philosopher for several hours, till they had
successively witnessed its effects. Desirous of obtaining the same
gratification for their friends, they endeavoured to learn the name of the inn
at which he lodged; but Serturi fortunately overheard their inquiries, and
quitted Venice early next morning, in order to avoid a second visitation of
this new school of philosophers. The opticians speedily availed themselves
of this new instrument. Galileo's tube,—or the double eye-glass, as it was
then called, for Demisiano had not yet given it the appellation of a
telescope,—was manufactured in great quantities, and in a very superior
manner. The instruments were purchased merely as philosophical toys, and
were carried by travellers into every corner of Europe.
The art of grinding and polishing lenses was at this time very imperfect.
Galileo, and those whom he instructed, were alone capable of making
tolerable instruments. It appears, from the testimony of Gassendi and
Gærtner, that, in 1634, a good telescope could not be procured in Paris,
Venice, or Amsterdam; and that, even in 1637, there was not one in Holland
which could show Jupiter's disc well defined.
After Galileo had completed his first instrument, which magnified only
three times, he executed a larger and more accurate one, with a power of
about eight. "At length," as he himself remarks, "sparing neither labour nor
expense," he constructed an instrument so excellent, that it magnified more
than thirty times.
The first celestial object to which Galileo applied his telescope was the
moon, which, to use his own words, appeared as near as if it had been
distant only two semidiameters of the earth. He then directed it to the
planets and the fixed stars, which he frequently observed with "incredible
satisfaction."[8]
The observations which he made upon the moon possessed a high degree of
interest. The general resemblance of its surface to that of our own globe
naturally fixed his attention; and he was soon able to trace, in almost every
part of the lunar disc, ranges of mountains, deep hollows, and other
inequalities, which reflected from their summits the rays of the rising sun,
while the intervening hollows were still buried in darkness. The dark and
luminous spaces he regarded as indicating seas and continents, which
reflected, in different degrees, the incident light of the sun; and he ascribed

the phosphorescence, as it has been improperly called, or the secondary
light, which is seen on the dark limb of the moon in her first and last
quarters, to the reflection of the sun's light from the earth.
These discoveries were ill received by the followers of Aristotle. According
to their preconceived opinions, the moon was perfectly spherical, and
perfectly smooth; to cover it with mountains, and to scoop it out into
valleys, was an act of impiety which defaced the regular forms which nature
herself had imprinted. It was in vain that Galileo appealed to the evidence
of observation, and to the actual surface of our own globe. The very
irregularities on the moon were, in his opinion, the proof of divine wisdom:
and had its surface been perfectly smooth, it would have been "but a vast
unblessed desert, void of animals, of plants, of cities, and of men; the abode
of silence and inaction; senseless, lifeless, soulless, and stripped of all those
ornaments which now render it so various and so beautiful."
In examining the fixed stars, and comparing them with the planets, Galileo
discovered a remarkable difference in the appearance of their discs. All the
planets appeared with round globular discs like the moon; whereas the fixed
stars never exhibited any disc at all, but resembled lucid points sending
forth twinkling rays. Stars of all magnitudes he found to have the same
appearance; those of the fifth and sixth magnitude having the same
character when seen through a telescope, as Sirius, the largest of the stars,
when seen by the naked eye. Upon directing his telescope to nebulæ and
clusters of stars, he was delighted to find that they consisted of great
numbers of stars which could not be recognised by unassisted vision. He
counted no fewer than forty in the cluster called the Pleiades, or Seven
Stars; and he has given us drawings of this constellation, as well as of the
belt and sword of Orion, and of the nebula of Præsepe. In the great nebula
of the Milky Way, he descried crowds of minute stars; and he concluded
that this singular portion derived its whiteness from still smaller stars,
which his telescope was unable to separate.
Important and interesting as these discoveries were, they were thrown into
the shade by those to which he was led during an accurate examination of
the planets with a more powerful telescope. On the 7th of January, 1610, at
one o'clock in the morning, when he directed this telescope to Jupiter, he
observed three stars near the body of the planet; two being to the east and
one to the west of him. They were all in a straight line, and parallel to the

ecliptic, and appeared brighter than other stars of the same magnitude.
Believing them to be fixed stars, he paid no great attention to their distances
from Jupiter and from one another. On the 8th of January, however, when,
from some cause or other[9], he had been led to observe the stars again, he
found a very different arrangement of them: all the three were on the west
side of Jupiter, nearer one another than before, and almost at equal
distances. Though he had not turned his attention to the extraordinary fact
of the mutual approach of the stars, yet he began to consider how Jupiter
could be found to the east of the three stars, when only the day before he
had been to the west of two of them. The only explanation which he could
give of this fact was, that the motion of Jupiter was direct contrary to
astronomical calculations; and that he had got before these two stars by his
own motion.
In this dilemma between the testimony of his senses and the results of
calculation, he waited for the following night with the utmost anxiety: but
his hopes were disappointed; for the heavens were wholly veiled in clouds.
On the tenth, two only of the stars appeared, and both on the east of the
planet. As it was obviously impossible that Jupiter could have advanced
from west to east on the 8th of January, and from east to west on the 10th,
Galileo was forced to conclude that the phenomenon which he had
observed, arose from the motion of the stars, and he set himself to observe
diligently their change of place. On the 11th, there were still only two stars;
and both to the east of Jupiter; but the more eastern star was now twice as
large as the other one, though on the preceding night they had been
perfectly equal. This fact threw a new light upon Galileo's difficulties, and
he immediately drew the conclusion, which he considered to be indubitable
—"that there were in the heavens three stars which revolved round Jupiter,
in the same manner as Venus and Mercury revolve round the sun." On the
12th of January, he again observed them in new positions, and of different
magnitudes; and, on the 13th, he discovered a fourth star, which completed
the four secondary planets with which Jupiter is surrounded.
Galileo continued his observations on these bodies every clear night till the
22d of March, and studied their motions in reference to fixed stars that were
at the same time within the field of his telescope. Having thus clearly
established that the four new stars were satellites or moons, which revolved
round Jupiter in the same manner as the moon revolves round our own

globe, he drew up an account of his discovery, in which he gave to the four
new bodies the names of the Medicean Stars, in honour of his patron,
Cosmo de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. This work, under the title of
"Nuncius Sidereus," or the "Sidereal Messenger," was dedicated to the same
prince; and the dedication bears the date of the 4th of March, only two days
after he concluded his observations.
The importance of this great discovery was instantly felt by the enemies as
well as by the friends of the Copernican system. The planets had hitherto
been distinguished from the fixed stars only by their relative change of
place; but the telescope proved them to be bodies so near to our own globe
as to exhibit well-defined discs; while the fixed stars retained, even when
magnified, the minuteness of remote and lucid points. The system of
Jupiter, illuminated by four moons performing their revolutions in different
and regular periods, exhibited to our proud reason the comparative
insignificance of the globe we inhabit, and proclaimed in impressive
language that globe was not the centre of the universe.
The reception which these discoveries met with from Kepler is highly
interesting, and characteristic of the genius of that great man. He was one
day sitting idle, and thinking of Galileo, when his friend Wachenfels
stopped his carriage at his door, to communicate to him the intelligence.
"Such a fit of wonder," says he, "seized me at a report which seemed to be
so very absurd, and I was thrown into such agitation at seeing an old dispute
between us decided in this way, that between his joy, my colouring, and the
laughter of both, confounded as we were by such a novelty, we were hardly
capable, he of speaking, or I of listening. On our parting, I immediately
began to think how there could be any addition to the number of the planets,
without overturning my 'Cosmographic Mystery,' according to which
Euclid's five regular solids do not allow more than six planets round the
sun. * * * I am so far from disbelieving the existence of the four
circumjovial planets, that I long for a telescope, to anticipate you, if
possible, in discovering two round Mars, as the proportion seems to require,
six or eight round Saturn, and perhaps one each round Mercury and Venus."
In a very different spirit did the Aristotelians receive the "Sidereal
Messenger" of Galileo. The principal professor of philosophy at Padua
resisted Galileo's repeated and urgent entreaties to look at the moon and
planets through his telescope; and he even laboured to convince the grand

duke that the satellites of Jupiter could not possibly exist. Sizzi, an
astronomer of Florence, maintained, that as there were only seven apertures
in the head—two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth—and as there
were only seven metals, and seven days in the week, so there could be only
seven planets. He seems, however, to have admitted the visibility of the four
satellites through the telescope; but he argues, that as they are invisible to
the naked eye, they can exercise no influence on the earth; and being
useless, they do not therefore exist.
A protégé of Kepler's, of the name of Horky, wrote a volume against
Galileo's discovery, after having declared, "that he would never concede his
four new planets to that Italian from Padua, even if he should die for it."
This resolute Aristotelian was at no loss for arguments. He asserted that he
had examined the heavens through Galileo's own glass, and that no such
thing as a satellite existed round Jupiter. He affirmed, that he did not more
surely know that he had a soul in his body, than that reflected rays are the
sole cause of Galileo's erroneous observations; and that the only use of the
new planets was to gratify Galileo's thirst for gold, and afford himself a
subject of discussion.
When Horky first presented himself to Kepler, after the publication of this
work, the opinion of his patron was announced to him by a burst of
indignation which overwhelmed the astonished author. Horky supplicated
mercy for his offence; and, as Kepler himself informed Galileo, he took him
again into favour, on the condition that Kepler was to show him Jupiter's
satellites; and that Horky was not only to see them, but to admit their
existence.
When the spirit of philosophy had thus left the individuals who bore her
sacred name, it was fortunate for science that it found a refuge in the minds
of princes. Notwithstanding the reiterated logic of his philosophical
professor at Padua, Cosmo de' Medici preferred the testimony of his senses
to the syllogisms of his instructor. He observed the new planets several
times, along with Galileo, at Pisa; and when he parted with him, he gave
him a present worth more than 1000 florins, and concluded that liberal
arrangement to which we have already referred.
As philosopher and principal mathematician to the grand duke of Tuscany,
Galileo now took up his residence at Florence, with a salary of 1000 florins.

No official duties, excepting that of lecturing occasionally to sovereign
princes, were attached to this appointment; and it was expressly stipulated
that he should enjoy the most perfect leisure to complete his treatises on the
constitution of the universe, on mechanics, and on local motion. The
resignation of his professorship at Padua, which necessarily followed his
new appointment, created much dissatisfaction in that university: but
though many of his former friends refused at first to hold any
communication with him, this feeling gradually subsided; and the Venetian
senate at last appreciated the views, as well as the powerful motives, which
induced a stranger to accept of promotion in his native land.
While Galileo was enjoying the reward and the fame of his great discovery,
a new species of enmity was roused against them. Simon Mayer, an
astronomer of no character, pretended that he had discovered the satellites
of Jupiter before Galileo, and that his first observation was made on the
29th of December, 1609. Other astronomers announced the discovery of
new satellites: Scheiner reckoned five, Rheita nine, and others found even
so many as twelve: these satellites, however, were found to be only fixed
stars. The names of Vladislavian, Agrippine, Uranodavian, and
Ferdinandotertian, which were hastily given to these common telescopic
stars, soon disappeared from the page of science, and even the splendid
telescopes of modern times have not been able to add another gem to the
diadem of Jupiter.
A modern astronomer of no mean celebrity has, even in the present day,
endeavoured to rob Galileo of this staple article of his reputation. From a
careless examination of the papers of our celebrated countryman, Thomas
Harriot, which baron Zach had made in 1784, at Petworth, the seat of lord
Egremont, this astronomer has asserted[10] that Harriot first observed the
satellites of Jupiter on the 16th of January, 1610; and continued his
observations till the 25th of February, 1612. Baron Zach adds the following
extraordinary conclusion:—"Galileo pretends to have discovered them on
the 7th of January, 1610; so that it is not improbable that Harriot was
likewise the first discoverer of these attendants of Jupiter." In a
communication which I received from Dr. Robertson, of Oxford, in
1822[11], he informed me that he had examined a class of Harriot's papers,
entitled, "De Jovialibus Planetis;" and that it appears, from two pages of
these papers, that Harriot first observed Jupiter's satellites on the 17th of

October, 1610. These observations are accompanied with rough drawings
of the positions of the satellites, and rough calculations of their periodical
revolutions. My friend, professor Rigaud[12], who has very recently
examined the Harriot MSS., has confirmed the accuracy of Dr. Robertson's
observations, and has thus restored to Galileo the honour of being the first
and the sole discoverer of these secondary planets.
The great success which attended the first telescopic observations of
Galileo, induced him to apply his best instruments to the other planets of
our system. The attempts which had been made to deprive him of the
honour of some of his discoveries, combined, probably, with a desire to
repeat his observations with better telescopes, led him to announce his
discoveries under the veil of an enigma; and to invite astronomers to
declare, within a given time, if they had observed any new phenomena in
the heavens.
Before the close of 1610, Galileo excited the curiosity of astronomers, by
the publication of his first enigma. Kepler and others tried in vain to
decipher it; but in consequence of the emperor Rodolph requesting a
solution of the puzzle, Galileo sent him the following clue:—

"Altissimam planetam tergeminam observavi."

I have observed that the most remote planet is triple.

In explaining more fully the nature of his observation, Galileo remarked
that Saturn was not a single star, but three together, nearly touching one
another: he described them as having no relative motion, and as having the
form of three o's, namely, oOo, the central one being larger than those on
each side of it.
Although Galileo had announced that nothing new appeared in the other
planets, yet he soon communicated to the world another discovery of no
slight interest. The enigmatical letters in which it was concealed, formed the
following sentence:—

"Cynthia figuras æmulatur mater Amorum."

Venus rivals the phases of the moon.

Hitherto, Galileo had observed Venus when her disc was largely
illuminated; but having directed his telescope to her when she was not far
removed from the sun, he saw her in the form of a crescent, resembling
exactly the moon at the same elongation from the sun. He continued to
observe her night after night, during the whole time that she could be seen
in the course of her revolution round the sun, and he found that she
exhibited the very same phases which resulted from her motion round that
luminary.
Galileo had long contemplated a visit to the metropolis of Italy, and he
accordingly carried his intentions into effect in the early part of the year
1611. Here he was received with that distinction which was due to his great
talents and his extended reputation. Princes, cardinals, and prelates hastened
to do him honour; and even those who discredited his discoveries, and
dreaded their results, vied with the true friends of science in their anxiety to
see the first wonder of the age.
In order to show the new celestial phenomena to his friends at Rome,
Galileo took with him his best telescope; and as he had discovered the spots
on the sun's surface in the month of March, 1611, he had the gratification of
exhibiting this new wonder to his admiring disciples. He accordingly
erected his telescope in the Quirinal garden, belonging to cardinal Bandini;
and in April, 1611, he exhibited them to his friends in many of their most
interesting variations. From their change of position on the sun's disc,
Galileo at first inferred, either that the sun revolved about an axis; or that
other planets, like Venus and Mercury, revolved so near the sun as to appear
like black spots when they were opposite to his disc. Upon continuing his
observations, however, he saw reason to abandon this last opinion. He
found, that the spots must be in contact with the surface of the sun; that
their figures were irregular; that they had different degrees of darkness; that
one spot would often divide itself into three or four; that three or four spots
would often unite themselves into one; and that all the spots revolved

regularly with the sun, which appeared to complete its revolution in about
twenty-eight days.
Previous to the invention of the telescope, spots had been more than once
seen on the sun's disc with the unassisted eye. But even if these were of the
same character as those which Galileo and others observed, we cannot
consider them as anticipations of their discovery by the telescope. As the
telescope was now in the possession of several astronomers, Galileo began
to have many rivals in discovery; and it is now placed beyond the reach of
doubt, that he was not the first discoverer of the solar spots. From the
communication which I received from the late Dr. Robertson, of Oxford[13],
it appears that Thomas Harriot had discovered the solar spots on or before
the 8th of December, 1610. His manuscripts, in lord Egremont's possession,
incontestably prove that his regular observations on the spots commenced
on the 8th of December, 1610,—at least three months before Galileo
discovered them; and that they were continued till the 18th of January,
1613. The observations which he has recorded are 199 in number; and the
accounts of them are accompanied with rough drawings representing the
number, position, and magnitude of the spots.[14]
Another candidate for the honour of discovering the spots of the sun, was
John Fabricius, who undoubtedly saw them previous to June, 1611. The
dedication of the work[15] in which he has recorded his observation, bears
the date of the 13th of June, 1611; and it is obvious, from the work itself,
that he had seen the spots during the year 1610: but as there is no proof that
he saw them before the 8th of December, 1610, and as it is probable that
Harriot had seen them before that date, we are compelled to assign the
priority of the discovery to our distinguished countryman.
The claim of Scheiner, professor of mathematics at Ingolstadt, is more
intimately connected with the history of Galileo. This learned astronomer
having, early in 1611, turned his telescope to the sun, necessarily
discovered the spots which at that time covered his disc. Light flying clouds
happened, at the time, to weaken the intensity of his light, so that he was
able to show the spots to his pupils. These observations were not published
till January, 1612; and they appeared in the form of three letters, addressed
to Mark Velser, one of the magistrates of Augsburg, under the signature of
Apelles post Tabulam. Scheiner, who, many years afterwards, published an

elaborate work on the subject, adopted the same idea which had at first
occurred to Galileo,—that the spots were the dark sides of planets revolving
round and near the sun.[16]
On the publication of Scheiner's letters Velser transmitted a copy of them to
his friend Galileo, with the request that he would favour him with his
opinion of the new phenomena. After some delay, Galileo addressed three
letters to Velser, in which he combated the opinions of Scheiner on the
cause of the spots. These letters were dated the 4th of May, 1612; but
though the controversy was carried on in the language of mutual respect
and esteem, it put an end to the friendship which had existed between the
two astronomers. In these letters, Galileo showed that the spots often
dispersed like vapours or clouds; that they sometimes had a duration of only
one or two days, and at other times of thirty or forty days; that they
contracted in their breadth when they approached the sun's limb, without
any diminution of their length; that they describe circles parallel to each
other; that the monthly rotation of the sun again brings the same spots into
view; and that they are seldom seen at a greater distance than 30° from the
sun's equator. Galileo, likewise, discovered on the sun's disc faculœ, or
luculi, as they were called, which differ in no respect from the common
ones but in their being brighter than the rest of the sun's surface.[17]
In the last of the letters which our author addressed to Velser, and which
was written in December, 1612, he recurs to his former discovery of the
elongated shape, or rather the triple structure, of Saturn. The singular figure
which he had observed in this planet had entirely disappeared; and he
evidently announces the fact to Velser, lest it should be used by his enemies
to discredit the accuracy of his observations. "Looking on Saturn," says he,
"within these few days, I found it solitary, without the assistance of its
accustomed stars, and, in short, perfectly round and defined like Jupiter;
and such it still remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a
metamorphosis? Are the two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the
sun? Have they suddenly vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his
own children? or was the appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which
the glasses have for so long a time mocked me, and so many others who
have often observed with me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the
withering hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations,
have followed all the fallacies of the new observations, and recognised their

impossibilities. I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new,
and so unexpected; the shortness of the time, the unexampled occurrence,
the weakness of my intellect, and the terror of being mistaken, have greatly
confounded me." Although Galileo struggled to obtain a solution of this
mystery, yet he had not the good fortune of succeeding. He imagined that
the two smaller stars would reappear, in consequence of the supposed
revolution of the planet round its axis; but the discovery of the ring of
Saturn, and of the obliquity of its plane to the ecliptic, was necessary to
explain the phenomena which were so perplexing to our author.
The ill health to which Galileo was occasionally subject, and the belief that
the air of Florence was prejudicial to his complaints, induced him to spend
much of his time at Selve, the villa of his friend Salviati. This eminent
individual had ever been the warmest friend of Galileo, and seems to have
delighted in drawing round him the scientific genius of the age. He was a
member of the celebrated Lyncæan Society, founded by Prince Frederigo
Cesi; and though he is not known as the author of any important discovery,
yet he has earned, by his liberality to science, a glorious name, which will
be indissolubly united with the immortal destiny of Galileo.
The subject of floating bridges having been discussed at one of the
scientific parties which had assembled at the house of Salviati, a difference
of opinion arose respecting the influence of the shape of bodies on their
disposition to float or to sink in a fluid. Contrary to the general opinion,
Galileo undertook to prove that it depended on other causes: and he was
thus led to compose his discourse on floating bodies[18], which was
published in 1612, and dedicated to Cosmo de' Medici. This work contains
many ingenious experiments, and much acute reasoning in support of the
true principles of hydrostatics; and it is now chiefly remarkable as a
specimen of the sagacity and intellectual power of its author. Like all his
other works, it encountered the most violent opposition; and Galileo was
more than once summoned into the field to repel the aggressions of his
ignorant and presumptuous opponents. The first attack upon it was made by
Ptolemy Nozzolini, in a letter to Marzemedici, archbishop of Florence[19];
and to this Galileo replied in a letter addressed to his antagonist.[20] A more
elaborate examination of it was published by Lodovico delle Colombe, and
another by M. Vincenzo di Grazia. To these attacks, a minute and
overwhelming answer was printed in the name of Benedetti Castelli, the

friend and pupil of Galileo; but it was discovered, some years after Galileo's
death, that he was himself the author of this work.[21]
The current of Galileo's life had hitherto flowed in a smooth and
unobstructed channel. He had now attained the highest objects of earthly
ambition. His discoveries had placed him at the head of the great men of his
age; he possessed a professional income far beyond his wants, and even
beyond his anticipations; and, what is still dearer to a philosopher, he
enjoyed the most perfect leisure for carrying on and completing his
discoveries. The opposition which these discoveries encountered, was to
him more a subject for triumph than for sorrow. Prejudice and ignorance
were his only enemies; and if they succeeded for a while in harassing his
march, it was only to give him occasion for fresh achievements. He who
contends for truths which he has himself been permitted to discover, may
well sustain the conflict in which presumption and error are destined to fall.
The public tribunal may neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to
decide upon the issue; but he can appeal to posterity, and reckon with
confidence on "its sure decree."
The ardour of Galileo's mind, the keenness of his temper, his clear
perception of truth, and his inextinguishable love of it, combined to
exasperate and prolong the hostility of his enemies. When argument failed
to enlighten their judgment, and reason to remove their prejudices, he
wielded against them his powerful weapons of ridicule and sarcasm; and in
this unrelenting warfare, he seems to have forgotten that Providence had
withheld from his enemies those very gifts which he had so liberally
received. He who is allowed to take the start of his species, and to penetrate
the veil which conceals from common minds the mysteries of nature, must
not expect that the world will be patiently dragged at the chariot wheels of
his philosophy. Mind has its inertia, as well as matter; and its progress to
truth can only be insured by the gradual and patient removal of the
obstructions which surround it.
The boldness—may we not say the recklessness?—with which Galileo
insisted upon making proselytes of his enemies, produced the very opposite
effect. Errors thus assailed, entrenched themselves in general feelings, and
were embalmed in the virulence of the passions. The various classes of his
opponents marshalled themselves for their mutual defence. The Aristotelian
professors, the temporising Jesuits, the political churchmen, and that timid

but respectable body who at all times dread innovation, whether it be in
religion or in science, entered into an alliance against the philosophical
tyrant who threatened them with the penalties of knowledge.
The party of Galileo, though weak in numbers, was not without power and
influence. He had trained around him a devoted band, who idolised his
genius and supported his views. His pupils had been appointed to several of
the principal professorships in Italy. The enemies of religion were on this
occasion united with the Christian philosopher; and there were, even in
these days, many princes and nobles who had felt the inconvenience of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and who secretly abetted Galileo in his crusade
against established errors.
Although these two parties had been long dreading each other's power, and
reconnoitring each other's position, yet we cannot exactly determine which
of them hoisted the first signal for war. The church party, particularly its
high dignitaries, were certainly disposed to rest on the defensive. Flanked
on one side by the logic of the schools, and on the other by the popular
interpretation of Scripture, and backed by the strong arm of the civil power,
they were not disposed to interfere with the prosecution of science, however
much they may have dreaded its influence. The philosophers, on the
contrary, united the zeal of innovators with the firmness of purpose which
truth alone can inspire. Victorious in every contest, they were flushed with
success, and they panted for a struggle in which they knew they must
triumph.
In this state of warlike preparation Galileo addressed a letter, in 1613, to his
friend and pupil, the abbé Castelli, the object of which was to prove that the
Scriptures were not intended to teach us science and philosophy. Hence he
inferred, that the language employed in the sacred volume in reference to
such subjects should be interpreted only in its common acceptation; and that
it was in reality as difficult to reconcile the Ptolemaic as the Copernican
system to the expressions which occur in the Bible.
A demonstration was about this time made by the opposite party, in the
person of Caccini, a Dominican friar, who made a personal attack upon
Galileo from the pulpit. This violent ecclesiastic ridiculed the astronomer
and his followers, by addressing them in the sacred language of Scripture;
"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here looking up into heaven?" But this

species of warfare was disapproved of even by the church; and Luigi
Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, not only apologised to Galileo, who
had transmitted to him a formal complaint against Caccini, but expressed
the acuteness of his own feelings on being implicated in the "brutal conduct
of thirty or forty thousand monks."
From the character of Caccini, and the part which he afterwards played in
the persecution of Galileo, we can scarcely avoid the opinion that his attack
from the pulpit was intended as a snare for the unwary philosopher. It
roused Galileo from his wonted caution; and stimulated, no doubt, by the
nature of the answer which he received from Maraffi, he published a longer
letter of seventy pages, defending and illustrating his former views
respecting the influence of scriptural language on the two contending
systems. As if to give the impress of royal authority to this new appeal, he
addressed it to Christian, grand-duchess of Tuscany, the mother of Cosmo;
and in this form it seems to have excited a new interest, as if it had
expressed the opinion of the grand-ducal family. These external
circumstances gave additional weight to the powerful and unanswerable
reasoning which this letter contains; and it was scarcely possible that any
man, possessed of a sound mind, and willing to learn the truth, should
refuse his assent to the judicious views of our author. He expresses his
belief that the Scriptures were given to instruct mankind respecting their
salvation, and that the faculties of our minds were given us for the purpose
of investigating the phenomena of nature. He considers Scripture and nature
as proceeding from the same divine author, and, therefore, incapable of
speaking a different language; and he points out the absurdity of supposing
that professors of astronomy will shut their eyes to the phenomena which
they discover in the heavens, or will refuse to believe those deductions of
reason which appeal to their judgment with all the power of demonstration.
He supports these views by quotations from the ancient fathers; and he
refers to the dedication of Copernicus's own work to the Roman pontiff,
Paul III., as a proof that the pope himself did not regard the new system of
the world as hostile to the sacred writings. Copernicus, on the contrary, tells
his holiness, that the reason of inscribing to him his new system was, that
the authority of the pontiff might put to silence the calumnies of some
individuals, who attacked it by arguments drawn from passages of Scripture
twisted for their own purpose.

It was in vain to meet such arguments by any other weapons than those of
the civil power. His enemies saw that they must either crush the dangerous
innovation, or allow it the fullest scope; and they determined upon an
appeal to the inquisition. Lorini, a monk of the Dominican order, had
already denounced to this body Galileo's letter to Castelli; and Caccini,
bribed by the mastership of the convent of St. Mary of Minerva, was invited
to settle at Rome for the purpose of embodying the evidence against
Galileo.
Though these plans had been carried on in secret, yet Galileo's suspicions
were excited; and he obtained leave from Cosmo to go to Rome about the
end of 1615.[22] Here he was lodged in the palace of the grand duke's
ambassador, and kept up a constant correspondence with the family of his
patron at Florence; but, in the midst of this external splendour, he was
summoned before the inquisition to answer for the heretical doctrines which
he had published. He was charged with maintaining the motion of the earth,
and the stability of the sun, with teaching this doctrine to his pupils, with
corresponding on the subject with several German mathematicians, and
with having published it, and attempted to reconcile it to Scripture, in his
letters to Mark Velser in 1612. The inquisition assembled to consider these
charges on the 25th of February, 1615; and it was decreed that Galileo
should be enjoined by cardinal Bellarmine to renounce the obnoxious
doctrines, and to pledge himself that he would neither teach, defend, nor
publish them in future. In the event of his refusing to acquiesce in this
sentence, it was decreed that he should be thrown into prison. Galileo did
not hesitate to yield to this injunction. On the day following, the 26th of
February, he appeared before cardinal Bellarmine, to renounce his heretical
opinions; and, having declared that he abandoned the doctrine of the earth's
motion, and would neither defend nor teach it, in his conversation or in his
writings, he was dismissed the court.
Having thus disposed of Galileo, the inquisition conceived the design of
condemning the whole system of Copernicus as heretical. Galileo, with
more hardihood than prudence, remained at Rome for the purpose of giving
his assistance in frustrating this plan; but there is reason to think that he
injured by his presence the very cause which he meant to support. The
inquisition had determined to put down the new opinions; and they now
inserted among the prohibited books Galileo's letters to Castelli and the

grand duchess, Kepler's epitome of the Copernican theory, and Copernicus's
own work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
Notwithstanding these proceedings, Galileo had an audience of the pope,
Paul V., in March, 1616. He was received very graciously, and spent nearly
an hour with his holiness. When they were about to part, the pope assured
Galileo, that the congregation were not disposed to receive upon light
grounds any calumnies which might be propagated by his enemies, and that,
as long as he occupied the papal chair, he might consider himself as safe.
These assurances were no doubt founded on the belief that Galileo would
adhere to his pledges; but so bold and inconsiderate was he in the
expression of his opinions, that even in Rome he was continually engaged
in controversial discussions. The following very interesting account of these
disputes is given by Querenghi, in a letter to the cardinal D'Este:—
"Your eminence would be delighted with Galileo if you heard him holding
forth, as he often does, in the midst of fifteen or twenty, all violently
attacking him, sometimes in one house, sometimes in another. But he is
armed after such fashion that he laughs all of them to scorn,—and even if
the novelty of his opinions prevents entire persuasion, at least he convicts of
emptiness most of the arguments with which his adversaries endeavour to
overwhelm him. He was particularly admirable on Monday last in the house
of signor Frederico Ghisilieri; and what especially pleased me was, that
before replying to the contrary arguments, he amplified and enforced them
with new grounds of great plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries in a
more ridiculous plight, when he afterwards overturned them all."
The discovery of Jupiter's satellites suggested to Galileo a new method of
finding the longitude at sea. Philip III. had encouraged astronomers to direct
their attention to this problem, by offering a reward for its solution; and in
those days, when new discoveries in science were sometimes rejected as
injurious to mankind, it was no common event to see a powerful sovereign
courting the assistance of astronomers in promoting the commercial
interests of his empire. Galileo seems to have regarded the solution of this
problem as an object worthy of his ambition; and he no doubt anticipated
the triumph which he would obtain over his enemies, if the Medicean stars,
which they had treated with such contempt, could be made subservient to
the great interests of mankind. During his residence at Rome in 1615 and

1616, Galileo had communicated his views on this subject to the comte di
Lemos, the viceroy of Naples, who had presided over the council of the
Spanish Indies. This nobleman advised him to apply to the Spanish
minister, the duke of Lerma; and, through the influence of the grand duke
Cosmo, his ambassador at the court of Madrid was engaged to manage the
affair. The anxiety of Galileo on this subject was singularly great. He
assured the Tuscan ambassador that, in order to accomplish this object, "he
was ready to leave all his comforts, his country, his friends, and his family,
to cross over into Spain, and to stay as long as he might be wanted at
Seville or at Lisbon, or wherever it might be convenient to communicate a
knowledge of his method." The enthusiasm of Galileo seems to have
increased the lethargy of the Spanish court; and though the negotiations
were occasionally revived for ten or twelve years, yet no steps were taken
to bring them to a close. This strange procrastination has been generally
ascribed to jealousy or indifference on the part of Spain; but Nelli, one of
Galileo's biographers, declares, on the authority of Florentine records, that
Cosmo had privately requested from the government the privilege of
sending annually t to the Spanish Indies two Leghorn merchantmen free of
duty, as a compensation for the loss of Galileo!
The failure of this negotiation must have been a source of extreme
mortification to the high spirit and sanguine temperament of Galileo. He
had calculated, however, too securely on his means of putting the new
method to a successful trial. The great imperfection of the time-keepers of
that day, and the want of proper telescopes, would have baffled him in all
his efforts, and he would have been subject to a more serious mortification
from the failure and rejection of his plan, than that which he actually
experienced from the avarice of his patron, or the indifference of Spain.
Even in the present day, no telescope has been invented which is capable of
observing at sea the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites; and though this method
of finding the longitude has great advantages on shore, yet it has been
completely abandoned at sea, and superseded by easier and more correct
methods.
In the year 1618, when no fewer than three comets visited our system, and
attracted the attention of all the astronomers of Europe, Galileo was
unfortunately confined to his bed by a severe illness; but, though he was
unable to make a single observation upon these remarkable bodies, he

contrived to involve himself in the controversies which they occasioned.
Marco Guiducci, an astronomer of Florence, and a friend of Galileo's, had
delivered a discourse on comets before the Florentine Academy, which was
published in 1619.[23] The heads of this discourse were supposed to have
been communicated to him by Galileo, and this seems to have been
universally admitted during the controversy to which it gave rise. The
opinion maintained in this treatise, that comets are nothing but meteors
which occasionally appear in our atmosphere, like halos and rainbows,
savours so little of the sagacity of Galileo that we should be disposed to
question its paternity. His inability to partake in the general interest which
these three comets excited, and to employ his powerful telescope in
observing their phenomena and their movements, might have had some
slight share in the formation of an opinion which deprived them of their
importance as celestial bodies. But, however this may have been, the
treatise of Guiducci afforded a favourable point of attack to Galileo's
enemies, and the dangerous task was entrusted to Oratio Grassi, a learned
Jesuit, who, in a work entitled The Astronomical and Philosophical
Balance, criticised the discourse on comets, under the feigned name of
Lotario Sarsi.
Galileo replied to this attack in a volume entitled Il Saggiatore, or The
Assayer, which, owing to the state of his health, was not published till the
autumn of 1623.[24] This work was written in the form of a letter to Virginio
Cæsarini, a member of the Lyncæan Academy, and master of the chamber
to Urban VIII.[25], who had just ascended the pontifical throne. It has been
long celebrated among literary men for the beauty of its language, though it
is doubtless one of the least important of Galileo's writings.
The succession of the cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne, under
the name of Urban VIII., was hailed by Galileo and his friends as an event
favourable to the promotion of science. Urban had not only been the
personal friend of Galileo and of prince Cesi, the founder of the Lyncæan
Academy, but had been intimately connected with that able and liberal
association; and it was, therefore, deemed prudent to secure his favour and
attachment. If Paul III. had, nearly a century before, patronised Copernicus,
and accepted of the dedication of his great work, it was not unreasonable to
expect that, in more enlightened times, another pontiff might exhibit the
same liberality to science.

The plan of securing to Galileo the patronage of Urban VIII. seems to have
been devised by prince Cesi. Although Galileo had not been able for some
years to travel, excepting in a fitter, yet he was urged by the prince to
perform a journey to Rome, for the express purpose of congratulating his
friend upon his elevation to the papal chair. This request was made in
October, 1623; and, though Galileo's health was not such as to authorise
him to undergo so much fatigue, yet he felt the importance of the advice;
and, after visiting Cesi at Acqua Sparta, he arrived at Rome in the spring of
1624. The reception which he here experienced far exceeded his most
sanguine expectations. During the two months which he spent in the capital
he was permitted to have no fewer than six long and gratifying audiences of
the pope. The kindness of his holiness was of the most marked description.
He not only loaded Galileo with presents[26], and promised him a pension
for his son Vincenzo, but he wrote a letter to Ferdinand, who had just
succeeded Cosmo as grand duke of Tuscany, recommending Galileo to his
particular patronage. "For we find in him," says he, "not only literary
distinction, but the love of piety; and he is strong in those qualities by
which pontifical good-will is easily obtained. And now, when he has been
brought to this city to congratulate us on our elevation, we have very
lovingly embraced him; nor can we suffer him to return to the country
whither your liberality recalls him, without an ample provision of pontifical
love. And that you may know how dear he is to us, we have willed to give
him this honourable testimonial of virtue and piety. And we further signify,
that every benefit which you shall confer upon him, imitating or even
surpassing your father's liberality, will conduce to our gratification."
Not content with thus securing the friendship of the pope, Galileo
endeavoured to bespeak the good-will of the cardinals towards the
Copernican system. He had, accordingly, many interviews with several of
these dignitaries; and he was assured, by cardinal Hohenzoller, that in a
representation which he had made to the pope on the subject of Copernicus,
he stated to his holiness, "that as all the heretics considered that system as
undoubted, it would be necessary to be very circumspect in coming to any
resolution on the subject." To this remark his holiness replied,—"that the
church had not condemned this system; and that it should not be
condemned as heretical, but only as rash;" and he added, "that there was no
fear of any person undertaking to prove that it must necessarily be true."

The recent appointment of the abbé Castelli, the friend and pupil of Galileo,
to be mathematician to the pope, was an event of a most gratifying nature;
and when we recollect that it was to Castelli that he addressed the famous
letter which was pronounced heretical by the inquisition, we must regard it
also as an event indicative of à new and favourable feeling towards the
friends of science. The opinions of Urban, indeed, had suffered no change.
He was one of the few cardinals who had opposed the inquisitorial decree
of 1616, and his subsequent demeanour was in every respect conformable
to the liberality of his early views. The sincerity of his conduct was still
further evinced by the grant of a pension of one hundred crowns to Galileo,
a few years after his visit to Rome; but there is reason to think that this
allowance was not regularly paid.
The death of Cosmo, whose liberality had given him both affluence and
leisure, threatened Galileo with pecuniary difficulties. He had been
involved in a "great load of debt," owing to the circumstances of his
brother's family; and, in order to relieve himself, he had requested Castelli
to dispose of the pension of his son Vincenzo: but he was now alarmed at
the prospect of losing his salary as an extraordinary professor at Pisa. The
great youth of Ferdinand, who was scarcely of age, induced Galileo's
enemies, in 1629, to raise doubts respecting the payment of a salary to a
professor who neither resided nor lectured in the university; but the
question was decided in his favour, and we have no doubt that the decision
was facilitated by the friendly recommendation of the pope, to which we
have already referred.
Although Galileo had made a narrow escape from the grasp of the
inquisition, yet he was never sufficiently sensible of the lenity which he
experienced. When he left Rome in 1616, under the solemn pledge of never
again teaching the obnoxious doctrine, it was with an hostility against the
church, suppressed but deeply cherished; and his resolution to propagate the
heresy seems to have been coeval with the vow by which he renounced it.
In the year 1618, when he communicated his theory of the tides to the
archduke Leopold, he alludes in the most sarcastic manner to the conduct of
the church. The same hostile tone, more or less, pervaded all his writings,
and, while he laboured to sharpen the edge of his satire, he endeavoured to
guard himself against its effects, by an affectation of the humblest deference
to the decisions of theology. Had Galileo stood alone, his devotion to

science might have withdrawn him from so hopeless a contest; but he was
spurred on by the violence of a party. The Lyncæan Academy never
scrupled to summon him from his researches. They placed him in the
forlorn hope of their combat, and he at last fell a victim to the rashness of
his adventure.
But, whatever allowance we may make for the ardour of Galileo's temper,
and the peculiarity of his position; and however we may justify and even
approve of his past conduct, his visit to Urban VIII., in 1624, placed him in
a new relation to the church, which demanded on his part a new and
corresponding demeanour. The noble and generous reception which he met
with from Urban, and the liberal declaration of cardinal Hohenzoller on the
subject of the Copernican system, should have been regarded as expressions
of regret for the past, and offers of conciliation for the future. Thus
honoured by the head of the church, and befriended by its dignitaries,
Galileo must have felt himself secure against the indignity of its lesser
functionaries, and in the possession of the fullest licence to prosecute his
researches and publish his discoveries, provided he avoided that dogma of
the church which, even in the present day, it has not ventured to renounce.
But Galileo was bound to the Romish hierarchy by even stronger ties. His
son and himself were pensioners of the church, and, having accepted of its
alms, they owed to it, at least, a decent and respectful allegiance. The
pension thus given by Urban was not a remuneration which sovereigns
sometimes award to the services of their subjects. Galileo was a foreigner at
Rome. The sovereign of the papal state owed him no obligation; and hence
we must regard the pension of Galileo as a donation from the Roman
pontiff to science itself, and as a declaration to the Christian world, that
religion was not jealous of philosophy, and that the church of Rome was
willing to respect and foster even the genius of its enemies.
Galileo viewed all these circumstances in a different light. He resolved to
compose a work in which the Copernican system should be demonstrated;
but he had not the courage to do this in a direct and open manner. He
adopted the plan of discussing the subject in a dialogue between three
speakers, in the hope of eluding by this artifice the censure of the church.
This work was completed in 1630, but, owing to some difficulties in
obtaining a licence to print it, it was not published till 1632.

In obtaining this licence, Galileo exhibited considerable address, and his
memory has not escaped from the imputation of having acted unfairly, and
of having involved his personal friends in the consequences of his
imprudence.
The situation of master of the palace was, fortunately for Galileo's designs,
filled by Nicolo Riccardi, a friend and pupil of his own. This officer was a
sort of censor of new publications, and when he was applied to on the
subject of printing his work, Galileo soon found that attempts had
previously been made to thwart his views. He instantly set off for Rome,
and had an interview with his friend, who was in every respect anxious to
oblige him. Riccardi examined the manuscript, pointed out some incautious
expressions which he considered it necessary to erase, and returned it with
his written approbation, on the understanding that the alterations he
suggested would be made. Dreading to remain in Rome during the
unhealthy season, which was fast approaching, Galileo returned to
Florence, with the intention of completing the index and dedication, and of
sending the MS. to Rome, to be printed under the care of prince Cesi. The
death of that distinguished individual, in August 1630, frustrated Galileo's
plan, and he applied for leave to have the book printed in Florence. Riccardi
was at first desirous to examine the MS. again, but after inspecting only the
beginning and the end of it, he gave Galileo leave to print it wherever he
chose, providing it bore the licence of the inquisitor-general of Florence,
and one or two other persons whom he named. Having overcome all these
difficulties, Galileo's work was published in 1632, under the title of "The
System of the World of Galileo Galilei, &c., in which, in four dialogues
concerning the two principal systems of the World,—the Ptolemaic and the
Copernican,—he discusses, indeterminately and firmly, the arguments
proposed on both sides." It is dedicated to Ferdinand, grand duke of
Tuscany, and is prefaced by an "Address to the prudent reader," which is
itself characterised by the utmost imprudence. He refers to the decree of the
inquisition in the most insulting and ironical language. He attributes it to
passion and to ignorance, not by direct assertion, but by insinuations
ascribed to others; and he announces his intention to defend the Copernican
system, as a pure mathematical hypothesis, and not as an opinion, having an
advantage over that of the stability of the earth absolutely. The dialogue is
conducted by three persons, Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio. Salviati, who
is the true philosopher in the dialogue, was the real name of a nobleman

whom we have already had occasion to mention. Sagredo, the name of
another noble friend of Galileo's, performs a secondary part under Salviati.
He proposes doubts, suggests difficulties, and enlivens the gravity of the
dialogue with his wit and pleasantry. Simplicio is a resolute follower of
Ptolemy and Aristotle, and with a proper degree of candour and modesty, he
brings forward all the common arguments in favour of the Ptolemaic
system. Between the wit of Sagredo, and the powerful philosophy of
Salviati, the peripatetic sage is baffled in every discussion; and there can be
no doubt that Galileo aimed a more fatal blow at the Ptolemaic system by
this mode of discussing it, than if he had endeavoured to overturn it by
direct arguments.
The influence of this work on the public mind was such as might have been
anticipated. The obnoxious doctrines which it upheld were eagerly received,
and widely disseminated; and the church of Rome became sensible of the
shock which was thus given to its intellectual supremacy. Pope Urban VIII.,
attached though he had been to Galileo, never once hesitated respecting the
line of conduct which he felt himself bound to pursue. His mind was,
nevertheless, agitated with conflicting sentiments. He entertained a sincere
affection for science and literature, and yet he was placed in the position of
their enemy. He had been the personal friend of Galileo, and yet his duty
compelled him to become his accuser. Embarrassing as these feelings were,
other considerations contributed to soothe him. He had, in his capacity of a
cardinal, opposed the first persecution of Galileo. He had, since his
elevation to the pontificate, traced an open path for the march of Galileo's
discoveries; and he had finally endeavoured to bind the recusant
philosopher by the chains of kindness and gratitude. All these means,
however, had proved abortive, and he was now called upon to support the
doctrine which he had subscribed, and administer the law of which he was
the guardian.
It has been supposed, without any satisfactory evidence, that Urban may
have been influenced by less creditable motives. Salviati and Sagredo being
well-known personages, it was inferred, that Simplicio must also have a
representative. The enemies of Galileo are said to have convinced his
holiness that Simplicio was intended as a portraiture of himself; and this
opinion received some probability from the fact, that the peripatetic
disputant had employed many of the arguments which Urban had himself

used in his discussions with Galileo. The latest biographer of Galileo[27]
regards this motive as necessary to account for "the otherwise inexplicable
change which took place in the conduct of Urban to his old friend;"—but
we cannot admit for a moment the truth, of this supposition. The church had
been placed in hostility to a powerful and liberal party, which was adverse
to its interests. The dogmas of the Catholic faith had been brought into
direct collision with the deductions of science. The leader of the philosophic
band had broken the most solemn armistice with the inquisition: he had
renounced the ties of gratitude which bound him to the pontiff; and Urban
was thus compelled to intrench himself in a position to which he had been
driven by his opponents.
The design of summoning Galileo before the inquisition, seems to have
been formed almost immediately after the publication of his book; for even
in August, 1632, the preliminary proceedings had reached the ears of the
grand duke Ferdinand. The Tuscan ambassador at Rome was speedily
acquainted with the dissatisfaction which his sovereign felt at these
proceedings; and he was instructed to forward to Florence a written
statement of the charges against Galileo, in order to enable him to prepare
for his defence. Although this request was denied, Ferdinand again
interposed; and transmitted a letter to his ambassador, recommending the
admission of Campanella and Castelli into the congregation of ecclesiastics
by which Galileo was to be judged. Circumstances, however, rendered it
prudent to withhold this letter. Castelli was sent away from Rome, and
Scipio Chiaramonte, a bigotted ecclesiastic, was summoned from Pisa to
complete the number of the judges.
It appears from a despatch of the Tuscan minister, that Ferdinand was
enraged at the transaction; and he instructed his ambassador, Niccolini, to
make the strongest representations to the pope. Niccolini had several
interviews with his holiness; but all his expostulations were fruitless. He
found Urban highly incensed against Galileo; and his holiness begged
Niccolini to advise the archduke not to interfere any farther, as he would not
"get through it with honour." On the 15th of September the pope caused it
to be intimated to Niccolini, as a mark of his especial esteem for the grand
duke, that he was obliged to refer the work to the inquisition; but both the
prince and his ambassador were declared liable to the usual censures if they
divulged the secret.

From the measures which this tribunal had formerly pursued, it was not
difficult to foresee the result of their present deliberations. They summoned
Galileo to appear before them at Rome, to answer in person the charges
under which he lay. The Tuscan ambassador expostulated warmly with the
court of Rome on the inhumanity of this proceeding. He urged his advanced
age, his infirm health, the discomforts of the journey, and the miseries of
the quarantine[28], as motives for reconsidering their decision: but the pope
was inexorable; and though it was agreed to relax the quarantine as much as
possible in his favour, yet it was declared indispensable that he should
appear in person before the inquisition.
Worn out with age and infirmities, and exhausted with the fatigues of his
journey, Galileo arrived at Rome on the 14th of February, 1633. The Tuscan
ambassador announced his arrival in an official form to the commissary of
the holy office, and Galileo awaited in calm dignity the approach of his
trial. Among those who proffered their advice in this distressing emergency,
we must enumerate the cardinal Barberino, the pope's nephew, who, though
he may have felt the necessity of an interference on the part of the church,
was yet desirous that it should be effected with the least injury to Galileo
and to science. He accordingly visited Galileo, and advised him to remain
as much at home as possible, to keep aloof from general society, and to see
only his most intimate friends. The same advice was given from different
quarters; and Galileo felt its propriety, and remained in strict seclusion in
the palace of the Tuscan ambassador.
During the whole of the trial which now commenced, Galileo was treated
with the most marked indulgence. Abhorring, as we must do, the principles
and practice of this odious tribunal, and reprobating its interference with the
cautious deductions of science, we must yet admit that, on this occasion, its
deliberations were not dictated by passion, nor its power directed by
vengeance. Though placed at their judgment-seat as a heretic, Galileo stood
there with the recognised attributes of a sage; and though an offender
against the laws of which they were the guardian, yet the highest respect
was yielded to his genius, and the kindest commiseration to his infirmities.
In the beginning of April, when his examination in person was to
commence, it became necessary that he should be removed to the holy
office; but instead of committing him, as was the practice, to solitary
confinement, he was provided with apartments in the house of the fiscal of

the inquisition. His table was provided by the Tuscan ambassador, and his
servant was allowed to attend him at his pleasure, and to sleep in an
adjoining apartment. Even this nominal confinement, however, Galileo's
high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the disease to which he was
constitutionally subject contributed to fret and irritate him, and he became
impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as from his bondage.
Cardinal Barberino seems to have received notice of the state of Galileo's
feelings; and with a magnanimity which posterity will ever honour, he
liberated Galileo on his own responsibility; and in ten days after his first
examination, and on the last day of April, he was restored to the hospitable
roof of the Tuscan ambassador.
Though this favour was granted on the condition of his remaining in strict
seclusion, Galileo recovered his health, and to a certain degree his usual
hilarity, amid the kind attentions of Niccolini and his family; and when the
want of exercise had begun to produce symptoms of indisposition, Niccolini
obtained for him leave to go into the public gardens in a half-closed
carriage.
After the inquisition had examined Galileo personally, they allowed him a
reasonable time for preparing his defence. He felt the difficulty of adducing
any thing like a plausible justification of his conduct; and he resorted to an
ingenious, though a shallow artifice, which was regarded by the court as an
aggravation of the crime. After his first appearance before the inquisition in
1616, he was publicly and falsely charged by his enemies with having then
abjured his opinions; and he was taunted as a criminal who had been
actually punished for his offences. As a refutation of these calumnies.
Cardinal Bellarmine had given him a certificate in his own handwriting,
declaring that he neither abjured his opinions, nor suffered punishment for
them; and that the doctrine of the earth's motion, and the sun's stability, was
only denounced to him as contrary to scripture, and as one which could not
be defended. To this certificate the cardinal did not add, because he was not
called upon to do it, that Galileo was enjoined not to teach in any manner
the doctrine thus denounced; and Galileo ingeniously avails himself of this
supposed omission, to account for his having, in the lapse of fourteen or
sixteen years, forgotten the injunction. He assigned the same excuse for his
having omitted to mention this injunction to Riccardi, and to the inquisitor-
general at Florence, when he obtained the licence to print his dialogues. The

court held the production of this certificate to be at once a proof and an
aggravation of his offence; because the certificate itself declared that the
obnoxious doctrines had been pronounced contrary to the Holy Scriptures.
Having duly weighed the confessions and excuses of their prisoner, and
considered the general merits of the case, the inquisition came to an
agreement upon the sentence which they were to pronounce, and appointed
the 22d of June as the day on which it was to be delivered. Two days
previous to this, Galileo was summoned to appear at the holy office; and on
the morning of the 21st, he obeyed the summons. On the 22d of June he
was clothed in a penitential dress, and conducted to the convent of Minerva,
where the inquisition was assembled to give judgment. A long and elaborate
sentence was pronounced, detailing the former proceedings of the
inquisition, and specifying the offences which he had committed in teaching
heretical doctrines, in violating his former pledges, and in obtaining by
improper means a licence for the printing of his Dialogues. After an
invocation of the name of our Saviour, and of the Holy Virgin, Galileo is
declared to have brought himself under strong suspicions of heresy, and to
have incurred all the censures and penalties which are enjoined against
delinquents of this kind; but from all these consequences he is to be held
absolved, provided that with a sincere heart, and a faith unfeigned, he
abjures and curses the heresies he has cherished, as well as every other
heresy against the Catholic church. In order that his offence might not go
altogether unpunished, that he might be more cautious in future, and be a
warning to others to abstain from similar delinquencies, it was also decreed
that his Dialogues should be prohibited by public edict; that he himself
should be condemned to the prison of the inquisition during their pleasure,
and that during the next three years he should recite once a week the seven
penitential psalms.
The ceremony of Galileo's abjuration was one of exciting interest, and of
awful formality. Clothed in the sackcloth of a repentant criminal, the
venerable sage fell upon his knees before the assembled cardinals; and
laying his hands upon the Holy Evangelists, he invoked the divine aid in
abjuring and detesting, and vowing never again to teach, the doctrine of the
earth's motion, and of the sun's stability. He pledged himself that he would
never again, either in words or in writing, propagate such heresies; and he
swore that he would fulfil and observe the penances which had been

inflicted upon him.[29] At the conclusion of this ceremony, in which he
recited his abjuration word for word, and then signed it, he was conveyed,
in conformity with his sentence, to the prison of the inquisition.
The account which we have now given of the trial and the sentence of
Galileo, is pregnant with the deepest interest and instruction. Human nature
is here drawn in its darkest colouring; and in surveying the melancholy
picture, it is difficult to decide whether religion or philosophy has been
most degraded. While we witness the presumptuous priest pronouncing
infallible the decrees of his own erring judgment, we see the high-minded
philosopher abjuring the eternal and immutable truths which he had himself
the glory of establishing. In the ignorance and prejudices of the age,—in a
too literal interpretation of the language of Scripture,—in a mistaken
respect for the errors that had become venerable from their antiquity,—and
in the peculiar position which Galileo had taken among the avowed enemies
of the church, we may find the elements of an apology, however poor it
may he, for the conduct of the inquisition. But what excuse can we devise
for the humiliating confession and abjuration of Galileo? Why did this
master-spirit of the age—this high-priest of the stars—this representative of
science—this hoary sage, whose career of glory was near its consummation,
—why did he reject the crown of martyrdom which he had himself coveted,
and which, plaited with immortal laurels, was about to descend upon his
head? If, in place of disavowing the laws of nature, and surrendering in his
own person the intellectual dignity of his species, he had boldly owned the
truth of his opinions, and confided his character to posterity, and his cause
to an all-ruling Providence, he would have strung up the hair-suspended
sabre, and disarmed for ever the hostility which threatened to overwhelm
him. The philosopher, however, was supported only by philosophy; and in
the love of truth he found a miserable substitute for the hopes of the martyr.
Galileo cowered under the fear of man, and his submission was the
salvation of the church. The sword of the inquisition descended on his
prostrate neck; and though its stroke was not physical, yet it fell with a
moral influence fatal to the character of its victim, and to the dignity of
science.
In studying with attention this portion of scientific history, the reader will
not fail to perceive that the church of Rome was driven into a dilemma from
which the submission and abjuration of Galileo could alone extricate it. He

who confesses a crime and denounces its atrocity, not only sanctions but
inflicts the punishment which is annexed to it. If Galileo had declared his
innocence, and avowed his sentiments; and if he had appealed to the past
conduct of the church itself, to the acknowledged opinions of its dignitaries,
and even to the acts of its pontiffs, he would have at once confounded his
accusers, and escaped from their toils. After Copernicus, himself a catholic
priest, had openly maintained the motion of the earth, and the stability of
the sun: after he had dedicated the work which advocated these opinions to
pope Paul III., on the express ground that the authority of the pontiff might
silence the calumnies of those who attacked these opinions by arguments
drawn from Scripture: after the cardinal Schonherg and the bishop of Culm
had urged Copernicus to publish the new doctrines; and after the bishop of
Ermeland had erected a monument to commemorate his great discoveries;
how could the church of Rome have appealed to its pontifical decrees as the
ground of persecuting and punishing Galileo? Even in later times, the same
doctrines had been propagated with entire toleration; nay, in the very year
of Galileo's first persecution, Paul Anthony Foscarinus, a learned Carmelite
monk, wrote a pamphlet, in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of
the earth, and endeavours to reconcile to this new doctrine the passages of
Scripture which had been employed to subvert it. This very singular
production was dated from the Carmelite convent at Naples; was dedicated
to the very reverend Sebastian Fantoni, general of the Carmelite order; and,
sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities, it was published at Florence,
three years before the second persecution of Galileo.
By these acts, tolerated for more than a century, the decrees of the pontiffs
against the doctrine of the earth's motion were virtually repealed; and
Galileo might have pleaded them with success in arrest of judgment.
Unfortunately, however, for himself and for science, he acted otherwise. By
admitting their authority, he revived in fresh force these obsolete and
obnoxious enactments; and, by yielding to their power, he riveted for
another century the almost broken chains of spiritual despotism.
Pope Urban VII. did not fail to observe the full extent of his triumph; and he
exhibited the utmost sagacity in the means which he employed to secure it.
While he endeavoured to overawe the enemies of the church by the formal
promulgation of Galileo's sentence and abjuration, and by punishing the
officials who had assisted in obtaining the licence to print his work, he

treated Galileo with the utmost lenity, and yielded to every request that was
made to diminish, and almost to suspend, the constraint under which he lay.
The sentence of abjuration was ordered to be publicly read at several
universities. At Florence the ceremonial was performed in the church of
Santa Croce, and the friends and disciples of Galileo were especially
summoned to witness the public degradation of their master. The inquisitor
at Florence was ordered to be reprimanded for his conduct; and Riccardi,
the master of the sacred palace, and Ciampoli, the secretary of pope Urban
himself, were dismissed from their situations.
Galileo had remained only four days in the prison of the inquisition, when,
on the application of Niccolini, the Tuscan ambassador, he was allowed to
reside with him in his palace. As Florence still suffered under the
contagious disease which we have already mentioned, it was proposed that
Sienna should be the place of Galileo's confinement, and that his residence
should be in one of the convents of that city. Niccolini, however,
recommended the palace of the archbishop Piccolomoni as a more suitable
residence; and though the archbishop was one of Galileo's best friends, the
pope agreed to the arrangement, and in the beginning of July Galileo quitted
Rome for Sienna.
After having spent nearly six months under the hospitable roof of his friend,
with no other restraint than that of being confined to the limits of the palace,
Galileo was permitted to return to his villa near Florence under the same
restrictions; and as the contagious disease had disappeared in Tuscany, he
was able in the month of December to re-enter his own house at Arcetri,
where he spent the remainder of his days.
Although Galileo had now the happiness of rejoining his family under their
paternal roof, yet, like all sublunary blessings, it was but of short duration.
His favourite daughter Maria, who along with her sister had joined the
convent of St. Matthew in the neighbourhood of Arcetri, had looked
forward to the arrival of her father with the most affectionate anticipation:
she hoped that her filial devotion might form some compensation for the
malignity of his enemies; and she eagerly assumed the labour of reciting
weekly the seven penitentiary psalms which formed part of her father's
sentence. These sacred duties, however, were destined to terminate almost
at the moment they were begun. She was seized with a fatal illness in the
same month in which she rejoined her parent, and before the month of April

she was no more. This heavy blow, so suddenly struck, overwhelmed
Galileo in the deepest agony. Owing to the decline of his health, and the
recurrence of his old complaints, he was unable to oppose to this mental
suffering the constitutional energy of his mind. The bulwarks of his heart
broke down, and a flood of grief desolated his manly and powerful mind.
He felt, as he expressed it, that he was incessantly called by his daughter,—
his pulse intermitted,—his heart was agitated with unceasing palpitations,—
his appetite entirely left him, and he considered his dissolution so near at
hand, that he would not permit his son Vicenzo to set out upon a journey
which he had contemplated.
From this state of melancholy and indisposition, Galileo slowly, though
partially, recovered; and, with the view of obtaining medical assistance, he
requested leave to go to Florence. His enemies, however, refused this
application, and he was given to understand that any additional
importunities would be visited with a more vigilant surveillance. He
remained, therefore, five years at Arcetri, from 1634 to 1638, without any
remission of his confinement, and pursuing his studies under the influence
of a continued and general indisposition.
There is no reason to think that Galileo or his friends renewed their
application to the church of Rome; but, in 1638, the pope transmitted,
through the inquisitor Fariano, his permission that he might remove to
Florence for the recovery of his health, on the condition that he should
present himself at the office of the inquisitor to learn the terms upon which
this indulgence was granted. Galileo accepted of the kindness thus
unexpectedly proffered; but the conditions upon which it was given were
more severe than he expected: he was prohibited from leaving his house, or
admitting his friends; and so sternly was this system pursued, that he
required a special order for attending mass during Passion week.
The severity of this order was keenly felt by Galileo. While he remained at
Arcetri, his seclusion from the world would have been an object of choice,
if it had not been the decree of a tribunal; but to be debarred from the
conversation of his friends in Florence,—in that city where his genius had
been idolised, and where his fame had become immortal, was an
aggravation of punishment which he was unable to bear. With his
accustomed kindness, the grand duke made a strong representation on the
subject to his ambassador at the court of Rome. He stated that, from his

great age and infirmities, Galileo's career was near its close; that he
possessed many valuable ideas, which the world might lose if they were not
matured and conveyed to his friends; and that Galileo was anxious to make
these communications to father Castelli, who was then a stipendiary of the
court of Rome. The grand duke commanded his ambassador to see Castelli
on the subject; to urge him to obtain leave from the pope to spend a few
months in Florence, and to supply him with money, and every thing that
was necessary for his journey. Influenced by this kind and liberal message.
Castelli obtained an audience of the pope, and requested leave to pay a visit
to Florence. Urban instantly suspected the object of his journey; and, upon
Castelli's acknowledging that he could not possibly refrain from seeing
Galileo, he received permission to visit him in the company of an officer of
the inquisition. Castelli accordingly went to Florence; and, a few months
afterwards, Galileo was ordered to return to Arcetri.
During Galileo's confinement at Sienna and Arcetri, between 1633 and
1636, his time was principally occupied in the composition of his
"Dialogues on Local Motion." This remarkable work, which was considered
by its author as the best of his productions, was printed by Louis Elzevir, at
Amsterdam, and dedicated to the count de Noailles, the French ambassador
at Rome. Various attempts to have it printed in Germany had failed; and, in
order to save himself from the malignity of his enemies, he was obliged to
pretend that the edition published in Holland had been printed from a MS.
entrusted to the French ambassador.
Although Galileo had for a long time abandoned his astronomical studies,
yet his attention was directed, about the year 1636, to a curious appearance
in the lunar disc, which is known by the name of the moons libration. When
we examine with a telescope the outline of the moon, we observe that
certain parts of her disc, which are seen at one time, are invisible at another.
This change or libration is of four different kinds; viz. the diurnal libration,
the libration in longitude, the libration in latitude, and the spheroidal
libration. Galileo discovered the first of these kinds of libration, and appears
to have had some knowledge of the second; but the third was discovered by
Hevelius, and the fourth by Lagrange.[30]
This curious discovery was the result of the last telescopic observations of
Galileo. Although his right eye had for some years lost its power, yet his
general vision was sufficiently perfect to enable him to carry on his usual

researches. In 1636, however, this affection of his eye became more serious;
and, in 1637, his left eye was attacked with the same disease. His medical
friends at first supposed that cataracts were formed in the crystalline lens,
and anticipated a cure from the operation of couching. These hopes were
fallacious. The disease turned out to be in the cornea, and every attempt to
restore its transparency was fruitless. In a few months the white cloud
covered the whole aperture of the pupil, and Galileo became totally blind.
This sudden and unexpected calamity had almost overwhelmed Galileo and
his friends. In writing to a correspondent he exclaims, "Alas! your dear
friend and servant has become totally and irreparably blind. These heavens,
this earth, this universe, which by wonderful observation I had enlarged a
thousand times beyond the belief of past ages, are henceforth shrunk into
the narrow space which I myself occupy. So it pleases God; it shall,
therefore, please me also." His friend, father Castelli, deplores the calamity
in the same tone of pathetic sublimity:—"The noblest eye," says he, "which
nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so privileged, and gifted with such
rare powers, that it may truly be said to have seen more than the eyes of all
that are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all that are to come."
Although Galileo had been thwarted in his attempt to introduce into the
Spanish marine his new method of finding the longitude at sea, yet he never
lost sight of an object to which he attached the highest importance. As the
formation of correct tables of the motion of Jupiter's satellites was a
necessary preliminary to its introduction, he had occupied himself for
twenty-four years in observations for this purpose, and he had made
considerable progress in this laborious task. After the publication of his
"Dialogues on Motion," in 1636, he renewed his attempts to bring his
method into actual use. For this purpose he addressed himself to Lorenzo
Real, who had been the Dutch governor-general in India, and offered the
free use of his method to the states-general of Holland.[31] The Dutch
government received this proposal with an anxious desire to have it carried
into effect. At the instigation of Constantine Huygens, the father of the
illustrious Huygens, and the secretary to the prince of Orange, they
appointed commissioners to communicate with Galileo; and while they
transmitted him a gold chain as a mark of their esteem, they at the same
time assured him, that if his plan should prove successful it should not pass
unrewarded. The commissioners entered into an active correspondence with
Galileo, and had even appointed one of their number to communicate

personally with him in Italy. Lest this, however, should excite the jealousy
of the court of Rome, Galileo objected to the arrangement, so that the
negotiation was carried on solely by correspondence.
It was at this time that Galileo was struck with blindness. His friend and
pupil, Renieri, undertook, in this emergency, to arrange and complete his
observations and calculations; but before he had made much progress in the
arduous task, each of the four commissioners died in succession, and it was
with great difficulty that Constantine Huygens succeeded in renewing the
scheme. It was again obstructed, however, by the death of Galileo; and
when Renieri was about to publish, by the order of the grand duke, the
"Ephemeris," and "Tables of the Jovian Planets," he was attacked with a
mortal disease, and the manuscripts of Galileo, which he was on the eve of
publishing, were never more heard of. By such a series of misfortunes were
the plans of Galileo and of the states-general completely overthrown. It is
some consolation, however, to know that neither science nor navigation
suffered any severe loss. Notwithstanding the perfection of our present
tables of Jupiter's satellites, and of the astronomical instruments by which
their eclipses may be observed, the method of Galileo is still impracticable
at sea.
In consequence of the strict seclusion to which Galileo had been subjected,
he was in the practice of dating his letters from his prison at Arcetri: but
after he had lost the use of his eyes, the Inquisition seems to have relaxed
its severity, and to have allowed him the freest intercourse with his friends.
The grand duke of Tuscany paid him frequent visits; and among the
celebrated strangers who came from distant lands to see the ornament of
Italy, were Gassendi, Deodati, and our illustrious countryman Milton.
During the last three years of his life, his eminent pupil Viviani formed one
of his family; and in October, 1611, the celebrated Torricelli, another of his
pupils, was admitted to the same distinction.
Though the powerful mind of Galileo still retained its vigour, yet his
debilitated frame was exhausted with mental labour. He often complained
that his head was too busy for his body; and the continuity of his studies
was frequently broken with attacks of hypochondria, want of sleep, and
acute rheumatic pains. Along with these calamities, he was afflicted with
another still more severe—with deafness almost total; but though he was
now excluded from all communication with the external world, yet his mind

still grappled with the material universe, and while he was studying the
force of percussion, and preparing for a continuation of his "Dialogues on
Motion," he was attacked with fever and palpitation of the heart, which,
after continuing two months, terminated fatally on the 8th of January, 1642,
in the 78th year of his age.
Having died in the character of a prisoner of the Inquisition, this odious
tribunal disputed his right of making a will, and of being buried in
consecrated ground. These objections, however, were withdrawn; but
though a large sum was subscribed for erecting a monument to him in the
church of Santa Croce, in Florence, the pope would not permit the design to
be carried into execution. His sacred remains were, therefore, deposited in
an obscure corner of the church, and remained for more than thirty years
unmarked with any monumental tablet. The following epitaph, given
without any remark in the Leyden edition of his Dialogues, is, we presume,
the one which was inscribed on a tablet in the church of Santa Croce:—

GALILÆO GALILÆI FIORENTINO,
Philosopho et Geometræ vere lynceo,
Natura Œdipo,
Mirabilium semper inventorum machinatori,
Qui inconcessa adhuc mortalibus gloria
Cælorum provincias auxit
Et universo dedit incrementum:
Non enim vitreos spherarum orbes
Fragilesque stellas conflavit:
Sed æterna mundi corpore
Mediceæ beneficentiae dedicavit,
Cujus inextincta gloriæ cupiditas
Ut oculos nationum
Sæculorumque omnium
Videre doceret,
Proprios impendit oculos.
Cum jam nil amplius haberet natura
Quod ipse videret.
Cujus inventa vix intra rerum limites comprehensa
Firmamentum ipsum non solum continet,
Sed etiam recipit.

Qui relictis tot scientiarum monumentis
Plura secum tulit, quam reliquit.
Gravi enim
Sed nondum affecta senectute,
Novis contemplationibus
Majorem gloriam affectans
Inexplebilem sapientiæ animam
Immaturo nobis obi tu
Exhalavit
Anno Domini
MCXLII.
Ætatis suæ
LXXVIII.

At his death, in 1703, Viviani purchased his property, with the charge of
erecting a monument over Galileo's remains and his own. This design was
not carried into effect till 1737, at the expense of the family of Nelli, when
both their bodies were disinterred, and removed to the site of the splendid
monument which now covers them. This monument contains the bust of
Galileo, with figures of Geometry and Astronomy. It was designed by
Giulio Foggini. Galileo's bust was executed by Giovanni Battista Foggini;
the figure of Astronomy by Vincenzio Foggini, his son; and that of
Geometry by Girolamo Ticciati.
Galileo's house at Arcetri still remains. In 1821 it belonged to one Signor
Alimari, having been preserved in the state in which it was left by Galileo;
it stands very near the convent of St. Matthew, and about a mile to the S. E.
of Florence. An inscription by Nelli, over the door of the house, still
remains.
The character of Galileo, whether we view him as a member of the social
circle, or as a man of science, presents many interesting and instructive
points of contemplation. Unfortunate, and to a certain extent immoral, in his
domestic relations, he did not derive from that hallowed source all the
enjoyments which it generally yields; and it was owing to this cause,
perhaps, that he was more fond of society than might have been expected
from his studious habits. His habitual cheerfulness and gaiety, and his
affability and frankness of manner, rendered him an universal favourite

among his friends. Without any of the pedantry of exclusive talent, and
without any of that ostentation which often marks the man of limited
though profound acquirements, Galileo never conversed upon scientific or
philosophical subjects except among those who were capable of
understanding them. The extent of his general information, indeed, his great
literary knowledge, but, above all, his retentive memory, stored with the
legends and the poetry of ancient times, saved him from the necessity of
drawing upon his own peculiar studies for the topics of his conversation.
Galileo was not less distinguished for his hospitality and benevolence; he
was liberal to the poor, and generous in the aid which he administered to
men of genius and talent, who often found a comfortable asylum under his
roof. In his domestic economy he was frugal without being parsimonious.
His hospitable board was ever ready for the reception of his friends; and,
though he was himself abstemious in his diet, he seems to have been a lover
of good wines, of which he received always the choicest varieties out of the
grand duke's cellar. This peculiar taste, together with his attachment to a
country life, rendered him fond of agricultural pursuits, and induced him to
devote his leisure hours to the cultivation of his vineyards.
In his personal appearance Galileo was about the middle size, and of a
square-built, but well-proportioned, frame. His complexion was fair, his
eyes penetrating, and his hair of a reddish hue. His expression was cheerful
and animated, and though his temper was easily ruffled, yet the excitement
was transient, and the cause of it speedily forgotten.
One of the most prominent traits in the character of Galileo was his
invincible love of truth, and his abhorrence of that spiritual despotism
which had so long brooded over Europe. His views, however, were too
liberal, and too far in advance of the age which he adorned; and however
much we may admire the noble spirit which he evinced, and the personal
sacrifices which he made, in his struggle for truth, we must yet lament the
hotness of his zeal and the temerity of his onset. In his contest with the
church of Rome, he fell under her victorious banner; and though his cause
was that of truth, and hers that of superstition, yet the sympathy of Europe
was not roused by his misfortunes. Under the sagacious and peaceful sway
of Copernicus, astronomy had effected a glorious triumph over the dogmas
of the church; but under the bold and uncompromising sceptre of Galileo all
her conquests were irrecoverably lost.

The scientific character of Galileo, and his method of investigating truth,
demand our warmest admiration. The number and ingenuity of his
inventions; the brilliant discoveries which he made in the heavens, and the
depth and beauty of his researches respecting the laws of motion, have
gained him the admiration of every succeeding age, and have placed him
next to Newton in the lists of original and inventive genius. To this high
rank he was doubtless elevated by the inductive processes which he
followed in all his inquiries. Under the sure guidance of observation and
experiment, he advanced to general laws; and if Bacon had never lived, the
student of nature would have found, in the writings and labours of Galileo,
not only the boasted principles of the inductive philosophy, but also their
practical application to the highest efforts of invention and discovery.

[1]Childe Harold, canto IV. stanza LIV.
[2]Life of Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 1.
[3]De Insidentibus in Fluido.
[4]Opere di Galileo. Milano, 1810, vol. IV. p. 248.
[5]Life of Galileo, in Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 9.
[6]Systema Cosmicum, Dial. II. p. 121.
[7]The authenticity of this work has been doubted. It was printed at Rome, in 1656, from a MS. in the
library of Somasohi, at Venice. See Opere di Galileo, tom. VII. p. 427.
[8]Incredibili animi jucunditate.—Sid.
[9]Nescio quo fato ductus.
[10]Berlin Ephemeris, 1788.
[11]Edin. Phil. Journ. vol. VI. p. 313.
[12]Life and Correspondence of Dr. Bradley. Oxford, 1832, p. 523.
[13]See page 22.
[14]Edin. Phil. Journ. 1822, vol. VI. p. 317.
[15]Joh. Fabricii Phrysii de Maculis in Sole observatis, et apparente earum cum Sole conversione,
Narratio. Wittemb. 1611.
[16]It does not appear from the history of solar observations, at what time, and by whom, coloured
glasses were first introduced for permitting the eye to look at the sun with impunity. Fabricius was
obviously quite ignorant of the use of coloured glasses. He observed the sun when he was in the
horizon, and when his brilliancy was impaired by the interposition of thin clouds and floating
vapours; and he advises those who may repeat his observations, to admit at first to the eye a small
portion of the sun's light, till it is gradually accustomed to its full splendour. When the sun's altitude
became considerable, Fabricius gave up his observations; which he often continued so long, that he
was scarcely able, for two days together, to see objects with their usual distinctness.

Scheiner, in his "Apelles post Tabulanti," describes four different ways of viewing the spots: one of
which is by the interposition of blue or green glasses. His first method was to observe the sun near
the horizon; the second was to view him through a transparent cloud; the third was to look at him
through his telescope with a blue or a green glass of a proper thickness, and plane on both sides, or to
use a thin blue glass when the sun was covered with a thin vapour or cloud; and the fourth method
was to begin and observe the sun at his margin, till the eye gradually reached the middle of his disc.
[17]See Istoria e Demostrazioni, intorna alle macchie solari. Roma, 1613. See Opere di Galileo, vol.
V. p. 131-293.
[18]Discorso intorno alle cose che stanno in sa l'acqua, o che in quella si muovono. Opere di Galileo,
vol. II. pp. 165-311.
[19]Opere di Galileo, vol. II. pp. 355-367.
[20]Ibid. 367-390.
[21]These three treatises occupy the whole of the third volume of the Opere di Galileo.
[22]It is said that Galileo was cited to appear at Rome on this occasion; and the opinion is not
without foundation.
[23]Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. VI. pp. 117-191.
[24]Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. VI. pp. 191-571.
[25]This work is said to have been dedicated to Urban VIII. himself (Lib. U. Knowledge, Life of
Galileo, chap, VII.), but there is no dedication prefixed to the edition we have referred to; and it is,
besides, unusual to dedicate a volume to any person when that volume has the form of a letter to
another.

[26]A fine painting in gold, and a silver medal, and "a good quantity of agnus dei."
[27]Library of Useful Knowledge, Life of Galileo, chap. VIII.
[28]The communication between Florence and Rome was at this time interrupted by a contagious
disease which had broken out in Tuscany.
[29]It has been said, but upon what authority we cannot find, that when Galileo rose from his knees,
he stamped on the ground, and said in a whisper to one of his friends, "E pur si muove." "It does
move, though."—Life of Galileo, Lib. Use. Knowledge, part II. p. 63.
[30]These phenomena are explained in the volume on "Astronomy."
[31]It is a curious fact, that Morin had about this time proposed to determine the longitude by the
moon's distance from a fixed star, and that the commissioners assembled in Paris to examine it,
requested Galileo's opinion of its value and practicability. Galileo's opinion was highly unfavourable.
He saw clearly, and explained distinctly, the objection to Morin's method, arising from the
imperfection of the lunar tables, and the inadequacy of astronomical instruments; but he seemed not
to be conscious that the very same objections applied, with even greater force, to his own method,
which has since been supplanted by that of the French savant. See life of Galileo, Library of Useful
Knowledge, p. 94.

GUICCIARDINI

1482-1540.

Guicciardini was the contemporary and intimate friend of Machiavelli, but
their several careers bore small similitude; for worldly prosperity attended
the first, while the other was depressed by neglect and penury; and while
his intellect struggled with these chains, the nobler parts of his disposition
yielded to them. Machiavelli was a republican in principle, of humble for
tunes, and dependent on his friends for their favour and encouragement.
Guicciardini was a courtier; he was the servant of a prince, not of a state; in
birth and position in life he had the advantage of his friend; and these
combining circumstances rendered him more confident in himself, while at
the same time it inspired him with an avowed dislike for popular
governments.
The Guicciardini formed one of the noblest families of Florence: it was of
ancient origin, and possessed several magnificent mansions in Florence.

One of the streets is named de' Guicciardini, from containing a palace
belonging to them; and they had large possessions in the Val di Pesa.
Francesco, the subject of this memoir, was the son of Piero de' Guicciardini,
a celebrated advocate, and at one time commissary-general to the Florentine
army. Francesco was one of eight children. His mother was Simona,
daughter of the cavaliere Bongiani Gianfigliazzi, a noble Florentine. He
was born on the 6th of March, 1482.[32] He was educated with care by the
best masters, and taught Greek and Latin. He applied himself, as he grew
up, to the study of logic and of civil law, as he was destined for the robe. He
was sent to Ferrara by his father, not merely for the sake of attending the
teachers there, but that his parent might have a place of refuge, where to
send his property, in the event of civil disturbance or external attack upon
Florence. Large sums of money were remitted to him, and he boasts of the
trustworthiness of his conduct on this occasion, despite his extreme youth.
It was in agitation at one time to make him a priest, as, through the interest
of an uncle, who was rich in benefices, a prosperous career was opened to
him in the church. He was himself inclined towards the clerical profession,
as one full of honour and dignity; but his father decided against it, and
resolved that none of his five sons should enter the priesthood; partly
induced by the notion that the papal power was on the decline, and partly
from a conscientious feeling of the impropriety of adopting the sacred
calling, merely for the sake of temporal advantages. Instead, therefore, of
assuming the sacerdotal garb, Francesco took a doctor's degree in law, and
at an early age was appointed by the government to read the Institute in the
university of Florence. He married the following year. His wife was Maria,
daughter of Alamanno di Averardo Salviati, one of the first men of the city.
Several law offices were bestowed on him, and he prides himself at this
success in early life. But he felt himself still more honoured, when he was
sent by the republic as ambassador to Ferdinand, king of Aragon. Italy was
then the arena on which the adverse powers of France, Germany, and Spain
contended for mastery. Florence adhered to the French party, but the timid
gonfaloniere Soderini, desirous of currying favour on all sides, thought it
right to preserve a good understanding with Ferdinand. Francesco, feeling
his inexperience, shrunk from the responsibility of this mission, and did not
accept it, till his father added his commands to those of the state.

He remained two years at Burgos, in attendance on the Spanish court,
conducting himself in such a way as to acquire the esteem of Ferdinand,
who presented him with a number of silver vessels of great value on his
departure. This was no good school for the acquirement of political
integrity. The Italians were proverbially treacherous, but Ferdinand
emulated them in the arts of deception. It is related of this monarch, that
when he heard that Louis XII. complained of having been twice deceived
by him, he exclaimed, "The fool lies, I have tricked him above ten times."
Meanwhile the aspect of affairs changed at Florence. The French were
driven from Italy, and the republic paid the penalty of the weak and
disarmed neutrality which it had preserved, by being forced by the allied
armies to receive back the exiled Medici. The consequence of this return
was a change of government, from that of a free state, to subjection to the
will of a single family. Guicciardini acted with a prudence that acquired for
him the favour of the new rulers; and, on his return from Spain, was
received with every suitable mark of distinction. His joy, however, on
returning to his native town, was clouded by the recent death of his father.
On the event of the visit of Leo X. to Florence, attended by a numerous
retinue of cardinals, Guicciardini, who had lately filled the office of
magistrate, was sent, with others, to receive the pope at Cortona. Leo was
so struck by him, that the next day he named him his consistorial advocate,
of his own accord, without solicitation: nor did his patronage stop here; he
soon after took him entirely into his service, and finding that his prudence
and sagacity were equal to the good opinion he had formed of him, he made
him governor of Reggio and Modena. He acquitted himself with great credit
in this high office. Having been educated for the robe, instead of the career
of arms, the enemies of the pope cherished the notion, that he might be
surprised and frightened in his government; but his firmness and judgment
disconcerted all their stratagems.
When Leo X. died, the merits of Guicciardini became yet more
conspicuous. The papal power was very infirmly established in Lombardy,
and the duke of Ferrara, who claimed Modena and Reggio as his own, was
on the alert to take advantage of the interval of weakness caused by a delay
in the election of a new pope; but Guicciardini foiled him in all his
attempts. His most memorable action on this occasion was his defence of
Parma. He relates it with conscious pride in his history. He had been sent by

cardinal Julius de' Medici to defend Parma from an attack made by the
French. Guicciardini's chief difficulty was, to inspire the citizens with
resolution and martial enthusiasm. He convoked them together, distributed
pikes among them, and causing the defenceless part of the town, on one
side of the river, to be abandoned, made strenuous efforts to intrench the
other. The enemy entered the deserted portion, and the people were eager to
surrender. Guicciardini pointed out to them the fact, that the hostile forces
were unprovided with artillery, and so succeeded in inspiring them with
some degree of resolution: he led the attack himself, and the success that
attended their sortie increasing their courage, the enemy was driven, off and
the siege raised. Federigo da Bozzole, who commanded the attack, had
made sure of success, and declared that he had been deceived in nothing
during the expedition, except in the notion that a governor, who was not a
soldier, and who had newly come to the city, should carry on the defence at
his own peril, when he might have saved himself without dishonour.
When cardinal Julius became pope, under the name of Clement VII., he
showed his approbation of Guicciardini, by naming him president of
Romagna, with greater powers than had been enjoyed by any predecessor in
that office: thus, a large portion of Italy north of the Apennines was under
his rule. It was a situation of honour, but attended with an equal portion of
difficulty and labour, from the unsettled state of the country. Prudence and
firmness, and even severity, were the characteristics of Guicciardini's
administration; he was unrelenting towards criminals, but at the same time
became very popular, in Modena especially, by the attention he paid to the
comfort and pleasures of the people, and the embellishments he bestowed
on the city.
At this time the French were again, after the battle of Pavia, driven from
Italy, and Clement VII., afraid of the overweening power of Charles V.,
formed a league against him. The duke of Urbino was chief over the army
of the league, and Guicciardini was named lieutenant-general of the
pontifical army in the ecclesiastical states. The choice that had been made
of the duke of Urbino, as chief leader, was injudicious. He had been driven
from his states by Leo X.; Lorenzo de' Medici had been gifted with his
duchy, and he naturally was inimical to his rival's family. His irresolute,
shuffling conduct during the disastrous advance of the constable Bourbon
on Rome, was doubtless a principal cause of the sack of that city.

Guicciardini, as general of the papal army, exerted himself in vain to induce
him to more energetic measures: instead of throwing himself before the
advancing army of the imperialists, he slowly followed it. When Bourbon
was in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, the duke of Urbino entered Florence.
The power of the Medici was odious in that city. A formidable party, whose
watchword was liberty, regarded with triumph the dangers to which
Clement VII. was exposed. A number of the younger nobility among them
took occasion of the alarm excited, to seize on the palace of government.
The duke of Urbino prepared to attack it, but first sent Federigo da Bozzole
to treat with the party who held it. Full of enthusiasm and courage, the
young men refused all terms, and Bozzole left them, enraged at their
obstinacy and their personal ill-treatment of himself. Guicciardini perceived
the dangers that threatened his country. It was an easy task for the duke of
Urbino to attack the palace of government, to destroy it and all those
within; but an act of violence and bloodshed was to be avoided.
Guicciardini hastened forward to meet Bozzole as he left the palace, and
represented to him briefly how displeasing such a contest would be to the
pope, and how detrimental to the confederates; and how much better it
would be to calm, instead of exasperating, the mind of the duke of Urbino.
Bozzole yielded, and gave hope to the duke that quiet might be restored
without recourse being had to arms; pacific means were in consequence
resorted to, and the insurgents induced to quit the palace. Guicciardini
relates this circumstance and his interference with pride, in the belief that he
had done his country as well as the pope good service, but he adds, that he
got no thanks from either side; the Medici party accusing him of preferring
the lives and safety of the citizens to the firm establishment of that family;
while the other party declared that he had exaggerated their difficulties, and
caused them needlessly to yield their advantages.
It had been well for the fame of Guicciardini, if he had submitted to the
blame of his contemporaries, and secured the approbation of posterity, by
adhering to a line of conduct so impartial and patriotic. Although the fall of
the Medici was suspended for a short time on this occasion, the taking of
Rome decided their expulsion. When the duke of Urbino went southward to
deliver the pope, besieged in the Castel Sant' Angelo, the Florentines seized
the opportunity to drive out the Medici, and to restore the freedom of their
government. The wars carried on by Clement VII. had weighed heavily on

the republic, since he drew from it his chief resources; the people were thus
exasperated against his rule, and now that they possessed the power,
displayed their hatred of his family by many acts of outrage. To have served
them was to share their disgrace, and the odium with which they were
regarded. It has been related how Machiavelli, republican as he was, and
personally attached to many of the leaders of the popular party, was unable
to overcome the prejudice excited by his having entered the service of the
Medici. Guicciardini was visited by more open marks of the dislike of the
new leaders; and he was the more angry because he had displayed a wish to
join them. He neither loved nor esteemed Clement; whom he represents as
timid; avaricious, and ungracious. He regarded his imprisonment by the
imperialists with very lukewarm interest, and even raised soldiers for the
defence of Florence: but these demonstrations did not avail to acquire for
him the confidence of his countrymen, and he was forced to fly the town
during a popular tumult. Hence seems to spring his hatred of free
institutions, and his subsequent conduct in aiding in the destruction of the
liberties of his country. From this time he entered with all the zeal of
personal resentment into the cause of the Medici. His name has thus
received a taint never to be effaced. He became the abettor of tyrants, the
oppressor of his fellow citizens; and that equity and firmness which he
before exercised; by establishing order in the districts over which he
presided, were changed to the persecution of the martyrs of liberty.[33] It is
impossible to slur over this portion of his life as he does himself. For it is
remarkable that the only events recorded in his history, which are narrated
in a slovenly and confused manner, are those in which he took a principal
share,—the second restoration of the Medici, and the final overthrow of the
liberties of Florence.
When a reconciliation had been patched up between Charles V. and
Clement VII., the force of their united arms was turned against Florence.
The republic was headed by gallant spirits, who, seeing their last hope of
freedom in a successful resistance, exerted every nerve to defend
themselves. They were willing to suffer any extremity, rather than submit to
a slavery which must crush for ever the proud independence and free
institutions of their native city. Guicciardini had been named by the pope,
governor of Bologna, and took no part in the war against his country; but he
is accused of participating in the iniquitous proceedings which followed the
surrender of the city. The pope acted with the utmost treachery. He granted

generous terms; but when in possession, held a mock assembly of the
people, keeping off, by means of the troops he introduced, all the citizens,
except those prepared to receive law at his hands. He thus, as it were,
obtained a legal decree, which changed the form of government, and
denounced its late leaders. Executions and confiscations became the order
of the day; the chief power was placed in the hands of Vettori, Guicciardini,
and two others, and their conduct entailed on them the execration of their
fellow citizens.
So zealous did Guicciardini show himself, that the pope entrusted him with
the office of reforming and restricting the list of candidates, who were
selected to be members of government, and he displayed his prudence and
sagacity for the reigning family at the expense of the lives and liberties of
the most virtuous among his fellow citizens. Under his auspices, the office
of gonfaloniere, which had subsisted for 250 years, was abolished, and
Alessandro de' Medici was named duke, which title was to descend in
perpetuity to his successors. This miserable man was the son of a negro
woman, and regarded as the offspring of Lorenzo, the son of Piero de'
Medici: but it was more probable that he owed his existence to Clement
VII.; at least the latter claimed the honour of paternity. His disgraceful birth
stamped him with contempt; his profligacy and cruelty acquired the hatred
of the people over whom he ruled.
Guicciardini endeavoured to restrain him in the indulgence of his vices, but
without avail. He was now wholly devoted to his service. When Clement
VII. died, his successor wished him to continue governor of Bologna, but he
refused. While the see was vacant, he had yielded to the entreaties of the
senators, and remained to prevent popular disturbances. They promised him
every assistance to maintain his authority; but his enemies took occasion to
display their disrespect. Geronimo Pepoli, and others, who some years
before had retired from Bologna in distaste, took this occasion to return,
accompanied by armed followers and public bandits. Guicciardini's haughty
spirit was in arms against the insult. Among the followers of Pepoli were
two outlaws under sentence of death; these he caused to be seized, led to
prison, and put to death. Pepoli manifested the utmost indignation, and was
only restrained by the authority of the senators from giving public token of
his resentment. When the new pope was elected, and another governor
appointed, Guicciardini prepared to quit the city. Pepoli threatened to attack

him on his departure; but he, undismayed, set out at noon-day, accompanied
only by a few attendants on horseback. His road led him past the palace of
the Pepoli, nor would he diverge from it on this account, but passed under
their windows with a firm and intrepid countenance, and was permitted to
pursue his way unmolested.
He soon after displayed this energy and firmness of character in a very bad
cause. The Florentines, unable any longer to endure the tyranny and vices of
duke Alexander, appealed to Charles V., whom they regarded as lord
paramount of their state. The emperor summoned Alexander to Naples,
where he then was, to answer the charges made against him. He obeyed: but
the emperor was so incensed that he began to fear the result, and was on the
point of retreating, had not Guicciardini exhorted him to remain. He drew
up a defence for him, and by a judicious distribution of bribes, succeeded in
obtaining his acquittal; and Florence was again subjected to his yoke.
Two years after, Alexander was murdered by Lorenzino de' Medici, who
considered that he had a better right to be considered the head of the family.
But this act, undertaken without the participation of any accomplice, was
not followed by the results that might have been anticipated. Lorenzino,
frightened by his very success, fled the city, and his cousin Cosmo was
raised to the supreme power, and afterwards named grand duke of Tuscany.
Guicciardini assisted materially in his elevation, and hoped to be real chief
of the state, while the other held the nominal rank. But Cosmo was of a
crafty, cold, and ungrateful disposition, and treated his benefactor with such
neglect, that he withdrew himself from public life, and retired to his country
seat at Montici, in the neighbourhood of Florence.
From this time he occupied himself wholly in the composition of his
history. It is a fine monument of his genius and industry. It commences with
the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., and goes down to the exaltation of
Cosmo. The fault attributed to him as an author is prolixity, and to this he
must plead guilty. He dwells with the most tiresome and earnest minuteness
on the most trivial incidents; and the taking of an insignificant castle,
followed by no important results, is attended by the same diffuseness and
exactitude of detail as events of the greatest magnitude. But no historian
surpasses Guicciardini when the subject is worthy of his pen. His animated
descriptions of battles, the chances of war, and conduct of princes and
leaders; his delineations of character, and masterly views of the course of

events, all claim the highest admiration. The orations, which he
intersperses, have been cavilled at, but they are eloquent, full of dignified
exhortation, or sagacious reasoning. His account of the rise and formation
of the temporal power of the popes excited great censure in catholic
countries; and throughout he is accused of showing himself the enemy of
the Roman church. It is true, that the pages of no other historian afford such
convincing proofs of the pernicious effects resulting from the union of
spiritual supremacy and temporal possessions. His powerful character of the
infamous pope Borgia; his description of the fiery vehemence of Julius II.;
his unveiling of the faults of Leo X., and the exposure he makes of the
mistakes and weakness of Clement VII., present the very men and times to
our eyes, and form as it were a school in which to study the philosophy of
history. We perceive no partiality till the last few pages, which record the
downfall of the republic of Florence. His language is, in the eyes of Italian
critics, nearly pure; it is forcible, without being concise; and the clearness
and majesty of the expressions in his best passages carry the reader along
with him.
Guicciardini was solicited by pope Paul III. to leave his retreat, and to enter
again on public life, but he refused. The disappointment of his ambitious
views on the exaltation of Cosmo, and the duke's ingratitude, struck him to
the heart. He did not live to complete his history, and died on the 27th of
May, 1540, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He expressly ordered that his
funeral should be unattended by any pomp; and his directions were so
strictly followed, that for some time no stone even commemorated the spot
of his sepulture.
Little is known of his private life. His letters have all perished, except a few
addressed to Machiavelli. They are lively in their style, and very friendly.
He had no son, and seven daughters, and wrote to the secretary to ask his
advice in settling them in marriage. Machiavelli advised his applying to the
pope for a dowry; counselling him by all means to marry the eldest well, as
the others would follow her example; and he quotes a passage from Dante,
referring to a duke of Provence, "who had three daughters and each a queen.
And the cause of this thing, was Romeo, a poor wandering man," who had
advised the duke to be unsparing in his dowry to his eldest daughter, so to
command a splendid alliance, as the best means to advance her sisters also.
He gave her half his duchy, and she married the king of France.

Guicciardini in reply says, "You have set me on ransacking Romagna for a
copy of Dante, and at last I have found one." But he was too high-spirited to
apply for a gift from the pope.
Guicciardini was tall and of commanding aspect; rather squarely made, and
not handsome; but robust, and with an animated, intelligent countenance.
He was ambitious, and even haughty, so that he could endure neither
contradiction nor advice. Prudence, industry, sagacity, and a penetrating
understanding, recommended him to his employers; and he was frequently
entrusted with carrying on and correcting the correspondence of the pope
and other princes.
The last six books of his history are considered unfinished. No portion of it
was published till some years after his death, and then the passages
considered injurious to papacy were omitted. A complete edition was first
printed at Basle; but, even in this, the objectionable passages appeared
under the disguise of Latin. His first idea had been to write only memoirs of
his own life; and it was by the advice of Nardi, it is said, that he enlarged
his plan into a history of Italy during his own times.

[32]It was a habit among the Florentines to keep memoranda of the principal events of their lives,
which they called Ricordi. The date of the birth of Guicciardini has been disputed, but it is
ascertained from a MS. book of his ricordi, or records, which Manni cites. He thus writes concerning
himself:—"I record that I, Francesco di Piero Guicciardini, now doctor of civil and canon law, was
born on the 6th March, 1482, at ten o'clock. I was baptised Francesco, from Francesco de Nerli, my
maternal grandfather, and Tommaso, out of respect for St. Thomas Aquinas, on whose festival I was
born. Messer Marsiglio Ficino held me at the baptismal font, who was the greatest platonic
philosopher then existing in the world, and by Giovanni Canacci and Piero del Nero, both
philosophers also."
[33]See a clever pamphlet, entitled "Saggio sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Francesco Guicciardini," by
Rosini, a professor of the University of Pisa.

VITTORIA COLONNA

1490-1547.

It would be giving a very faint idea of the state of Italian literature, or even
of the lives led by the learned men of those times, if all mention were
omitted of the women who distinguished themselves in literature. No slur
was cast by the Italians on feminine accomplishments. Where abstruse
learning was a fashion among men, they were glad to find in their friends of
the other sex, minds educated to share their pursuits and applaud their
success. In those days learning was a sort of wealth; men got as much as
they could, and women, of course, were led to acquire a portion of such a
valuable possession.
The list of women who aspired to literary fame in Italy is very long. Even in
Petrarch's time, the daughter of a professor of Bologna, gave lectures in the
university behind a veil, which has been supposed was used to hide her
beauty, and which at least is a beautiful trait of modesty, where a young girl
was willing to impart her knowledge to the studious, but shrunk from
meeting the public gaze. The mother of Lorenzo de' Medici is celebrated for
her sacred poems, and her patronage of literature. Ippolita Sforza, daughter
of the duke Francesco, and married to Alfonso II., king of Naples, was
learned in Greek and many other languages. A manuscript copy of a
translation of Tully's de Senectute is preserved of hers at Rome, and marked
as having been written in her youth; and two of her Latin orations are to be
seen in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Alessandra Scala, to whom Politian
was attached, wrote Greek verses, which have been printed, appended to the
Latin poetry of her learned lover. There was an Isotta of Padua, whose
letters are models of elegance, and who composed various poems of merit.
The noble house of Este boasted of a learned princess. Bianca d'Este has
been celebrated by one of the Strozzi in Latin verses; he speaks of her
Greek and Latin compositions with great praise. Damigella Torcila, we are
told, was numbered among the most distinguished women of her time. She
was profoundly versed in the learned languages, particularly in Greek; she
was an admirable musician, and as beautiful as she was wise. Cassandra
Fedele, however, excelled all her sex in her acquirements. She was of a
noble family, originally of Milan; born at Venice in 1465: she was, by her
father's desire, instructed in all the abstruse studies—Greek, Latin,
philosophy, and music—with such success, that even in girlhood she was
the admiration of all the learned men of the age. There is a letter from
Politian to her, which praises her Latin letters, not only for their cleverness
and elegance of style, but "for the girlish and maiden simplicity" which

adorned them. "I have read also," he says, "your learned and eloquent
oration, which is harmonious, dignified, and full of talent. I am told that you
are versed in philosophy and dialectics, that you entangle others by the most
serious difficulties, and make all plain yourself with admirable ease; and
while every one loads you with praise, you are gentle and humble." This
kind of knowledge would not suit these days: but those were times when
men tried to puzzle themselves by scholastic learning, and when the noble
Pico della Mirandola took pleasure in disputing on nine hundred questions.
Isabella of Spain, Louis XII. of France, and pope Leo X. all warmly
solicited Cassandra to take up her abode at their several courts. She showed
willingness to accept the queen's invitation; but the Venetian republic set so
high a value upon her, that they would not permit her to leave their state.
She married Mapelli, a physician, who was sent to Candia by the republic,
and Cassandra accompanied him. She became a widow late in life, and
lived to extreme old age. She was elected when ninety years old to be the
superior of a religious house in Venice; and died at the age of one hundred
and two.
This list might easily be much enlarged; but we have no space for further
dilation; and therefore turn from names less illustrious, to Vittoria Colonna,
the woman of all others who conferred, by her virtues, talents, and beauty,
honour on her sex.
Vittoria Colonna was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of
the kingdom of Naples, and of Anna di Montefeltro, daughter of Frederic
duke of Urbino. She was born at Marino, a castle belonging to her family,
about the year 1490. At the infantine age of four she was betrothed to
Ferdinando Francesco d'Avolos, marquess of Pescara, who was not older
than his baby bride. She was educated with the most sedulous care, and was
sought in marriage by various princes—but that fidelity of disposition
which was her beautiful characteristic through life, prevented her from
breaking her contract with her young lover. They were married at the age of
seventeen. He competed with her in talents and accomplishments. They
loved each other with the utmost tenderness, and lived for four years
succeeding to their marriage, in solitude, in the island of Ischia, where
Pescara had a palace.
But this happiness was of short duration; at the time when Julius II. leagued
all Italy against Louis XII., the marquess of Pescara joined the army of the

emperor. Vittoria was full of chivalric feelings; her enthusiasm, as well as
her tenderness, were gratified by the occupation of embroidering banners
for her hero, who, at the early age of one-and-twenty, was made general of
cavalry at the battle of Ravenna. That disastrous day was adverse to him.
He was taken prisoner and sent to Milan, where he remained a year, and
wrote a dialogue on love, addressed to his wife, in a dedication in which he
laments that he can no longer visit her as he was used, whenever the duties
of his station permitted his absence. As a kind of answer to this testimony of
his affection, Vittoria designed an emblem—Cupid within a circle, formed
by a serpent, with the motto "Quem peperit virtus, prudentia servet
amorem"—"May prudence preserve the love, which originated in virtue."
After the French were driven from Italy, that unhappy country enjoyed a
short interval of peace, interrupted by the invasion of Francis I. Pescara was
present at the battle of Pavia, and distinguished himself by his intrepidity,
and mainly contributed to the success of the emperor's arms. He was not
rewarded as he deserved, and the opposite or French party thought that his
consequent discontent afforded an opening for a reconciliation with them.
Geronimo Morone was employed by them to seduce him from his fidelity
to Charles V. He was offered the kingdom of Naples as a reward, and every
argument was used that might have most weight;—the honour he would
acquire by driving the barbarous nations from Italy, and the favours which
the pope and other princes would shower upon him. These were, however,
but specious reasonings. Pescara lent too ready an ear to them; but Vittoria
at once detected their fallacy, and the disgrace that would befall her
husband if he abandoned his imperial master. She wrote him a letter full of
earnest persuasion to refuse the dazzling offers of Morone. She spoke of the
glory acquired by fidelity and unblemished honour, as far outweighing any
that a crown could bestow, saying, that for herself, she desired to be called
the wife, not of a king, but of that great and glorious soldier, whose valour
and generosity of soul had vanquished the greatest kings. Pescara's conduct
on this occasion is wholly unworthy of the precepts of his admirable wife.
He continued faithful to the emperor, but acted the base part of a spy and
informer: by his means Morone's designs were betrayed, and he was thrown
into prison. There is no doubt that the high-minded Vittoria continued to the
last entirely ignorant of this ignoble action; and praised her husband for
having listened to her exhortations, and rejected a crown.

But while the marquess was acting so as to cast an eternal stigma on his
honour, death was at hand to terminate every ambitious project. His many
wounds, and the fatigues he had endured during the long wars, had so
shaken his health, that neither his good constitution nor the skill of
physicians were any longer able to afford relief. While preparing to die, he
desired to take leave of his wife, and sent for her to join him at Milan; but
when he found that he should not survive long enough to see her, he sent for
his cousin, the marchese del Vasto, and recommended Vittoria to him with
the warmest affection. Vittoria, on hearing of her husband's illness, had left
Naples to join him. She passed through Rome, where she was received with
the greatest honours, but on arriving at Viterbo, she received intelligence of
Pescara's death: her grief caused her to forget her religious resignation and
fortitude; its excess overwhelmed her with tears and the bitterest anguish.
From that time this illustrious lady never ceased to spend every faculty of
her soul in lamenting her lost husband. They had been married seventeen
years, but had no child; she gave herself up entirely to sorrow; and her
faithful heart, incapable of a second attachment to replace one which had
begun with her life, cherished only the image of her past happiness, and the
hope of its renewal in another life. Her active mind could not repose
tranquilly on its misery; she continued to cultivate it, so to render it more
worthy of Pescara, and she exercised and amused it by the many sonnets
she wrote in his honour. An Italian author has named her second only to
Petrarch. Her verses are full of tenderness, of absorbing passion, of truth
and life. They fail in poetic fancy; and yet, so much does the reader
sympathise in the intense and fond sorrows of this extraordinary woman,
that none can criticise, while all are touched by her laments. The best poem
in her volume has been attributed to Ariosto, I do not know on what
authority; but if written by her, has that elegance of style and concentration
of expression, which characterises true poetry. It begins with the affecting
exclamation, "I am indeed her you loved! Behold how bitter and eating
grief has changed me!—Scarcely could you recognise me by my voice. On
your departure, that charm which you called beauty, and of which I was
proud, since it was dear to you, left my cheeks, my eyes, my hair!—Yet, ah!
how can I live, when I remember that the impious tomb and envious dust
contaminates and destroys thy dear and beautiful limbs!" These verses may
in their original be very justly compared in pathos and grace to Petrarch:—

Io sono, io son ben dessa! or vedi come
M' ha cangiata il dolor fiero ed atroce
Ch' a fatica la voce
Può di me dar la conoscenza vera.
Lassa! ch' al tuo partir partì veloce
Dalle guancie, dagli occhi, e dalle chiome
Questa a cui davi come
Tu di beltade, ed io n' andava altera,
Che me 'l credea, perchè in tal pregio t' era.
* * * *
Com' è ch' io viva, quando mi rimembra,
Ch' empio sepolcro, e invidiosa polve
Contamina e dissolve
La delicate alabastrine membra?

For seven years she gave up her whole heart to sorrow. Her relations,
thinking her too young at the age of thirty-five to continue unmarried,
pressed her to accept one of the many offers of marriage which she
received. But, wedded as all her thoughts had been since her earliest
infancy to one object, she felt unconquerably averse to any second nuptials.
She lived in retirement either at Ischia or Naples, dedicating herself wholly
to memory. Her active mind, refusing to find comfort in any sublunary
blessing, had recourse to religion for consolation. She now employed
herself in writing sacred poetry, and her enthusiastic disposition led her to
project a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but the marchese del Vasto opposed her
putting it into execution.
She now left Naples on a tour to the north of Italy, and visited Lucca and
Ferrara. She afterwards took up her residence at Rome, and became the
intimate friend of the cardinals Bembo, Contarini, and Pole, and various
distinguished prelates. A love of yet greater retirement induced her a few
years after to retreat to a convent at Orvieto; from whence she removed,
after a short time, to the convent of Santa Caterina, at Viterbo. Our
countryman, cardinal Pole, resided in this town, and an intimate friendship
subsisted between him and Vittoria. There is a resemblance in their
characters that renders this intercourse interesting; they were both

singleminded, enthusiastic, and noble. Vittoria added feminine tenderness to
these qualities, while religious fervour formed a bond of sympathy between
them. The companions of cardinal Pole were Flaminio and Pietro
Carnescecchi: the latter having afterwards become a protestant, doubts have
been raised concerning the orthodoxy of Vittoria; but there is every
evidence that she never fell off from her adherence to the catholic church.
A short time before her death she returned to Rome, and took up her abode
in the Palazzo Cesarini; where she died, in the year 1547, at the age of fifty-
seven. During her last moments her attached friend, Michael Angelo, stood
beside her. He was considerably her junior, and looked up to her as
something superior to human nature, and entitled to his most fervent
admiration. He has written many sonnets in her praise; and there is extant a
letter, in which he states how he stood beside her lifeless remains, and
kissed her cold hand, lamenting afterwards that the overwhelming grief and
awe of the moment, had prevented him from pressing her lips for the first
and last time.
This almost divine woman was held by her contemporaries in enthusiastic
veneration. Her name is always accompanied by glowing praises and
expressions of heartfelt respect. Ariosto joined with all Italy in celebrating
her virtues and talents, and has addressed several stanzas to her in his
Orlando Furioso.

GUARINI

1537-1612.

Battista Guarani was descended from a family illustrious for its literary
merits. One of his ancestors, known as Guarino of Verona, was conspicuous
among the restorers of learning of the fifteenth century; and his descendants
emulated his labours. Battista was born at Ferrara, in 1537. His mother was
Orsolina, the daughter of count Baldassare Machiavelli. We are nearly in
ignorance with regard to any of the circumstances of the early youth of

Guarini. He studied at Pisa and Padua, and visited Rome while very young.
On his return to Ferrara, he gave lectures on Aristotle in the university. He
was made professor of belles lettres, and was already known to his friends
as a poet. He married young, Taddea Bendedei, of a noble Ferrarese family.
But Guarini was not contented with a life of literary labour, and preferred
the distinction of a court to poetic fame. There is a letter of his, dated 1565,
which gives token that he had already made the paltry ambition of serving a
prince the aim of his life. This letter is written to a friend at Pisa, who had
asked his advice on the subject of whether he should enter on the service of
his sovereign. Guarini establishes the doctrine, that in private life a man is
as far from tranquillity as in public; he is equally pursued by envy and
pride, without the compensation he might find in courtly favour. In his own
person he acted on these ideas, and reaped the usual harvest of
disappointment and mortification. His wishes were, however, at first
gratified. He was sent, by the duke Alfonso, to Venice, about this very time,
to congratulate the new doge, Pietro Loredano; and, his oration being
printed, he acquired a reputation for talent and learning. He was for some
time resident at Turin, as ambassador to Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy.
In 1573, he was sent to Rome, to pay homage to Gregory XIII., who had
succeeded to Pius V. He arrived in the evening, after a hasty journey, and
passed the night in composing his speech, which he delivered the next
morning in consistory. Two years afterwards, the duke sent him to Poland,
to congratulate Henry of Valois on his accession to the throne. On his
return, he was named counsellor and secretary of state. After an interval, he
was a second time sent to Poland, on a mission of the highest importance.
Henry of Valois succeeded to the crown of France, and Alfonso was
desirous of being chosen in his room to the Polish throne. Guarini was sent
to negotiate his election. He felt the weight and responsibility of his errand
fall heavily on him. His letter to his wife during the journey has been
several times quoted, but it is too interesting to be omitted here. It is dated
from Warsaw, November 25. 1575, and is as follows:—
"This which you read is my letter and not my letter; it is mine, for I dictate
it,—it is not mine, because I do not write it. But you must not so much
grieve that I have not a hand to write with, as rejoice that I have a tongue to
recount that which, from vain compassion or negligence, another might
conceal. I know you must have been complaining of my dilatoriness in

writing, but I shall find no difficulty in excusing myself, since the cause has
been worse than the effect; and, instead of lamenting my silence, you may
thank God that you at last hear from me. I set out, as you know, more in the
fashion of a courier than an ambassador; and it would have been well if my
body alone had laboured, while my mind reposed. But the hand used by day
to whip on my horses, was put to service at night in turning over papers.
Thus, formerly, I arrived at Rome in the evening by post, and the next day
presented myself at the consistory. Nature gave way under the double
fatigue of body and mind, especially as I travelled by the road that passes
through Saravalle and Ampez, which is inexpressibly disagreeable and
incommodious, as well from the rudeness of the inhabitants as the state of
the country; the want of horses, scarcity of provisions, and, in short, of
every necessary of life; so that, on my arrival at Hala, I fell ill of a fever, in
spite of which I hurried on to Vienna. I leave you to imagine what I suffered
from fever, weariness, and thirst: unable to procure remedies or medical
treatment; cast upon bad lodgings, bad food, and into beds that smothered
me with their feathers; devoid of all those conveniences and comforts which
are necessary to the sick. My malady increased, and my strength grew less;
and every thing, except wine, became distasteful to me, so that I had small
hopes of life, and turned with disgust even from the few days I expected to
live. While I navigated the Danube, we were nearly overwhelmed by a rapid
and dangerous stream, and should not have escaped had not the sailors
made use of the assistance of the strong and active men of the country, who
are accustomed to contend with this danger, being always on the spot to
give aid, and who, by force of oars, stemmed the torrent. But for their help
no vessel could escape wreck; and the place is worthy of the infamous
reputation it has gained, and the name of the Pass of Death, which is
bestowed on it. The boldest travellers fear the passage, and disembark, and
proceed by land, till the boat has got beyond the danger, for it is really
frightful; but I was so ill, that I had lost all sense of peril, and remained on
board with the brave boatmen,—I will not say whether from stupidity or
intrepidity,—yet I may say that I was intrepid, since I felt no fear when but
two steps from certain death.
"I arrived at last at Vienna, where a physician, without considering the
symptoms of my illness, gave me a medicine that poisoned me, and my
malady grew worse. You will all say that I ought to have stopped short, and
taken care of my life: my common sense, my sufferings, the failure of

strength, and a natural wish to live, love for my fellow creatures and my
family, suggested the same counsel; but my honour forced me to proceed,
and obliged me, since I was at the head of this embassy, and as the whole
weight of so important a negotiation rested on me, to prefer the interests of
my prince to my own safety; and I acted so that I might testify to all Poland
my fidelity to my sovereign by my death, rather than, by preserving my life,
give room to the suspicion that I feigned an illness so to break my promises,
the fulfilment of which was expected with anxiety; which false notion
among those selfish and distrustful men would at once have discredited our
negotiation, and deprived our prince of the crown which we are
endeavouring to place on his head.
"It is impossible to form an idea of what I suffered during a journey of more
than 600 miles, from Vienna to Warsaw; dragged and torn along, rather than
conveyed, by my incommodious carriage. I do not know how I survived:
beset by continual fever, without rest, or food, or remedies; enduring
excessive cold and infinite inconveniences, while I passed through an
uninhabited country, where I often found it better to remain for the night in
my uncomfortable carriage, than to expose myself to the stench of the inns
or, rather, stables, where the dog, the cat, the fowls, the geese, the pigs, the
calves, and sometimes squalling children, kept me awake all night. The
difficulties of the journey were increased also by the robbers, who, during
this interregnum, infest the country, robbing whatever they can; so that it
was impossible to proceed without a strong escort; and, although I took
infinite pains to avoid them, I had twice nearly fallen into their hands,
escaping rather through Divine Providence than human foresight. I arrived
at last at Warsaw, a great deal more dead than alive; nor have I gained any
relief to my sufferings by being here, except that I am no longer in
movement, nor dragged along by my carriage; for the rest, I enjoy no
repose, either night or day. My fever is now my least evil; the objects by
which I am surrounded are worse: the place, the season, the food, the drink,
the medicines, the physicians, the servants, the inquietude of my mind, and
other troubles, are greater ills than the fever, which would soon quit me but
for these annoyances. Indeed, I have not yet discovered whether my
sleepless nights arise from illness, or the constant noise around me. Imagine
a whole nation assembled in a little village, and I lodged in the middle of it.
There is no spot above, below, to the right nor to the left,—there is no room
by day or by night, that is not full of noise and disturbance. No particular

time is set apart for business here; they are always at work, because they are
always drinking, and without wine all transactions grow cold. When
business is ended visits begin, and when these are over, drums, trumpets,
cannons, shouts, cries, quarrels, and every other species of tumult, fill up
the interval till I am distracted. If I suffered these things for the glory and
love of God, it would be called a martyrdom; and yet, to render service
without hope of reward, almost deserves the same name. God knows what
is to become of me! I should feel that my life was no longer in danger if I
could take any care of myself. Prepare your mind for every evil. It is the
part of a silly woman to lament a husband who is content to die. Let others
honour my memory with their tears; do you honour it by your courage. I
recommend our children to you; for if I die, you must be a father as well as
a mother to them. Arm yourself with reflection and manly fortitude;
guarding them from those who have reduced me to this state, and teaching
them to imitate their father in any thing rather than in his fortunes."[34]
This letter presents a lively picture of Guarini's disposition;—his energy in
struggling with evils; his ambition to please his prince, and his fears lest he
should not be fitly recompensed; the fervour of imagination, which
magnified ill fortune, and which, while it gave him strength to meet it, yet
doubled its power over him. Although he failed in the object of the
embassy, yet, after all the dangers to which he had exposed himself, he felt
that he had sacrificed his life to his prince, and yet that he should go
unrewarded. He was not deceived; but he was incapable of meeting the
fulfilment of his anticipations with any patience or fortitude.
His mind was naturally turned to poetry; but he pretended to disdain such
occupation. On the subject of his Pastor Fido, he writes to a friend:—"This
is the work of one who does not profess the poetic art, but writes for his
own amusement, as a recreation from more serious studies; and who would
willingly burn his works when they do not appear good to good judges."
The fame and favour which Tasso was enjoying made him depreciate
himself, since he could not excel his rival. Tasso and he had been friends for
many years; they quarrelled at this time, but the discord did not result from
any literary contest, but from rivalship in the favour of a lady. They both
loved the countess of Scandiano. Tasso wrote a sonnet, accusing Guarini of
lightness and inconstancy in his passion, as well as of the greater sin of
boasting of his triumphs over the ladies of his love. Guarini replied, with

bitterness, in another sonnet, accusing his rival of uttering falsehoods that
mirrored his own faithlessness, which enabled him to nourish love for two
objects at the same time.[35] This contention broke off their friendship; but
Guarini was no ungenerous enemy; he possessed a loyal and noble spirit,
and never did any thing to injure his unfortunate rival. On the contrary,
some years after, when the Gerusalemme Liberata of Tasso was about to be
published in a very defective and erroneous state, he took great pains to
furnish a correct copy.
1582 After struggling with his discontents at court for some time, he
.
Ætat
requested his dismissal from the duke; and retired to his villa in the
. Polesine of Rovigo, named La Guarina, having been bestowed upon
45. an ancestor by a former duke of Ferrara. He now congratulated
himself on having escaped from the tempests of public life into port; yet his
disappointments, and the duke's ingratitude, rankled at his heart, and
overflowed upon paper, even when the subject immediately before him was
not in accord with the pervading feeling of his mind. He occupied himself
at La Guarina by writing the Pastor Fido; and he makes one of the
characters of the pastoral complain of wrongs similar to his own. Carino,
narrating his story, says,—

How I forsook
Elis and Pisa after, and betook
Myself to Argos and Mycene, where
An earthly God I worshipped, with what there
I suffered in that hard captivity,
Would be too long for thee to hear, for me
Too sad to utter. Only thus much know;—
I lost my labour, and in sand did sow:
I writ, wept, sung; hot and cold fits I had;
I rid, I stood, I bore, now sad, now glad,
Now high, now low, now in esteem, now scorn'd;
And as the Delphic iron, which is turned
Now to heroic, now to mechanic use,
I fear'd no danger—did no pains refuse;
Was all things—and was nothing; changed my hair,
Condition, custom, thoughts, and life—but ne'er
Could change my fortune. Then I knew at last,
And panted after my sweet freedom past.
So, flying smoky Argos, and the great
Storms that attend on greatness, my retreat
I made to Pisa—my thought's quiet port.
* * * *
Who would have dreamed 'midst plenty to grow poor?
Or to be less, by toiling to be more?
I thought, by how much more in prince's courts
Men did excel in titles and supports,
So much the more obliging they would be,
The best enamel of nobility.
But now the contrary by proofs I've seen:
Courtiers in name, and courteous in their mien
They are; but in their actions I could spy
Not the least transient spark of courtesy.
People, in show smooth as the calmed waves,
Yet cruel as the ocean when it raves:
Men in appearance only did I find,
Love in the face, but malice in the mind:
With a straight look and tortuous heart, and least

With a straight look and tortuous heart, and least
Fidelity where greatest was protest.
That which elsewhere is virtue, is vice there:
Plain truth, fair dealing, love unfeign'd, sincere
Compassion, faith inviolable, and
An innocence both of the heart and hand,
They count the folly of a soul that's vile
And poor,—a vanity worthy their smile.
To cheat, to lie, deceit and theft to use,
And under show of pity to abuse;
To rise upon the ruins of their brothers,
And seek their own by robbing praise from others,
The virtues are of that perfidious race.
No worth, no valour, no respect of place,
Of age, or law—bridle of modesty,
No tie of love, or blood, nor memory
Of good received; nothing's so venerable,
Sacred, or just, that is inviolable
By that vast thirst of riches, and desire
Unquenchable of still ascending higher.
Now I, not fearing, since I meant not ill,
And in court-craft not having any skill,
Wearing my thoughts charactered on my brow,
And a glass window in my heart—judge thou
How open and how fair a mark my heart
Lay to their envy's unsuspected dart.

FANSHAWE's Trans. of Pastor Fido.[36]

The Pastor Fido is the principal monument of Guarini's poetic genius.
Despite his pretended carelessness, he was animated by the spirit of poetry,
and emulation spurred him on to surpass the Aminta of Tasso; and he took
pains even to compose whole passages in opposition, and manifest
rivalship, of that drama. A pastoral presents in its very nature a thousand
difficulties. It has for its subject the passions in their primitive simplicity,
and the manners are deprived of all factitious refinement; and yet the most
imaginative thoughts and the softest and noblest sentiments are to flow
from the lips of the untaught shepherds and shepherdesses. Thus its

foundation being purely ideal, our chief pleasure must be derived from the
poetry in which it is clothed. Guarini endeavoured to overcome the want of
interest inherent in this species of composition, by a plot more complex
than that usually adopted. A portion of this is sufficiently clumsy, and the
bad character of the piece, the coquette Corisca, is managed with very little
art or probability. There is much spirit and beauty, however, in the final
developement,—in the discovery that the priest makes that he is about to
sacrifice his own son, and the joy occasioned by the conviction suddenly
flashing on his mind, that the oracle, on which the whole depends, is
happily fulfilled. Still the chief charm of the Pastor Fido is derived from its
poetry; the simplicity and clearness of its diction, the sweetness and
tenderness of the sentiments, and the vivacity and passion that animate the
whole. No doubt he was satisfied with the result of his labours, and found
pride in communicating it. While affecting to despise his poetic
productions, their genuine merit, and his own vanity, which was great,
caused him to collect with pleasure the applauses which his Pastor Fido
naturally acquired for him. He read it at the court of the duke Ferrante di
Gonzaga, to a society composed of courtiers, ladies, and eminent men. It

was acted at Turin on occasion of the festivals to celebrate the 1585
nuptials of Charles Emanuel, prince of Savoy, with Catherine, .Ætat
daughter of Philip II., king of Spain. The drama excited the greatest .
admiration; and Guarini was looked on henceforth with justice, as 48.
second only to Tasso among the poets of the age.
But he was not fortunate enough to be allowed to dedicate his whole time
and thoughts to poetry; and he might bring forward his own experience in
proof of his assertion, that private life is not more exempt than public, from
cares and the influence of evil passions. He was perpetually plunged in
lawsuits, his first being against his father, who had married a second time, it
was said out of spite, and disputed his just inheritance. He had a family of
eight children to provide for; and unrewarded by his prince, he found
himself, after struggling for fourteen years to advance himself at court,
overwhelmed by debt and embarrassment. His time and attention were
taken up by exertions to extricate himself, and to settle his affairs; while his
warm, impatient disposition ill endured the delays and disappointments, and
the contact with selfish or dishonest men, which are the necessary
concomitants of pecuniary difficulties.
1586 Perhaps these annoyances rendered him less unwilling to accept the
.
Ætat
invitation, or rather to obey the commands, of the duke of Ferrara,
. and to return to his post at his court. Alfonso, perceiving the esteem
49. in which he was held by other princes, with his usual selfishness
resolved to appropriate the services of a man, which others also were
desirous of obtaining: he made him secretary of state, and sent him on
missions to Umbria and Milan. His stay, however, was short: very soon
after his children had advanced to manhood, those dissensions occurred
between them and him, which form a painful portion of Guarini's life. It is
difficult to say who was most to blame. The poet's temper was impetuous,
and he perhaps showed himself tyrannical in his domestic circle, at the
same time that his nature was without doubt, on most occasions, generous
and artless. His son had married a lady named Virginia Palmiroli, and
continued, as is so usual in Italy, to reside with his wife under the paternal
roof. But this arrangement became, it is conjectured, from the pride and
imperiousness of the father, quite intolerable; and the young pair left the
house, and instituted a suit at law to obtain such a provision as would
enable them to live in independence. The suit was decided against Guarini;

and his indignation, and assertion that his defeat was occasioned by the
partiality of the duke towards his son, seem to evince that he had more
justice on his side than we are enabled to discover. However this may be, he
was so angry at what he considered the injustice of the sentence pronounced
against him, that he again requested permission to retire from Alfonso's
court. The duke granted his request, but not without such tokens of
displeasure, as induced Guarini to leave Ferrara privately and in haste. He
betook himself to the court of Savoy, where the prince willingly took him
into his service; but the poet found that the change of masters benefited him
little, and he was so constantly employed, that he had not even time to write
a letter. Alfonso also set on foot some intrigues against him, disliking that
any dependant of his should find protection elsewhere. His 1590
tranquillity being thus disturbed, he hastily quitted Savoy and took .Ætat
up his abode at Padua. He here lost his wife, whom he affectionately .
names in his letters as the better part of himself; and, by the 53.
separation of his eldest son, and the absence of his daughters, who were
either married or had places in the palaces of various princesses of Italy, his
family circle was reduced to one son of ten years of age, whom he calls "the
hope of his house, and the consolation in his solitude." This change gave
birth to new projects in his restless mind. "This sudden alteration and
transformation of my life," he writes to the cardinal Gonzaga, in a letter
dated from Padua, the 20th of November, 1591, "appears to me to be
brought about by the will of God, who thus calls me to a new vocation. I am
not so old nor so weak as to be unfit to make use of those talents which God
has bestowed on me; and it appears to me that I act ill in spending without
profit those years, which by the course of nature I could turn to the
advantage of my family, and of my young son, whose inclination for the
priesthood I am desirous of assisting; and I would willingly spend the
remnant of my days at Rome, if I could obtain such preferment, as would
enable me to proceed honourably in the advancement of my moderate
expectations." This idea, however, was but the offspring of disappointed
hopes, and it vanished when other prospects were opened to him; yet these
were variable and uncertain. His life, both from the ingratitude of Alfonso
and his own restlessness, was destined to be passed stormily; discontent and
distrust had taken root in his mind, and existence wore a gloomy aspect.
At length Alfonso died, and this circumstance, and the death of a daughter,
assassinated by a jealous husband, caused him to quit Ferrara, and to

establish himself at Florence, where he was honourably received by the
grand duke Ferdinand. Here doubtless he might have remained in peace, but
for the irascibility of his temper, the indignation he felt when his views
were thwarted, and his tendency to consider himself an ill-used man. His
younger son, whom he mentions in the letter quoted above with so much
interest, was placed at Pisa for the sake of his education, where he
contracted an imprudent marriage with a young, beautiful, and dowerless
widow. Guarini was transported by rage: he accused the duke of abetting his
son in this act of disobedience, and indulged in implacable anger against the
youth himself, to whom he refused any assistance, when reduced to the
most necessitous circumstances. Guarini exalted the paternal authority, and
exacted filial obedience, in a manner that displayed more pride than
affection. Now in his old age, he was at variance with nearly all his
children; his violent expressions is a proof that he suffered; but his heart did
not relent nor open towards them, even when death snatched them from
him; and it is impossible to sympathise in passions, which thus centred and
ended in himself.
On leaving Florence, he visited Urbino; but, dissatisfied with his reception,
he retired to Ferrara. The citizens deputed him to Rome to congratulate Paul
Usur on his being created pope. It was on this occasion that cardinal
Bellarmino reproached him for having done more harm to the Christian
world by his Pastor Fido, than Luther and Calvin by their heresies—a
singular denunciation—since, though the softness and tenderness of love,
which pervades the poem, may tend to enervate; yet the fidelity, the
devotion, and purity of sentiment, exhibited in the actions of the chief
personages, certainly do not lay it open to excessive censure. Guarini
retorted by a witty reply, which the respect paid to the cardinal by the
historians, has not permitted to be transmitted to us.
This was the last public service of Guarini. A few years after he was 1608
invited to be present at the nuptials of Francesco Gonzaga and .Ætat
Marguerite of Savoy, during which a comedy of his was represented .
with great splendour. Chiabrera wrote the interludes, and the 71.
architect Viamini arranged the scenery and decorations.
The last years of his life were taken up by the lawsuits, which so strangely
chequered his career. He hired a lodging at Venice, where many of his
causes were decided, as near as possible to the courts, and frequently visited

that city to attend the proceedings; and he made a last journey to Rome at
the time that two suits were decided in his favour. On his return to Venice
he was seized by a fever, of which he died, after an illness of seventeen
days, on the 7th of October, 1612, at the age of seventy-five.

[34]There is another letter of Guarini, dated from Cracovy, during his first visit to Poland, written
with less personal feeling, and greater toleration:—"I have viewed the climate and manners of this
country," he writes, "with infinite pleasure; mitigating the annoyances resulting from unusual things,
by the enjoyment of unusual sights. The country and its inhabitants are certainly much less barbarous
than is generally supposed; and in my opinion there would be no fault to be found, if the former was
gifted with wine, and if the latter abstained from it. But I am afraid that my words will scarcely find
credit with you, prejudiced as you are by the accounts given by the French who have been here. Yet I
am sure you would agree with me, if you ever visited the country. The kingdom is extensive, rich,
powerful, united, abundant, and peopled by a brave population. The senators display great talent
during peace—the cavaliers valour in war: their aim is glory—their support liberty. The form of the
government is mixed, like that of Sparta, but better than that. For the kingdom is neither oppressed
by the tyranny of one, nor the insolence of a few, nor the baseness of the many; but having mingled
the best parts of all three modes of government, one has resulted, in which the kingly power cannot
intrench upon liberty, nor licence endanger the monarchy. The nobles cannot oppress the people, nor
the people injure the nobles. Valour holds the first rank, nobility the second, riches the third; and
every one, however lowly born, may nourish the expectation of rising by merit to the highest
honours. How I wish that you had an opportunity of visiting it: I am certain that you would be highly
pleased. A journey to France is more fatiguing; and after arriving in Poland, I, to whom an excursion
to Rome used to appeal an arduous undertaking, begin to think that travelling is a natural state for
every man."
[35]Abate Serassi, Vita di Tasso.
[36]

Come poi per veder Argo e Micene
Lasciassi Elide e Pisa, e quivi fussi
Adorator di deità terrena,
Con tutto quel che in servitù soffersi,
Troppo nojosa istoria a te l' udirlo,
A me dolente il raccontarlo fora.
Si dirò sol, che perdei l' opra, e il frutto.
Scrissi, piansi, cantai, arsi, gelai,
Corsi, stetti, sostenni, or tristo, or lieto,
Or alto, or basso; or vilipeso, or caro.
E come il ferro Delfico; stromento
Or d'impresa sublime, or d' opra vile,
Non temei risco e non schivai fatica:
Tutto fei, nulla fui: per cangiar loco,
Stato, vita, pensier, costumi e pelo,
Mai non cangiai fortuna: alfin conobbi,
E sospirai la libertà primiera.
E dopo tanti strazi, Argo lasciando
E le grandezze di miseria piene,
Tornai di Pisa ai riposati alberghi.
* * * *
Ma chi creduto avria di venir meno
Tra le grandezze, e impoverir nell' oro?
Io mi pensai che ne' reali alberghi
Fossero tanto più le genti umane,
Quant' esse han più di tutto quel dovizia
Ond' ha l' umanità si nobil fregio.
Ma vi trovai tutto il contrario, Uranio,
Gente di nome e di parlar cortese,
Ma d'opre scarsa e di pietà nemica:
Gente placida in vista e mansueta,
Ma più del cupo mar tumida e fera;
Gente sol d' apparenza, in cui se miri
Viso di carità, mente d'invidia
Poi trovi, e in dritto sguardo animo bieco,
E min or fede allor, che più lusinga.
Quel ch' altrove è virtù, quivi è difetto.
Dir vero, oprar non torto, amar non finto,
Pietà sincera, inviolabil fede,
E di core e di man vita innocente;
Stiman d' animo vii, di basso ingegno
Sciocchezza e vanità degna di riso.
L'ingannare, il mentir, la frode, il furto
E la rapina, di pietà vestita,
Cescer col danno e precipizio altrui,
E far a sè, dell' altrui biasmo onore,
Son le virtù di quella gente infida:
Non merto altrui, non valor, non riverenza,
Nè d' età, nè di grado, nè di legge,
Non freno di vergogna, non rispetto

Nè d' amor nè di sangue, non memoria
Di ricevuto ben, nè finalmente,
Cosa si venerabile, o si santa
O si giusta esser può, che a quella vasta
Cupidigia d' onori, a quella ingorda
Fame d' avere, inviolabil sia.
Or io, che incauto e di lor arti ignaro
Sempre mi vissi, e portai scritto in fronte
Il mio pensiero, e disvelato il core,
Tu puoi pensar se a non sospetti strali
D'invida gente fui scoperto segno.

Pastor Fido, atto V. scena 1.

TORQUATO TASSO

1544-1595.

"Tu che ne vai in Pindo,
Ivi pende mia cetra ad un cipresso,
Salutala in inio nome, e dille poi
Ch' io son dagl' anni e da fortuna oppresso."

"Thou, who to Pindus tak'st thy way,
Where hangs my harp upon the cypress tree,
Salute it in my name, and say,
I am bow'd down with years and misery."

These few lines, which, in the simple and beautiful original, show what a
burthen of thought and power of feeling may be compressed within the
smallest compass that language will allow, were written by Torquato Tasso,
during his second confinement as a lunatic in the hospital of St. Anne, at
Ferrara, by the duke of Alfonso, his patron and his oppressor. They were
written when all Europe was listening to the voice of his song, but heard not
that of his complaint; in the meridian of his glory as a poet, and in the depth

of his humiliation as a man. A spectacle more deplorable and repulsive
could hardly be presented to the eye of humanity; nor a fame more enviable
and attractive be contemplated by young "spirits of finer mould," to tempt
them to hazard all perils of such suffering for the acquisition of such
renown. This fragment—a specimen of thousands of fancies, no doubt,
equally exquisite and affecting, which were continually passing through the
darkened chamber of his mind, more dreary than the gloom of his prison-
house—has been quoted at the commencement of this memoir, as letting the
reader at once into the whole mystery of the poet's life, by a single flash of
his genius affording a glance at his afflictions. What these were, a long and
melancholy tale must unfold; what their effect was may be painfully
conceived, when we recollect that he was scarcely turned upon forty, at the
time that he sends the message to his forlorn harp in the woods of Pindus,
that he is "oppressed with years and ill fortune,"—"dagl' anni e da fortuna
oppresso."
If ever man was born a poet, it might be said so of Tasso; while his whole
manner of life, not less than its remarkable vicissitudes, exemplified the
poetic character, as it has been idealised in our minds from infancy, by the
impressions left upon them, both from fabling traditions and authentic
records, concerning these privileged, but on the whole (perhaps) unhappy,
beings. The price of greatness must be paid, in labour or suffering, by every
man who would distinguish himself in any way above his fellow-creatures;
and the poet (no more, it may be, though apparently much more, than the
prince, the warrior, the statesman, or the philosopher,) must endure
hardships, mental and personal, in proportion to his enjoyments, and be
humbled in the same degree that he is exalted above the common lot.
Among any ten names, which might be mentioned as having secured an
imperishable pre-eminence beyond the probability of revolution, in the
same walk of polite literature, Tasso's undoubtedly would be one. At what
an expense it was acquired, we proceed to show in a train of events, almost
as romantic, and a thousand times more touching, than any thing in his own
diversified fictions. He was a poet in every thing and at all times, from
infancy (if we may believe his biographers) till he died in extreme old age
(if we measure his life by his own testimony above quoted), in his fifty-
second year! Smiles and tears, rapture and agony, hope and despondency, a
palace and a dungeon, were the alternations frequently crossing in the
course of one who was the companion of princes, the delight of ladies, the

admiration of the world,—an outcast, a wanderer, clothed in rags and
asking bread, or the lonely tenant of a maniac's cell. Such was he, and such
were the changes of his state.
Torquato was the son of Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of first rank in his
generation, and who has left works, both in prose and verse, to which
posterity is yet willing to give honour; but which suffer more eclipse by
proximity to the surpassing splendour of his son's, than might have been
their lot had he appeared by himself, the single one of his race, who had
proved how hard, and yet how possible, it is to climb

"The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar."

Bernardo was the descendant of an honourable line of ancestors,—one of
whom, nearly two centuries before him, had been a benefactor to the public,
by first introducing the method of epistolary intercourse through the
medium of posts; and, leaving to his children the reputation which he had
acquired in the conduct of these, they became his successors, not only in
establishments for that purpose in their own country, but some of them in
lands beyond the Alps. It is said that noble alliances were formed by various
branches of the Tasso family, in Spain and in Flanders, while others became
sovereign princes in Germany, that menagerie for potentates of all genera
and species, from the two-headed eagle of Austria to the wren of * * * *. It
would be invidious to set down one out of a hundred who might contend for
the honour of filling up the blank, as the least of the little among the great.
But, whatever were the hereditary glories of a name,—drawn like a golden
chain out of the darkness of the past, and connected, as that of the obscurest
peasant in a civilised country may be presumed to have been, with all the
varieties of rank, all the gradations of intellect, and all the changes of good
and evil fortune,—of all the links which formed that chain, those of
Bernardo and Torquato were and have remained the most illustrious, though
the consecutive or collateral series has been continued to the present day,
when the representatives are still found at Bergamo.
Bernardo, who was born in 1493, being left an orphan in early youth, with
two dependent sisters to provide for out of a very slender patrimony, was
compelled to quarter himself on the patronage of sundry princes and
prelates, who, according to the fashion of the times—some from parade,

and others from attachment to the noble arts,—loved to have men of genius
and letters in their train. Many of these, indeed, were kept, not only to adorn
their courts and swell their pomp, but were employed as secretaries and
counsellors, as well as occasionally entrusted with important embassies,
which, both in war and peace, were frequent between the commonwealths
and principalities into which Italy was divided, and by whose conflicting
interests, or under the malignant influence of whose petty intrigues (the
rank growth of such a state of society), it was continually more or less
distracted. Bernardo was, therefore, from the pressure of circumstances, a
restless and homeless man through the principal part of his life, serving the
great without serving himself, for precarious bread; and at once pursuing
fortune and fame, in the vain hope of being at length—and at length—and
at length rewarded for his fidelity to his masters with the former, and
leaving an inheritance of the latter, which should as much exalt his family
by distinction in literature, as others had aggrandised it by the acquirement
of riches and alliances with rank, at home and abroad.
At the age of forty-one, after a youth of liberal study, sanguine anticipation,
and cherished but ill-directed love for a lady of great beauty and no less
celebrity, having been praised by Ariosto—in the unsuccessful pursuit of
which he compensated himself and delighted his countrymen with the
blandishments of poetry,—he was at length appointed secretary to Ferrante
Sanseverino, prince of Salerno. Him Bernardo accompanied through many
strange vicissitudes of prosperity and misfortune, in the court and in the
battle-field; till, at the end of a few years, he shared so grievously, yet so
magnanimously, in the ruin of his patron, that, the latter being involved in a
conspiracy against the vice-regal government of Naples, and compelled to
flee into France, the poet followed him thither at the sacrifice of his small
estate, and an income which had just raised him above want. Before this
ebbing in the tide of his affairs, which, "taken at the flood" (had that not
been arrested in its advance), he might reasonably have expected would
have led on to fortune, he had married a lady of Naples, named Portia
Rossi, an heiress in expectance, and of great personal and mental
accomplishments. This was the golden age of Bernardo's life. After the
revelry of fancy and romance which had carried him away during his
former passion, wherein his heart had little share, the love of affection
endeared him to his home, and he felt the transition like one who exclaims,
"How sweet is daylight and fresh air!" after the midnight splendour of the

ball-room, with the dream-like fascinations of music, dancing, and
spectacle, which vanish as effectually as fairy palaces conjured up in the
wilderness, and leave the heart desolate.
While Bernardo was at Naples, he commenced a poem of the romantic class
on the adventures of Amadis de Gaul, or "Amadigi," as the work is entitled.
This he projected upon the regular plan of a fable, having a beginning,
middle, and end; but he was not of sufficient authority to establish, by his
example, a classical form of epic, though his more successful and more
gifted son seems to have borrowed the idea of doing that from him. When
he read the first cantos of this performance, as originally constructed, he
observed, that though the presence chamber of the court of Salerno was
well filled at first with eager and expecting auditors, before he had done
nearly all of them had disappeared. From this he concluded (not suspecting
any deficiency of power in himself), that the unity of action prescribed by
the severer critics was, in its very nature, not agreeable to nature in art,
knowing that he had punctiliously observed all the rules of the latter. This
failure, enforced by the persuasions of his friends, and the commands of the
prince, induced him to remodel what he had written, and elaborate the
remainder after the precedents of Pulci, Bojardo, and Ariosto. The work was
extended to a hundred cantos, and, when published, was so well received,
that the author had cause to congratulate himself on having met the public
taste and gratified it; but it was the public taste of the day only, for his poem
passed away with the fashion of it, and is now remembered among "things
that were," while the three productions of his afore-named predecessors still
keep their graduated rank of ascent, and find readers in every age,
notwithstanding all the defects and excesses that may be charged upon
them. Bernardo's failed; less, perhaps, because of its inferiority, than
because it did not display the proportionate superiority which the others had
each in turn manifested over all its respective forerunners.
It was while Bernardo resided at Sorrento, a city in the vicinity of Naples,
where he occupied a palace overlooking the sea, happy in his home, and
prosperous, or rather promising himself prosperity in his fortune, the prince
of Salerno having released him from all burdensome duties in his service,
that his son Torquato, the second of that name (the first having died young),
was born, on the 11th of March, 1544. Sorrento is here put down as the

birth-place of the poet, among other cities contending for that honour, like
those seven

——"that strove for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begg'd his bread."

Ath. I. 384.

For of Tasso, in the sequel, a sarcasm as bitter might be recorded. A
daughter, elder than either of the boys, was at this time growing up under
the eyes of their parents. A letter of the father's (previous to our Torquato's
birth) to his sister Afra, who had retired into a convent, gives a lively
glimpse of Bernardo's affectionate and domestic character.[37] "My young
daughter is very beautiful, and affords me great hopes that she will lead a
virtuous and honourable life. My infant son"—Torquato the first—"is
before God our Creator, and prays for your salvation. My Portia is seven
months gone with child; whether a son or a daughter, it shall be supremely
dear to me; only may God, who gives it me, grant that it may be born with
his fear; pray together with the holy nuns that the Almighty may preserve
the mother, who in this world is my highest joy." It is ludicrous, yet
affecting, to observe what little circumstances are eagerly laid hold upon
after death, respecting the personal history of men who, during their lives,
were neglected in their hardest trials, or oppressed in their helplessness by
those who were bound to protect and foster them. The very hour of Tasso's
birth, as well as the place, has been contested against his own authority: he
says that it was four o'clock in the morning; Serassi, that it was mid-day.
"He ought to have been born at Naples," says Manso, "though he happened
first to appear at Sorrento." It may be settled that he was a native of Italy
rather than of any place where he may first have seen the light, in a country
throughout which he was a stranger and a pilgrim all his days. Indeed, he
ought to have been born on the sea; so little claim, on the ground of paternal
kindness shown to him, had any city in the peninsula to the glory of his
birth.
Scarcely had he been welcomed into the world under auspices so cheering
as those recently mentioned, than the fortunes of his family took an adverse
turn. Bernardo was summoned away from the delightful retirement of

Sorrento, to join his patron in the war which had just broken out between
the emperor Charles V. and Francis I., and in which the prince brilliantly
distinguished himself. Meanwhile, if we are to believe his nursery
traditions, the little Torquato was giving, even from his cradle, proofs of the
spirit that was in him, scarcely less extraordinary than if, like Hercules, he
had strangled serpents, or like another poet of old, attracted bees to his lips,
whether to gather or to deposit sweetness there we need not stay to enquire.
Manso, his latest and most munificent patron, his first and most encomiastic
biographer, (whose memoir, like Boccaccio's of Dante, reads more like
romance than reality in many passages, and no where more than in this
instance,) says, that the child, even during his first year, gave evidence of
the divinity of his genius. For scarcely had he attained his sixth month,
when, contrary to the usage of children, he began not only to let loose his
tongue (or to prattle a snodar la lingua), but even to speak outright, and that
in such a manner that he was never known to lisp (or clip) his syllables, as
all other infants do, but formed his words complete, and gave them perfect
utterance. If this be true, his marvellous faculty of speech, like the produce
of a premature spring, must have suffered an early blight: for he himself
records that, in speaking, he was little favoured by nature, having an
unconquerable impediment of tongue; whence he preferred to communicate
his thoughts rather in writing than by the audible voice, when he meant to
win attention or produce impression. His own testimony is so far at variance
with the assertion of his friend Manso respecting his early fluency, that he
appeals for confirmation of the fact that he is a stammerer (probably to no
very inconvenient degree) to some of his correspondents. But we are told,
on the same authority, that the infant was equally precocious in the faculties
of the mind; that he could reason, explain his thoughts, and answer
questions with surprising intelligence. Moreover, to crown the climax, it is
said that he seldom cried, and never laughed; the only exception, it may be
presumed, of a healthy child since the world began; but that he was grave,
dignified, and sage, and announced by his behaviour that he was destined
for some great design.
On the return of Bernardo from the army, he enjoyed a brief prolongation of
his domestic quiet at Sorrento, during which all that a romantic father and a
passionately tender mother could do to awaken, cherish, and confirm the
early intimations of transcendent intellect in their darling son, was
employed; and such discipline, by its natural effect, no doubt, coloured and

characterised their son's mind, in the sequel, to the end of life. In one of
Bernardo's letters to Portia, during his late absence, he says, that, while he
leaves to her the delicate task to adorn their daughter Cornelia with every
virtue and accomplishment which becomes a maiden, he intends himself to
train up their young Torquato for his more arduous station in society, when
he should be of proper age. This purpose was never realised.
In 1552, the prince of Salerno and his adherents being declared rebels,
Bernardo, as one of the most attached of his friends, was included in the
proscription: his estate was confiscated, and an income of 900 scudi lost;
leaving him utterly destitute of resources, with the exception of a few
valuable trinkets, and the hope of some time recovering his wife's dowry—a
hope which outlived himself, and which he bequeathed as a perpetual
plague of expectation and disappointment to his son, who, as will be seen,
obtained a decree to have it, against his mother's brothers, nearly at his own
last hour. Bernardo being thus driven into exile, his wife remained with the
children at Naples, in very narrow circumstances, though amongst wealthy
relatives, who seem always to have treated her and her offspring with
unnatural hard-heartedness. Torquato, meanwhile, under her
superintendence, was making progress in the general rudiments of
knowledge; but especially in the acquisition of languages, in rhetoric, and in
poetry, proportioned to the promise of his earlier years. His principal tutor
was one Angeluzzo, at a college of the Jesuits, recently established in that
city. So eager and intent was he in quest of knowledge (such as lay within
his reach), that his mother, so far from having to urge or bribe him onward,
was obliged, for his health's sake, to restrain him. Early and late he was at
his books; and on the winter's mornings he was sent from his home to the
school with a lantern and servant to conduct him. At seven years of age he
was already a considerable proficient in the Greek and Latin tongues, and
had begun to exercise himself in oral eloquence and written composition;
but no genuine specimens of either of these have been preserved.
The following beautiful and touching lines, in which he alludes to the worst
period of his life,—his separation from his mother, when called away from
Naples to join his father at Rome,—have been absurdly attributed to him as
actually penned at this date. Hoole, and even Hunt, two of his modern
translators, have fallen into this error; whereas a moment's consideration
would convince any man, who understood the difference between adult

poetry and puerile attempts at rhyming, that such verses, at such an age,
(nine years!) would have been sufficiently remarkable to justify belief in the
fables of his babyhood, when he sat talking pretty unbroken Italian on his
mother's knee, before he was twelve months old.
The passage occurs in a figurative canzonet on the river Metauso, but
addressed to the duke of Urbino, imploring refuge and protection in his
adversity. Though left unfinished, the fragment is acknowledged to be one
of the most exquisitely wrought of all the author's lyrics:—

"Me dal sen della madre empia Fortuna
Pargoletto divelse: ah! di que' baci,
Ch' ella bagnò di lagrime dolenti,
Con sospir mi rimembra, e degli ardenti
Preghi, che sen portar l' aure fugaci,
Ch' io giunger non dovea più volto à volto
Fra quelle braccia accolto
Con nodi così stretti, e sì tenaci.
Lasso! e seguii con mal sicure piante,
Qual Ascanio, o Cammilla, il padre errante."

"Me, from a tender mother's breast,
Stern Fortune, while an infant, tore;
Ah! I remember how she press'd.
Press'd me, and kiss'd me, o'er and o'er,
Bathed with her tears, with doleful sighs,
Breathed for me many a fervent prayer,
Which, ere it reach'd the skies,
Was scatter'd by the passing air.

"For I was nevermore to meet
That parent face to face,
Clasp'd in her clear embrace,
With folds so strait, so binding and so sweet.
Alas! 't was mine thenceforth to roam
With ill-supporting feet,
And, like Ascanius o'er the trackless floods,
Or young Camilla, cast on wilds and woods,
Follow a wandering father without home."

These lines—breathing forth such grateful recollections of maternal
tenderness, watching, weeping, praying, over a most beloved and
affectionate child, from whom she was parting for ever, and who was
destined to be far greater than even she, in her fondest entrancement, could
have hoped—remind us of our own Cowper's filial reminiscences, in

"words that weep," translating "tears that speak," on receiving, at a more
distant period of a suffering life, his mother's picture: at sight of which, for
a while, he lived over again, with a thousand times more intense delight, the
scenes of infancy, renewed, like a vision of pre-existence in some happier
state than that which had intervened since he had borne the burthen and heat
of a long day of life consumed in anguish of spirit, for which, on this side of
the grave, he found no solace, and beyond it, no hope for his bewildered
mind; dark as Egypt under the ninth plague in that quarter, though, in every
other, light as the land of Goshen. Between Tasso and Cowper there were
many traits of sad as well as noble resemblance—kindred genius, a kindred
malady, and kindred misfortunes; but not kindred alleviations: the
advantage here was on our countryman's side; but his disease lay deeper
than that of the former, and the symptoms, if not so violent after the first
terrible attack, were more inveterate; so that, contemplating the fate of the
glorious Italian under eclipse, and pitying him with a sympathy which no
man living but himself could feel, Cowper might have drawn the same
comparison between Tasso's case and his own, as he has done in those
heart-wringing verses (the last which he is recorded to have composed)
under the title of "The Castaway." These were founded upon a circumstance
mentioned in Anson's Voyage, of a sailor who fell overboard in a storm,
when the ship could not be stayed to rescue him, but who followed in its
wake, crying after it, and being heard by his companions, while he

——"lived an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried 'adieu.'"
* * * *
"At length he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank."

The melancholy poet adds, in reference to himself, that

"Misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
* * * *
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone,
When snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone;
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And 'whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he."

Both of Tasso's parents had early and deeply impressed upon his mind and
his affections veneration and love to God. In his tenth year the Jesuit
fathers, following up the religious instructions of this child of promise
according to their views of the Gospel, admitted him to the sacrament; on
which occasion, though he acknowledges, in one of his epistles, that he
could not enter into the mystery of "the real presence," according to the
Roman interpretation of the true and simple scripture doctrine of "the
communion of the body and the blood of Christ," yet, impressed with awe
by the pomp of the spectacle, and elevated almost to transport by sympathy
of devotion with the surrounding multitude, he received the symbol,
according to his own ingenuous account, with "a certain indescribable and
unwonted satisfaction." This circumstance deserves particular mention,
because, assuredly, by such a course of domestic and school discipline the
boy was trained up in what he understood to be genuine piety, and of which,
through after life, he became a zealous professor, however lax on some
other subjects his writings, and even his actions, may have been. In the
latter respect, however, he was countenanced by the licentious manners of
the age, and especially of that class of society, refined and exalted as it was,
in which his lot was cast, but in which he was rather entertained as a guest
than recognised as a member of the privileged order. His father, in one of
his letters to his mother, says, "It is of the utmost importance to impress,
with all your influence and authority, upon the infantine mind the name, the
love, and the fear of God, that the child may learn to love and honour Him
from whom he has received, not life only, but all the benefits and mercies of
providence and grace, which can render man happy in this world, and
blessed in that which is to come." In the same letter he says, "I condemn

those who beat their children, not less than if they should dare to lay hands
on the image of God."
It was after the expatriated party to whom Bernardo belonged had planned
an attack upon Naples, by the combined fleets of France and Turkey, which
miscarried in a miserable piratical descent upon the neighbouring coast, and
a disgraceful re-embarkment, that Portia and her daughter were received
into a convent, and Torquato was sent to his father at Rome; who, an exile,
on a bed of sickness, and in deep poverty, was solacing himself, amidst his
misfortunes, with preparing a volume of his Rime for the press, and
unweariedly labouring to complete his Amadigi. In "the eternal city," young
Tasso prosecuted his studies with indefatigable assiduity, and having for
companion a cousin of his own name, Christofero Tasso, a lad of indolent
habits and slow capacity. He, by his example and influence, for a while
happily stimulated the latter to become a worthy competitor of himself; but
he soon growing tired in the course, Torquato left him, and every rival
beside, far behind in every learned and liberal accomplishment.
In 1556 Portia died, at Naples, never having seen her husband since his
original proscription. Her illness was so brief and so violent, that Bernardo
doubted whether it was poison or a broken heart that had cut her off in the
prime of her years,—most of which, however, had been so melancholy,
since her happiness first seemed consummated by her union with the man
of her choice, and in the children of their love, that there needed no
auxiliary, in this instance, for Nature to do her work in the shape of death.
Meanwhile Bernardo, not being permitted to return to Naples, was
compelled, by the stress of hard circumstances, to leave his daughter in the
hands of those whom he had but too much reason to call her enemies,
though the nearest of kin to her deceased mother. These—probably from
motives of rapacity, though political rancour may have added its malignity
to the cold venom of avarice—instituted a process against young Torquato,
to disinherit him, under a pretence which a fiend incarnate (had such a
wanderer from the abyss of lost spirits been permitted to darken the earth
with his shadow) might have blushed to advance in a court of justice,—that,
having followed his miserable parent to Rome, the boy (at ten years of age!)
had made himself partaker of his father's imputed treason, and thereby
righteously exposed himself to the same penalties of exile and confiscation.
The issue of this iniquitous proceeding does not appear, except it may be

gathered from the fact, that the uncles contrived to withhold Torquato's
portion of his mother's dowry from him till the last year of his life: and,
further to secure the control, at least, of the property by themselves, they
married her daughter Cornelia, who, at fifteen years, had grown up into a
beauty, to a gentleman of Sorrento, of narrow fortune, but honourable birth,
in spite of the protestations of her father, whose ambition had destined her
for a higher and more wealthy alliance; his hopes and his plans being even a
day's march beyond his power of overtaking them by performance. There is
extant a letter written on this occasion by Torquato (probably at the
dictation of his father) to Signora Vittoria Colonna, in which the lad bitterly
complains against the cruelty of his uncles in forcing this match upon his
sister; and implores her interference to prevent the entailment of poverty
and disgrace upon the young Cornelia, by such a sacrifice of her person and
property to the mercenary views of her relatives. "It is hard," says the
reputed writer, "to lose one's fortune; but the degradation of blood is much
harder to bear. My poor old father has only us two; and, since fortune has
robbed him of his property, and of a wife whom he loved as his own soul,
suffer not rapacity to deprive him of his beloved daughter, in whose bosom
he hoped to finish tranquilly the few last years of his old age. We have no
friends at Naples; our relations are our enemies, and, on account of the
circumstances of my father's situation, every one fears to take us by the
hand." These stern but tender sentiments, wrung in the agony of heart-
sickness from the father, were written, not only by the hand of the son upon
the paper of the epistle, but on his own heart, and became identified with
his personal feelings through life. Though he never suffered the escutcheon
of his family to be blemished by a humbling connection, yet he paid dearly,
both in his affections and in his pride, to preserve it; and, if the tradition of
his love for a princess of the house of Este be founded in truth, he must
have felt that he was himself, in that case, playing the part of "some poor
gentleman," whose alliance would be a degradation of the most ancient
blood of Italy. Both the father and the son, in the sequel, were reconciled—
first for Cornelia's sake, and afterwards for his own—to her husband; who
proved a worthy and kind consort, with whom she lived happily, though not
long, and by whom she had several children.
In a letter addressed by Bernardo to his daughter, while she was yet a girl,
occurs the following affecting day-dreams of the comforts of old age which
he hoped to realise in her filial attentions. After exhorting her to mind her

lessons, and promising in due time to provide a husband worthy of her, with
whom she should live near himself, he thus fondly adverts to that closing
scene of a troubled life, to which many a sufferer like him, to the last
moment, looked on as a forlorn hope—forlorn, yet inexpressibly soothing,
and cherished even in the heart of despair:—"Sweet and tranquil to me will
be old age, when I shall see (as I hope it may be the will of God) myself
perpetuated in your little ones, with my very features impictured on their
countenances. Death will then appear to me less terrible, when, beholding
you in honour and in peace, enjoying the love of your husband, and the
delights derived from the affections of your children, you shall close with
pale hands these eyes of mine. And surely it is due to a dear father to
receive the last kisses, the last tears, and every other pious and tender office,
from a dutiful and loving daughter."
Fresh commotions in Italy rendering Rome an unsafe sojourn for the
homeless Bernardo, he removed his son and his nephew to Bergamo, and
fled himself to Ravenna, with two shirts and his Amadigi yet uncompleted;
as destitute as his contemporary Camoëns, when he escaped from
shipwreck with his Lusiad in one hand, and with the other buffeting the
waves—thus saving at once his life and his immortality! On as troubled a
sea, by land, as any breadth of water between Lisbon and Canton, not
excepting that round the Cape of Storms, Bernardo was tossed to and fro
throughout Italy; and continued to the last as poor, yet as sanguine, as the
only genius that Portugal had hitherto produced, and proved itself unworthy
to give birth to another by its neglect, if not its ingratitude and inhumanity,
to that one. But here a gleam of sunshine broke upon Bernardo, amidst the
darkness of his flight from Rome. The duke of Urbino invited him to
Pesaro, and afforded him a welcome but temporary asylum there from the
persecution of his enemies, and the pressure of indigence—a retreat, indeed,
which he himself acknowledged was such as might give inspiration to any
poet, and where lie, himself, in quiet and amidst that comfort to which he
had lately been a stranger, might complete his long poem.
Torquato for a little time was pleasantly situated at Bergamo, in the family
of his cousin and fellow-student, where, being a boy of exceedingly
prepossessing appearance, amiable disposition, and manifestly brilliant
talents, he was much noticed and even caressed by many of the principal
persons in the neighbourhood. Bernardo, however, anxious to have him

under his own eye and direction, soon reclaimed him. At Pesaro, Torquato,
as might be expected, won attention from the whole circle of his father's
acquaintance; and the duke d'Urbino himself was so delighted with his
graceful modesty and rare accomplishments, that he introduced him to his
own son as a suitable companion in his studies and his pleasures. The young
noble of fortune at once became attached to the young noble of genius, and
a friendship, so natural to kindred minds early associated—the dawn of
affection preceding the day-star of passion in the order of Providence—
speedily sprang up, and amidst all the splendour of station which through
life distinguished the one, and the sufferings by adversity which were the
subsequent lot of the other, was never forsworn or forgotten by either. And
well was the lustre, so transiently shed by the prince, in the court of his
father, upon the humble son of the exile there, imperishably reflected upon
himself, in after years, even from the dungeons of Ferrara, by the glory of
the author of "Gerusalemme Liberata."
Bernardo having at length put the finishing stroke to his Amadigi, looked to
the munificence of the king of France and the prince of Salerno for the
means of printing it. In these reliances he was disappointed; and it appears
that his patron, the prince, was himself so impoverished, that the pension to
the poet of 300 crowns (a poor compensation for all his services and
sacrifices) was about this time withdrawn. So utterly perished were
Bernardo's resources, in this extremity, that, according to his own
lamentable statement, had it not been for the bounty of the duke d'Urbino,
he must have been almost reduced to the necessity of begging bread for
himself and his son. The duke liberally supplied him, not with bread only
for himself and his son, but presented him with 300 ducats, to which were
added a hundred gold crowns by the cardinal de Tournon. Hereupon he
repaired to Venice, to publish his work. Being received with great respect
by the literary characters of that city, then eminent for noble arts as well as
victorious arms and prosperous commerce, he was adopted by them, and
made secretary to their academy. To this office was annexed a salary so
considerable, that, with his wonted improvidence, he immediately
established himself in a handsome house, sumptuously furnished, and
adorned with what seems to have been his delight, rich tapestry, the poetry
of the needle and the shuttle, and which at best is but to painting what
painting itself sometimes is to nature — a copy reminding the spectator of

an original, of which one of the greatest merits of the imitation is the
difficulty overcome in achieving it.
Bernardo's vicissitudes would present a touching but melancholy contrast to
those of Gil Blas of Santillane, if written in a style of seriousness and
sympathy with what is most sacred in suffering, and trying in hope deferred,
equal to the pungent humour and heartless indifference to what is
"virtuosest, discreetest, best," in the characteristic adventures of that gay
footman of fortune. But such transitions as both Bernardo and Torquato
experienced, strange as they seem to us, were events of common
occurrence, arising out of the state of society in the petty principalities and
commonwealths of Italy in the middle ages, and long after the revival of
learning, when those who followed the profession of letters were too often
dependent for the means of subsistence upon the precarious patronage of
haughty nobles and ostentatious ecclesiastics. The part which Torquato had
to bear in the diversities of circumstance, scene, and company, into which
he was thrown with his parent, was too well calculated to cherish and
confirm all his natural aspirings; while those patrician sentiments, which
had been instilled into him from his cradle, amidst poverty, ignominy, and
all the wretchedness of ephemeral favour, ever sustained in him a lofty self-
esteem, on the ground of honourable birth, the consciousness of innate
genius, and the pride of acquired learning, to which had been carefully
added those gentlemanly accomplishments which rendered him a fit
companion for people of the highest rank in an age of extraordinary display
of personal conduct and ceremonial bearing. Tasso, in addition to his
peculiar advantages, excelled in all these conventional ones, except in self-
control—that especially which degenerates into servility—for (though the
most exquisite flatterer in the world, as thousands of panegyrical verses
prove him to have been) he never learned the meaner, but more profitable,
art of being a court-minion.
While he was thus pursuing his studies with in defatigable application, he
was not less diligent in cultivating those talents, which had given such
extraordinary signs of power within him. It is stated that while, for the latter
purpose, he was reading with intense devotion the poets both of old Italy
and new, as well as the relics of the nobler bards of ancient Greece, like
most of his countrymen, (perhaps, from secret nationality of feeling,) he
preferred the Latins to these, and among the Latins Virgil beyond every

other bore the palm in his youthful imagination. In fact he grew so
enamoured of the graces and excellences of the Æneid, that his own epic
became just such a work as, it might be presumed, Virgil himself would
have composed in the same age, and under the same influences, as Tasso
lived; while, on the other hand, had their births been exchanged, Tasso
might have been the glory of the court of Augustus, and flourished then in
splendour amidst the greatest and most intellectual society of men of talents
that were ever contemporary, instead of being an almoner, an exile, a
prisoner, beholden for food and raiment, in his best estate, to the bounty—
or rather to the parsimony—of "the Great Vulgar" of Italy in the sixteenth
century, whose names are more illustrious from having been connected with
his, than for any record of themselves or their ancestors, which could render
their families illustrious beyond the little boundaries of their domains. This
supposition, in reference to Virgil and Tasso, may be deemed impertinent;
hazardous it certainly is, and once would have been deemed heretical by the
idolaters of the Roman poet. Though this is not precisely the place, yet, in a
discursive memoir like the present, it may be allowable, to remark upon a
line of Boileau, which has done more injury to the reputation of Tasso than
all the splenetic criticisms of Sperone, and the verbal persecutions of the
Della Cruscans. Ridiculing the bad taste of certain personages who haunt
courts, and from their rank and assurance are permitted to judge as foolishly
as they please of the merits of authors with impunity, he says (and in a note
gives a special instance of such aristocratic wrong-headness[38]) that these
will prefer "à Malherbe, Théophile," "Théophile to Malherbe,"—

"Et le clinquant du Tasse à tout l'or de Virgile:"

"And Tasso's tinsel to all Virgil's gold."

This flippant antithesis, which, from its sparkling ambiguity, might itself be
quoted as a specimen of sheer "tinsel" (clinquant), amounts to no more than
that there are "fools," as the satirist calls them, who prefer what is false in
Tasso to what is true in Virgil; but that the whole, the half, or even a tenth
of the "Gerusalemme Liberata," of which he himself speaks elsewhere with
sufficient commendation, is composed of "clinquant," without a greatly
overbalancing weight of gold even in its worst parts, he has not dared to

affirm, though by a pitiful insinuation, not less unworthy of the author than
unjust to the object, he has had the left-handed luck to fix a stigma to that
effect upon the fair fame of one, in comparison with whose magnificent
creations of thought his own finely elaborated productions are but as
"French wire" to "solid bullion." The feeble confirmation of Boileau's
equivocal sentence, by the elegant but prejudiced Addison, is of little
weight. The critic, who, in tracing Milton's obligations to some of his great
forerunners, acknowledges that among these he might have included Tasso,
but that he does not deem him "a sufficient voucher," could be but very
imperfectly acquainted with the authority which he affected to disparage,
but which the poet of "Paradise Lost" held in very different estimation. Try
Boileau, when he attempts a strain of heroics, as in the "Ode on the taking
of Namur," or Addison, in his celebrated "Campaign," by any page that may
be first opened in all Tasso's multifarious compositions in verse, and the
"white plume" on the crest of Louis XIV., which the court poet mistook for
a star, and the destroying "angel," which the court critics of queen Anne's
reign hailed as descending from "the highest heaven of invention," and the
feather metamorphosis, in the first instance, will be pronounced a puerile
and pedantic conceit; and the "angel," in the second, a piece of
commonplace machinery, which scarcely escapes the charge of profaneness
in its main attribute. Marlborough, a mortal man, burning to avenge his
country's wrongs, may well be imagined as slaughtering, with terrible
delight, the thousands and tens of thousands of her enemies; but that an
angel should be "pleased" (as the cold and heartless phrase is) in executing
judgments upon unresisting victims of divine wrath (righteous as the
vengeance may be) is utterly inconceivable; nor can the poet shelter himself
under the doubtful interpretation of the context,—

"Pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm,"—

because the first, last, and only impression upon the reader's mind will be,
that the destroyer is "pleased" with the destruction, though the Almighty
himself declares that "He hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Both
these passages might have escaped carping criticism; but, when Boileau and

Addison mislead the public to believe that Tasso's writings are "all tinsel," it
is fair to show that their own are not "all gold."[39]
Torquato's mind now feeling strength, and gaining confidence to undertake
things beyond his years, he diligently gave his days and nights, in the
intervals of severer exercises, to reading and meditating upon the works of
his great Italian predecessors, that he might form, after their models, a style
of verse and manner of composition which should rival theirs, and yet be all
his own. Unconsciously, it is probable, at first, but gradually as he grew up,
through an undefined period, he conceived, and, before he reached the age
of eighteen, had executed, what Dr. Black calls "the most wonderful work
that ever was written by man," when the youth of the author, and the short
time in which it was composed—ten months, it is reported—are taken into
the account. The "Joan of Arc," by our illustrious countryman, Southey,
produced in a less compass of time, and at an age not much more advanced
than Tasso's, may fairly be put in competition with the "Rinaldo," without
disparagement to either. Nothing connected with the existence of man, in
this mysterious world, at once living within and beyond himself, exceeds,
either in purity or intensity, the delight of youth when framing poetry at first
according to the extent of new-formed powers, and anticipating poetry to
come, when years shall have matured his faculties, and his wings, after their
first moulting, shall have acquired full vigour of plume to bear him "with no
middle flight" above the Aonian mounts while he pursues

"Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme."

Among real "curiosities of literature" there yet remain copies of Dante and
Petrarch, with marginal notes in Torquato's handwriting, which prove with
what microscopic minuteness he examined and studied the productions of
those masters of that language, to which he himself was destined to give
consummate grace as well as power of expression—the strength of Dante,
modified from the muscular proportions of Hercules to those of the fine-
limbed Apollo,—the delicacy of Petrarch veiled, like the Medicean Venus,
in the mantle of Minerva. It may here be noticed, that Tasso was no more an
expert penman than a fluent speaker; his manuscripts, according to his own
acknowledgment, being very indifferently recommended either by the
fashion of the letters, or the correctness of the spelling. The numberless

erasures, interpolations, and new readings, with which many of his best
works, preserved in the library of the house of Este, are disfigured to the
eye, are interesting marks of that process of elaboration by which he slowly
but as effectually brought out all the hidden beauty of his thoughts, as
though they had been suddenly conceived and perfectly expressed in the
ardour of inspiration.
During their residence at Venice, Torquato was much employed by his
father in transcribing his own multitudinous poems and letters, as well as in
preparing for the press the enormous length of the "Amadigi." By this
exercise the son himself became daily more familiarised with the means and
artifices by which those who excel others in the productions of their genius,
form their peculiar style according to their peculiar standard of intellect,
and identify their whole cast of thinking with their whole structure of
language. To put a passage of an eloquent author to the nicest test of touch
(if the expression may be allowed for the intercourse of mind with mind, in
the communication and reception of ideas splendidly conceived and
felicitously bodied forth by the one, and by degrees only apprehended by
the other,)—to put to the nicest test of touch, as it were, any eloquent
passage of poet or orator, let the admirer copy it out at length, and he will
find that the progress of mind, hand, and eye, going all together, and
through every part, will give him the most distinct possible possession of
the whole in its full proportion, minutest details, and utmost effect.
But while thus the amanuensis of his father, Torquato was not less
assiduously cultivating his own talents, and meditating the composition
already alluded to, in which he was soon not only to rival the former, but
even while a boy, and upon the enchanted ground of romance itself, to
prove a greater magician than he. This the sudden and passionate
admiration with which his "Rinaldo" was hailed throughout Italy, and
beyond the Alps and Pyrenees, irreversibly established. The failure of
Bernardo's hopes, in the neglect with which both sovereign princes and the
reading public, after the first effervescence of applause, treated his
"Amadigi," was nearly contemporaneous with the first triumph of his more
fortunate son, who, so far as fame could gratify or reward his literary
labours, may be said to have succeeded in all that he attempted, either in
prose and verse, thenceforward, though some of his performances had but
an ephemeral popularity, being welcomed at first, and afterwards formally

honoured from the courtesy due to their author, and the measure of kindred
excellence by which they were all allied to the happier offspring of his too
prolific mind. Bernardo, after he found that the stupendous monument of
labour in vain, which he had spent so many years in accumulating, was
likely to be left to moulder away and fall of itself into oblivion,—having at
its first appearance excited neither enough of envy or admiration to render it
extensively attractive to public curiosity,—lay down in despondency at its
base, amidst his perished hopes; and though he made several attempts
afterwards to rise, these were all equally unavailing, and the latest solace of
his life was the contemplation of that glory descending upon his son which
had departed from him.
In considering the fate, by a natural death (so to express it), after a date
somewhat longer than that of a natural life, of those who have been
renowned in their own age, but have dwindled into insignificance, or
become utterly extinct in that which followed, it may be said of the far
greater number of those who flourish among contemporaries, not, indeed,
that they,

"are born to blush unseen,
And waste their sweetness on the desert air,"

but that they are flowers which bloom in their season, and charm with their
fragrance the passers by of one generation, then disappear, and are
remembered no more. This is the order of Providence, and it is wise and
good; for were the Almighty less liberal of his gifts, though the possessors
being "few and far between" might be more admired and longer, the world
would be less benefited than by that perpetual succession and supply
(according to the demand for literature) of minds worthy, perhaps, of any
age, but formed peculiarly to suit the taste, the manners, and the society of
their own. Among Chalmers' "English Poets," for example, how many
names, once illustrious, now merely catalogued, are prefixed to works,
unread though unforgotten, on which talents as diversified and as well
cultivated as the circumstances of the times would allow were painfully
expended, to delight and improve mankind; each of whose possessors
hoped, besides serving his own generation, to leave something behind
which the world would not willingly let die. Yet it may be questioned

whether some of these, had they lived in other periods, or under different
orders of things, might not have taken far higher rank among the candidates
for fame, and established permanent claims to the veneration of posterity. Is
not great genius, as we call it, when fortunately developed, and favoured by
many contingencies, without which it never would have been so developed,
more common than is generally imagined? Is there not at all times and
every where a class of intelligences which may be trained up to become
generals and captains in literature, in comparison with the rank and file out
of which they may be called by peculiar events in their own or their nation's
history, and without which they could not have risen above the ordinary
state of their less distinguished, but, perhaps, equally capable companions;
as the working bees in a hive, as some naturalists tell us, when their queen
is lost or taken away from the little community, by a particular regimen,
may be nourished up into queens, and from labourers become perpetuators
of the race? There seems some probability for this hypothesis, fanciful as it
may be deemed, because in all extraordinary emergencies, whether in the
world of politics or of literature, minds of the first order are invariably
brought into activity from the motives, the means, and the opportunities
then afforded to them, though they could never have risen above the
depression, mediocrity, or neutral indifference to which they were born, in
which they had long lived, and must assuredly have died, had it not been for
those apparently accidental opportunities which gave them distinction and
pre-eminence, by a change in themselves resembling a new creation, but in
reality only an awakening of latent powers.
While Torquato was thus continually giving new pledges, and redeeming
old ones of equal lustre, or surpassing the proudest names in his country's
literature, the old man, from bitter but unprofitable experience as regarded
himself, having proved the precariousness of the favour of princes, and the
vanity of expecting fortune to follow fame in verse, determined to
indemnify his son for the loss of both his parents' property by bringing him
up to a profession in which wealth and honour might more readily be
acquired by common industry than by idly looking for the golden rewards
of genius at the hands either of aristocratic patrons, who bestow them as
bounties, or of the multitude that compose the public, and who care little
about the good or ill fare of those on whom their transient applauses are
lavished.

"So praisen babes the peacock's spotted trayne,
And wondren at bright Argus' golden eye:
But who rewardes him e'er the more for thy,
Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine?"

SPENSER, Ecl. X.

In his seventeenth year, therefore, Bernardo placed his son at Padua, to
study jurisprudence, as Petrarch and Ariosto had been condemned to do
before him, by prudent parents, and like each of those hopeful sons, who
were

"born a father's hopes to cross,
And pen a stanza when he should engross,"

Torquato (though it is said that he dutifully and diligently applied with his
head to the study of the law) gave his heart and his hand in secret to the
unportioned muse. The issue of this affiance, while he was yet embroiled in
the nets of legal precedents and practice, was the "Rinaldo" already
mentioned, a romantic poem, in twelve cantos. The hero is not his own
champion of that name, the glory of his later poems, but one of "the
million" that figure in the "Orlando Furioso"—a work which so possessed
the mind of young Tasso, while he was at Venice, that he tells us he could
not sleep for the fame of Ariosto. This juvenile performance is written more
after the manner of that inimitable master than the "Gerusalemme;" but,
though deficient in the humour and vivacity which constitute the all-binding
and assimilating spell of Ariosto's tissue of episodes, and by which the
reader is reconciled to wink at all the author's incongruities and caprices,
Tasso's poem, nevertheless, by a more serious kind of magic, laid hold upon
public feeling and so happily hit the expiring taste of his countrymen for the
extravagances of chivalrous fiction, that where his father, after years of hard
toil in the same fields had miscarried, the son, in ten months, achieved a
triumph, of which the trophies remain to this day; "Rinaldo" being yet one
of the metrical romances which are interwoven with the party coloured
staple of Italian literature.

Well might Bernardo be astonished and delighted, yet humbled and
chagrined (in some measure), when the manuscript of his son's poem was
presented to him, seeing himself already eclipsed in his meridian altitude
(which he fondly imagined he had attained in the "Amadigi") by this
morning-star of promise just "flaming in the forehead of the orient sky;"
and perceiving, as he must have done, that his purpose was for ever
thwarted, of placing the boy in that path where fortune scatters her golden
apples before the feet of competitors in the race for her favour, rather than
indulging them with golden dreams under the shadows of laurels planted by
the wayside, the most precious rewards which she bestows on the most
successful among poets. The father, however, was too great a lover of song
to ruin a good poet in making a bad lawyer, as might have been the case had
he persevered in his former views with his son. Wherefore, after some
delay, he reluctantly, yet willingly, (a state of mind perfectly possible,
though hard to reconcile,) gave his consent to the publication of the
"Rinaldo." He who in the letter to his daughter formerly quoted, so tenderly
and beautifully anticipated the happiness of being himself, with his very
features, perpetuated in her infant progeny, could not but be transported to
see himself, with the features of his very soul, perpetuated in the glorious
offspring of his son's congenial yet surpassing mind. With a smile and a
sigh, therefore, he permitted the poem to appear, surrendering at the same
time his cherished expectation of seeing that son as eminent in the law as he
was now likely to be in that which is remotest from law practice and law
profits. "Let who will make the laws," said Fletcher of Saltoun, "let me
make the songs of a people, and by these I will govern them." Tasso's songs
have assuredly had larger dominion, and had deeper, wider, more enduring
influence in modifying the subsequent character of his countrymen than any
legislative enactments, in which it may be imagined that he would never
have been concerned, could have exercised. But then he might have
enriched and ennobled himself; he might have escaped most of the
calamities which hunted him to death in the midst of life; and he might not
only have been happier himself, but a more useful member of that society in
which he was born, which he served in his day, and in which he died
without any monument except some splendid sculpture to record his name.
It came otherwise to pass; and whether the world has been made better or
worse by his labours, it must be acknowledged that the fame which he
sought, and for which he sacrificed all beside, was dearly purchased to

himself by the sufferings which it cost him to win. It is reported that when
Bernardo remonstrated with him on his indiscreet preference of philosophy
(for with him philosophy and poetry were identified) to jurisprudence, and
angrily demanded, "What has your philosophy done for you?" he replied,
"It has taught me to bear with meekness the reproofs of a father."
The appearance of Torquato's "Rinaldo" was not only the dawn of his own
day of glory, but the dawn of a new day in the literature of his country. The
age of absolute romance was succeeded by one of transition in public taste,
during which what was most truly wonderful and meritoriously captivating
in the wild fictions of knight-errantry was engrafted upon a stock of
classical invention, design, and execution. This was in fact the nearest
recurrence that could be made in epic poetry to the models of the ancients,
—for the mythological machinery of Greece and Rome could not again be
revived in poetry any more than in religion; Jupiter could never again
resume his thunder and his throne; Neptune his trident; Pallas her ægis, or
Venus her cestus; nor could the supernatural interposition of the supreme
God, the agency of angels and sainted spirits, or of Saturn and his legions,
be extensively employed (without constructive irreverence, not to say rank
blasphemy) as auxiliaries in heroic fable, disguised as true history, or true
history disguised as heroic fable. Tasso, Marino, Camoëns, and Milton have
indeed presumed upon the perilous experiment of enlisting the armies of
heaven and hell in conflict with each other, and intermeddling with earthly
affairs; yet, with the exception of our countryman—and he would be a bold
critic who should dare to arraign him for impiety in the use of what nothing
but the most signal, unexampled, and inimitable felicity of success could
justify,—it may be added, that he would be a critic not less bold, who, as a
believer in the Christian faith, should venture to defend even Milton to the
extent in which he has exercised this questionable, though hitherto
unlitigated, license of fiction;—with the exception of our countryman, the
authors aforenamed have, for the most part, grievously miscarried in the
management of their agents of this class, whether good or evil, these being
among the most indifferent and ineffective personages in their respective
poems. Epic poetry, indeed, either upon classic or romantic precedent, may
be said to have become extinct from the time of Tasso. "Paradise Lost"
cannot be classed with either; he having achieved the only work of the kind,
which, being neither the one nor the other, but combining the merits of
each, touched the point beyond which improvement could not be carried.

"A stripling seem'd he, thrice five winter's old,
And radiant beams adorn'd his locks of gold,"—

compared with Milton's "Raphael," "in prime of manhood, where youth
ended," alighting on the eastern cliff of Paradise, where,—

"like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his wings, that heavenly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide."[40]

This prodigy of youthful genius no sooner appeared than it was hailed with
acclamation throughout Italy, and eager inquiries from every quarter were
made concerning the author—that prodigality of praise might be lavished
upon him by the learned, and parsimony of recompence, doled out to him
by princes, ambitious of attaching so great a "natural curiosity" to the
collection of live rarities about their palaces. For the great of those times
coveted the glory, little as they liked the expense, of retaining men of talents
in the train of their sycophants and dependents, even when they regarded
them only as remarkable among their species, in the same manner as the
lions, tigers, eagles, peacocks, and other strange and beautiful animals in
their menageries were in comparison with the meaner ranks of brutes.
Ariosto, who had experienced all the bitterness of such favour, and felt
keenly the ignominy of such distinction, plainly tells us, that the patrons of
his day loved those of their parasites who would minister to their personal
necessities, pull off and on their boots, share in their orgies, and pander to
their vices,—rather than those, whose proud stomachs disdained to allow
them to be any thing less than themselves within the precincts of courts,—
poets among princes, who could give enduring lustre to the names of
inglorious patrons, which otherwise would have found no better memorial
than the registers of their births, marriages, and deaths in their family
genealogies.
After Torquato's emancipation from the trammels of law by the hand of the
parent who had so carefully involved him in them,—flushed with the new
wine of liberty, obtained at the surrender of every thing else in prospect, and
with nothing but itself in possession,—he repaired to Bologna, to pursue his

philosophical studies and indulge in his poetical passion;—for poetry was
truly to him a passion, and the ruling one of his existence,—honour,
fortune, ease, pleasure, were all in turns but ministers to this, while by this
he aimed at the acquisition of each of them, as the one or the other were, for
the moment, the object of desire or the subject of lamentation for having
lost it. But from Bologna he was expelled for a literary squib, the only thing
of the kind by which he has gained any celebrity, whether it were his own
or not. Some anonymous censor had been amusing himself with publishing
pasquinades, ridiculing the principal people of the city, as well as the
students of the college, with "much malice and a little wit." Those who
were exposed to these sarcasms were exceedingly galled by the firing from
this ambuscade of the pen, and the more so as they knew not on whom to
wreak their vengeance. Torquato, in the reckless gaiety of a youth of twenty,
on a certain occasion making himself merry among his companions by
repeating one of these, was immediately pounced upon as the author, not
only of the unlucky lines, with which he had been caught in his mouth, but
he was assailed as being the secret manufacturer of all the rest. It was in
vain that he denied the charge indignantly, and challenged his accusers for
the proofs, urging that he himself had been the butt of the sharp-shooter's
shafts, flying out of darkness and hitting in broad day. His papers were
seized and examined before the criminal magistrate; but nothing being
discovered to fix the imputation upon him, he was nominally acquitted,
though the suspicion was not so easily effaced from the minds of the
offended individuals. He took the matter himself in such dudgeon, that he
precipitately left Bologna, and removed to Padua, whither he had been
Invited by his early friend Scipio Gonzaga, who had lately established in
the latter city the academy Degli Eterei, of which Tasso—certainly one of
the most congenial spirits of the age—was worthily enrolled a member, and,
according to the pedantic fashion of those pompous but puerile institutions,
assumed the name of Pentito—for some fanciful reason not well explained,
though there has been no small wrangling about it.
To enlarge his mind, to exalt his imagination, and to enrich his eloquence,
Torquato now devoted much of his attention to the works of Aristotle and
Plato; but while the former subjected his reason to the severest discipline in
the ascertainment of principles of truth, he gave his whole soul to the
guidance of the latter, whose visionary splendour and profound
speculations, on subjects the highest that created intelligences can conceive,

and of which comparatively so little can be learned without "light from
heaven" to illumine the "light of nature,"—while infinite space is afforded
for everlasting conjectures, showing at once the capabilities and the
limitations of the human intellect,—these peculiarly suited the young
student's cast of thought and intense delight in contemplating the things that
are invisible and eternal, as associated with things seen and perishable. Nor
was the philosophical poet an unworthy disciple of the poetical philosopher,
even upon his own ground and in his own style. Many of Tasso's sublimest
compositions are in the form of dialogues, in which he discourses with an
elevation of sentiment and a power of diction which might have gained
admiration in the school of his master himself.
Meanwhile the germ of his great poem, which had been quickened,
probably not later than the publication of the "Rinaldo," was growing up in
his thought,—for Tasso, by the necessity of his nature, was ever ruminating
on some premeditated or progressive theme; and some mightier conception
followed the disburdenment of every matured production of his
inexhaustibly inventive genius. While this new and magnificent project was
gradually assuming shape and character before he entered upon the
deliberate execution of it, he prepared himself for the task by composing his
"Discourses on Heroic Poetry," which place him among critics in as high a
rank as that which he holds among poets. The merit of these essays, indeed,
is so remarkable, that his principal English biographer, Mr. Black, is almost
seduced by them to assert the universality of the author's genius, in the
following plausible remark and happy quotations from high authority
concerning another extraordinary poetic genius, which seemed capable of
excelling in whatever it undertook, whether in prose or rhyme:—"Of the
'Discourses on Heroic Poetry' there appear to have been four, only three of
which have been printed. Though composed at the age of twenty, and
published without the knowledge and corrections of the author, they are
exceedingly valuable; and while they display a most refined taste, discover
also much metaphysical acuteness and geometrical precision. Indeed, I am
more and more of opinion that what Mr. Stewart says of Burns is true in
general of every great poetical genius, 'All the faculties of Burns's mind,'
says he, 'were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection
for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned
temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to that species of
composition.'"

In this year, 1564, Torquato visited his venerable father, now literally "dagl'
anni e da fortuna oppresso," "borne down by years and evil fortune." The
transport of affection with which two of the greatest men of their age, in the
most seductive walk of human ambition, met at Mantua, in the relationship
of parent and offspring, must have been chastened, yet rendered more
exquisitely endearing, when the father, from his own sad experience, must
have foreseen, by "his prophetic soul," the sorrows to come which his son
would encounter in the course that he had chosen; while the son, with
emotions not less painful, must have looked upon his father, remembering
the sorrows past, which he had endured in the vain pursuit of fame from the
multitude, and fortune from patrons, in whose cause he had sacrificed two
sources of competence—his own small patrimony, and his wife's dowry.
During this visit the youth was attacked by a dangerous illness, from which
being rescued by the skill of a physician named Coppino, the grateful father
rewarded the doctor with the fee of a stanza to his honour in a new poem,
entitled "Floridante," which the aged minstrel, whom no medicine could
cure of the disease of rhyme, was composing in his seventy-third year. This
daughter, as she might be called, of his "Amadigi," to which it is a sequel,
and his own last child of imagination, proved as short-lived as its romantic,
and almost as its natural, parent, though the dutiful Torquato endeavoured
himself to revive it, in his own dark days; but "Floridante," of whom it
could not be said that "she had no poet," died though she had two, and those
of no mean name. Bernardo Tasso himself survived for five years, dying in
1669, at the age of seventy-six. However undervalued by posterity, he was
unquestionably the greatest poet who had appeared between Ariosto and his
son Torquato.
About this time Torquato received an intimation that the cardinal d'Este,
brother to the duke of Ferrara, had nominated him one of his personal
attendants, and expected him forthwith in that city. Notwithstanding the
warnings of his father's old friend, Sperone, and afterwards his own, Zoilus,
who, exasperated by the disappointment of hopes of preferment which he
had cherished when he went to Rome, gave loose to the most violent
invectives against courts and courtiers, and earnestly dissuaded Torquato
from trusting himself where nothing but allurements to ruin would be
placed in his way, from which it was hardly possible for virtue to escape
unscathed or uncorrupted, the young poet, however, determined not to profit

by the experience of the old one, but to learn for himself what experience
alone can teach, and what he indeed learned at an awful cost in the issue.
He resolutely, therefore, determined to put both his virtue and his fortune to
the hazard of temptation, not doubting that he could secure the former and
advance the latter, where the most illustrious court in Italy was held by a
descendant of the patron of Ariosto. Accordingly he hastened to Ferrara,
anticipating every thing that never came to pass, except the one thing on
which, indeed, his mind was most bent, that there he should complete his
contemplated epic, and establish a name which should associate him with
the most renowned of his predecessors. What a bright morning was that,
forerunning a day of darkness and despair, on which he entered the city,
happily unsuspecting the troubles that awaited him there! The kings of
England, of the house of Hanover, are lineally descended from the family of
Este. These much celebrated princes, in the best period of their ascendency,
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were the magnificent, if not
the liberal, patrons of most of the men of genius in the finer arts who were
contemporary with them; and none was more so than the reigning duke,
Alfonso II., under whose benign influence for a while, but under whose
blighting displeasure afterwards, poor Tasso flourished and faded.
On the last day of October, 1565, Torquato arrived at Ferrara, where the
most superb preparations were making for the nuptials of Alfonso with
Barbara, daughter of the emperor Ferdinand, and sister to Maximilian II. He
was cordially welcomed, and immediately received into the service of the
duke's brother, cardinal Luigi, whose establishment consisted of nearly 800
persons, ministering to his pleasure or subsisting on his bounty. This prince
was not less dignified than his brother, but altogether more amiable and
engaging. On the 2d of December the queen (as she was styled from her
imperial lineage) entered Ferrara, crowned, and accompanied by a gorgeous
retinue. The marriage was celebrated by a succession of the most imposing
spectacles and profuse festivities, which continued for six days, when they
were suddenly broken off on the arrival of intelligence of the death of the
pope, Pius IV. Among the throng of the great and the small, who had
assembled from all parts of Italy to witness the tournaments, the
pantomimes, the balls, and the banquets given on this occasion, Torquato
was but a solitary unit; observing and treasuring up in his memory all that
he saw and heard, as materials for celebration in another form of the same
scenes of luxury and splendour upon a grander scale, and, though in an

ideal field, of more enduring exhibition. Myriads of eyes may have glanced
upon the contemplative youth, and passed over him as one of the most
insignificant personages in the city; but, after the lapse of nearly three
centuries, even these gorgeous ceremonials are principally subjects of
interest because he was present at them. Not a human being in existence at
this remote period (one might imagine) can feel any personal sympathy
with the bridegroom, the bride, or any other actor or spectator, native or
stranger, upon the spot; yet even "the representation of the Temple of Love,
which was erected in the ducal gardens, with a stupendous scenery of
porticoes and palaces, of woods and mountains," is worthy of being
remembered, because of the far-surpassing glory of imaginative palaces and
gardens which were suggested to the admiring poet by the tawdry pageant,
"which lasted six hours without appearing tedious to the spectators," as
Muratori states; though, according to the pithy remark of Gibbon, the latter
is "the most incredible circumstance" connected with the whole account.
During the four months which intervened between the demise of Pius IV.
and the election of a new pope, who assumed the name of Pius V.,
Torquato's patron, the cardinal Luigi, being absent, he was left at Ferrara to
make his way into favour wherever an opening might be presented; and it
was then that he became more particularly acquainted with the princesses
Lucretia and Leonora of Este, by whom he was brought under the notice of
their brother the duke, who, after all that has been said and conjectured,
seems never to have regarded him otherwise than with stately or selfish
condescension. That a youth so gifted with genius, so early distinguished
among his countrymen, favoured by nature with more than ordinary
personal advantages, and in many other ways gallantly accomplished,
should have attracted the esteem of these illustrious ladies, who appear to
have been more than mere court beauties, both in intellect and sensibility,
delighting in poetry, and occasionally exercising themselves in it, was
almost a necessary consequence of the parties becoming acquainted. Under
such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that, on either side,
secret presentiments of the most gratifying kind should unconsciously
spring up and be covertly cherished by the several individuals; never,
indeed, as must be inferred from the sequel, to be fully disclosed, nor even,
perhaps, perfectly understood by themselves. If, in the age of chivalry, it
was imperative upon true knights to assert the beauty and maintain the
honour of their ladies in all due seasons, and in all proper places, it was, in

the seventeenth century, equally the duty of true poets to celebrate the same
virtues and adornments in their verses upon those of the better sex, who
were either their mistresses or their patronesses. Torquato, dazzled by the
transition from schools, law offices, and colleges of philosophy, to the court
region of enchantment, has described his own emotions and the influence of
the change upon him in the language which he puts into the mouth of Tirsi
(the representative of himself in his "Amintor"), where, after taking
vengeance on his father's friend, but his own very questionable one
(Sperone), for having dissuaded him from going to the city, which, he
assured him, was given up wholly to deceit, voluptuousness, avarice, and
ambition, the shepherd tells his companions how bravely he was disabused
when he beheld the marvellous reality; for there, "as gracious heaven would
have it, I happened to pass near the blissful dwelling, whence issued sweet,
harmonious voices of swans, of nymphs, of syrens—heavenly syrens! and
sounds of music soft and clear, with other ravishments so strange, that for a
while I stood entranced with joy and admiration." Being courteously invited
to enter by one of noble aspect, who appeared the guardian of the enchanted
spot, he exclaims, "O then what saw, what felt I? I beheld nymphs,
goddesses, and minstrels—luminaries new and beautiful—all without veil
or cloud, as to the immortals, scattering silver dews and golden rays, Aurora
seems; Apollo and the Muses, too, I saw, and in that moment felt myself as
growing greater. Filled with new virtue, new divinity, I sang of wars and
heroes, disdaining my rude pastoral pipe. But though I soon returned to
these calm shades (to please another), I still retained a portion of that nobler
spirit; my simple reed no longer warbled as before, but, rivalling the
trumpet, filled the woods with notes more lofty and sonorous. Mopso
(Sperone) heard it, and, with evil eye, looked on me and bewitched me, so
that I grew hoarse, and long continued mute. The shepherds thought I had
been glared at by a wolf—a wolf, indeed, he was to me!" The last allusion
is to Sperone's savage criticisms on the "Gerusalemme," when submitted to
his examination in manuscript. Torquato, however, had reason to think, after
years of disappointing experience, that Sperone's notions of courts and
courtiers were quite as near the truth as his own, during his first visit and
sojourn at Ferrara.
Of the duke, his brother the cardinal, and their three sisters, it is recorded
that thirteen years before this date, on a public occasion, in presence of their
father, Hercules II., and pope Paul III., the "Adelphi" of Terence, in the

original, was recited by them with great spirit and effect, the parts being
sustained by the princesses Anna, aged twelve, Lucretia, eight, Leonora,
six, the princes Alfonso, ten, and Luigi, five years of age. Mr. Black
observes, with apparent justice, that the court of Alfonso united, "like the
poems of Tasso, classic elegance with the richness of romance; and every
thing conspired to kindle the fancy and refine the taste of the youthful
bard."
Anna, the eldest of the three sisters above named, in 1548 was married to
the celebrated Francis, duke of Guise, and, after his decease, to James of
Savoy, duke of Nemours. Lucretia, some years later than Tasso's arrival at
her brother's court, was married to the prince of Urbino, only fifteen years
old, when she herself was thirty-seven. This was one of those state alliances
which so little resemble treaties of peace, that they deserve to be branded as
treaties of discord, in which royal and noble parents sacrifice their children,
if not to Moloch, at least to Mammon—nay, too often to both,—for
purposes of family aggrandisement, by adding territory to territory, and
confounding blood with blood. On the occasion of these unhappy nuptials,
Tasso, "as in duty bound," wrote an epithalamium, which had, in its
predictions of felicity, the equivocal qualification for excelling in that kind
of poetry which Waller, with experienced adroitness, hinted to Charles II.,
when rallied by his majesty on having composed a far finer panegyric on
Cromwell than on himself—the qualification of fiction; for scarcely had the
ill-paired couple had time to fall out, when the gallant prince left his bride
to volunteer in a crusade against the Turks, with whom everlasting warfare,
in every petty form of hostility, was wont to be carried on by the states of
Italy. The union ultimately was dissolved, without the intervention of death;
and Lucretia, as duchess of Urbino, returned to Ferrara. For many years
afterwards, she was, more openly than either her brother or her younger
sister, the patron of Tasso, and to her are some of his most graceful lyrics
addressed.
Leonora, the third and younger sister, remained unmarried. Being highly
attractive in person, in manner, and in mind, it is no wonder if Torquato,
having many opportunities of ingratiating himself in her favour, should be
gradually betrayed, under the guise of that romantic strain of adulation to
rank and beauty (especially in verse) which the fashion of the times not
only tolerated but sanctioned, to insinuate all the fervour of a passion

which, though hardly aware of it himself, and altogether unacknowledged
by its sensitive object, might yet be harboured in the bosoms of both,
though so secretly, that each more complacently and jealously watched the
symptoms of a tender attachment in the other, than cared to examine the
reality of the same in themselves. The mystery, thus cherished, for the
tantalising delight of a hope too remote to be fulfilled, except at the
sacrifice of every thing but that love, for which, if true, nothing might be
deemed too much to be sacrificed, has never been cleared up, and all
reasoning and conjecture on the subject, at this distance of time, must be
vain. It has been with equal confidence both affirmed and denied, that the
poet imprudently aspired to the hand of the princess, and that the princess
as imprudently surrendered her heart to the poet, though, from necessity,
she withheld her hand. From the numberless canzoni and sonetti, of which
love is the theme, among the rime of Tasso, no premises towards the
solution of this problem can be drawn. Dante and Petrarch, in all their
effusions of the kind, are constant each to his respective mistress. Beatrice
and Laura are the perpetual idols of their amorous devotion; but to so many
—or, if to one, under so many different names and characters,—are Tasso's
adorations addressed, that he may have had fifty fits of passion for as many
flames, and been as true in turn to each and equally volatile to all. It is,
however, a remarkable circumstance, that three of the greatest poets of Italy
should owe as much of their posthumous renown to their questionable love
as to their acknowledged genius, having been avowedly attached to ladies
whose very existence is unascertained at this day, though volumes have
been written, proving nothing more than (to borrow the comprehensive
judgment of sir Roger de Coverley) that "much may be said on both sides."
In the mean time, whatever was the subsequent conduct of Alfonso towards
Tasso, there seems to be no doubt that, for a considerable period during
which the poet was engaged upon his great work, the duke countenanced
him in the way most agreeable to his literary ambition and his personal
vanity; for he loved rich apparel, splendid apartments, sumptuous fare, and
to be associated with persons of the highest rank—feeling that he could
adorn and dignify the circle in which he moved, both as a man of genius
exalted above competition by intellectual endowments, and as a man of the
world qualified to shine in external demeanour among gentlemen and
soldiers as well as among students and men of letters. During this
prosperous period—when the smiles of princesses, who were pleased to

receive the homage of his muse, flattered his gentler affections, and the
favour of sovereigns gratified the pride of a heart easily elevated to an
eminence of self-satisfaction, from which the fall when it came was the
more terrible, and the dashing to pieces of its hopes and its claims the more
humiliating and deplorable—Tasso accompanied the cardinal Luigi as
legate to the court of France. Here his fame had prepared the way for his
reception with peculiar honour by Charles IX., himself both a lover of verse
and a versifier. It is said that the king offered the poet some splendid
presents, which the latter declined to accept, though he was so scantily
provided with a wardrobe, that he left the kingdom, at the end of twelve
months, in the same suit of clothes in which he entered it. The snake has but
one skin, but while that is wearing out another is forming beneath: it would
be well for poets, who live on court expectations, if they were as well
provided.
As not many personal anecdotes are related of our poet, two or three
indifferent ones may be given here as specimens of the tone of his
conversation and address in public. A poet of some repute having
committed a crime for which he was condemned to die, Tasso resolved to
obtain, if possible, a mitigation of the punishment. At the palace he learned
that the sentence was about to be executed immediately. Undiscouraged,
however, he pressed forward; and being admitted to the presence, he thus
addressed the king:—"May it please your majesty, I am come to implore
you to put to death a wretch, who has brought disgrace upon philosophy, by
showing that she cannot stand out against human depravity." The king,
struck with the turn of the request, spared the criminal. Being asked by his
majesty one day, "Whether men most resembled God in happiness, in
sovereign power, or in the ability to do good?" Tasso replied, "Men can
resemble God only by their virtue."—Again, before the same monarch a
discussion was held to determine what condition in life is most unfortunate.
"In my opinion," said Tasso, "the most deplorable condition is that of an
impatient old man, borne down by poverty, who has neither fortune to
preserve him from want, nor philosophy to support himself under
suffering."
In the course of this journey, whatever he may have gained in honour at the
French court, gratification in the society of eminent contemporaries, and
knowledge of the country and people of his hero, Godfrey, Torquato lost the

favour of cardinal Luigi, as Ariosto forfeited that of the cardinals kinsman
and predecessor, Hippolyto of Este; though not for the same reason—want
of servility to his highness (Luigi probably not exacting such base homage
as Ariosto's barbarian patron had done), but for having manifested more
zeal for the catholic faith than, in the opinion of some of his confidants, was
deemed politic at a time, when, for the most treacherous purposes, previous
to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the protestants were treated with
unwonted indulgence, to throw them off their guard. Hereupon he returned
to Italy, though not immediately to Ferrara; for, travelling in company with
Manzuoli, the secretary of the late embassy, we find that he arrived at Rome
in January, 1572. Here he was cordially welcomed by many of his father's
old acquaintances, as well as greatly distinguished for his own sake. Pope
Pius V. honoured him with an audience, and the privilege of kissing his
foot.
Through the mediation of the duchess of Urbino and Leonora, he was soon
afterwards formally admitted into the service of Alfonso, with a pension of
a hundred and eighty gold crowns a year, and the understanding that no
personal duties would be required of him; but that he should be at liberty to
pursue his studies and finish his poem at his own leisure. Generous as this
provision undoubtedly was, it yet made him a captive in golden chains, too
weak to bind the limbs, but strong enough to enthral the soul and enslave
the mind. So, at least, Torquato found his obligation; and even when on
both sides it had been broken, after his second imprisonment, he was never
in spirit enfranchised from the yoke of Alfonso, till death set him free. His
own testimony concerning his patron's munificence at this time, long after
he had lost his favour, is honourable to both:—"He raised me from the
darkness of my low estate to the light and glory of his court; he removed me
from penury to abundance; he exceedingly enhanced the value of my
works, by often and willing listening while I read, and treating their author
with every mark of esteem. He placed me at his table, and countenanced me
with his personal attention; and he never denied me a favour which I
requested."
Under these auspices, while Tasso was still vigorously prosecuting that
splendid crusade of his muse, the poetical siege of Jerusalem, and had now
nearly made himself master of it for an everlasting stronghold of his
poetical sovereignty, his exuberant mind poured out multitudes of sonnets,

canzoni, and other miscellanies in verse and prose—almost entirely on
transient themes, love fancies, and panegyrical attempts—

——"to give a deathless lot
To names inglorious, born to be forgot."

Among these, in the composition of which it might be questioned whether
he was wasting his genius or cultivating it, he produced something more
excellent, in the form of a pastoral drama. Accordingly, the most beautiful
offspring of his imagination—so far as refers to exquisite grace of diction,
and consummate skill in adorning a subject altogether artificial, and
feigning a state of society that never did, never could, never ought to exist,
—in a story not very natural though the incidents are few, nor very happily
connected or intelligibly developed,—his "Aminta" appeared, written in
flowing verse of various measures without rhyme, and enriched with lyric
chorusses of extraordinary elegance. How the public exhibition of such a
drama could be tolerated, before the most exalted personages of the state,
ladies of the highest character, and religionists of the most plausible
professions, is very difficult for us, in our cold climate, and with our severer
as well as juster sentiments of decorum, to imagine. All that can be said in
extenuation of the audience, and perhaps of the poet, comes to this
presumption, that, though the piece abounds with descriptions and allusions
the most voluptuous and fascinating to awaken the most perilous passions
in youth, and which no gravity of age ought to endure, such were the
manners of the day, and so little of evil was apprehended, where the
serpent, that allured Eve with his wiles of beauty among the flowers of
paradise, put on this pastoral disguise of the innocence of the golden age,
that the fair and the virtuous alike imagined themselves as guiltless in
listening to his blandishments, as Milton represents the mother of mankind
to have been unsuspicious of danger, when she followed the tempter to the
forbidden tree, and entered into a parley with him there, till at length,
beguiled by his subtilty, "she plucked, she ate." And here a subject too
delicate to be handled on the present occasion must be left to every one's
conscience who indulges in the luxury of such reading as the work under
consideration furnishes. It is remarkable that the author, designating himself
under the name of Tirsi, seems to have been forewarned of the malady

which soon afterwards overwhelmed him, and to which, no doubt, from
constitutional temperament he had been prone from his youth upward, and
which, in premature old age, cast such clouds of mystery over the gloom
and splendour of his latter life. "Knowest thou not what Tirsi wrote, when,
fired with frenzy, he wandered through the forest, at once moving laughter
and pity among the lovely nymphs and shepherds? Nor wrote he even then
'things worthy to be laughed at, although he did such things.'"
The duchess of Urbino being absent from Ferrara, when Tasso's muse, like
Habington's "halcyon," produced

"The happy miracle of this rare birth,"

invited him to her delightful retirement of Casteldurante, where she heard
the pastoral strains from his own lips, which, though not eloquent from
natural infirmity, would yet convey the soul and passion, the delicacy and
pathos, of every passage, with an impression which no actor on the stage,
nor indeed any reader but himself, could give. The living voice, in this case,
would be the actual language of the spirit that conceived the thoughts,
speaking to the spirit of her who received them through the ear, fresh and
flowing from the fountain in his heart; for the written copy, to the eye,
would be but a translation, wanting the incommunicable accompaniments
of tone, look, expression, and perfect intelligence of the whole in all its
bearings and meanings, such as the original author alone could possess; for,
as Dr. Johnson said, "no words can convey sounds;" and both sounds and
words were requisite to do justice to such verse as his. Tasso remained
several months with the duchess.
All Italy soon echoed with the fame of this poetical phenomenon, which,
though not the first of the kind, (an indifferent model having been produced
six years before, by one Arienti,) it was the first that had power to compel
almost universal admiration, and establish a precedent and authority for that
fantastic species of literary composition. Imitations, by the most gifted of
his contemporaries, sprang up in rapid succession, and passed away as
rapidly, with the exception of one, the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini, which not
only maintained its ground, but even disputed that on which its forerunner
stood, and from which no rivalry has ever yet been able to remove it. The
renown which Tasso acquired by the "Aminta" naturally exasperated envy

in proportion as it commanded applause, and among the multitude of
competitors who could not soar to his elevation, there were not wanting
those who employed every artifice to bring him down to their level, that
they might trample him under foot. Whatever were the causes, Tasso to the
end of his life was persecuted as much by unmerciful critics as he was
oppressed by hard-hearted patrons.
But the "Aminta" was not the only episodal enterprise of Tasso, while he
was slowly but unweariedly proceeding with the "Gerusalemme." Flushed
with the success of his pastoral drama, he set earnestly about the
construction of a regular tragedy; but he had not advanced far in the second
act, when the project was suspended, and the fragment of fine promise
which remains, compared with the completed performance long afterwards,
when his faculties were on the decline, exhibits a brilliant but melancholy
contrast of "the change" that had come "o'er the spirit of his dream"—his
dream of life, love, and glory, blighting his "May of youth," and causing
him in the prime of manhood to "fall into the sere and yellow leaf." His
"Torindo," as this failure was styled, was less a failure than the
"Torrismondo," as the resumed and perfected task was called.
Towards the conclusion of his toils on his main work (as he fondly hoped),
but the beginning of a series of miseries consequent upon it, from which he
found no end but in the grave, Tasso was seized with a violent fever. This
left him in such a state of bodily exhaustion, that it was not till the
following spring (1575), that from the last lines of his poem he could look
back upon all the intervening ones to the first, as the links of a chain, more
subtle than air, yet stronger than adamant, which should deliver his thoughts
as he had bound them in his words, from generation to generation, to
delight millions of minds, so long as his country's language should be
understood. He had already enjoyed such exhilarating foretastes of fame by
the circulation in manuscript of portions of the poem, as they came
completed from his hands, that he was the less prepared to encounter the
enmity and opposition, which rancorous and intriguing rivals, or fanatic and
supercilious ecclesiastical censors of the press, immediately commenced,
and inveterately continued to manifest towards him to the close of life.
There was in Tasso—conscious as he must have been of his powers, and
confident as he must have felt in the exercise of his own judgment—a
readiness to submit to learned and candid criticism, and a willingness to

concede to dissentient opinions on minor points of taste, so far as was
consistent with manly independence,—which can rarely be found among
men of first-rate talents, but yet might be expected from a court poet,
accustomed in other matters to defer to superiors, be compliant towards
equals, and condescending to inferiors. This disposition, however, which
ought to have conciliated envy herself, only provoked her the more to
assume every shape of candour or malignity, as best suited her humour, to
torment and distract him, that she might revel over his wretchedness, if she
could not accomplish his fall. Years intervened while the "Gerusalemme
Liberata," in its finished form, was undergoing as many ordeals almost as
he had friends, and its author suffering almost as many martyrdoms as he
had enemies. Into the particulars of these persecutions it is not necessary to
enter here. The poet was certainly induced by the force of arguments used
by some, and the terror of inquisitorial powers exercised by others of his
critics, to alter, expunge, and amend many parts of the poem, which, after
all, suffered little from the processes to which it was thus exposed before its
publication. That publication, however, was long delayed by such vexatious
hinderances, and at last was effected surreptitiously, to the great offence and
injury of the author, then in confinement as a lunatic.
Tasso's malady was grievously aggravated by these excruciating criticisms,
when he found himself, on the one hand, charged with heresy against
Aristotle and good taste, and, on the other, with heresy against the church
and good morals. Fevers, headaches, strange dreams, waking suspicions,
restlessness, disappointment, dissatisfaction with his patron, to whom he
had dedicated his poem, and in honour of whom he had created his
imaginary hero, Rinaldo,—perhaps, too, the bitterness of desponding
passion, though that is questionable,—suggested to him the idea of
absconding from Ferrara and taking refuge at Rome, where he purposed to
bring out the "Gerusalemme," at his own pleasure, and hoped to reap a
considerable pecuniary benefit from the sale. Alfonso, however, was not
willing to lose the glory of the dedication to himself, though he seems to
have wanted the generosity, the humanity, the justice to deal with the author
except as an impotent creature in his power, who could do him much
honour by flattering his pride, but to whom he showed at best but stinted
kindness. To secure his selfish object, he made the poet a prisoner near his
own person,—both at Ferrara, and at his palace of Belriguardo in the
country,—a prisoner at large, indeed, but under perpetual observation. Of

this the sufferer was aware; and the very idea of a human eye for ever upon
him, restraining his looks, words, and actions, poring over him while he
slept, haunting his dreams, and entering into his very thoughts—for so he
must have felt as though it did—this alone was enough to madden a man of
iron heart and millstone brain, much more a poor hypochondriac, as Tasso
had already become.
Notwithstanding the jealousies of Alfonso, and the fascinations of his sisters
to detain him, the capricious bard escaped from his splendid captivity to
Rome,—and escaped even with the permission of the duke; who gave him a
letter of recommendation to the cardinal Hippolyto, to befriend him as a
stranger there, for the avowed purpose of obtaining the accustomed
indulgence granted to visiters during the jubilee. Here he met with the
cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici, afterwards grand duke of Tuscany, who
renewed to him in person the tender of an honourable asylum (formerly
intimated to him in private), should he be disposed to leave altogether the
service of Alfonso. The offer was gratefully acknowledged, but not formally
accepted; and after six weeks of holidays (as he felt them to be) spent in the
luxury of literary intercourse, and the renewal of the impressions which the
scene of Rome's posthumous glory in her magnificent ruins, and her not
less imposing revival in her hierarchal pomp, had left on his mind in youth,
he returned by way of Sienna and Florence to Ferrara. Here, while his poem
was going through a second round of critical purgatory, and his soul was
sinking under the burden of censures laid upon him, like the spirits of the
proud in Dante, condemned to bear enormous stones along the uneven
uphill road, he received the appointment of historiographer to the house of
Este, with a small stipend, which laid upon him another cobweb obligation
to remain at Ferrara. What were the duties of this office it is of no
consequence to inquire; he does not seem even to have performed any, nor
perhaps did he owe any; his fable of the origin of that family from his hero
Rinaldo—the Rinaldo of his "Gerusalemme"—had already conferred on it
more of that glory which princes covet, than the true history of all its
ancestors might have done. When the results of the aforesaid second revisal
of his poem were communicated to him, in despair of conciliating his
critics, and determined not to yield altogether to their incompetent
authority, on points where he felt himself strong in poetical power to
produce the very effects which they deprecated, but which he had aimed at
and achieved most triumphantly, he composed an interpretation of the

whole as an extended allegory, spiritualising its heroes and its scenes, with
more perverse ingenuity than felicity of success. Of this it may be fairly
said, that if the original were mainly fiction, the moral was wholly so. His
censors, however, persisted in condemning the voluptuous passages to
which he himself was most attached, because he knew them to be the most
beautiful, and recked not that they were the most seductive. In this respect
the poet himself was the Rinaldo of his sorceress muse, who by her
enchantments had wholly captivated his heart, and carried him away to her
"limbo of vanity;" from which Sperone and Antoniano, his remorseless
critics, in vain endeavoured to deliver him; as Carlo and Ubaldo had
rescued his hero from the thralls of Armida in her island of sensual delights.
He never yielded all, though he conceded many things, and sacrificed
several extravagant inventions, by which the poem, was rather mended than
mutilated.
An incident occurred about this time, which exhibited Tasso not less in the
character of a hero than he had hitherto figured in that of the laureate of
heroes. Suspecting one of his friends to have been guilty of opening his
trunks with false keys, to pry into his secrets among his papers, he gently
remonstrated with the offender, who resented the charge by giving him the
lie, and received in return a blow upon the face. This rencontre took place in
the court of the palace, and was therefore sufficiently notorious. The
cowardly aggressor—one Maddalo, a notary—walked away with the
dishonour on his brow, but meditating in his heart the most atrocious
vengeance. Accordingly, having enlisted three of his kindred in the quarrel,
they sallied forth, armed, to assail the poet; and finding him abroad in the
street, they fell upon him from behind. Tasso promptly turned round, drew
his sword, and dealt so dexterously with it, that the ruffians were soon put
to flight; though their fears of being apprehended, no doubt, to their "speed
lent wings," till they found refuge under the roofs of various friends. The
circumstance gained him no small reputation, and gave rise to a couplet
which was often repeated:—

"Con la penna e con la spada
Nessun vai quanto Torquato."

"With the sword and with the pen,
Tasso beats all other men."

It is not practicable, in this succinct memoir, to trace the sufferer through all
the details which have been recorded of his miseries from penury, pride,
ambition, and disappointment, the wrongs inflicted on him by patrons and
rivals, and above all, those growing symptoms of a mind diseased,
occasioning suspicions, jealousies, misunderstandings, and quarrels with his
friends and contemporaries; while that insidious malady, which no medicine
can reach, was making its unchecked ravages upon his constitution, and
inveterately fixing upon him its evil influences, so that, with brief and
distant lucid intervals, his remaining days were passed in horror and
despondency, whether amidst the darkness of the dungeons of Ferrara, or
wandering amidst the broad sunshine on foot, and depending for bread and
shelter upon casual hospitality, from province to province throughout Italy.
Imagining that his enemies—enemies as imaginary, in this case, as were his
fears of them—had accused him to Alfonso of treason, and to the pope of
heresy, he at length grew so outrageous, that, one day, for some
unaccountable provocation, he drew a dagger upon a servant, and assaulted
him in an apartment of the duchess of Urbino. Being instantly disarmed, he
was confined, by order of the duke, within the precincts of the palace. Here,
when for the first time he found himself a prisoner, he was overwhelmed
with anguish, and bitterly bewailed his fate. As soon as he could again
command his passion, he wrote a very penitential letter to Alfonso, suing
for pardon and release. Both were granted to him; and he was removed,
under the eye of the duke himself, to the palace of Belriguardo, in the
country, that he might recover his health and spirits, amidst scenes and with
the society in which he had formerly delighted to be placed. With a delicate
regard to one of his most grievous temptations—that he had been guilty of
heresy, Alfonso introduced to him the head of the holy inquisition at
Ferrara, who, after duly examining him, fully absolved him from all
imputations of the kind, and assured him that he was yet a good catholic.
Not contented with this, he suddenly left Belriguardo, and took refuge in a

convent of St. Francis, from which he sent word to his patron, that as soon
as he should be sufficiently restored he intended to enter himself among the
fraternity. But nothing could calm the troubled waters of his mind; he still
conceived himself under the displeasure of the duke, and that his acquittal
by the inquisitor was invalid. In this turmoil of doubts and self-reproaches,
he importuned Alfonso and the duchess of Urbino with letters concerning
his imaginary offences, and imploring comfort and assurance which they
could not give, because he would not receive. With Leonora he appears
never to have had that freedom and frequency of correspondence which he
had hitherto been permitted to hold with her elder sister. Whether this be in
favour of his presumed passion or not must be left to those who are skilled
in the mysteries of love-making between unequal parties. On this subject, as
on the poet's strange melancholy, and the severity with which it was visited
by his patron, whether for the punishment of the lover or the cure of the
maniac, it would be futile to argue here. After all the explanation and
mystification by Tasso's biographers, the general impression has been, is,
and probably will remain, that his love for Leonora was real; that his
imprisonment was vindictive on the part of her brother, and that his frenzy
was the effect of hopeless passion and impotent resentment against
oppression. "Historians," says Ugo Foscolo, "will be ever embarrassed to
explain aright the reasons of Tasso's imprisonment: it is involved in the
same obscurity as the exile of Ovid. Both were among those thunder-strokes
that despotism darts forth. In crushing their victims they terrified them, and
reduced spectators to silence. There are incidents in courts, that, although
known to many persons, remain in eternal oblivion—contemporaries dare
not reveal, and posterity can only divine them."
In the following summer, Tasso, bewildered and desperate, and not knowing
whither to turn, or in whom to confide, at length fled secretly from Ferrara
to visit his sister at Torrento, whom he had not seen since they were
children together. She was now a widow, the mother of two sons, and
dependent upon her uncles, who still withheld her mother's dowry, for the
means of subsistence. With that caution to do every thing by stealth, which
characterises the hallucination of one who fancies all the world conspiring
to do him harm, he presented himself before her in the habit of a shepherd,
affecting to be the bearer of certain letters from himself. He found her
alone; her children being absent. The letters represented her brother at
Ferrara as surrounded by enemies, and in the most imminent danger of his

life, unless she interposed in his behalf, and rescued him from their
machinations. When she had read the distressing intelligence, she implored
the supposed messenger to tell her all, the worst, at once. He answered by a
recital of miseries so aggravated, in a tone so earnest and impassioned, that,
whether she suspected him or not, she fainted with alarm. When she had
been sufficiently recovered, the cunning minstrel changed the hand that
played upon her, like Timotheus on his harp, and, from excess of pity for
her brother's sufferings, gently awoke all her tenderness of affection, by old
and beautiful recollections of former days, and hopes yet possible to be
realised in years to come. At length, when she was well prepared, he
discovered himself fully to her, and they were brother and sister again in a
moment, and thenceforth to the end of life. With her he remained in
comparative tranquillity for several months, being all the while
unacknowledged in the neighbourhood, except as Cornelia's cousin from
Bergamo, who, coming to Rome, had availed himself of the opportunity to
visit her.
But, as might be expected, his self-tormenting mind became unquiet amidst
scenes of repose, which, from day to day, delighted him at first, but, from
day to day, presenting little change of aspect or incident, he sighed again for
Ferrara, choosing rather the agony of life to that rest which was no longer
supportable. Thither, then, he returned, on the assurance of pardon from the
duke, and the restoration of his papers. It was soon after his arrival, that an
act of indiscretion attributed to him by some, and denied by others of his
biographers, is said to have caused him to be put in ward as a person of
deranged intellect. Being in company with Alfonso and his sisters, in the
presence of the court, in reply to a question from Leonora, Tasso gave her
an involuntary salute, their faces being so near together that he felt
attraction to be irresistible. The duke, astonished and indignant, turned to
his attendants and exclaimed, "See to what a lamentable condition this great
man has been brought by the loss of his reason!" But the date of this
circumstance happens to be as disputable as the fact; for it is certain that the
poet had not long resided at Ferrara, when, still unsatisfied with the duke's
conduct towards him, he again withdrew from the city, and successively
sought temporary refuge at Mantua, Urbino, Florence, Padua, Turin, and
Venice. Being ill at ease every where, by a fatality of instinct, as it might be
deemed, he returned to Ferrara, and thence departed no more till after a
confinement of seven years. For, imagining himself coldly received at court,

and unworthily repulsed when he sought an audience, he vented his anguish
of disappointment in bitter invectives against the duke, who, amidst the
festivities of his new nuptials with a young bride, his third wife, a daughter
of the duke of Mantua, was little inclined to hearken to the complaints and
supplications of one whom he had long looked upon as insane. On this
ground he was committed to St. Anne's hospital, as a lunatic, which in those
days of medical ignorance of the proper treatment of such patients was to be
punished as a criminal for his misfortune. The following extract must stand
in place of multifarious details of the poet's feelings under this long
restraint. His imprisonment commenced in March, 1579. Soon afterwards
he thus expressed himself in a letter to his friend Scipio Gonzaga:—
"Ah me! I had intended to compose two heroic poems of noble argument,
and four tragedies, of which I had contrived the plots. Many works in prose
also, on the most exalted and useful subjects, I had contemplated; purposing
so to unite philosophy and eloquence, that I might leave an eternal
monument to my memory in the world. Alas! I hoped to close my life with
glory and renown, but now, borne down under the load of my misfortunes, I
have lost all prospect of fame and distinction. Indeed I should consider
myself abundantly happy, if, without suspicion, I could but quench the thirst
with which I am tormented; and if, as one of the multitude, I could lead a
life of freedom in some poor cottage, if not in health, which I can no longer
be, yet exempt from this anguish. If I were not honoured, it would be
enough for me not to be abominated; and if I could not live like men, I
might at least quench the thirst that consumes me, like the brutes which
freely drink from stream and fountain. Nor do I fear so much the vastness as
the duration of this calamity; and the thought of this is horrible to me,
especially as in this place I can neither write nor study. The dread, too, of
perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy, and the indignities which
I suffer exasperate it; while the squalor of my beard, my hair, and my dress,
the sordidness and the filth of the place, exceedingly annoy me. But, above
all, I am afflicted by solitude, my cruel and natural enemy; which; even in
my best state; was sometimes so distressing, that often, at the most
unseasonable hours, I have gone in search of company. Sure I am, that if
she who so little has corresponded to my attachment, if she saw me in such
a condition; and in such misery, she would have some compassion upon
me."

Though such statements must be received with some allowance for the
power of self-torturing which he possessed in no small degree, and
exercised with as little forbearance as though he were his own most
implacable enemy, yet, according to Tasso's representation, the treatment
which he experienced under the hands of his brother-poet, Agostino Morti,
formerly a disciple of Ariosto, the keeper of the hospital, was almost as bad
as that which he received at his own. He says that by this man he was not
allowed the necessaries of life, the medicines which his bodily disease
required, nor the spiritual consolations which his heart-sickness needed:
moreover, that his meditations were disturbed by the inmates of the house,
so that he could not proceed with the preparation of his works for the press;
but above all, that he was under the power of witchcraft, Morti being in
league with certain magicians to destroy him by enchantments; and as this
was a capital crime, he threatens to accuse the keeper to the duke.[41] His
sonnets to the cats of the hospital, imploring them to lend him the light of
their eyes to write by, are specimens of that kind of mirth which suits and
sets off melancholy, in a certain "humorous sadness." Their genuineness,
however, is not certain, and they are hardly translatable.
Whatever were the actual circumstances of Tasso's mental alienation and
corporal sufferings from disease or ill usage, his life, from the period of his
first imprisonment, was to himself like one of the opium-eater's dreams—
splendours and horrors, alternations of agony and rapture, changes sudden,
frequent, and strangely contrasted: he inhabited a world of unrealities, of
which the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, were the more real in
proportion as they were ideal, and therefore incurable; acting upon the soul
itself like that effect upon the bodily senses, excruciatingly susceptible of
impressions of pain, so happily imagined, and not less felicitously
expressed by the most polished of our own poets:—

"Say what their use, were finer optics given?
To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven;
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonise at every pore;
Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain;
If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres.
How would he wish that heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill."

POPE's Essay on Man, Epist. I.

And such a being, too exquisitely sensitive, is every poet, whose
imagination or whose passion overmasters his reason and his judgment.
Tasso was eminently such—a poet in every thing, and all life long.
Meanwhile editions of his "Gerusalemme" were multiplying throughout
Italy, and beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees; while the mind that conceived
and produced it was wandering, like a lost star through the infinity of space,
unaccompanied by any kindred planet, and unattracted by any parent sun;
and the poet himself—he whom monarchs had delighted to honour, the
associate of sovereigns, who had been the favourite of princesses, and the
admiration or the envy of the highest intellects of his age—was treated as a
brute, out of whose living frame the rational soul had departed, and whose
animal appetites were to be subdued by severe abstinence, or controlled by
harsh discipline.
Yet in his solitude, when the first rigours of his imprisonment had been
relaxed, and an apartment of less discomfort was allotted to him, he
pursued, with unabated ardour and intensity, his studies, so far as he had the
means, and poured out, as he was ever wont, his sorrows and his hopes, his
remembrances and his imaginations, in every form of verse. Indeed, many
of his most beautiful compositions are dated within the term of his captivity.
In course of time, as he grew calmer, his friends, and illustrious strangers
attracted by his fame, were permitted to visit him. Occasionally, too, a day
of light and liberty was granted, and he was brought out of his prison-house

to those splendid mansions which he loved to inhabit, and which he was so
well qualified to adorn. Marfisa of Este, cousin to the duke, especially
befriended him in this manner, and entertained him at her delightful villa,
where, in company with her distinguished household and visiters, he looked
abroad again in sunshine, with all a poet's transport and all an invalid's
delight, when mere existence, void of suffering, is enjoyment.

"See the wretch, who long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common air, the earth, the skies,
To him are opening paradise."

So sang Gray, and so felt Tasso for a few hours of freedom,—but soon
remanded back to his lonely abode, he relapsed into despondency; and
though one such day, while it lasted, might seem to compensate for all the
past, yet when it was gone, its pleasures appeared too dearly purchased by
the misery of another day rendered more bitter by the transient change.
Having collected a volume of his fugitive verses, principally composed in
prison, he published it with a dedication to the princesses, the duchess of
Urbino and Leonora; but the latter lived not to receive this mournful proof
of the fidelity of his gratitude, if not of his love. She died, after a long
illness, in 1581, aged 43 years. Tasso enquired earnestly after her during her
sickness, and offered to do any thing in the power of his muse to beguile
that part of her suffering which song might soothe, while patiently bearing
the rest, for which there was no relief but from Heaven. After her death he
became mute on that theme, which most of his biographers would fain
prove to have been the real though covert one of many an amorous effusion
among his sonnets and lyrics. "Great griefs are silent."
Among his wild imaginations, Tasso thought himself haunted in his prison
by a sprite—something akin to our old English Robin-good-fellow—who
(probably in the very person of his knavish attendant) played all manner of
petty mischievous pranks to plague him. One extract from a letter on this

subject will show how little command of his reason he had at this time. He
says, "The little thief has stolen from me many crowns, I know not what
number—for I do not, like misers, keep an account of them—but perhaps
they may amount to twenty. He turns all my hooks topsy-turvy, opens my
chests, and steals my keys, so that I can keep nothing. I am unhappy at all
times, especially during the night, nor do I know if my disease be frenzy, or
what is its nature." Far more frightful visitations he complains of during
this dreadful interval, all which seem to prove a lamentable derangement of
intellect, of which he was himself sometimes so conscious, that he rouses
all his powers of reasoning to convince himself that he has not really lost
his wits. To a friend he writes—"I cannot defend any thing from my
enemies, nor from the devil, except my will, with which I will never consent
to learn any thing from him or his followers, or have any familiarity with
him or with his magicians. * * * * Amidst so many terrors and pains, there
appeared to me in the air the image of the glorious Virgin, with her Son in
her arms, encircled with clouds of many colours, so that I ought by no
means to despair of her grace. And though this might be an illusion, because
I am frenetic,—troubled with various phantasms, and full of infinite
melancholy,—yet, by the grace of God, I can sometimes cohibere assensum
(withhold my assent), which, as Cicero says, being the act of a sound mind,
I am inclined to believe it was a miracle of the Virgin."—This vision he
celebrates in one of his most brilliant sonnets, and also in an elegant
madrigal, ascribing to her grace the marvellous cure of his mental affliction.
In whatever way that cure may have been temporarily effected, Tasso, after
more than seven years' confinement, was liberated in 1586, at the special
intercession of the prince of Mantua. Alfonso refused to allow him an
audience, and he left Ferrara like a transport released from prison, to go into
perpetual banishment; for the duke remained inexorable, and, indeed,
implacable, to the end of his victim's life. For a while Tasso enjoyed the
sudden transition, again being lodged in the palace of Mantua, faring
sumptuously, and being admitted to the high, amiable, and intellectual
society of nobles, ladies, and scholars. This pleasant season was not,
however, without relapses of his fearful disease: the evil spirit came upon
him at times, and all the enchantment of his harp could not drive it away.
During several years afterwards, the poet wandered about, as his father had
done, from city to city, and from court to court, experiencing all the

vicissitudes of what is called fortune, but which, in his case, appears to have
been the lot which he chose and cut out for himself. Princes were ever ready
to open their doors to him, and wherever he was known, he was honoured
according to the reputation which he had so painfully but unprofitably
acquired; his patrons having only afforded him hospitality while he abode
with them, and booksellers having been enriched at his expense by the
spoils of his genius, in a country where the property of literary men in their
own works was little acknowledged and less respected. His controversy
with the Della Cruscan academy during his imprisonment, the members of
which had invidiously prejudiced the public mind against him, the living,
whom their favour might have benefited, by exalting Ariosto, the dead,
whom their preference could not serve,—while it grievously galled him,
rather tended to spread the knowledge, and, necessarily with that
knowledge, the fame of his "Gerusalemme," than permanently to injure his
fair fame. But he himself, from scruples of conscience and infirmity of
mind, became dissatisfied with it, and employed no small portion of his
brief remaining life in remodelling it, under the title of "Gerusalemme
Conquistata,"—a scheme in which he utterly miscarried. His last great
poetical attempt, and worthy of him in his palmy state, was a work on the
creation, entitled the "Sette Giornate" (the Seven Days), which he left
unfinished. It was composed in versi scidti, which nearly correspond to
English blank verse. There are many passages in this magnificent fragment,
which were evidently so familiar to Milton's mind, that he fell into the same
trains of thought, and imitated them in the style peculiar to himself,
repaying as much as he borrowed, "stealing and giving odours."
Tasso, soon tiring of Mantua, and even languishing for Ferrara, though
never permitted to return thither, wore away the residue of his desultory
life, principally at Bergamo, Florence, Rome, and Naples. In the latter city
(his sister being dead), when it was too late for him to enjoy the possession
of it, he recovered his mother's long-disputed dowry, or such a portion of it
as, at an earlier period, might have rendered him independent of those
eleemosynary supplies from precarious hands, on which he generally
subsisted. About the same time the pope also settled a pension upon him,
and consented to allow him the honour of a coronation, such as had been
granted to Petrarch, two centuries before. But wealth and honour, such as
mortal hands could confer or withhold at pleasure, came too late for him. In
his latter years, too, he became acquainted with Manso, marquis of Villa,

his last patron, and his first biographer; known in this country as, in his old
age, befriending our Milton, then a youth, on his travels in Italy, as, in his
own youth, he had befriended Tasso sinking to the grave under premature
decay.
One of the most remarkable circumstances of the last days of Tasso was the
imagination, that he was occasionally visited by a spirit—not the
mischievous Robin-good-fellow of his prison, but a being of far higher
dignity, with whom, alone or in company, he could hold sublime and
preternatural discourse, though of the two interlocutors none present could
see or hear more than the poet himself, rapt into ecstasy, and uttering
language and sentiments worthy of one who, with his bodily, yet
marvellously enlightened eyes and purged ears, could distinguish the
presence and the voice of his mysterious visitant. Manso gives a strange
account of such an interview, when he himself stood by, yet perceived
nothing but the half-part which the poet acted in the scene.
"One day," says the marquis, "as we were sitting alone by the fire, he turned
his eyes towards the window, and held them a long time so intensely fixed,
that when I called him he did not answer. At last, 'Lo!' said he, the courteous
spirit, which has come to talk with me; lift up your eyes and you shall see
the truth.' I turned my eyes thither immediately; but though I looked as
keenly as I could I beheld nothing but the rays of the sun, which streamed
through the window-panes into the chamber. Meanwhile Torquato began to
hold, with this unknown being, a most lofty converse. I heard, indeed, and
saw nothing but himself; nevertheless his words, at one time questioning,
and at another replying, were such as take place between those who reason
closely on some important subject. * * * * Their discourse was
marvellously conducted, both in the sublimity of the topics, and a certain
unwonted manner of talking, that exalted myself into an ecstasy; so that I
did not dare to interrupt Torquato about the spirit which he had announced
to me, but which I could not see. In this way, while I listened between
transport and stupefaction, a considerable time elapsed; at length the spirit
departed, as I learned from the words of Torquato, who, turning to me, said,
'From this day forward, all your doubts will be removed.'—'Rather,' I
replied, 'they are increased; for though I have heard many wonderful things,
I have seen nothing to dispel my doubts.' He smiled, and said, 'You have
seen and heard more of him than perhaps—' here he broke off, and I,

unwilling to trouble him, forbore to ask further questions; as it was more
likely that his visions and frenzies would disorder my own mind, than that I
should extirpate his true or imaginary opinion."
Throughout the year 1594 the poet was so manifestly breaking down, both
in his bodily and mental faculties, that his early dissolution was anticipated
by all his friends. He arrived at Rome on the 10th of November; when on
being introduced to the pope, his holiness, in the most condescending terms,
told him that he intended to bestow upon him "the crown of laurel, that
from him it might receive as much honour as, in times past, it had conferred
on others." The winter proving very tempestuous, the ceremonial was
deferred till the succeeding spring. As the time approached when all his
dreams of ambition were to be thus consummated, Tasso drooped daily both
in spirits and in strength, so that from the 10th of April, when he was seized
with violent fever, no hope could be entertained of preserving his life.
Being informed of his danger, he thanked the physician for communicating
tidings so welcome. Instead, then, of the vain glories of coronation in this
world, he set himself to prepare, according to his religious views, for his
last change to that eternal state, where nothing could avail him but to have
found that mercy, which is the only hope of sinful man beyond the grave.
On the 25th of April he quietly expired, with the words upon his lips (of
which the last were inaudible), "Into thy hands, O Lord! I commend my
spirit." He was aged fifty-one years.
The personal and poetical character of Tasso are so strikingly betokened in
the incidents of his life, that, in a memoir, necessarily so circumscribed as
the present, no further remark on either need be introduced here. To enter
into a critical examination of his writings, which should at all do justice to
their extent, their diversity and their excellence, of various kinds whether in
prose or verse, would require a distinct essay, equal in length to the whole
of this article. This, however, is little to be regretted, for, of all the Italian
poets, Tasso is the best known in our country; indeed, he has been almost
naturalised, for his greatest work has been oftener translated than any other
continental poem,—so that the style, the story, the sentiments, the actors,
the scenes, the whole fable, with all its embellishments and adjuncts, are
better known to general readers than those of the "Faerie Queene," and,
perhaps, it may be said, than those of "Paradise Lost" itself, except among
that "fit audience," which, "though few," Spenser and Milton must for ever

"find," while English poetry holds its place—and that the highest, hitherto
—in the literature of Christendom.
Besides several inferior versions, those of the "Jerusalem Delivered," by
Fairfax, Hoole, Hunt, and Wiffin, have each some peculiar merit, though it
must be confessed, that, in each, so far as regards the diction, that peculiar
merit belongs rather to the translation than to the author, the grace and
harmony of whose verse, unsurpassed in his own language, is absolutely
unapproachable in ours. Fairfax's version, in the original stanza, is
masculine and free; Hoole's, in the heroic couplet, is easy and
commonplace, but as a mere entertaining tale, the most readable of the
four; Hunt's, in the same measure, may lay great claim to indulgence for
any defect in vigour, on the score of the classic taste and learning which it
displays. Wiffin's is unquestionably the best; and it is his own fault that it is
not as good as any reasonable judge could desire a translation of Tasso to
be: but, having chosen to hamper himself, and to encumber his author, with
the intricate stanza of Spenser, containing an extra-Alexandrine line beyond
the Italian octave, he has been compelled to amplify his original one eighth,
which must deduct at least in the same proportion from the compactness,
precision, and symmetry of every corresponding section. How could a
master of versification like Mr. Wiffin, himself a genuine poet, choose to
run such a race, carrying such a weight? He has won it, nevertheless,
though not in the style that might have been wished; yet he that shall
hereafter beat him must be a rival, who, beyond the Alps, would have been
a worthy competitor with Tasso himself, had they been countrymen and
contemporaries.

[37]The translation is from Dr. Black's valuable Life of Tasso, from which other occasional
quotations may be hereafter made, with this brief but grateful acknowledgment.
[38]See note, page 117.
[39]It is curious and provoking to observe in how momentary and contemptible a circumstance
originated this enduring injury to the reputation of one of the greatest poets by one of the greatest
critics. In a note to the clause in Satire IX., Boileau says, "Un homme de qualité fit un jour ce beau
jugement en ma présence." So, because "a fool of quality" ("un sot de qualité," as he words it in the
verse) once happened to "say, in the hearing of a wit, that he preferred the "Gerusalemme" to the
"Æneid," "all Europe" has been made to "ring from side to side," for a century and a half, with the
clinquant of Tasso against the gold of Virgil.
[40]Milton, in the context, has manifestly imitated both Tasso and Fairfax;—Tasso in the description
of the angel's descent, and Fairfax in the lively circumstance here quoted, and which is not in the

original:—

"On Libanon at first his foot he set,
And shook his wings, with rory May dews wet."

The "fragrance" is Milton's own; and here we have the process of one thought, carried onward by
three poets, to consummate beauty and perfection in the last.
[41]Well might Collins, a kindred spirit, both in his powers of song and in his "moody madness,"
thus celebrate the great Italian, whose "Godfrey of Bulloigne" he only knew through Fairfax's
translation:—

——"In scenes, which, daring to depart
From sober truth, are still to nature true,
And call forth fresh delight to fancy's view,
The heroic muse employ'd her Tasso's art.
How have I trembled when, at Tancred's stroke,
Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd;
When each live plant with mortal accents spoke,
And the wild blast upheaved the vanish'd sword;
How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung!
Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung."

Ode on the Highland Superstitions.

CHIABRERA

1552-1637.

Gabbriello Chiabrera was born at Savona, a town on the sea-shore, not far
from Genoa, on the 8th of June, 1552. He was born fifteen days after his
father's death, and his mother, Gironima Murasana, being young when she
was left a widow, married again; which circumstance caused Chiabrera to
be brought up by an uncle and aunt, brother and sister to his father, who
were both unmarried. At the age of nine, his uncle, who resided at Rome,
took him thither, and gave him a private tutor, who taught him Latin. He
was twice during childhood assailed by dangerous fevers, which left him so

weak and spiritless, that his uncle placed him at the Jesuits' college, that he
might regain vigour and hilarity in the company of boys of his own age.
The experiment succeeded, and Chiabrera became robust and healthy to the
end of his long life. During his juvenile years, his application, memory, and
studious habits attracted the applause of his instructors; and the Jesuits were
desirous of inducing him to become one of them. The youth showed no
disinclination; but his uncle watched over him, and prevented that sacrifice
of liberty and independence, which would have rendered him miserable
through life. When he was twenty this good uncle died; but he had
emancipated himself from monkish influence, and after paying his relations
at Savona a short visit, he returned again to Rome, where coming
accidentally into contact with the cardinal Comaro Camerlingo, he entered
his service, in which he remained some years.
His residence at Rome, however, came to a disastrous termination: he was
insulted by a Roman gentleman, and being forced by the laws of honour to
avenge himself, the consequences obliged him to quit the city; nor was he
permitted to return till eight years after. He now took up his abode in his
native town, and grew to love the leisure and independence of his life. At
one time his tranquillity was disturbed by another quarrel, in which he was
wounded; but with his own hand, as he tells us, took his revenge. He was
forced, on this, to absent himself from Savona; and remained, as it were,
outlawed for several months, when at last a reconciliation being brought
about, he returned and enjoyed many years of complete tranquillity.
Chiabrera had been born rich, but he was negligent of his affairs, so that at
last his fortune was reduced to a mere competence; and this was at one time
even endangered by a lawsuit at Rome, all his property there being
confiscated; but it was returned to him, through the intervention of cardinal
Aldobrandini. At the age of fifty he married, but had no children. With the
few interruptions above recorded, he passed a life of peaceful leisure,
content with his fortunes, honoured and esteemed by every body, and
rendered happy by the exercise of his talents and imagination. While at
Rome in his early life, he had cultivated the friendship of literary men; and
during his leisure, on his return to Savona, he occupied himself by reading
poetry as a recreation. His own genius developed itself as he studied the
productions of others. The Greek poets particularly delighted him; and
perceiving how much they excelled all other writers, he made them his

study, till, his emulation being awakened, he wrote some odes in imitation
of Pindar: these being much admired, he was encouraged to continue, still
making the Greek lyrical poets his models, though he did not confine his
admiration to them only. Homer he preferred to all other writers; he was
charmed by the versification and imagery of Virgil; and appreciated in
Dante and Ariosto, the power which they possessed of felicitously
describing and representing the objects which they desire to bring before
their readers.[42]
Chiabrera had the ambition of forming a new style; as he expressed it, he
meant to follow the example of his countryman, Columbus, and to find a
new world, or be wrecked in the attempt. His wish was, to transfuse the
spirit of the Greeks into the Italian language. He perceived that the fault
common to the poets of his day, was a certain cowardice of style, and an
obedience to arbitrary laws, which limited and chilled the poetic fervour. He
shook off these trammels, and adopted every possible mode of versification,
and even bent the dialect of Petrarch and Tasso to new and unknown forms
of expression. He was no lover of rhyme, preferring to it a majestic
harmony in the arrangement of syllables and sound, which he found more
musical and expressive than the mere jingle of a concluding word. His style
thus became at once novel and exalted. He adorned his verses with
pompous epithets and majestic turns of expression: he was harmonious and
dignified, fervent and spirited.[43]
As he dedicated nearly the whole of his long life to the composition of
poetry, he has left a vast quantity, much of which has never been printed,—
narrative poems, dramas, odes, canzoni[44], sonnets, &c.; but his canzoni, or
lyrics, far excel all the rest. This results from his style being at once more
original and beautiful than his ideas. We are apt to say, as we read, we have
seen this before, but never so well expressed. He does not, like Petrarch,
anatomise his own feelings, and spend his heart in grief: even in his love
poetry, while he complains, he does not lament, and there is a sort of
laughing and vivacious grace and a liquid softness diffused over these
poems in particular, which is infinitely charming. One of his most
celebrated, beginning—

"Belle rose porporine,"

is in praise of his lady's smile. It is impossible for any thing to be more airy
and yet heartfelt—he speaks of how the earth is said to laugh, when, at the
morning hour, a rivulet or a breeze wanders murmuring amid the grass, or a
meadow adorns itself with flowers;—how the sea laughs, when a light
zephyr dips its airy feet in the clear waters, so that the waves scarcely play
upon the sands;—and how the heavens smile when morning comes forth,
amidst roseate and white flowers, adorned in a golden veil, and moving
along on sapphire wheels. "When the earth is happy," he says, "she laughs;
and the heavens laugh when they are gay: but neither can smile so sweetly
and gracefully as you." The flowing measure, the admirable selection and
position of the words render this and other similar poems models of lyrical
composition. A fairy-like colouring, and a thrilling sweetness, like the scent
of flowers, invest them, and render them peculiar in their aerial vivacity and
spirited flow.
These lighter and more animated productions have not been translated; but,
as a specimen of his more serious style, we select one of the epitaphs or
elegiac poems among those which Mr. Wordsworth has translated, with his
usual accuracy and force of diction:—

There never breathed a man who, when his life
Was closing, might hot of that life relate
Toils long and hard. The warrior will report
Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,
And blast of trumpets. He, who hath been doom'd
To bow his forehead in the court of kings,
Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,
Envy, and heart-inquietude, derived
From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.
I, who on shipboard lived from earliest youth,
Could represent the countenance horrible
Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage
Of Auster and Boötes. Forty years
Over the well-steer'd galleys did I rule:
From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars,
Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;
And the broad gulphs I traversed oft and oft;
Of every cloud which in the heavens might stir
I knew the force; and hence the rough sea's pride
Avail'd not to my vessel's overthrow.
What noble pomp, and frequent, have not I
On regal decks beheld! Yet in the end
I learn that one poor moment can suffice
To equalise the lofty and the low.
We sail the sea of life—a calm one finds,
And one a tempest—and, the voyage o'er,
Death is the quiet haven of us all.[45]

The tranquil life of Chiabrera was agreeably varied by his love, not exactly
of travelling, but of visiting the various cities of Italy, and by the honours
paid him by its princes, in recompence for his poetry, which was
enthusiastically admired by all his countrymen. He never made any long
stay away from home, except at Genoa and Florence, and there he
possessed friends who were glad to welcome him; for if he was of an
irascible, he was of a placable disposition, and though serious of aspect, he
was gay and good-humoured in society. The grand duke of Tuscany,

Ferdinand I., held him in high esteem, and employed him in arranging
various dramatic representations on the marriage of Mary de' Medici with
the king of France. Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, made him generous
offers of remuneration, if he would take up his abode at his court; but
Chiabrera wisely preferred his independence. It has been mentioned that he
arranged the interludes of a comedy of Guarini, when it was represented on
occasion of the marriage of the son of the duke of Mantua with a princess of
Savoy. All these princes rewarded him with gifts, or honours, which he
seems to have set a still higher value upon; lodging him in their palaces,
sending their carriages for his conveyance, and permitting him to remain
covered in their presence. He had been the intimate friend of cardinal
Barberini, and when the latter was created pope, under the name of Urban
VIII., Chiabrera often visited Rome, though he would never reside there;
and the pope made him priestly gifts of agnus dei and medallions, and in
the year of the jubilee wrote him a brief, or letter of compliment, similar to
those sent to sovereign princes and men of the highest rank.
Chiabrera was always an orthodox catholic, "a sinner," he expresses it, "but
not without Christian devotion. He had Santa Lucia for his advocate, and
during a space of sixty years, he never failed twice a day to devote himself
to pious thoughts, which continued uppermost in his mind all his life." His
moderate desires and temperate habits assisted to preserve him in
uninterrupted good health. He died at the advanced age of eighty-six, and
was buried in his own chapel in the church of San Giacomo.

[42]Vita di se stesso.
[43]Muratori.
[44]There is no English word that gives the exact idea of a canzone; we call such lyrical poems; yet
in Italian they form a class apart.
[45]Per il Signor Giambattista Feo.

Uomo non è, che pervenuto a morte
Non possa raccontar della sua vita
Lunghi travagli. Il cavalier di Marte
Dirà le piaghe, e lo splendor de' brandi,
Ed il suon delle trombe: il condannato,
Nelle gran Reggie, ad inchinar la fronte,
De' Re scettrati, narrerà le frodi,
Le lunghe invidie, ed i sofferti affanni
Infra le schiere de' bugiardi amici.
Io, che mi vissi in su spalmate prore,
Potrei rappresentar l' orribil faccia
Del mar irato, ed i rabbiosi sdegni
E d'Austro e di Boöte. Anni cinquanta
Commandai su galere a buon nocchieri:
Dal gran Peloro all' Atlantei colonne
Non sorge monte a gli occhi miei non noto,
E gli ampj golfi veleggiai più volte:
D' ogni nube, che in ciel fosse raccolta,
Seppi la forza, onde marino orgoglio
A' legni miei non valse fare oltraggio.
Che nobil pompa non mirai sovente
Su regie poppe? E pure io provo al fine,
Che le disuguaglianze un' ora adegua.
Tutti quaggiuso navighiamo in forse.
Altri ha tempesta, ed altri ha calma, e poscia
Nel porto della Morte ognun dà fondo.

TASSONI

1565-1635.

Alessandro Tassoni was born at Modena, in 1565, of a noble and ancient
family. He was so unfortunate as to lose both parents in early childhood;
nor had he any near relative to watch over his tender years and guard his
interests. In consequence, scarcely had he emerged from boyhood, than his
inheritance was attacked by lawsuits, and he was involved in the most
annoying struggles with private enemies, while long and painful illnesses
unfitted him to cope with these evils. Still a love of knowledge rose above
the multiplied disasters that beset him, and from his earliest years he was a

student. He learnt the Greek and Latin languages under Lazzaro Labadini, a
learned and worthy man, but somewhat of the Dominie Sampson species:
simple-hearted and abstracted, he was exposed to ridiculous mistakes; and
his pupil records in his celebrated poem, how, when a servant informed him
of the death of a cow, he sent to the apothecary's shop for drugs to cure her.
[46]
While yet under this master's tuition, he wrote a Latin poem named
Errico, which displayed an extraordinary smoothness of versification and
command of language. At the age of eighteen he took the degree of doctor
of laws, and in 1585 he entered the university of Bologna, where he
continued five years, applying himself to philosophy, under the most
celebrated masters. He afterwards studied jurisprudence at Ferrara, and
acquired a reputation for his learning and critical acumen.
It was not till past thirty years of age that he appears to have seriously
1597 entered on the task of bettering his moderate fortunes. He visited
.
Ætat
Rome, and entered the service of cardinal Colonna. He accompanied
. his patron to Spain, and two years after was sent by him to Rome, to
32. obtain permission from pope Clement VIII. to accept the viceroyalty
of Aragon. Succeeding in his mission, Tassoni returned to the cardinal. It
was during these journeys that he amused himself by composing his
"Considerations on Petrarch," which afterwards occasioned so much
controversy. The cardinal sent him again to Rome to manage his affairs
there; but a few years after, for some reason, with which we are
unacquainted, Tassoni quitted his service.
Restored to independence, he visited Naples, and then took up his abode at
Rome. He now published his "Considerations on Petrarch," and his
"Thoughts on various Subjects," which exposed him to the attacks of the
literati of Italy. Tassoni was of a bold and original turn of mind; he hated
literary prejudices, and loved to set himself against received opinions,
merely because they were supported by the greater number. Thus he
attacked Homer, Aristotle, and Petrarch. He was singularly acute in
discovering minor defects, and his sarcastic and witty talent rendered his
criticisms doubly poignant. He was attacked for his publications and he
replied with a mixture of humour and bitterness peculiarly galling.
He had thus become well known in Italy, when his reputation was raised to
its highest pinnacle by the "Secchia Rapita," or Stolen Bucket, a serio-
comic or mock-heroic poem, the first of the kind that had appeared. A work

of this nature is adapted only to the very region in which it is composed;
and even then, there are certain minds which never relish travesti. How
much more is Hudibras spoken of than read, and to how many, except in
select and peculiar passages, does it prove heavy and tedious. To an English
reader the "Secchia Rapita" must appear greatly inferior to the work of
Butler; it is coarser and more long-winded; besides that the rhymes, the
wrenching and transformation of language, the vulgarisms and idioms fall
coldly on the ears of those, who have not been habituated from infancy to
their use or abuse.
The "Secchia Rapita" is founded on those petty wars between two towns, so
common in Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries. The people of Modena had,
in 1325, discomfited the Bolognese at Zoppolino, and the vanquished fled
with such precipitation, that their pursuers entered their town with them.
The Modenese were driven out again, but carried off, as token of their
triumph, the bucket belonging to the public well of the city. The Bolognese
made an expedition to recover it, and this forms the basis of the poem. The
plebeian names of the "unwashed artificers" who compose the several
armies, their ridiculous proceedings, their combats, mocking those of belted
knights, are all infinitely relished by the Italians. Tassoni is praised also for
the various fancy he displays in individualising the combatants, their
combats, and the modes by which they die, as well as for the dignity with
which he invests the really noble personages who take a part in the warfare.
There are episodes also, some more dignified, others more burlesque even
than the main subject of the poem; the gods and goddesses take part, and
the kings of Naples and Savoy are brought in on either side. The chief satire
of the poem falls on an unfortunate count di Culagna, under which name
Tassoni held up to ridicule count Paolo Brusantini, a noble of Ferrara, who
had provoked him by instigating a violent and infamous attack on one of his
works. Tassoni was unable to avenge himself openly, as Brusantini was a
favourite of his prince, but vowed future vengeance, and writing to a friend
he exclaims, "If God lends me life, he shall learn, in one way or another,
that he has furnished a work to the devil." The count di Culagna falls in
love with the Amazon of the poem, and resolves to poison his wife: he
makes a confidant of one Titta, a Romagnole, a courtier of the papal court,
who was in fact the lover of the countess, and betrays to her the murderous
design. The lady accordingly deceives her husband, changes her soup plate
with him, and then flies to the tent of Titta. The count's physician, however,

who had been applied to for poison, has only furnished physic, and Culagna
recovers. He hears of the infidelity of his wife, and defies Titta to mortal
combat. Titta is not brave, but Culagna is trebly a coward. When his
challenge is accepted, he takes to his bed, makes his will, and declares that
he is going to die. His friends cannot inspire him with any valour, but his
doctor, by administering three or four large cups of wine, imparts the
necessary courage. The opponents meet; Titta's spear strikes the throat and
chest of the count, who falls to the ground, and is carried to his tent, to bed,
while Titta exults in his overthrow and death. The surgeon visits Culagna's
wound; but, to the surprise of all, the skin even is not scratched: "Yet I saw
something red," cries the count, "it was assuredly my blood!" On this they
examine him with more attention, and discover a red riband hanging from
his throat to his girdle. The blow of Titta disordering his dress, had exposed
this unfortunate silk of sanguineous hue to the eyes of the frightened
combatant, who at once believed that he had received a mortal wound.
Now, perceiving how he had been deceived, the count thanked God most
fervently, and, in his artless, pious gratitude, pardoned his friend and his
wife all the injuries they had done him. Such is the outline of the principal
episode of the "Secchia Rapita," which concludes by a peace brought about
by the pope's legate; the bucket remaining, however, with the Modenese;
and there it probably is to this day. Goldoni saw it, in 1730, suspended by
an iron chain from the belfry of the cathedral.
This poem was hailed with rapture, even in manuscript: for some time,
indeed, it was only known thus, and numerous copies were made at the
price of eight crowns each. As Tassoni had not spared his countrymen or his
contemporaries, great obstacles were thrown in the way of its publication;
and even when printed at Venice and Padua, no edition was really on sale
till 1622, when it was published at Paris, under the inspection of Marini.
Tassoni's slender fortunes meanwhile did not permit him to preserve his
independence: he accepted the offers of Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy;
but scarcely had he entered on his new service, than a series of persecutions
was commenced against him, which ended by his taking refuge in private
life. Again free from all slavery, disgusted by the inconstancy of men 1625
and the intrigues of courts, he took up his abode at Rome, where he .Ætat
had a house and vineyard, giving himself up to the enjoyment of .
solitude and study, and deriving his chief pleasure from hunting and 50.

the cultivation of flowers. Still he was not wholly weaned from the world,
nor content to be neglected: he said that he reminded himself of Fabricius
expecting the dictatorship; and to follow up this truly mock-heroic
similitude, he accepted the offer of cardinal Ludovisio, nephew of pope
Gregory XV., and entered his service, in which he remained till his patron's
death. He afterwards returned to his native town, and being taken into
favour by its reigning prince, he passed the remnant of his life prosperously,
under the shadow of that fame, which his works, his arduous studies, and
great talents caused to gather thick around him. After a few years spent in
peace and honour, he died on the 5th of April, 1635, in the seventy-first year
of his age.

[46]

La dove il Labadin, persona accorta,
Fe' il beverone alla sua vacca morta.

MARINI

1569-1625.

Giambattista Marini was born at Naples on the 18th of October, 1569. His
father, a celebrated jurisconsult, was desirous of bringing up his son to the
same profession; but the youth felt an unconquerable distaste to the career
of the law. Marini possessed a fervid and lively imagination, and a facility
in the composition of poetry which determined, without a question, his
destiny in life. There are many poets even, we may say, of a higher class
than Marini—many more sublime, more earnest, more pathetic—but, in his
degree, Marini is a genuine poet, and gave himself up with confidence and
ardour to the pursuit of that fame of which he reaped so large a harvest. His
father, angry at his resistance to his wishes, was doubly indignant when he
gave open testimony of his new career, and actually published a volume of

poetry: he turned him from his house, and refused to supply him with the
necessaries of life.
But Marini was born under a more fortunate star than usually smiles upon
men who give themselves to the fervent aspirations of genius. Amiable and
generous as he was, he did not possess that stern independence of
disposition, nor that self-engrossed intensity of feeling, which often render
poets an intractable race. Several noblemen stepped forward to assist and
1589 patronise the young adventurer in the groves of Parnassus. The duke
.
Ætat
of Bovino, the prince of Conca, and the marquess of Manso, the
. friend of Tasso, offered him protection and shelter. He became
20. acquainted with Tasso, who encouraged him to pursue his poetic
career; and he published his Canzoni de' Baci, which acquired for him a
great reputation.
He was concerned in some youthful scrapes; and having assisted a friend to
escape, who had been imprisoned on account of a love adventure, he was
himself thrown into a prison. He amused himself there by writing gay and
light-hearted verses; but soon after he escaped from confinement, and fled
to Rome, where he took up his abode with monsignore Crescenzi. With him
he visited Venice, but returned to Rome after a short absence, and entered
the service of cardinal Aldobrandini. At Venice he published a volume of
lyrical poetry, which established his fame.
Marini was always a popular man, and beloved and esteemed by his friends.
When Paul V. was created pope, his patron, cardinal Aldobrandini, was sent
as legate to Ravenna, and Marini accompanied him. He frequently visited
Venice and Bologna, and formed intimacies with the men of reputation and
talent residing in those cities. He was devoted to the cultivation of poetry;
and here he first conceived the idea of the "Adone." He accompanied the
cardinal to Turin, where Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, received him at
his court with the most flattering marks of distinction. Marini repaid him by
a panegyric, which he called "Il Ritratto" or the Portrait, and was rewarded
by the gift of a gold chain, and made cavalier of the order of Saints Maurice
and Lazarus. When cardinal Aldobrandini returned to Ravenna, the poet
was invited to remain at the Piedmontese court; and, with the consent of his
former patron, he accepted the offer.

Marini's life was chiefly diversified by literary quarrels, in which he came
off with his usual good fortune. He had already sustained several skirmishes
with various authors, when the most deadly war was declared against him
by Gasparo Murtola, a Genoese, and secretary to the duke. He believed
himself to be the first poet of the age, and was indignant at the favour
shown to Marini. He levelled an attack of epigrams and satirical sonnets
against him, which Marini answered, and was considered to have the best of
the battle: they published these collectively afterwards, under the title of the
Murtoleide and the Marineide: but Murtola, still more angry at the
advantages gained by his adversary in this paper hostility, took a more
injurious mode of showing his enmity: he shot at him as he was walking in
the public square, but, missing his aim, wounded a favourite of the duke
who was with him. Murtola was thrown into prison, and condemned to
death. Marini generously interceded in his favour, and at his solicitation he
was pardoned and liberated. Murtola, more angry and envious than ever,
brought forward a poem of his enemy, which satirised the duke of Savoy. In
vain Marini represented that this work had been written at Naples in his
youth, many years before. He was thrown into prison, nor liberated till the
marchese Manso sent his testimony of the truth of what he had declared, as
to the period of its composition. His tranquillity does not appear to have
suffered by this persecution. He continued to devote himself to learning and
poetry: he applied himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures and the
writings of the Fathers, and published his poem on the Murder of the
Innocents, which he considered his best production.
His fame, spread beyond the Alps, had induced queen Marguerite of France
to invite him to her court. Marini accepted her invitation; but by the time he
arrived in Paris his patroness had died. Queen Mary de' Medici stepped
forward, however, in her room, and the place of gentleman to the king, with
a pension of 2000 crowns, was bestowed on him. He became very popular
among the French nobility; many learnt Italian for the express purpose of
reading his works. He lived a happy and honourable life. His great pleasure
consisted in forming a valuable and extensive library, and collecting
pictures by the best artists. The queen showed him many marks of favour: if
she met him in the street, she was in the habit of stopping her carriage, for
the sake of conversing with him; and such generosity was shown him by
her, and his other noble patrons, that he was enabled to buy a villa near
Naples, on Mon Posilippo, whither he intended at some future time to retire,

and end his days. No doubt, in the chill climate of Paris, under the dusky
atmosphere of the north, his lively imagination recurred with yearning to
the beautiful and genial land of his nativity.
He published his "Adone" while at Paris. The popularity of this 1623
poem was extraordinary; nothing was spoken of but it and its author, .Ætat
and the rapid sale enriched Marini, though it also exposed him to .
much literary enmity, and the censures of the church. Italian critics 54.
have since become exceedingly indignant, and consider it the origin of the
false taste, the conceits, and flowery style of the seicentisti. But, while it
must be allowed that the imitators of Marini form a school of poetry
remarkable for its corrupt style, its mannerism, and false and metaphoric
imagery, it is impossible not to admit that the "Adone" itself is a work of
great beauty and imagination: it wants sublimity, and deep pathos and
masculine dignity; but its fancy, its descriptions, its didactic passages, are
animated by the undeniable spirit of poetry. Marini possessed an extreme
ease of versification, and a versatility and fecundity of style that carries the
reader along with it. The "Adone" is founded on the well-known
mythological story of Venus and Adonis. Cupid, having been chastised by
his goddess mother, in revenge, resolves to wreak on her the miseries of
love. He brings the son of Myrrha to the shores of Cyprus, and while the
Queen of Beauty is regarding the beautiful youth as he sleeps, her wily son
pierces her heart with his love-poisoned arrow. She falls in love on the
instant, and Adonis, on awakening, is not slow to return her passion. Venus
conducts him to her palace, where Cupid relates to him his adventures with
Psyche, and Mercury those of Narcissus, Hylas, Actæon, and other victims
of love. He is then led through the gardens of pleasure, into the tower of
delight; but the loves of the goddess and her favourite are interrupted by the
jealousy of Mars, and Adonis flies in alarm from the angry god. He falls
afterwards into the hands of a fairy, who imprisons and annoys him: he
escapes, and, after many wanderings and adventures, returns to Venus. It is
then that he departs on that fatal hunting expedition which brings on the
catastrophe. Mars and the malicious fairy unite in sending the hoar against
him, by which he is destroyed: his death—the grief of Venus—his interment
—and the combats with which the goddess celebrates his funeral, conclude
the poem. Its chief fault is, that it is terribly wiredrawn, even in the
particular descriptions; for as to the story itself, that forms but a slender
portion of the whole composition. Besides this, we are told that an allegory

of youth is contained in the temptations, pleasures, and fatal catastrophe of
the young lover; and this, as well as the unreal and fantastic nature of the
personages, deprives it of all vivid interest. It is far removed from the fire of
Ariosto, or the pathos and dignity of Tasso; still it is pleasing, varied, and
imaginative, and but for its length would to this day be a more general
favourite.
The cardinal Ludovisio, nephew of pope Gregory XV., earnestly entreated
Marini to forsake Paris and repair to Rome. The king and queen of France
permitted him to accept the invitation; and he returned to Italy, unterrified
by the accusation that hung over his head, on account of the licentiousness
of his work. He was received at Rome with enthusiasm, and his society was
courted by every person of distinction. Here, as elsewhere, however, he was
involved in literary squabbles; so that at last he resolved to retreat to the
home he had prepared for himself at Naples. The tribunal, meanwhile,
demanded alterations in his poem, accused of licentiousness and a tendency
to impiety. Two of his friends appeared to answer for him; but he permitted
two stanzas only to be altered. The poem of Marini is certainly in its very
texture soft, effeminate, and amorous; but there are no passages so
reprehensible as many in Ariosto: the "Orlando Furioso" was never
denounced; and it is singular that so pertinacious an outcry should have
been raised against the "Adone."
Its author, however, was not destined to suffer persecution, nor to enjoy his
success for any long time. Soon after his return to Naples, he established
himself at his delightful villa at Posilippo, where his life came to a sudden
close: he fell ill of a painful malady, and died on the 25th of March, 1625,
aged fifty-six. He was buried in the cloister of the Theatin Fathers, to whom
he had bequeathed his valuable library.

FILICAJA

1642-1707.

Vincenzo da Filicaja was born at Florence, on the 30th of December, 1642.
The families of both his parents were noble; his mother being the daughter
of Christofano Spini, one of the most distinguished families of Tuscany. His
father educated him with care, and he attended the public schools of
Florence. He gave early token of his literary and poetic genius: his memory
was tenacious, and his industry indefatigable; while the seriousness of his
disposition rendered retirement and study natural and easy to him.
Perceiving his inclination for learning, his father sent him to the university
of Pisa, to fit him for pursuing the legal profession. Filicaja attended the
lectures of the professors on this subject; yet he could not induce himself to
bestow his whole time on the law, but applied himself also to philosophy
and theology, and to the imbuing himself with a perfect knowledge of the
Latin and Italian languages. He was naturally inclined to piety, and spent
much of his time in prayer and devout exercises. His habits were regulated
by strict principles of morality; and so devoted was he to the cultivation of
his intellect, that he always rose two hours before dawn, finding his mind
clearer, and more capable of grappling with the abstruse subjects of his
contemplation, in the early hours of morning.
While yet a student at Pisa, when on a visit to his home during the vacation,
he fell in love; and his poetic talent first developed itself in verses addressed
to the beautiful and noble girl who was the object of his affection. She died
soon after, and he lamented her death in poetry; but the exact moral
discipline to which he subjected his inclinations reproached him for giving
himself up to the influence of passion; and he burnt all his love poetry, and
made a resolution, which he kept to the end of his life, of dedicating his
genius to the celebration only of moral and sacred subjects.
After a residence of five years at Pisa, having taken the degree of doctor of
laws, he returned to Florence, and was placed under Giovanni Federighi, a
jurisconsult of eminence, that he might add to his theoretical, a practical
knowledge of law. At the age of thirty-two, he married Anna, the daughter
of the marchese Capponi. Soon after his father died; and, freed from all
restraint, he followed the bent of his disposition, by retiring into the
country, where he spent the greater part of each year in domestic retirement,
devoting himself to the education of his two sons.
Hitherto his poetic merits were unknown beyond the limits of a small circle
of friends; but public events called his genius to higher flights. The Turkish

army overrunning Hungary, laid siege to Vienna, and filled Christendom
with alarm. The enthusiastic piety of Filicaja added to the natural
disquietude inspired by such a disaster; and while the fate of the war was in
suspense, and afterwards, when victory drove the infidels from the gates of
the capital of Austria, he poured out his terrors and his exulting triumph in
odes, which breathe a pure and elevated lyric spirit.
At the time when he wrote, Italian poetry had received a check from that
unfortunate propensity men have to shackle the free course of genius by
rules and precedent. There was a distinction made between the poetic and
prosaic style; the former was founded upon Petrarch, and it became a law to
use no expressions but such as had his authority. The language of Italian
verse was thus becoming, as it were, a dead idiom; repeating itself, and
incapable of any original expressions. Filicaja disdained these shackles, and
revivified his poetic diction by transfusing into it many elevated and
energetic modes of speech, hitherto reserved for prose only. Facility,
dignity, and clearness are his characteristics; and the grandeur of his ideas
gives force to the originality of his expressions; which, emanating
spontaneously, as they did, from a mind full of his subject, found an echo in
the hearts of his readers.
His friends alone had hitherto been aware of his talent; but the enthusiasm
they felt on reading these spirited odes led them to give copies; and they got
into the hands of those princes who, as the leaders of the armies against the
Turks, were celebrated in them. One of his finest odes he had addressed to
John, king of Poland; who acknowledged the honour in letters full of
praises and thanks. Christina, queen of Sweden, displayed in a more kind
and liberal manner her admiration: hearing that Filicaja had two sons, she
insisted upon providing for their education; declaring that she would bring
them up as her own children. She showed herself so generous, that the poet
was accustomed to say, that he could not look on his home and family
without perceiving the marks of her favour. While her modesty was such,
that she insisted that her bounty should be kept a secret; declaring she was
ashamed it should be known that she did so little for a man, whom she
esteemed so much; and her benevolence remained unknown till after her
death. Filicaja's life was not, however, wholly prosperous: on the death of
Christina, he became involved in pecuniary embarrassments, and he was
attacked by a dangerous malady. He lost, also, his eldest son, who, since the

queen's death, had been appointed page of honour to the grand duke of
Tuscany. The high opinion entertained of him by Cosmo III. extricated him
from a part of his difficulties. This prince named him to the command of the
city of Volterra. Ancient feuds and old and almost irremediable abuses of
various kinds, afflicted the town; and it required all the influence which
Filicaja obtained by his justice, his benevolence, and urbanity to put an end
to these evils. Volterra enjoyed tranquillity and plenty under his direction;
trade and the arts flourished; and this venerable city was restored to a
portion of its former splendour: he thus became so dear to the citizens, that
they twice petitioned the grand duke to continue him in the government.
Their request was accorded; and when, at last, he was recalled, he carried
with him the universal regret.
On his removal from Volterra, he was, for two years, governor of Pisa,—a
situation of high trust. On his return to Florence, he filled several law
offices of great power and emolument. He was popular and beloved
throughout: equitable, but benevolent; diligent and conscientious, his
virtues were adorned by his pleasing and affable manners. His piety caused
him to devote much of his leisure to devotional exercises; and his taste led
him to cultivate poetry. His industrious habits enabled him to compose a
great deal when his time was otherwise much taken up by his public duties.
He wrote much in Latin, a small portion only of which has been published;
and it displays a deep knowledge and command of that language. He
employed himself also in correcting and adding to his Italian poetry. He was
a severe critic on his own works; and yet, mistrusting his judgment, he
submitted them to the further censorship of four selected friends. He was
much beloved, as well as admired, by all who knew him; and belonged to
the Della Crusca academy, and to the Arcadian,—of both of which he was
the brightest ornament. His last work was an "Ode to the Virgin," which
occupied him but a few days before his death. Filicaja was not only devout,
but a rigid catholic. One of the acts of his life previous to entering on a new
career, had been a pilgrimage to Loretto; and, in his dying moments, a
picture of the Virgin excited his pious and poetic thoughts. There is great
spirit and sweetness in this ode, in which he recurs to the love of his earlier
days; and how, on losing the object, he transferred his devotion, entire and
for ever, to the mother of his Saviour.

While thus employed, he was seized by an inflammation of his lungs. His
religious faith supported him in his sufferings, and did not forsake him to
the last. He died on the 24th of September, 1707, at the age of sixty-five. He
was buried in his family tomb in the church of San Piero, at Florence.

METASTASIO

1698-1782.

Metastasio was of obscure origin. He owed his prosperity, in the first place,
to the talents with which nature had endowed him; and, in the second, to
singular good fortune; while his amiable disposition and excellent character
gave a scope to the course of felicitous circumstances; which, among men
of genius, is frequently checked by their impetuosity and thoughtlessness,
or by the proud sense of independence attendant upon their organisation.
The name of the poet's father was Felice Trapassi, a citizen of Assisi. His
poverty had forced him to enter into the Corsican regiment of the pope; and
he added to his slender means by acting as copyist. He married Francesca
Galasti, of Bologna; by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Later in
life, he saved money enough to enter into partnership in a shop of l'arte
bianca,—a sort of chandler, where maccaroni, oil, and other culinary
materials, are sold. His younger son, Pietro, was born at Rome, on the 13th
of January, 1698. The child gave early indications of genius; and his father
resolved to bestow on him the best education in his power; and placed him,
at a very early age, with a watchmaker, that he might learn a respectable art.
But the boy was born to pursue a nobler career. He was already a poet; and,
when only ten years old, attracted an audience in his father's shop by his
talents as improvisatore. It happened, one summer evening, that Vincenzo
Gravina, a celebrated jurisconsult, and renowned for his learning and love
of letters, was walking with the poet Lorenzini in the streets of Rome.
Passing by Trapassi's shop, he was attracted by the childish voice of the
juvenile poet, who was in the act of reciting extempore verses. He joined
the audience; and, being perceived by Pietro, the little fellow introduced

some stanzas in his praise into his effusion. Gravina, charmed by his talent
and prepossessing appearance, offered him money, which the child refused.
The lawyer continued to question him, and was so satisfied by the propriety
and spirit of his answers, that he immediately proposed to adopt him as his
son; promising to give him a good education, and to facilitate his career in
the same profession as himself. No objection could be raised to so generous
and beneficent an offer. The boy was not to be taken from his native town,
nor were his duties towards his parents to be interfered with.
One of Gravina's first acts was to change his adopted son's, name from the
ignoble one of Trapassi to the better sounding appellation of Metastasio,
which was a sort of translation of his paternal name into Greek. Gravina did
not delay to cultivate the boy's understanding, so as to fit him for a literary
career. Being an idolater of ancient learning, his first care was to initiate his
pupil in the languages of the writers of Greece and Rome, and then to
imbue him with a knowledge of their works. Metastasio showed himself an
apt scholar: at the age of fourteen he wrote a tragedy, which, in a letter
written in after years, he freely criticised. "My tragedy of 'Giustino,'" he
says, "was written at the age of fourteen, when the authority of my
illustrious master did not permit me to diverge from a religious imitation of
the Greek models; and when my own inexperience prevented me from
discerning the gold from the lead in those mines whose treasures were but
just opened to me." The tragedy, written thus in strict imitation, is
necessarily frigid; nor does the language bear the stamp of the ease and
grace which so distinguished Metastasio's after writings.
He still continued to improvisare verses in company. This attractive art
renders the person who exercises it the object of so much interest and
admiration, that it is to be wondered that any one who has once practised it,
can ever give it up. The act of reciting the poetry that flows immediately to
the lips is peculiarly animating: the declaimer warms, as he proceeds, with
his own success; while the throng of words and ideas that present
themselves, light up the eyes, and give an air of almost supernatural
intelligence and fire to the countenance and person. The audience—at first
curious, then pleased, and, at last, carried away by enthusiastic delight—
feel an admiration, and bestow plaudits, which, perhaps, no other display of
human talent is capable of exciting. The youth, the harmonious voice, and
agreeable person of Metastasio added to the charm: yet, fortunately, he gave

up the exercise of his power before it had unfitted him for more arduous
compositions. He gives an account of his success, and his quitting the
practice, in a subsequent letter to Algarotti. "I do not deny," he writes, "that
a natural talent for harmony and rhythm displayed itself in me earlier than is
usually the case; that is, when I was about ten years of age. This strange
phenomenon so dazzled my great master. Gravina, that he selected me as
soil worthy to be cultivated by so celebrated a man. Until I was sixteen, he
brought me forward to improvisare verses on any given subject; and Rolli,
Vanini, and Perfetti, then men of mature years, were my rivals. Many
people tried to write down our effusions while we extemporised, but with
no success; for, besides that they were no adepts in short-hand, it was
necessary to deceive us cleverly, otherwise the mere suspicion of such an
operation would have dried up my vein. This occupation soon became
burdensome and injurious to me; burdensome, because I was perpetually
obliged, by invitations which could not be refused, to task myself every day,
and sometimes twice a day,—now to gratify some lady's whim, now to
satisfy the curiosity of some high-born fool, and now to fill up a blank in
some grand assembly,—losing thus miserably the greater part of the time
necessary for my studies. It was injurious, because my weak and uncertain
health suffered. It was perceptible to every one that the agitation attendant
on this exercise of the mind, used to inflame my countenance and heat my
head, while my hands and extremities became icy cold. Gravina
consequently exerted his authority to prohibit me from making extempore
verses,—a prohibition which, from the age of sixteen, I have never
infringed, and to which I believe that I owe the remnant of reasonable and
connected ideas that are to be found in my waitings." He goes on to state
the evils that result to the intellect perpetually bent on so exciting a
proceeding; when the poet, instead of selecting and arranging his thoughts,
and then using measure and rhyme as obedient executors of his designs, is
obliged to employ the small time allowed him in collecting words, in which
he afterwards clothes the ideas best fitted to these words, even though
foreign to his theme: thus the former seeks at his ease for a dress fitted to
his subject; while the latter, in haste and disturbance, must find a subject
fitted to his dress.
On withdrawing his pupil from the exercise of this fascinating art. Gravina
became aware that his education could not be carried on with success
amidst the pleasures and idleness of his life at Rome; and he sent him to

study under his cousin Camporese, who lived near the ancient Cortona, a
town of Magna Græcia, famous in antiquity for its schools of philosophy.
Metastasio was very happy at this period of his life; and, in a letter written
at an advanced age, he recurs to it with yearning fondness. "Of how many
dear and pleasing ideas, my friend," he writes to Don Saverio Mattei, "you
have awakened the recollection, by causing me to go over in my thoughts
the happy time I spent, not less usefully than delightfully, between boyhood
and adolescence, in Magna Græcia. I saw again as if they were present all
those objects which pleased me so much at that time. Again I inhabited the
little chamber, in which the sound of the breakers of the neighbouring sea
so often lulled me into the sweetest sleep; and, by force of my imagination,
I revisited in my boat the shores of neighbouring Scalea; and the names and
aspects of many places recurred to me, before forgotten. I heard again the
venerable voice of the renowned philosopher Camporese; who, stooping to
instruct one so young, led me, as it were, by the hand among the vortexes of
the then reigning Descartes, of whom he was a strenuous advocate, and
attracted my boyish curiosity, by showing me in wax, as if in a game, how
globules were formed from atoms, and filling me with admiration of the
bewitching experiments of philosophy. It seems to me as if I again saw him
labouring to persuade me that his dog was formed upon the same principle
as a watch; and that the trinal dimension is a sufficient definition of solid
bodies. And I behold him smile, when, having kept me long plunged in a
dark reverie, by forcing me to doubt of every thing, he perceived that I
breathed again, on his assertion, 'I think, therefore, I am;' the invincible
proof of a certainty which I had despaired of ever again attaining."
Camporese died, unfortunately, in the midst of these studies, and Metastasio
returned to Rome.
It was soon after his lot to lose his adopted father, Gravina. He 1718
expresses, both in letters written at the time, and in after years, his .Ætat
deep grief on the death of his benefactor. Gravina kept his word, of .
considering him as his son; and, with the exception of a legacy to his 20.
mother, left him heir to all that he possessed, to the amount of about fifteen
thousand crowns. Finding himself thus independent, and even rich in his
own eyes, Metastasio gave himself up to the study of poetry. Hitherto the
rules of Gravina had limited his reading: now he emerged into freedom;
and, having been before allowed only to peruse Ariosto, among the Italians,
he read the "Jerusalem Delivered" for the first time. He was enchanted by

the order and majesty of a single action, conducted with art, and terminated
with dignity. The grandeur of the style, the vivid colouring and fervid
imagination of Tasso, transported him with delight. Ovid was also an
especial favourite; and it is recorded that he regarded Marini with an
approbation which that poet, indeed, deserves, but of which, as the original
corrupter of the Italian style, and the leader of the degenerate Seicentisti, he
is usually deprived.
Unfortunately, independence and youthful thoughtlessness led Metastasio
into other deviations from Gravina's lessons, less praiseworthy than reading
Tasso. The poet was warm-hearted, hospitable, and gay. He was surrounded
by companions ready to share the pleasures and luxuries which his money
procured; while he believed his future prospects secured by the promises he
received from influential protectors. Two years had not passed before he
was undeceived. He had squandered the greater part of his fortune; he had
made many enemies, and his friends fell off. With a firmness worthy of his
education, he stopped short of actual ruin; and, disgusted with the society of
Rome, and the treatment he had suffered, he changed, on a sudden, his
whole plan of life, following up his new designs with zeal and
perseverance.
"There lived at Naples," says his biographer, Venanzio, "a rough incult
lawyer, called Castagnola, covered with rust and dust, and an enemy to
every thing that was not allied to forensic struggles and turmoils." Wishing
to place a barrier between his will and his inclinations, Metastasio went to
Naples, and chose this man for his master, believing that his asperity and
detestation of poetry would serve to guard him against having again
recourse to an art towards which nature impelled him. For nearly two years
he submitted to the control of Castagnola, and devoted himself to the
severest study. But he was well known at Naples, and his talents were
appreciated. He was perpetually solicited to compose epithalamiums,
theatrical pieces, and occasional verses. He resisted the temptation as long
as he could: at last, commanded by the viceroy, he consented to write a
drama, to celebrate the birthday of the empress Elizabeth Christina, wife of
Charles VI. He, however, obtained a promise of secrecy, and hoped to
conceal his crime from his master. To accomplish this, he was obliged to
steal for his work the hours usually devoted to sleep; but his natural vein,
checked for some time, flowed with such felicity, that he accomplished his

task before the appointed time. The "Orti Esperidi" charmed his august
employer, who bestowed on it the highest praise, and presented the author
with a purse containing two hundred ducats.
The success of this interlude on the stage confirmed the judgment of the
viceroy. It was admirably set to music, and the decorations were most
splendid. All Naples flocked to the representation—all Naples resounded
with its praises, and every one was eager to thank and applaud the author.
But Metastasio, reluctant to quit his legal studies, shrank from the censures
of his master, and continued to preserve the concealment he had at first
adopted: he even angrily denied the charge when he was accused of being
the writer, and put enquiry to fault; till at last the discovery was made by the
prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, usually called La Romanina, from her
native city. She had received the greatest applause in the character of Venus,
in this drama; and her gratitude and admiration made her eager to learn to
whom she owed her success. Despite all his efforts, she discovered that
Metastasio was the author, and she lost no time in spreading the report
throughout Naples.
Castagnola was highly indignant. He treated his pupil with severity and
disdain; while, on the other hand, the Romanina used every argument to
inspire him with self-confidence, and to induce him to follow the career for
which he was formed by nature. He consented at last: he quitted the angry
lawyer, who refused even to listen to his farewell; and, at the earnest
invitation of his new friend, took up his abode at her house. Marianna
Bulgarelli had a society around her of distinguished men and accomplished
artists, and among these Metastasio found every encouragement to pursue
his new career. He studied the science of music under Porpora, the first
composer of the day, and acquired a knowledge of the art which greatly
assisted the melody of his verses; so that, he tells us, he never wrote any
lyrical poetry without imagining an accompaniment at the same time, which
regulated its cadences and modulated the sounds. His natural inclination led
him to desire to write tragedies; but, on reflection, he found that it was not
sufficient that tragedies should be written, if there were no actors to
represent them, nor an audience which could take interest in the
representation. His association with musical people, and a prima donna, led
him to consider the opera as the natural drama of Italy. Operatic dramas
owed their origin to Florence, the birthplace of so much that is great and

admirable, and were first brought forward in 1594. After that time they fell
into disrepute, till Apostolo Zeno, choosing in ancient mythology and
history the groundwork of his plots, brought out pieces that acquired great
popularity. To this species of composition Metastasio accordingly turned his
thoughts. Marianna encouraged him to proceed; and, when he received the
commission to furnish the Neapolitan theatre with an opera for the carnival
of 1724, she suggested the subject of "Didone Abbandonata," or the
desertion of Dido. In this, she filled the part of the unfortunate queen; and
her dignity, pathos, and musical powers imparted an attraction to the piece,
which filled the audience with enthusiasm, while her heart warmed with
gratitude towards the poet, whose admirable conception and execution gave
a scope to her talents, before denied to them. The reputation of Dido spread
through Italy: during the carnival of the following year, it was acted at
Venice, la Romanina being still engaged to fill the principal part. Metastasio
accompanied his friend, and wrote, while in that city, another opera, called
"Siroe."
This was the last appearance of Marianna on the stage: she was no longer
young, and retired from her profession. She took up her residence at Rome,
and with some difficulty persuaded her friend to return to his native city.
The two families resided under the same roof—Marianna and her husband
—Metastasio with his father, elder brother, and two sisters. The relations of
the poet were indigent; but he possessed some property, and his friend was
comparatively rich. The household was in common; Marianna acting as
steward and housekeeper, while she still kept her station beside the poet;
encouraging him in moments of despondency; suggesting subjects for his
muse; and displaying, at all times, that active and generous affection which
so distinguished her.
Metastasio did not, however, meet with the encouragement at Rome which
hailed his first exertions. He wrote his drama of "Cato," which was acted in
1727: but it was not attended with his accustomed success. The austere
character of the Roman hero—the cold loves—and disastrous ending—
displeased the morbid tastes of the spectators, who were unable to
appreciate the simplicity of the plot, or the grandeur of the sentiments.
Metastasio had a true tragic bias for an unhappy catastrophe; but his
audience did not relish it, and, subsequently, he adapted himself better to
their tastes, and his operas have usually the happy ending, then supposed

more consonant to the inherent lightness of musical dramas, or, probably, to
the talents of the singers: as, in our days, the sublime acting of Pasta has
induced composers to bring forward tragedies of the deepest dye, "Medea"
and "Otello," as the subjects best fitted for their art.
Metastasio was discouraged: he was poor, and he had many enemies at
Rome, who prejudiced the pope against him, and rendered his abode very
disagreeable. At this moment, fortune came to his aid, and his whole future
life became prosperous and stable. In November, 1729, he received a letter
from prince Pio of Savoy, director of the imperial theatricals, inviting him
to become the court poet of Vienna. Apostolo Zeno was at that time poet
laureate to the emperor Charles VI.; but he also, with praiseworthy
liberality, seconded the emperor in his wish to invite Metastasio to his
court; and the way was opened to him by the absence of envy in one, who
might have looked on him as a rival, but who generously preferred
regarding him as a fellow-labourer, or rather, successor, to his own
exertions. Metastasio at once accepted the offer with many expressions of
gratitude. He was allowed to delay his journey to Vienna till the spring of
1730, and to fulfil his engagement of supplying the Roman theatre with two
pieces for the carnival. These were "Alexander in India," and "Artaxerxes."
The latter was a favourite from the first: the poet considered it the most
fortunate of his productions, and was accustomed to say that he owed it
more obligations than any other of his dramas; since, even when set to
indifferent music, it never failed to meet with success.
Metastasio thus made his appearance at Vienna, surrounded by the halo of a
recent triumph. He left Rome with pleasure; but he quitted his family with
regret: more than all he must have lamented his separation from his
generous and affectionate friend, Marianna, the encourager of his youthful
timidity, the chief promoter of his fortunate choice of a profession, and his
unwearied comforter during adverse circumstances. He went to new scenes
and to a new people, and adapted himself at once to the change. He was
kindly received by the emperor, and his heart overflowed with gratitude for
his condescension and beneficence.
It is a strange fact, how little we are contented with negative qualities in our
fellow-creatures; and, indeed, how amiability, and even generosity, become
slight in our eyes, if unaccompanied by energy, independence, and pride.
Metastasio was the most amiable of men: his disposition was affectionate

and constant; yet he was derided in his own time for his courtier-like
qualities, and the gratitude he naturally evinced towards his imperial
benefactors; and censured for a coldness of heart of which we can find no
trace in his writings or actions. There is one circumstance that renders
posterity more just, and, in particular, induces those who write his
biography to regard him with a favourable eye: this is the publication of his
letters. We possess a series from the age of thirty to that of eighty-four,
when he died, which let us into the secrets of his heart, and display his good
sense, his friendly disposition, his justice, and the ready sympathy that he
afforded to those to whom he was attached, in a more undisguised manner
than could be known to his contemporaries. These letters prepossess the
reader in his favour; and, while the biographer finds few events to record,
and little of misfortune or error to mark his pages with high-wrought
interest, he may envy the tranquil career of the fortunate poet, and wish that
fate had made him the friend of such a man.
Metastasio entered on his employments at Vienna in the year 1730, at the
age of thirty-two. He took up his abode in the house of Niccolo Martinetz,
who held a place in the court of the apostolic nuncio, and with whom he
remained to the end of his life. The dramas that he brought out during the
year succeeding to his arrival were eminently successful. These were
"Adriano," and "Demetrio;" and, during the three following, he wrote the
"Olimpiade," "Demoofonte," and "Issipile." Each, as it appeared, excited
still renewed admiration and applause. After the representation of "Issipile,"
the emperor broke through his habitual majestic reserve, and expressed his
satisfaction to the poet, who was enraptured by the unusual condescension.
His imperial master soon after testified his approbation in a more solid
manner, by bestowing on him the place of treasurer to the province of
Cosenza in Naples, worth annually 350 sequins. Unfortunately, the war of
the Spanish succession deprived him of this income, after he had enjoyed it
but for a few years.
The poet's heart and soul were in his profession, and his operas were written
with that fervent and exalted spirit which marks the compositions of genius;
while his modesty engendered doubts concerning their reception, which
were delightfully dissipated by the triumph of their success. His feelings are
all ingenuously expressed in his letters to Marianna Bulgarelli, who,
together with her husband, still remained at Rome with the poet's family. "I

did not believe," he writes, "that I should have been able to send you the
good news I now give—I was so entirely prepared for the contrary. My
Demetrio was brought out last Sunday, and with so great success, that the
old people here assure me they never witnessed such universal applause.
The audience wept at the Addio—my august master was not unmoved—
and, notwithstanding the respect paid to the imperial presence, the public
could not restrain themselves from giving marks of applause. My enemies
have become my applauders. I cannot express my surprise, for this opera is
so delicately touched, without any of that strong colouring that strikes at
once, that I feared that it was not adapted to the national taste. I was
mistaken—every one seems to understand it, and passages are recited in
conversation, as if it were written in German." While composing the
"Olimpiade," he thus addresses his friend:—"Here is a moral sonnet which I
wrote in the midst of a pathetic scene, that moved me as I wrote it: so that,
smiling at myself, when I found my eyes humid from pity at a fictitious
disaster, invented by myself, I expressed my feelings in the sonnet I send.
The idea does not displease me; and I did not choose to lose it, as it will
serve as an incitement for my piety." The thought of the sonnet is, that,
while he smiles at himself for weeping over dreams and fables of his own
invention, he may remember that every thing that he fears and hopes is
equally fictitious,—that all is false, his existence a delirium, and his whole
life a dream;—and it ends with a prayer that he may awaken and find
repose in the bosom of truth.
Again, he writes, "Will you suggest the subject of an opera? Yes or no? I am
in an abyss of doubt. Oh! do not laugh, and say that the disease is incurable;
for indeed; the choice of a subject merits all this inquietude and scepticism.
It is my lot to be forced to make a choice; and I cannot avoid it; otherwise I
should continue to doubt until the day of judgment; and then begin again.
Read the third scene of the third act of my 'Adrian;' remark the character
which the emperor gives of himself, and you will see my own.[47] From this
you may conclude; that I know my faults; but not that I can correct them.
This pertinacity in a fault; which torments me without the recompence of
any pleasure; and which I clearly perceive; without being able to remedy;
makes me often reflect on the tyranny which the body exercises over the
mind. If my understanding is convinced, when reasoning calmly, that this
excess of indecision is a troublesome, tormenting, and useless vice, and an
obstacle to the execution of any design, why do I not get rid of it? Why not

abide by a resolution, so often taken, to doubt no more? The answer is clear;
that the mechanical constitution of the soul's imperfect habitation gives a
false colouring to objects before they reach it, as rays of the sun appear
yellow or green or red, according to the hue of the substance which they
traverse to meet our eyes. Hence it is clear, that men for the most part do
not act from reason, but from mechanical impulse, subsequently adapting,
by the force of their understanding, their reason to their actions, so that the
cleverest frequently appear the most reasonable. Do not get weary, because
I play the philosopher with you; I have none else with whom to play it; and
doing it thus by letter, I call to mind conversations of this kind, which made
us spend so many happy hours together.—O, how much more matter for
July such has my experience in the world given me! We will again talk on
4.
1733
these subjects, if fortune does not, through some caprice, entangle
. the thread of my honourable but laborious life."
A few months after fortune cut, rather than entangled, the thread of these
prospects; Marianna died, and, true to her feelings of friendship[48] to the
end, she left the poet heir to her possessions, to the amount of thirty
thousand crowns. Metastasio writes thus to his brother, on receiving this sad
intelligence:—
"In the agitation I feel from the unexpected death of the poor and generous
Marianna, I cannot long dilate. I can only say, that my honour and my
conscience have both induced me to renounce her bequest in favour of her
husband. I owe it to the world to undeceive it from a great mistake,—that of
fancying that my friendship was founded on avarice and interested motives.
I have no right to take advantage of the partiality of my poor friend to the
injury of her husband, and God will by some other means make up for what
I now renounce. I need nothing for myself; I possess sufficient at Rome to
maintain my family in decency, and if Providence preserves to me my
property in Naples, I will give my relations other marks of my affection,
and think seriously of you in particular. Communicate my resolution to my
father, as I have not time to write to him. Assure him of my intention
always to contribute as heretofore to his comfort, and even to increase my
assistance, if my Neapolitan income does not fail me. In short, make him
enter into my feelings, so that he shall not imbitter them by disapproving of
my honest and Christian determination.

"You will continue to live with signor Bulgarelli, who will, I hope, display
towards you that friendly kindness which my conduct with regard to him
deserves. All will go on as before; only poor Marianna will never return,
nor can I hope for any consolation, and the rest of my life will be insipid
and painful."
"I feel," he wrote to another friend on this occasion, "as if I were in the
world as in an unpeopled solitude; desolate as a man would feel, if,
transported in his sleep among the Chinese or Tartars, he should, on
awakening, find himself among a people whose language, manners, and
customs are alike unknown to him. In the midst of such fancies, so much
reason remains, as permits me to be aware how without foundation they are,
and how produced; but reflection has not yet sufficed to dissipate them. You
will have heard that I have renounced the bequest. I know not whether this
renunciation will be approved of by all, but I know that neither my honour
nor my conscience permit me to take advantage of the excessive partiality
of a woman to the injury of her relations, and that the want of the riches
which I refuse, is more tolerable than the shame which they would produce
in me."
Metastasio was, with his accustomed modesty, disturbed by the fear, lest his
honourable conduct would be disapproved of by his friends and the world;
and he was agreeably surprised when, on the contrary, it met with the
general approbation it deserved. "I should be insincere," he writes to the
same friend, "if, affecting philosophy, I pretended to be annoyed by the kind
approval which my country has universally yielded to my renunciation of
Marianna's bequest. It delights me in the first place, and like a vow,
confirms me in my opinion of the justice of the act; and in the second, it
surprises me, as being the testimony of the affection of so great a mother for
the least of her sons."
This, during the space of ten years, from the time of his first arrival in
Vienna, was the only event that disturbed Metastasio's life. These ten years
are the period during which his poetic powers flourished most vigorously,
and during which his best as well as the greater number of his works were
produced. The favour they met confirmed his situation at court, while they
caused him to labour unintermittingly. It is difficult to give one not versed
in the Italian language a correct idea of the peculiar merits of his poetry, and
the excellences of his dramas. They are not absolute tragedies: their happy

conclusions, the introduction of airs, and their being compressed into three
acts, give them a lightness and a brevity unlike the heavier march of
tragedy. They are to a great degree ideal, and yet possess the interest which
passion and plot, described and developed with masterly skill, necessarily
impart. His command of language is singularly great, and he adapted poetic
diction to dramatic dialogue with wonderful felicity. A long and profound
study of the genius of his native tongue gave him such extreme facility, that
the perfection of art takes the guise of the most unadorned nature; and the
flow and clearness of his verses so excite our sympathy, as to make us feel
as if the thoughts and sentiments which we find in his pages were the
spontaneous growth of our own minds. The magic of his style renders
sensible and distinct the most delicate and evanescent feelings, so that it has
been remarked[49], that many of the movements of the human soul, which
the ablest writers have scarcely been able to indicate in prose, and which,
from their subtlety, are almost hidden from our consciousness, are brought
home to us in his verses with a lucid felicity of expression, that leaves no
portion of them either obscure or vague. He thus formed a language
peculiarly his own. In his airs the words flow in so unforced a manner and
with such extreme propriety, that they appear to place themselves: not one
can be changed, not one omitted. There is no pedantry, no affectation;
simplicity is his principal charm; it seems as if a child might utter them,—
they are so unstudied; and yet no other poet possesses to an equal degree
the art of clothing his ideas with the same easy grace.
When we reflect on the singular perfection of his style, we are not surprised
that he preserved it with the most jealous watchfulness. He was careful not
to accustom his mind to the use of any language except Italian, and never
knew more of German than the few words "sufficient," as he forcibly
expresses it, "to save his life." Many nobles of Vienna paid him the
compliment of learning his language for the sake of conversing with him,
and Italian being in common use among the well-educated, he did not lose
so much as might be expected: yet he must have felt the privation. He was
right, however, in adhering to his resolution. He was settled at Vienna for
life, while at the same time his present occupation and his future glory
depended on his preserving uninjured that delicacy of taste, and felicity of
expression in his native language, which characterises his compositions.
But to return to his operas.

He himself has said, that if he were forced to select one of his dramas to be
preserved, while all the rest were annihilated, he should fix upon "Attilio
Regulo." The principal action of this play, founded on the well-known
heroism of Regulus, in dissuading his countrymen from an exchange of
prisoners, and his consequent return to servitude and a cruel death in
Carthage, is conducted with dignity and pathos. But the interest of the piece
is somewhat marred by an underplot, and the airs interspersed are not
among his best. Perhaps we are inclined to give the preference among them
to "Themistocles:" the dignity of the subject raises it to this pre-eminence;
but in pathos, tenderness, and impassioned dialogue, the "Olimpiade" is
unequalled. Devoted friendship forms the action; the personages are placed
in the most interesting situations, and the language is sustained to the height
of those emotions which the clash of heroic feelings would inspire. There
are scenes in "Demofoonte" as fine as any to be found in Metastasio, but
there is a reduplication of plot which mars the unity of the action; as, after
deeply sympathising with the hero in his fears concerning his wife's fate,
through nearly four acts, we are somewhat exhausted, and cannot well
reawaken other sentiments, to mourn over the relationship that he imagines
that he has discovered to exist between them. Voltaire and others have
praised the scene between Titus and Sestus in the "Clemenza di Tito," as
surpassing the representation of any similar struggle of feeling in any other
dramatic poet; and the airs in that piece are among his happiest
compositions. It was the poet's aim and pleasure, in all his writings, to make
virtue attractive, and to paint patriotism, self-sacrifice and the best
affections of the soul, in glowing and alluring colours. This gives a great
charm to his dramas. We live among a better race, and yet the sorrows and
passions and errors of the personages are represented in a manner to call
forth our liveliest sympathy. A heartfelt pathos reigns throughout, and if
passages of sublimity are rare (though there are several which merit that
name), the elevated moral feeling acts on our minds to prevent the
enervating influence of mere tenderness and grief.[50]
Besides his dramas, Metastasio composed at this period two canzonetti,
which are among the best of his productions. The "Grazie agli inganni tuoi,"
or thanks of a lover to his lady for having disenchanted him by her caprices,
is written at once with feeling and spirit. The "Partenza" is yet more
beautiful. It was founded on the unfortunate attachment of a Viennese
nobleman for a public singer, who at last yielded to the entreaties of his

friends, in detaching himself from her, on condition that Metastasio should
write some verses of adieu. The lover must have been satisfied, and the lady
charmed, despite regret, by the passion, tenderness, and beauty of the poem
which celebrates their separation.
Metastasio's tranquil and prosperous life was broken in upon in 1740, by
the death of the emperor Charles VI., who fell a victim to either poison or
indigestion, after eating mushrooms. The poet was unfeignedly attached to
his imperial master, whose moral and religious character was congenial to
his own; and the disturbed state of Europe, immediately after, added to his
regret. This prince had no son, and his daughter, Maria Teresa, succeeded to
him as queen of Bohemia and Hungary. Her husband aspired to the imperial
crown; but the influence of France caused the duke of Bavaria to be elected,
under the title of Charles VII. This disappointment was not the only
misfortune of the queen; the king of Prussia invaded Silesia almost
immediately after her father's death, and Vienna being threatened with a
siege, she was obliged to quit it, and to take refuge in Presburg. After a
reign of four years, Charles VII. died, and the husband of Maria Teresa,
then grand duke of Tuscany, was elected emperor in the year 1745, under
the name of Francis I.: but the war still continued, and its various success,
and the disasters, with which it was attended, gave the court little leisure or
inclination for amusement, until the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
On the death of Charles VI., several of the European sovereigns invited
Metastasio to their courts, and made him advantageous and honourable
offers; but, as Maria Teresa still continued him in the place he held under
her father, the poet felt that fidelity and gratitude alike forbade him to
change masters during her adversity. His naturally sensitive mind was
strongly agitated by the various success of the empress queen's arms. His
susceptibility of disposition did not allow him to regard the course of events
with a stoical eye; and to the disquietude he suffered is attributed the bad
state of health into which he fell after the year 1745, when he was forty-
seven years of age. His malady was chiefly nervous; hysterical affections,
and a rush of blood to the head, were brought on by the slightest mental
exertion, followed by a total temporary inability to write, or even to think:
he was thus obliged entirely to suspend his poetic labours; and when he
forced himself to them, they bear the mark of a falling off in his powers. It
cannot be doubted that this unfortunate state was brought on in a great

degree by climate. He was a native of Rome, and, till the age of thirty-two,
had resided constantly in the south of Italy. What a dreary contrast did
Vienna present to the enchanting land in which he passed his youth! The
clear skies, the perpetual summer, the cheerful feelings produced by the
habits of a southern life, were injuriously changed for the gloom of the
freezing north. The very precautions which the natives take to protect
themselves from cold during the interminable winters, the stoves, closed
windows, and consequent want of fresh air and healthy exercise, being in
diametrical opposition to the more hardy habits of southern nations, are
injurious to the health and spirits of those who are accustomed to regard the
"skiey influences" as friendly instead of inimical to their comfort and well-
being. Metastasio never left Germany after he first entered it. A part of his
occupation, in the sequel, became the teaching the archduchesses, daughters
of Maria Teresa, Italian: this was an office he felt that he could not desert,
with any grace, even for a limited number of months. The kindness of the
empress in yielding to the total suspension of all theatrical composition on
his part, forced on him by ill health, bound him yet more devotedly to her.
As he grew older, he became a man of habit, and consequently averse to
travelling. It is impossible, however, not to believe, that if he had varied his
residence in Germany by occasional visits to his native country, the disease
under which he laboured, which embittered though it did not shorten
existence, would have been dissipated and cured.
Metastasio's life, we are told, is only to be found in his letters, yet these
detail no event; one of them contains, indeed, an offer of marriage to a lady,
whose name is omitted: it is well written, and with considerable delicacy of
sentiment; but, as he had no acquaintance with the object, and aspired to her
alliance on account of her character, and his friendship for her father, his
feelings could not be very deeply interested. Many of his letters are
addressed to his brother, and they display a warm interest for his family.
After the death of Marianna, the management of his affairs in Italy
devolved on his relatives, and many are taken up with directions and
advice. Leopold, and the rest of Metastasio's family, fell into the common
error of supposing, that since he was in favour at court, the greatest
prosperity would flow in upon him. The poet endeavoured to undeceive
him:—"Princes and their satellites," he writes, "have neither the will nor
power to confer benefits correspondent to the notions people are pleased to
form. I do not know what definition merit bears among them; and I

religiously abstain from inquiring, placing it among those mysteries which
are beyond, though not contrary to, our understanding. Following these
principles, I do all that is enough to prevent my feeling remorse for sins of
omission; but I never allow hope to interfere in the guidance of my cautious
line of conduct. It is a long time since I have ceased to be the dupe of hope,
and it would be shameful to become such at our age. Expect less, therefore,
on my account, and you will find the scales more even. This letter speaks
more freely than any other, as I write only for you, and among other earthly
goods, I desire for you the most useful of all,—a clear perception, if not of
all, of the greater part of those innumerable errors, contracted through our
lamentable education, and our intercourse with fools."
These sentiments did not float merely on the surface of Metastasio's mind,
—he made them the guides of his actions. As he says, gratitude and duty
regulated his conduct, but no servile hunting after greater benefits mingled
with the deference he manifested towards those in power. He acted on the
defensive in his intercourse with courts, with such consistency of purpose,
that he refused the honours chiefly valued there, and declined the various
orders, and the title of count, which the emperor Charles VI. had offered to
bestow on him.
It is from passages such as these, interspersed in his letters, that we can
collect the peculiar character of the man—his difference from others—and
the mechanism of being that rendered him the individual that he was. Such,
Dr. Johnson remarks, is the true end of biography, and he recommends the
bringing forward of minute, yet characteristic details, as essential to this
style of history; to follow which precept has been the aim and desire of the
writer of these pages.
In other letters Metastasio writes concerning his works, and explains his
views in the developement of his dramas; but he never makes himself the
subject-matter without an apology. "Never in my life," he writes on one
occasion, "did I before write so much concerning myself. I perceive this at
the end of my letter, and blush, not because I feel myself guilty of too great
self-love, but because I shall appear so to you. Remember that few people
distrust themselves to a fault, as I do; and in communicating to you the
perfection which I desire to attain, I do not fancy that I am exempt from
those defects, to which human nature and my own weakness expose me."

All his letters to his brother express the most earnest and affectionate
interest. It is the more necessary to mention this, as one of the calumnies
propagated against him was, an aversion to render service to his relatives.
"You know," he writes to his brother, "that your honour and welfare have
always been the objects of my solicitude, and that I never proposed to
myself any reward, except the agreeable consciousness that my endeavours
to introduce you and sustain you in the career of letters, have not failed of
success; if you think that you owe me any gratitude, pay it by increasing my
self-satisfaction on this account. You can never show yourself more
generous to me than by meriting that esteem which begins to be your due."
On the death of their father he writes with great feeling:—"The loss of our
poor father did not surprise, while it filled me with the liveliest grief. I
measure your sorrow by my own. I feel that it will require time to render
me reasonable. I thank you for your fraternal kindness in the midst of your
affliction. Dear brother, you now fill the place of a father in his stead: do it
worthily, and if there is any thing that I can do to comfort you, demand it
from me without reserve: your consolation will produce mine. My poor
sisters!—how lost they will feel themselves! take care of them, dear
Leopold: reflect how much fewer supports they have than we against the
assaults of passion, especially of that feeling which is derived from the most
sacred of nature's laws. Adieu. If I have always loved you, consider how
this affection is augmented by the loss of him who possessed before so
large a proportion of it. Let yours increase also."
His brother distinguished himself afterwards by some writings in favour of
religion; and it appears that he even had the design of writing the poet's
Life. Metastasio, while he praised Leopold for occupying himself in a
praiseworthy manner, advised him against publishing controversial
arguments, which would occasion him to be attacked by the cleverest men
of Europe; and which, doubtless, were not stamped with that talent which
could insure success. Metastasio, while deprecating the spread of unbelief
occasioned by the French philosophers of those days, yet joined with the
throng in fearing their attacks, and in flattering Voltaire,—showing in how
great awe he stood of the enmity and sarcasm of that wonderful man. It is
supposed that Leopold died in 1770, after which date no more letters appear
addressed to him.

One of the principal correspondents of Metastasio, and to whom his most
agreeable letters are addressed, is Farinelli. The poet and the singer were
nearly of the same age; both began their career at Naples at the same time;
which causes Metastasio to give his friend the affectionate appellation of
his twin. Both met with immediate and complete success; and they formed a
friendship, which the letters of the poet prove to have been maintained on
his side with sentiments of the warmest affection, and the most active wish
to render service. After having met with the greatest applause in the various
theatres of Europe, Farinelli was invited to Spain, in 1737; where his voice
had the peculiar effect of calming and solacing the accesses of malady to
which the king, Philip V., was subject. On this account he was retained at
the Spanish court, a large income was settled on him, and he never sang
again on the public stage, being, to please the Spanish notions of etiquette,
made cavalier of the orders of St. Jago and Calatrava, that he might be
considered of rank sufficient to attend the private hours of the monarch.
Philip V. died in 1746, but Farinelli continued in equal favour with his
successor. His prosperity continued till the accession of Charles III., in
1763, when he was ordered to quit Spain, and, with singular cruelty, not
permitted to make choice of an abode. At last, Bologna was prescribed to
him as the place that would best please the Spanish monarch,—we are not
told for what reason, except that Farinelli was as a foreigner in that city, and
cut off from all personal intercourse with his friends.
An interesting volume might be formed out of Metastasio's letters to the
singer. They are full of enthusiastic friendship; now dwelling on alterations
made to operas for the peculiar benefit of Farinelli,—now on more personal
topics. Metastasio's days were clouded by ill health, and his genius impaired
through the same cause; but it did not check the overflow of his kind heart,
nor injure the happy influence of his contented disposition. It is difficult,
however, to select passages, since the interest consists in the openness,
friendship, and warmth of the whole, and mere isolated extracts would be
devoid of attraction. The whole correspondence is replete with frank
exhibitions of the writer's mind, and the style is remarkable for its vivacity
as well as elegance.
With the exception of his physical sufferings, which were rather annoying
than painful, and that sensibility of character which could not fail to
chequer his life with a thousand various emotions, Metastasio's latter years

was singularly prosperous, and perfectly monotonous. A few weeks spent
each autumn in Moravia was his only change. The empress kindly excused
him from forcing his powers to compose new dramas, and his occupation
principally consisted in the easy task of instructing the archduchesses in
Italian. When the empress Maria Theresa died, the emperor Joseph II.
continued to him his protection; and the esteem and even affection in which
he was held at the imperial court prevented the death of his benefactress
from injuring his fortunes, or disturbing his repose.
He filled, however, a place in the public eye which exposed him to a good
deal of trouble. As the first Italian poet of the day, each minor aspirant to
the laurel sent their verses for his criticism, or rather approval. He has been
accused of lavishing praise without moderation or judgment. It is difficult
for one author not to flatter other authors, since severity of criticism will be
attributed to envy or ill-humour; and, besides, the Italian genius is
singularly inclined to superlative panegyric. But it may be remarked that,
though Metastasio gilds the pill, he never fails, particularly to his friends, to
point out the weak points of their works, and to bestow sagacious and
valuable observations.
When Dr. Burney visited Vienna in 1772, Metastasio was an old man; and
his life, uninterrupted by any events, flowed on in one unbroken and quiet
stream. "He lives," writes the doctor, "with the most mechanical regularity,
which he suffers none to disturb. He has not dined from home these thirty
years. He studies from eight o'clock in the morning till noon. Then he is
visited by his acquaintance. He dines at two; and at five receives his most
intimate friends. At nine, in summer, he goes out in his carriage, pays visits,
and sometimes plays at ombre. He returns at ten o'clock, sups, and goes to
bed before eleven. In conversation he is constantly cheerful; fanciful,
playful, and sometimes poetical; never sarcastic or disputatious; totally
devoid of curiosity concerning the public news or private scandal in
circulation; the morality of his sentiments resembles that of his life. In
confidence with few, but polite to all, his affection to his countrymen is
great, and extends to ecclesiastics, painters, musicians, poets, and ministers
from the Italian states, who are all sure of his kindness and good offices. I
was no less astonished than delighted to find him look so well; he does not
seem more than fifty years of age. There is painted on his countenance the
genius, goodness, propriety, and benevolence, which characterise his

writings. I could not keep my eyes off his face,—it was so pleasing and
worthy of contemplation."
He thus spent in ease and peace the last years of his life. It has been said
that, like Dr. Johnson, he had a great aversion to any allusion being made to
death in conversation, and carefully avoided all lugubrious subjects. He
continued to live with his friend Martinetz, whose daughter, Marianne,
being educated by Gluck, became a celebrated musician; and in this family
he met with that respect, attachment, and attention that rendered old age
easy.
His last letter was written to Farinelli. He complains of the "dreadful
season," and says, that he "cannot find a friend or acquaintance who does
not complain of ill health."—"We are all equally obliged," he writes, "to
have recourse to resignation. My neighbour prays for me, and I pray for my
neighbour; and we all are wishing better health to our afflicted friends. My
complaints obstinately defend their posts, and I my patience."
This letter is dated in March, 1782, and was written but a short time before
he died. Though advanced to the age of eighty-four, his death was
unexpected, as the vigour of his constitution, and his vivacity and unbroken
powers, promised several years more of life; nor did his nervous
indispositions threaten dissolution, for they neither interfered with his sleep
nor appetite, nor the enjoyment he both conferred and received in his
domestic circle. A fever, attended with weakness and loss of speech, and
lethargy, carried him off after an illness of only twelve days. He died
tranquilly, and without pain, on the 12th of April, 1782. He left the family
of Martinetz his heirs to considerable wealth; his property consisting of
about 130,000 florins, in addition to many valuables presented to him by
sovereign princes. He was sincerely regretted at Vienna; and Martinetz
struck a medal in his honour. Nor was he forgotten in his native country;
and the various literary academies of Italy vied with each other in offering
poetic testimonials of veneration to his worth and genius.

[47]

"Ah, tu non sai
Qual guerra di pensieri
Agita l'alma mia.
* * * *
Trovo per tutto
Qualche scoglio a temer. Scelgo, mi pento;
Poi d' essermi pentito
Mi ritorno a pentir. Mi stanco intanto
Nel lungo dubitar, tal che dal male
Il ben non distinguo: alfin mi veggio
Stetto dal tempo, e mi risolvo al peggio."

"Ah, thou knowest not the war of struggling thoughts
That agitates my soul. I find in all
Some peril still to dread. I choose; and then,
My choice repent—and then again regret
Having repented; while protracted doubt
Wearies my mind, so that the ill from good
No longer I distinguish; till at length
The flight of time impels me to the worst."

[48]We have made no remark on the nature of this kind-hearted and generous woman's attachment. In
Italy it is customary to look on such as formed by friendship only, and to consider that they are
rendered respectable by constancy. The Italians lavish the greatest praise on Marianna Bulgarelli for
her perception of the poet's merits, her zeal in persuading him to, and assisting him in, his arduous
career; and the disinterested affection which caused her at once to make a sacrifice of her own
feelings, and to advise his journey to Vienna. Her errors are those of her country. Any one who has
visited Italy must at once censure, and deeply deplore, the social system there carried on—a system
which blights the affections, degrades the moral feeling, and causes almost universal unhappiness.
But it is unjust to heap the censure of a system belonging to a whole country, and carried on for
centuries, on the head of an individual, whose virtues, we may presume to say, redeemed an error, the
very existence of which is, after all, uncertain.
[49]Baretti.
[50]There is a curious instance in Metastasio of a poet using the same image adopted by a preceding
writer, which yet, it is probable, that the later one had not read. The explanation may be, that both
drew it from an ancient writer; but we have been unable to find it. The passages are subjoined as, if
both are unborrowed, it forms a curious though natural coincidence of thought.

And as goodly cedars,
Rent from Oeta by a sweeping tempest,
Jointed again, and made tall masts, defy
Those angry winds that split 'em, so will I
New pieced again,
And made more perfect far,
Stand and defy bad fortunes.

FLETCHER, Tragedy of "Valentinian."

Spezza il furor del vento
Robusta quercia, avezza
Di cento verni, e cento
L' ingurie a tollerar.

E se pur cade al suolo
Spiega per l' onde il volo,
E con quel vento istesso
Va contrastando il mar

Adriano.

GOLDONI

1707-1792.

The life of Goldoni, written by himself, is, as well as his comedies, a
school, not of crabbed philosophy, but of Italian manners, in their gayest,
lightest guise. At a time when it is hoped that a change is taking place in the
system of society in that country, resulting in a great degree from the
concourse of English, it is interesting to observe what they were anterior to
the French revolution, and to remark the state of the Italians before they
awoke to the sense of their oppression, or, rather, while oppression was in
exercise only of the first of its effects—the demoralisation of its victim,
before the second stage of its influence, that of producing a noble and
impatient disdain of servitude.

Carlo Goldoni was born at Venice, in the year 1707, in a large and good
house, situated between the bridge of Nomboli and that of Donna Onesta.
The Venetians, who, when on land, spend their lives in running up and
down the bridges that cross the canals, make them the chief land-marks of
their directions. The family of Goldoni came originally from Modena. His
grandfather, while studying at Parma, formed an intimacy with two
Venetian nobles, who persuaded him to accompany them to Venice; and the
death of his father rendering him soon after independent, he established
himself in the native city of his friends. He had an employment under
government, and was sufficiently rich, but not at all economical. He loved
the drama; comedies were played in his own house; the most celebrated
actors and singers were at his orders; and he was for ever surrounded by a
concourse of theatrical people. His son had married a lady of the Salvioni
family, and resided with his father. Carlo was born in the midst of all the
bustle and hilarity attendant on a predilection for actors and acting: his first
pleasures were derived from plays; his first recollections were of histrionic
gaiety; and his future life retained the colouring imparted by the
amusements of his early years.
He was the delight of the family. His mother devoted herself to his
education, and his father to his amusement. He made a puppet theatre for
him, and, with two or three friends, drew the cords and acted plays to the
boy's infinite delight. But a change soon came over this holiday life. His
grandfather died, in 1712, from the effects of a cold, caught at an assembly.
His extravagance had dissipated his fortune; and, from abundance and
luxury, the family fell into the narrowest circumstances. The prospects of
the father of Goldoni were dark. He had no employment and no profession,
and his inherited property was all sold or mortgaged. In the midst of this
distress, his wife gave birth to a son: this added to the solicitude of the
father; but, unwilling to be the prey of useless gnawing cares, he set out on
a visit to Rome, for the sake of diverting his thoughts. His wife remained at
home with her sister, and two sons. The second, never a favourite, was put
out to nurse; and she devoted herself to Carlo. He was gentle, obedient, and
quiet. At the age of four he could read and write and say his catechism; on
which they gave him a tutor. He grew to love books, and made progress in
grammar, geography, and arithmetic; but the old instinct survived, and plays
were his favourite reading. There were a good many in his father's library:
he pored over them at his leisure hours, copied the passages that pleased

him most; and, incited by a noble hardihood, at the age of eight, wrote a
comedy. Some laughed at it; his mother scolded and kissed him at the same
time; while others insisted that it was too clever to have been written by a
child of his age, and that his tutor must have helped him.
Meanwhile his father, instead of returning after a short visit, remained four
years at Rome. He had a rich friend there, who received him cordially,
lodged him in his own house, and introduced him to Lancisi, physician and
private attendant to Clement XI. He attached himself warmly to Goldoni,
who was clever and agreeable, and sought to advance himself. Lancisi
advised him to study medicine. The advice was taken. After attending
lectures and hospitals for four years at Rome, he took his doctor's degree;
and his patron sent him to Perugia to exercise his profession. He became in
vogue in this town: if he were not the best physician in the world, he was an
agreeable man, and quickly gained the esteem and friendship of the first
families. Thus fortunately situated, he resolved to have his son with him. He
does not appear to have thought of inviting his wife also; and the mother
and child were separated, to the deep grief of the former. Carlo quitted
Venice for the first time, in a felucca. He disembarked at the mouth of the
Marecchia, and it was proposed that he should continue his journey on
horseback. Carlo had never seen a horse except at a distance: he was
frightened when placed on the saddle, confused when told to hold reins and
whip; but, as the novelty wore off, he made acquaintance with this new and
strange animal, and fed him with his own hands.
On arriving at Perugia he was placed at school. His first trial by the masters,
for the purpose of judging what progress he had made in Latin, was
infelicitous; he became the ridicule of his companions; his masters
conceived a slight opinion of his abilities; his father was in despair, and
Carlo fell ill from mortification. The holidays drew near, when it was usual
for the scholars to present a Latin composition, as a specimen of their
powers, on which their advancement to a higher class was determined upon.
Carlo had no hope of any such promotion. The day came: the master gave
out the theme; the pupils wrote. The boy summoned all his powers; he
thought of his honour, his father, his mother; he saw his companions look at
him and laugh; rage and shame animated him to redoubled exertions; he felt
his memory clear—his thoughts free: he finished, sealed, and delivered his
paper before any of his comrades. Eight days after, the school was

assembled—the decision announced: Goldoni had the first place—his
translation was without a fault. He now received compliments on all sides,
and his father was desirous of rewarding him. He was aware of his love for
theatricals, and shared it. He assembled a company of young actors in his
own house, and erected a theatre. A play was got up, in which Goldoni took
the part of prima donna, and was much applauded; but his father told him
that, though not devoid of talent, he would never make a good actor, and
after experience proved the justice of his decision.
The signora Goldoni bore her husband's absence very philosophically; but
she could not consent to continue separated from her son: she entreated her
husband to return; and, on his refusal, removed herself to Perugia. But,
accustomed to the soft air of Venice, the climate of that city, placed on the
summit of a hill, and surrounded by mountains, disagreed with her: other
circumstances tended to disgust her husband with Perugia; and, as soon as
Carlo had finished his course of education at the school, they resolved to
return to Venice. Passing through Rimini in their way, they were received
kindly by a friend, who persuaded them to leave Carlo for the sake of his
pursuing his studies under a celebrated professor. His parents embarked for
Chiozza. Chiozza is a town twenty-five miles from Venice, built, like that
city, upon piles in the midst of the sea; it contains 40,000 inhabitants; the
population were divided between rich and poor; the rich wore a wig and a
cloak; the poor, a cap and a capote. These last, who were fishermen and
sailors, while their wives fabricated lace, had often more money than many
individuals of the class named rich. The signora Goldoni took a liking to
this place; and her husband was averse to return to Venice till his
circumstances should have become more easy. To further this end, he was
obliged to make a journey to Modena: he proposed to his wife to establish
herself at Chiozza till his return; and she consented.
Carlo, meanwhile, remained at Rimini. He did not like his master, who,
bigotted to rules and systems, wearied him to death: he escaped from him,
to read Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes, and the fragments of Menander; and
soon the incarnate spirit of drama arriving at Rimini, he was wholly turned
from his abstruser studies. A company of actors made their appearance, and
Goldoni became familiar with them: he went behind the scenes; joined in
their parties of pleasure; and they, being all Venetians, were happy to find a
countryman. One Friday it was announced that they were leaving Rimini,

and that a boat was engaged to carry them to Chiozza. "To Chiozza!" said
Carlo, "My mother is at Chiozza!"—"Come with us, then," cried the
director. "Yes, come with us," cried the whole company, "come in our boat;
you will have a pleasant passage; it will cost you nothing: we shall laugh,
dance, and sing, and be as happy as the day is long." A boy of fourteen
could scarcely resist so strong a temptation. His master refused leave, and
the friends of his family interfered with objections. There was but one
resource: Carlo put two shirts in his pocket, and hurried to hide himself in
the boat. It made sail, and he was on his way to Chiozza. The light-hearted
rambling life of strolling comedians was alluring beyond measure to a
mirthful lad, who loved plays better than any thing in the world. The
company consisted of twelve, besides scene-shifters, mechanists, and
prompters; there were eight men servants, and four women, two nurses, a
quantity of children, dogs, cats, apes, parrots, birds, pigeons, and a lamb.
The prima donna was ugly, clever, and cross; the suicidical drowning of her
cat diversified the time; and, after a prosperous and merry voyage, the
whole cargo, with the exception of poor puss, arrived safe at Chiozza.
The signora Goldoni received her son with a mixture of gladness and
scolding, which evinced no violent disapprobation of his truant disposition;
but he himself began to regret it, and to reflect seriously on the
consequences, when he read a letter just received from his father. Business
had taken Goldoni from Modena to Pavia. The governor of Pavia was
named the marchese di Goldoni-Vidoni. On hearing of the arrival of a
namesake in his town, he sent for him, and invited him to dinner. The
governor belonged to one of the best families of Cremona; but he
considered that Cremona and Modena were not far distant from each other,
and he had the whim of finding out and assisting a poor relation: he
promised to get a presentation for Carlo to a college of the university of
Pavia, and the father gladly consented to accept it. He set out to seek his son
with this news, and found him sooner than he expected, and was by no
means pleased at a scrape which promised little for his future steadiness;
but Carlo was penitent, and Goldoni gloved actors, and was acquainted with
several of this very company in question: so, good easy man! he forgave the
runaway, and accompanied him to thank the companions of his voyage.
Goldoni's fame as a physician had spread to Chiozza, and he found it worth
his while to establish himself, and to enter upon practice there: while

waiting for the presentation for the university of Pavia, he resolved to
initiate his son in the rudiments of a profession which he intended him
hereafter to pursue. He did not put him to the more difficult part of the
medical science; but made him accompany him in his visits to his patients,
as the easiest mode of giving him a superficial knowledge. Carlo did not
like this plan, though he was forced to submit. But passive obedience of
will does not conquer the mind: with all his gaiety, the youth was subject to
fits of hypochondria and low spirits, and under the paternal discipline he
lost his appetite, and grew thin and serious. His mother easily extracted
from him the cause of his dejection, and sought to bring a remedy. She
represented to her husband, that the patronage of the marchese Goldoni
could be of no possible service to their son in a medical career; while, on
the contrary, if they brought him up to the bar, a senator of Milan could
without difficulty open to him the road of fortune. She advised his going to
study under an uncle at Venice, proposing to accompany him herself, and to
stay with him till his removal to Pavia. Goldoni resisted for a long time, but
at last he became aware that her representations were reasonable: poor
Carlo listened to the discussion with tearful eyes and a beating heart; and
his indisposition vanished as soon as his father's consent was given. Four
days after, he and his mother set out for Venice. They were kindly received
by signor Paolo Indric, who had married his father's sister; and Carlo found
his home with him perfectly delightful. The study of law was infinitely to
be preferred to his father's medical initiation at Chiozza; he fulfilled his
duties with exactitude, and his uncle was satisfied with him.
Meanwhile he enjoyed his residence at Venice. "Oh! la triste ville que
Vénice!" Madame de Genlis exclaimed, on entering the sea-paved city.
Scarcely any but a French person would echo her exclamation; and we, who
people the palaces and bridges with the shades of Othello, Desdemona,
Pierre, and Belvidera, find a peculiar charm in its strange and beautiful
appearance. There is something charming to the imagination in the wide-
spread lagunes, in the palaces rising from the waves, the sea that flows
through the streets, and the sombre-looking but luxurious gondolas: no
picture, no description, can convey an idea of Venice, that is, of the
impression made by its singular aspect, and the modes and machinery of
daily life—dissimilar to those of every other city in the world. The young
Goldoni, as a native, yet returning to it after so long an absence, was
enchanted by the novelty of all he saw. His stay, however, was short; the

presentation to a College at Pavia arrived: he was forced to quit Venice;
and, after a harried visit to Chiozza to join his father, they set out together.
1723 On arriving at Milan, several obstacles presented themselves to
.
Ætat
impede his entrance into the university, which, being under clerical
. jurisdiction, required a number of attestations and documents, with
16. which the travellers were wholly unprovided, and which could only
be obtained at Venice. Signora Goldoni hastened thither to get them, while
the father and son enjoyed themselves at Milan, hospitably entertained by
their kind and noble soi-disant relation; till, the necessary papers having
arrived, they pursued their way to Pavia, and Goldoni left his son at his
college.
The university of Pavia was on a more expensive and luxurious footing than
is usual in Italy, and dissipation and liberty were the order of the day. The
students were regarded in the town like officers in garrison: the men hated,
and the women welcomed them; while the studies principally followed up
were dancing, fencing, music, and games of hazard: the latter were
prohibited, and, therefore, the more sought after. Carlo's youth, gaiety, and
Venetian dialect pleased generally; and he easily suffered himself to be
seduced from study to pleasure.
His success caused him to make many enemies among his fellow-students,
augmented by the distinction derived from the kindness of the marchese
Goldoni; still he passed two years happily enough, returning to Chiozza
during the vacations, and spending his time between unforced studies and
pleasant society. But misfortune was at hand to blight his happiness. The
time approached when he was to take his degree; and this very moment was
seized upon by his college enemies to ensure his disgrace. He had been
admitted into the university at sixteen: the legal age was eighteen. He was a
boy among men, and an easy prey. A serious quarrel arose between the
inhabitants of Pavia and the students: four among the latter, who had
conspired to ruin poor Carlo, persuaded him to revenge himself and his
comrades by a satire. The verses of which he was the author attacked and
insulted many families: his four false friends dispersed them and betrayed
him: the outcry was prodigious; and, despite every exertion made by his
protectors, Goldoni was expelled. The youth repented very bitterly at once
his imprudence and the easiness of his disposition. Shame and regret
overwhelmed him, and the idea of his parents' reproaches filled him with

terror. To escape these he meditated plans of flight, resolving to seek his
fortunes at Rome. It appeared of slight import to him that he should go on
foot without money or resources, so that he could fly from those who were
justly offended. This idea was frustrated by the vigilance of those about
him: he was sent back to his family under the especial care of the master of
the boat, who never lost sight of him; and a good monk, who was a
passenger with him, comforted him by his pious but kind admonitions. His
mother's affection and his father's easiness of nature led them to pardon his
fault, from which he had suffered severely enough. A few days after he
accompanied his father to Friuli. Goldoni exercised his profession as
physician at Udine, and Carlo studied the law under an eminent advocate;
after a short time, the former proceeded to Gorizia, to the house of count
Landieri, lieutenant-general of the army of the emperor Charles VI. The
count was ill, and having heard of the skill of Goldoni, sent for him. Carlo,
left behind at Udine, got into several youthful scrapes, very little to his
credit: he found himself deceived and betrayed; and, fearing a dangerous
termination, he hurried away, and found his father at Vispack, where count
Landieri had a mansion. They remained there for some months, till the
count was convalescent, hospitably entertained, and very happy. A dramatic
puppet-show was got up, which exercised the theatrical talents of Carlo;
and afterwards he made a tour to Laubeck, Gratz, and Trieste, with the
count's secretary. On his return to Vispack, he and his father set off on their
journey home, the latter having happily effected the cure of his patient, who
rewarded him handsomely for his trouble. "We arrived at Chiozza," said
Goldoni, "and were received as a fond mother receives a son, and a wife a
beloved husband, after a long absence. I was delighted to see again a
virtuous mother who was tenderly attached to me. After having been
deceived and betrayed, I needed the consolation of being loved. This,
indeed, was another species of attachment, but, until I felt a virtuous and
engrossing passion, my mother's love formed my greatest happiness." Soon
after his arrival at Chiozza, his father received a letter from a cousin at
Modena, to inform him that the duke of that state had revived an ancient
decree, which forbade the possessor of any landed property within it, to
absent himself without an express permission from the sovereign, which it
was very expensive to obtain. This relation added, that his best course
would be to send his son to Modena, which would satisfy the law, and he

might there pursue his legal studies. The advice was followed, and the
youth sent to Modena.
He went by water; and the master of the boat was a very religious man:
each evening he invited the passengers to join him in prayers. When
Goldoni arrived at Modena, this man, whose name was Bastia, asked him
where he meant to lodge, and, learning that he had his lodgings to seek,
asked him to select his house as his place of abode; and, with the assent of
his cousin, who had been the cause of his journey, Goldoni agreed to the
proposal. He found that the family of Bastia was equally devout with
himself; father, sons, and daughters, all were given up to pious exercises.
No great amusement could be derived from their society; but, as they were
respectable people, and lived in concord, Goldoni was satisfied and happy
under their roof. He grew as religiously inclined as themselves, while, as is
often the case in youth, this sentiment was accompanied by feelings of
despondency and even terror. One day he happened to pass through the
public square while an unfortunate churchman was doing public penance
for his conduct towards a female penitent. The sight struck him in the most
painful manner: he brought it home to his own heart; he thought of his past
life, his expulsion from college, his adventures in Friuli: the world seemed
beset with multiplied dangers, and there was no refuge from them, except in
total retirement. He wrote to his parents to express a part of these feelings,
and to declare his resolve of entering the order of Capuchin monks. His
parents acted on this occasion with prudence: they were both, especially his
mother, pious, but without bigotry. They wrote in answer, that he should do
exactly as he pleased, but in the mean time entreated him to return to them
without delay. He immediately obeyed: he was received with caresses, and
no opposition was made to his project. His father proposed to take him to
Venice, and he refused with that boldness which the fancy of acting in
immediate obedience to God, alone inspires; but, on being told that he was
to be introduced to the guardian of the Capuchins, he consented. They went
to Venice, visited their relations and friends, dining with one and supping
with another: he was even tricked into going to the theatre. His low spirits
and ascetic vocation vanished insensibly, and he returned to Chiozza cured
of every wish to shut himself up in a cloister.
It became matter of anxiety to know what to do with him. His brother, an
adventurous, gallant youth, had entered the army, and was in garrison. But

Carlo was nothing; the plaything of fortune, all the expense gone to on his
account had been of no avail; the only resource seemed to be to obtain an
employment under government; and, at the moment when it appeared
impossible to succeed in so doing, one presented itself to them. The
republic of Venice governed the towns under their dominion through an
officer called a podestà, who had under him a chancellor, or criminal judge,
who was assisted in his duties by a vice-chancellor, or, as he was called, a
coadjutor; and where there was much to do, this officer also had an
assistant. These places were more or less lucrative, but were always
desirable, since they included the privilege of dining at the governor's table,
and making one of his society. The father of Goldoni was intimately
acquainted with the governor of Chiozza, and with the judge, and through
their means Carlo was employed to assist the coadjutor.
Goldoni was not of a noble and enterprising disposition, but he possessed
great integrity, and that habit of scrupulously examining his own motives,
and those of others, which makes a part of the nature of one whose bent it
was to enter into and describe character. On this occasion he was earnest to
do his duty, and interested to observe the variety of human action and
motive, which presented themselves to his enquiry in the exercise of his
office as assistant to the criminal judge. He acquitted himself to the
satisfaction of his superiors; and, when the governor of Chiozza was
changed, and the chancellor was appointed to go to Feltri, the latter offered
Goldoni the place of coadjutor, which was eagerly accepted.
Feltri is at a distance of 180 miles from Venice, high up among the
mountains, whose snows besiege it during the winter, and block up the
streets and houses. Goldoni found plenty of amusement here, for there was
a company of comedians; and he also fell in love. He assures us that this
was his first passion, and a sincere one; but the future writer of comedies
had not that tenderness and passion of soul which creates a profound and
engrossing attachment. He made parties of pleasure for the lovely girl, who
returned his affection, and got up a tragedy for her amusement, which did
not amuse her at all; for, too bashful to act herself, with all the delicacy of
love, she was pained at witnessing her lover's familiar conduct with other
women. "Poor girl!" exclaims Goldoni, with naïveté; "she loved me
tenderly and sincerely, and I loved her with all my heart; and I may say that
she was the first person for whom I felt a sincere attachment. She was

desirous of marrying me; and would have become my wife, but for some
considerations which prevented my proposing for her." These
considerations were a notion he formed that her beauty was of a delicate,
evanescent species, and that she would soon fade and become old, while he
remained in the pride of youth. Such was the force of his first passion, that
it was at once overcome by selfish foresight, and the habit, innate in him, of
dissecting the materials of life, despoiling them of their sunny gloss, and
handling the most frail, yet precious, among them with a roughness that
iron and rock could not have resisted. This dry, analytical spirit is very
apparent in his comedies: he dignifies it with the name of morality and
honour; but its root is often in coldness and tameness of feeling and fancy.
On his return from Feltri his father had accepted a medical situation at
Bagnacavallo, a town of Romagna, near Ravenna. Carlo joined him; but,
after a short time, the elder Goldoni fell ill of a malignant fever, and died in
the month of March, 1731, when his son was four and twenty years of age.
He was sincerely lamented by his wife and son, who wept together over
their loss. As soon as the funeral was over, Goldoni accompanied the widow
to Venice, and established her with her sister at the house of a relation. She
was most anxious to have her son resident with her, and her persuasions,
and those of other friends, induced him to yield, and to enter on the
profession of barrister at Venice. The profession of advocate at Venice was
exceedingly honourable; the first men of the city practised it: but there were
240 registered barristers, and few among them rose to eminence; the rest
spent their time in running after briefs. Goldoni, however, was of a sanguine
disposition, and did not doubt that he should rank among the most
celebrated pleaders at the bar. He calculated how much could be gained,
and found that a barrister might make an income of 2000l. a year,—a large
fortune at Venice, which at that time, before it fell under the Austrians,
whose aim is to ruin it by the imposition of a vexatious taxation, was one of
the cheapest places in the world. It is true that the beginning of a forensic
career is in all countries trying to the patience; and, while Goldoni indulged
in castles in the air with regard to future eminence, he spent his time
attending the courts without a brief, or in waiting for clients, who did not
appear: still he might hope for better success than the major part of his
brethren of the robe, since, during the first six months of his being at the
bar, he carried on and won a cause; but his destiny concurred with the
genius still unformed and dormant within him to draw him another way.

At the very moment of triumph on gaining his suit, and when he might
fairly hope for an influx of clients, an incident occurred to destroy his
prospects, causing him to form the resolution to quit Venice.
He had fallen in love with a lady at Venice, who, though forty years of age,
was as fair and beautiful as a girl. She was rich and unmarried: the affection
was mutual, and he already looked forward to their union, when the
attentions of a noble awakening the ambition of the lady, she jilted him for
his patrician rival. This lady had a married sister with two daughters, one
deformed and the other ugly, but not without attraction; she had beautiful
eyes, a laughing countenance, and graceful, fascinating manners. She had
often deprived her beautiful aunt of lovers, and inspired her with jealousy.
She tried to win Goldoni from her; and, on her tergiversation, vengeance
induced him to make the niece an offer. Her mother entered into her plans,
and the contract of marriage was drawn up and signed; but when the
moment came to fulfil it, a variety of doubts presented themselves to
Goldoni's mind. He was himself in debt, and several years must pass before
he could hope to make an income at the bar. The mother of his promised
bride was wholly unable to fulfil the conditions of the marriage contract,
and he found that he should be burdened with the expense of his wife's
family. He consulted his mother, and his own sense of prudence: he had
become very much in love but, in his light heart, every motive and impulsa
was stronger than the strongest affection: frightened at the prospect before
him, he made a sudden determination; paid his debts, threw up his
profession, and quitted Venice; leaving a letter for the unfortunate girl's
mother, attributing to her his sudden departure, and promising to return if
she would fulfil the conditions of the contract. He received no answer.
Again he was thrown on the world, and all his prospects of future
subsistence were centred in a tragedy, called "Amalassunta," which he had
written in his leisure hours. It has been mentioned how, born amidst
theatricals, his early pleasures had all been derived from plays. When he
first went to Pavia, he had studied the ancient drama; and, finding that Italy
had no theatre, he had already conceived the idea of bestowing one on her,
on a more enlarged plan, more intricate as to plot, and more diversified as to
character, than those of Plautus and Terence. In the course of his youth, to
get up a play was his chief pleasure; and now, with "Amalassunta" in his
pocket, he felt sure that his fortune would be made at Milan, at the theatre

of which city he intended to offer it; and, with this expectation, his happy
disposition caused him easily to forget prospects, friends, love, and
disappointments,—all but his mother; while the pleasure of freedom easily
consoled him for the loss of his bride.
Poor and almost friendless, the first piece of good fortune that happened to
him was finding at Bergamo the noble who had been governor at Chiozza
when he was vice-chancellor. He presented himself at his palace, and was
kindly received. The governor perceiving that he was depressed in spirits,
enquired the cause: and Goldoni confessed that he was penniless: his kind
protector offered him his purse and a home at his house. Goldoni contented
himself with borrowing ten sequins, and, in lieu of the latter offer, asked for
letters of introduction at Milan, which were instantly given him. These
served him in good stead in that capital. The Venetian resident received him
kindly, asked the object of his journey, and, when Goldoni had recounted
his adventure, offered to lend him money, which was declined.
"Amalassunta" was the anchor of his hope, and he lost no time in seeking
the actors and directors of the theatre. He paid a visit to the first ballerina,
whom he had formerly known, and offered to read his opera to her circle of
actors, and musicians, and theatrical patrons. His offer was accepted: he
took the manuscript from his pocket, and commenced—"Amalassunta!"
The chief actor, Caffariello, began to object, in the first place, to so long
and ridiculous a name. Every one joined in the laugh thus raised, except the
poor author, who went on to read the list of dramatis personæ. New censure
followed the too great number of persons introduced; and, when it was
found that the opera commenced by a scene between the two principal
actors, he was told that would never do: the chief singers would never
consent to begin during all the bustle of the first entrance of the audience.
The criticisms multiplied as he went on, till a kind amateur, count Prata,
took him by the hand, and, leading him into another room, asked him to
read the opera to him alone. Poor Goldoni consented, and the whole piece
was gone through. When finished, the count pointed out its defects, not with
regard to plot and situation, but to operatic rules; how he had given airs of
passion and interest to secondary personages, and curtailed the first of what
they considered their just proportion. The count would have gone on to find
more fault, but Goldoni begged him to take no more trouble, and took his
leave. He returned, mortified and miserable, to his inn. His first impulse

was to burn his unlucky opera. The waiter asked him if he would sup. "No,"
he replied, "no supper, only a good fire." While this was making, he looked
over his poor "Amalassunta:" it appeared to him very beautiful, and worthy
of a better fate: the actors were in fault, not it. Yet; after all his pains, his
hopes were fallen; and, in a fit of desperation, he cast it on the flaming
brands, glad to see it burn, and busy in collecting all the fragments, that
none might escape destruction. While thus employed, he began to recollect
that no disaster which had yet happened to him, had ever caused him to go
to bed supperless. He recalled the waiter, ordered his repast, ate it with a
good appetite, and went to bed to sleep till morning. It is no wonder that
love could exercise so little power over so well-regulated an appetite!
The next morning he was obliged to reflect seriously on his desperate
situation, and he paid Signor Bartolini, the Venetian resident, a visit, that he
might consult with him. He asked for a private interview, and it was
granted; and then he related the occurrences of the previous evening, the
impertinent criticisms of the actors, and the decisive judgment passed by
count Prata, and ended by declaring that he was totally at a loss what to do.
Bartolini laughed at his recital, and asked to see the opera. "The opera?"
cried Goldoni, "I have not got it!"—"Where is it, then?"—"I burnt it; and
with it my hopes, my possessions, and my whole fortune." The minister
laughed still more at this dénouement, and ended by offering him the
situation of gentleman in his palace, with a good suite of rooms. Goldoni
now found that he had gained by his loss: without doubt, as he declares
himself, he was a lucky man, and it was his own fault whenever he fell into
misfortune. Yet he did this so frequently, that the best part of his luck was
that cheerful buoyant disposition which never allowed him to be
overwhelmed by adversity, and an integrity that always kept him from any
dishonourable scrape.
"Amalassunta" was burnt, but Goldoni's predilection for theatricals
continued as strong as ever. There arrived at Milan a singular man, named
Buonafede Vitali, who had talents and knowledge enough to practise as a
regular physician, but who preferred strolling as a mountebank, under the
name of the Anonymous. As a part of the paraphernalia of his trade, he had
with him a company of comedians. Goldoni sought out this man, who
availed himself of his protection, to obtain leave for his company to act on
the Milanese theatre. There were several good actors among them, but their

representations were made on the old Italian plan. Goldoni was particularly
scandalised by a travestie of the story of "Belisarius," given out as a
tragedy; and, to prevent the future degradation of historical names and
sentiments, he promised to write a tragedy on the subject, but was
interrupted by events of greater moment.
The king of Sardinia allying himself with France against the Austrians, in
the war of 1733, he sent an army of 15,000 men, to which was added some
French troops, to occupy Milan. That city being too wide in circuit for
defence, it was forced to receive the soldiers; who immediately entered on
the siege of the citadel. On this event, the Venetian resident was ordered by
his government to quit Milan, and to take up his abode at Crema: he had
before quarrelled with his secretary, and he took this opportunity to dismiss
him, and to install Goldoni in his place. He was now fully employed, and
his situation was at once honourable and lucrative; but soon after he lost the
good graces of the minister, though not from any fault of his own. His
brother had quitted the Venetian service, and, seeking employment, visited
him at Crema. He introduced him to the governor, who gave him the
situation of gentleman of his chamber, formerly occupied by Goldoni; but
both were violent and irritable, and they did not agree. The resident
dismissed his gentleman, and no longer regarded Goldoni with the same
favour as heretofore. They had a quarrel; Goldoni asked for his dismission,
and set out for Modena, where his mother was residing.
The country through which he passed on his way was the seat of war;
robbers took occasion of the unsettled state of the country, and the roads
were unsafe: Goldoni was the sufferer; the little carriage in which he
travelled was attacked by five men, who robbed him of his money, watch,
and effects, while he escaped across the country, glad to preserve the
clothes he had on. After running a long way, he came to an avenue of trees,
by which flowed a rivulet. He drank of its waters in the hollow of his hand,
and then, fatigued in body, but more composed in mind, he proceeded
quietly along the avenue, till he encountered some peasants, to whom he
related his misfortune, and who in return told him that there were a set of
outlaws who took advantage of the war to attack not only travellers, but
gentlemen's seats and cottages; while a number of men of some wealth near,
who had formed themselves into a company to purchase the spoils of war,
became their accomplices by becoming the purchasers of the stolen goods.

"Such," exclaims Goldoni, "are the miseries of war, which fall alike upon
friends and enemies, and ruin the innocent!" The sun was now declining,
and the peasants offered Goldoni a part of their supper, of which,
notwithstanding his disaster, he partook with appetite. They then guided
him to a village, and recommended him to the care of the curate, who
received him hospitably. To him he related his adventures, making his
manuscript tragedy of "Belisarius," then in his pocket, the principal hero of
the tale. He was invited to read it. The curate, two abbés, and the servants of
the house, were his audience; and they all applauded it with enthusiasm.
The offers and kindness of these good simple-hearted people filled Goldoni
with gratitude. Unwilling, however, to burden them with his maintenance,
he hastened to take leave; the curate lent him his horse, and sent his servant
with him to defray the expenses of the day's journey to Brescia.
From Brescia, Goldoni proceeded to Verona. He was in a deplorable
situation; he only possessed a few sequins, lent him by an adventurer whom
he met by accident at Brescia; but with "Belisarius" in his pocket, he did not
fear the enmity of fortune, and "Belisarius" did not prove so false a friend
as "Amalassunta." When at Verona, he went to the celebrated amphitheatre,
a portion of which was arranged as a theatre, and here a drama was about to
be performed. To his infinite joy, he discovered in the principal actor a man
who had formed one in the companions of the mountebank at Milan, and
for whom he had promised to write "Belisarius." He instantly went behind
the scenes, and was welcomed with joy. He was on the moment installed
poet to the company. "Belisarius" was read, approved, and the parts
distributed. In the month of September they proceeded to Venice. Goldoni
was presented to the proprietor of the theatre, who received him with
kindness. On the 24th of November, 1734, he being then twenty-seven
years of age, "Belisarius" was acted, and met with the most complete
success. All actors in Italy are strollers, and looked upon with a good deal
of contempt. Goldoni might have been expected to regret the exchange he
had made from the honourable profession of an advocate, for that of poet to
a theatre; but his light heart and easy temper were not to be afflicted by
trifles of this nature, and the talent that perpetually impelled him to take
interest in theatricals, prevented him from feeling degraded by his
association with the professors of the art: and their existence and all its
vicissitudes bear another aspect under a sunny sky, and amidst a laughter-
loving people, unspoilt by pride. Goldoni had much of the spirit of Gil Blas

in his disposition, and possessed in his own person all the talent which
belongs, not to the hero of that book, but its author. Several pieces, operas,
and interludes of his were brought out; and in the spring he accompanied
the actors to Padua and to Friuli, where, leaving them, he returned to Venice
to see his mother, who had arrived there from Modena. His success as an
author, and the talent he displayed, raised him in the estimation of his
fellow-citizens. His relations crowded around him; and he repaid their
kindness by relating his adventures to his old uncles and aunts, making
those laugh, who had never laughed before. In September the actors
returned to Venice, and he recommenced his labours, which were not all
literary, but interspersed by those occasioned by the jealousy of the actors,
or rather of the actresses. After the winter season had passed, he consented
to accompany the manager to Genoa and Florence, and was glad, without
expense, to visit two of the most celebrated cities of Italy.
He was delighted with the aspect of Genoa; and the first good fortune that
happened to him, was to gain 200 crowns in the lottery; the second, to
marry a girl, "who," he tells us, "was beautiful, virtuous, and prudent, and
who, after all he had suffered from the treachery of women, reconciled him
to the sex."
His acquaintance began in the true Italian style: he saw her at an opposite
window, and, pleased with her appearance, saluted her. She curtsied, and
hastily withdrew, nor again presenting herself at the window. His curiosity
was thus excited; he made enquiries, and learnt that her father's name was
Corrio; that he was a notary, with a large family and small fortune. He
contrived to make acquaintance, and within a month asked permission to
marry his daughter. The affair was soon concluded: he was married in July;
and, omitting the promised visit to Florence, returned to Venice at the
beginning of September.
Hitherto Goldoni's pieces had been rifaccimenti of old dramas. "Griselda,"
"Don Giovanni," and "Rinaldo di Mont' Albano," were melodramas or
tragedies, written in the old style. But at this time, finding that the company
of actors at Venice, through various changes, had become one of great
excellence, he began to think the time arrived when he might enter on the
reform of the Italian theatre, which he had long meditated: he commenced
writing comedies of character, which are the genuine source of the dramatic
merit, following the example of Molière, who had surpassed all ancient

models, and even now stands alone, as the first comic writer in the world.
"Was I wrong," he asks, "in presuming to enter upon such an undertaking?
for my natural bent leading me to write comedies, excellence in the art was
the proper aim of my endeavours."
The old comedy in Italy was on a singular system: there were four masks on
which all the farcical incidents turned. Pantaloon, a Venetian merchant, who
was the father of the heroine; a garrulous, kind-hearted old gentleman. The
doctor, a Bolognese, also an old man, whose learning was opposed to
Pantaloon's simplicity: and two Bergamese servants. Brighella and
Harlequin. Brighella, a clever rogue; Harlequin, a greedy simpleton; his
many-coloured clothes symbolising the poverty that forced a patched
garment. The actors who filled these respective parts seldom played any
others. It required ready wit and cleverness; for the plot only being
sketched, and the scenes indicated, the dialogue was left to their own
invention. Of course, no great refinement could be expected: practical tricks
and broad jokes were sure to command the laughter and applause of the
audience; while, there being in the Italian character something peculiarly
adapted to extempore exercises of the intellect, and a vivacity that renders
them good actors, many people regarded this rude but amusing effort at
drama, as something at once so national and so genuine, as rendered it
preferable to the studied productions of the closet. Goldoni, on the contrary,
saw farce take place of comedy, and the whole action and conduct of the
piece often sacrificed to the petulance of a favourite mask; while no real
sentimental interest, nor any comic incident out of the common routine,
could be introduced. He proceeded, however, slowly in the reform he
meditated. At first writing only the more serious portions of his plays; then
the parts of the masks themselves, and only after some time, and at
intervals, dispensing with them altogether. Nor, at the time of which we are
writing, did he bring out any of his best dramas; though those which he did
produce were eminently successful.
To add to the respectability, and, as he hoped, to the emoluments of his
situation, the relations of his wife obtained for him the Genoese consulship
at Venice. This office, however, turned out more honourable than lucrative:
no salary attended it, and the fees did not amount to more than 100 crowns
a year. To do the republic he served honour, he had taken a better house and
increased his number of servants, and found himself considerably

embarrassed. To add to these annoyances, his income from Modena failed
him; and he came to a resolution to make a journey, with the triple object of
bringing out a comedy with a part for a favourite actress at Bologna, to
solicit a salary at Genoa, and to look after his possessions at Modena: the
first object failed before he set out, through the sudden death of the actress,
while an unexpected disaster rendered the two latter even more imperative
than before. His brother, who was out of employ, introduced to him a
Ragusan of agreeable and gentlemanly manners. He asserted that he was
sent on the secret service of raising a regiment of 2000 men for his state. He
showed his commission as colonel, offered a company to Goldoni's brother,
and the office of auditor, or judge, to the author. Goldoni, always easy-
tempered and credulous, though a little frightened by the danger incurred if
the Venetian state should come to suspect these proceedings, was soon
talked over, and, on an alleged emergency, lent the man a large sum of
money. The fellow was an adventurer: he ran off with the money, and left
Goldoni so disagreeably implicated by his tricks, that he judged that his
only resource was to quit Venice on the instant. The Ragusan had
disappeared on the 15th of September, and on the 18th of the same month
Goldoni and his wife embarked for Bologna.
Their journey was full of "many accidents of flood and field." The 1741
melancholy and thoughtfulness occasioned by his disaster vanished .Ætat
under the influence of his happy temperament; and his wife was even .
better skilled than he in that best philosophy which makes light of 34.
worldly misfortunes. On their arrival at Bologna, he was surrounded by the
directors of theatres, who asked for comedies. He gave them three, and
wrote another on the subject of the Ragusan swindler, in which he
comforted himself, and dissipated the rest of his regrets, by representing to
the life all the actors in that too real drama. This task concluded, he was
about to proceed to Modena, when he heard that the duke was absent at the
Spanish camp at Rimini, and that his best chance of pursuing his claims was
to accompany Ferramonti, a celebrated pantaloon, to the latter town; where,
in default of justice being done him by his sovereign, he might have a
further resource in the company of actors to which this comedian belonged.
This latter staff turned out the stoutest of the two: the duke changed the
conversation when Goldoni mentioned his claims on the ducal bank; but as
long as the carnival lasted, he supplied the actors with dramas, and lived a
comfortable life at Rimini. At length it became necessary to depart for

Genoa. The armies which then occupied the country rendered it impossible
to get horses; and he and some other travellers agreed to embark for Pesaro.
The sea was high, the passengers suffered: weary of their sea voyage, they
disembarked half way, at Cattolica, and, leaving their effects to the care of
servants, proceeded in a cart to Pesaro.
A new misfortune here awaited him. The Spanish army had changed
quarters, and were replaced by their enemies, the Austrians. The soldiers
entered Cattolica, and seized on the boat, the servants, and the effects of the
unlucky passengers. All was lost: trunks and band-boxes, dresses and
jewels, were the spoil of the ravagers: even the signora Goldoni was moved
by so overwhelming a calamity: but some remedy was to be found. Goldoni
resolved to apply in person to the Austrian officers for the restitution of his
property; and his wife, with great cheerfulness, prepared to accompany him.
Pesaro is ten miles distant from Cattolica: with great difficulty they hired a
carriage to take them. The vetturino was very averse to the job, but showed
no signs of discontent. When three miles from Pesaro, the pair alighted to
walk a short distance; and the cunning fellow, seizing the opportunity,
turned his horses' heads, and gallopped back to Pesaro, leaving them in the
middle of the road. No house, no living being was to be seen; the
inhabitants had fled on the arrival of the armies. Signora Goldoni began to
cry. "Courage!" said the husband; "it is but six miles to Cattolica: we are
young and strong; it will not do to turn back; let us walk on." The journey
was not, however, an easy one; the road was crossed by several torrents,
and the bridges were broken. Goldoni carried his wife over the swollen
streams; but they had been obliged to make a circuit in search of a ford, and
found themselves fatigued beyond measure. At length they arrived at the
first advanced post of the Austrians. Goldoni presented the passport with
which he came provided, and they were conducted to the commanding
officer. The colonel at first took them for two wandering pedestrians; but,
reading the passport, he made them sit down, and, looking kindly on them,
said: "What, are you signor Goldoni?"—"Alas! Yes," replied the other.
"Author of 'Belisarius?'"—"I am indeed."—"And this lady is the signora
Goldoni?"—"She is the last good I possess in the world."—"I hear you
came on foot."—"Alas! sir, you heard the truth." Goldoni now explained the
nature of his expedition, and the officer reassured him: he restored his
luggage, and liberated his servant, and, happy in the recovery of their
property, Goldoni and his wife returned to Rimini.

After spending some weeks happily in this town, he set out on a tour
through Tuscany, meaning to proceed afterwards to Genoa. He visited
Florence, Siena, Volterra, and then arrived at Pisa. While walking about to
see the "liens" of this town, he passed by a palace, and, perceiving that a
great concourse of people were entering its gates, he looked through, and
saw a large court, and the company all seated in a circle round. He asked a
servant in livery, who waited, what the occasion was of so large an
assembly. "That assembly," replied the man, "is a colony of the Arcadians
of Rome, called the Alphean colony; that is, the colony of Alpheus, a
celebrated river of Greece, which flows near the ancient Pisa of Aulis."
Goldoni asked if he might make one of the audience, and the servant
ushered him to a seat. After a variety of pieces of poetry had been read, he
sent the servant round to ask if a stranger might be permitted to recite; and,
on being answered in the affirmative, he repeated an old sonnet of his,
which, with a little alteration, seemed extemporised à propos for the
occasion. The Pisans, charmed at once by the compliment and the talent of
the stranger, crowded round him. He made many acquaintances, was invited
to their houses, and their cordial kindness seemed at one time to change the
whole tenour of his life for ever. For, invited and pressed by them, and
promised protection and patronage, he became a pleader once again, and for
three years practised at the Pisan bar. Briefs flowed in, clients were
numerous, all were satisfied, and Goldoni, content with his lot, abjured the
theatre. He was too well known to be without temptations to break his
resolution: actors wrote to him for plays, and he tried to refuse, and then,
yielding to the desire, he wrote pieces for them in hours borrowed from
sleep, and gave his days entire to his profession. Still law and the drama
contended for him, and his heart was with the latter, though he tried to turn
his back on her, and to devote himself to her rival. But he lost the game. A
manager, named Mendebac, arrived at Pisa with a company. Goldoni went
to see the representations. They acted his comedy of "La Donna di Garbo,"
which he considered his best piece: he had written it for a favourite actress;
but she died, and he had never seen it acted. The wife of the manager was
young, beautiful, and a good performer, and she took the part of the Donna
di Garbo. It is difficult exactly to translate, in one word, this expression: as
used by the Tuscans it means, the worthy woman—the woman whose
conduct is upright and estimable. The heroine of the piece, however,
deserves more the name of the cunning than the worthy; and her chief merit

consists in her success. Rosaura is the daughter of a lace-maker of Pavia;
and her mother's house being frequented by many of the students and
professors of the university, she acquires a good deal of the scholastic
pedantry of the schools. She is seduced by a student, who deserts her; on
which, for the sake of revenge, she gets, herself introduced as a servant into
the house of his father, where, by pleasing every body, and adapting herself
to their humours, and by great display of learning, she hopes to force her
lover into a marriage, and succeeds. This is by no means one of the best of
Goldoni's comedies, but it pleased on the stage; and on this occasion the
principal part being filled up by the wife of the manager, who was a clever
actress, it met with the greatest approbation. Goldoni, warmed by success,
enticed by the offers of the manager, and drawn on by the instinctive bent of
his disposition, suddenly resolved to leave Pisa and the profession which he
was pursuing with so much advantage, and returning to Venice, to enter
again on the task of writing comedies for its theatre. Such a determination
was sufficiently strange and imprudent; but Goldoni's love for his art was
such, that he never regretted the sacrifice he made; on the contrary, being
now wholly devoted to the drama, his enthusiasm rose, and, filled with
projects for its reform, he worked with an ardour, which was rewarded by
success, and which inspired his best pieces.
It is, perhaps, difficult for a person who has never visited Italy to enter with
zest into all the merits of Goldoni. His perfect fidelity to nature, the ease of
his dialogue, and the dramatic effect of his pieces, can only be entirely
appreciated in the representation. The best of them have often a slight plot,
but the interest is kept alive by the variety of the dialogue. It was only
slowly, however, that he proceeded to the reform of the Italian comedy; the
substitution of natural incident for violent and forced situations, and the
higher properties of comedy for the mere burlesque of farce. Obliged to
bring out his plays in quick succession, they are, of course, unequal, and did
not meet always with the same approbation. Unfortunately, his first season
ended with a piece which had no success. The company for which he wrote,
had to contend with others, longer established in the city; and; at the end of
the carnival; these circumstances combined to afford a dreary prospect for
the following year. At this moment Goldoni stepped forward in the most
singular manner; to the assistance of the manager. He publicly promised
sixteen new comedies for the next season; and the audience, wondering and
anxious, instantly engaged all the boxes. His enemies ridiculed, his friends

trembled for him; but he felt secure that he could fulfil his engagement,
although at the moment he had not conceived the plot or plan of one of the
promised sixteen.
This certainly was a great stretch of invention and mental labour. Out of the
sixteen, for he completed the whole number, there were not more than three
or four mediocre ones, and some were among his best. The "Donne
Puntigliose," or Punctilious Ladies, is exceedingly amusing. A Sicilian
trader's wife from the country, desires to be received among the noble ladies
of Palermo: she contrives to get herself invited to small parties, where there
are many men, and no lady except the mistress of the house; but finds it
impossible to get admitted to their ceremonious assemblies. At last, an old
countess, high-born, but poor, promises to give a ball, to which she shall be
invited, on certain conditions, to which the low-born lady readily consents,
though they draw rather largely on her purse. But to her consternation, as
soon as she enters the ball-room, every woman flies as if she brought
infection with her, and leaves her alone with her hostess. The punctilious
scruples of those who try to make use of her without derogating from their
own dignity, and who are ever ready to receive, but never to confer favours,
form a very amusing picture of manners. "Pamela" was among the most
successful of these pieces. Richardson's novel of "Pamela" is a great
favourite with the Italians; and Goldoni was often asked to write a drama on
the subject. As the Venetian laws are severe against the children of a
mésalliance, he considers the catastrophe of the novel as not inculcating a
recommendable line of conduct. He, therefore, transformed Gaffer Andrews
into a Scottish lord of the rebellion of '45, and gave Pamela good blood to
render her marriage with her lover a commendable act on his part. This
comedy had the greatest success. "The Donna Prudente" was equally a
favourite. The story is founded on a jealous husband, afraid of ridicule, who
is tortured by the attentions of the cavaliere servente of his wife, yet who
dares not encounter the laughter that would ensue if he forbade the service.
The prudent lady exerts herself with success to get rid of her cavaliere
without its being supposed that her conduct arises from her husband's
jealousy. The last of his sixteen was a purely Venetian subject, written
almost entirely in the Venetian dialect: it is called "I Pettegollezzi," or The
Gossipings, and turns on the misfortunes brought on the heroine through the
gossip of her female acquaintances. It was brought on the last day of
carnival. "The concourse," Goldoni writes, "was so immense, that the price

of the boxes was tripled and quadrupled; and the applause was so
tumultuous, that those who passed near the theatre were uncertain whether
the sound was that of mere plaudits, or of a general revolt. I remained
tranquil in my box, surrounded by my friends, who cried for joy. When all
was over, a crowd of people came for me, forced me to accompany them,
and carried, or rather dragged, me to the Ridotto, and overwhelmed me with
compliments, from which I would fain have escaped. I was too tired to
support all this ceremony; and, besides, not knowing whence all this
enthusiasm sprang, I was angry that the piece just represented should be
more extolled than many others which were of greater merit. By degrees I
discovered the true motive of the general acclamation: it celebrated the
triumph of my fulfilled engagement."
Goldoni was now forty-three years of age. His invention had not yet fallen
off, but he tried his strength too much. An illness was the consequence of
this extraordinary exertion, and he felt the effects of it all his life after; yet
during the ensuing season he brought out scarcely a smaller number, and, as
he proceeded, attained a yet purer style of comedy; and he became the
censor of the manners, and satirist of the follies, of his country. The peculiar
system of what is called service, paid by gentlemen to the ladies of their
choice, all over Italy, would have presented an ample field both for ridicule
and reprehension, could he have ventured on it openly; but he was obliged
to treat it with the same reserve, when bringing it on the stage, as is used
when it is spoken of in society; and he could attack only the ridicule, not the
real evils of the system. This comedy, called the "Villeggiatura," which
turns on this subject, is particularly amusing; but it can scarcely be called an
attack upon it. An Italian gentleman, returned lately from Paris, offers to
serve a lady in the French manner: he is not to perform those thousand
services required of the cavaliere servente, nor to attend on her, nor to be of
any use or amusement to her: they are to be friends secretly; and, to
preserve their friendship more sacredly, they must abstain from nearly all
intercourse with each other. The lady, accustomed to be constantly waited
upon, and to find in her cavaliere a resource against the ennui of solitude, is
at a loss to understand the good that is to result from a negative of all the
ordinary uses of friendship. The "Smanie della Villeggiatura" attacks
another of the foibles of the Venetians. It is their custom, each autumn, to
spend several weeks at their country seats; but, instead of this being a
period of economy and retirement, it was the fashion to invite their friends,

and to transport with them the dissipation of the city. Besides this, it being
necessary, as a mark of fashion, to retire to a villa, those who were poor,
and did not possess one, fancied themselves obliged to hire a house, and to
go beyond their wealthier neighbours in the number of their guests and the
splendour of their entertainments: nor can any idea be formed out of the
country of the sort of fanaticism with which this custom was pursued; even
to the bringing ruin on those who imagined themselves forced to so
unnecessary an expense. Goldoni wrote three comedies on this subject: the
first consisted in describing the preparations for the villeggiatura, or visit to
the country. It has for its subject the difficulties of a a poor proud family,
who were bent on following the general example; the thousand obstacles
that rendered it almost impracticable; and the envy with which they view
and vie with the preparations of their wealthier acquaintance. At length they
depart triumphant, resolving to forget their debts and difficulties until their
return. The second comedy consists of the adventures in the country; where,
in the midst of gambling, pleasure, and apparent enjoyment, a thousand
annoyances distract, and jealousy and envy prevent, all real happiness. The
third comedy, of the return from the country, shows the unfortunate lovers
of rural pleasures overwhelmed by debt; surrounded by a thousand
difficulties, sprung up while there; and saved only, when on the verge of
ruin, by a kind and prudent friend who assists them, on their promise never
to undertake a villeggiatura again. These plays are without the masks, and
give a perfect representation of Italian conversation and manners. As he
wished to criticise the Venetians, he did not venture to place the scene at
Venice; but the audience easily brought home to themselves the faults and
follies of the Tuscans or Neapolitans. In thus making a detail of some of the
best of his plays, it is impossible to do more than to indicate those which
appear the best worth reading. The "Vedova Scaltra," or The Gay Widow,
was a great favourite in Italy. A rich widow, with four lovers from four
different nations, seeks from each a proof of love, and gives her hand to the
Italian, who, by his jealousy, evinces, she imagines, the sincerest testimony
of the tender passion. The "Feudatario" has in it more of farce than he
usually admits, and is peculiarly amusing; as well as the "Donna del
Maneggio," or Managing Lady, whose avaricious husband, after incurring a
thousand ridiculous disasters, ends by placing the disposal of his property in
his wife's hands. It would be too long and uninteresting to enter on even this
brief notice of more; but we may mention the titles of some of his best, to

guide any one who wishes to read only a portion of the vast quantity he
wrote: among these may be named "Il Cavaliere e la Dama," "Il vero
Amico," "La Moglie Saggia," "L'Avanturiere Onorato," "Molière e
Terenzio," which he names himself as the favourite offspring of his pen.
He spent many years thus respectably and happily. He loved his wife and
his domestic circle. The applause of a theatre perpetually ringing in his ears,
he was gratified by the consciousness that he was reforming the national
taste. Sometimes he was attacked for what he considered the chief merit of
his dramas. The advocates of the old comedy condemned his new style as
puerile and tame. He defended himself, and was satisfied that he obtained
the victory. During the summer, when the theatres at Venice were closed, he
visited the various cities of Italy; and his life was diversified, and his
invention refreshed, by these occasional tours. He had reason to be
dissatisfied with the manager, Mendebac, who had allured him from Pisa, as
he not only was illiberal enough not to add to his salary on these
extraordinary efforts, but appropriated the profits arising from the
publication of his works. Goldoni was unwilling to enter into a lawsuit with
him; he contented himself, therefore, by bringing out an edition of his play
at Florence; and as soon as his five years' engagement with Mendebac was
over, he transferred himself to the theatre of San Luca, on terms at once
more advantageous and honourable.
With some few reverses, attendant on an entire change of actors, and his
ignorance of the peculiar abilities of the company, to which he was not
accustomed, his career on this new stage was equally successful. He wrote
several comedies in verse, which became peculiar favourites. This success
was the occasion of his being invited to Rome during the carnival: but his
dramas did not succeed so well there. The actors, unaccustomed to his style,
were unable to give them with any effect, and the Roman audience called
out for Puncinello.
In 1750, he received an offer from the French court of an engagement for
two years, on very advantageous terms. Goldoni hesitated a little about
accepting it. A few years before, his brother had returned to Venice, a
widower, with two children. Goldoni gave up to him all his property in
Modena, and adopted the children, having none of his own. He made a
good income in Italy; but he had no provision for old age: still he was
unwilling to leave his native country—whose climate and people were dear

to him—where he was honoured, loved, and applauded. He made some
enquiries with regard to the possibility of getting a pension from the
Venetian government; but this appearing a vain hope, he considered it right
to close with the offer of the king of France. He hesitated the more before
taking this step, as, although the engagement in question was but for two
years, he felt that, once in Paris, and acquiring an honourable maintenance,
it was probable that he should never see Italy again.
During the carnival of 1761, the last pieces he wrote for the Venetian theatre
were represented: one, the last acted, was a sort of allegorical leave-taking,
which was so understood by the audience; and the acclamations and adieus
of the public moved him to tears. He left Venice in April 1761,
accompanied by his wife. His mother was dead; his niece he placed in a
convent, under the superintendence of a respectable family at Venice; his
nephew was soon to follow him. As he passed through Italy, on his way to
France, he was received at the various towns with distinction and kindness.
He spent some little time at Genoa, with his wife's relations, and then they
proceeded by slow stages to Paris.
Goldoni's débût as an author in the French capital was not a happy one. The
Italian comedians there were not accustomed to regular comedies, which
they were to learn by heart, but to the old style of their native farce, where
the plot and arrangement of the scenes were all that was written, and they
filled up the dialogue themselves. Goldoni wrote two or three pieces for
them on this plan without success. His stay in Paris was, however, decided
by the post of Italian master to the daughters of Louis XV. being bestowed
on him. He knew so little of French, that he gained as much knowledge
from the princesses as he imparted to them. His salary was very slender, but
it was increased in the sequel; and his nephew also was provided for by the
post of Italian teacher in the military school.
Goldoni was charmed by the French actors; and his ambition was excited to
write a comedy to be represented by the excellent comedians who then
flourished. His desire was fulfilled to the utmost. He brought out "Le
Bourru Bienfaisant," into which he endeavoured to instil the spirit of French
dialogue and plot with great success; so that Voltaire praises it as the best
French comedy written since Molière. He wrote another on the same plan;
but it fell to the ground, and he at last desisted from adding to the immense
number of pieces of which he is the author.

He lived tranquilly and content with his moderate means. His niece was
married at Venice; his nephew settled happily at Paris. The revolution did
not, fortunately, disturb the repose of his last years. The National
Convention confirmed his pension to him, and continued it to his widow
after his death. Goldoni died in the year 1792, at the age of eighty-five. No
man was ever more born for the career which he pursued. His heart was
excellent, and his disposition gay. He never allowed himself to be cast
down by adversity, and met the attacks of his enemies with good humour, or
such replies as caused the laugh to be on his side. He is numbered by his
countrymen as among the best of their authors,—an opinion confirmed by
all those sufficiently cognisant with the Italian language and manners to
enter into the spirit of his compositions.

ALFIERI

1749-1803.

The Italian poets of the early ages were eminently distinguished for their
patriotism. The haughty spirit of Dante burst forth into indignant
denunciations against the oppressors of his country; the gentler, but not less
fervent, Petrarch was never weary of adjuring its rulers to bestow upon it
the blessings of justice and peace; and the latter years of Boccaccio's life
were ennobled by his public services, and his earnest endeavours to implant
a love and reverence for literature in the minds of his countrymen. The
pages of Roman history and the writings of Roman poets made them proud
of the country which had given them birth, and which added to its moral
grandeur, of having been once the sovereign and civiliser of the world,—the
natural affection inspired by its being, from its fertility, the diversity of its
woods, lakes, and mountains, and surrounding sea, the most beautiful
country upon earth.
The national spirit died away in after times. The devastating wars carried on
in the Peninsula by France and the emperor, the rise of minor principalities,
and the struggles of rival states, so excited the passions and absorbed the

interests of the Italians, that they became incapable of enlarged views for
the good of their country. The depressing influence of courtly servitude
checked the free spirit of the writers; Ariosto and Tasso were both
conspicuous for personal independence of character; but they did not extend
their love of liberty to any exertions for the redemption of Italy. A darker
day was at hand. The Peninsula, divided and weakened, became a mere
province. A Spanish viceroy reigned over Naples, and the northern portion
was controlled by France and Austria. The Italians were taught to take pride
in the virtues of slaves; in submission, patience, and repose. The prosperity
of the country was gone, its trade destroyed, its armies annihilated. No
scope was given to generous ambition; no career offered, by entering on
which a man might exercise the peculiar privilege of the free—that of
instructing their fellow countrymen: to be inoffensive to the ruling powers
was the aim of all. The love of money—not the love of gain, for to gain was
impossible, but mere parsimony, arising from the necessity of regarding the
domestic expenditure as the only business of life—engrossed the fathers of
families; the women were uneducated and degraded, and though they
preserved, as is often the case in a depraved state of society, a nature more
generous, artless, and kindly than the other sex, yet these virtuous feelings
found no scope for their developement, except in the passion of love. While
the law of primogeniture interested not only the large class of younger sons,
but even the heads of families, who wished to prevent their children from
marrying, to establish a system of society, which, beginning by subverting
the best principles of morality, ended by destroying all social happiness.
While the higher orders were thus occupied by money-saving and intrigue,
the lower orders were tamed by hard labour, and rendered submissive by the
priests. The writers were the servants of princes: they administered to the
pleasures of their countrymen, without uttering one word that could call
them from their state of debasement, or inspire a love of the active and
disinterested virtues.
Full of talent as the Italians are, and formed by nature for the noblest scenes
of action, doubtless "many a village Hampden" was born and died in
obscurity and inaction; and yet this expression gives rise to a false notion.
The peasants of Italy have no education, and, although infinitely superior in
talent, perhaps, to any other peasantry in the world, are incapable of that
generalisation of ideas which produces patriotism. But, among the better
sort of gentry,—men of simple habits and strong good sense, among the

men of science and the professors at the universities,—there were
individuals who mourned over the ruin of Italy. These men did not so much
dwell on the ancient greatness of Rome, as on the achievements of their
countrymen during the middle ages. Literature had been revived by them;
the arts had flourished among them: they were proud of the past, but they
despaired of the present.
The voice of liberty was silent. The Italians hated and despised their
masters, but never dreamed of rebelling against them. Tuscany was slothful
under a mild sway, whose tyranny was never felt, except by the few who
believed that they were not merely fruges consumere nati, and were bitten
with a noble mania for benefiting their race. Piedmont was ruled by a
prince, who, by cultivating in his subjects, not a martial, but a military spirit
(a very different thing), gave his idle nobles something to do. Lombardy
was crushed by foreign bayonets. The voice of liberty was silent, when the
French revolution awoke the world, and the hope of freedom spoke audibly
in the hearts of all; and, afterwards, when the victories of Napoleon crushed
this hope, they could not impose a silence for ever broken. Its language is
now felt and understood from one end of the country to the other, and the
day must come when the oppressors will be unable to oppose the veto of
mere physical force to the overpowering influence of moral courage.
It was while Italy yet reposed submissive and mute, that a poet was born,
who dedicated all the powers of his mind to the awakening his countrymen
from their lethargy—to strengthening their enervated minds, and spreading
such knowledge and such sentiments abroad among them, as would at once
reveal their degraded state, and give them energy to aspire to a better.
Vittorio Alfieri was born at Asti, in Piedmont, on the 17th of January, 1749.
His parents were noble, wealthy, and respected. To these three
circumstances Alfieri attributes many of the prosperous circumstances that
attended his literary career. "Since I was born noble," he says, "I could
attack the nobility without being accused of envy; since I was rich, I was
independent and incorruptible; and the respectability of my parents
prevented my ever being ashamed of my rank."
His father was named Antonio Alfieri, and his mother was Monica Maillard
de Tournon, whose family, originally from Savoy, had long been established
at Turin. His father was a man of blameless life: he had never entered on

any public office, and was without a spark of that ambition which might
have led him to seek distinction at court. He was fifty, five when he
married, and his wife, though very young, was already a widow. Their
eldest child was a daughter. Two years after, to the infinite joy of his father,
Vittorio was born. He was put out to nurse, at a village called Rovigliasco,
two miles from Asti; but such was the tenderness of his father, that he went
on foot each day to see the child. This was a strong mark of affection, and
testified also his simple and unostentatious disposition: for the Italian
nobility usually love repose beyond all things, and their greatest pride is
never to go on foot. This solicitude unfortunately cost him his life: he
caught cold on occasion of one of his visits, and died after a few days'
illness, leaving his wife about to give birth to another son, who, however,
died in his infancy. She was an amiable and excellent woman, and still
young when her second husband died; so that she was induced to marry a
third time. Her husband was a cadet, of another branch of the Alfieri family;
but, by the death of his elder brother, he in process of time inherited the
wealth of his family, and became very rich. This marriage proved a very
fortunate one. The cavaliere Giacinto was handsome and amiable; the
couple grew old together in happiness; and the lady, as she advanced in
years, gained the love and respect of all by her piety and works of charity
and kindness.
On the marriage of his mother, Vittorio and his sister went to live in their
father-in-law's house, who proved himself a kind parent to the orphans.
Although his health was not robust, Alfieri's childhood was little interrupted
by sickness; and his first grief was experienced at the age of seven, when
his sister Julia was sent to a convent for her education. Although he was, at
first, permitted to see her every day, yet he felt, on her removal from the
parental roof, that violence of emotion and boiling of the blood which was
apt to seize on him, in after life, when forced to separate from any one to
whom he was warmly attached. Thus his sensibility developed itself early;
and sensibility and pride, both exalted into passions rather than feelings,
were always the prominent traits of his disposition, and which at last, from
the excessive influence they exercised over him, generated that gloomy
melancholy to which he was a victim.
Alfieri remained at home, under the tutelage of a worthy priest, named Don
Ivaldi, with whose assistance he began to learn the rudiments of Latin. His

disposition was, for the most part, taciturn and placid: now and then he
became loquacious and gay in the extreme, and, at other times, the
melancholy already nascent in his heart, filled him with strange and
passionate thoughts. He was obstinate when treated unkindly, but readily
yielded to affection; and, above all, he was susceptible, to a painful degree,
of the sense of shame. When, as a punishment for childish faults, any sort of
public penance was imposed on him, he endured such transports of agony
as affected his health for weeks.
At the age of nine, his uncle, the cavaliere Pellegrino Alfieri, who was his
guardian, returned from a tour in France and England, and visited Asti, on
his way to Turin. He found his nephew happy under the domestic roof, but
learning little or nothing; accordingly, he thought this a very bad state of
things, and insisted that he should be placed at the public school at Turin,
where ignorance, rather than knowledge, was taught, but where, as he
would be neglected and enslaved, it was to be supposed that his education
would prosper better than under the indulgent care of a fond mother. She
was obliged to consent, and parted from her son with reluctance and tears.
The boy's grief at the moment of separation was vehement; but it was
quickly dissipated by the delight of travelling post, and the pleasure he took
in bribing the postilions to go at their utmost speed. He was accompanied
by a servant only; and, while the old man slept, the little fellow sat proud
and gay in the carriage, as it whirled past village and town in quick
succession. When arrived at Turin, his uncle received him kindly. He was at
first depressed by the change of scene, and missed the caresses of his loving
mother; but soon he became so joyous, and even riotous, that the cavaliere
Pellegrino hastened to place him at the academy: and here he was, at the
age of nine, torn from the domestic circle to which he was accustomed, at a
distance from all his friends, isolated and abandoned. The only species of
education, such as it was, entered upon at the academy, regarded their
literary studies: the feelings were left to form themselves; lessons of
morality and the duties of life making no part of the instruction afforded the
pupils.
"The academy," Alfieri tells us, "was a large, handsome quadrangular
building, with a large court in the middle; two sides of the square were
occupied by the students, the other two by the king's theatre and royal
archives. The side occupied by us, who were called of the second and third

apartment, was opposite the latter; that occupied by the students of the first
apartment being opposite to the king's theatre. The upper gallery on our side
was called the third apartment, and was devoted to the younger boys and
lower schools. The gallery on the ground floor was called the second, and
occupied by the pupils rather more advanced in age: a portion of these
studied at the university, another edifice adjoining to the academy; the rest
received their education in the military college. Every gallery contained at
least four chambers, each occupied by eleven youths, over which an
assistant, or usher, presided,—a poor fellow, whose only payment consisted
in being boarded and lodged free of expense, while he studied theology or
law, at the university; or, if he were not a poor student, he was an old and
ignorant priest. A third portion of the side destined to the first apartment
was occupied by the king's pages, to the number of twenty or twenty-five,
who were totally separated from us of the second, at the opposite angle of
the court, and close to the galleries of the archives. We, the younger pupils,
could not have been worse placed. On one side, was a theatre which we
were only permitted to visit about five or six times during the carnival; on
the other, the pages who attended on the court, and who, continually
hunting and riding, appeared to enjoy much freer and happier lives than the
poor imprisoned boys; besides these, we overlooked the proceedings of the
first class, which was composed almost entirely of foreigners, Russian and
German, with a large proportion of English;—this class was restrained by
no rule except that of being in by midnight; and their apartment was a mere
lodging house to them, instead of being a place of education."
Alfieri was placed in the third apartment: he had the luxury of a servant to
attend on him; but the fellow, unchecked by superior authority, became a
sort of petty tyrant over his young master: in all other respects, he was on
an equality with the rest of his comrades.
The basis of the system of education consisted in strict imprisonment, little
sleep, and unwholesome food. To this was added a certain degree of parrot
knowledge of the Latin language: the boys were taught to construe
Cornelius Nepos; but so little pains were taken, or, rather, so little power
was there in their instructors to enlarge their stores of real knowledge, that
Alfieri tells us, that not one of them knew who the men were whose lives
they read; nor what the country, government, or times were in which they
lived, nor even what thing government was. The boy made progress,

however, in what he was taught: his emulation was excited, and his memory
was cultivated; but, on the other hand, he grew sickly and stunted in
growth, the effects of bad food and too little sleep. He had only his drunken,
his dissipated servant to attend on him when he was ill; who often, on such
occasions, left him half the day alone, which increased the constitutional
melancholy of his disposition. His pleasures were few; and the want of all
affectionate treatment blighted his life. It seems strange to us that his
mother did not visit him, and that he never went home for a vacation: but
such were the customs of the country, and he was brought up in conformity
with them.
The spirit of emulation, caused him, in some degree, to distinguish himself,
and he advanced to higher classes and attended lectures on philosophy,
humanity, and mathematics; but such was the style in which they were
taught, that, when he had gone through six books of Euclid, he was unable
to demonstrate the fourth proposition; and, though he studied a whole year
under the famous Beccaria, he did not comprehend a word of what he was
taught. This is the less extraordinary, since, speaking the patois of
Piedmont, Italian was as a foreign language; and, though he contrived to
obtain a copy of Ariosto, he was unable to understand a word of it. His
teachers were, for the most part, equally ignorant; so that while his time was
devoted to Latin, his native language was a sealed book to him. He had a
few relations at Turin, and when he became really ill, they interfered that he
should have more sleep and better food; but he continued a puny and ailing
boy.
Some few pleasures diversified his life. His uncle found that the education
of his sister Julia was entirely neglected at Asti, and she was removed to a
convent at Turin. She was fifteen—in love—and divided from the object of
her affections. Her brother became her confidant: he visited her twice a
week, and tried to inspire her with constancy and resolution; but youthful
spirits were of more avail than the lessons of romance, and, in short time,
she was consoled. Another pleasure he enjoyed was, when a relation took
him, on one occasion, to the opera buffa, sung by the best comic singers of
Italy. The opera was the "Mercante di Malmantile." The spirit and vivacity
of the music made a profound impression on him, leaving, as it were, a trail
of harmony in his ears and heart, so that for many weeks after he remained
immersed in an excessive, but not painful, melancholy. During this time he

abhorred and nauseated his usual studies, while a world of fantastic images
crowded his mind; and had he known how, he would have composed
verses, and have expressed the most lively emotions, had not all language in
which to express them been denied to him, through the ignorance of his
teachers. This was the first time that music exercised so great an influence
over him, and it remained long impressed upon his memory. At all times he
was excessively susceptible to the impressions made by harmony, and he
found that vocal music, especially female voices, possessed a peculiar
power to disturb and agitate his mind. Nothing, he tells us, awakened in him
more violent or various emotions; and almost all his tragedies were
conceived while in the act of listening to music, or a few hours after. One
other pleasure that he enjoyed during this period, was spending a fortnight
with his uncle at Cuneo. This little journey did his health good, and
occasioned him infinite delight. It was here that he wrote his first sonnet,
addressed to a lady admired by his uncle, and who pleased him. As he knew
nothing of Italian, or, as it is called, Tuscan, this sonnet must have been
very bad. It pleased the lady; but his uncle, who was a soldier, and of an
austere disposition, and who, though imbued with sufficient knowledge of
history and government, despised poetry, ridiculed the boyish effusion, and
put all thought of writing another out of his head.
At the age of fourteen, the circumstances of his life were considerably
altered. His guardian uncle died. By the Piedmontese laws, children of
fourteen are considered, to a certain degree, of age, and are allowed the
entire disposal of their incomes; while a trustee is appointed to prevent their
alienating any part of the principal or real property. Alfieri was thus raised
at once to independence; and, to add to his comfort, his servant, who had
tyrannised over him, and who, unwatched, and unchecked, had fallen into
the worst vices, was dismissed. Alfieri parted from him with regret, despite
his ill-treatment, and showed the kindliness of his heart by visiting him
twice a week, and giving him what money he could spare. He tells us that
he can ill account for his attachment to one who had shown so little
kindness to him: he could not attribute it to generosity on his part; but partly
to habit, and partly to the talents of the man, who, besides being singularly
sagacious, was accustomed to tell him long adventures and tales full of
imagination and interest.

The first fruit he reaped from the death of his uncle was being permitted to
attend the riding school, which had been before denied. He was then of
diminutive stature and weak of frame, and little able to control his horse;
but perseverance, and a great desire of success, supplied every other defect.
To this noble exercise he owed the good health, robustness, and increase of
stature, that he soon acquired. The next great event that followed was, his
being removed from the second to the first apartment of his college. In the
second, the students were mere boys, and they were kept in strict discipline;
in the first, entire freedom and idleness was the order of the day. He made
his entrance on the 8th of May, 1763. His comrades were almost all
foreigners, many were French, a still greater number were English. An
excellent table was served in the best style, and all breathed luxury,
comfort, and freedom. Much amusement, a great deal of sleep and of riding,
gave Alfieri renewed health and spirits. He spent his money on horses or
dress. His trustee quarrelled with him for his extravagance, but that did not
alter the state of things. With liberty and money he acquired friends and
companions in every amusement and enterprise. "Yet," he says, "in the
midst of this busy vortex, being little more than fourteen, I was not nearly
so unreasonable as I might have been. From time to time, I felt a silent
impulse within me to apply to study, and a good deal of shame for my
ignorance, concerning the extent of which I never deceived myself, nor
others. But, grounded in no one study, undirected by any, not really
acquainted with a single language, I knew not how nor to what to apply
myself. I read French romances, and conversed with foreigners, and forgot
the little Italian I had before contrived to pick up from my Ariosto. At one
time I took it into my head to immerse myself in the thirty-six volumes of
Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, making extracts in French; but soon I threw
it aside, and took to romances and the 'Arabian Nights.'"
Riding, and horses, and fine clothes were his passions. He and his friends
went out in troops, leaping over every obstacle, fording rivers, and breaking
down the unfortunate animals they rode, till at last no one would let them
any. But these active exercises invigorated Alfieri's health, strengthened his
frame, and filled him with spirit and resolution; preparing his mind to
support, and even to make good use of, the physical and moral liberty he
afterwards acquired.

The youth of the first apartment were perfectly free, but they were all young
men: Alfieri was as a boy among them, being only fifteen; and it was
considered right that his servant should attend him constantly, and act as a
check upon him. The man who had replaced his former tyrant was a foolish,
good-humoured fellow, who easily yielded to bribery and persuasion, and
let his young master do as he pleased. But this did not satisfy the youth's
pride; he resolved to be on an equality with his comrades, and, without
saying a word to his valet, or to any one, went out alone. He was reproved
by the governor, but repeated his offence immediately. On this he was put
under arrest for a few days; but no sooner was his prison door opened, than,
in open defiance, he went out again unaccompanied; and although, on the
renewal of his offence, the term of his imprisonment was prolonged, it was
without avail. At length he declared that his arrest must be perpetual, since
as soon as he was set at liberty he should exercise the same privilege, being
resolved not in any way to be on a different footing from his comrades; that
the governor might remove him from the first, and replace him in the
second apartment, but that he insisted upon being put in possession of all
the rights of his companions. On this he was kept confined for more than
three months; nor would he make any request to be liberated, but, indignant
and stubborn, had died rather than have yielded. "I slept nearly all day," he
tells us; "towards evening I got up from my bed, and, having a mattrass
placed near the fireplace, I stretched myself upon it on the ground. Not
choosing to receive the usual college dinner, I caused food to be brought
into my room, and cooked pollenta and similar things at my fire. I never
dressed myself, nor allowed my hair to be touched, and became an absolute
savage. Though I was not allowed to quit my room, my friends were
permitted to visit me; but I was sullen and silent, and lay like a lifeless
body, not replying to any thing that was said; and thus I continued for
hours, with my eyes fixed on the ground, and full of tears, though I never
suffered one to escape from them."
This obstinacy must have annoyed his masters considerably, and they were,
no doubt, glad to make use of the first fair occasion for restoring him to
liberty. The marriage of his sister gave them a pretext, of which they availed
themselves. Julia married count Giacinto di Cumiano on the 1st of May,
1764: the wedding took place at the beautiful village of Cumiano, ten miles
from Turin. Alfieri enjoyed the spring season and his newly recovered
liberty with intense delight, and, on his return to college, was admitted to all