Curiosities of Literature Volume I Part 52

ARIOSTO AND Ta.s.sO.

It surprises one to find among the literary Italians the merits of Ariosto most keenly disputed: slaves to cla.s.sical authority, they bend down to the majestic regularity of Ta.s.so. Yet the father of Ta.s.so, before his son had rivalled the romantic Ariosto, describes in a letter the effect of the "Orlando" on the people:--"There is no man of learning, no mechanic, no lad, no girl, no old man, who is satisfied to read the 'Orlando Furioso' once. This poem serves as the solace of the traveller, who fatigued on his journey deceives his la.s.situde by chanting some octaves of this poem. You may hear them sing these stanzas in the streets and in the fields every day." One would have expected that Ariosto would have been the favourite of the people, and Ta.s.so of the critics. But in Venice the gondoliers, and others, sing pa.s.sages which are generally taken from Ta.s.so, and rarely from Ariosto. A different fate, I imagined, would have attended the poet who has been distinguished by the epithet of "_The Divine_." I have been told by an Italian man of letters, that this circ.u.mstance arose from the relation which Ta.s.so's poem bears to Turkish affairs; as many of the common people have pa.s.sed into Turkey either by chance or by war. Besides, the long antipathy existing between the Venetians and the Turks gave additional force to the patriotic poetry of Ta.s.so. We cannot boast of any similar poems. Thus it was that the people of Greece and Ionia sang the poems of Homer.

The Accademia della Crusca gave a public preference to Ariosto. This irritated certain critics, and none more than Chapelain, who could _taste_ the regularity of Ta.s.so, but not _feel_ the "brave disorder" of Ariosto. He could not approve of those writers,

Who s.n.a.t.c.h a grace beyond the reach of art.

"I thank you," he writes, "for the sonnet which your indignation dictated, at the Academy's preference of Ariosto to Ta.s.so. This judgment is overthrown by the confessions of many of the _Cruscanti_, my a.s.sociates. It would be tedious to enter into its discussion; but it was pa.s.sion and not equity that prompted that decision. We confess, that, as to what concerns invention and purity of language, Ariosto has eminently the advantage over Ta.s.so; but majesty, pomp, numbers, and a style truly sublime, united to regularity of design, raise the latter so much above the other that no comparison can fairly exist."

The decision of Chapelain is not unjust; though I did not know that Ariosto's language was purer than Ta.s.so's.

Dr. Cocchi, the great Italian critic, compared "Ariosto's poem to the richer kind of harlequin's habit, made up of pieces of the very best silk, and of the liveliest colours. The parts of it are, many of them, _more beautiful_ than in Ta.s.so's poem, but the whole in Ta.s.so is without comparison more of a piece and better made." The critic was extricating himself as safely as he could out of this critical dilemma; for the disputes were then so violent, that I think one of the disputants took to his bed, and was said to have died of Ariosto and Ta.s.so.

It is the conceit of an Italian to give the name of _April_ to _Ariosto_, because it is the season of _flowers_; and that of _September_ to _Ta.s.so_, which is that of _fruits_. Tiraboschi judiciously observes that no comparison ought to be made between these great rivals. It is comparing "Ovid's Metamorphoses" with "Virgil's aeneid;" they are quite different things. In his characters of the two poets, he distinguishes between a romantic poem and a regular epic.

Their designs required distinct perfections. But an English reader is not enabled by the wretched versions of Hoole to echo the verse of La Fontaine, "JE CHERIS L'Arioste et J'ESTIME le Ta.s.se."

Boileau, some time before his death, was asked by a critic if he had repented of his celebrated decision concerning the merits of Ta.s.so, which some Italians had compared with those of Virgil? Boileau had hurled his bolts at these violators of cla.s.sical majesty. It is supposed that he was ignorant of the Italian language, but some expressions in his answer may induce us to think that he was not.

"I have so little changed my opinion, that, on a _re-perusal_ lately of Ta.s.so, I was sorry that I had not more amply explained myself on this subject in some of my reflections on 'Longinus.' I should have begun by acknowledging that Ta.s.so had a sublime genius, of great compa.s.s, with happy dispositions for the higher poetry. But when I came to the use he made of his talents, I should have shown that judicious discernment rarely prevailed in his works. That in the greater portion of his narrations he attached himself to the agreeable, oftener than to the just. That his descriptions are almost always overcharged with superfluous ornaments. That in painting the strongest pa.s.sions, and in the midst of the agitations they excite, frequently he degenerates into witticisms, which abruptly destroy the pathetic. That he abounds with images of too florid a kind; affected turns; conceits and frivolous thoughts; which, far from being adapted to his Jerusalem, could hardly be supportable in his 'Aminta.' So that all this, opposed to the gravity, the sobriety, the majesty of Virgil, what is it but tinsel compared with gold?"

The merits of Ta.s.so seem here precisely discriminated; and this criticism must be valuable to the lovers of poetry. The errors of Ta.s.so were national.

In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long pa.s.sages from Ariosto and Ta.s.so, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. Goldoni, in his life, notices the gondolier returning with him to the city: "He turned the prow of the gondola towards the city, singing all the way the twenty-sixth stanza of the sixteenth canto of the Jerusalem Delivered."

The late Mr. Barry once chanted to me a pa.s.sage of Ta.s.so in the manner of the gondoliers; and I have listened to such from one who in his youth had himself been a gondolier. An anonymous gentleman has greatly obliged me with his account of the recitation of these poets by the gondoliers of Venice.

There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by pa.s.sages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished.

I entered a gondola by moonlight: one singer placed himself forwards, and the other aft, and thus proceeded to Saint Giorgio. One began the song: when he had ended his strophe the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invariably returned; but, according to the subject matter of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe, as the object of the poem altered.

On the whole, however, their sounds were hoa.r.s.e and screaming: they seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivilised men, to make the excellency of their singing consist in the force of their voice: one seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs, and so far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box of the gondola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation.

My companion, to whom I communicated this circ.u.mstance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, a.s.sured me that this singing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the sh.o.r.e, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing against one another; and I kept walking up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood still, and hearkened to the one and to the other.

Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy ca.n.a.ls, the lofty buildings, the splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas that moved like spirits. .h.i.ther and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of the scene, and amidst all these circ.u.mstances it was easy to confess the character of this wonderful harmony.

It suits perfectly well with an idle solitary mariner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these ca.n.a.ls, waiting for his company or for a fare; the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror; and, as all is still around, he is as it were in a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot pa.s.sengers; a silent gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splas.h.i.+ng of the oars is scarcely to be heard.

At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit convention they alternate verse for verse; though the song should last the whole night through, they entertain, themselves without fatigue; the hearers, who are pa.s.sing between the two, take part in the amus.e.m.e.nt.

This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound; and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said quite unexpectedly, "E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto piu quando la cantano meglio."

I was told that the women of Lido, the long row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the Lagouns, particularly the women of the extreme districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of Ta.s.so to these and similar tunes.

They have the custom, when their husbands are fis.h.i.+ng out at sea, to sit along the sh.o.r.e in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a distance.

How much more delightful and more appropriate does this song show itself here, than the call of a solitary person uttered far and wide, till another equally disposed shall hear and answer him! It is the expression of a vehement and hearty longing, which yet is every moment nearer to the happiness of satisfaction.

Lord Byron has told us that with the independence of Venice the song of the gondolier has died away--

In Venice Ta.s.so's echoes are no more.

If this be not more poetical than true, it must have occurred at a moment when their last political change may have occasioned this silence on the waters. My servant _t.i.ta_, who was formerly the servant of his lords.h.i.+p, and whose name has been immortalised in the "Italy" of Mr.

Rogers, was himself a gondolier. He a.s.sures me that every night on the river the chant may be heard. Many who cannot even read have acquired the whole of Ta.s.so, and some chant the stanzas of Ariosto. It is a sort of poetical challenge, and he who cannot take up the subject by continuing it is held as vanquished, and which occasions him no slight vexation. In a note in Lord Byron's works, this article is quoted by mistake as written by me, though I had mentioned it as the contribution of a stranger. We find by that note that there are two kinds of Ta.s.so; the original, and another called the "_Canta alla Barcarola_," a spurious Ta.s.so in the Venetian dialect: this latter, however, is rarely used. In the same note, a printer's error has been perpetuated through all the editions of Byron; the name of _Barry_, the painter, has been printed _Berry_.

BAYLE.

Few philosophers were more deserving of the t.i.tle than, Bayle. His last hour exhibits the Socratic intrepidity with which he encountered the formidable approach of death. I have seen the original letter of the bookseller Leers, where he describes the death of our philosopher. "On the evening preceding his decease, having studied all day, he gave my corrector some copy of his 'Answer to Jacquelot,' and told him that he was very ill. At nine in the morning his laundress entered his chamber; he asked her, with a dying voice, if his fire was kindled? and a few moments after he died." His disease was an hereditary consumption, and his decline must have been gradual; speaking had become with him a great pain, but he laboured with the same tranquillity of mind to his last hour; and, with Bayle, it was death alone which, could interrupt the printer.

The irritability of genius is forcibly characterised by this circ.u.mstance in his literary life. When a close friends.h.i.+p had united him to Jurieu, he lavished on him the most flattering eulogiums: he is the hero of his "Republic of Letters." Enmity succeeded to friends.h.i.+p; Jurieu is then continually quoted in his "Critical Dictionary," whenever an occasion offers to give instances of gross blunders, palpable contradictions, and inconclusive arguments. These inconsistent opinions may be sanctioned by the similar conduct of a _Saint_! St. Jerome praised Rufinus as the most learned man of his age, while his friend; but when the same Rufinus joined his adversary Origen, he called him one of the most ignorant!

As a logician Bayle had no superior; the best logician will, however, frequently deceive himself. Bayle made long and close arguments to show that La Motte le Vayer never could have been a preceptor to the king; but all his reasonings are overturned by the fact being given in the "History of the Academy," by Pelisson.

Basnage said of Bayle, that _he read much by his fingers_. He meant that he ran over a book more than he read it; and that he had the art of always falling upon that which was most essential and curious in the book he examined.

There are heavy hours in which the mind of a man of letters is unhinged; when the intellectual faculties lose all their elasticity, and when nothing but the simplest actions are adapted to their enfeebled state.

At such hours it is recorded of the Jewish Socrates, Moses Mendelssohn, that he would stand at his window, and count the tiles of his neighbour's house. An anonymous writer has told of Bayle, that he would frequently wrap himself in his cloak, and hasten to places where mountebanks resorted; and that this was one of his chief amus.e.m.e.nts. He is surprised that so great a philosopher should delight in so trifling an object. This objection is not injurious to the character of Bayle; it only proves that the writer himself was no philosopher.

The "Monthly Reviewer," in noticing this article, has continued the speculation by giving two interesting anecdotes. "The observation concerning 'heavy hours,' and the want of elasticity in the intellectual faculties of men of letters, when the mind is fatigued and the attention blunted by incessant labour, reminds us of what is related by persons who were acquainted with the late sagacious magistrate Sir John Fielding; who, when fatigued with attending to complicated cases, and perplexed with discordant depositions, used to retire to a little closet in a remote and tranquil part of the house, to rest his mental powers and sharpen perception. He told a great physician, now living, who complained of the distance of places, as caused by the great extension of London, that 'he (the physician) would not have been able to visit many patients to any purpose, if they had resided nearer to each other; as he could have had no time either to think or to rest his mind.'"

Our excellent logician was little accustomed to a mixed society: his life was pa.s.sed in study. He had such an infantine simplicity in his nature, that he would speak on anatomical subjects before the ladies with as much freedom as before surgeons. When they inclined their eyes to the ground, and while some even blushed, he would then inquire if what he spoke was indecent; and, when told so, he smiled, and stopped.

His habits of life were, however, extremely pure; he probably left himself little leisure "_to fall into temptation_."

Bayle knew nothing of geometry; and, as Le Clerc informs us, acknowledged that he could never comprehend the demonstration of the first problem in Euclid. Le Clerc, however, was a rival to Bayle; with greater industry and more accurate learning, but with very inferior powers of reasoning and philosophy. Both of these great scholars, like our Locke, were dest.i.tute of fine taste and poetical discernment.

When f.a.gon, an eminent physician, was consulted on the illness of our student, he only prescribed a particular regimen, without the use of medicine. He closed his consultation by a compliment remarkable for its felicity. "I ardently wish one could spare this great man all this constraint, and that it were possible to find a remedy as singular as the merit of him for whom it is asked."

Voltaire has said that Bayle confessed he would not have made his Dictionary exceed a folio volume, had he written only for himself, and not for the booksellers. This Dictionary, with all its human faults, is a stupendous work, which must last with literature itself. I take an enlarged view of BAYLE and his DICTIONARY, in a subsequent article.

CERVANTES.

M. Du Boulay accompanied the French amba.s.sador to Spain, when Cervantes was yet living. He told Segrais that the amba.s.sador one day complimented Cervantes on the great reputation he had acquired by his Don Quixote; and that Cervantes whispered in his ear, "Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much more entertaining."

Cervantes, at the battle of Lepanto, was wounded, and enslaved. He has given his own history in Don Quixote, as indeed every great writer of fict.i.tious narratives has usually done. Cervantes was known at the court of Spain, but he did not receive those favours which might have been expected; he was neglected. His first volume is the finest; and his design was to have finished there: but he could not resist the importunities of his friends, who engaged him to make a second, which has not the same force, although it has many splendid pa.s.sages.

We have lost many good things of Cervantes, and other writers, through the tribunal of religion and dulness. One Aonius Palearius was sensible of this; and said, "that the Inquisition was a poniard aimed at the throat of literature." The image is striking, and the observation just; but this victim of genius was soon led to the stake!