'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud, So let it be for then I shall repose. IV. I have been patient, let me be so yet, I had forgotten half I would forget, But it revives-Oh! would it were my lot To be forgetful as I am forgot! Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;- V. Look on a love which knows not to despair, (3) But all unquench'd is still my better part, Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart His name was Agostino Mosti. Tasso says of him, in a letter to his sister, ed usa meco ogni sorte di rigore ed inumanità.'" Hobhouse. Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud, But thou art dearest still, and I should be VI. It is no marvel-from my very birth Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, was, however, impregnable to the appeal; and Tasso, in another ode to the princesses, whose pity he invoked in the name of their own mother, who had herself known, if not the like horrors, (1) "This fearful picture is finely contrasted with that which the like solitude of imprisonment, and bitterness of soul. "ConTasso draws of himself in youth, when nature and meditation sidered merely as poems," says Black, "these canzoni are exwere forming his wild, romantic, and impassioned genius. In-tremely beautiful; but, if we contemplate them as the productions deed, the great excellence of the Lament consists in the ebbing of a mind diseased, they form important documents in the history and flowing of the noble prisoner's soul;-his feelings often of man." Life of Tasso. come suddenly from afar off,-sometimes gentle airs are breathing, and then all at once arise the storms and tempest, -the gloom, though black as night while it endures, gives way to frequent bursts of radiance,—and when the wild strain is closed, our pity and commiseration are blended with a sustaining and elevating sense of the grandeur and majesty of his character." Wilson. (2) Not long after his imprisonment, Tasso appealed to the mercy of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, couched in terms so respectful and pathetic, as must have moved, it might be thought, the severest bosom to relent. The heart of Alfonso (5) "As to the indifference which the Princess is said to have exhibited for the misfortunes of Tasso, and the little effort she made to obtain his liberty, this is one of the negative arguments founded on an hypothesis, that may be easily destroyed by a thousand others equally plausible. Was not the Princess anxious to avoid her own ruin? In taking too warm an interest for the poet, did she not risk destroying herself, without saving him?” Foscolo. (4) Tasso's profound and unconquerable love for Leonora, sustaining itself without hope throughout years of darkness and solitude, breathes a moral dignity over all his sentiments, and And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, Absorb'd in thine-the world was past away— VII. I loved all solitude-but little thought But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave ? Yet do I feel at times my mind decline, (1) we feel the strength and power of his noble spirit in the unapbraiding devotedness of his passion." Wilson. (1) Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement," that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but passing all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind. My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, I thought mine enemies had been but man, I once was quick in feeling—that is o'er ;— Stamp Madness deep into my memory, And woo Compassion to a blighted name, and as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppres sive stupor."-Opere, t. viii. p. 258. (2) "Those who indulge in the dreams of earthly retribution will observe, that the cruelty of Alfonso was not left without its recompense, even in his own person. He survived the affection of his subjects and of his dependants, who deserted him at his death; and suffered his body to be interred without princely or decent honours. His last wishes were neglected; his testament cancelled. His kinsman, Don Cæsar, shrank from the excommunication of the Vatican, and, after a short struggle, or rather suspense, Ferrara passed away for ever from the dominion of the house of Este." Hobhouse. Of magic round thee is extinct-shalt have (1) In July, 1586, after a confinement of more than seven years, Tasso was released from his dungeon. In the hope of receiving his mother's dowry, and of again beholding his sister Cornelia, he shortly after visited Naples, where his presence was welcomed with every demon tration of esteem and admiration. Being on visit at Mola di Gaeta, he received the following remarkable tribute of respect. Marco di Sciarra, the notorious captain of a numerous troop of banditti, hearing where the great poet was, sent to compliment him, and offered him not only a free passage, but protection by the way, and assured him that he and his followers would be proud to execute his orders. See Manso, Vita del Tasso, p. 219.-E. (2) "The pleasures of imagination' have been explained and justified by Addison in prose, and by Akenside in verse; but there are moments of real life when its miseries and its necessities seem to overpower and destroy them. The history of mankind, how ever, furnishes proofs, that no bodily suffering, no adverse circumstances, operating on our material nature, will extinguish the To be entwined for ever-but too late! (2) spirit of imagination. Perhaps there is no instance of this so very affecting and so very sublime as the case of Tasso. They who have seen the dark, horror-striking dungeon-hole at Ferrara, in which he was confined seven years under the imputation of madness, will have had this truth impressed upon their hearts in a manner never to be erased. In this vault, of which the sight makes the hardest heart shudder, the poet employed himself in finishing and correcting his immortal epic poem. Lord Byron's Lament on this subject is as sublime and profound a lesson in morality, and in the pictures of the recesses of the human soul, as it is a production most eloquent, most pathetic, most vigorous, and most elevating among the gifts of the Muse. The bosom which is not touched with it-the fancy which is not warmed,— the understanding which is not enlightened and exalted by it, is not fit for human intercourse. If Lord Byron had written nothing but this, to deny him the praise of a grand poet would have been flagrant injustice or gross stupidity." Sir E. Brydges. Beppo : A VENETIAN STORY. (1) ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller look you lisp, and wear strange suits; Annotation of the Commentators. That is, been at Venice, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen I. 'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout However high their rank, or low their station, (1) Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's tutor, says, in his Schoolmaster-" Although I was only nine days at Venice, I saw, in that little time, more liberty to sin, than ever I heard tell of in the city of London in nine years." Beppo was written at Venice, in October 1817, and acquired great popularity immediately on its publication in the May of the following year. Lord Byron's letters show that he attached very little importance to it at the time. He was not aware that he had opened a new vein, in which his genius was destined to work out some of its brightest triumphs, "I have written," he says to Mr. Murray, "a poem humorous, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft," and founded on a Venetian anecdote which amused me. It is called Beppo-the short name for Giuseppo,—that is, the Joe of the Italian Joseph. It has politics and ferocity." Again-"Whistlecraft is my immediate model, but Berni is the father of that kind of writing; which, I think, suits our language, too, very well. We shall see by this experiment. "He one day received by the mail a copy of Whistlecraft's prospectus and specimen of an inter.ded national work, and, moved by its playfulness, immediately after receiving it began Beppo, which he finished at a sitting." Galt, With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing, And other things which may be had for asking. II. The moment night with dusky mantle covers The skies (and the more duskily the better), It will, at any rate, show that I can write cheerfully, and repel the charge of monotony and mannerism." He wished Mr. Murray to accept of Beppo as a free gift, or, as he chose to express it, "as part of the contract for Canto Fourth of Childe Harold;" adding, however,-"if it pleases, you shall have more in the same mood; for I know the Italian way of life, and, as for the verse and the passions, I have them still in tolerable vigour." The Right Honourable John Hookham Frere has, then, by Lord Byron's confession, the merit of having first introduced the Bernesque style into our language; but his performance, entitled "Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers, intended to comprise the most interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table," though it delighted all elegant and learned readers, obtained at the time little notice from the public at large, and is already almost forgotten. For the causes of this failure, about which Mr. Rose and others have written at some length, it appears needless to look further than the last sentence we have been quoting from the letters of the author of the more successful Beppo. Whistlecraft had the verse: it had also the humour, the And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, You'd better walk about begirt with briars, Although you swore it only was in fun; But, saving this, you may put on whate'er You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak, Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair, Would rig you out in seriousness or joke; And even in Italy such places are, With prettier names in softer accents spoke, For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on 'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting, In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting. VII. And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes, Because they have no sauces to their stews, VIII. And therefore humbly I would recommend That is to say, if your religion's Roman, And you at Rome would do as Romans do, Would rather dine in sin on a ragout— X. No place that's call'd “Piazza” in Great Britain. (1) Of all the places where the carnival VI. This feast is named the carnival, (2) which, being Was most facetious in the days of yore, And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more Venice the bell from every city bore,— The beginning is like any other season; towards the middle you begin to meet masques and mummers in sunshine : in the last fifteen days the plot thickens; and during the three last all is hurly-burly. But to paint these, which may be almost considered as a separate festival, I must avail myself of the words of Messrs. William and Thomas Whistlecraft, in whose 'Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work' I find the description ready made to my hand, observing that, besides the ordinary dra wit, and even the poetry of the Italian model; but it wanted the The reader will find an elaborate critique on Mr. Frere's Whis- For, bating Covent Garden, I can't hit on (9) "The carnival," says Mr. Rose, "though it is gayer or duller, according to the genius of the nations which celebrate it, is, in its general character, nearly the same all over the peninsula. Beggars and vagabonds, blind, lame, and sturdy, The shops are shut, all business is at a stand, and the drunken XI. They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, (The best's at Florence (1)—see it, if ye will), XII. Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best; And when you to Manfrini's palace go, (3) That picture (howsoever fine the rest) Is loveliest to my mind of all the show; And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so: Love in full life and length, not love ideal, That the sweet model must have been the same, One of those forms which flit by us, when we In momentary gliding; the soft grace, science, as being of religious institution. Now there is, perhaps, no offence which is so unproportionably punished by conscience as that of indolence. With the wicked man, it is an intermittent disease; with the idle man, it is a chronic one." Letters from the North of Italy, vol. ii. p. 171. (1) "At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for Rome. However, I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty; but there are sculpture and painting, which, for the first time, gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant, about those two most artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the mistress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian, in the Medici gallery-the Venus; Canova's Venus, also in the other gallery," etc. B. Letlers, 1817. (2) "I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little; but to me there are none like the Venetian-above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon, in the Mariscalchi gallery in Bologna. The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful." B. Letters, 1820. (3) The following is Lord Byron's account of his visit to this palace, in April, 1817 :-" To-day, I have been over the Manfrini palace, famous for its pictures. Amongst them, there is a portrait of Ariosto, by Titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall Like the lost Pleiad (5) seen no more below. [know, XV. I said that like a picture by Giorgione Venetian women were, and so they are, Particularly seen from a balcony (For beauty 's sometimes best set off afar), And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni, They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar, For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter, Which flies on wings of light-heel'd Mercuries, Who do such things because they know no better;! Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona Such matters may be probably the same, Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame To suffocate a wife no more than twenty, Because she had a "cavalier servente." XVIII. Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) Which smothers women in a bed of feather, or wisdom;-it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame. There is also a famous dead Christ and live Apostles, for which Bonaparte offered in vain five thousand louis; and of which, though it is a capo d'opera of Titian, as I am no connoisseur, I say little, and thought less, except of one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and some very fine Giorgiones amongst them. There is an original Laura and Petrarch, very hideous both. Petrarch has not only the dress, but the features and air of an old woman; and Laura looks by no means like a young one, or a pretty one. What struck me most in the general collection, was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day among the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and to my mind, there is none finer. You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of painting, and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think it possible to see."-E. (4) This appears to be an incorrect description of the picture; as, according to Vasari and others, Giorgione never was married, and died young.-E. (5)" Quæ septem dici sex tamen esse solent."-Ovid. (6) Look to 't: In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience |