sports of the people, would have facilitated the restoration of popery. Let this suggestion be candidly considered in connection with the fact, that just at the time the pilgrim church was formed at Leyden, popery, reviving its energies, was triumphantly winning back its lost territory. Let the suggestion be illustrated by the history of the period, and the pilgrim fathers will not stand charged with the want of com

mon sense.

ART. V.-1. Opere di Torquato Tasso, colle Controversie sulla Jerusalemme, posta in migliore ordine, ricorrette sull' edizione Fiorentina, ed illustrate dal Professore Gio. ROSINI. Pisa: 1826-1832. Appresso Niccolo Capurro. Tomi XXXIII.

8vo.

2. Saggio sugli Amori di Torquato Tasso, e sulle cause della sua prigionia da GIO. ROSINI. Pisa: 1832. Appresso Niccolo Capurro. 8vo. pp. 102.

3. Lettere di Torquato Tasso a Luca Scalabrino ora per la prima volta pubblicate da BARTOLOMMEO GAMBA. Venezia dalla Tipografia di Alvisopopoli : 1833. pp. 62.

4. Cavedoniane di Giovanni Rosini, in risposta alle accuse del Signor D. CELESTINO CAVEDONI da Modena. Pisa: 1834. Presso N. Capurro, e com. Fasciola Ia IV.

5. Lettera di Giovanni Rosini al Sig. Defendente Sacchi a Milano, sul saggio annunziato della causa finora ignota delle sventure di Torquato Tasso. Del Signor Marchesa GAETANO CAPPONI. Pisa: 1837. Presso Niccolo Capurro.

6. Risposta di Giovanni Rosini alla lettera del Signor Gaetano Capponi. 1838. pp. 11.

7. Trattato della Dignità ed altri inediti scritti di Torquato Tasso; premessa una notizia intorno ai codici manoscritti di cose Italiane conservate nelle biblioteche del mezzodi della Francia ed un cenno sulle antichità di quella regione del Cavaliere COSTANZO GAZZERA. Torino Stamperia Reale: 1838.

8. Manoscritti inediti di Torquato Tasso, ed altri pregevoli documenti per servire alla biografia del medesimo, posseduti ed illustrati dal Conte Mariano Alberti, con incisioni e fac simili per cura di ROMUALDO GENTILUCCI. Lucca: 1837-1839. Dalla tipographia Guista.

9. Sulla causa finora ignota delle sventure di Torquato Tasso. Saggio del Marchese GAETANO CAPPONI. Firenze: 1840. Dai torchi di Luigi Pezzati. Prima dispensa del primo volume.

WE cannot agree with some continental critics, that the United States never can have a national literature, for want of an original language. Neither can we carry our notions of exclusiveness as far as some of our own patriots, who wish us to abandon the English tongue altogether, or modify it by Americanisms until it shall be English no longer. Nevertheless, we do regret our servile adoption of British opinions in regard to the authors of other countries-our neglect of foreign languages-our impolitic duty on books printed in them— our want of an international copy-right law, and the consequent inundation of our country by all the trashy productions of the British press.

With a view of contributing our mite to reform this state of things, by reminding our readers that taste and genius are not confined to one nation, that polite literature is successfully cultivated by many, and that it is a great folly to limit our vision to a single district of the Republic of Letters, however rich and highly cultivated it may be, we shall continue from time to time to cast a glance beyond the channel, and have chosen as a topic for our present article the author of the Jerusalemme Liberata, and a controversy now going on in Italy touching some portion of his life and writings.

TORQUATO TASSo, whose epic all Christendom, except Great Britain, ranks next to Virgil's, was born in Sorrento, a village on the Bay of Naples, on the eleventh of March, 1544. His father Bernardo, himself a poet of no small merit, descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors in Bergamo. His mother, Portia Rossi, was a noble Neapolitan lady, whose beauty, virtues and misfortunes, have been celebrated by her husband and her son, in language so full of truth and tenderness that it is impossible to read it unmoved.* Tasso's

* Serassi vita, 63-65; Lettere di B. Tasso; and Torquato Tasso's Canzone. NO. XVIII.-VOL. IX. 54

father was confidential secretary to the Prince of Salerno, chief of the Neapolitan aristocracy, who were at enmity with the Spanish viceroy, Toledo. The political intrigues in which this nobleman became involved, drew down upon himself and his followers a sentence of attainder.

Bernardo Tasso, like the rest, was banished, and his property confiscated. His young and lovely wife, prevented by the interference of her relations from sharing the exile of her husband, shut herself up in a convent, where she died prematurely of grief, and her brothers possessed themselves of her property, which they withheld from her children. Torquato in his boyhood was thus deprived of home and fortune. His earliest instruction he received under the paternal roof; afterwards in the school of the Jesuits at Naples, and two years before his mother's death his father sent for him to Rome, and thence transferred him to Pesara, where he became the companion of Francesco Maria della Rovere, afterwards Duke of Urbino. From Pesara he was removed to Padua, his education being continued under able masters, by whose lessons he profited so well as to be soon remarkable for his proficiency not only in the learning, but in the exercises and accomplishments of the time.

In obedience to the wishes of his father he began the study of the civil and canon law, but his heart and his leisure were given to the muses, and the fame won by his Rinaldo, composed at seventeen, induced Bernardo to abandon all thoughts of opposing his son's inclinations.

Love increased young Tasso's devotion to poetry, and Laura Seperara, as we learn from Rosini, received the homage of his verse. Cardinal Louis of Este, brother of Duke Alphonso II., became his patron, under whose protection Torquato came to Ferrara in 1565. His reception was flattering. The court of Alphonso was a splendid one, of which the princesses, his sisters, a few years older than Tasso, were the most distinguished ornaments. Lucretia and Leonora both favored the young poet, and between the latter and himself there sprung up, it is alleged, a romantic affection, whose mysteries, not yet thoroughly penetrated, literary curiosity is still eagerly investigating. On the one hand, it is contended, that this passion was serious, mutual, and the source of all Tasso's persecutions and misfortunes. On the other, it is utterly denied, or held to be merely poetical and

Platonic, and his imprisonment is attempted to be otherwise accounted for. Whether the poet subsequently lost his senses, or only affected madness, is another open question of great interest; and if the perusal of some of his own letters leaves us with a strong impression that he labored under strange illusions, our curiosity to ascertain the true character of a malady consistent with such extraordinary powers of composition as he exhibited, is rather increased than diminished.

Theories the most opposite, many of them plausibly supported, have divided the biographers of Tasso, and produced several of the works whose titles will be found at the head of this article, of which the most interesting is Rosini's, and the most recent the Marquess Gaetano Capponi's.* To crown the whole, and complicate the mystery, Count Alberti's facsimiles of manuscripts alleged to be original, have given rise to a new warfare.

Manso, Tasso's first biographer and personal friend, towards the close of his life, hints, but in terms somewhat guarded, his love for the Princess Leonora, yet speaks (if the text has not been falsified) of the poet's imprisonment as an act of humanity necessary for his cure.

This is the more singular, because, in regard to Torquato's state of mind, the author elsewhere is evidently puzzled, and at a loss whether to believe him inspired or insane.t

The authenticity of this work, however, is controverted. Tiraboschi and Serassi (no mean authorities) recognize it as genuine; but the Marquess Gaetano Capponi warmly disputes the fact. That Manso did write a life of Tasso is unquestionable, for Milton refers to it. The future bard of Paradise, during his visit to Italy, enjoyed the hospitality of the octogenarian nobleman, who thus became the friend of the two greatest epic poets the world has known during eighteen centuries, a piece of good fortune, in all human probability, never to be equalled. But though Milton's Latin lines establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Manso did write a life of Tasso, this does not so completely identify the work published under his name, as to remove all ground of cavil,

This personage is not to be confounded with the Marquess Gino Capponi, well known to every lover of Italy for his patriotism, talents, profound historie studies, and urbanity to all who engage in similar researches.

+ See Manso Vita di T. Tasso, vol. xxxiii. of Rosini's edition. Contrast pages167, 168, 169, with 170, 171, 172, and these again with 173, 174, 175.

and it certainly contains opinions, and forms of expression, which awaken an unpleasant suspicion that the publisher may have tampered with the manuscript.

Serassi's life of Tasso was evidently compiled with great care and industry from the most authentic sources. Written, however, under the patronage of a princess of the house of Este, its dedication, and the spirit of some remarkable passages, admonish us to be upon our guard. The author, it is evident, was too much under the influence of a family who seem always to have imagined their honor received a stain from the homage which has rendered Leonora immortal. One would suppose that the lapse of nearly three hundred years, the extinction of the direct line, and the matchless poetic renown of her adorer, himself a noble, might have tranquillized the too sensitive pride of ancestry in all who claimed participation in her blood, whether legitimately or illegitimately transmitted. But it is not so. No sooner had Rosini's essay appeared, the scope of which is to prove that Tasso was a favored lover, than Don Celestino Cavedoni attacked it stoutly.

This worthy ecclesiastic is, or was, we believe, the librarian of Modena's most absolute duke, and the motive which induced him to enter the arena cannot be doubtful. His simplicity, and his zeal for the fair fame of Leonora, may be commended, but it is impossible to compliment him on his logic or discernment.

As a specimen of the latter, we may mention that Rosini had quoted, though without laying any great stress upon it, a madrigal, said to have been an original of Tasso's, which an English gentleman, Mr. Dawson Turner, of Norfolk, acquired, in 1825, from the library of Prince Falconieri at Rome.*

Cavedoni, instead of urging, as he well might have done, that sufficient evidence of authenticity was wanting, insisted, that in the MSS. of Tasso in the library of the Duke of Modena, (inaccessible to all the world, but his highness and Don Celestino,) this identical madrigal is found directed to Lucretia, Duchess of Urbino, the sister of Leonora, and wife of Tasso's friend.

Indeed, the dilemma to which Serassi, as well as Cavedoni, and all others of the same school, find themselves re

* Rosini Saggio, p. 97.