should keep one eye open to look upon the good that those men did. It cannot be questioned that the majority of the preachers were under the influence of piety, purity, and virtue, though they were heated and virulent, in part from the wrongs which they had suffered, in part from natural fanaticism. The mass of their converts could have been but partially informed in the scriptures, and in the true essence of religion, for the mass had scarcely shaken off the tyranny and ignorance of popery. The multitude of sects which sprung up immediately after the settlement of the reformation in England, is to be ascribed to causes which had long been working-to the roused spirit of humanity, to the binding influence of a bright light suddenly poured upon the great interests of the people-to the rash and earnest questionings of the design of government and religion, and, most of all, to the oppression of the preceding times, which had offered dead ordinances as the food of craving hearts and minds. None of the extravagances of the times confound or amaze us. By the most natural of all processes two principal parties were formed, the one distinguishing between reformation and revolution, retaining, in politics and religion, some of the characteristics of the preceding times, the other pushing forward the reformation to such a length that their measures seemed to threaten lawless confusion, and the overthrow of all order. Power, wealth, talent, and all social advantages, were on the side of the Church of England. He does not deserve the honor of being a descendant even of a puritan, who will not acknowledge the integrity, the spiritual strength, the Christian purposes of the leading churchmen of the times. They felt that the interests of Christianity were in their sacred keeping, and required caution, reserve, and resistance, on their part. When the puritans complained of the ceremonies and impositions to which they were subjected, the church insisted that then, when the reformation was in progress, it would not be wise to leave religious doctrine and discipline to the vagaries of individual speculation and fanaticism. And what was the ruling motive, the strong leading idea of the separatists in resisting the measures of the English hierarchy, and enduring all indignities, imprisonment, and exile, rather than bow their wills or their consciences? Many of them were men of the best education the times could furnish, of high social standing, and of good common sense. They must therefore have known that the Deity could not take offence at a read prayer, a crosier, an organ, a mitre, a surplice, a candle burning on the communion table, which was placed at the eastern end of a church, and called an altar. They must have known that some of their own cherished practices were really as much non-essentials as any of those to which they objected. Why should they then have carried their obstinate resistance to an exile in the wilderness, rather than acknowledge a bishop or wear the clerical habit? It seems to us that their regard for one doctrine, and their fear of one dreadful evil, will explain their conduct. The doctrine was, that the Christian church had no visible head, but that its invisible and sovereign head was Jesus Christ, who had not delegated his authority to any human being. This doctrine they deemed most sacred and essential; Robinson, especially, laid great stress upon it. It constituted in their eyes much of the awful mystery which attended the mystical union of the members of the body with its head. This doctrine they believed to be endangered and set at nought by the establishment of an hierarchy; and believing, as they honestly did, that bishops were not of God, they ascribed them to Satan. The fear which filled the imagination, and mastered even the reason of the separatists, was, lest popery might once be reinstated in England. Did space permit and necessity require it, we are satisfied that a strong and well-nigh invincible plea might be put in for the separatists by merely following out this suggestion. The puritans had suffered much in the first successful attack upon popery, and in its temporary revival under Mary, after the loss of every thing else, they had fled to save their lives. Returning to England at the accession of Elizabeth, they found the reformation still upon a very precarious footing, its stability depending upon her single life, which was threatened by disease and by enemies. Knowing as they did the evil fruits of popery, and suffering its inflictions, they had a right to dread it. They felt it to be their solemn duty to establish protestantism securely while opportunity offered, so that a popish successor to the throne, by legitimate succession, could not subvert it with a breath. To effect this mighty purpose, they labored to root out every vestige of popery, every form, rite, ceremony, title, service, robe, and image, which in the minds of the common people had been associated with the older faith, and which, by lingering around the churches, the firesides, or the 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 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 mezzodì della Francia ed un cenno sulle antichità di quella regione del Cavaliere COSTANZO GAZZERA. Torino Štampena 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 themour 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 |