Whilst Pranks and Wiles, the rivulet's marge along, Her fruitless penance there ne'er intermits; The glance, the look, that speak th' impassioned heart, Prone on his palm his face is seen to bend ; Now hence-now thence-in unrestrained guise, Licentiousness on wing capricious flies. Such ministers thy progeny attend, Venus! fair mother of each fluttering power: A thousand odours from those fields ascend, While Zephyr brings in dews the pearly shower; Fann'd by his flight, what time their incense blend The lily, violet, rose, or other flower; And views, with conscious pride, the exulting scene, Its mingled azure, vermil, pale and green. The trembling pansy virgin fears alarm; Downward, her modest eye she blushing bends: In snowy vest, but fringed with purple glare, To these, we shall beg leave to add a translation of a little irregular piece, entitled "Le Montanine," very pleasingly rendered, by the same pen, from the Italian of Politiano: Vaghe le Montanine e pastorelle, We share their blessing and repose; Such fruits, transcending all compare? 'Mid desert hills and vales to bloom; Can ye, content, such bliss resign? Far happier, we, our fleecy care Trip lightly after to the mead, Than, pent in city walls, your fair, Foot the gay dance in silks array'd: Nor wish have we, save who should braid With gayest wreaths her flowing hair. In the same author's Rape of Europa, we likewise meet with abundance of poetical imagery, of which, we shall content ourselves with subjoining the following, as an example: Beneath a snow-white bull's majestic guise, Here Jove, conceal'd by love's transforming power, Exulting bears his peerless, blooming prize: With wild affright she views the parting shore; Her golden locks, the winds that adverse rise, With shrinking effort, seem to avoid the main ; Her cries invoke the fair attendant train : muse. CHAPTER XIII. ALAMANNI.-BERNARDO TASSO.-TRISSINO.-TASSO. ARIOSTO did not assume to himself the honours of the epic But, without designing to soar beyond the romantic epic, which was invented before his time, he carried it to the highest point of perfection. The glory which he reaped, excited the emulation of the numerous poets who then crowded Italy; and many of them, despising the reputation which they might have derived from the lighter compositions of the lyric muse, from bucolics or didactic poems, were ambitious of distinguishing themselves by a loftier and more enduring flight. Each of the fabulous Paladins of the Court of Charlemagne had his poet, in the sixteenth century; and the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur were all celebrated in turn. Two of these romances, in octave stanzas, the Girone il cortese of Luigi Alamanni, and the Amadis of Bernardo Tasso, have survived the shipwreck of the rest. The first is a work carefully composed by one of the most learned men of his time, who had a talent for versification, and was not devoid of taste. But we feel sensible that he had too laboriously and coldly studied the requisites for his undertaking; and we may imagine that we see him in his room, intent on his work, and thus musing to himself: "Let us commence with a brilliant invocation, in the manner of Virgil; a bold simile will next be required; a degree of familiarity must follow, to explain our style, and to prove that we are not suitors to the loftier Muse alone. After that, we may allow our imagination to expatiate here, an incoherent image, which will shew that we are carried away by our feelings; there, a pastoral scene; for variety suits the poetry of romance.” Luigi Alamanni has, indeed, very well executed what he so pedantically proposed to himself; but his Girone il cortese, which is deficient neither in harmony of versification, nor in variety of incident, is a tedious production, and cannot, throughout, boast a line of inspiration. Alamanni was born at Florence, in 1495. His family was attached to the party of the Medici; but, when he saw the sovereign authority of his country usurped by that house, and tyrannically administered by the Cardinal Julian, he separated himself from his early connexions, and, in conjunction with his intimate friend Macchiavelli, entered into a conspiracy against the Medici, in 1522. The conspiracy was detected, and Alamanni had the good fortune to escape. An exile from his country, he wandered through different cities of Lombardy and France, for the space of five years. He was recalled, and invested with magisterial functions, during the short-lived triumph of the republican party; but only to be proscribed afresh three years afterwards, when Florence submitted to Alessandro de' Medici. From that period, he lived in France, attached to the service of Francis I., and was employed by him and by his son Henry II. in a diplomatic career, for which his judgment and acuteness of mind more eminently qualified him, than for the cultivation of poetry. He died in 1556. He has left us a poem on agriculture, in versi sciolti, or blank verse, in six books, containing about six thousand verses, entitled La Coltivazione. This poem has preserved a considerable reputation, from the great purity and elegance of the style, as well as from the methodical arrangement and the sagacity of its agricultural precepts; but, although he has the art of expressing himself poetically on such a subject, the work is, notwithstanding, tedious. An agriculturist would rather choose a well-written treatise in prose, and a votary of the Muse would prefer a more animating theme.* * I shall select from La Coltivazione a specimen of the versification of Alamanni, rather than from his chivalric poems, which are now almost forgotten. He thus describes the process of engrafting. Ma che direm de l' ingegnoso inserto, Quel Alamanni was also the author of an epic poem, called L'Avarchide; a fanciful travesty of the Iliad of Homer, in romantic verse. The scene is transferred to Bruges, the ancient Avarcum; the besiegers are knights of King Arthur; and the events are similar to those of the Iliad, and are related, book by book, in the same order. Bernardo Tasso, who commenced writing his Amadis about the year 1545, and published it in 1559, forty years after the appearance of the Orlando Furioso, was a gentleman of Bergamo, attached, from the year 1531, to the service of Ferdinando San Severino, prince of Salerno, and established by him at Sorrento, where he remained until the year 1547. At that epoch, San Severino, who had opposed himself to the introduction of the Inquisition into Naples, was driven into revolt, and compelled to embrace the party of France. Bernardo Tasso shared his misfortunes, and lost, through his fidelity, the situation which he had held at Naples. He then attached himself to the court of Urbino, and afterwards to Quel che val l' arte che a natura segua? Questo, vedendo una ben nata pianta D'agresti abitator' talvolta preda, Gli ancide e spegne, e di dolcezza ornata Nuova e bella colonia in essa adduce: Nè si sdegna ella, ma guardando in giro, Si bella scorge l' adottiva prole, Che, i veri figli suoi posti in obblio, Lieta e piena d' amor gli altrui nutrisce. L'arte e ingegno qui mille maniere Maravigliosamente ha poste in pruova. Quando è più dolce il ciel, chi prende in alto Le somme cime più novelle e verdi Del miglior frutto, e risecando il ramo D' un altro, per se allor aspro e selvaggio, Ma giovine e robusto, o 'l tronco istesso, Adatta in modo le due scorze insieme, Che l' uno e l' altro umor, che d' essi saglia, Mischiando le virtù, faccia indivisi Il sapor e l' odor, le frondi e i pomi. Chi la gemma svegliendo, a l' altra panta Fa simil piaga, e per soave impiastre, Ben congiunta ed egual l' inchiude in essa. Chi de la scorza intera spoglia un ramo, In guisa di pastor ch' al nuovo tempo, Faccia zampogne a risonar le valli, E ne riveste un altro in forma tale Che qual gonna nativa il cinga e copra, |