if not for virtue, would impose on the poet who felt or assumed a passion for any distinguished lady, the conditions of Tasso's Olindo, to desire much, to hope for little, and to ask nothing. It is also at least very doubtful whether much of the amorous sorrow of the sonnetteers were not purely ideal. imitation of 8. Lines and phrases from Petrarch are as studiously introduced as we find those of classical writers Studied in modern Latin poetry. It cannot be said that Petrarch. this is unpleasing; and to the Italians, who knew every passage of their favourite poet, it must have seemed at once a grateful homage of respect, and an ingenious artifice to bespeak attention. They might well look up to him as their master, but could not hope that even a foreigner would ever mistake the hand through a single sonnet. He is to his disciples, especially those towards the latter part of the century, as Guido is to Franceschini or Elisabetta Serena; an effeminate and mannered touch enfeebles the beauty which still lingers round the pencil of the imitator. If they produce any effect upon us beyond sweetness of sound and delicacy of expression, it is from some natural feeling, some real sorrow, or from some occasional originality of thought in which they cease for a moment to pace the banks of their favourite Sorga. It would be easy to point out not a few sonnets of this higher character, among those especially of Francesco Coppetta, of Claudio Tolomei, of Ludovico Paterno, or of Bernardo Tasso. ness for 9. A school of poets, that has little vigour of sentiment, falls readily into description, as painters of history Their fondor portrait that want expression of character en- description. deavour to please by their landscape. The Italians, especially in this part of the sixteenth century, are profuse in the song of birds, the murmur of waters, the shade of woods; and, as these images are always delightful, they shed a charm over much of their poetry, which only the critical reader, who knows its secret, is apt to resist, and that to his own loss of gratification. The pastoral character, which it became customary to assume, gives much opportunity for these secondary, yet very seducing beauties of style. They belong to the decline of the art, and have something of the voluptuous charm of evening. Unfortu nately they generally presage a dull twilight, or a thick darkness of creative poetry. The Greeks had much of this in the Ptolemaic age, and again in that of the first Byzantine emperors. It is conspicuous in Tansillo, Paterno, and both the Tassos. of Italian critics. 10. The Italian critics, Crescimbeni, Muratori, and Judgment Quadrio, have given minute attention to the beauties of particular sonnets culled from the vast stores of the sixteenth century. But as the development of the thought, the management of the four constituent clauses of the sonnet, especially the last, the propriety of every line, for nothing digressive or merely ornamental should be admitted, constitute in their eyes the chief merit of these short compositions, they extol some which in our eyes are not so pleasing, as what a less regular taste might select. Without presuming to rely on my own judgment, defective both as that of a foreigner, and of one not so extensively acquainted with the minor poetry of this age, I will mention two writers, well known, indeed, but less prominent in the critical treatises than some others, as possessing a more natural sensibility and a greater truth of sorrow than most of their contemporaries-Bernardino Rota and Gaspara Stampa. Bernardino 11. Bernardino Rota, a Neapolitan of ancient lineage and considerable wealth, left poems in Latin as Rota. well as Italian; and among the latter his eclogues are highly praised by his editor. But he is chiefly known by a series of sonnets intermixed with canzoni, upon a single subject, Portia Capece, his wife, whom, "what is unusual among our Tuscan poets (says his editor), he loved with an exclusive affection." But be it understood, lest the reader should be discouraged, that the poetry addressed to Portia Capece is all written before their marriage, or after her death. The earlier division of the series, "Rime in Vita," seems not to rise much. above the level of amorous poetry. He wooed, was delayed, complained, and won-the natural history of an equal and reasonable love. Sixteen years intervened of that tranquil bliss which contents the heart without moving it, and seldom affords much to the poet in which the reader can find interest. Her death in 1559 gave rise h to poetical sorrows, as real, and certainly full as rational, as those of Petrarch, to whom some of his contemporaries gave him the second place; rather probably from the similarity of their subject, than from the graces of his language. Rota is by no means free from conceits, and uses sometimes affected and unpleasing expressions, as mia dolce guerra, speaking of his wife, even after her death but his images are often striking; and, above all, he resembles Petrarch, with whatever inferiority, in combining the ideality of a poetical mind with the naturalness of real grief. It has never again been given to man, nor will it probably be given, to dip his pen in those streams of ethereal purity which have made the name of Laura immortal; but a sonnet of Rota may be not disadvantageously compared with one of Milton, which we justly admire for its general feeling, though it begins in pedantry and ends in conceit. For my own part, I would much rather read again the collection of Rota's sonnets than those of Cos tanzo. h Muratori blames a line of Rota as too bold, and containing a false thought. Feano i begl' occhi a se medesmi giorno. It seems to me not beyond the limits of poetry, nor more hyperbolical than many others which have been much admired. It is, at least, Petrarchesque in a high degree. This sonnet is in Mathias, iii. 256. That of Milton will be remembered by most readers. In lieto e pien di riverenza aspetto, Io me l' inchino, e con cortese affetto E mentre questo mar di pianto passo, Vantisi pur la morte averti tolta The poems of Rota are separately published in two volumes. Naples, 1726. They contain a mixture of Latin. Whether Milton intentionally borrowed the sonnet on his wife's death, "Methought I saw my last espoused saint," from that above quoted, I cannot pretend to say; certainly his resemblances to the Italian poets often seem more than accidental. Thus two lines in an indifferent writer, Girolamo Preti (Mathias, iii. 329), are exactly like one of the sublimest flights in the Paradise Lost. Tu per soffrir della cui luce i rai Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear: [But it has been suggested to me that Gaspara Stampa. for Collalto 12. The sorrows of Gaspara Stampa were of a different kind, but not less genuine than those of Rota. She was a lady of the Paduan territory, living near the small river Anaso, from which she adopted the poetical name of Anasilla. This stream bathes the foot of certain lofty hills, from which a distinguished family, the counts of Collalto, took their appellation. The representative of this house, himself a poet as well as soldier, and, if we believe his fond admirer, endowed with every virtue except constancy, was loved by Gaspara with enthusiastic passion. Unhappily she learned only by sad experience the want of generosity too common to man, and sacrificing, not the honour, but the pride of her sex, by submissive affection, and finally by querulous importunity, she estranged a heart never so susceptible as her own. Her sonnets, which seem arranged nearly in order, begin wich the delirium of sanguine love; they are extravagant effusions of admiration, mingled with joy and hope; but soon the sense of Collalto's coldness glides in and overpowers her bliss. After three years' expectation of seeing his promise of marriage fulfilled, and when he had already caused alarm by his indifference, she was compelled to endure the pangs of absence by his entering the service of France. This does not seem to have been of long continuance; but his letters were infrequent, and her complaints, always vented in a sonnet, become more fretful. He returned, and Anasilla exults with tenderness, yet still timid in the midst of her joy. is ill requited. Oserò io, con queste fide braccia, But jealousy, not groundless, soon intruded, and we find her doubly miserable. Collalto became more harsh, avowed his indifference, forbade her to importune him with her complaints, and in a few months espoused another woman. It is said by the historians of Italian literature, that the broken heart of Gaspara sunk very soon under these accumulated sorrows into the grave.' In an early sonnet she already calls Collalto, "il Signor, ch' io amo, e ch' io pavento;" an expression descriptive enough of the state in which poor Gaspara seems to have lived several years. She anticipated her epitaph, on this And such, no doubt, is what my readers expect, and (at least the gentler of them) wish to find. But inexorable truth, to whom I am the sworn vassal, compels me to say that the poems of the lady herself contain unequivocal proofs that she avenged herself better on Collalto-by falling in love again. We find the acknowledg- Her second ment of another incipient passion, which speedily love. comes to maturity; and, while declaring that her present flame is much stronger than the last, she dismisses her faithless lover with the handsome compliment, that it was her destiny always to fix her affections on a noble object. The name of her second choice does not appear in her poems; nor has any one hitherto, it would seem, made the very easy discovery of his existence. It is true that she died young; "but not of love." m simple, Style of Stampa. 13. The style of Gaspara Stampa is clear, graceful; the Italian critics find something to censure in the versification. In purity of taste, I should incline to set her above Bernardino Rota, though she has less vigour of imagination. Corniani has applied to her the well-known lines of Horace upon Sappho." But the fires of guilt and shame, that glow along the strings of the Eolian lyre, ill resemble the pure sorrows of the tender Anasilla. Her passion for Collalto, ardent and undisguised, was ever virtuous; the sense of gentle birth, though so inferior to his, as perhaps to make a proud man hypothesis of a broken heart, which did not occur. Per amar molto, ed esser poco amata Pregale, viator, riposo e pace, It is impossible to dispute the evidence of Gaspara herself in several sonnets, so that Corniani, and all the rest, must have read her very inattentively. What can we say to these lines? Perchè mi par vedere a certi segni |