Chapter I: Introduction

It is many years since I first entertained a vague idea of translating the _Orlando Furioso_, and circumstances of little importance to the reader, led me more recently to undertake it in earnest. This work was again laid down; and afterwards resumed at the instance of a distinguished friend; and by an odd coincidence, I am indebted also to the suggestion of another eminent person for the idea of the present translation of the _Orlando Innamorato_, which, I should observe, is intended to be auxiliary to that, my first and greater undertaking, though I need scarcely say, that the story of Boiardo is a necessary prologue to the poem of Ariosto.

It was my intention to have translated the first mentioned work, exactly upon the model adopted by Tressan in his version of the French romances, a scheme afterwards executed with so much better success, by my late excellent friend, Mr. George Ellis, in his English work of the same description. A further consideration of the subject, however, induced me to imitate them only in their general plan of illustrating a compendious prose translation by extracts, without seeking to add poignancy to this, by what might give a false idea of the tone of my original. I recollected that I stood in a very different predicament from that of either of these authors; that, to compare my work with the one, which is most likely to be familiar to my readers, the 'Specimens of early English Romances,' the originals are composed in a spirit of gravity which can hardly be confused with the gay style of the translator, and therefore nobody can be misled by the vein of pleasantry which runs through Mr. Ellis's work, and which is sure to be exclusively ascribed to the author of the _Rifacimento_. This, however, would possibly not be the case with me, as the _Innamorato_ is in a great measure a humourous work, of which I might give a false impression, by infusing into it a different species of wit, from that which distinguishes it;—a consideration which induced me to adopt the scheme I have pursued in the following sheets.

This project is to give a mere ground-plan of the Gothic edifice of Boiardo, upon a small scale, accompanied with some elevations and sections of the chambers; which I have sought to colour after my original: or, (to speak more plainly,) the reader is to look for the mere story in my prose abridgement, while he may form some notion of its tone and style, from the stanzas with which it is interspersed.

The _story_ indeed, which seems most likely to interest the English reader, is that which took a strong possession of the imagination of Milton, who refers with more apparent enthusiasm to the _Innamorato_, than to the _Furioso_, and whose apparent preference is justifiable, if a richer stream of invention, and more consummate art in its distribution, are legitimate titles to admiration.

In this latter qualification more especially, Boiardo, however inferior as a poet, must be considered as a superior artist to Ariosto; and weaving as complicated a web as his successor, it is curious to observe how much he excels him as a story-teller. The tales, indeed, of Ariosto, (and the want of connexion among these is, in my eyes, his most essential defect) are so many loose episodes, which may be compared to parallel streams, flowing towards one reservoir, but through separate and independent channels. Those of Boiardo, on the contrary, are like waters, that, however they may diverge, preserve their relation to the parent river, to which their accession always seems necessary, and with which they reunite, previous to its discharging its contents into their common resting-place. A short example may serve to illustrate what I have laid down. A damsel in the _Innamorato_ relates to Rinaldo the adventures of two worthies named Iroldo and Prasildo, a narration which is interrupted, and which, though good in itself, at first appears to be an insulated episode. Rinaldo, however, afterwards falls in with Iroldo and his friend; and this history, thus resumed, unites itself naturally with that of the paladin. It is thus that all the stories are dove-tailed one into the other, and form a mosaic, as striking from the nice union of its parts, as from the brilliancy of its colours.

Boiardo's art, though here indeed he cannot be said to excel Ariosto, is as conspicuous also in the direction of the strange under-current of allegory which pervades his poem, as it is in the distribution of his stream of story; while the sort of esoteric doctrines conveyed by it, gives a mysterious interest even to what we imperfectly comprehend.

Such indeed is the case with many of the fables of the Odyssey, and even of the Iliad; where the allegory, moreover, is always subservient to poetry, and poetry is never made subservient to allegory. This remarkable piece of judgment in the Greek poet has, I think, been well imitated both by Boiardo and Ariosto, and it is the neglect of this principle which has made allegory so often offensive in the _Faery Queene_ of Spenser. The obtrusive nature of this has been well compared by Mr. George Ellis, in his Specimens of the early English poets, to a ghost in day-light. It is, moreover, destructive to all character; for Spenser's heroes being mere abstract personifications of some virtue or vice, we almost always know what they are to do, though their actions are often unnatural, if considered as the actions of human beings. Hence it is that we are never entertained with pictures of manners in the _Faery Queen_, while these form one of the great charms of the poems with which I am contrasting it.

It may however be said with justice, that we are to ascribe this more picturesque effect of allegory, rather to the spirit of the age than to that of the fabulist. For it is perhaps true that all early fable is purely allegorical; that this is by degrees mixed up with other circumstances, and it is in this mixed character that it is most conducive to poetical effect. But in a later age and later process of refinement, when there is a greater tendency to abstract, allegory is stript of her adventitious ornaments, and is at last forced upon us in poetry, painting, and sculpture, unveiled, or unencompassed by that sort of pleasing halo which is necessary to give her effect.

But whether we are to ascribe Boiardo's success in this particular to the character of his age, or to his own superior judgment, there is, I think, no doubt about the fact, and there is, I think, as little difficulty in conceding to my author, upon other grounds, the praise of skill in executing the singular work of which he was the architect.

This extraordinary man was Matteo Maria Boiardo, count of Scandiano, and a native of Reggio in the Modenese, who flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. These are circumstances the more worthy of mention, as some of them tend to explain what may seem most strange in the composition of the _Innamorato_; such as the provincial character of the diction, and more especially that careless and almost contemptuous tone between jest and earnest, which distinguishes his poem. It is doubtless on this account that Ugo Foscolo observes, in an ingenious critique on the Italian romantic poets, in the _Quarterly Review_*, that he tells his story in the tone of a feudal baron; thus applying to him more justly what M. de Balzac has objected to another; of whom he says, "qu'il s'est comporté dans son poëme comme un prince dans ses états. C'est en vertu de cette souverainté qu'il ne reconnoit point les lois, et qu'il se met au dessus du droit commun."

* In an article purporting to be a review of _Whistlecraft's poem_, (now entitled _The Monks and Giants_,) and _The Court and Parliament of Beasts_.

After speaking of the mode in which he arranged his work, it is a natural transition to the substance with which Boiardo built. This shews strong internal evidence* of having been taken, in the main, from the old French romances of Charlemagne, or rather from Italian works, raised upon their foundation. Hoole mentions one of these, called _Aspramonte_, &c., of uncertain date, and we have the titles of two others, which were anterior to the _Innamorato_, one called _Li fatti di Carlo Magno e dei Paladini di Francia_, printed in 1481; the other printed in 1491, and entitled _La Historia real di Francia, che tratta dei fatti dei Paladini e di Carlo Magno in set libri_. Some indeed would seem to deny that Boiardo had dug in these mines, and would wish us to believe, that he not only compounded but manufactured the materials with which he wrought. Such at least would appear to have been the drift of one, who observes that Agramant, Sacripant and Gradassso were names of certain of the vassals of Scandiano. But if he means to insinuate by this, that Boiardo was not also indebted to the other source for his fictions and characters, as well might a critic of to-day, contend that the author of the _Monks and Giants_, who writes under the name of _Whistlecraft_, had not borrowed the idea of their cause of quarrel from Pulci, because he has given ridiculous modern names to some of his giants; or that he had not taken the leaders amongst his _dramatis personæ_ from the romances of the _Round Table_, because he has conferred "two leopards' faces," that is, his own arms, on the single knight, who perishes in Sir Tristram's successful expedition.

* A single circumstance, which I cite, because it can be appreciated by every body, would convince me that such stories as are to be found in the _Innamorato_, were not the growth of Boiardo's century. No author of that age could have imagined the friendly ties of alliance and consanguinity between Christians and paynims, though such fictions are justified by facts: thus we learn from Gibbon that like relations existed between Greeks and Turks, and (as we are informed by Mr. Lockhart, in the preface to his _Spanish Ballads_, a work which presents a striking pictures of manners as of passion) between Spaniards and Moors. Nor need such things surprise us, though the barriers which now separate Christian and Mahomedan, render them impossible. Nations are like individuals, and when they are brought into close and constant intercourse, of whatever kind, their passions, good or bad, must be kindled by the contact.

But if Boiardo has apparently taken his principal fictions from the romances of Charlemagne, he has also resorted to other known quarries, and ransacked classical as well as romantic fable for materials.

This edifice, so constructed, which Boiardo did not live to finish, soon underwent alteration and repairs. The first were made by Niccolo degli Agostini, and later in the same century a second and more celebrated _rifacimento_ of it, from which this translation is composed, was produced by Francesco Berni; whose name has given a distinctive epithet to the style of poetry, in which he excelled, and of which he is vulgarly supposed to have been the inventor.

This man was born of poor but noble parents, in a small town of Tuscany. He entered the church, to which he had evidently no disposition, as a means of livelihood, and, though as unqualified for servitude as for the discharge of his clerical duties, spent the better part of his life in dependence. He appears, however, to have been blessed with a vein of cheerfulness, which, seconded by a lively imagination, enabled him to beguile the wearisome nature of occupations, which were uncongenial to him; and of this he has left many monuments in sonnets and pieces in _terza rima_, (styled in Italian _capitoli_,) consisting of satires and various species of ludicrous composition. The titles of many of these sufficiently attest their whimsicality, such as his _Capitoli sugli Orinali, sulle Anguille_, his _Eulogy of the Plague_, &c. &c. But the mode in which he has handled this last subject, will give the best insight into the character of his humour. Having premised that different persons gave a preference to different seasons—as the poet to the spring, and the reveller to the autumn,—he observes, that one may well like the season of flowers, or the other that of fruits; but that, for his part, he preferred the time of plague. He then backs his predilection by a rehearsal of the advantages attending this visitation; observing that a man is in such times free from solicitations of borrowers or creditors, and safe from disagreeable companions; that he has elbow-room at church and market, and can then only be said to be in the full possession of his natural liberty. He has rung all sorts of changes on this theme, and nothing can be more humorous than his details.

These are worked up with singular powers of diction, set off by great apparent facility of style, and are no less remarkable for music of rythm, richness of rhyme, and a happy boldness of expression. In this respect there is some analogy, though no likeness, between Berni and Dryden; and the real merits of both are therefore imperfectly estimated by foreigners, and even by the generality of their own countrymen. Many Italians, indeed, consider Berni as a mere buffoon, which the English reader will think less extraordinary, when he hears (as Lord Glenbervie* observes, I think, in his notes to Ricciardetto,) that such an opinion has been entertained in Italy, even with regard to Ariosto.

* I state this on Lord Glenbervie's sole authority, which is, however, a weighty one. Such an opinion was probably current when he first knew Italy; but I should imagine it could hardly be entertained at present.

Better reasons may seem to palliate such a mistake of the real poetical character of Berni, than of that of Ariosto. Some of these are of a general description, and others of a nature more peculiarly applicable to his case. We may observe, as to the first, that whoever indulges his wit, in whatever species of composition, is usually misjudged; for wit, in the sight of the world, overlays all the other qualities of an author, in whatever act or pursuit he may be engaged. Thus a great English painter, single in his walk, and distinguished by his various powers, is looked upon by the multitude as a mere caricaturist, even where caricature is intended by him only as a foil to beauty; and orators have for the same reason sunk into jesters in the opinion of the mob, though they may have been equally distinguished for argumentative discussion or pathetic effect.

But other and more particular circumstances have tended to fix this character upon Berni. Few men have a delicate perception of familiar expression, and still fewer yet have a nice feeling of the delicacies of prosody,

Untwisting all the links that tie
The secret chain of harmony.

Now it is for the bold, however dexterous, use of language, and rythm, that Berni is principally distinguished; and hence, as the means through which he works are imperfectly understood by the majority of his readers, his object has been frequently mistaken. I should cite, in illustration of this, his description of a storm at sea, which has been often deemed burlesque, but in which the poet would be more justly considered as working a fine effect by unwonted means.

Let us try this question by the rules of analogy. Men in all countries resemble one another in the main, and where they are not guided by a natural taste and judgment, lean upon some rule, which is to direct them as an infallible guide. Depending upon this, they seldom consider that it may be narrow, or of insufficient support. Thus an Englishman who has learned to think about verse, by the help of a few simple precepts*, which he believes to be absolute, is taught to look upon the double rhyme as suited only to burlesque poetry. Yet Drummond's

"Methought desponding nightingales did borrow,
Plaint of my plaint, and sorrow of my sorrow;"

and the description of him, who

"Saw with wonder,
Vast magazines of ice and piles of thunder,"**

might be cited to prove what widely different effects are produced by the same weapon, as it is differently wielded. But, impressed with the notions of the laws of verse which I have specified, that is, not knowing that almost all such metrical rules as have been alluded to, are merely conditional, some Italians***, and certainly, almost all English readers of Italian poetry, suppose the triple rhyme, (_la rima sdrucciola_) or dactyl, as it is called by us, to be as exclusively applied to ludicrous composition in Italian, as the double rhyme is imagined to be in English; and this is perhaps one cause why some of Berni's stanzas, which abound in triple rhymes, have been so utterly misconceived in England. Yet Berni and Ariosto have frequently employed the _versi sdruccioli_ where they have aimed at a bold or pathetic effect, though they have also undoubtedly been used by them to heighten that of comic or satirical composition. Caro the cotemporary of Berni is even profuse of triple rhymes in his translation of the Æneid; lyric poets, after the example of Chiabrera, often insert them in the sublimest of their odes; and one, who lately died full of years, managed the _rime sdrucciole_ so easily, as to compose whole poems with them, and with such dignity, both of versification and expression, as (in the opinion of a distinguished Italian friend already cited) to vie with Tasso and Petrarch.

* For example, there is no rule deemed more absolute, and yet there is none which admits more exceptions than the maxim forbidding a line of ten monosyllables. For monosyllables, in French and English, are often such only to the eye, such words being frequently, in both languages, melted into each other. Hence many good English verses consist of ten words, as that of Dryden, which will be in the recollection of every body,

"Arms and the man I sing, &c."

and the French cite as beautiful a line of Racine, which is composed of twelve,

"Lej ur n'est pas plus pur que le fond de mon cœur."

** I quote from memory.

*** Thus Goldoni in one of his comedies introduces a man improvising in triple rhymes for the sake of producing a ludicrous effect. Goldoni, however, (it must be confessed,) is no authority in questions of language or of versification.

Now let a man keep such doctrines in mind; let him come to the consideration of Berni's storm with a memory imbued with the sights and sounds seen and heard in one; let him consider all circumstances of metre, not absolutely, but conditionally; that is, in their relation to each other and the thing described, and he will then, I believe, enter into the real spirit in which the poet executed this description, and contemplate him with very different eyes from those with which he viewed him before.

Another cause of misconception, to which I have already alluded, has probably more misled the mob of readers of Italian poetry, natives as well as foreigners. I mean the language of Berni; and as to this, certainly few very few, are capable of appreciating his skill, or even of making out his track. There is indeed, I believe, no poet of any country, who has attempted so difficult a flight; a flight of unwearied wing, struck out with courage, and maintained only by the most incessant exertion and care.

Traces of these are seen in what may be called the charts on which he has pricked out his course, and which, I understand, witness as much to his diligence, as Ariosto's attest the care with which he accomplished his most extraordinary voyage. The documents to which I allude, are the original MSS. of the _Innamorato_, preserved at Brescia. As I was ignorant of the existence of these, during two residences which I made in Italy, I can only speak of them on the testimony of others; but an Italian critic, whom I have often quoted, and from whose authority upon such points I would almost say there was no appeal, once assured me these are as much blotted as those of Ariosto at Ferrara; and that Berni seems to have usually clothed his thoughts in ornate language at first, which he rejected on after-consideration, simplifying, but at the same time improving, his diction, as he proceeded, till he arrived at that exquisite happiness of expression, that _curiosa felicitas_, which makes his principal charm. It is hence that he is the most untranslatable of authors; since in copying him, it is not only a question of imitating colours, but the fine and more elaborate touches of a peculiar pencil.

While, however, it is clear that the versification and diction make the great charms of the _Innamorato_, these beauties should not throw his other excellencies into shade; and the openings of the different cantos, which he has engrafted on the original work of Boiardo, sometimes original, and sometimes imitated from the older poets, are not greatly inferior to those which Ariosto has prefixed to the several cantos of the Furioso, in imitation of him; no, not even in the higher claims of poetical merit.

These sometimes consist of moral reflections, arising out of the narrative; and the following may remind the reader of one of those little gems scattered through the plays of Shakspeare:—

Who steals a bugle-horn, a ring, a steed,
Or such like worthless thing, has some discretion.
'Tis petty larceny.—Not such his deed
Who robs us of our fame, our best possession;
And he who takes our labour's worthiest meed,
May well be deemed a felon by profession;
Who so much more our hate and scourge deserves.
As from the rule of right he wider swerves.

Sometimes indulging in a declamation against vices or follies, he makes his satire more poignant by allusions to some prevalent practice of the day: thus, in a sally against avarice, he attacks those who masqued it under the disguise of hypocrisy in the following stanza:

This other, under show of an adviser
And practiser of what is strict and right;
But being in effect a rogue and miser,
Cloisters a dozen daughters out of sight:
And fain would have the pretty creatures wiser
Than their frail sisters; but mistakes them quite;
For they are like the rest, and set the group
Of monks, and priests, and abbots, cock-a-hoop.

The following extract, illustrating a philosophical dogma of his age, taken from the opening of the forty-sixth canto, is of another description, and may serve as a specimen of the variety of his vein, and the odd ingenuity with which he winds in and out of his argument; sometimes bearing up for his harbour when in the middle of a digression; and then, when he seems to feel himself sure of a retreat, indulging in a new sally, in which he however never entirely loses sight of his port.

1.
He who the name of little world applied
To man, in this approved his subtle wit:
Since, save it is not round, all things beside
Exactly with this happy symbol fit;
And I may say that long and deep, and wide
And middling, good and bad, are found in it.
Here too, the various elements combined
Are dominant; snow, rain, and mist and wind.

2.
Now clear, now overcast. 'Tis there its land
Will yield no fruit; here bears a rich supply:
As the mixt soil is marle, or barren sand;
And haply here too moist, or there too dry.
Here foaming hoarse, and there with murmur bland,
Streams glide, or torrents tumble from on high.
Such of man's appetites convey the notion:
Since these are infinite, and still in motion.

3.
Two solid dikes the invading streams repel,
The one is Reason, arid the other Shame.
The torrents, if above their banks they swell,
Wit and discretion are too weak to tame.
The crystal waters, which so smoothly well.
Are appetites of things, devoid of blame.
Those winds, and rains, and snows, and night, and day.
Ye learned clerks, divine them as ye may.

4.
Among these elements, misfortune wills
Our nature should have most of earth: for she.
Moved by what influence heaven or sun instils.
Is subject to their power; nor less are we.
In her, this star or that, in barren hills
Produces mines in rich variety:
And those who human nature wisely scan
May this discern peculiarly in man.

5.
Who would believe that various minerals grew,
And many metals, in our rugged mind;
From gold to nitre? Yet the thing is true;
But, out, alas! the rub is how to find
This ore. Some letters and some wealth pursue,
Some fancy steeds, some dream, at ease reclined;
These song delights, and those the cittern's sound,
Such are the mines which in our world abound.

6.
As these are worthier, more or less, so they
Abound with lead or gold; and practised wight,
The various soil accustomed to survey,
Is fitted best to find the substance bright.
And such in our Apulia is the way
They heal those suffering from the spider's bite;
Who strange vagaries play, like men possessed;
_Tarantulated_*, as 'tis there express'd.

* The Tarantula is now known to be harmless. The cause of its supposed mischievous effects, and the efficacy of the mode of curing them are perhaps easily explained. People are in all countries (though they are imagined to be peculiarly so in England) exposed to attacks of melancholy, which arise out of some physical cause, whether indigestion, or other bodily complaint. The doctors of Calabria attributed this to the sting of the tarantula, which is assuredly not more extravagant than a popular English medical author's ascribing jaundice to the bite of a mad dog. The patient, delighted to find a cause for his complaint, was easily, by leading questions, brought to recollect that he had, at some time or other, felt a prick, which probably proceeded from the sting of a tarantula. Dancing was the remedy prescribed; and this, as exciting the animal spirits, &c. may very well have operated a cure of the real disease. The patients were to be played to, as Berni states, till a tune was struck which pleased their fancy, and animated them to exertion. The Tarantella, an air supposed to be particularly stimulating in such a case, is still a popular dance in the south of Italy. Modern philosophers have found out that the tarantula has no venom.

7.
For this, 'tis needful, touching sharp or flat.
To seek a sound which may the patients please;
Who, when they find the merry music pat.
Dance till they sweat away the foul disease.
And thus who should allure _this_ man or _that_,
And still with various offer tempt and tease,
I wot, in little time, would ascertain
And sound each different mortal's mine and vein.

8.
'Twas so Brunello with Rogero wrought,
Who offered him the armour and the steed.
Thus by the cunning Greek _his_ aid was bought,
Who laid fair Ilion smoking on the mead.
Which was of yore in clearer numbers taught;
Nor shall I now repeat upon my reed,
Who from the furrow let my plough-share stray,
Unheeding how the moments glide away.

9.
As the first pilot by the shore did creep,
Who launched his boat upon the billows dark,
And where the liquid ocean was least deep,
And without sails impelled his humble barque;
But seaward next, where foaming waters leap.
By little and by little steered his ark,
With nothing but the wind and stars to guide,
And round about him glorious wonders spied.

10.
Thus I, who still have sung a humble strain,
And kept my little barque within its bounds,
Now find it fit to launch into the main,
And sing the fearful warfare, which resounds
Where Africa pours out her swarthy train,
And the wide world with mustered troops abounds;
And, fanning fire and forge, each land and nation
Sends forth the dreadful note of preparation.

The next extract I shall give, though it commences with his favourite figure of the barque, will serve as a specimen of a different style. It forms the opening of the second book. The two first lines the reader will trace to Dante, and will find in the remainder a translation of the Æneadum Genetrix of Lucretius.

1.
Launched on a deeper sea, my pinnace, rear
Thy sail, prepared to plough the billows dark:
And you, ye lucid stars, by whom I steer
My feeble vessel to its destined mark,
Shine forth upon her course benign and clear.
And beam propitious on the daring barque
About to stem an ocean so profound:
While I your praises and your works resound.

2.
O, holy mother of Æneas! O,
Daughter of Jove! thou bliss of gods above
And men beneath; VENUS, who makest grow
Green herb and plant, and fillest all with love;
Thou creatures that would else be cold and slow.
Dost with thy sovereign instinct warm and move,
Thou dost all jarring things in peace unite—
The world's eternal spirit, life and light,

3.
At thine appearance storm and rain have ceased,
And zephyr has unlocked the genial ground;
Leap the wild herds;—'tis wanton nature's feast,—
And the green woods with singing birds resound;
While by strange pleasure stung, the savage beast
Lives but for love; what time their greenwood round
All creatures rove, or couch upon the sward.
Discord and hate forgot, in sweet accord.

4.
Thee, kind and gentle star! thy suppliant prays;
To thee I sue by every bolt which flies
Thro' the fifth planet*, melting with thy rays.
When panting on thy lap the godhead lies.
And lock'd within thine arms, with upward gaze.
Feeds on thy visage his desiring eyes:
That thou wilt gain for me his grace, and grown
Propitious, with _his_ grace accord thine own.

* Mars.

5.
Since 'tis of thee I sing, as I have said,
And only of thy praise and pleasures dream;
Well pleased I to this fruitful field was led,
And sure I could not choose a sweeter theme.
Thou too, that down thy clear and ample bed
Dost run with grateful murmur, RAPID STREAM.
Awhile from thine impetuous course refrain,
While on thy banks I tune my mingled strain.

In the concluding address to the river, he apostrophizes the Adige, on whose banks he might be said to be writing, as he was then living in the town of Verona, which is watered by it, in the service of the Cardinal di Bibbiena.

One more specimen of his poetical prefaces, and I have done. It is the introduction to his third book; and in this too the reader, who will recognize a passage of the _ars poetica_ of Horace, may observe how well Berni translates and applies his classical recollections.

1.
As they, who their unhappy task fulfil
In mines of England, Hungary, and Spain,
The deeper that they dig the mountain, still
Find richer treasure and securer gain;
And as wayfaring man who climbs a hill.
Surveys, as he ascends, a wider plain,
And shores and oceans open on his eye,
Exalted nearer to the starry sky:

2.
So in this book, indited for your pleasure,
If you believe and listen to my lore.
You, in advancing, shall discern new treasure,
And catch new lights and landscapes evermore.
Then by no former scale my promise measure,
Nor judge this strain by that which went before:
Since still my caves and rugged rocks unfold
A richer vein of jewels, pearls, and gold.

3.
And he who winds about my mountain's side,
Still spies new lands and seas, a glorious sight.
If patient industry and courage guide
Him from the valley to the frowning height.
Like prospect was the poet's who supplied
Flame out of smoke, instead of smoke from light;
With wise Ulysses' acts to fill our ears.
To the more wonderment of him who hears.

So much for the poetry of Berni. His life was not such as reflected any lustre on his works. This, if we reject some foul imputations cast upon him, was, to say the least of it, disreputable. It is, however, certain, that being at last established in a canonry at Florence, he lived there in high and accomplished society. This fact, however, in a profligate age, like that in which he flourished, proves nothing in his favour; and, if we listened to the stories of his biographers, we might suppose him even to have been courted for some of his vicious propensities: for one of these writers tells us he was excited by the cardinal Ippolito de' Medici to poison the duke Alexander, against whom he had a private pique; another, would have us believe that he was tempted by the duke to poison the cardinal; and (to complicate the matter yet more) that the cardinal or the duke, or both, had poison administered to Berni himself, upon his refusal. The dates, however, of their respective deaths, are at variance with these strange assertions; and if such certain means of contradiction were wanting, the internal evidence of Berni's character, however vicious, might be almost sufficient to refute such improbable calumnies. It may be said, indeed, that perhaps no one was ever selected as a probable agent of guilt, who seems to have been so little capable of engaging in the sort of crimes which were expected of him.

As a proof of this we might almost refer to the picture which he has given of himself, and which carries with it every warrant of resemblance. In one of the cantos of the last book of the _Innamorato_, he describes a number of persons as having become the victims of a fairy, of whom they afterwards remain the voluntary prisoners. Among these he has, in imitation of certain painters, introduced himself with another known character of the day: a circumstance which, together with the nature of the episode, might lead one to suspect that Thomson was indebted to this fiction for his _Castle of Indolence_. He has, however, given the tenants of his "bowers of ease," a character so much more intellectual than that of Berni's actors, that he may very fairly pretend to the praise of original composition, even if his work be an imitation instead of a mere accidental coincidence; which I am more tempted to believe.* But I draw the curtain of Berni's picture.

* I do not recollect any authority for Thomson's having been conversant with Italian poetry; and I think that a view of his works would lead to a contrary supposition. Thus I should say that though no man could copy what he actually saw with a nicer hand or eye, no man had more need of study in the Italian school of ideal picture than this English poet. In his drawings from nature his colouring is as inimitable as his design; and his bird, who

"Shivers every feather with desire,"

is painted with the precision as well as the force of the Flemish pencil. Yet he has personified Autumn as

"_Crowned with the sickle_ and the wheaten sheaf,"

thus putting on his head what should have been in his hand, and presenting us a ludicrous figure surmounted by a "crumpled horn." No Italian poet would have painted from nature with Thomson's marvellous precision; and no Italian poet would have committed such gross offences against propriety as he has, in his imaginary pictures.