Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845

"Slowly he comes,Stands still awhile as unresolved, then hastes,With quicken'd step, towards us; then againSlackens his pace, and pauses."

Tasso enters, and presents his Jerusalem Delivered to his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. Alphonso, seeing the laurel wreath on the bust of Virgil, makes a sign to his sister; and the princess, after some remonstrance on the part of Tasso, transfers it from the statue to the head of the living poet. As she crowns him, she says —

"Thou givest me, Tasso, here the rare delight,With silent act, to tell thee what I think."

But the poet is no sooner crowned than he entreats that the wreath should be removed. It weighs on him, it is a burden, a pressure, it sinks and abashes him. Besides, he feels, as the man of genius must always feel, that not to wear the crown but to earn it, is the real joy as well as task of his life. The laurel is indeed for the bust, not for the living head.

"Take it away!Oh take, ye gods, this glory from my brow!Hide it again in clouds! Bear it aloftTo heights all unattainable, that stillMy whole of life for this great recompense,Be one eternal course."

He obeys, however, the will of the princess, who bids him retain it. We are now introduced to the antagonist, in every sense of the word, of Tasso, – Antonio, secretary of state. In addition to the causes of repugnance springing from their opposite characters, Antonio is jealous of the favour which the young poet has won at the court of Ferrara, both with his patron and the ladies. This representative of the practical understanding speaks with admiration of the court of Rome, and the ability of the ruling pontiff. He says —

"No nobler object is there in the worldThan this – a prince who ably rules his people,A people where the proudest heart obeys,Where each man thinks he serves himself alone,Because what fits him is alone commanded.

Alphonso speaks of the poem which Tasso has just completed, and points to the crown which he wears. Then follow some of the unkindest words which a secretary of state could possibly bestow on the occasion.

"Antonio.– You solve a riddle for me. Entering hereI saw to my surprise two crowned.[Looking towards the bust of Ariosto."Tasso. I wishThou could'st as plainly as thou see'st my honours,Behold the oppress'd and downcast spirit within."Antonio– I have long known that in his recompensesAlphonso is immoderate; 'tis thineTo prove to-day what all who serve the princeHave learn'd, or will."

Antonio then launches into an eloquent eulogium upon the other crowned one – upon Ariosto – which has for its object as well to dash the pride of the living, as to do homage to the dead. He adds, with a most cruel ambiguity,

"Who ventures near this man to place himself,Even for his boldness may deserve a crown."

The seeds of enmity, it is manifest, are plentifully sown between Antonio and Tasso. Here ends the 1st Act.

At the commencement of the 2d Act, the princess is endeavouring to heal the wound that has been inflicted on the just pride of the poet, and she alludes, in particular, to the eulogy which Antonio had so invidiously passed upon Ariosto. The answer of Tasso deserves attention. It is peculiar to the poetic genius to estimate very differently at different times the value of its own labours. Sometimes do but grant to the poet his claim to the possession of genius, and his head strikes the stars. At other times, when contemplating the lives of those men whose actions he has been content to celebrate in song, he doubts whether he should not rank himself as the very prince of idlers. He is sometimes tempted to think that to have given one good stroke with the sword, were worth all the delicate touches of his pen. This feeling Tasso has finely expressed.

"Princess.– When Antonio knows what thou hast doneTo honour these our times, then will he place theeOn the same level, side by side, with himHe now depicts in so gigantic stature."Tasso.– Believe me, lady, Ariosto's praiseHeard from his lips, was likely more to pleaseThan wound me. It confirms us, it consoles,To hear the man extoll'd whom we have placedBefore us as a model: we can sayIn secret to ourselves – gain thou a shareOf his acknowledged merit, and thou gain'stAs certainly a portion of his fame.No – that which to its depths has stirr'd my spirit,What still I feel through all my sinking soul,It was the picture of that living world,Which restless, vast, enormous, yet revolvesIn measured circle round the one great man,Fulfils the course which he, the demi-god,Dares to prescribe to it. With eager earI listen'd to the experienced man, whose speechGave faithful transcript of a real scene.Alas! the more I listen'd, still the moreI sank within myself: it seem'd my beingWould vanish like an echo of the hills,Resolved to a mere sound – a word – a nothing."Princess.– Poets and heroes for each other live,Poets and heroes seek each other out,And envy not each other: this thyself,Few minutes past, did vividly portray.True, it is glorious to perform the deedThat merits noble song; yet glorious tooWith noble song the once accomplish'd deedThrough all the after-world to memorize."

When she continues to urge Tasso to make the friendship of Antonio, and assures him that the return of the minister has only procured him a friend the more, he answers: —

"Tasso.– I hoped it once, I doubt it now.Instructive were to me his intercourse,Useful his counsel in a thousand ways:This man possesses all in which I fail.And yet – though at his birth flock'd every god,To hang his cradle with some special gift —The graces came not there, they stood aloof:And he whom these sweet sisters visit not,May possess much, may in bestowing beMost bountiful, but never will a friend,Or loved disciple, on his bosom rest."

The tendency of this scene is to lull Tasso into the belief that he is beloved of the princess. Of course he is ardent to obey the latest injunctions he has received from her, and when Antonio next makes his appearance, he offers him immediately "his hand and heart." The secretary of state receives such a sudden offer (as it might be expected a secretary of state would do) with great coolness; he will wait till he knows whether he can return the like offer of friendship. He discourses on the excellence of moderation, and in a somewhat magisterial tone, little justified by the relative intellectual position of the speakers. Here, again, we have a true insight into the character of the man of genius. He is modest – very – till you become too overbearing; he exaggerates the superiority in practical wisdom of men who have mingled extensively with the world, and so invites a tone of dictation; and yet withal he has a sly consciousness, that this same superiority of the man of the world consists much more in a certain fortunate limitation of thought than in any peculiar extension. The wisdom of such a man has passed through the mind of the poet, with this difference, that in his mind there is much beside this wisdom, much that is higher than this wisdom; and so it does not maintain a very prominent position, but gets obscured and neglected.

"Tasso.– Thou hast good title to advise, to warn,For sage experience, like a long-tried friend,Stands at thy side. Yet be assured of this,The solitary heart hears every day,Hears every hour, a warning; cons and proves,And puts in practice secretly that loreWhich in harsh lessons you would teach as new,As something widely out of reach."

Yet, spurred on by the injunction of the princess, he still makes an attempt to grasp at the friendship of Antonio.

"Tasso.– Once more! here is my hand! clasp it in thine!Nay, step not back, nor, noble sir, deny meThe happiness, the greatest of good men,To yield me, trustful, to superior worth,Without reserve, without a pause or halt."Antonio.– You come full sail upon me. Plain it isYou are accustomed to make easy conquests,To walk broad paths, to find an open door.Thy merit – and thy fortune – I admit,But fear we stand asunder wide apart."Tasso.– In years and in tried worth I still am wanting;In zeal and will, I yield to none."Antonio. The willDraws the deed after by no magic charm,And zeal grows weary where the way is long:Who reach the goal, they only wear the crown.And yet, crowns are there, or say garlands rather,Of many sorts, some gather'd as we go,Pluck'd as we sing and saunter."Tasso. But a giftFreely bestow'd on this mind, and to thatAs utterly denied – this not each man,Stretching his hand, can gather if he will."Antonio.– Ascribe the gift to fortune – it is well.The fortunate, with reason good, extolThe goddess Fortune – give her titles high —Call her Minerva – call her what they will —Take her blind gifts for just reward, and wearHer wind-blown favour as a badge of merit."Tasso.– No need to speak more plainly. 'Tis enough.I see into thy soul – I know thee now,And all thy life I know. Oh, that the princessHad sounded thee as I! But never wasteThy shafts of malice of the eye and tongueAgainst this laurel-wreath that crowns my brow,The imperishable garland. 'Tis in vain.First be so great as not to envy it,Then perhaps thou may'st dispute."Antonio. Thyself art promptTo justify my slight esteem of thee.The impetuous boy with violence demandsThe confidence and friendship of the man.Why, what unmannerly deportment this!"Tasso.– Better what you unmannerly may deem,Than what I call ignoble."Antonio. There remainsOne hope for thee. Thou still art young enoughTo be corrected by strict discipline."Tasso.– Not young enough to bow myself to idolsThat courtiers make and worship; old enoughDefiance with defiance to encounter."Antonio.– Ay, where the tinkling lute and tinkling speechDecide the combat, Tasso is a hero."Tasso.– I were to blame to boast a sword unknownAs yet to war, but I can trust to it."Antonio.– Trust rather to indulgence."

We are in the high way, it is plain, to a duel. Tasso insists upon an appeal to the sword. The secretary of state contents himself with objecting the privilege or sanctity of the place, they being within the precincts of the royal residence. At the height of this debate, Alphonso enters. Here, again, the minister has a most palpable advantage over the poet. He insists upon the one point of view in which he has the clear right, and will not diverge from it; Tasso has challenged him, has done his utmost to provoke a duel within the walls of the palace; and is, therefore, amenable to the law. The Duke can do no other than decide against the poet, whom he dismisses to his apartment with the injunction that he is there to consider himself, for the present, a prisoner.

In the three subsequent acts, there is still less of action; and we may as well relate at once what there remains of plot to be told, and then proceed with our extracts. Through the mediation of the princess and her friend, this quarrel is in part adjusted, and Tasso is released from imprisonment. But his spirit is wounded, and he determines to quit the court of Ferrara. He obtains permission to travel to Rome. At this juncture he meets with the princess. His impression has been that she also is alienated from him; her conversation removes and quite reverses this impression; in a moment of ungovernable tenderness he is about to embrace her; she repulses him and retires. The duke, who makes his appearance just at this moment, and who has been a witness to the conclusion of this interview, orders Tasso into confinement, expressing at the same time his conviction that the poet has lost his senses. He is given into the charge of Antonio, and thus ends the drama.

Glancing back over the three last acts, whose action we have summed up so briefly, we might select many beautiful passages for translation; we content ourselves with the following.

The princess and Leonora Sanvitale are conversing. There has been question of the departure of Tasso.

"Princess.– Each day was then itself a little life;No care was clamorous, and the future slept.Me and my happy bark the flowing stream,Without an oar, drew with light ripple down.Now – in the turmoil of the present hour,The future wakes, and fills the startled earWith whisper'd terrors."Leonora. But the future bringsNew joys, new friendships."Princess. Let me keep the old.Change may amuse, it scarce can profit us.I never thrust, with youthful eagerness,A curious hand into the shaken urnOf life's great lottery, with hope to findSome object for a restless, untried heart.I honour'd him, and therefore have I loved;It was necessity to love the manWith whom my being grew into a lifeSuch as I had not known, or dream'd before.At first, I laid injunctions on myselfTo keep aloof; I yielded, yielded still,Still nearer drew – enticed how pleasantlyTo be how hardly punish'd!"Leonora. If a friendFail with her weak consolatory speech,Let the still powers of this beautiful world,With silent healing, renovate thy spirit."Princess.– The world is beautiful! In its wide circuit,How much of good is stirring here and there!Alas! that it should ever seem removedJust one step off! Throughout the whole of lifeStep after step, it leads our sick desireE'en to the grave. So rarely do men findWhat yet seem'd destined them – so rarely holdWhat once the hand had fortunately clasp'd;What has been giv'n us, rends itself away,And what we clutch'd, we let it loose again;There is a happiness – we know it not,We know it – and we know not how to prize."

Tasso says, when he thought himself happy in the love of Leonora d'Este —

"I have often dream'd of this great happiness —'Tis here! – and oh, how far beyond the dream!A blind man, let him reason upon light,And on the charm of colour, how he will,If once the new-born day reveal itself,It is a new-born sense."

And again on this same felicity,

"Not on the wide sands of the rushing ocean,'Tis in the quiet shell, shut up, conceal'd,We find the pearl."

It is in another strain that the poet speaks when Leonora Sanvitale attempts to persuade him that Antonio entertains in reality no hostility towards him. In what follows, we see the anger and hatred of a meditative man. It is a hatred which supports and exhausts itself in reasoning; which we might predict would never go forth into any act of enmity. It is a mere sentiment, or rather the mere conception of a sentiment. For the poet rather thinks of hatred than positively hates.

"And if I err, I err resolvedly.I think of him as of my bitter foe;To think him less than this would now distract,Discomfort me. It were a sort of follyTo be with all men reasonable; 'twereThe abandonment of all distinctive self.Are all mankind to us so reasonable?No, no! Man in his narrow being needsBoth feelings, love, and hate. Needs he not nightAs well as day? and sleep as well as waking?No! I will hold this man for evermoreAs precious object of my deepest hate,And nothing shall disturb the joy I haveIn thinking of him daily worse and worse."Act. 4, Scene 2.

We conclude with a passage in which Tasso speaks of the irresistible passion he feels for his own art. He has sought permission of the Duke to retire to Rome, on the plea that he will there, by the assistance of learned men, better complete his great work, which he regards as still imperfect. Alphonso grants his request, but advises him rather to suspend his labour for the present, and partake, for a season, of the distractions of the world. He would be wise, he tells him, to seek the restoration of his health.

"Tasso.– It should seem so; yet have I health enowIf only I can labour, and this labourAgain bestows the only health I know.It is not well with me, as thou hast seen,In this luxuriant peace. In rest I findRest least of all. I was not framed,My spirit was not destined to be borneOn the soft element of flowing days,And so in Time's great ocean lose itselfUncheck'd, unbroken."Alphonso.– All feelings, and all impulses, my Tasso,Drive thee for ever back into thyself.There lies about us many an abyssWhich Fate has dug; the deepest yet of allIs here, in our own heart, and very strongIs the temptation to plunge headlong in.I pray thee snatch thyself away in time.Divorce thee, for a season, from thyself.The man will gain whate'er the poet lose."Tasso.– One impulse all in vein I should resist,Which day and night within my bosom stirs.Life is not life if I must cease to think,Or, thinking, cease to poetize.Forbid the silk-worm any more to spin,Because its own life lies upon the thread.Still it uncoils the precious golden web,And ceases not till, dying, it has closedIts own tomb o'er it. May the good God grantWe, one day, share the fate of that same worm! —That we, too, in some valley bright with heaven,Surprised with sudden joy, may spread our wing.I feel – I feel it well – this highest artWhich should have fed the mind, which to the strongAdds strength and ever new vitality, —It is destroying me, it hunts me forth,Where'er I rove, an exile amongst men."Act V. Scene 2.

DAVID THE "TELYNWR;" 20 OR, THE DAUGHTER'S TRIAL

A TALE OF WALES

BY JOSEPH DOWNES

The inhabitants of the white mountain village of K – , in Cardiganshire, were all retired to rest, it being ten o'clock. No – a single light twinkled from under eaves of thick and mossy thatch, in one cottage apart, and neater than the rest, that skirted the steep street, (as the salmon fishers, its chief inhabitants, were pleased to call it,) being, indeed, the rock, thinly covered with the soil, and fringed with long grass, but rudely smoothed, where very rugged, by art, for the transit of a gamboo (cart with small wheels of entire wood) or sledge. The moonlight slept in unbroken lustre on the houses of one story, or without any but what the roof slope formed, and several appearances marked it as a fisher village. A black, oval, pitched basket, as it appeared, hung against the wall of several of the cottages, being the coracle, or boat for one person, much used on the larger Welsh rivers, very primitive in form and construction, being precisely described by Cæsar in his account of the ancient Britons. Dried salmon and other fish also adorned others, pleasingly hinting of the general honesty and mutual confidence of the humble natives, poor as they were, for strangers were never thought of; the road, such as it was, merely mounting up to "the hill" (the lofty desert of sheepwalk) on one hand, and descending steeply to the river Tivy on the other. A deadened thunder, rising from some fall and brawling shallow "rapid" of the river, was the only sound, except the hooting of an owl from some old ivied building, a ruin apparently, visible on the olive-hued precipice behind. The russet mass of mountain, bulging, as it were, over the little range of cots, gave an air of security to their picturesque white beauty; while silver clouds curled and rolled in masses, grandly veiling their higher peaks, and sometimes canopied the roofs, many reddened with wall-flower; the walls also exhibiting streaks of green, where rains had drenched the vegetating thatch and washed down its tint of yellow green. Aged trees, green even to the trunks, luxuriant ivy enveloping them as well as the branches, stretched their huge arms down the declivity leading to the Tivy, the flashing of whose waters, through its rich fringe of underwood, caught the eye of any one standing on the ridge above. A solitary figure, tall and muffled, did stand with his back in contact with one of these oaks, so as to be hardly distinguishable from the trunk.

A poet might imagine, looking at a Welsh village by moonlight, thus embosomed in pastoral mountains, canopied with those silver mists whose very motion was peace, and lulled by those soft solemn sounds, more peace-breathing than even silence, that there, at least, care never came; there peace, "if to be found in the world," would be surely found; and soon that one light moving – that prettier painted door stealthily opening – would prove that peace confined to the elements only. "Here I am!" would be groaned to his mind's ear by the ubiquitous, foul fiend, Care; for thence emerged a female form —simplex munditiis– the exact description of it as to attire – rather tall than otherwise, but its chief characteristic, a drooping kind of bowed gait, in affecting unison with a melancholy settled over the pale features, so strongly as to be visible even by the moon at a very short distance. Brushing away a tear from each eye, as she held to her breast a little packet of some kind, as soon as she found (as she imagined) the coast clear, she proceeded, after fastening her door, toward one of the bowered footpaths leading to the river. The concealed man looked after her, prepared to follow, when some belated salmon fisher, his dark coracle, strapped to his back, nodding over his head, appeared. This lurking personage was nicknamed "Lewis the Spy" by the country people. He was the agent, newly appointed, to inspect the condition of a once fine but most neglected estate, which had recently come into possession of a "Nabob," as they called him – a gentleman who had left Wales a boy, and was now on his voyage home to take possession of a dilapidated mansion called Talylynn. Lewis, his forerunner and plenipotentiary, was the dread and hate of the alarmed tenants. He had already ejected from his stewardship a good but rather indolent old man, John Bevan, who had grown old in the service of the former "squire;" and besides kept watch over the doings on the farms in an occult and treacherous manner, prowling round their "folds" by dusk, and often listening to conversations by concealing himself. Such was the man who now accosted the humble fisherman. Reverentially, as if to the terrible landlord himself, the peasant bared his head to his sullen representative.

"Who is that young woman?" he enquired, sternly, though well knowing who she was.

"Dim Saesneg," answered the man, bowing.

"None of your Dim Saesneg to me, fellow," rejoined Lewis, sternly. "Did not I hear you swearing in good English at a Saesyn (Englishman or Saxon) yesterday?"

The Welshman begged pardon in good Saxon, and answered at last —

"Why, then, if it please your honour, her name be Winifred – her other name be Bevan —Miss Bevan, the school – her father be Mister Bevan of Llaneol, steward that was to our old squire of the great house, 'the Hall' – Talylynn Hall – where there's a fine lake. I warrant your honour has fished there. You Saesonig gentlemen do mostly do nothing but fish and shoot in our poor country; I beg pardon, but you look Saesoniadd, (Saxonlike,) I was thinking – fine lake, but the trout be not to compare" —

"Well," interrupted the other laughing, "your English tongue can wag as glib as your outlandish one. A sweetheart in the case there, isn't there? What the devil's she going down to the river for at this time of night, else?"

"Why, to be sure there be!" the man answered. "We all know that; poor thing, she had need find some comforter in all her troubles – her father so poor, and in debt to this strange foreigner, who's on the water coming home now, and has made proposals for her in marriage, so they do say; but it's like your honour knows more of that than I do – for be not you Mr Lewis, I beg pardon, Lewis Lewis, esquire?"

"And what do you know of this sweetheart of hers? Is he her first, think ye? I doubt that," rejoined Lewis, not noticing his enquiry —

"You may doubt what your honour pleases, but we don't – no; never man touched her hand hardly, never one her lips, before – I did have it from her mother; but as for this one she's found at last, we wish she'd a better" —

"What's the matter with him, then?"

"Oh, nothing more than that he's poor, sir – poor; and that we don't know much about the stranger" —

"What 'we' do you mean, while you talk of 'we'?"

"Lord bless ye, sir, why us all of this bankside, and this side Tivy, the great family of us, she's just like our little girl to us all; for don't she have all our young ones to give 'em learning, whether the Cardigan ladies pay for 'em or don't? And wasn't poor dear old John Bevan the man who would lend every farmer in the parish a help in money or any way, only for asking? So it is, you see, she has grown up among us. This young man, though he may be old for what I know, never seeing him in my life – you see, sir, we on this side of Tivy are like strangers to the Cardy men, t'other side —they are Cardie's, sure enow, true ones, as the Saxon foreign folk do call us all of this shire. I wouldn't trust one of 'em t'other side, no further than I could throw him. I'll tell ye a story" —