Volume I Part 23 (1/2)

Marring the sun-beams with its hideous shade,

is a semicircular window, strongly cross-barred with iron; it looks into a court-yard, so built up, if I remember rightly, that the noon-day sun could scarce reach it. Even without the hallowed a.s.sociations connected with the spot, it would have chilled and saddened me. With them, the very air had a suffocating weight; and the cold dark walls, and low-bowed roof, struck a s.h.i.+vering awe through the blood. Upon the plaster outside the grated window, I observed several names written in pencil; among the rest, those of Byron and Rogers. I must observe here, that the ”Lament of Ta.s.so” is, in fact, a cento taken from Ta.s.so's minor poems. Almost every sentiment there expressed, may be found in the Italian; but the soul of the poet has been transfused with such a glowing impulse into its new mould, it never seems to have been adapted to another; the precious metal is the same, only the impress is different, and it has been stamped by a kindred and a master spirit.

Lord Byron says,

Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate To be entwined for ever; but too late!

Ta.s.so had said, that his name and that of Leonora should be united and soar to fame together.

”Ella miei versi, ed io Circondava al suo nome altere piume, E l'un per l'altro and volando a prova;”

--and a long list of corresponding pa.s.sages and sentiments might easily be pointed out.

The inscription on the door of Ta.s.so's cell, _lies_, I believe, like many other inscriptions. Ta.s.so was _not_ confined in this cell for seven years; but here it was that he addressed that affecting Canzone to Leonora and her sister Lucrezia, which begins ”Figlie di Renata,”--”daughters of Rene!” Thus in the very commencement, by this delicate and tender apostrophe, bespeaking their compa.s.sion, by awakening the remembrance of their mother, like him so long a wretched prisoner. He reminds them of the years he spent at their side--”their n.o.ble servant and their dear companion,”

Gli anni miei tra voi spese,-- Qual son,--qual fui,--che chiedo--ove mi trovo![136]

He was, after the first year, removed to a larger cell, with better accommodations. Here he made a collection of his smaller poems lately written, and dedicated them to the two Princesses. But Leonora was no longer in a state to be charmed by the verses, or flattered or touched by the admiring devotion of her lover,--her poet,--her faithful servant: she was dying. A slow and cureless disease preyed on her delicate frame, and she expired in the second year of Ta.s.so's imprisonment. When the news of her danger was brought to him, he requested his friend Pignarola to kiss her hand in his name, and ask her whether there was any thing which, in his sad state, he could do for her ease or pleasure? We do not know how this tender message was received or answered; but it was too late. Leonora died in February 1581, after lingering from the November previous.

Thus perished, of a premature decay, the woman who had been for seventeen years the idol of a poet's imagination--the wors.h.i.+p of a poet's heart; she who was not unworthy of being enshrined in the rich tracery-work of sweet thoughts and bright fancies she had herself suggested. The love of Ta.s.so for the Princess Leonora might have appeared, in his own time, something like the ”desire of the night-moth for the star;” but what is it _now_? what was it _then_ in the eyes of her whom he adored? How far was it permitted, encouraged, repaid in secret? This we cannot know; and perhaps had we lived at the time,--in the very Court, and looked daily into her own soft eyes, practised to conceal,--we had been no wiser. Yet one more observation.

When Leonora died, all the poets of Ferrara pressed forward with the usual tribute of elegy and eulogium; but the voice of Ta.s.so was not heard among the rest. He alone flung no garland on the bier of her, whose living brow he had wreathed with the brightest flowers of song.

This is adduced by Sera.s.si as a proof that he had never loved her.

Ginguen himself can only account for it, by the presumption that he was piqued by that coldness and neglect, which I have shown was merely supposit.i.tious. Strange reasoning! as if Ta.s.so, while his heart bled over his loss, in his solitary cell, could have deigned to join this crowd of courtly mourners! as if, under such circ.u.mstances, in such a moment, the greatness of his grief could have burst forth in any terms that must not have exposed himself to fresh rigours, and the fame, at least the discretion, of her he had loved, to suspicion! No! nothing remained to him but silence;--and he was silent.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] See the Rinaldo, c. 8.

[121]

----From my very birth My soul was drunk with love, &c.

LAMENT OF Ta.s.sO.

[122]

Rose, che l' arte invidiosa mira. &c.

[123]

Alteremente umile Te chiudi ne' tuoi cari alti soggiorni.

[124] The daughter of Louis XII. She was closely imprisoned during twelve years, on suspicion of favouring the early reformers.

[125] Ganymede.