of the
Crescent. The one deemed themselves secure of salvation while combating
for the Cross, and sought an entrance to heaven through the breach of
Jerusalem; the other, strong in the belief of fatalism, advanced
fearless to the conflict, and strove for the houris of Paradise amidst
the lances of the Christians.

When nations so powerful, leaders so renowned, forces so vast, courage
so unshaken in the contending parties, were brought into collision,
under the influence of passions so strong, enthusiasm so exalted,
devotion so profound, it was impossible that innumerable deeds of
heroism should not have been performed on both sides. If a poet equal to
Homer had arisen in Europe to sing the conflict, the warriors of the
Crusades would have been engraven on our minds like the heroes of the
Iliad; and all future ages would have resounded with their exploits, as
they have with those of Achilles and Agamemnon, of Ajax and Ulysses, of
Hector and Diomede. But though Tasso has with incomparable beauty
enshrined in immortal verse the feelings of chivalry, and the enthusiasm
of the Crusades, he has not left a poem which has taken, or ever can
take, the general hold of the minds of men, which the Iliad has done.
The reason is, it is not founded in nature--it is the ideal--but it is
not the ideal based on the real. Considered as a work of imagination,
the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is one of the most exquisite conceptions of
human fancy, and will for ever command the admiration of romantic and
elevated minds. But it wants that yet higher excellence, which arises
from a thorough knowledge of human nature--a graphic delineation of
actual character, a faithful picture of the real passions and sufferings
of mortality. It is the most perfect example of poetic _fancy_; but the
highest species of the epic poem is to be found not in poetic fancy, but
_poetic history_. The heroes and heroines of the _Jerusalem Delivered_
are noble and attractive. It is impossible to study them without
admiration; but they resemble real life as much as the Enchanted Forest
and spacious battle-fields, which Tasso has described in the environs of
Jerusalem, do the arid ridges, waterless ravines, and stone-covered
hills in the real scene, which have been painted by the matchless pens
of Chateaubriand and Lamartine.

The love of Tancred, the tenderness of Erminia, the heroism of Rinaldo,
are indelibly engraven in the recollection of every sensitive reader of
Tass