itter in the periodical party-criticism among ourselves some thirty
years back, collected into one huge vial of wrath, and poured upon the
new poet's head. Even the great Galileo, who was a man of wit, bred up
in the pure Tuscan school of Berni and Casa, and who was an idolator
of Ariosto, wrote, when he was young, a "review" of the _Jerusalem
Delivered_, which it is painful to read, it is so unjust and
contemptuous.[37] But now that the only final arbiter, posterity, has
accepted both the poets, the dispute is surely the easiest thing in the
world to settle; not, indeed, with prejudices of creeds or temperaments,
but before any judges thoroughly sympathising with the two claimants. Its
solution is the principle of the greater including the less. For Ariosto
errs only by having an unbounded circle to move in. His sympathies are
unlimited; and those who think him inferior to Tasso, only do so in
consequence of their own want of sympathy with the vivacities that
degrade him in their eyes. Ariosto can be as grave and exalted as Tasso
when he pleases, and he could do a hundred things which Tasso never
attempted. He is as different in this respect as Shakspeare from Milton.
He had far more knowledge of mankind than Tasso, and he was superior in
point of taste. But it is painful to make disadvantageous comparisons of
one great poet with another. Let us be thankful for Tasso's enchanted
gardens, without being forced to vindicate the universal world of his
predecessor. Suffice it to bear in mind, that the grave poet himself
agreed with the rest of the Italians in calling the Ferrarese the "divine
Ariosto;" a title which has never been popularly given to his rival.

The _Jerusalem Delivered_ is the history of a Crusade, related with
poetic license. The Infidels are assisted by unlawful arts; and the
libertinism that brought scandal on the Christians, is converted into
youthful susceptibility, led away by enchantment. The author proposed
to combine the ancient epic poets with Ariosto, or a simple plot, and
uniformly dignified style, with romantic varieties of adventure, and
the luxuriance of fairy-land. He did what he proposed to do, but with a
judgment inferior to Virgil's; nay, in point of the interdependence of
the adventures, to Ariosto, and with far less general vigour. The mixture
of affectation with his dignity is so frequent, that, whether Boileau's
famous line about Tasso's tinsel and Virgil's gold did or did not mean to