g the desolations of time, "Giace l'alta Cartago."[40] The
forest filled with supernatural terrors by a magician, in order that the
Christians may not cut wood from it to make their engines of war, is one
of the happiest pieces of invention in romance. It is founded in as true
human feeling as those of Ariosto, and is made an admirable instrument
for the aggrandizement of the character of Rinaldo. Godfrey's attestation
of all time, and of the host of heaven, when he addresses his army in the
first canto, is in the highest spirit of epic magnificence. So is the
appearance of the celestial armies, together with that of the souls of
the slain Christian warriors, in the last canto, where they issue forth
in the air to assist the entrance into the conquered city. The classical
poets are turned to great and frequent account throughout the poem;
and yet the work has a strong air of originality, partly owing to the
subject, partly to the abundance of love-scenes, and to a certain
compactness in the treatment of the main story, notwithstanding the
luxuriance of the episodes. The _Jerusalem Delivered_ is stately,
well-ordered, full of action and character, sometimes sublime, always
elegant, and very interesting-more so, I think, as a whole, and in
a popular sense, than any other story in verse, not excepting the
_Odyssey_. For the exquisite domestic attractiveness of the second
Homeric poem is injured, like the hero himself, by too many diversions
from the main point. There is an interest, it is true, in that very
delay; but we become too much used to the disappointment. In the epic
of Tasso the reader constantly desires to learn how the success of the
enterprise is to be brought about; and he scarcely loses sight of any of
the persons but he wishes to see them again. Even in the love-scenes,
tender and absorbed as they are, we feel that the heroes are fighters, or
going to fight. When you are introduced to Armida in the Bower of Bliss,
it is by warriors who come to take her lover away to battle.

One of the reasons why Tasso hurt the style of his poem by a manner too
lyrical was, that notwithstanding its deficiency in sweetness, he was one
of the profusest lyrical writers of his nation, and always having his
feelings turned in upon himself. I am not sufficiently acquainted with
his odes and sonnets to speak of them in the gross; but I may be allowed
to express my belief that they possess a great deal of fancy and feeling.
It has