vergognosa.

Rideva insieme, e insieme ella arrossia;
Ed era nel rossor piu bello il riso,
E nel riso il rossor, the le copria
Insino al mento il delicato viso."
Canto xv. st. 60.

Spenser, among the other obligations which it delighted him to owe to
this part of Tasso's poem, has translated these last twelve lines:

"With that the other likewise up arose,
And her fair locks, which formerly were bound
Up in one knot, she low adown did loose,
Which, flowing long and thick, her cloth'd around,
And th' ivory in golden mantle gown'd:
So that fair spectacle from him was reft;
Yet that which reft it, no less fair was found.
So hid in locks and waves from looker's theft,
Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.

Withal she laughed, and she blush'd withal;
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing."
Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12, St. 67.

Tasso's translator, Fairfax, worthy both of his original and of Spenser,
has had the latter before him in his version of the passage, not without
a charming addition of his own at the close of the first stanza:

"And her fair locks, that in a knot were tied
High on her crown, she 'gan at large unfold;
Which falling long and thick, and spreading wide,
The ivory soft and white mantled in gold:
Thus her fair skin the dame would clothe and hide;
And that which hid it, no less fair was hold.
Thus clad in waves and locks, her eyes divine
From them ashamed would she turn and twine.

Withal she smiled, and she blush'd withal;
Her blush her smiling, smiles her blushing graced."]

[Footnote 9:

"E quel che 'l bello e 'l caro accresce a l'opre,
L'arte, the tutto fa, nulla si scopre.

Stimi (si misto il culto e col negletto)
Sol naturali e gli ornamenti e i siti.
Di natura arte par, the per diletto
L'imitatrice sua scherzando imiti."

The idea of Nature imitating Art, and playfully imitating her, is in
Ovid; but that of a mixture of cultivation and wildness is, as far as I
am aware, Tasso's own. It gives him the honour of having been the first
to suggest the picturesque principle of modern gardening; as I ought
to have remembered, when assigning it to Spenser in a late publication
(_Imagination and Fancy, p. 109_). I should have noticed also, in the
same work, the obligations of