earliest publications was a miscellaneous
collection of _Divers Thoughts_, in which he derided Aristotle's Physics
and propounded speculations similar to those developed by Gassendi. He
dared to cast scorn on Homer, as rude and barbarous, poor in the faculty
of invention, taxable with at least five hundred flagrant defects. How
little Tassoni really comprehended Homer may be judged from his
complacent assertion that the episode of Luna and Endymion (_Secchia
Rapita_, canto viii.) was composed in the Homeric manner. In truth he
could estimate the Iliad and Odyssey no better than Chiabrera could the
Pythians and Olympians of Pindar. A just sense of criticism failed the
scholars of that age, which was too remote in its customs, too imperfect
in its science of history, to understand the essence of Greek art. With
equally amusing candor Tassoni passed judgments upon Dante, and thought
that he had rivaled the Purgatory in his description of the Dawn
(_Secchia Rapita_, viii. 15, the author's note). We must, however, be
circumspect and take these criticisms with a grain of salt; for one
never knows how far Tassoni may be laughing in his sleeve. There is no
doubt, however, regarding the sincerity of his strictures upon the Della
Cruscan Vocabulary of 1612, or the more famous inquiry into Petrarch's
style. The _Considerazioni sopra le Rime del Petrarca_ were composed in
1602-3 during a sea voyage from Genoa to Spain. They told what now must
be considered the plain truth of common sense about the affectations
into which a servile study of the _Canzoniere_ had betrayed generations
of Italian rhymesters. Tassoni had in view Petrarch's pedantic
imitators rather than their master; and when the storm of literary fury,
stirred up by his work, was raging round him, he thus established his
position: 'Surely it is allowable to censure Petrarch's poems, if a man
does this, not from malignant envy, but from a wish to remove the
superstitions and abuses which beget such evil effects, and to confound
the sects of the Rabbins hardened in their perfidy of obsolete opinion,
and in particular of such as think they cannot write straight without
the _falsariga_ of their model.' I may observe in passing that the
points in this paragraph are borrowed from a sympathizing letter which
Marino addressed to the author on his essay. In another place Tassoni
stated, 'It was never my intention to speak evil of this poet
[Petrarch], whom I have always admired a