Europe, taking a claffic turn, the reputation of his work has been chiefly founded on the ftrong refemblance it has to the antient Epic poems. His fable is conducted in the fpirit of the Iliad, and with a strict regard to that unity of action which we admire in HOMER and VIRGIL,

BUT this is not all; we find a studied and clofe imitation of thofe poets, in many of the smaller parts, in the minuter incidents, and even in the descriptions and fimiles of his poem,

THE claffic reader was pleafed with this deference to the public, tafle: he faw with delight the favourite beauties of HOMER and VIRGIL reflected in the Italian poet and was almoft ready to excufe, for the fake of these, his magic tales and fairy enchantments,

I SAID, was almost ready; for the offence given by thefe tales to the more fashionable

fashionable fort of critics was fo great, that nothing, I believe, could make full amends, in their judgment, for such extravagancies.

HOWEVER, by this means, the Gierufa lemme Liberata made its fortune amongst the French wits, who have constantly cried it up above the Orlando Furiofo, and principally for this reason, that TASSO was more claffical in his fable, and more sparing in the wonders of Gothic fiction, than his predeceffor.

THE Italians have indeed a predilection for their elder bard; whether from their prejudice for his fubject; their admiration of his language; the richness of his invention; the comic air of his

style and manner; or from whatever

other reafon.

Be this as it will, the French criticifm has carried it before the Italian, with

the

the rest of Europe. This dextrous peo ple have found means to lead the taste, as well as fet the fashions, of their neighbours and ARIOSTO ranks but little higher than the rudeft Romancer in the opinion of those who take their notions of these things from their writers.

BUT the fame principle, which made them give TASSO the preference to ARIOSTO, has led them by degrees to think very unfavourably of TASSO himfelf. The mixture of the Gothic manner in his work has not been forgiven. It has funk the credit of all the reft; and fome inftances of falfe taste in the expreffion of his fentiments, detected by their nicer critics, have brought matters to that pass, that, with their good will, TASSO himself fhould now follow the fate of ARIOSTO.

I WILL not fay, that a little national envy did not perhaps mix itself with

their other reasons for undervaluing this great poet. They afpired to a fort of fupremacy in letters; and finding the Italian language and its beft writers ftanding in their way, they have spared no pains to lower the estimation of both.

WHATEVER their inducements were, they fucceeded but too well in their attempt. Our obfequious and over-modest critics were run down by their authority. Their taste of letters, with fome worfe things, was brought among us at the Restoration. Their language, their manners, nay their very prejudices, were adopted by our polite king and his royalists. And the more fashionable wits, of course, fet their fancies, as my Lord MOLESWORTH tells us the people of Copenhagen in his time did their clocks, by the courtstandard.

SIR W. DAVENANT opened the way to this new fort of criticism in a very ela

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borate

borate preface to GONDIBERT; and his philofophic friend, Mr. HOBBES, lent his best affiftance towards establishing the credit of it. These two fine letters contain, indeed, the fubftance of whatever has been fince written on the subject. Succeeding wits and critics did no more than echo their language. It grew into a fort of cant, with which RYMER, and the rest of that fchool, filled their flimfy effays and rambling prefaces.

1

OUR noble critic himself [e] condefcended to take up this trite theme: and it is not to be told with what alacrity and felf-complacency he flourishes upon it. The Gothic manner, as he calls it, is the favourite object of his raillery; which is never more lively or pointed, than when it expofes that "bad tafte "which makes us prefer an ARIOSTO

ઠંડ

"to a VIRGIL, and a Romance (without "doubt he meant, of TASSO) to an Iliad.”

[e] Lord SHAFTESBURY, Adv. to an Author.

Truly,