his father consented, after a long opposition, that he should relinquish the study of the law. Torquato now devoted himself with redoubled zeal to literary and philosophical studies, and, with this view, accepted an invitation to Bologna. Here he commenced the execution of a plan of an epic poem, which he had already formed in Padua—the conquest of Jerusalem under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon. But, in the midst of these occupations, he was unexpectedly disturbed. He was falsely accused as the author of a satirical poem in circulation, and was subjected to a judicial examination. This induced him to leave Bologna. He went to Modena, and then accepted the invitation of the friend of his youth, the young Scipio Gonzaga, who had founded an academy in Padua, and wished to see Tasso at the head of it. He studied with great assiduity the philosophy of Aristotle, but still more that of Plato, towards whom he felt himself drawn by the cords of sympathy. Meanwhile, he did not lose sight of his epic poem. How intently the theory of this species of poem occupied him may be seen by the three dialogues which he then composed on the subject. The cardinal Ludovico of Este appointed him a gentleman of his court, and wished that he should be present in Ferrara at the nuptials of his brother Alphonso with an archduchess of Austria. Tasso went, in October, 1565, and attended the splendid fetes with which those nuptials were celebrated. The sisters of the duke, Lucretia and Leonora, both indeed no longer young, but beautiful and lovely, gave the poet their friendship; in particular the latter, who presented him to Alphonso. This prince, who knew that Tasso wished to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem in an epic poem, received him in a most flattering manner, and warmly encouraged his undertaking, so that the poet returned to his labor, which had been interrupted during two years, and determined to dedicate his work to the duke Alphonso, and to raise in it a monument to the fame of the ducal house, from which he then enjoyed such distinguished favor. For a short time only he left Ferrara to visit Padua, Milan, Pavia, and Mantua, where he saw his father. He returned with increased celebrity. The heart of Tasso was much affected by the unexpected death of his father; but neither this misfortune, nor other distractions, prevented him from laboring every day on his poem, of which he had finished eight cantos, when he travelled in the suite of 13

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the cardinal of Este to France, in 1571. Here he was received with distinction by Charles IX, as well as by the whole court. The poet Ronsard was his friend; and they communicated to each other their poetical labors. In the mean time, Tasso may have expressed himself too freely and unguardedly concerning some subjects which then occupied the minds of all: he lost the favor of the cardinal, and, in consequence, appears to have been involved in some embarrassments, and finally departed for Italy. He returned to Rome, and soon entered, according to his wishes, into the service of the duke Alphonso, by the mediation of the princess of Urbino, Lucretia of Este, and the princess Leonora. The conditions were favorable and honorable, and left him in possession of entire freedom. But hardly had he applied himself again to the work, which the world expected with impatience, when the death of the duchess again interrupted his labors. Alphonso soon after made a journey to Rome, and Tasso took advantage of the leisure thus afforded him to compose his Aminta, the plan of which had been for a long time in his mind. The representation of an idyl in dialogue, written by Agostino degl'Argenti, at which he had been present six years before, in Ferrara, had delighted him, and suggested to him the idea of a similar work, which he now completed in two months, and which far surpassed all that Italy then possessed of this kind. From this dramatic performance the opera may be considered to have taken its rise. The duke was most agreeably surprised, on his return, by this performance, and ordered the representation of it to be made with the greatest splendor. Tasso's consideration and favor with the duke increased; but his good fortune excited the envy of many, who continually meditated his ruin. The princess of Urbino wishing to become acquainted with the poem, which was the subject of general admiration, Tasso paid her a visit at Pesaro, where the old prince Guidobaldo, as well as his son and daughter-in-law, received him in a very flattering manner. For several months, he lived in the charming castle Durante, in the most intimate friendship with Lucretia, who willingly listened to the verses in which he immortalized her. With rich presents he returned to Ferrara, and occupied himself again with his epic poem, which he once more reluctantly discontinued, to accompany the duke to Venice, whither the latter went to meet king Henry III,

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recomposed his tragedy Torrismondo. In the next year, he enjoyed the happiness of visiting Bergamo, where his appearance was celebrated by the whole city. The death of the duke of Mantua recalled him to that city. His son and successor manifested towards the poet the same kindness, but not the same friendship and confidence. Tasso began to be discontented with his residence in Mantua. He received an honorable invitation to be professor in the academy at Genoa, but was prevented by his sickness from accepting it. He then formed the resolution of going to Rome. Here he was so well received, not only by Scipio Gonzaga, but also by several cardinals, that he again entertained new hopes; but nothing was effected, and he repaired, in 1588, to Naples, for the purpose of recovering the confiscated fortune of his parents. Here he occupied himself with a recomposition of his Jerusalem Delivered, in order to purge it from the faults which he perceived in it, as well as from the praises bestowed in it upon the house of Este. From Naples he returned to Rome; and, finding there also occasion for discontent, he accepted the invitation of the grand-duke of Florence. He had reason to be satisfied in every respect with his reception, both from the grandduke and from the people, but soon sighed again for Naples, and, with every mark of esteem, and with rich presents, departed in the autumn for Rome, where he arrived sick. Before he had recovered his health, he repaired, in consequence of urgent entreaties,to Mantua,to visit the duke Vincenzo Gonzaga; and it would have been well for him to have remained here, if his continually declining health had not made him desirous to go to Naples. At the invitation of his friends, he went thither in January, 1592, and took up his abode with his patron, the prince Conca. The completion of Jerusalem Conquered (the recomposition of Jerusalem Delivered) was his first employment, and was almost concluded, when he became suspicious that the prince wished to take possession of his manuscripts. He communicated this apprehension to his friend Manso, who, with the consent of the duke, and without any violation of gratitude or friendship, received him into his house, which was most charmingly situated on the sea-coast. This had a very favorable influence upon Tasso, who gave the last finish to his Jerusalem Conquered, and immediately commenced, at the desire of the mother of the marquis, his poem Of the seven Days of the Creation. In

the mean time, Hippolitus Aldobrandini had ascended the papal chair as Clement VIII. Tasso had congratulated his former patron upon this event, as he had before done Urban VII, in an excellent canzone, and was at last obliged to comply with the repeated invitation of the pope to come to Rome. The pope, as well as both his nephews, in particular the cardinal Cintio Aldobrandini, paid him the most delicate and friendly attentions. Tasso, from gratitude, dedicated to the latter his Jerusalem Conquered; and the return of his malady alone induced him to leave Rome, and again to return to Naples. Here he passed four months very happily in the circle of his friends. Meanwhile, Cintio, in order to draw him back to Rome, had procured for him from the pope the honor of a solemn coronation in the capitol. At this news, Tasso set off for Rome, where he arrived in November, 1594, and was received with great distinction. The pope overwhelmed him with praises, and said to him, "I give to you the laurel, that it may receive as much honor from you as it has conferred upon those who have had it before you." The solemnity was, however, delayed till the spring, in order to give it the greater splendor. During the winter, Tasso's health failed more and more: he felt his end approaching, and ordered himself to be carried into the monastery of St. Onofrio, where he died, April 25, 1595, the very day which had been appointed for his coronation. raging fever terminated his life, at the commencement of his fifty-second year. The cardinal Cintio caused him to be buried honorably in the little church of the monastery; and, eight years after, the cardinal Bevilacqua ordered the monument to be erected which is still to be seen there. The Italians Manso, Serassi and Zuccala (1819) have written his life. Serassi has also published a collection of more than 250 letters by Tasso. The physician Giacomazzi, in his Dialoghi sopra gli Amori, la Prigionia ed il Genio di Torquato Tasso, etc. (Brescia, 1827), has expressed the opinion that not Leonora, but Lucretia, afterwards the wife of the duke of Urbino, was the object of the Platonic love of the unfortunate poet. Frederic Schlegel, in his Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur (History of Ancient and Modern Literature), comparing Ariosto, Camoens and Tasso, says of the latter, "Not only a poetical, but also a patriotic, inspiration for the cause of Christendom animated this poet, in whom

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love of glory and pious feeling were equally predominant. Yet he has by no means reached the grandeur of his subject; and so little has he exhausted its treasures, that he may be said only to have skimmed over its surface. He was in some degree confined by the Virgilian form, from which he has borrowed, with no great success, a few pieces of what is commonly called the epic machinery. Tasso belongs, upon the whole, rather to the class of poets who represent themselves and their own exquisite feelings, than of those who reflect a world in their own minds, and are able to lose and forget themselves in it. The finest passages of his poem are such as would be beautiful either by themselves or as episodes in any other epic, but have no necessary connexion with the subject. The charms of Armida, the beauty of Clorinda, and the love of Erminia-these and similar passages are the ones which delight in Tasso. In his lyrical poems (Rime), there is a glow of passion, and an inspiration of unfortunate love, compared with which the coldness of the artificial Petrarch appears repulsive. Tasso is altogether a poet of feeling; and as Ariosto is, throughout, a painter, so over the language and versification of Tasso, there is poured forth the whole charm of music-a circumstance which has, without doubt, greatly contributed to render him the favorite poet of the Italians. His popularity exceeds even that of Ariosto. Individual parts and episodes of his poem are frequently sung; and the Italians, having no romantic ballads, like those of the Spaniards, have split their epic poem, in order to adapt it to song, into what may be called ballads, the most melodious, graceful, noble and poetical ever possessed by any people. Perhaps this mode of treating their great poem was the best for the enjoyment of it; for, by giving up the connexion, little seems to be lost. How far Tasso's notions on epic art were from being satisfactory to himself, is evident from his many alterations and unsuccessful attempts. His first attempt was a romance of chivalry. Afterwards, in the decline of his powers, he entirely recast the whole of his Jerusalem Delivered, to which he owes his greatest fame, sacrificing to the moral severity or anxiety which he had adopted the most delightful and glowing passages in the poem, and introducing, throughout, a cold allegory, little calculated to compensate for what he had taken away. He also attempted a Christian epic on the subject of the creation. But, even to the most gifted poet,

how difficult must it be to unfold a few mysterious sentences of Moses into as many cantos! In this poem, Tasso laid aside the use of rhyme, although his poems derive a great part of their charms from it, and although no poet ever possessed so entire a command of rhyme. He has often been censured for his plays of thought, or concetti, as they are called. Many of these, however, are not only full of meaning, but beautiful as images. A poet of feeling and of love may especially be pardoned such trifling errors. If we regard Tasso merely as a musical poet of feeling, it forms, in truth, no proper subject of reproach, that he is, in a certain sense, uniform, and, throughout, sentimental. Uniformity of this sort seems to be inseparable from that poetry which is in its nature lyrical; and it seems to me a beauty in Tasso, that he has spread this soft breath of elegy even over the representation of the charms of sense. But an epic poet must be richer in every thing; he must be multiform; he must embrace a whole world of objects, the spirit of the present time and of past ages, of his nation and of nature; he must have command not only over one chord, but over the whole complicated instrument of feeling."-An account of the different original editions of Tasso's works is to be found in Tassos Leben und Characteristik nach Guinguené, dargestellt von F. A. Ebert-Tasso's Life and poetical Character, by Ebert (Leipsic, 1819). The English language possesses three translations of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, by Fairfax, Hoole and Wiffen.

TASSONI, Alexander, one of the celebrated Italian poets, was born at Modena, in 1565. His childhood was rendered unhappy by the early loss of his parents, by sickness, enemies, and various misfortunes. All this, however, did not interrupt him in his studies at Bologna and Ferrara. In 1597, he went to Rome, and became secretary to cardinal Ascanio Colonna, who took him to Spain in 1600, and twice despatched him upon business into Italy (1602 and 1603). Upon one of these journeys he wrote his celebrated Considerazioni sopra il Petrarca. At Rome, he was admitted into the academy of the Umoristi. One fruit of his intercourse with the societies of Rome was the ten books of his Pensieri diversi, a specimen of which, under the title Quesiti, he published in 1608, enlarged in 1612. This work, full of ingenious paradoxes (in which the author was not probably always serious), directed against the sci

ences, was also seasoned with much wit and elegance, and made a powerful impression. Still more was this the case with the above-mentioned Considerazioni, which first appeared in 1609. Considering the veneration in which Petrarch was held by some to be extravagant, he endeavored, in an unreasonable manner, to diminish the fame of this great poet, and hence became involved in a series of controversies. Tassoni had been without of fice since the death of cardinal Colonna. Being destitute of the means of an independent livelihood, he entered, in 1613, the service of the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, and of the cardinal, his son. Here he was alternately in favor and disgrace. This might have been, in part, owing to his uniform hatred against the Spaniards, with whom the duke was sometimes at war, sometimes at peace. Tassoni has been accused, not without reason, of writing some philippics (filippiche) against the Spaniards, and likewise a treatise entitled Le Esequie della Monarchia di Spagna, although he positively denied the authorship of them. In 1623, he left the service of the duke, and devoted himself for three years to study and the cultivation of flowers, of which he was very fond. At that time, he probably completed a work previously commenced (Il Compendio del Baronio), which he began in Latin, but afterwards executed in Italian. In 1626, his condition was improved. Cardinal Ludovisio, a nephew of Gregory XV, received him into his service upon advantageous terms. After the death of the cardinal, in 1632, Tassoni entered, with the title of counsellor, into the service of his native prince, duke Francis I. He received an honorable allowance, and resided at court, but enjoyed this good fortune for three years only, when he died, in 1635. The fame of Tassoni is owing, not to the works already enumerated, but to a comic-epic poem, under the title La Secchia rapita, which first appeared in 1622, and was published by him, probably for particular reasons, as the production of his youth, although the careful finish of the versification bears the stamp of mature age. The subject of the poem is the war of the Modonese and Bolognese, in the middle of the thirteenth century. In this war, the bucket of a well was removed from the city by the Modonese, who had penetrated into Bologna, and conveyed as a trophy to Modena, where it is preserved as a memorial to the present day. This event, and the fruitless efforts of the Bo

lognese to recover the lost bucket, Tassoni relates in twelve burlesque epic cantos, characterized by the spirit and grace of Ariosto, and breathing in some places an epic grandeur. The language has the genuine Tuscan character, and the versification is easy and agreeable. If this poem has met the fate of Hudibras, the reason, in both cases, is the same; namely, that the interest of the circumstances has passed away with the time in which the poem was written, so that many allusions, which constitute the very spirit of the poem, and at the time of its publication were easily understood, can now be made intelligible only by means of copious notes.

TASTE, in physiology; one of the five senses, by which are perceived certain impressions made by particles of bodies dissolved by the saliva on the tongue or the other contiguous parts of the body endowed with this sense. As has been already observed in the article Senses, taste does not appear to be confined to the tongue, that member being wanting in many animals which do not seem destitute of the sense, and, in many which have a tongue, this member, from its structure, is not adapted to receive impressions from objects of taste. Again, it is not the whole surface of the human tongue, according to some late experiments, which is capable of those impressions that we ascribe to taste. By covering the tongue with parchment, sometimes in whole, and sometimes in different parts, two experimenters in Paris (MM. Guyot and Admyraula) found, that the end and sides of the tongue, and a small space at the root of it, together with a small surface at the anterior and superior part of the roof of the palate, are the only portions of surface in the cavity of the mouth and throat that can distinguish taste or sapidity from mere touch. A portion of extract of aloes, placed at any other part, gives no sensation but that of touch, until the saliva carries a solution of the sapid matters to those parts of the cavity.* (See Tongue.) The little glands of the tongue dissolve the salts contained in articles of food, which, when dissolved, penetrate into the three nerves on each side of the tongue, that are con

nected with the brain and spinal marrow. Thus we receive those sensations which we call sweet, sour, bitter, sharp, insipid, astringent, and numberless others, which, though we have no names for them, yet are very distinct, as they enable us to recognise particular objects. The impressions thus received we ascribe to the objects that excite them, though acidity is, properly speaking, not more a quality of vinegar than pain is of the whip or spur. The word taste thus comes to be applied to the things which excite it; and we say, sugar tastes sweet with the same propriety or impropriety that we say, a flower smells sweet, a bird looks black. This confusion of cause and effect, in common language, is very natural, in fact unavoidable, considering the way in which language is formed. We possess very few words to designate the endless variety of tastes, of which we are very sensible. In this respect taste is similar to hearing. Though we all know how to distinguish a tune on the piano from the same on the guitar, it is impossible to explain distinctly why or how. Our capability of expressing tastes is, however, much greater than of expressing smells. Taste and smell are very closely connected, the loss of one being accompanied with the loss of the other. (See Smell.) Many words, designating impressions on the one sense, are used also for those received from the other, and flavor is daily applied to both. A sweet smell is a very common phrase; and in Thuringia the common people say the nosegay tastes sweet. In respect to æsthetics, taste signifies that faculty by which we judge of the beautiful and proper, and distinguish them from the ugly and unsuitable. The name results from the similarity of this faculty with the physical taste. The office of both is to discriminate between the agreeable and disagreeable; but the comparison has often been carried too far; thus, because the beautiful is also agreeable, the beautiful and agreeable have often been taken for one and the same; and because matters of physical taste are not proper subjects of dispute (since the same flavor, for instance, may be pleasant to one person and very disagreeable to others), it has been sometimes supposed that taste, in aesthetics, can have reference only to the accidental impression of a work of art on the individual. But aesthetics teaches that, though an individual may not like a picture of Raphael, and find less satisfaction in a drama of Shakspeare than in the coarse productions of a very inferior mind,

there is yet beauty, in them; that is to say, they answer the demands of certain rules which have an objective (q. v.) and general character, so that the beauty of a work of art may be a proper subject of discussion. Taste is the faculty of judgment operating in a certain sphere. It must be formed by practice, whereby it differs essentially from the sense of the beautiful. This is natural, whilst taste is the fruit of observation and reflection.

TATE, Nahum, an English poet, was born in Dublin about the year 1652, and, after receiving a classical education at Trinity college, went to London, where he obtained the patronage of the earl of Dorset. On the death of Shadwell, the interest of his friends procured him the situation of poet laureate to William III. This post he held through that and the succeeding reign; and he even lived long enough to write the first birth-day ode on George I. He died in the mint, whither he had retired from his creditors, in 1715. He was the author of Brutus; of Alba, a tragedy; Duke and no Duke, a farce; and some other dramatic pieces; but it is by his metrical version of the Psalms of David, executed in conjunction with doctor Nicholas Brady, and commonly affixed to the liturgy of the church of England, that his name is now principally known. Several elegies and other occasional pieces also proceeded from his pen.

TATIANISTS. (See Gnostics.)

TATIUS, Achilles, a Christian bishop of the third century, was born at Alexandria in Egypt. Prior to his becoming a proselyte from paganism, he was the author of one of the earliest Greek romances now extant, entitled the Amours of Clitophon and Leucippe, of which there is a translation by Cruceius. Part of a commentary on the De Sphæra of Aratus, ascribed to him, has come down to posterity, and has been translated by Petavius.Tatius is also the name of an ancient king of the Sabines, who made peace with the Romans, and shared his kingdom with Romulus, but was assassinated six years afterwards, at the instigation of his colleague.

TATTOOING; a name borrowed from the South sea islands, where it denotes the practice of staining the skin by puncturing it with a sharp instrument covered with coloring matter, or inserting the color in incisions made in the skin, and thus forming a variety of figures. We find similar practices among other barbarous tribes, and, to a certain extent, among soldiers, sailors, &c. Degrees of rank