But this is not all; we find a studied and close imitation of those poets, in many of the smaller parts, in the minuter incidents, and even in the descriptions and similes of his poem.
The classic reader was pleased with this deference to the public taste: he saw with delight the favourite beauties of HOMER and VIRGIL reflected in the _Italian_ poet; and was almost ready to excuse, for the sake of these, his magic tales and fairy enchantments.
I said, was _almost ready_; for the offence given by these tales to the more fashionable sort of critics was so great, that nothing, I believe, could make full amends, in their judgment, for such extravagancies.
However, by this means, the _Gierusalemme Liberata_ made its fortune amongst the _French_ wits, who have constantly cried it up above the _Orlando Furioso_, and principally for this reason, that TASSO was more classical in his fable, and more sparing in the wonders of _Gothic_ fiction, than his predecessor.
The _Italians_ have indeed a predilection for their elder bard; whether from their prejudice for his subject; their admiration of his language; the richness of his invention; the comic air of his style and manner; or from whatever other reason.
Be this as it will, the _French_ criticism has carried it before the _Italian_, with the rest of _Europe_. This dextrous people have found means to lead the taste, as well as set the fashions, of their neighbours: and ARIOSTO ranks but little higher than the rudest Romancer in the opinion of those who take their notions of these things from their writers.
But the same principle, which made them give TASSO the preference to ARIOSTO, has led them by degrees to think very unfavourably of TASSO himself. The mixture of the _Gothic_ manner in his work has not been forgiven. It has sunk the credit of all the rest; and some instances of false taste in the expression of his sentiments, detected by their nicer critics, have brought matters to that pass, that, with their good will, TASSO himself should now follow the fate of ARIOSTO.
I will not say, that a little national envy did not perhaps mix itself with their other reasons for undervaluing this great poet. They aspired to a sort of supremacy in letters; and finding the _Italian_ language and its best writers standing in their way, they have spared no pains to lower the estimation of both.