final triumph, and by the promise of an | Let Ruggier go, for he is safe, I ween, illustrious progeny, among whom the And turn to Reinold, that great Paladine; Cardinal of Este, Ariosto's patron, is whom we find in Scotland, landing at undeservedly conspicuous. Berwick (Beroicché), appearing in a The adventures of the various subor- tournament at St. Andrews, and cleardinate characters, interesting and well-ing the fame of the injured Princess told in themselves, and most skilfully Ginevra, whose story (beautifully told) connected with the main line of the resembles that of Hero in "Much Ado story, are interwoven after a fashion about Nothing." Rinaldo then sails that is extremely artistic, in respect that up the Thames to London, and is reit maintains our attention without creat-ceived kindly by the King Otho, who ing fatigue, but it is also extremely supplies him with forces from England, audacious. Ariosto revels, like Sterne Scotland, and Ireland, led by nobles after him, in violent digressions and whose coats-of-arms are minutely deirritating interruptions. No writer scribed, and whose titles suggest the seems to take less pains to maintain a idea that Ariosto must have got hold continuous thread of story, and yet no of "Burke's Peerage" of the period. one really has ever constructed a more There, at a review which must have artful plot. The outline of one impor- been held somewhere about Hyde Park, tant episode may be given here, which appear the Dukes of "Lincastra, Glówill illustrate many of the points which cestra, Chiarenza, Eborace, Nortfozia, we have roughly indicated. Sufolcia, Sormosedia, Bocchingamia," the Earls of "Varvecia, Cancia, Pembrozia, Esenia, Norbelanda, Arindelia, Barclei, Marckia, Ritmondo, Dorsezia, Antona, Devonia, Vigorina, Erbia, Oso 66 Charlemagne, after sustaining a severe defeat on the French side of the Pyrenees, is now at Paris expecting the siege which shortly follows. He therefore sends the Paladin Rinaldo, nia, Burgenia, Croisberia," with the the son of Aymon (Renaud, Reinold, Ronald), the brother of Bradamante, to collect reinforcements from the British Islands. The knight sets sail from Calais (Calesse), and is immediately caught by a severe and long-protracted storm. The vessel is driven in all directions, the event is quite uncertain, the reader becomes breathless. " But," says the author calmly : Since various threads form many-colored cloth, And such I need, to compass my inten- I leave Rinaldo to the tempest's wrath, Thus dragged back to France and Bra- wealthy Bishop of Bathonia. The Scottish dukes are Roscia, Trasfordia, Marra," with the Earls of "Ottonlei, Angoscia, Boccania, Forbesse, Erelia.” From Ireland come the Earls of Childera and Desmonda. Ariosto certainly had a great fancy for the British aristocracy, for there is nothing like this in his account of any other country, except that he gives the pedigree of the house of Este. Not to offer too many conundrums, we may add that Esenia is Essex; Antona, Southampton; Erbia, Derby; Burgenia, Abergavenny; Croisberia, Shrewsbury; Ottonlei, Athol. Trasfordia is said to be Trafford (TransForth); Erelia, Errol; Childera, Kildare. And this was the work of a man who never went out of Italy in his life, and who even prided himself on being nothing of a globe-trotter. It is conjectured that he obtained his information from the foreign students at Padua. But the coats-of-arms which he describes are very difficult of explanation, and it is supposed that he invented them himself. The episode concludes very charac teristically. During the Hyde Park | essence of it; if poetry is a "criticism demonstration Ruggiero suddenly ap- of life," the poet must not know that pears in the air on his winged horse, on he is a critic. The moment that he his way to the coast of Ireland to res- begins to criticise deliberately, he decue the beauteous Angelica from the scends from the highest level of his jaws of a sea-monster (an evident copy faculty; and hence it is that satirical from the story of Perseus and Androm- and didactic verse are not generally eda). After astonishing the Londoners allowed to occupy that level. The esmuch as a balloonist of the present sence of poetry we take to be, that it is day might do, he proceeds on his jour- an imitative and descriptive art, so ney and fulfils his mission, though not, used as to touch the deeper chords of we are sorry to add, without an exhibi- human nature, and awaken a certain tion of his usual susceptibility, which sympathetic and emotional interest. Angelica very properly punishes by We may thus adopt Mr. Saintsbury's means of a magic ring, wherewith she definition of the poetic faculty, that it makes herself suddenly invisible, and is "the power of making the common leaves the befooled warrior planté là uncommon by the use of articulate lanand very indignant, in the middle of a guage in metrical arrangement, so as to wood somewhere on the coast of Brit- excite indefinite suggestions of beauty." tany. And, to make a long story short, Whenever this method of treatment is Rinaldo duly conveys his reinforce- effectively employed, artistic value folments to Paris, where they subse-lows as a matter of course. But the quently play a very conspicuous and moral value of a poem will necessarily valiant part. vary with its material. With a sensuAriosto then, like some men in real ous subject it will be sensuous; when life, is at all events an amusing com- dealing with the sphere of mind it will panion, simply because he is so quaint be very largely otherwise - though and eccentric that one never knows even then it will not get rid of the what is coming next. He is also his- necessity of using the bodily sensations torically interesting to an Englishman to illustrate mental conditions, just as if only for this reason, that he shows"Lead, kindly Light," the most subus how our country was regarded by an jective of modern lyrics, is throughout educated Italian of the early sixteenth expressed in terms of the physical eyecentury. It is clear enough that En- sight. gland was a "great power" then, just as she is now, and that Scotland was another. The time had not yet arrived when the arrogance of Spain first, and of France afterwards, was to throw some doubt upon this point. But Ariosto is essentially a poet, and a popular poet, recited in the market-places of Italy, and sung, it is said, by the gondoliers of the Adriatic; loved therefore by a people who are artists by nature, and expect a barcarole where the English masses would content themselves with " Pop goes the Weasel." What was the secret of his power? What is poetry, after all, and what makes it If this distinction be clearly kept in popular? The study of Ariosto cer- mind, the place of Ariosto in the histainly throws some light on these inter- tory of poetry becomes very high inesting and oft-debated questions. If deed. Like Chaucer, he claims descent poetry is "unconscious philosophy," from Boccaccio as a lucid and picturthe unconsciousness is at least of the esque narrator; like Chaucer, again, he The moral value of a poem, therefore, is a distinct thing from its artistic merit, and to be judged on different grounds, just as a moral comparison between a Venus by Titian and a Madonna by Raphael may end very differently from a comparison that is merely æsthetic; and as in our own day to whitewash the walls of a church, or to disfigure its interior by mean woodwork, may be less artistically degrading to it than to describe it as By sizzums rent asunder, est craftsman and reformer in English literature, why is he not more widely read and more highly esteemed? A similar answer has to be given in both cases. is, as regards his own times, by no means archaic, which is the reason why these two poets are more easily understood and appreciated by modern readers than, for example, is Spenser. At the same time, to mention Spenser as When Macaulay referred to the court a great poet is to imply the claim of of Leo X. as a society which delighted Ariosto to that position, inasmuch as in "burlesque romances in the sweetest the sense of beauty and the power of Tuscan, just as licentious as a fine sense conveying its impressions, which are of the graceful would permit," he eviso conspicuous in Spenser, were un-dently glanced at Ariosto. Nor is this questionably imbibed by him from Ari- incompatible with the fact that he elseosto. It is impossible to go into the where exhibits a great appreciation of proof of this at length; it may be found the Italian poet, for this is just the way in the comments of the Dean of Win- in which he treats Dryden. To state chester on the first two books of the the case as briefly as possible: Ariosto, "Faery Queene." It must suffice here like other writers of his time, like to indicate two admired passages of the Shakespeare and Spenser for example, second book, the one a portrait in words requires expurgation in his case to of the beautiful Belphoebe, the other the amount, at most, of about four per the landscape painting which describes cent. of his work. All that remains the gardens of Acrasia. No passages will be found pure, and most of it deare more distinctively Spenserian, or lightful. Those who know what the would be more readily chosen as illus-Vatican was at that time, and what it trations of his particular merit, and yet had been under the Borgias, will think they are based on Ariosto's description highly indeed of a writer who is entitled of the famous gardens of Alcina and to have this said of him, and will not the beauty of their owner, and no doubt feel much surprise if a poet who must contain reminiscences of Tasso's Ar- have been familiar by hearsay with such mida. And thus it is that the lyrical crimes as murder, parricide, and sacribeauty which saturates the "Song of legious incest, was less strict than could Solomon, and which appears more or be wished in regard to less heinous less in every poet of distinction, has matters. No man can be expected to flowed down through Ariosto to Spen-rise above the morality of his own ser, and contributed through him to neighborhood, least of all when that make English poetry what it is. If neighborhood includes the local centre Spenser had followed Ariosto in other respects also, by avoiding archaisms and tedious allegories, and by exercising care in the construction of his plot, he might have been to England all that Ariosto is to Italy, and we might have had a popular poet in the true sense of the term. As it is, Spenser, with all his genius and in spite of the nobility of his aims, remains the poets' poet indeed, but not in any true sense the poet of the people. It may be asked in conclusion why, if Ariosto's place in our literary history is what we have described, his name and work are not better known in this country? A similar question may be asked as to Dryden. If Dryden is, as Mr. Saintsbury describes him, the great of his faith. The worst that can be said of Ariosto is that, unlike Spenser, he had no particular moral to inculcate ; and even this is counterbalanced by the fact that Spenser not only occasionally imitates his misdeeds, but indulges in nauseating descriptions from which the fine taste of the Italian would have revolted. It is far more difficult to defend Dryden. But the misdeeds of the pair afford no reason whatever why, in educational works on English literature, their influence and almost their names should be ignored. In the case of Ariosto, at all events, the work that he did has lived after him, and bore fruit in England which contributed in its turn to procure the freedom of Italy. For the work of Ariosto inspired Walter Scott, who in his turn inspired Massimo derful genius, and also of perfect breedd'Azeglio; and the tale called "Ettore Fieramosca," which carries the reader back to the times of Ariosto, was to the young men of Italy a reminder of what their countrymen had been in the past, and what they themselves might be in the future. From The Spectator. PLACE IN THE FUTURE? ing as well as of a much clearer insight into the complex workings of human character in all ranks of life, would have commanded sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, an audience much larger than Dickens ever commanded, and would have commanded it without inspiring the same amount of just distaste. There are people we know, and people of very considerable humor as well as high literary mistletoe. They are irritated at his habit of marking off individualities by physical tricks. They are offended by his shallow philanthropy and his ostentatious patronage of the softer emotions. And they vote him down as on the whole too vulgar for enjoyment, except to those for whom refinement has no real value. But they are certainly quite wrong. That Dickens has all these glaring faults we do not in the least deny. But with his vulgarity he combines gifts of a kind which no sort of vulgarity can eclipse or even obscure. When Sir HOW LONG WILL DICKENS HOLD HIS instinct, who are more repelled than attracted by Dickens as a whole. They A SIXPENNY edition of Dickens's cannot bear his hysteric sentiment. larger stories is being brought out by They cannot endure his rather frothy Mr. Dicks, of 313 Strand, though bonhomie. They recoil from the mosaic "Martin Chuzzlewitt," as a complete jewelry of his picturesque sympathy. work, costs 1s., each of the two volumes They are oppressed by his devotion to being separately published, while his milk-punch and to kissing under the "Christmas Tales " are being reproduced by the same publisher at 2d. apiece. Thus his stories are placed within the reach of the very poorest of English readers, and it is impossible to doubt that during the next fifty years at least, he may attain a popularity such as in his lifetime, - when his books circulated chiefly among the middle class, -he never so much as contemplated. But will his popularity last? Or will his rather falsetto sentimentalism, his histrionic use of the literary equivalent for tears in the voice," the underbreeding which comes out so prominently in the jollity of Mr. Wardle's Walter Scott's daughter happened to household, the rather glaring caricatures say of something that she could not of Sir Mulberry Hawke and Lord Fred- endure it, for it was vulgar, Sir Walter erick Verisopht, the turn for edification said to her, " My love, you speak like a exhibited by the "upward-pointing "very young lady; do you know after all Agnes in David Copperfield," the the meaning of the word vulgar? "Tis cheap melodrama of Mrs. Dombey's in- only common; nothing that is common, trigue with Mr. Carker, the mincing virtue of Esther in "Bleak House," the feeble satire on conventional propriety in the sketch of Mr. Podsnap in "Our Mutual Friend," and all that may for short be called the "vulgar" element in Dickens, interfere ultimately with that great popularity which at first it may very likely tend to promote ? It would be very rash to say that it will never tend to interfere with it. We should maintain that in the end any writer possessed of all Dickens's won except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt, and when you have lived to my years you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon.” In the sense in which Sir Walter spoke he was quite right, though he certainly did not mean to assert that great genius is common. He held, indeed, that what we call great genius is not one of the most enviable or important of human gifts. Indeed, he said as much as this to Miss Edgeworth. | Dickens is, that while Scott never "Are you not," he asked, "too apt to painted what was morally unrefined, as measure things by mere reference to if it were, in his opinion, worthy of literature, to disbelieve that anybody admiration, Dickens not unfrequently can be worth much care who has no did. The ideal of the former, in reknowledge of that sort of thing, or taste spect to refinement of the heart, was a for it? God help us! What a poor true ideal; the ideal of the latter was world this would be if that were true often false, and still oftener confused. doctrine! I have read books enough, Now it would, we think, be exaggerand observed and conversed with ating Dickens's hold on the popularity enough of eminent and splendidly cul- of future generations, not to admit that, tivated minds, too, in my time; but I so far as this radical confusion of the assure you I have heard higher senti- higher with the lower moral qualities ments from the lips of poor, uneducated goes, it will eventually diminish his men and women, when exerting the command over the admiration of men. spirit of severe yet gentler heroism But it would, on the other hand, be under difficulties and afflictions, or putting that claim far too low not to speaking their simple thoughts as to maintain that, in spite of these confucircumstances in the lot of their friends sions, in spite of the moral pinchbeck and neighbors, that I ever yet met with which he frequently mistakes for gold, out of the pages of the Bible. We and displays with something like selfshall never learn to feel and respect our congratulation as if it were gold, he real calling and destiny, unless we have has shown powers so marvellously keen taught ourselves to consider everything both of perception and of humor, that as moonshine compared with the educa- for many generations to come the ablest tion of the heart." So that when Scott and most discerning will regard his deprecated so earnestly any high esti- writings as a perfect mine of wealth, in mate of that which was uncommon, he which, though they will find much that certainly did mean to disparage mere is poor and spurious passed off as if it literary genius, perhaps because he ad- were genuine treasure, they will also mitted it to be uncommon; but he did find untold wealth of insight into the not, we think, mean to deny that there paradoxes and eccentricities and hypocis a very common sort of coarseness of risies of human nature, as well as into the heart which is not wickedness, but that boundless variety of common things is nevertheless very objectionable. He of which no eye but his ever saw the thought the very highest virtues com- full miscellaneousness and quaintness. mon, but he did not think all that was There is a superfine kind of refinement common, good. His own writings which is so repelled by the falsetto side abound in indications of how much he of Dickens that it cannot enjoy his aldelighted in that "education of the most unlimited powers of perception heart" which gives a real spiritual re- and light-heartedness. Indeed, it feels finement to those whose intellects had his whole humor soiled by the many been utterly neglected, how such na- indications of vulgarity of judgment tures as those of Jeanie Deans or Edie which alloy his astonishing powers of Ochiltree were all the dearer to him vision, and his still more astonishing because they had this refinement of the powers of caricature. But that is a heart without a trace of anything that fastidiousness which would impoverish could be called intellectual polish. But the significance of English literature. on the other hand, he could paint, and Without Dickens, we should be without paint with great force, characters like the most wonderful eyes and without those of Andrew Fairservice or Thorny the most wonderful sense of drollery Osbaldistone, whose common cunning which have ever gazed upon England or common sottishness had no touch in in this confused nineteenth century, them of this refinement. and recorded - we may even say in The difference between Scott and some sense catalogued the strange |