The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 20

Who hate to have their dignity profaned With any relish of an earthly thought.[118]

She desired the Cardinal du Perron would request Ronsard (in her name) to prefix an epistle to the odes and sonnets addressed to her, a.s.suring the world that this poetical love had been purely Platonic. "Madam,"

said the Cardinal, "you had better give him leave to prefix your picture."[119]

I presume my fair and gentle readers (I shall have none, I am sure, who are not one or the other, or both,) are as tired as myself of all this affectation, and glad to turn from it to the interest of pa.s.sion and reality.

"There is not," says Cowley, "so great a lie to be found in any poet, as the vulgar conceit of men, that lying is essential to good poetry." On the contrary, where there is not truth, there is nothing--

Rien n' est beau que le vrai,--le vrai seul est aimable!

While the Italian school of amatory verse was flourishing in France, Spain, and England, almost to the extinction of originality in this style, the brightest light of Italian poesy had arisen, and was shining with a troubled splendour over that land of song. How swiftly at the thought does imagination shoot, "like a glancing star," over the wide expanse of sea and land, and through a long interval of sad and varied years! I am again standing within the porch of the church of San Onofrio, looking down upon the little slab in its dark corner, which covers the bones of Ta.s.sO.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] Died 1631

[110] Died in 1619.

[111] Died 1649.

[112] Leicester's influence over Elizabeth appeared so unaccountable, that it was ascribed to magic, and to her evil stars.

[113] Spenser's Daphnaida.

[114]

Blier, mon ami! Commencez par le commencement!

COUNT HAMILTON.

[115] "La gentille Marguerite," the unhappy wife of Louis the Eleventh.

Beautiful, accomplished, and in the very spring of life, she died a victim to the detestable character of her husband. When one of her attendants spoke of hope and life, the Queen, turning from her with an expression of deep disgust, exclaimed with a last effort, "Fi de la vie!

ne m'en parlez plus!"--and expired.

[116] At Althorp, the seat of Lord Spenser, there is a most curious picture of Diana of Poictiers, once in the Crawford collection: it is a small half-length; the features are fair and regular; the hair is elaborately dressed with a profusion of jewels; but there is no drapery whatever, except a curtain behind: round the head is the legend from the forty-second Psalm,--"Comme le cerf braie aprs le dcours des eaues, ainsi brait mon me aprs toi, O Dieu!" which is certainly a most extraordinary and profane application. In the days of Diana of Poictiers, Marot had composed a version of the Psalms, then very popular. It was the fashion to sing them to dance and song tunes; and the courtiers and beauties had each their favourite psalm, which served as a kind of _devise_. This may explain the very singular inscription on this very singular picture.

[117] Ronsard was a native of the Vendomois, and Marie, of Anjou.

[118] Ben Jonson.

[119] V. Bayle Dictionnaire Historique.--Pierre de Ronsard was born in 1524, and died in 1585.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LEONORA D'ESTE.

Leonora d'Este, a princess of the proudest house in Europe, might have wedded an emperor, and have been forgotten. The idea, true or false, that she it was who broke the heart and frenzied the brain of Ta.s.so, has glorified her to future ages; has given her a fame, something like that of the Greek of old, who bequeathed his name to immortality, by firing the grandest temple of the universe.

The question of Ta.s.so's attachment to the Princess Leonora, is, I believe, set at rest by the acute researches and judicious reasoning of M. Ginguen, and those who have followed in his steps. A body of circ.u.mstantial evidence has been collected, which would not only satisfy a court of love--but a court of law, with a Lord Chancellor, to boot, "_perpending_" at the head of it. That which was once regarded as a romance, which we wished to believe, if we _could_, is now an established fact, which we cannot disbelieve if we would.

No poet perhaps ever owed so much to female influence as Ta.s.so, or wrote so much under the intoxicating inspiration of love and beauty. He paid most dearly for such inspiration; and yet not _too_ dearly. The high tone of sentiment, the tenderness, and the delicacy which pervade all his poems, which prevail even in his most voluptuous descriptions, and which give him such a decided superiority over Ariosto, cannot be owing to any change of manners or increase of refinement produced by the lapse of a few years. It may be traced to the tender influence of two elegant women. He for many years read the cantos of the Gerusalemme, as he composed them, to the Princesses Lucretia and Leonora, both of whom he admired--one of whom he adored.

_Au reste_--the kiss, which he is said to have imprinted on the lips of Leonora in a transport of frenzy, as well as the idea that she was the primary cause of his insanity, and of his seven years' imprisonment at St. Anne's, rest on no authority worthy of credit; yet it is not less certain that she was the object of his secret and fervent admiration, and that this hopeless pa.s.sion conspired, with many other causes, to fever his irritable temperament and unsettle his imagination, beyond that "fine madness," which we are told _ought_ "to possess the poet's brain."

When Ta.s.so first visited Ferrara, in 1565, he was just one-and-twenty, with all the advantages which a fine countenance, a majestic figure, (for he was tall even among the tallest,) n.o.ble birth, and excelling talents could bestow: he was already distinguished as the author of the Rinaldo, his earliest poem, in which he had celebrated (as if prophetically,) the Princesses d'Este--and chiefly Leonora.

Lucrezia Estense, e l'altra i cui crin d'oro, Lacci e reti saran del casto amore.[120]

When Ta.s.so was first introduced to her in her brother's court, Leonora was in her thirtieth year; a disparity of age which is certainly no argument against the pa.s.sion she inspired. For a young man, at his first entrance into life, to fall in love ambitiously--with a woman, for instance, who is older than himself, or with one who is, or ought to be, unattainable--is a common occurrence. Ta.s.so, from his boyish years, had been the sworn servant of beauty. He tells us, in grave prose, "che la sua giovanezza fu tutta sotto-posta all' amorose leggi;"[121] but he was also refined, even to fastidiousness, in his intercourse with women. He had formed, in his own poetical mind, the most exalted idea of what a female ought to be, and unfortunately, she who first realised all his dreams of perfection, was a Princess--"there seated where he durst not soar." Leonora was still eminently lovely, in that soft, artless, un.o.btrusive style of beauty, which is charming in itself, and in a princess irresistible, from its contrast with the loftiness of her station and the trappings of her rank. Her complexion was extremely fair; her features small and regular; and the form of her head peculiarly graceful, if I may judge from a fine medallion I once saw of her in Italy. Ill health, and her early acquaintance with the sorrows of her unfortunate mother, had given to her countenance a languid and pensive cast, and sicklied all the natural bloom of her complexion; but "Paleur, qui marque une ame tendre, a bien son prix:" so Ta.s.so thought; and this "vago Pallore," which "vanquishes the rose, and makes the dawn ashamed of her blushes," he has frequently and beautifully celebrated; as in the pretty Madrigal--

Vita della mia Vita!

_O Rosa scolorita!_ &c.

and in those graceful lines,

Languidetta belt vinceva amore, &c.

applicable only to Leonora. Her eyes were blue; her mouth of peculiar beauty, both in form and expression. In the seventh Sonnet, "Bella la donna mia," he says it was the most lovely feature in her face; in another, still finer,[122] he styles this exquisite mouth "a crimson sh.e.l.l"--

Purpurea conca, in cui si nutre Candor di perle elette e pellegrine;

and he concludes it with one of those disguises under which he was accustomed to conceal Leonora's name.

E di s degno cor tuo straLE ONORA.

She was negligent in her dress, and studious and retired in her habits, seldom joining in the amus.e.m.e.nts of her brother's court, then the gayest and most magnificent in Italy.[123] Her accomplished and unhappy mother, Rene of France,[124] had early instilled into her mind a love of literature, and especially of poetry. She was pa.s.sionately fond of music, and sang admirably. One of Ta.s.so's most beautiful sonnets was composed on some occasion when her physician had forbidden her to sing.

He who had so often felt the magic of that enchanting voice, thus describes its power and laments his loss:--

Ahi, ben reo destin, ch' invidia, e toglie Almondo il suon de' vostri chiari accenti, Onde addivien che le terrene genti De' maggior pregi, impoverisca e spoglie.

Ch' ogni nebbia mortal, che 'l senso accoglie, s...o...b..ar potea dalle pi fosche menti L' armona dolce, e bei pensieri ardenti Spirar d' onore, e pure e n.o.bil voglie.

Ma non si merta qui forse cotanto; E basta ben che i sereni occhi, e 'l riso N' infiammin d' un piacer celeste e santo.

Nulla fora pi bello il Paradiso, Se 'l mondo udisse, in voi d' angelo il canto, Siccome vede in voi d' angelo il viso.

"O cruel--O envious destiny, that hast deprived the world of those delicious accents, that hast made earth poor in what was dearest and sweetest! No cloud ever gathered over the gloomiest mind, which the melody of that voice could not disperse; it breathed but to inspire n.o.ble thoughts and chaste desires.--But, no! it was more than mortals could deserve to possess. Those soft eyes, that smile were enough to inspire a sacred and sweet delight.--Nor would Paradise any longer excel this earth, if in your voice we heard an angel sing, as we behold an angel's beauty in your face!"

Leonora, to a sweet-toned voice, added a gift, which, unless thus accompanied, loses half its value, and almost all its charm--she spoke well; and her eloquence was so persuasive, that we are told she had power to move her brother Alphonso, when none else could. Ta.s.so says most poetically,

E l'aura del parlar cortese e saggio, Fra le rose spirar, s'udia sovente;

--meaning--for to translate literally is scarce possible,--that "eloquence played round her lips, like the zephyr breathing over roses."

"I (he adds), beholding a celestial beauty walk the earth, closed my eyes in terror, exclaiming, O rashness! O folly! for any to dare to gaze on such charms! Alas! I quickly perceived that this was my least peril.

My heart was touched through my ears; her gentle wisdom penetrated deeper than her beauty could reach."