TASSONI, ALESSANDRO. 



TATIANUS. 



J20 



at the gate, " I am come to die amongst you." He was led iuto a 

 comfortable apartment, where be devoted his remaining days entirely 

 to religious practices, and seemed totally weaned from worldly 

 feelings and cares. When the pope's physician announced to him his 

 approaching death, he embraced him, thanking him for the happy 

 tidings. To Cardinal Cinzio, who came to take leave of him, he 

 expressed his gratitude for all his kindness ; and as the cardinal and 

 those present could not refrain from tears, he said to them, " You 

 think that you are leaving me, but I shall go before you." He 

 expired on the 25th of April 1595, after fifteen days' illness, being 

 fifty-one years of age. He was buried, according to his desire, in tho 

 church of St. Ouofrio, with a plain slab over his tomb, upon which the 

 monks engraved tho simple inscription, "Torquati Tassi ossa hie 



juC. lit." 



The lasting fame of Tasso as a great poet rests upon his ' Gerus- 

 iilemnie Liberata,' or '11 Goffredo,' as it is sometimes called, one of 

 the few great epic poems of which tho world can boast. The action 

 is complete : it relates the events of the great crusade, and ends with 

 the ostensible object of that expedition, the deliverance of Jerusalem 

 from the hands of the Moslems. The beauties, as well as the faults 

 of the composition, have been the theme of many disquisitions. The 

 poem has a peculiarity that distinguishes it from most other epics : it 

 is essentially a Christian poem ; and breathes throughout the feelings, 

 tho faith, and the hopes of a Christian. Tasso, as he says in his invo- 

 cation, had drawn bis inspiration from a sacred source, and has thus 

 afforded a refutation to those who pretend that the Christian religion 

 is not so favourable to poetical imagery as the splendid fictions of 

 mythology. A melancholy tinge pervades the poem ; but it is a 

 melancholy lighted up by cheering and constant hope. With the 

 single exception of the episode of the gardens of Armida, the language 

 of .the 'Gerusalemnie' is eminently chaste, and the morality of its 

 sentiments is pure and elevated. Among its beauties of details we 

 will only instance the episode of Oliudo and Sofronia, in tho 2nd canto; 

 the council of the daemons, in the 4th ; the flight of Erminia, and her 

 meeting with the old shepherd on the banks of the Jordan, in the 7th ; 

 the introduction of the Turk Solyman into the besieged city, in the 

 10th; the death of Clorinda, in the 12th; and the last fight of 

 Argante with Tancred, in the 19th canto. 



The other poems of Tasso have been mentioned in the course of 

 this-articlc. His lyrical compositions are very numerous, and many of 

 them exquisite both in language and sentiment. Besides those which 

 are upon amorous subjects, some refer to contemporary events, or are 

 in praise of contemporary princes ; others are upon religious subjects ; 

 and others refer to his own misfortunes. 



Tasso's prose works consist of dialogues and dissertations, some of 

 'which have been already noticed ; of a treatise upon epic poetry, 

 dedicated to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini ; discourses upon the 

 poetical art, dedicated to Scipione Gonzaga ; and of numerous letters, 

 some of which remained unpublished till some thirty years back 

 ' Lettere Inedite,' Pisa, 1827. Professor Rosini has edited a new 

 edition of all the works of Tasso, begun at Pisa in 1820. 



Tasso's ' Gerusalemnie Liberata ' has been translated into most 

 European languages. There are English translations by Fairfax, 

 Hoole, Broadhead, Hunt, and WifFeu. It has also been paraphrased 

 into several Italian dialects, Milanese, Neapolitan, Calabrian, &c. The 

 Life of Tasso has been written by Manso, Serassi, and others, and has 

 been commented upon by Tiraboschi, Muratori, Zeno, Maffei, and 

 other Italian philologists. 



TASSO'NI, ALESSA'NDRO, born of a noble family at Modena, in 

 1565, was educated first in his native town, and afterwards at Bologna 

 and Ferrara, where he studied the law. In 1597 he went to Rome, 

 when he entered the service of Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, whom he 

 accompanied to Spain in the year 1600. In 1603 the cardinal, having 

 been made viceroy of Aragon, sent Tassoni to Home to take charge ol 

 the administration of his property in Italy. During his stay in Spain 

 Tassoni had opportunities of observing the internal state of that king- 

 dom, which, after alarming all Europe in the preceding century by its 

 ambition and the extent of its conquests, was now fast sinking iuto 

 decay under the weak reign of Philip III. At Rome he wrote his 

 ' Considerazioni sopra il Petrarca/ published in 1609, in which he 

 commented very severely upon numerous faults, real or supposed 

 which he pointed out in the writings of that generally admired poet 

 Endowed with an inquisitive but somewhat captious mind, Tasson 

 aimed in his writings at opposing received opinions, and he employee 

 sarcasm and ridicule for the purpose. Aromatari of Assisi took up 

 the defence of Petrarch in his 'Risposte' to Tassoni's considerations 

 and this led to a controversy in the usual bitter style of Italian literary 

 polemics. In 1612 Tassoni published his 'Pensieri Diversi' in ten 

 books, being a collection of remarks on various subjects of science 

 and literature which he had been in the habit for years of entering in 

 his memorandum-book. Among other subjects he attacked th< 

 Physics of Aristotle, although he does not seem to have had himsel 

 very correct notions of p'nysical phenomena. This work led to anothe 

 controversy between Tassoni and several of his contemporaries. Mean 

 time the Cardinal Colonna had died, and Tassoni, being now withou 

 employment, applied to Charles Emmanuel I., duke of Savoy, whc 

 promised him the post of secretary to his son, the cardinal of Savoy 

 But jartly through court intrigues, and partly on accouut of Tassoni' 



nown aversion to the court of Spain, with which the Duke of Saxony 

 ashed to be on good terms, ho was kept waiting for years before he 

 ould take possession of his office at the court of the cardinal, who 

 was then residing at Rome. Certain compositions entitled 'Filippichc,' 

 n which the court of Spain was severely handled, as well as another 

 amphlet entitled 'Esequie della Monarchia di Spagna,' which appeared 

 [uring that period, were generally attributed to Tassoni. Tiraboschi 

 hinks that the first two of the ' Filippiche ' are Tassoni's, but that the 

 ither five are by another pen. Copies of this work are very scarce, 

 n 1 623 Tassoni left the cardinal of Savoy in disgust, and retired to a 

 country-house in the suburb of Transtevere, where he employed him- 

 >elf in study and rural occupations. 



In 1626 Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV., took 

 Tassoui into his service, and gave him apartments in his own palace, 

 vith a handsome stipend. After the cardinal's death, in 1632, Tassoni 

 epaired to Modena, when he was made councillor to his sovereign 

 Duke Francis I. of Este, for the remainder of his life. He died at 

 Modena in 1635. 



Besides the works already mentioned, Tassoni made an abridgment 

 n Italian of the 'Annals' of Baronius, and some ' Annotazioni,' or 

 corrections and additions to the Italian vocabulary of La Crusca. 

 Sut the work for which he is best known is his mock-heroic poem, 

 La Secchia R:ipita,' or the ' Rape of a Bucket.' He is considered as 

 laving first introduced this kind of composition in the Italian 

 anguage, as he had finished, though not published in print, his poem 

 years before his contemporary Bracciolini published, in 1618, his 

 ' Scheruo degli Dei,' in which he turns into ridicule the gods of the 

 ancient mythology. Tassoni's poem was published in a printed form 

 in 1622, but manuscript copies had been in circulation long before. 

 The subject is taken from the annals of his country under the year 

 1249, when a war having broken out between the two neighbouring 

 cities of Modena and Bologna, the Modenese carried off in triumph a 

 wooden bucket from within one of the gates of Bologna, which bucket 

 is still seen suspended by a chain in the cathedral of Modena. The 

 'Secchia Rapita' has been generally admired by Italian as well as 

 foreign critics. Voltaire speaks of it disparagingly, although he has 

 borrowed from it (Valery, ' Voyages Litteraires '), but Perrault and 

 other French critics have done Tassoni full justice. The humour of 

 the poem is peculiarly Italian, and the admixture of the serious and 

 heroic with the burlesque is happily combined. Some of the descrip- 

 tive passages are exquisitely soft and true to nature, such as the song 

 in canto viii. which begins : " Dormiva Endimion tra 1'erbe e i fiori," 

 aud the beautiful episode in canto x. of the voyage of Venus from the 

 mouth of the Arno to Naples for the purpose of enznging Manfred, 

 son of Frederic II., to assist the Qhibeliues of Xorth Italy. The 



Secchia Rapita' has gone through numerous editions : that of Barotti, 

 Modena, 1744, is most splendid. Gironi has collected various judg- 

 ments and comments upon this poem in his biography of Tassoni. 

 Muratori has also written the Life of Tassoni. 



TATE, NAHUM, was born in Dublin in 1652. His father was 

 Dr. Faithful Tate, a clergyman in Ireland. He was educated at 

 Trinity College, Dublin, whence he removed to London. On the 

 death of Shadwell in 1690, the interest of Tate's friends procured him 

 the situation of poet-laureate, which he held till his death. He seems 

 to have been an improvident man, and somewhat addicted to intem- 

 perance. In the latter part of his life he resided in the precincts of 

 the Mint, in South wark, where he died, August 12, 1715. The Mint 

 was then considered a privileged place, where debtors were not liable 

 to arrest. This supposed privilege however was put down by statute 

 9 Geo. 1. 



Tate wrote ' Memorials for the Learned, collected out of eminent 

 Authors in History,' 8vo. 16S6; 'Characters of Virtue and Vice 

 described and attempted in Verse, from a Treatise of Joseph Hall, 

 Bishop of Exon,' London, 1691 ; ' Miscellanea Sacra, or Poems on 

 Divine and Moral Subjects,' Svo, London, 1698; 'Panacea, a Poem on 

 Tea,' London, 1700 ; besides Birth-Day Odes and an Elegy on the 

 death of Queen Mary. He was also the author of about ten dramatic 

 pieces, tragedy, comedy, and opera, including an alteration of Shuks- 

 pere's ' Lear,' which kept the stage many years, but has for some time 

 been superseded by the original. 



Tate is chiefly known now by his metrical version of the Psalms, 

 which he executed in conjunction with Dr. Nicholas Brady [BRADY], 

 aud which is now commonly annexed to the Book of Common Prayer 

 of the Church of England. This version, though of little merit, was 

 an improvement on the former vcrson by Sternhold and Hopkins, 

 which it soon supplauted. [STERNHOLD.] The first publication wag 

 an ' Essay of a New Version of the Psalms of David, consisting of the 

 first Twenty, by N. Brady and N. Tate,' Svo, London, 1695 ; this was 

 followed by ' A New Version of the Psalms of David, fitted to the 

 Tunes used in the Churches, by N. Tate and N. Brady,' London, 1693, 

 with a 'Supplement of Church Hymns,' Svo, London, 1700. 



TATIA'NUS, of Assyria, was a pupil of Justin Martyr, after whose 

 death he wrote an apology for Christianity, under the title of ' A 

 Discourse to the Heathen ' (ASyos npbs "EAAijcas). In this work ho 

 gives some account of his own life. He was brought up in heathenism, 

 the different forms of which became known to him, by his many 

 travels : and all those forms appeared to him unsatisfactory. He then 

 turned his attention to the Old Testament, on which he thought ho 



