NATIONAL POETRy 449 



whither Protestantism had not yet reached, several poets of society were in 

 great favour : William Ihuibur, with his allegorical poem of the " Golden 

 Buckler," and David Lindsay and Wyatt, with their satires ; while Lord 

 Surrey had introduced blank verse into English poetry, and translated the 

 -^neid. In Italy, too, which the Reformation never reached, the school of 

 Petrarch seemed to spring into renewed life. Bembo was the instigator of 

 this resurrection of amorous poetry ; for though his own imitations of Petrarch 

 were but feeble, the Petrarchists or Bembists, as they ought rather to be 

 called responded to his appeal to the number of five or six hundred. Other 

 poets, though not despising the sonnets of Petrarch, endeavoured to embody 

 different subjects in new forms. Angelo de Costanzo and Camillo Peregrini 

 returned to lyric poetry, Bernardino Balbi to didactic poetry, and Benti- 

 voglio and Pietro Aretino to satirical poetry. Torquato Tasso, the son of 

 Bernardino Tasso, who obtained great celebrity for his poem of chivalry upon 

 the "Amadis," undertook to write the great epic poem of modern times, 

 "Jerusalem Delivered." This is a true epic poem, based, not like that of 

 Virgil, upon the fabled traditions of the siege of Troy, but upon the positive, 

 though almost miraculous, facts appertaining to the history of the Middle 

 Ages. Tasso is not inferior to Homer: his poem is equal to the Iliad. 

 But his style noble, poetical, and admirable as it is is often spoilt by traits 

 of bad taste and by insipid play upon words. Yet we may say that the glory 

 of Tasso lighted up the sixteenth century. 



After this every nation was desirous of having its epic poem. Spain, which 

 possessed several good cancione writers, such as Herrera, Castillejo, and Lope 

 de Vega, found Alonzo de Ercilla to write an epic poem called " Araucana " 

 upon the conquest of Chili by his fellow-countrymen ; but endless digressions 

 and useless episodes marred the brilliant style and descriptions contained in 

 this work. Portugal was more fortunate ; for Camoens, who chose for the 

 subject of his national epode the voyage of Vasco de Gama, which he con- 

 nected with the general history of his country, wrote his poem of " Lusiades " 

 upon the very spots still redolent of his hero. The defects of Camoens in the 

 arrangement of his story and in his choice of the marvellous are only too 

 patent, but the grandeur of his ideas attracts and delights the reader, while 

 his abundant and harmonious style lends itself well to the dramatic character 

 of the scenes and the highly coloured descriptions of a work which in some 

 passages reaches the sublime. Camoens died in obscurity and extreme poverty. 



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