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Our hero, now Sir Rice ap Thomas, became speedily invested with those honours, which his beneficial services merited; and he became, also, an actor in all the busy scenes of his patron's reign. In the disturbances caused by the rebellion of the Lord Lovell and the two Staffords," he was actively engaged by the King; as he was in the anarchy occasioned by the pretensions of the impostors Lambert Simnell, and Perkin Warbeck. He assisted the King in his wars with the French, and was of considerable service in the cabinet at home; and it was only during the latter part of Henry's reign, that the Knight found any repose from the toil and peril of the war. He, then, retired into Wales, where he lived among his dependants in a style of magnificence every way worthy of so eminent a personage. We regret that our limits, already, we fear, by far exceeded, will not permit us to show in detail the princely manner in which "Sir Rice feasted divers of his friends and kinsmen at his castle of Carew, in Pembrokeshire, where were held solemn jousts and tournaments, with other warlike pastimes, to the honour of St. George, chief patron of men of war." We know of nothing comparable to this splendid display of the wealth and hospitality of the Welch chieftain, excepting Leicester's festivities in honour of his august mistress, at the castle of Kenilworth. Magnificent, indeed, was the pageant, and the dinner was not the least superb portion of the ceremony. After a world of show," the company was ushered into the great hall, "which hall was a goodly spacious room, richly hanged with cloth of Arras and tapestry." At the upper end, under a canopy of crimson velvet, was placed a table for the King, which, although not graced with his Majesty's presence, was duly reverenced by the company: the tables for the guests occupied the sides and middle of the hall. At the sound of the trumpet, the King's service was brought in by persons properly appointed, Sir Rice's son Griffith acting as Sewer, Sir William Herbert, of Colebrook, as carver, and " young Griffith of Penthyn, as pocillator or cup-bearer." The King's meat being laid on the table, the Bishop of St. David stood on the right of the King's chair, and Sir Rice on the left," and all the while the meat was a laying down, the cornets, hautboys, and other wind instruments, were not silent." After the other tables were served, the Bishop made his humble obeisance to the King's chair, and then descended to say grace, returning again to his situation near the throne. When the tables were voided, and the meat removed to the side-board for the waiters, then the King's chair was turned, and every man at liberty to put on his hat."

After dinner came the tournament.

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"The first that appeared was Sir William Herbert, having

a trumpeter before him, and a page carrying his shield without any device, the motto Et quæ non fecimus ipsi. The next was Robert Salisbury, who had for an impress on his shield, a giant running at a pigmy, with this motto,-Pudet congredi cum homine vinci parato. Then came Jenkyn Mansell, the valiant, whose sentence was Perit sine adversario virtus. After, followed Vaughan, of Trelower, who took this for his dictum-Ingens gloria calorem habet. After these, the inceptors, or enterprisers, follow the no less brave defendants or propugnators. Their manner was the same. Sir Griffith Rice had written on his scutcheon, Et vinci et vincere pulchrum. Sir Thomas Perrott, in a more lofty language, made choice of this for his mottoSi non invenio singulos pares, pluribus simul objicier. Sir William Wogan, meaning to do honour to his noble adversaries, took a more humble motto, which was this-Profuit hoc vincente capi; and Sir Griffith Dunn, a man of an active spirit, used these words to express his inclination-Industrioso otium pone. These gallant gentlemen, in good order, rode twice or thrice about the tilt, and, as they passed along, they by their pages presented their shields to the judge, which done, both parties severed, and took their stand, the one at one end, and the other at the other end of the tilt. Then the trumpets sounded, whereupon the two first combatants put their lances into their rests, and so ran each their six courses.'

While the magnates were thus bravely employed, their friends and followers were not idle :

"Some were wrestling, some hurling of the bar, some tossing of the pike, some running at the quinteine, every man striving in a friendly emulation to perform some act, or other, worthy the name of soldier. With these, and the like delights, the day vanished."

But we must conclude. After a long life of labour and renown, our knight was peaceably gathered to his fathers. An exemplary temperance, a regular distribution of his time, and a discreet husbanding of his vital powers, had secured to him a serenity of mind, and its constant concomitant, the blessing of health; "nor do I learn," observes his annalist, "that his last glass was hurried by any violent or painful disease, but was, by the favour of heaven, suffered to run out gradually and smoothly, after a course of seventy and six years." He was buried with all due pomp, first in the monastery of the Friars, at Carmarthen, but his remains were afterwards removed, and re-interred in the eastern aisle of St. Peter's church, in that town, where a monument was erected to his memory. This monument is still extant, and bears the effigies of the knight and his lady but being composed of a soft and crumbling free-stone, it has long ceased to exhibit any further marks of the sculptor's art or original design, except such as are barely sufficient to distinguish the recumbent figures.

In conclusion, we would add, that a publication of the

curious manuscript, whence we have derived the foregoing particulars, would furnish a great treat to the admirers of our national history, and to those who delight to inform themselves of the manners and occupations of by-gone times.

ART.V. Il Rinaldo del Sig. Torquato Tasso, nella Parte seconda delle Rime e Prose del Tasso. Venezia, Aldo, 1583.

In the daily increasing taste for Italian literature, perhaps few of our readers know by name, and still fewer, we imagine, have read, the poem, which will form the subject of this article, and which, even in Italy, is only known by the curious in lite rary history. Were it only out of respect for the name of the great author, we think a slight essay on the work will not be unacceptable, and that our friends will agree with us, that if we do not feel, in the youthful poet, the full heat and shady splen dour of the Gerusalemme Liberata, we may, at least, see the rising of that great orb, which, at its meridian, poured forth floods of fire and light. In a few comparisons, that we propose making, of Tasso, in, his younger days, with Tasso seated by the side of Homer and Virgil; of Tasso, in the infancy of his genius," lisping numbers," with Tasso, in his prime, treading, with a firm step, and erect mien, the path of glory and immortality, it cannot be an unpleasing task, to mark the progress of this extraordinary man, just as it is a source of delight, to the lovers of painting, to compare the Muletti of the boyish Coreggio, with the "night scene," and "Saint Jerome," of his riper years.

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Whoever has read the life of Tasso, must allow, that of few, perhaps of none, can it so justly be said, that he was born a poet. Setting aside the wonders which his friend, the Marquis Manso, has recounted in his life of him, it is an undoubted fact, that such was the power of his astonishing genius, such, and so great, his taste and sensibility for the beautiful and sublime during his childhood, that, at the age of barely ten years, there was not a Greek or Italian author that he could not understand, and that he composed Latin verse and prose with equal ease. But it will appear still more extraordinary, that the poem we are going to notice was conceived at the age of seventeen, finished in the course of ten months, and published before the author had attained his eighteenth year. A poem, containing eight thousand verses, at the age of eighteen! written at moments stolen from more serious studies. His father, Bernardo, who, by sad experience, had seen and felt how profit

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less poetry, and the office of a courtier, had been; how still more ruinous his faithful adherence to the party, which, as a man of honour, he was bound to follow; wished to educate his beloved son to the law, a study, to which Boccacio, Petrarca, and Ariosto had also reluctantly devoted themselves, and which the inspirations of genius soon led them to abandon. It was the same with Tasso, as he himself has recorded: the natural bent of his mind, and a generous thirst for fame, weighing more with him than parental admonitions, he threw aside the Pandects and the Decretals; and the poem that he had begun in stealth, he afterwards finished with the approbation of a kind father, who now no longer opposed his wishes, at the recommendation of some of the first scholars of the day, the friends of both. At the conclusion of his poem, Torquato, thus elegantly, and with a noble pride, alludes to some of these interesting particulars :

"Così scherzando, io risonar già fea
Di Rinaldo gli ardori, e í dolci affanni,
Allor che ad altri studi il di togliea,
Nel quarto lustro ancor de' miei verdi anni;
Ad altri studi, onde poi spéme avea

Di ristorar d'avversa sorte i danni:

Ingrati studi, dal cui pondo oppresso,

Giaccio ignoto ad altrui, grave a me stesso !"

C. XII. st. 90.

This poem, divided into twelve cantos, is of the metrical romance kind, not so much, however, so, that, as we shall see, our young poet did not dare to depart from it when it suited him. It would be tedious to give a complete analysis of the story, and our limits will not admit of it: we will, however, state, that Rinaldo, the hero of the poem, is a noble youth, who, smitten with a love of glory, leaves Paris, as the Rinaldo of the Gerusalemme leaves his aunt Maude, to go and fight the Saracens ; differing from the latter hero in birth, not being the son of Bertoldo, but of Amone, as the Rinaldo of Boiardo and Ariosto, and, consequently, cousin of Orlando. The young hero, being out in quest of the steed Baiardo, which he knows to be running wild in a certain wood, meets with Clarice, and falling in love with her, leaves her with reluctance, after having given her proofs of his valour; he masters Baiardo by seizing him by the two hinder legs, and throwing him on his back. Accompanied by Isoliero, who had become his friend, after an encounter, according to the custom of those days, Rinaldo arrives in a place where two statues were standing of Lancelot and Tristan, in the attitude of fighting; the statue of the

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latter gives him up his lance, as to a knight surpassing him in valour. The two knights proceeding on their way, meet Galerana with Clarice, who had been sought in marriage by Francardo, of Charlemagne, who was disposed to bestow her upon him. The two ladies were sailing down the river Seine, attended by a numerous train of gay damsels and gallant knights. Clarice, as the reader may imagine, was a beauty of the first order, and appeared still more beautiful in the midst of so many other charms which only served to heighten hers,

"Qual nel seren d'oscura notte suole,

Per le strade del cielo aperte e belle,

Sul carro gir la suora alma del Sole,
Intorno cinta di lucenti stelle:
Qual Tetide menar dolci carole,

Con le sue ninfe leggiadrette e snelle
Tirata dá delfin per l'ampio mare

Quando son l'onde più tranquille e chiare."

C. IV. st. 7.

Such, then, was Clarice. The love-lorn and youthful Rinaldo suspecting some scheme to deprive him of so much beauty, can bear it no longer, but, giving the signal to his companion, he puts his lance into the rest, challenges, and routs the whole escort of Queen Galerana and his beloved Clarice.

"Come allor che nell' arsa ed arenosa

Libia, stuol di pastori e di molossi
Viene a battaglia orrenda e sanguinosa
Con due Leon da fame a predar mossi ;
Si duol la greggia timida e dubbiosa
Tra pastoral ripari e brevi fossi,
Nè sa fuggir nè star, che la paura
Di fuggir o di star non l'assicura;

Così dipinte di color di morte
Triste, sospese e sbigottite stanno
Le belle donne, e nelle faccie smorte
Gl 'interni affetti loro expressi elle hanno :
E come varia del pugnar la sorte,
Varia la tema in lor, varia l'affanno ;
E come varia il duol, varia il timore,
Dipinge il volto ancor vario colore."

C. IV. st. 30-1.

The escort being at length put to flight, Rinaldo, with all the courteousness of a true knight, turns to the ladies, and after complimenting Galerana, seizes Clarice, mounts her on the

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