ings of a similar character. Their actions were, in no instance, determined by motives of a selfish and private nature, if we except Paris alone, the most insignificant character in the poem. Where all were governed by similar feelings, arising from causes directly opposed to each other, it was natural that these feelings should end in accomplishing some great result in which all the parties were interested. The Greeks aimed at the destruction of Troy: the Trojans sought the destruction of the Greeks. One or other event must take place, and did take place. But in the Orlando Furioso every warrior aimed first at gratifying his own particular passion, a passion to which he always sacrificed his public duties and the interests of his party. It was therefore impossible, that they could ever co-operate in producing any great result in which all were equally concerned, because each of them had interests and passions peculiar to himself, to which he sacrificed all other considerations. When Rinaldo is sent by Charlemagne to solicit assistance from the British monarch, he forgets the object of his mission the moment he lands on the British coast; and, instead of proceeding directly to London, directs his course to the court of the Scottish monarch, to fight in behalf of his daughter, Geneura, who was condemned to death on a charge of incontinence. Could it be expected, that a character who thus sacrificed his public duty to his passion for knight-errantry, would contribute much to the completion of any great public undertaking. During his absence, Paris was closely besieged by Agramant, and all its hopes were centered in the great Orlando; but so much more powerfully was this hero swayed by his passion for Angelica, than by his patriotic attachment to his country, and his duty to Charlemagne, his uncle, that he stole out of the city by night, and went in quest of a virgin whom he knew not where to find. Throughout the Orlando, in fact, love is the passion to which all other passions and considerations are sacrificed, and nothing could be more inconsistent in Ariosto, than to propose to himself the accomplishment of one great action, where he had not a single warrior to co-operate in its execution, who was not languishing in the silken chains of love; nor, consequently, a single warrior on whose co-operation, or fixed steadiness of mind, he could depend for a moment. Languishing, capricious, jealous, irascible, and whimsical lovers, are, of all other instruments, the most unfit for uniting in the completion of any great design; and even should the poet so manage it as to accomplish such a design through the agency of such stubborn and unmanageable instruments, he could never succeed in convincing us, that its accomplishment was not entirely the work of chance; for whatever prudence and wisdom he might display in devising

such circumstances and situations as might tend to bring these wandering and unsettled spirits to co-operate with each other, we feel instinctively, that the most trifling circumstance would upset all his contrivances, and either set them quarrelling with each other, or send them in quest of new adventures. It is obvious, then, that they could never be rendered so subservient to any fixed design of the poet, as the heroes of the Iliad and the Eneid, and consequently Ariosto should not have chosen them if he had such a design in view. Having chosen them, however, the only natural line he could pursue was to let each of them follow the bent of his own nature, without forcing it into a direction which it would have never pursued if left to itself. Had all the characters of the Iliad possessed the unbending, uncompromising, ungovernable spirit of Achilles, could Homer have ever planned the destruction of Troy, and executed it as he has done, through the instrumentality of such characters? Nothing can be more obvious, than that the Grecian camp would be soon divided against itself, and that the independent chiefs would either break up and retire to their respective states, or destroy each other, if they remained, long before they could succeed in accomplishing the destruction of Troy.

It is evident, then, that the poet who wishes to celebrate some great and heroic action, that requires time, perseverance, and a fixed unalterable determination of mind in those who are to accomplish it, must not choose such hot-headed warriors as Achilles, Orlando, Rinaldo, Ferrau, Mandricardo, &c. and that consequently no poem can be made up of such warriors, where the accomplishment of such a design is in view. The poet, then, has no alternative but that of not selecting such characters at all, if he aim at its accomplishment; or abandoning the design, if he select the characters. Homer, Virgil, and Tasso have chosen the former, Ariosto the latter alternative. He found his genius naturally inclined him to the wild and the romantic, and that he could not indulge this humour in describing such fixed, steady, and natural warriors as Hector, Eneas, Ajax, Ulysses, &c. Without the agency of such characters, however, he perceived no great design could be accomplished, and that to attempt its execution with wild, ungovernable spirits would be far "outstepping the modesty of Nature." The characters, however, being dearer to him than the execution of any fixed design, he abandoned the one in order to retain the other. Accordingly, whoever reads the Orlando, without an eye to the Iliad or Eneid, will easily perceive, that Ariosto had no object in view but that of entertaining his readers with the loves and adventures of the dames and knights whom he introduces into the poem, and the heroic

achievements that naturally arose from them; and if he could have any doubt of this being the fact, Ariosto himself removes it at the very opening of the poem, as we have already observed. He there tells us, in the clearest terms, that he proposes to treat of dames, and knights, and arms, and love, and heroic feats; but he does not say, that he proposes to make any particular knight the hero of his poem, nor any particular feat the main subject of his song. That Ariosto has no chief hero, no main action, is so very obvious, that few critics have ventured to maintain it. On the contrary, their great charge against him is for having neither. If it be asked, why he should be so generally censured for not having both, we reply, because the critics and the schools have stunned us with the necessity of a chief hero, and a main action; because, for some ages past, the very name of an epic poem instantly suggests the idea of a chief hero and a principal action; or, rather, these two ideas, and that of the poem, form in our minds but one complex idea. This idea we generally form in our youth, when we take up most of our complex ideas without being qualified, and sometimes without being disposed, to examine how far, and under what circumstances, they are right or wrong. Accordingly, under whatever circumstance any part of the idea presents itself ever after, we find it accompanied with the other, and we have as much difficulty to separate the idea of a chief hero and a main action from our idea of an epic poem, as we have to detach our ideas of ghosts and hobgoblins from our idea of darkness. It is this false combination of ideas, that makes us frequently attach a sense to what conveys no meaning whatever, and makes the greatest absurdity pass for demonstration. That a chief hero and a main action are necessary, under the circumstances which we have already explained, can admit of no doubt; but to render them necessary in a poem, composed of such materials as the Orlando, is to render that necessary which Nature forbids.

From the very nature of romantic poetry, it follows, therefore, that the poet is not at liberty to select any particular hero, and employ him in prosecuting and accomplishing one principal design, because, while he acts consistently with his romantic character, he will be the most improper of all instruments to proceed steadily in the execution of it. Where several warriors are described, it is true that some one must be greatest, but this does not constitute him a chief hero, unless he be employed in prosecuting some particular object; and that none of Ariosto's characters was fit for such an employment, must appear obvious to every reader of common sense, who suffers not his judgement to be warped by the trammels of the schools, and those canons of criticism which

are first deduced from one poem, and then applied, without distinction, to poems of a different, and almost opposite nature. Indeed, it would be perfectly ludicrous to see Orlando, who is undoubtedly the greatest hero in the poem, engaged in prosecuting any particular design, if we except the love of Angelica; and that it was not Ariosto's intention to celebrate his passion for her, appears evident from his removing her from the scene altogether, and delivering her up to the possession and embraces of Medoro, who carries her off to India in the twenty

ninth book.

A romantic poem, therefore, to be consistent, must be romantic, that is, it must leave the characters to act wildly and romantically, for to make them act reasonably, to make them pursue any fixed design, would be to deprive them of their romantic character. Instead, therefore, of endeavouring to defend Ariosto, by maintaining that he has observed the rules of Aristotle, and that he has a chief hero, and a main action, we should adopt the general opinion of the critics, and of the world, that he has neither, and rest our defence on the impropriety of making either one or the other a prominent feature in a romantic epic.

That Ariosto, then, did not intend to celebrate any one great and heroic action, through the instrumentality of any one hero, and that he was justified in so doing, must, we think, appear sufficiently evident; but the wildness, boldness, and extravagance of his relations, may, perhaps, appear not so capable of being reconciled to our ideas, even of romantic or poetical probability. The Orlando exhibits characters and personages of every kind,-heroes, knights, kings, shepherds, peasants, hermits,-queens, ladies of high birth, abandoned lovers, female warriors, fairies, magicians, demons, giants, dwarfs, flying horses, iron mountains, enchanted palaces, Elysian gardens, in a word, whatever nature can produce, or imagination can conceive. Through these instruments of fiction, he has performed achievements from which the boldest of Homer's warriors would shrink with terror, and removed difficulties which would perplex even the astute goddess of wisdom herself, were she obliged to surmount them. Before we can estimate, however, the degree of probability or improbability that belongs to these relations, it will be necessary to take a view of the origin of romance, and see how far its descriptions and magic scenes can be reconciled with the belief of those who reported them, and to whom they were reported; for a true critic, in judging of the degree of evidence that belongs to any relation, will not study, for a moment, how far it appears probable or improbable to himself, but how far it might appear so in the age and country in which it was written.

The spirit of chivalry was generated in the dark ages that succeeded the decline of Roman literature, and of Roman power, when the face of Europe was obscured by feudal despotism, and lawless might. Besides the want of subjection to any supreme tribunal under this system, oppression and iniquity were partly secured from the arm of justice by the impenetrable woods and forests that then extended over a great part of Europe. In the midst of these woods were formed. subterraneous abodes, in which banditti secured themselves and their ill-got prey from the hands of justice. In such a state of things, we cannot be surprised, that those who possessed the more exalted feelings and generous sympathies of human nature, and who were constant witnesses of oppressed and unrighted innocence, should be seized with that ardour of avenging their wrongs which virtue and humanity inspire. Such relief, however, could only be afforded them by individual bravery, by those generous few who took delight in travelling through places where evil deeds were most frequently practised, and innocence most frequently exposed. Hence arose the spirit of chivalry; the fame any individual acquired by rescuing innocence from brutal force, was sufficient to inspire another and another to emulate his deeds; and the spirit being once awakened, the flame became general. A similar state of society at present, would, perhaps, excite a similar spirit, but when the laws are sufficient to protect innocence, and defeat the machinations of the unjust, there is nothing to call it forth but a disordered mind. Chivalry, therefore, arose from natural causes, and perished when these causes ceased to exist. We are aware that its extinction is sometimes attributed to the Don Quixote of Cervantes; but it should be recollected, that chivalry was not confined to Spain. It spread its influence all over Europe, though it was at this time rapidly declining, in proportion as the laws extended their protection to the weak, and as the arts and sciences illumined and expanded the human mind. Had Cervantes never written this immortal work, chivalry would have soon become extinct of itself. It would have passed away, like a vapour of the night, before the rising sun of science and civilization; but if the state of society had not been different in the time of Cervantes, from what it was two or three centuries before, the universal darkness which reigned around could never have been dispersed by one solitary star, and Cervantes would have written his Don Quixote in vain. Besides, it is to the expanding knowledge of the age we should attribute this admirable production, not to the individual genius of its author; for had he lived three centuries before, he could never have seen the folly of the times in so clear a point of view. He saw it now clearly, because others