ie Tassesche," and raised up two
poetical factions, which infected the Italians with a national fever.
Tasso and Ariosto were perpetually weighed and outweighed against each
other; Galileo wrote annotations on Tasso, stanza after stanza, and
without reserve, treating the majestic bard with a severity which must
have thrown the Tassoists into an agony. Our critic lent his manuscript
to Jacopo Mazzoni, who, probably being a disguised Tassoist, by some
accountable means contrived that the manuscript should be absolutely
lost!--to the deep regret of the author and all the Ariostoists. The
philosopher descended to his grave--not without occasional groans--nor
without exulting reminiscences of the blows he had in his youth
inflicted on the great rival of Ariosto--and the rumour of such a work
long floated on tradition! Two centuries had nearly elapsed, when
Serassi, employed on his elaborate Life of Tasso, among his
uninterrupted researches in the public libraries of Rome, discovered a
miscellaneous volume, in which, on a cursory examination, he found
deposited the lost manuscript of Galileo! It was a shock from which,
perhaps, the zealous biographer of Tasso never fairly recovered; the
awful name of Galileo sanctioned the asperity of critical decision, and
more particularly the severe remarks on the language, a subject on which
the Italians are so morbidly delicate, and so trivially grave. Serassi's
conduct on this occasion was at once political, timorous, and cunning.
Gladly would he have annihilated the original, but this was impossible!
It was some consolation that the manuscript was totally unknown--for
having got mixed with others, it had accidentally been passed over, and
not entered into the catalogue; his own diligent eye only had detected
its existence. "_Nessuno fin ora sa, fuori di me, se vi sia, ne dove
sia, e cosi non potra darsi alia luce_," &c. But in the true spirit of a
collector, avaricious of all things connected with his pursuits, Serassi
cautiously, but completely, transcribed the precious manuscript, with an
intention, according to his memorandum, to unravel all its sophistry.
However, although the Abbate never wanted leisure, he persevered in his
silence; yet he often trembled lest some future explorer of manuscripts
might be found as sharpsighted as himself. He was so cautious as not
even to venture to note down the library where the manuscript was to be
found, and to this day no one appears to have fal