Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift
spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have
conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned
and without obedience to the usages of language--Shakspere, for
example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and
Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom--the Italian poets
thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and
studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue.
The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are
eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the
dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is
audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength
style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled
eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native
grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand,
the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied
diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style
maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness
of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the
weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in
its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to
timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much
from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of
strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence
the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern
Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a
freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers
of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be
recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the
masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature.

Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone
of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it
approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are
peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines
pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region
of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is
analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in