us could find
fittest expression.

But Tasso was not only born in a poetic region and in a poetic age: he
was also the son of a poet. He inherited the divine faculty; he was
cradled in poetry. His father, Bernardo, though he has been put into
the shade by his more gifted son, has claims of his own to be
remembered by posterity. He occupies a high place in the well-defined
group of the chivalric poets of Italy. His principal poem, the
_Amadigi_, which was composed about the time of his son's birth,
though not published for sixteen years afterwards, treats in a hundred
cantos the romantic history of Amadis of Gaul, and deals in giants,
enchanted swords, prodigious wounds, and miraculous cures. Various
estimates of this long poem have been formed by critics from the
favourable analysis of Ginguene to the severe censure of Sismondi. But
in spite of its lack of dramatic power, and the monotony of its
imagery, the heat of his genius crystallising only a part of the
substance of his work, there can be no question that the poem is
distinguished by a certain gravity and elevation of sentiment, which
places it high above the romances of the older school, and brings it
near to the dignity of epic poetry. In this respect the _Amadigi_ may
be said to form an interesting transition from the irregular romance
of Ariosto to the symmetrical epic of his own son. The son's poetic
path was thus prepared, and the mould in which his immortal work was
cast was formed by his father. The fortunes of the two poets read
remarkably alike. They are marked by the same extraordinary
vicissitudes, and the same general sadness and gloom.

The family of Tasso belonged to Bergamo, in the north of Italy, a
region which has given birth to several eminent men, among others to
Tiraboschi, the historian of Italian literature. It was originally
noble, and had large territorial possessions. One ancestor, Omodeo,
who lived in the year 1290, is worthy of special mention as the
inventor of the system of postal communication, to which the world
owes so much; and hence the family arms of a courier's horn and a
badger's skin--tasso being the Italian for badger--which the
post-horses, down to within fifty years ago, wore upon their harness.
In the time of Bernardo, however, the fortunes of the family had
decayed, and the early days of the poet were passed in poverty.
Adopted after the death of his parents by his father's brother, the
Bishop of Recanati, he was plac