On high were the clear stars; the gentle hours
Walk'd cloudless through the galaxy of space,
And the calm moon rose, lighting up the flowers
With frost of living pearl: like her in grace.
Th' enamour'd maid from her illumined face
Reflected light where'er she chanced to rove,
And made the silent spirit of the place,
The hills, the melancholy moon above,
And the dumb valleys round, familiars of her love.

Argantes, preparing for the combat, is
compared to a comet:

As with its bloody locks let loose in air,
Horribly bright, the comet shows whose shine
Plagues the parch'd world, whose looks the nations
scared
Before whose face states change and powers decline,
To purple tyrants all an inauspicious sign.

Tasso thus describes the Deity. The
metaphor is fine. The battle is raging fiercely
before the walls of Jerusalem:

His eyes, meanwhile, where hot the battle burn'd,
From his empyreal seat the King of Glory turn'd.

There he abides; there, full of truth and love,
Creates, adorns, and governs all that be.

High o'er this narrow-bounded world, above
The reach of reason and of sense, there He
Presides from all to all Eternity,
.Sublime on solemn throne, unbuilt with hands,
Three Lights in One! whilst in mock ministry,
Beneath his feet, with Fate and Nature stands
Motion, and He whose glass weighs out her golden
sands.

With Place and Fortune, who, like magic dust,
The glory, gold, and power of things below,
Tosses and whirls in her capricious gust,
Reckless of human joy and human woe:
There He in splendour shrouds himself from show,
Which not even holiest eyes unshaded see;
And round about Him, in a glorious bow,
Millions of happy souls keep jubilee—-
Equals alike in bliss, though differing in degree.

Tasso is peculiarly felicitous in his description
of angelic messengers. In the first canto,
the flight of Gabriel is very beautiful; that of the
archangel Michael is equally fine. He receives
his instructions from the Almighty to Godfrey,
and starts on his mission.

This said, the wing'd archangel low inclined
In reverend awe before th' Almighty's throne;
Then spread his golden pinions on the wind,
And, swifter than all thought, away is flown.
He pass'd the regions which the blessed own
For their peculiar home, a glorious sphere
Of fire and splendour; next the milder zone
Of whitest crystal; and the circles clear
Which gemmed with stars whirls round and charms
his tuneful ear.

To left, distinct in influence and in phase,
He sees bright Jove and frigid Saturn roll;
And those five other errant fires, whose maze
Of motion some angelic spark of soul
Directs with truth unerring to the goal:
Through fields of endless sunshine he arrives,
Where thunders, winds, and showers from pole to
pole

Waste and renew, as each for mastery strives,
Green earth, that fades to bloom, and to decay
revives.

The horror of the storm, the shadowy glooms
With his immortal fans he shakes away;
The splendour falling from his face illumes
Night with a sunshine luminous as day;
So after rain in April or in May,
The sun in colours fine of every hue,
Prints the moist clouds green, crimson, gold, and
grey;
Cleaving the liquid sky's calm bosom blue,
So shines a shooting-star in momentary view.

The Christians have the best of it. Tho
retreat of Soliman after a sortie is a grand
metaphor:

As from the nightly fold the wolf pursued
Flies to the shelter of the friendly wood;
Though fill'd with carnage, still he thirsts for more,
And licks his ravenous jaws impure with gore;
So fled the Soltan from the field.

Clorinda's death is another beautiful
metaphor-.

A lovely paleness o'er her features flew,
As violets mix'd with lilies blend their hue.

One of the nymphs in Armida's garden sings
thus:

Behold how lovely blooms the vernal rose,
When scarce the leaves her early bud disclose
When half unwrapt, and half to view reveal'd.

* * * *

Then crop the morning rose, the time improve,
And while to love 'tis given, indulge in love.

The storming of Jerusalem is graphic:

Now all the conquering bands, opposed no more,
Swarm o'er the walls, and through the portals pour,
The thirsty sword now rages far and wide,
Death stalks with Grief and Terror at his side.

We might quote many more, but our
metaphorical bouquet would be too large.

VENETIAN TALES.

THE three following stories are really Venetian,
being part of a collection made by George
Widter and Adam Wolf, two travelling Germans,
who noted down the talk of old women and
girls in the more obscure villages in the Venetian
territory about twenty-five years ago, and
recently published them in a periodical review
devoted to certain branches of literary archaeology.*

To the learned in popular stories such tales
are chiefly interesting, so far as they furnish
material for that species of archaeological investigation
in which the connexion between various
nations is sought in the resemblance that exists
between their traditions. Our choice in making
known the three following tales has, on the
other hand, been determined by the fact that
there is about them something different from
the stories within the reach of the ordinary
reader, although the erudite will find in them
points of contact with many traditions of
Germany. We should observe that though we have
told the stories in our own way, instead of

* Jahrbuch für Romanische und Englishe Literatur.