These impressions wear off, however, as the poem proceeds--just as, in real life, familiar intercourse with the greatest of bards teaches us to forget the author in the companion, and the man of genius in the agreeable or disagreeable neighbour. In the drama of Goethe, we become quite reconciled to the new position in which the poet of the Holy Sepulchre is placed. _Torquato Tasso_ is what in this country would be called a dramatic poem, in opposition to the tragedy composed for the stage, or _quasi_ for the stage. The _dramatis personae_ are few, the conduct of the piece is on the classic model--the model, we mean, of Racine; the plot is scanty, and keeps very close to history; there is little action, and much reflection. The _dramatis personae_ are-- Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. Leonora d'Este, sister of the Duke. Leonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano. Torquato Tasso. Antonio Montecatino, Secretary of State. In Tasso we have portrayed to us the poetic temperament, with some overcharge in the tendency to distrust and suspicion, which belongs, as we learn from his biography, to the character of Tasso, and which again was but the symptom and precursor of that insanity to which he fell a prey. Both to relieve and develope this poetic character, we have its opposite (the representative of the practical understanding) in Antonio Montecatino, the secretary of state, the accomplished man of the world, the successful diplomatist. It may be well to mention that the speeches in the play given to Leonora d'Este, with whom Tasso is in love, are headed _The Princess_; and it is her friend Leonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano, who speaks under the name of _Leonora_. "ACT. I.--SCENE I. _A garden in the country palace of Belriguardo, adorned with busts of the epic poets. To the right, that of Virgil--to the left, that of Ariosto._ PRINCESS, LEONORA. "_Princess._--My Leonora, first you look at me And smile, then at yourself, and smile again. What is it? Let your friend partake. You seem Very considerate, and much amused. "_Leonora._--My Princess, I but smiled to see ourselves Decked in these pastoral habiliments. We look right happy shepherdesses both, And what we do is still pure innocence. We weave these wreaths. Mine, gay with many flowers, Still swells and blushes underneath my hand; Thou, moved with higher thought and greater heart, Hast only wove the slender laurel bough. "_Princess._--The bough which I, while wreathing thoughts, have wreathed, Soon finds a worthy resting-place. I lay it Upon my Virgil's forehead. [_Crowns the bust of Virgil._ "_Leonora._ And I mine, My jocund garland, on the noble brow Of Master Ludovico. [_Crowns the bust of Ariosto._ Well may he, Whose sportive verse shall never fade, demand His tribute of the spring!