Meanwhile the germ of his great poem, which had been quickened, probably not later than the publication of the "Rinaldo," was growing up in his thought,--for Tasso, by the necessity of his nature, was ever ruminating on some premeditated or progressive theme; and some mightier conception followed the disburdenment of every matured production of his inexhaustibly inventive genius. While this new and magnificent project was gradually assuming shape and character before he entered upon the deliberate execution of it, he prepared himself for the task by composing his "Discourses on Heroic Poetry," which place him among critics in as high a rank as that which he holds among poets. The merit of these essays, indeed, is so remarkable, that his principal English biographer, Mr. Black, is almost seduced by them to assert the universality of the author's genius, in the following plausible remark and happy quotations from high authority concerning another extraordinary poetic genius, which seemed capable of excelling in whatever it undertook, whether in prose or rhyme:--"Of the 'Discourses on Heroic Poetry' there appear to have been four, only three of which have been printed. Though composed at the age of twenty, and published without the knowledge and corrections of the author, they are exceedingly valuable; and while they display a most refined taste, discover also much metaphysical acuteness and geometrical precision. Indeed, I am more and more of opinion that what Mr. Stewart says of Burns is true in general of every great poetical genius, 'All the faculties of Burns's mind,' says he, 'were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition.'" In this year, 1564, Torquato visited his venerable father, now literally "_dagl' anni e da fortuna oppresso_," "borne down by years and evil fortune." The transport of affection with which two of the greatest men of their age, in the most seductive walk of human ambition, met at Mantua, in the relationship of parent and offspring, must have been chastened, yet rendered more exquisitely endearing, when the father, from his own sad experience, must have foreseen, by "his prophetic soul," the sorrows to come which his son would encounter in the course that he had chosen; while the son, with emotions not less painful, must have looked upon his father, remembering the sorrows past, which he had endured in the vain pursuit of fame from the multitude, and fortune from patrons, in whose cause he had sacrificed two sources of competence--his own small patrimony, and his wife's dowry.