Is there not something still pent up here, still a cud for feeling, still something that the very sounds confine within us unmigratory; something, in the utterance of which we feel no relief of the burthen of feeling? Does it not seem that the southern laborer goes forth into the bright fields, and labors in imitation of Nature’s external beauties, singing his feeling away to the air; whilst the northern man bears his material to his home, and there revolves and fashions his productions from the depth and cunning of his dreamy mind? How warmed by the brightness and harmony of the external world must not Ariosto have been when, in the seventh canto of the “Orlando,” he portrays the exceeding beauty of Alcina, combining all that was most beautiful for eyes to look upon! “Sotto due negri, e sottilissimi archi Son due negri occhi, anzi due chiari soli, Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi.” And then, “Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette, La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro; Quivi due filze son di perle elette, Che chiude ed apre un bello e dolce labro: Quindi escon le cortesi parolette Da render molie ogni corrozzo e scabro: Quivi si forma quel soave riso, Ch’ apre a sua porta in terra il paradiso.” A perfect Paradise of material delights must have been Tasso’s garden of Armida, in the XV. Canto of the Jerusalem. Yet in these things does Byron so often approach to the rivalry of Tasso and Ariosto, both in his appreciation of sensual beauty, and in his grace of diction, that this alone, in many minds, would have stamped him as a great poet. Nevertheless, when other natures step in to judgment, they behold him at times glorying in the midst of an Alpine storm, exulting in the lightning, muttering, tone for tone, the loud crash of thunder; rejoicing and abroad upon the night like a fierce passion let loose, breathing life and soul and the voice of loud defiance, into the solid mountains. “O night, And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along From peak to peak the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers from her misty shroud Back to the joyous Alps who call on her aloud!