The life of TASSO abounds with pictures of a complete exhaustion of this kind. His contradictory critics had perplexed him with the most intricate literary discussions, and either occasioned or increased a mental alienation. In one of his letters, we find that he repents the composition of his great poem, for although his own taste approved of that marvellous, which still forms a noble part of its creation, yet he confesses that his cold reasoning critics have decided that the history of his hero, Godfrey, required another species of conduct. "Hence," cries the unhappy bard, "doubts torment me; but for the past, and what is done, I know of no remedy;" and he longs to precipitate the publication, that "he may be delivered from misery and agony." He solemnly swears--"Did not the circumstances of my situation compel me, I would not print it, even perhaps during my life, I so much doubt of its success." Such was the painful state of fear and doubt experienced by the author of the "Jerusalem Delivered," when he gave it to the world; a state of suspense, among the children of imagination, in which none are more liable to participate than the true sensitive artist. We may now inspect the severe correction of Tasso's muse, in the fac-simile of a page of his manuscripts in Mr. Dibdin's late "Tour." She seems to have inflicted tortures on his pen, surpassing even those which may be seen in the fac-simile page which, thirty years ago, I gave of Pope's Homer.[A] At Florence may still be viewed the many works begun and abandoned by the genius of MICHAEL ANGELO; they are preserved inviolate--"so sacred is the terror of Michael Angelo's genius!" exclaims Forsyth. These works are not always to be considered as failures of the chisel; they appear rather to have been rejected for coming short of the artist's first conceptions: yet, in a strain of sublime poetry, he has preserved his sentiments on the force of intellectual labour; he thought that there was nothing which the imagination conceived, that could not be made visible in marble, if the hand were made to obey the mind:-- Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto, Ch' un marmo solo in se non circoseriva Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva La man che obbedisce all' intelletto. IMITATED. The sculptor never yet conceived a thought That yielding marble has refused to aid; But never with a mastery he wrought-- Save when the hand the intellect obeyed. [Footnote A: It now forms the frontispiece to vol. ii. of the last edition of the "Curiosities of Literature."--ED.]