Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/253

Rh most brilliant episode of Guarini's life was the publication of his Pastor Fido in 1590; but not the least troublesome was the literary controversy in which it involved him. These disputes, born rather of the idleness than of the conscientiousness of the Italian literati, are now forgotten, and the Pastor Fido, a direct challenge to the Aminta, is allowed an honourable though a second place. Its relation to its predecessor may be compared to that of the Corinthian order to the Ionic. Guarini has sought to compensate for the lack of natural, spontaneous inspiration by superior artifice of plot: his characters are more numerous, and his action more intricate and ingenious. This would not have availed him much if he had not been a poet, but this he certainly was, though with less of the nascitur and more of the fit than usual. Tasso was conscious of a truer inspiration, and conveys his claim to the virtual invention of a new mode in poetry in the verses which he has placed in the mouth of Love appearing in the disguise of a shepherd, thus rendered by Leigh Hunt:

Guarini frequently repeated Tasso's ideas, striving to