Page:Amyntas, a tale of the woods; from the Italien of Torquato Tasso (IA amyntastaleofwoo00tass).pdf/20

 tatious challenger. There are some beautiful passages in the Pastor Fido, but they are inlaid, not of a piece; and seem to have been pressed into the service from former compositions, in order to assist the weight of a weak blow. We are the less scrupulous in being summary upon this point, because Guarini, after plundering Tasso's work to swell out his own, openly challenged a comparison of his common-place Ode to Honour, with the divine one upon the Golden Age, of which he has ostentatiously repeated the rhymes. We are aware that this was not an uncommon practice in friendly answers of poets to each other; but Guarini's Ode, in subject as well as manner, was a direct provocation to a comparison; and when he quarrelled with Tasso, he re-echoed a sonnet of his in the same manner. Guarini, however, was really a clever man; and having been softened, as well as