But Ferrara has other distinctions.--Bonarelli here, at the academy of
gl'Intrepidi, read his able defence of that pastoral comedy so much
applauded and censured, called _Filli di Sciro_; and here the great
Ariosto lived and died.
Nothing leads however to a less gloomy train of thought, than the tomb
of a celebrated man; where virtue, wit, or valour triumph over death,
and wait the consummation of all sublunary things, before the
remembrance of such superiority shall be lost. Italy must be shaken from
her deepest foundation, and England made a scene of general ruin, when
Shakespear and Ariosto shall be forgotten, and their names confounded
among deedless nobility, and worthless wasters of treasure, long ago
passed from hand to hand, perhaps from the dwellers in one continent to
the inhabitants of another. It has been equally the fate of these two
heroes of modern literature, that they have pleased their countrymen
more than foreigners; but is that any diminution of their merit? or
should it serve as a reason for making disgraceful comparisons between
Ariosto and Virgil, whom he scorned to imitate? A dead language is like
common ground;--all have a right to pasture, and all a claim to give or
to withhold admiration.
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