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ceases, in any way, to bind the person patronized as a vassal to his liege lord, it has an inclination to declare war. An impartial and accurate biographer of Tasso, the Rev. Dr. Black, (Vol. I. p. 180.) cannot help thinking, merely from his investigation into the character of his author's patron, that "a considerable share of the obstinacy with which Alphonso persecuted Guarini, was owing to the dedication of the Pastor Fido to Charles Emanuel of Savoy, immediately on the poet's leaving the court of Ferrara." How much of Tasso's own adversity may not have resulted, in like manner, from his faithless odes to other reigning Dukes!
If the Aminta, however, so far surpasses it's Italian followers, we are bound to assert, on the other hand, and we can safely say we do it out of no national self-love, that in point of poetry it
