“And her fair locks, that in a knot were tied
    High on her crown, she ’gan at large unfold;
  Which falling long and thick, and spreading wide,
    The ivory soft and white mantled in gold: 
  Thus her fair skin the dame would clothe and hide;
    And that which hid it, no less fair was hold. 
  Thus clad in waves and locks, her eyes divine
  From them ashamed would she turn and twine.

  Withal she smiled, and she blush’d withal;
    Her blush her smiling, smiles her blushing graced.”]

[Footnote 9: 

  “E quel che ’l bello e ’l caro accresce a l’opre,
  L’arte, the tutto fa, nulla si scopre.

  Stimi (si misto il culto e col negletto)
    Sol naturali e gli ornamenti e i siti. 
  Di natura arte par, the per diletto
    L’imitatrice sua scherzando imiti.”

The idea of Nature imitating Art, and playfully imitating her, is in Ovid; but that of a mixture of cultivation and wildness is, as far as I am aware, Tasso’s own.  It gives him the honour of having been the first to suggest the picturesque principle of modern gardening; as I ought to have remembered, when assigning it to Spenser in a late publication (Imagination and Fancy, p. 109).  I should have noticed also, in the same work, the obligations of Spenser to the Italian poet for the passage before quoted about the nymph in the water.]

[Footnote 10: 

“Par che la dura quercia e ’l casto alloro,
E tutta la frondosa ampia famiglia,
Par the la terra e l’acqua e formi e spiri
Dolcissimi d’amor sensi e sospiri.” 
St. 16.

Fairfax in this passage is very graceful and happy (in the first part of his stanza he is speaking of a bird that sings with a human voice—­which I have omitted): 

“She ceased:  and as approving all she spoke,
The choir of birds their heavenly tunes renew;
The turtles sigh’d, and sighs with kisses broke;
The fowls to shades unseen by pairs withdrew;
It seem’d the laurel chaste and stubborn oak,
And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,
It seem’d the land, the sea, and heaven above,
All breath’d out fancy sweet, and sigh’d out love.”]

[Footnote 11: 

“Ecco tra fronde e fronde il guardo avante
Penetra, e vede, o pargli di vedere,
Vede per certo,” &c. 

          
                                                                                                                St. 17.]

[Footnote 12:  The line about the peacock,

“Spiega la pompa de l’occhiute piume,”
Opens wide the pomp of his eyed plumes,

was such a favourite with Tasso, that he has repeated it from the Aminta, and (I think) in some other place, but I cannot call it to mind.]

[Footnote 13: 

 “Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquille
    Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,
  Sorrisi, e parolette, e dolci stille
  Di pianto, e sospir’ tronchi, e molli baci.”  St. 5