Meanwhile he began to be dissatisfied with the Gerusalemme, and in 1588 he resolved upon remodeling his masterpiece.  The real vitality of that poem was, as we have seen, in its romance.  But Tasso thought otherwise.  During the fourteen years which elapsed since its completion, the poet’s youthful fervor had been gradually fading out.  Inspiration yielded to criticism; piety succeeded to sentiment and enthusiasm for art.  Therefore, in this later phase of his maturity, with powers impaired by prolonged sufferings and wretched health, tormented by religious scruples and vague persistent fear, he determined to eliminate the romance from the epic, to render its unity of theme more rigorous, and to concentrate attention upon the serious aspects of the subject.  The result of this plan, pursued through five years of wandering, was the Gerusalemme Conquistata, a poem which the world has willingly let die, in which the style of the Gerusalemme Liberata is worsened, and which now serves mainly to establish by comparison the fact that what was immortal in Tasso’s art was the romance he ruthlessly rooted out.  A further step in this transition from art to piety is marked by the poem upon the Creation of the World, called Le Sette Giornate.  Written in blank verse, it religiously but tamely narrates the operation of the Divine Artificer, following the first chapter of Genesis and expanding the motive of each of the seven days with facile rhetoric.  Of action and of human interest the poem has none; of artistic beauty little.  The sustained descriptive style wearies; and were not this the last work of Tasso, it would not be mentioned by posterity.

Tasso has already occupied us through two chapters.  Before passing onward I must, however, invite the reader to pause awhile and reconsider, even at the risk of retrospect and repetition, some of the salient features of his character.  And now I remember that of his personal appearance nothing has hitherto been said.  ’Tasso was tall, well-proportioned, and of very fair complexion.  His thick hair and beard were of a light-brown color.  His head was large, forehead broad and square, eyebrows dark, eyes large, lively and blue, nose large and curved toward the mouth, lips thin and pale.’  So writes Manso, the poet’s friend and biographer, adding:  ’His voice was clear and sonorous; but he read his poems badly, because of a slight impediment in his speech, and because he was short-sighted.’  I know not whether I am justified in drawing from this description the conclusion that Tasso was, physically, a man of mixed lymphatic and melancholic temperament, of more than ordinary sensitiveness.  Imperfection, at any rate, is indicated by the thin pale lips, the incoherent utterance and the uncertain vision to which his friend in faithfulness bears witness.  Of painted portraits representing Tasso in later life there are many; but most of these seem to be based upon the mask taken from his face after death, which