Alessandro Tassoni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical
poem, "La Secchia rapita," which caricatured the epic poets of his
day. He was bent on exposing the prejudices of his time and uttering
new doctrine, and he created great scandal in Italy by his attacks
on Petrarch, as well as on Homer and Aristotle. The earliest
comparison of the merits of the ancients and the moderns will be
found in a volume of Miscellaneous Thoughts which he published in
1620. [Footnote: Dieci libri di pensieri diversi (Carpi, 1620). The
first nine books had appeared in 1612. The tenth contains the
comparison. Rigault was the first to connect this work with the
history of the controversy.] He speaks of the question as a matter
of current dispute, [Footnote: It was incidental to the controversy
which arose over the merits of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. That the
subject had been discussed long before may be inferred from a remark
of Estienne in his Apology for Herodotus, that while some of his
contemporaries carry their admiration of antiquity to the point of
superstition, others depreciate and trample it underfoot.] on which
he proposes to give an impartial decision by instituting a
comprehensive comparison in all fields, theoretical, imaginative,
and practical.

He begins by criticising the a priori argument that, as arts are
brought to perfection by experience and long labour, the modern age
must necessarily have the advantage. This reasoning, he says, is
unsound, because the same arts and studies are not always
uninterruptedly pursued by the most powerful intellects, but pass
into inferior hands, and so decline or are even extinguished, as was
the case in Italy in the decrepitude of the Roman Empire, when for
many centuries the arts fell below mediocrity. Or, to phrase it
otherwise, the argument would be admissible only if there were no