Lame endings to stanzas, sudden descents from highly-wrought to pedestrian diction, are not uncommon in the _Gerusalemme_.

The poet, diffident of his own inspiration, sought inspiration from books.

In the magnificence of single lines again, the _Gerusalemme_ reminds us of _Rinaldo_.

Tasso gained dignity of rhythm by choosing Latin adjectives and adverbs with pompous cadences.

No versifier before his date had consciously employed the sonorous music of such lines as the following:-- Foro, tentando inaccessibil via (ii.