No More Learning

The disappearance of Ariodante, and a rumour which transpired of his
having slain himself on account of some hidden anguish, surprised and
afflicted the whole court. But his brother Lurcanio evinced more and more
his impatience at it, and let fall the most terrible words. At length
he entered the court when the king was holding one of his fullest
assemblies, and laid open, as he thought, the whole matter; setting forth
how his unhappy brother had secretly, but honourably, loved the princess;
how she had professed to love him in return; and how she had grossly
deceived him, and played him impudently false before his own eyes. He
concluded with calling upon her unknown paramour to come forth, and shew
reasons against him with his sword why she ought not to die.

"I need not tell you what the king suffered at hearing this strange and
terrible recital. He lost no time in sharply investigating the truth of
the allegation; and for this purpose, among other proceedings, he sent
for the ladies of his daughter's chamber. You may judge, sir,--especially
as, I blush to say it, I still loved the Duke of Albany,--that I could
not await an examination like that. I hastened to meet the duke, who was
as anxious to get me out of the way as I was to go; and to this end,
professing the greatest zeal for my security, he commissioned two men to
convey me secretly to a fortress he possessed in this forest. 'Tis at no
great distance from the place where Heaven sent you to my deliverance.
You saw, sir, how little those wretches intended to take me anywhere
except to my grave; and by this you may judge of the agonies and shame I
have endured in knowing what a dupe I have been to one of the cruelest of
men. But thus it is that Love treats his most faithful servants. "

The damsel here concluded her story; and the Paladin, rejoicing at having
become possessed of all that was required to establish the falsehood of
the duke, proceeded with her on his road to St. Andrews, where the lists
had been set up for the determination of the question. The king and his
court were anxiously praying at that instant for the arrival of some
champion to fight with the dreaded Lurcanio; for the month, as I have
stated, was nearly expired, and this terrible brother appeared to have
the business all his own way; so that the stake was soon to be looked for
at which the hapless Ginevra was to die.

Fast and eagerly the Paladin rode for St. Andrews, with his squire and
the trembling damsel, who was now agitated for new reasons, though the
knight gave her assurances of his protection. They were not far from
the city when they found people talking of a champion who had certainly
arrived, but whose name was unknown, and his face constantly concealed by
his visor. Even his own squire, it seems, did not know him; for the
man had but lately been taken into his service. Rinaldo, as soon as
he entered the city, left the damsel in a place of security, and then
spurred his horse to the scene of action, when he found the accuser and
the champion in the very midst of the fight. The Paladin, whose horse,
notwithstanding the noise of the combat, had been heard coming like a
tempest, and whose sudden and heroical appearance turned all eyes towards
him, rode straight to the royal canopy, and, begging the king to stop the
combat, disclosed the whole state of the matter, to the enchantment of
all present, except the Duke of Albany; for the villain himself was on
horseback there in state as grand constable, and had been feasting his
miserable soul with the hope of seeing Ginevra condemned. The combatants
were soon changed. Instead of Lurcanio and the unknown champion (whom the
new comer had taken care to extol for his generosity), it was the Paladin
and the Duke that were opposed; and horribly did the latter's heart fail
him. But he had no remedy. Fight he must. Rinaldo, desirous to make short
work of him, took his station with fierce delight; and at the third sound
of the trumpets, the Duke was forced to couch his spear and meet him
at full charge. Sheer went the Paladin's ashen staff through the false
bosom, sending the villain to the earth eight feet beyond the saddle. The
conqueror dismounted instantly, and unlacing the man's helmet, enabled
the king to hear his dying confession, which he had hardly finished, when
life forsook him. Rinaldo then took off his own helmet; and the king,
who had seen the great Paladin before, and who felt more rejoiced at his
daughter's deliverance than if he had lost and regained his crown, lifted
up his hands to heaven, and thanked God for having honoured her innocence
with so illustrious a defender.

The other champion, who, in the mean time, had been looking on through
the eyelets of his visor, was now entreated to disclose his own face. He
did so with peculiar emotion, and king and all recognised with transport
the face of the loved and, as it was supposed, lost Ariodante. The
pilgrim, however, had told no falsehood. The lover had indeed thrown
himself into the sea, and disappeared from the man's eyes; but (as
oftener happens than people suppose) the death which was desired when
not present became hated when it was so; and Ariodante, lover as he
was, rising at a little distance, struck out lustily for the shore, and
reached it. [4] He felt even a secret contempt for his attempt to kill
himself; yet putting up at an hermitage, became interested in the reports
concerning the princess, whose sorrow flattered, and whose danger,
though he could not cease to think her guilty, afflicted him. He grew
exasperated with the very brother he loved, when he found that Lurcanio
pursued her thus to the death; and on all these accounts he made his
appearance at the place of combat to fight him, though not to slay. His
purpose was to seek his own death. He concluded that Ginevra would then
see who it was that had really loved her, while his brother would mourn
the rashness which made him pursue the destruction of a woman. "Guilty
she is," thought he, "but no such guilt can deserve so cruel a
punishment. Besides, I could not bear that she should die before me. She
is still the woman I love, still the idol of my thoughts. Right or wrong,
I must die in her behalf. "

With this intention he purchased a suit of black armour, and obtained a
squire unknown in those parts, and so made his appearance in the lists.
What ensued there I need not repeat; but the king was so charmed with the
issue of the whole business, with the resuscitation of the favourite whom
he thought dead, and the restoration of the more than life of his beloved
daughter, that, to the joy of all Scotland, and at the special instance
of the great Paladin, he made the two lovers happy without delay; and the
bride brought her husband for dowry the title and estates of the man who
had wronged him.


[Footnote 1: The main point of this story, the personation of Ginevra by
one of her ladies, has been repeated by many writers--among others by
Shakspeare, in _Much Ado about Nothing_. The circumstance is said to have
actually occurred in Ferrara, and in Ariosto's own time. Was Ariosto
himself a party? "Ariodante" almost includes his name; and it is certain
that he was once in love with a lady of the name of Ginevra. ]

[Footnote 2: Rinaldo is an ambassador, and one upon very urgent business;
yet he halts by the way in search of adventures. This has been said to be
in the true taste of knight-errantry; and in one respect it is so. We
may imagine, however, that the ship is wind-bound, and that he meant to
return to it on change of weather. The Caledonian Forest, it is to be
observed, is close at hand. ]

[Footnote 3: All honour and glory to the manly and loving poet!

"Lavezzuola," says Panizzi, "doubts the conjugal concord of beasts, more
particularly of bears. 'Ho letto presso degno autore un orso aver cavato
un occhio ad un orsa con la zampa. ' (I have read in an author worthy of
credit, that a bear once deprived a she-bear of an eye with a blow of his
paw. ) The reader may choose between Ariosto and this nameless author,
which of them is to be believed. I, of course, am for my poet. "--Vol. i.
p. 84. I am afraid, however, that Lavezzuola is right. Even turtle-doves
are said not to be always the models of tenderness they are supposed
to be. Brutes have even devoured their offspring. The violence is most
probably owing (at least in excessive cases) to some unnatural condition
of circumstances. ]

[Footnote 4: This is quite in Ariosto's high and bold taste for truth
under all circumstances. A less great and unmisgiving poet would have had
the lover picked up by a fisherman. ]


SUSPICION [1]

It is impossible to conceive a nobler thing in the world than a just
prince--a thoroughly good man, who shuns no part of the burden of his
duty, though it bend him double; who loves and cares for his people as a
father does for his children, and who is almost incessantly occupied in
their welfare, very seldom for his own.

Such a man puts himself in front of dangers and difficulties in order
that he may be a shield to others; for he is not a mercenary, taking care
of none but himself when he sees the wolf coming; he is the right good
shepherd, staking his own life in that of his flock, and knowing the
faces of every one of them, just as they do his own.

Such princes, in times of old, were Saturn, Hercules, Jupiter, and
others--men who reigned gently, yet firmly, equal to all chances that
came, and worthy of the divine honours that awaited them. For mankind
could not believe that they quitted the world in the same way as other
men. They thought they must be taken up into heaven to be the lords of
demigods.

When the prince is good, the subjects are good, for they always imitate
their masters; or at least, if the subjects cannot attain to this height
of virtue, they at least are not as bad as they would be otherwise; and,
at all events, public decency is observed. Oh, blessed kingdoms that are
governed by such hearts! and oh, most miserable ones that are at the
mercy of a man without justice--a fellow-creature without feelings!

Our Italy is full of such, who will have their reward from the pens of
posterity. Greater wretches never appeared in the shapes of Neros and
Caligulas, or any other such monsters, let them have been who they might.
I enter not into particulars; for it is always better to speak of the
dead than the living; but I must say, that Agrigentum never fared worse
under Phalaris, nor Syracuse under Dionysius, nor Thebes in the hand of
the bloody tyrant Eteocles, even though all those wretches were villains
by whose orders every day, without fault, without even charge, men were
sent by dozens to the scaffold or into hopeless exile.

But they are not without torments of their own. At the core of their own
hearts there stands an inflicter of no less agonies. There he stands
every day and every moment--one who was born of the same mother with
Wrath, and Cruelty, and Rapine, and who never ceased tormenting his
infant brethren before they saw the light. His name is Suspicion. [2]

Yes, Suspicion;--the cruelest visitation, the worst evil spirit and pest
that ever haunted with its poisonous whisper the mind of human being.
This is their tormentor by excellence. He does not trouble the poor and
lowly. He agonises the brain in the proud heads of those whom fortune
has put over the heads of their fellow-creatures. Well may the man hug
himself on his freedom who fears nobody because nobody hates him. Tyrants
are in perpetual fear. They never cease thinking of the mortal revenge
taken upon tormentors of their species openly or in secret. The fear
which all men feel of the one single wretch, makes the single wretch
afraid of every soul among them.

Hear a story of one of these miserables, which, whatever you may think of
it, is true to the letter; such letter, at all events, as is written upon
the hearts of his race. He was one of the first who took to the custom
of wearing beards, for, great as he was, he had a fear of the race of
barbers! He built a tower in his palace, guarded by deep ditches and
thick walls. It had but one drawbridge and one bay-window. There was no
other opening; so that the very light of day had scarcely admittance, or
the inmates a place to breathe at. In this tower he slept; and it was his
wife's business to put a ladder down for him when he came in. A dog kept
watch at the drawbridge; and except the dog and the wife, not a soul was
to be discerned about the place. Yet he had such little trust in her,
that he always sent spies to look about the room before he withdrew for
the night.

Of what use was it all? The woman herself killed him with his own sword,
and his soul went straight to hell.

Rhadamanthus, the judge there, thrust him under the boiling lake, but was
astonished to find that he betrayed no symptoms of anguish. He did not
weep and howl as the rest did, or cry out, "I burn, I burn! " He evinced
so little suffering, that Rhadamanthus said, "I must put this fellow into
other quarters. " Accordingly, he sent him into the lowest pit, where the
torments are beyond all others.

Nevertheless, even here he seemed to be under no distress. At length they
asked him the reason. The wretch then candidly acknowledged, that hell
itself had no torments for him, compared with those which suspicion had
given him on earth.

The sages of hell laid their heads together at this news. Amelioration of
his lot on the part of a sinner was not to be thought of in a place of
eternal punishment; so they called a parliament together, the result of
which was an unanimous conclusion, that the man should be sent back to
earth, and consigned to the torments of suspicion for ever.

He went; and the earthly fiend re-entered his being anew with a subtlety
so incorporate, that their two natures were identified, and he became
SUSPICION ITSELF. Fruits are thus engrafted on wild stocks. One colour
thus becomes the parent of many, when the painter takes a portion of this
and of that from his palette in order to imitate flesh.

The new being took up his abode on a rock by the sea-shore, a thousand
feet high, girt all about with mouldering crags, which threatened every
instant to fall. It had a fortress on the top, the approach to which was
by seven drawbridges, and seven gates, each locked up more strongly than
the other; and here, now this moment, constantly thinking Death is upon
him, Suspicion lives in everlasting terror. He is alone. He is ever
watching. He cries out from the battlements, to see that the guards are
awake below, and never does he sleep day or night. He wears mail upon
mail, and mail again, and feels the less safe the more he puts on; and is
always altering and strengthening everything on gate, and on barricado,
and on ditch, and on wall. And do whatever he will, he never seems to
have done enough.

* * * * *

Great poet, and good man, Ariosto! your terrors are better than Dante's;
for they warn, as far as warning can do good, and they neither afflict
humanity nor degrade God.

Spenser has imitated this sublime piece of pleasantry; for, by a curious
intermixture of all which the mind can experience from such a fiction,
pleasant it is in the midst of its sublimity,--laughable with satirical
archness, as well as grand and terrible in the climax. The transformation
in Spenser is from a jealous man into Jealousy. His wife has gone to live
with the Satyrs, and a villain has stolen his money. The husband, in
order to persuade his wife to return, steals into the horde of the
Satyrs, by mixing with their flock of goats,--as Norandino does in a
passage imitated from Homer by Ariosto. The wife flatly refuses to do any
such thing, and the poor wretch is obliged to steal out again.

"So soon as he the prison door did pass,
He ran as fast as both his feet could bear,
And never looked who behind him was,
Nor scarcely who before. Like as a bear
That creeping close among the hives, to rear
An honeycomb, the wakeful dogs espy,
And him assailing, sore his carcass tear,
That hardly he away with life does fly,
Nor stays till safe himself he see from jeopardy.

Nor stay'd he till be came unto the place
Where late his treasure he entombèd had;
Where, when he found it not (for Trompart base
Had it purloined for his master bad),
With extreme fury he became quite mad,
And ran away--ran with himself away;
That who so strangely had him seen bestad,
With upstart hair and staring eyes' dismay,
From Limbo-lake him late escapèd sure would say.

High over hills and over dales he fled,
As if the wind him on his wings had borne;
Nor bank nor bush could stay him, when he sped
His nimble feet, as treading still on thorn;
Grief, and Despite, and Jealousy, and Scorn,
Did all the way him follow hard behind;
And he himself himself loath'd so forlorn,
So shamefully forlorn of womankind,
That, as a snake, still lurkèd in his wounded mind.

Still fled he forward, looking backward still;
Nor stay'd his flight nor fearful agony
Till that he came unto a rocky hill
Over the sea suspended dreadfully,
That living creature it would terrify
To look a-down, or upward to the height
From thence he threw himself dispiteously,
All desperate of his fore-damnèd spright,
That seem'd no help for him was left in living sight.

But through long anguish and self-murd'ring thought,
He was so wasted and forpinèd quite,
That all his substance was consumed to nought,
And nothing left but like an airy sprite;
That on the rocks he fell so flit and light,
That he thereby received no hurt at all;
But chancèd on a craggy cliff to light;
Whence he with crooked claws so long did crawl,
That at the last he found a cave with entrance small.

Into the same he creeps, and thenceforth there
Resolved to build his baleful mansion,
In dreary darkness, and continual fear
Of that rock's fall, which ever and anon
Threats with huge ruin him to fall upon,
That he dare never sleep, but that one eye
Still ope he keeps for that occasion;
Nor ever rests he in tranquillity,
The roaring billows beat his bower so boisterously.

Nor ever is he wont on aught to feed
But toads and frogs, his pasture poisonous,
Which in his cold complexion do breed
A filthy blood, or humour rancorous,
Matter of doubt and dread suspicious,
That doth with cureless care consume the heart,
Corrupts the stomach with gall vicious,
Cross-cuts the liver with internal smart,
And doth transfix the soul with death's eternal dart.

Yet can he never die, but dying lives,
And doth himself with sorrow new sustain,
That death and life at once unto him gives,
And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain;
There dwells he ever, miserable swain,
Hateful both to himself and every wight;
Where he, through privy grief and horror vain,
Is waxen so deformed, that he has quite
Forgot he was a man, and Jealousy is hight. "

Spenser's picture is more subtly wrought and imaginative than Ariosto's;
but it removes the man farther from ourselves, except under very special
circumstances. Indeed, it might be taken rather for a picture of
hypochondria than jealousy, and under that aspect is very appalling. But
nothing, under more obvious circumstances, comes so dreadfully home to us
as Ariosto's poor wretch feeling himself "the less safe the more he puts
on," and calling out dismally from his tower, a thousand feet high, to
the watchers and warders below to see that all is secure.


[Footnote 1: This daring and grand apologue is not in the _Furioso_, but
in a poem which Ariosto left unfinished, and which goes under the name
of the _Five Cantos_. The fragment, though bearing marks of want of
correction, is in some respects a beautiful, and altogether a curious
one, especially as it seems to have been written after the _Furioso_;
for it touches in a remarkable manner on several points of morals and
politics, and contains an extravagance wilder than any thing in Pulci,--a
whale _inhabited_ by knights! It was most likely for these reasons that
his friend Bembo and others advised him to suppress it. Was it written in
his youth? The apologue itself is not one of the least daring attacks on
the Borgias and such scoundrels, who had just then afflicted Italy.

Did Ariosto, by the way, omit Macchiavelli in his list of the friends who
hailed the close of his great poem, from not knowing what to make of his
book entitled the _Prince? _ It has perplexed all the world to this day,
and is not unlikely to have made a particularly unpleasant impression on
a mind at once so candid and humane as Ariosto's. ]

[Footnote 2: A tremendous fancy this last!

"Sta for la pena, de la qual dicea
Che nacque quando la brutt'Ira nacque,
La Crudeltade, e la Rapina rea;
E quantunque in un ventre con for giacque,
Di tormentarle mai non rimanea. "]


ISABELLA. [1]

Rodomont, King of Algiers, was the fiercest of all the enemies of
Christendom, not out of love for his own faith (for he had no piety), but
out of hatred to those that opposed him. He had now quarrelled, however,
with his friends too. He had been rejected by a lady, in favour of the
Tartar king, Mandricardo, and mortified by the publicity of the rejection
before his own lord paramount, Agramante, the leader of the infidel
armies. He could not bear the rejection; he could not bear the sanction
of it by his liege lord; he resolved to quit the scene of warfare and
return to Africa; and, in the course of his journey thither, he had come
into the south of France, where, observing a sequestered spot that suited
his humour, be changed his mind as to going home, and persuaded himself
he could live in it for the rest of his life. He accordingly took up his
abode with his attendants in a chapel, which had been deserted by its
clergy during the rage of war.

This vehement personage was standing one morning at the door of the
chapel in a state of unusual thoughtfulness, when he beheld coming
towards him, through a path in the green meadow before it, a lady of
a lovely aspect, accompanied by a bearded monk. They were followed by
something covered with black, which they were bringing along on a great
horse.

Alas! the lady was the widow of Zerbino, the Scottish prince, who spared
the life of Medoro, and who now himself lay dead under that pall. He
had expired in her arms from wounds inflicted during a combat with
Mandricardo; and she had been thrown by the loss into such anguish of
mind that she would have died on his sword but for the intervention of
the hermit now with her, who persuaded her to devote the rest of her days
to God in a nunnery. She had now come into Provence with the good man for
that purpose, and to bury the corpse of her husband in the chapel which
they were approaching.

Though the lady seemed lost in grief, and was very pale, and had her hair
all about the ears, and though she did nothing but weep and lament, and
looked in all respects quite borne down with her misery, nevertheless she
was still so beautiful that love and grace appeared to be indestructible
in her aspect. The moment the Saracen beheld her, he dismissed from his
mind all the determinations he had made to hate and detest

The gentle bevy, that adorns the world.

He was bent solely on obtaining the new angel before him. She seemed
precisely the sort of person to make him forget the one that had rejected
him. Advancing, therefore, to meet her without delay, he begged, in as
gentle a manner as he could assume, to know the cause of her sorrow.

The lady, with all the candour of wretchedness, explained who she was,
and how precious a burden she was conveying to its last home, and the
resolution she had taken to withdraw from a vain world into the service
of God. The proud pagan, who had no belief in a God, much less any
respect for restraints or fidelities of what kind soever, forgot his
assumed gravity when he heard this determination, and laughed outright at
the simplicity of such a proceeding. He pronounced it, in his peremptory
way, to be foolish and frivolous; compared it with the miser who, in
burying a treasure, does good neither to himself nor any one else; and
said, that lions and serpents might indeed be shut up in cages, but not
things lovely and innocent.

The monk, overhearing these observations, thought it his duty to
interfere. He calmly opposed all which the other asserted, and then
proceeded to set forth a repast of spiritual consolation not at all to
the Saracen's taste. The fierce warrior interrupted the preacher several
times; told him that he had nothing to do with the lady, and that the
sooner he returned to his cell the better; but the hermit, nothing
daunted, went on with his advice till his antagonist lost all patience.
He laid hands on his sacred person; seized him by the beard; tore away
as much of it as he grasped; and at length worked himself up into such a
pitch of fury, that he griped the good man's throat with all the force of
a pair of pincers, and, swinging him twice or thrice round, as one might
a dog, flung him off the headland into the sea.

What became of the poor creature I cannot say. Reports are various. Some
tell us that he was found on the rocks, dashed all to pieces, so that you
could not distinguish foot from head; others, that he fell into the
sea at the distance of three miles, and perished in consequence of not
knowing how to swim, in spite of the prayers and tears that he addressed
to Heaven; others again affirm, that a saint came and assisted him, and
drew him to shore before people's eyes. I must leave the reader to adopt
which of these accounts he looks upon as the most probable.

The Pagan, as soon as he had thus disposed of the garrulous hermit,
turned towards Isabella (for that was the lady's name), and with a face
some what less disturbed, began to talk to her in the common language of
gallantry, protesting that she was his life and soul, and that he should
not know what to do without her; for the sweetness of her appearance
mollified even him; and indeed, with all his violence, he would rather
have possessed her by fair means than by foul. He therefore flattered
himself that, by a little hypocritical attention, he should dispose her
to return his inclinations.

On the other hand, the poor disconsolate creature, who, in a country
unknown to her, and a place so remote from help, felt like a mouse in the
cat's claws, began casting in her mind by what possible contrivance she
could escape from such a wretch with honour. She had made up her mind to
perish by her own hand, rather than be faithless, however unwillingly, to
the dear husband that had died in her arms: but the question was, how she
could protect herself from the pagan's violence, before she had secured
the means of so doing; for his manner was becoming very impatient, and
his speeches every moment less and less civil.

At length an expedient occurred to her. She told him, that if he would
promise to respect her virtue, she would put him in possession of a
secret that would redound far more to his honour and glory, than any
wrong which he could inflict on the innocent. She conjured him not to
throw away the satisfaction he would experience all the rest of his life
from the consciousness of having done right, for the sake of injuring one
unhappy creature. "There were thousands of her sex," she observed, "with
cheerful as well as beautiful faces, who might rejoice in his affection;
whereas the secret she spoke of was known to scarcely a soul on earth but
herself. "

She then told him the secret; which consisted in the preparation of a
certain herb boiled with ivy and rue over a fire of cypress-wood, and
squeezed into a cup by hands that had never done harm. The juice thus
obtained, if applied fresh every month, had the virtue of rendering
bodies invulnerable. Isabella said she had seen the herb in the
neighbourhood, as she came along, and that she would not only make the
preparation forth-with, but let its effects be proved on her own person.
She only stipulated, that the receiver of the gift should swear not to
offend her purity in deed or word.

The fierce infidel took the oath immediately. It delighted him to think
that he should be enabled to have his fill of war and slaughter for
nothing; and the oath was the more easy to him, inasmuch as he had no
intention of keeping it.

The poor Isabella went into the fields to look for her miraculous herb,
still, however, attended by the Saracen, who would not let her go out of
his sight. She soon found it; and then going with him into his house,
passed the rest of the day and the whole night in preparing the mixture
with busy solemnity,--Rodomont always remaining with her.

The room became so hot and close with the fire of cypress-wood, that the
Saracen, contrary to his law and indeed to his habits, indulged himself
in drinking; and the consequence was, that, as soon as it was morning,
Isabella lost no time in proving to him the success of her operations.
"Now," she said, "you shall be convinced how much in earnest I have been.
You shall see all the virtue of this blessed preparation. I have only to
bathe myself thus, over the head and neck, and if you then strike me with
all your force, as though you intended to cut off my head,--which you
must do in good earnest,--you will see the wonderful result. "

With a glad and rejoicing countenance the paragon of virtue held forth
her neck to the sword; and the bestial pagan, giving way to his natural
violence, and heated perhaps beyond all thought of a suspicion with his
wine, dealt it so fierce a blow, that the head leaped from the shoulders.

Thrice it bounded on the ground where it fell, and a clear voice was
heard to come out of it, calling the name of "Zerbino," doubtless in joy
of the rare way which its owner had found of escaping from the Saracen.

O blessed soul, that heldest thy virtue and thy fidelity dearer to thee
than life and youth! go in peace, then soul blessed and beautiful. If any
words of mine could have force in them sufficient to endure so long, hard
would I labour to give them all the worthiness that art can bestow, so
that the world might rejoice in thy name for thousands and thousands of
years. Go in peace, and take thy seat in the skies, and be an example to
womankind of faith beyond all weakness.
[Footnote 1: The ingenious martyrdom in this story, which has been told
by other writers of fiction, is taken from an alleged fact related in
Barbaro's treatise _De Re Uxoria_. It is said, indeed, to have been
actually resorted to more than once; and possibly may have been so, even
from a knowledge of it; for what is more natural with heroical minds than
that the like outrages should produce the like virtues? But the colouring
of Ariosto's narration is peculiarly his own; and his apostrophe at the
close beautiful. ]



TASSO:

Critical Notice of his Life and Genius.

Critical Notice

OF

TASSO'S LIFE AND GENIUS. [1]

The romantic poetry of Italy having risen to its highest and apparently
its most lawless pitch in the _Orlando Furioso_, a reaction took place in
the next age in the _Jerusalem Delivered_. It did not hurt, however, the
popularity of Ariosto. It only increased the number of poetic readers;
and under the auspices, or rather the control, of a Luther-fearing
Church, produced, if not as classical a work as it claimed to be, or
one, in the true sense of the word, as catholic as its predecessor, yet
certainly a far more Roman Catholic, and at the same time very delightful
fiction. The circle of fabulous narrative was thus completed, and a link
formed, though in a very gentle and qualified manner, both with Dante's
theocracy and the obvious regularity of the _Aeneid_, the oldest romance
of Italy.

The author of this epic of the Crusades was of a family so noble and
so widely diffused, that, under the patronage of the emperors and the
Italian princes, it flourished in a very remarkable manner, not only in
its own country, but in Flanders, Germany, and Spain. There was a
Tasso once in England, ambassador of Philip the Second; another, like
Cervantes, distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto; and a third
gave rise to the sovereign German house of Tour and Taxis. _Taxus_ is the
Latin of Tasso. The Latin word, like the Italian, means both a badger
and a yew-tree; and the family in general appear to have taken it in the
former sense. The animal is in their coat of arms. But the poet, or his
immediate relatives, preferred being more romantically shadowed forth by
the yew-tree. The parent stock of the race was at Bergamo in Lombardy;
and here was born the father of Tasso, himself a poet of celebrity,
though his fame has been eclipsed by that of his son.

Bernardo Tasso, author of many elegant lyrics, of some volumes of
letters, not uninteresting but too florid, and of the _Amadigi_, an epic
romance now little read, was a man of small property, very honest and
good-hearted, but restless, ambitious, and with a turn for expense beyond
his means. He attached himself to various princes, with little ultimate
advantage, particularly to the unfortunate Sanseverino, Prince of
Salerno, whom he faithfully served for many years. The prince had a high
sense of his worth, and would probably have settled him in the wealth and
honours he was qualified to adorn, but for those Spanish oppressions in
the history of Naples which ended in the ruin of both master and servant.
Bernardo, however, had one happy interval of prosperity; and during this,
at the age of forty-six, he married Porzia di Rossi, a young lady of a
rich and noble family, with a claim to a handsome dowry. He spent some
delightful years with her at Sorrento, a spot so charming as to have been
considered the habitation of the Sirens; and here, in the midst of his
orange-trees, his verses, and the breezes of an aromatic coast, he had
three children, the eldest of whom was a daughter named Cornelia, and the
youngest the author of the _Jerusalem Delivered_. the other child died
young. The house distinguished by the poet's birth was restored from a
dilapidated condition by order of Joseph Bonaparte when King of Naples,
and is now an hotel.

Torquato Tasso was born March the 11th, 1544, nine years after the death
of Ariosto, who was intimate with his father. He was very devoutly
brought up; and grew so tall, and became so premature a scholar, that
at nine, he tells us, he might have been taken for a boy of twelve. At
eleven, in consequence of the misfortunes of his father, who had been
exiled with the Prince of Salerno, he was forced to part from his mother,
who remained at home to look after a dowry which she never received. Her
brothers deprived her of it; and in two years' time she died, Bernardo
thought by poison. Twenty-four years afterwards her illustrious son, in
the midst of his own misfortunes, remembered with sighs the tears with
which the kisses of his poor mother were bathed when she was forced to
let him go. [2]

The little Torquato following, as he says, like another Ascanius, the
footsteps of his wandering father, joined Bernardo in Rome. After two
years' study in that city, partly under an old priest who lived with
them, the vicissitudes of the father's lot took away the son first to
Bergamo, among his relations, and then to Pesaro, in the duchy of Urbino,
where his education was associated for nearly two years with that of the
young prince, afterwards Duke Francesco Maria the Second (della Rovere),
who retained a regard for him through life. In 1559 the boy joined his
father in Venice, where the latter had been appointed secretary to the
Academy; but next year he was withdrawn from these pleasing varieties
of scene by the parental delusion so common in the history of men of
letters--the study of the law; which Bernardo intended him to pursue
henceforth in the city of Padua. He accordingly arrived in Padua at the
age of sixteen and a half, and fulfilled his legal destiny by writing the
poem of _Rinaldo_, which was published in the course of less than two
years at Venice. The goodnatured and poetic father, convinced by this
specimen of jurisprudence how useless it was to thwart the hereditary
passion, permitted him to devote himself wholly to literature, which he
therefore went to study in the university of Bologna; and there, at the
early age of nineteen, he began his _Jerusalem Delivered_; that is to
say, he planned it, and wrote three cantos, several of the stanzas of
which he retained when the poem was matured. He quitted Bologna, however,
in a fit of indignation at being accused of the authorship of a satire;
and after visiting some friends at Castelvetro and Correggio, returned
to Padua on the invitation of his friend Scipio Gonzaga, afterwards
cardinal, who wished him to become a member of an academy he had
instituted, called the _Eterei_(Ethereals). Here he studied his favourite
philosopher, Plato, and composed three Discourses on Heroic Poetry,
dedicated to his friend. He now paid a visit to his father in Mantua,
where the unsettled man had become secretary to the duke; and here, it is
said, he fell in love with a young lady of a distinguished family, whose
name was Laura Peperara; but this did not hinder him from returning to
his Paduan studies, in which he spent nearly the whole of the following
year. He was then informed that the Cardinal of Este, to whom he had
dedicated his _Rinaldo_, and with whom interest had been made for the
purpose, had appointed him one of his attendants, and that he was
expected at Ferrara by the 1st of December. Returning to Mantua, in order
to prepare for this appointment with his father, he was seized with a
dangerous illness, which detained him there nearly a twelvemonth longer.
On his recovery he hastened to Ferrara, and arrived in that city on the
last day of October, 1565, the first of many years of glory and misery.

The cardinal of Este was the brother of the reigning Duke of Ferrara,
Alfonso the Second, grandson of the Alfonso of Ariosto. It is curious
to see the two most celebrated romantic poets of Italy thrown into
unfortunate connexion with two princes of the same house and the same
respective ranks. Tasso's cardinal, however, though the poet lost his
favour, and though very little is known about him, left no such bad
reputation behind him as Ippolito. It was in the service of the duke that
the poet experienced his sufferings.

This prince, who was haughty, ostentatious, and quarrelsome, was, at the
time of the stranger's arrival, rehearsing the shows and tournaments
intended to welcome his bride, the sister of the Emperor Maximilian the
Second. She was his second wife. The first was a daughter of the rival
house of Tuscany, which he detested; and the marriage had not been happy.
The new consort arrived in the course of a few weeks, entering the city
in great pomp; and for a time all went happily with the young poet. He
was in a state of ecstasy with the beauty and grandeur he beheld around
him--obtained the favourable notice of the duke's two sisters and the
duke himself--went on with his _Jerusalem Delivered_, which, in spite of
the presence of Ariosto's memory, he was resolved to load with praises of
the house of Este; and in this tumult of pride and expectation, he beheld
the duke, like one of the heroes of his poem, set out to assist the
emperor against the Turks at the head of three hundred gentlemen, armed
at all points, and mantled in various-coloured velvets embroidered with
gold.

To complete the young poet's happiness, or commence his disappointments,
he fell in love, notwithstanding the goddess he had left in Mantua, with
the beautiful Lucrezia Bendidio, who does not seem, however, to have
loved in return; for she became the wife of a Macchiavelli. Among his
rivals was Guarini, who afterwards emulated him in pastoral poetry, and
who accused him on this occasion of courting two ladies at once.

Guarini's accusation has been supposed to refer to the duke's sister
Leonora, whose name has become so romantically mixed up with the poet's
biography; but the latest inquiries render it probable that the allusion
was to Laura Peperara. [3] The young poet, however, who had not escaped
the influence of the free manners of Italy, and whose senses and vanity
may hitherto have been more interested than his heart, rhymed and
flattered on all sides of him, not of course omitting the charms of
princesses. In order to win the admiration of the ladies in a body, he
sustained for three days, in public, after the fashion of the times,
_Fifty Amorous Conclusions_; that is to say, affirmations on the subject
of love; doubtless to the equal delight of his fair auditors and himself,
and the creation of a good deal of jealousy and ill-will on the part of
such persons of his own sex as had not wit or spirits enough for the
display of so much logic and love-making.

In 1569, the death of his father, who had been made governor of Ostiglia
by the Duke of Mantua, cost the loving son a fit of illness; but the
continuation of his _Jerusalem_, an _Oration_ spoken at the opening of
the Ferrarese academy, the marriage of Leonora's sister Lucrezia with the
Prince of Urbino, and the society of Leonora herself, who led the retired
life of a person in delicate health, and was fond of the company of men
of letters, helped to divert him from melancholy recollections; and a
journey to France, at the close of the year following, took him into
scenes that were not only totally new, but otherwise highly interesting
to the singer of Godfrey of Boulogne. The occasion of it was a visit of
the cardinal, his master, to the court of his relative Charles the Ninth.
It is supposed that his Eminence went to confer with the king on matters
relative to the disputes which not long afterwards occasioned the
detestable massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Before his departure, Tasso put into the hands of one of his friends a
document, which, as it is very curious, and serves to illustrate perhaps
more than one cause of his misfortunes, is here given entire.

_Memorial left by Tasso on his departure to France. _

"Since life is frail, and it may please Almighty God to dispose of me
otherwise in this my journey to France, it is requested of Signor Ercole
Rondinelli that he will, in that case, undertake the management of the
following concerns:

"In the first place, with regard to my compositions, it is my wish that
all my love-sonnets and madrigals should be collected and published; but
with regard to those, whether amatory or otherwise, _which I have written
for any friend_, my request is, that _they should be buried with myself_,
save only the one commencing "_Or che l'aura mia dolce altrove spira_. " I
wish the publication of the _Oration_ spoken in Ferrara at the opening of
the academy, of the four books on _Heroic Poetry_, of the six last cantos
of the _Godfrey_ (the _Jerusalem_), and of those stanzas of the two first
which shall seem least imperfect. All these compositions, however, are to
be submitted to the review and consideration of Signor Scipio Gonzaga, of
Signor Domenico Veniero, and of Signor Battista Guarini, who, I persuade
myself, will not refuse this trouble, when they consider the zealous
friendship I have entertained for themselves.

"Let them be informed, too, that it was my intention that they should
cut and hew without mercy whatever should appear to them defective or
superfluous. With regard to additions or changes, I should wish them
to proceed more cautiously, since, after all, the poem would remain
imperfect. As to my other compositions, should there be any which, to
the aforesaid Signor Rondinelli and the other gentlemen, might seem not
unworthy of publication, let them be disposed of according to their
pleasure.

"In respect to my property, I wish that such part of it as I have
_pledged to Abram --_ for twenty-five lire, and seven pieces of arras,
which are _likewise in pledge to Signor Ascanio for thirteen scudi_,
together with whatever I have in this house, should be sold, and that the
overplus of the proceeds should go to defray the expense of the following
epitaph to be inscribed on a monument to my father, whose body is in St.
Polo. And should any impediment take place in these matters, I entreat
Signor Ercole _to have recourse to the favour of the most excellent
Madame Leonora, whose liberality I confide in, for my sake. _

"I, Torquato Tasso, have written this, Ferrara, 1570. "

I shall have occasion to recur to this document by and by. I will merely
observe, for the present, that the marks in it, both of imprudence in
money-matters and confidence in the goodwill of a princess, are very
striking. "Abram" and "Signor Ascanio" were both Jews. The pieces of
arras belonged to his father; and probably this was an additional reason
why the affectionate son wished the proceeds to defray the expense of the
epitaph. The epitaph recorded his father's poetry, state-services, and
vicissitudes of fortune.

Tasso was introduced to the French king as the poet of a French hero and
of a Catholic victory; and his reception was so favourable (particularly
as the wretched Charles, the victim of his mother's bigotry, had himself
no mean poetic feeling), that, with a rash mixture of simplicity and
self-reliance (respect makes me unwilling to call it self-importance),
the poet expressed an impolitic amount of astonishment at the favour
shewn at court to the Hugonots--little suspecting the horrible design it
covered. He shortly afterwards broke with his master the cardinal; and
it is supposed that this unseasonable escape of zeal was the cause. He
himself appears to have thought so. [4] Perhaps the cardinal only wanted
to get the imprudent poet back to Italy; for, on Tasso's return to
Ferrara, he was not only received into the service of the duke with
a salary of some fifteen golden scudi a-month, but told that he was
exempted from any particular duty, and might attend in peace to his
studies. Balzac affirms, that while Tasso was at the court of France, he
was so poor as to beg a crown from a friend; and that, when he left it,
he had the same coat on his back that he came in. [5] The assertions of a
professed wit and hyperbolist are not to be taken for granted; yet it is
difficult to say to what shifts improvidence may not be reduced.

The singer of the house of Este would now, it might have been supposed,
be happy. He had leisure; he had money; he had the worldly honours that
he was fond of; he occupied himself in perfecting the _Jerusalem_; and he
wrote his beautiful pastoral, the _Aminta_, which was performed before
the duke and his court to the delight of the brilliant assembly. The
duke's sister Lucrezia, princess of Urbino, who was a special friend of
the poet, sent for him to read it to her at Pesaro; and in the course of
the ensuing carnival it was performed with similar applause at the
court of her father-in-law. The poet had been as much enchanted by the
spectacle which the audience at Ferrara presented to his eyes, as the
audience with the loves and graces with which he enriched their stage.
The shepherd Thyrsis; by whom he meant himself, reflected it back upon
them in a passage of the performance. It is worth while dwelling on this
passage a little, because it exhibits a brief interval of happiness in
the author's life, and also chews us what he had already begun to
think of courts at the moment he was praising them. But he ingeniously
contrives to put the praise in his own mouth, and the blame in another's.
The shepherd's friend, Mopsus (by whom Tasso is thought to have meant
Speroni), had warned him against going to court

"Però, figlio,
Va su l'avviso," &c.

"Therefore, my son, take my advice. Avoid
The places where thou seest much drapery,
Colours, and gold, and plumes, and heraldries,
And such new-fanglements. But, above all,
Take care how evil chance or youthful wandering
Bring thee upon the house of Idle Babble. "
"What place is that? " said I; and he resumed;--
"Enchantresses dwell there, who make one see
Things as they are not, ay and hear them too.
That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold
Is glass and brass; and coffers that look silver,
Heavy with wealth, are baskets full of bladders. [6]

* * * * *

The very walls there are so strangely made,
They answer those who talk; and not in syllables,
Or bits of words, like echo in our woods,
But go the whole talk over, word for word,
With something else besides, that no one said[7].
The tressels, tables, bedsteads, curtains, lockers,
Chairs, and whatever furniture there is
In room or bedroom, all have tongues and speech,
And are for ever tattling. Idle Babble
Is always going about, playing the child;
And should a dumb man enter in that place,
The dumb would babble in his own despite.
And yet this evil is the least of all
That might assail thee. Thou might'st be arrested
In fearful transformation to a willow,
A beast, fire, water,--fire for ever sighing,
Water for ever weeping. "--Here he ceased:
And I, with all this fine foreknowledge, went
To the great city; and, by Heaven's kind will,
Came where they live so happily. The first sound
I heard was a delightful harmony,
Which issued forth, of voices loud and sweet;--Sirens,
and swans, and nymphs, a heavenly noise
Of heavenly things;--which gave me such delight,
That, all admiring, and amazed, and joyed,
I stopped awhile quite motionless. There stood
Within the entrance, as if keeping guard
Of those fine things, one of a high-souled aspect,
Stalwart withal, of whom I was in doubt

Whether to think him better knight or leader. [8]
He, with a look at once benign and grave,
In royal guise, invited me within;
He, great and in esteem; me, lorn and lowly.
Oh, the sensations and the sights which then
Shower'd on me! Goddesses I saw, and nymphs
Graceful and beautiful, and harpers fine
As Linus or as Orpheus; and more deities,
All without veil or cloud, bright as the virgin
Aurora, when she glads immortal eyes,
And sows her beams and dew-drops, silver and gold.

In the summer of 1574, the Duke of Ferrara went to Venice to pay his
respects to the successor of Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third, then on
his way to France from his kingdom of Poland. Tasso went with the duke,
and is understood to have taken the opportunity of looking for a printer
of his _Jerusalem_, which was now almost finished. Writers were anxious
to publish in that crafty city, because its government would give no
security of profit to books printed elsewhere. Alfonso, who was in
mourning for Henry's brother, and to whom mourning itself only suggested
a new occasion of pomp and vanity, took with him to this interview five
hundred Ferrarese gentlemen, all dressed in long black cloaks; who
walking about Venice (says a reporter) "by twos and threes," wonderfully
impressed the inhabitants with their "gravity and magnificence. "[9] The
mourners feasted, however; and Tasso had a quartan fever, which delayed
the completion of the _Jerusalem_ till next year. This was at length
effected; and now once more, it might have been thought, that the writer
would have reposed on his laurels.

But Tasso had already begun to experience the uneasiness attending
superiority; and, unfortunately, the strength of his mind was not equal
to that of his genius. He was of an ultra-sensitive temperament, and
subject to depressing fits of sickness. He could not calmly bear envy.
Sarcasm exasperated, and hostile criticism afflicted him. The seeds of a
suspicious temper were nourished by prosperity itself. The author of the
_Armida_ and the _Jerusalem_ began to think the attentions he received
unequal to his merits; while with a sort of hysterical mixture of demand
for applause, and provocation of censure, he not only condescended to
read his poems in manuscript wherever he went, but, in order to secure
the goodwill of the papal licenser, he transmitted it for revisal to
Rome, where it was mercilessly criticised for the space of two years by
the bigots and hypocrites of a court, which Luther had rendered a very
different one from that in the time of Ariosto.

This new source of chagrin exasperated the complexional restlessness,
which now made our author think that he should be more easy any where
than in Ferrara; perhaps more able to communicate with and convince
his critics; and, unfortunately, he permitted himself to descend to a
weakness the most fatal of all others to a mind naturally exalted
and ingenuous. Perhaps it was one of the main causes of all which he
suffered. Indeed, he himself attributed his misfortunes to irresolution.
What I mean in the present instance was, that he did not disdain to adopt
underhand measures. He skewed a face of satisfaction with Alfonso, at the
moment that he was taking steps to exchange his court for another. He
wrote for that purpose to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, now a prelate at the
court of Rome, earnestly begging him, at the same time, not to commit him
in their correspondence; and Scipio, who was one of his kindest and most
indulgent friends, and who doubtless saw that the Duke of Ferrara and his
poet were not of dispositions to accord, did all he could to procure him
an appointment with one of the family of the Medici.

Most unhappily for this speculation (and perhaps even the good-natured
Gonzaga took a little more pleasure in it on that account), Alfonso
inherited all the detestation of his house for that lucky race; and it is
remarkable, that the same jealousies which hindered Ariosto's advancement
with the Medici were still more fatal to the hopes of Tasso; for they
served to plunge him into the deepest adversity. In vain he had warnings
given him, both friendly and hostile. The princess, now Duchess of
Urbino, who was his particular friend, strongly cautioned him against the
temptation of going away. She said he was watched. He himself thought his
letters were opened; and probably they were. They certainly were at a
subsequent period. Tasso, however, persisted, and went to Rome. Scipio
Gonzaga introduced him to Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici, afterwards Grand
Duke of Tuscany; and Ferdinand made him offers of protection so handsome,
that they excited his suspicion. The self-tormenting poet thought they
savoured more of hatred to the Este family, than honour to himself. [10]
He did not accept them. He did nothing at Rome but make friends, in order
to perplex them; listen to his critics, in order to worry himself;
and perform acts of piety in the churches, by way of shewing that the
love-scenes in the _Jerusalem_ were innocent. For the bigots had begun to
find something very questionable in mixing up so much love with war. The
bloodshed they had no objection to. The love bearded their prejudices,
and excited their envy.

Tasso returned to Ferrara, and endeavoured to solace himself
with eulogising two fair strangers who had arrived at Alfonso's
court,--Eleonora Sanvitale, who had been newly married to the Count of
Scandiano (a Tiene, not a Boiardo, whose line was extinct), and Barbara
Sanseverino, Countess of Sala, her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law, who
was a Juno-like beauty, wore her hair in the form of a crown. The still
more beautiful daughter-in-law had an under lip such as Anacreon or Sir
John Suckling would have admired,--pouting and provoking,--[prokaloymenon
phileama]. Tasso wrote verses on them both, but particularly to the lip;
and this Countess of Scandiano is the second, out of the three Leonoras,
with whom Tasso was said by his friend Manso to have been in love. The
third, it is now ascertained, never existed; and his love-making to the
new, or second Leonora, goes to shew how little of real passion there was
in the praises of the first (the Princess Leonora), or probably of
any lady at court. He even professed love, as a forlorn hope, to the
countess's waiting-maid. Yet these gallantries of sonnets are exalted
into bewilderments of the heart.

His restlessness returning, the poet now condescended to craft a second
time. Expecting to meet with a refusal, and so to be afforded a
pretext for quitting Ferrara, he applied for the vacant office of
historiographer. It was granted him; and he then disgusted the Medici by
pleading an unlooked-for engagement, which he could only reconcile to his
applications for their favour by renouncing his claim to be believed. If
he could have deceived others, why might he not have deceived them?

All the lurking weakness of the poet's temperament began to display
itself at this juncture. His perplexity excited him to a degree of
irritability bordering on delirium; and circumstances conspired to
increase it. He had lent an acquaintance the key of his rooms at court,
for the purpose (he tells us) of accommodating some intrigue; and
he suspected this person of opening cabinets containing his papers.
Remonstrating with him one day in the court of the palace, either on that
or some other account, the man gave him the lie. He received in return
a blow on the face, and is said by Tasso to have brought a set of his
kinsmen to assassinate him, all of whom the heroical poet immediately put
to flight. At one time he suspected the duke of jealousy respecting
the dedication of his poem, and at another, of a wish to burn it. He
suspected his servants. He became suspicious of the truth of his friend
Gonzaga. He doubted, even, whether some praises addressed to him by
Orazio Ariosto, the nephew of the great poet, which, one would have
thought, would have been to him a consummation of bliss, were not
intended to mystify and hurt him. At length he fancied that his
persecutors had accused him of heresy to the Inquisition; and, as he had
gone through the metaphysical doubts, common with most men of reflection
respecting points of faith and the mysteries of creation, he feared that
some indiscreet words had escaped him, giving colour to the charge. He
thus beheld enemies all around him. He dreaded stabbing and poison; and
one day, in some paroxysm of rage or horror, how occasioned it is not
known, ran with a knife or dagger at one of the servants of the Duchess
of Urbino in her own chamber.

Alfonso, upon this, apparently in the mildest and most reasonable manner,
directed that he should be confined to his apartments, and put into the
hands of the physician. These unfortunate events took place in the summer
of 1577, and in the poet's thirty-third year.

Tasso shewed so much affliction at this treatment, and, at the same time,
bore it so patiently, that the duke took him to his beautiful country
seat of Belriguardo; where, in one of his accounts of the matter, the
poet says that he treated him as a brother; but in another, he accuses
him of having taken pains to make him criminate himself, and confess
certain matters, real or supposed, the nature of which is a puzzle with
posterity. Some are of opinion (and this is the prevailing one), that he
was found guilty of being in love with the Princess Leonora, perhaps of
being loved by herself. Others think the love out of the question, and
that the duke was concerned at nothing but his endeavouring to transfer
his services and his poetic reputation into the hands of the Medici.
Others see in the duke's conduct nothing but that of a good master
interesting himself in the welfare of an afflicted servant.

It is certain that Alfonso did all he could to prevent the surreptitious
printing of the _Jerusalem Delivered_ in various towns of Italy, the
dread of which had much afflicted the poet; and he also endeavoured,
though in vain, to ease his mind on the subject of the Inquisition;
for these facts are attested by state-papers and other documents, not
dependent either on the testimony of third persons or the partial
representations of the sufferer. But Tasso felt so uneasy at Belriguardo,
that he requested leave to retire a while into a convent. He remained
there several days, apparently so much to his satisfaction, that he wrote
to the duke to say that it was his intention to become a friar; and, yet
he had no sooner got into the place, than he addressed a letter to the
Inquisition at Rome, beseeching it to desire permission for him to come
to that city, in order to clear himself from the charges of his enemies.
He also wrote to two other friends, requesting them to further his
petition; and adding that the duke was enraged with him in consequence of
the anger of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who, it is supposed, had accused
Tasso of having revealed to Alfonso some indecent epithet which his
highness had applied to him. [11] These letters were undoubtedly
intercepted, for they were found among the secret archives of Modena,
the only principality ultimately remaining in the Este family; so that,
agreeably to the saying of listeners hearing no good of themselves, if
Alfonso did not know the epithet before, he learnt it then. The reader
may conceive his feelings. Tasso, too, at the same time, was plaguing
him with letters to similar purpose; and it is observable, that while
in those which he sent to Rome he speaks of Cosmo de' Medici as "Grand
Duke," he takes care in the others to call him simply the "Duke of
Florence. " Alfonso had been exasperated to the last degree at Cosmo's
having had the epithet "Grand" added by the Pope to his ducal title;
and the reader may imagine the little allowance that would be made by
a haughty and angry prince for the rebellious courtesy thus shewn to a
detested rival. Tasso, furthermore, who had not only an infantine hatred
of bitter "physic," but reasonably thought the fashion of the age
for giving it a ridiculous one, begged hard, in a manner which it is
humiliating to witness, that he might not be drenched with medicine. The
duke at length forbade his writing to him any more; and Tasso, whose
fears of every kind of ill usage had been wound up to a pitch unbearable,
watched an opportunity when he was carelessly guarded, and fled at once
from the convent and Ferrara.

The unhappy poet selected the loneliest ways he could find, and directed
his course to the kingdom of Naples, where his sister lived. He was
afraid of pursuit; he probably had little money; and considering his ill
health and his dread of the Inquisition, it is pitiable to think what he
may have endured while picking his long way through the back states of
the Church and over the mountains of Abruzzo, as far as the Gulf of
Naples. For better security, he exchanged clothes with a shepherd; and as
he feared even his sister at first, from doubting whether she still
loved him, his interview with her was in all its circumstances painfully
dramatic. Cornelia Tasso, now a widow, with two sons, was still residing
at Sorrento, where the poet, casting his eyes around him as he
proceeded towards the house, must have beheld with singular feelings of
wretchedness the lovely spots in which he had been a happy little boy. He
did not announce himself at once. He brought letters, he said, from the
lady's brother; and it is affecting to think, that whether his sister
might or might not have retained otherwise any personal recollection
of him since that time (for he had not seen her in the interval), his
disguise was completed by the alterations which sorrow had made in his
appearance. For, at all events, she did not know him. She saw in him
nothing but a haggard stranger who was acquainted with the writer of the
letters, and to whom they referred for particulars of the risk which
her brother ran, unless she could afford him her protection. These
particulars were given by the stranger with all the pathos of the real
man, and the loving sister fainted away. On her recovery, the visitor
said what he could to reassure her, and then by degrees discovered
himself. Cornelia welcomed him in the tenderest manner. She did all that
he desired; and gave out to her friends that the gentleman was a cousin
from Bergamo, who had come to Naples on family affairs.

For a little while, the affection of his sister, and the beauty and
freshness of Sorrento, rendered the mind of Tasso more easy: but his
restlessness returned. He feared he had mortally offended the Duke of
Ferrara; and, with his wonted fluctuation of purpose, he now wished to be
restored to his presence for the very reason he had run away from it. He
did not know with what vengeance he might be pursued. He wrote to the
duke; but received no answer. The Duchess of Urbino was equally silent.
Leonora alone responded, but with no encouragement. These appearances
only made him the more anxious to dare or to propitiate his doom; and he
accordingly determined to put himself in the duke's hands. His sister
entreated him in vain to alter his resolution. He quitted her before the
autumn was over; and, proceeding to Rome, went directly to the house of
the duke's agent there, who, in concert with the Ferrarese ambassador,
gave his master advice of the circumstance. Gonzaga, however, and another
good friend, Cardinal Albano, doubted whether it would be wise in the
poet to return to Ferrara under any circumstances. They counselled him
to be satisfied with being pardoned at a distance, and with having his
papers and other things returned to him; and the two friends immediately
wrote to the duke requesting as much. The duke apparently acquiesced in
all that was desired; but he said that the illness of his sister, the
Duchess of Urbino, delayed the procuration of the papers, which, it
seems, were chiefly in her hands. The upshot was, that the papers did not
come; and Tasso, with a mixture of rage and fear, and perhaps for more
reasons than he has told, became uncontrollably desirous of retracing the
rest of his steps to Ferrara.