sympathy as it had formerly done to that of Alfieri, who wrote on the MS. "Vittorio Alfieri; vide e venerô, 18 Giugno 1783," and is reported to have shed a tear on the paper, the impression of which was pointed out to me by the custode. Who could peruse the following lines, addressed to the Duke Alphonso by Tasso, from his prison, without feeling the deepest pity for the unhappy writer? "Piango il morir, nè piango il morir solo, Ma il modo, e la mia fe', che mal rimbomba, Nè piramidi, o Mete, o di mausolo, Mi saria di conforto aver la tomba, Ch'altre moli innalzar credea co' carmi." I have just returned from viewing the prison of the hapless Tasso, and a more dreary one can hardly be imagined. The sight of it has increased my sympathy for him and my indignation for his persecutor. Over the door of this wretched cell is the following inscription : 66 Rispettate, O Posteri, la celebrità di questa stanza, dove Torquato Tasso infermo piu di tristezza che delirio ditenuto dimorò anni vii. mesi ii. scrisse verse e prose, e fu rimesso in libertà ad instanza della città di Bergamo, nel giorno vi., Luglio 1586." The prison is beneath the ground floor of the Hospital of St. Anna, and is lighted by a grated window that opens into a small gloomy court. This miserable cell is about ten paces in length, and six or seven wide; its height is not more than seven feet. No one could enter it without being convinced, that if the unfortunate tenant of it was not insane when he became its inmate, so dreary an abode was well calculated to render him so, and that it must have been intended for a place of punishment and not of cure. Various and conflicting are the versions and suppositions as to the cause of the severity experienced by Tasso, at the hands of the Duke of Ferrara; nor has time, nor the freedom from fear of being exposed to danger by the publication of any hitherto unrevealed disclosure, rendered the subject less mysterious. The sight of the wretched cell I saw to-day, bears more convincing evidence to me, that hate, and not pity, led to its being tenanted by Tasso, than all the opinions I have perused on the subject. Had a passion for the Princess Leonora, and an imprudent or insolent display of it, offended the Duke, her brother, surely banishment from the court would have been a sufficient correction for Tasso's presumption; even if he had, as is asserted, dared to embrace the object of his love, before the Court. May not the persecution of the poet be more probably accounted for, by the supposition that he had, in the imprudence peculiar to men of genius, said or written something offensive to the Duke himself, and so called down the vengeance under which he so long groaned a victim? That the Duke was disposed to be tyrannical is implied, if not proved, by the silence of the contemporaries of Tasso on the subject of the cause of his incarceration; for what but a dread of him could have caused this unnatural silence? Only one of the writers contemporary with the poet, attempted to assign a motive for his imprisonment, and this was Faustini; who states a bodily malady, for the cure of which, modern surgeons at least, would have pronounced such a treatment absurd. What but tyranny could have led the Duke to the unjustifiable act of retaining possession of the poet's work, "Jerusalem," and of persevering in his refusal to surrender it? It was to recover this poem that the unfortunate Tasso returned to Ferrara, where, denied access to the presence of the Duke and the Princesses Eleonora and Lucretia, and insulted by the courtiers who consulted only the pleasure of those they served, he forgot every thing but the insults he received. Can it be wondered at, that a man with the true poetical temperament, which to a morbid sensibility unites strong passions, should give way to a rage more natural than its exhibition was prudent; and influenced by its dictates, utter opinions seldom safely to be expressed, in the dominions of a sovereign who can exercise his will with impunity. The Abate Serassi, who has been suspected, if not accused, of not revealing all that he knew on this point, admits that Tasso had used vituperative language and applied opprobrious names when speaking of the House of Este; and that it was shortly after this violence that he was incarcerated. Surely, this acknowledgement offers a sufficient cause, though not excuse, for the persecution the Duke employed; and when to this motive for hatred, is added the dread that if left at liberty the poet might not only escape from his power, but carry to some less ungenerous court the story of his wrongs, the whole mystery of the cause of Tasso's imprisonment is solved. Perhaps the warm interest evinced in Tasso's favour, and the intercession made for his liberation by so many of the princes reigning in Italy at that time, might have only served to aggravate the dis like and suspicions of the Duke of Ferrara, that if released, the poet might employ his pen against him. This hypothesis seems supported by the fact, that the Duke of Mantua agreed to answer for Tasso, that if liberated he would attempt no literary vengeance against those who had injured him; a security not necessary to be offered, were not suspicions entertained by his oppressor, who, like other tyrants, might have dreaded the retaliation their tyranny excites. The cell in which Tasso so long pined, has now become an object of deep interest to all who can appreciate genius, or sympathise with unmerited suffering. Many were the names of the visitors, with their tributes to the memory of this poet, that we perused on the walls of his prison. That, of our own Byron was looked on with melancholy interest by us; and those of our much valued acquaintances, Casimir Delavigne and Lamartine, we read with the pleasure always experienced when perusing mementos of persons we esteem. How the heart sinks when the sufferings of a fellow-creature (a creature too, whose excitable temperament rendered him peculiarly susceptible of the misery inflicted on him,) is brought so vividly before one, by the contemplation of the prison |