wonderful rapidity, and in a country where the accommodation of inns was then little known, drew on the poet a malady that nearly terminated his days. The letter to his wife, to whom he was fondly attached, still exists, and was written when he believed himself to be dying. In it he exhorts her to arm herself with courage, as the best means of rendering honour to his memory; and to guard their children from those who had reduced him to the extremity in which he found himself, and prayed her to teach them to imitate their father in all except his fortune. Does not this letter vouch for Guarini's sense of the ill treatment he had received at a court, in which its sovereign had the ostentatious vanity to wish to exhibit himself as the Mecenas of men of genius, without the generosity of really filling the character he assumed? Guarini did not, however, die in Poland, but on his return from it continued, much against his inclination, to devote a great portion of his time to his illiberal master; in whose service, during fifteen years, he had expended a considerable part of the property inherited from his father. He retired to a country seat of his, tormented by law-suits and the embarrassments into which his affairs had fallen during his frequent and long missions from home,— disgusted with courts, and forswearing the Muses. His infidelity to these fair dames, whom it is not more difficult to win than to desert, was not of long duration. Aroused into emulation by the praise bestowed on the "Aminta" of Tasso, recently given to the public, Guarini took up a work long laid by, and gave the finishing touches to his "Pastor Fido." The good taste and generosity which induced him to correct and bring out a copy of the "Gerusalemme" of Tasso, tells very much in his favour; for it is not common to find contemporary authors, and above all, poets, anxious to render justice, or draw attention to the merits of each other. In the case of Guarini, as well as in that of Tasso, and Ariosto, the Duke Alphonso, while refusing to reward their genius himself, evinced a most unreasonable jealousy when they found more generous patrons elsewhere. When one reads the life of Guarini, so full of troubles as it was, and with so few consolations, it is impossible not to feel surprise that he could cultivate the Muses with a grace and airiness that would indicate a mind free from care. This example inculcates a belief, that though the imagination requisite for a poet may heighten the sense of the evils he encounters, yet the power of occupying that brilliant faculty, abstracts him, at least while engaged in composition, from the bitter realities of life. From the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini, we turned to examine a small volume, containing not above fifty pages of rime, and inscribed, "Alle Signore Principesse di Ferrara." The first line of the opening poem, "Due Donne Amor m'offerse illustri e rare," "Love offered, or presented to me, two rare and illustrious women," evidently refers to Eleonore d'Este and her sister the Princess Lucretia; though some imagine it to refer to Lucretia Bendidio, of whom Tasso was said to have been enamoured. The will of Tasso and some of his letters were also shown us, not one of which indicate the insanity alleged to have been the cause of his confinement; though in one a reference is made to an infirmity, but whether mental or bodily is not stated. The commencement, and indeed the whole of this letter, is very melancholy. It is addressed to the Cardinal Bon Compagno, and bears date the 12th of April, 1585. The reference to his malady is contained in the following lines :-" Dopo la prigionia, e l'infermita di molti anni, se le mie pene non hanno purgato gli errori, almeno la clemenza di V. S. Illmâ, può facilimente perdoncerli ;" &c. In this letter, which is two pages in length, he craves the interposition of the Cardinal in his favour with the Duke of Ferrara to procure him his liberty. In another part of his letter the unhappy poet says," E "E benche sia quasi disperato di risanare nondimeno i salutiferi medicamente, a gli efficaci rimedii, e l'allegrezza di vedermi libero petrobbono ritornarmi nel primo stato." The other letters are for the most part short, and contain requests for clothes, linen to be washed, books, or to have his money taken care of; for it appears, that in addition to his other troubles, his prison was not free from thieves. Who can refrain from pity at the notion of this great but unhappy poet being debarred, as it were, from the light of day; and condemned to write minute details of those wants, even for the purposes of cleanliness, that ought to have been amply supplied to him? The MS. of the "Gerusalemme," corrected by Tasso during his imprisonment, and inscribed at the end "Laus Deo," appealed as forcibly to my 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: "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, |