plains, night and day, and who seems to have as many eyes to see, as arms to wound him with. He retraces the misfortunes that have assailed him even from his infancy. "Alas!" says he, "from the first day on which I drew the breath of life, that I opened my eyes to that light which has never been unclouded for me, that goddess, unjust, and cruel, has taken me for the object of her strokes. I have received from her wounds which the longest life can scarcely heal. I call to witness the syren near whose tomb my cradle was placed *; why in the first days of my life, was it not also mine? I was but yet an infant, when unpitying fortune tore from me the bosom of my mother. Ah! I remember, with sighs, her kisses mingled with bitter tears, and her ardent prayers, which the wandering winds bore away. No longer was I to find my face close to hers, pressed in her fond embrace. Alas! I followed with tottering steps, like Ascanius, or the young Camillus, my father wandering and proscribed. O my father! my good father! thou who lookest down on me from Heaven, I wept, thou knowest, thine illness, and thy death. I groaned while I

bathed with tears thy bed of death, and thy tomb; and now, when elevated to the celestial spheres thou shouldst enjoy the happiness owed thee, and not shed tears, it is for me to empty entirely the whole cup of misfortune."

* Referring to the fable which places the tomb of a syren close to Sorrento.

Who can read this effusion of sorrow, bursting from the oppressed heart of such a genius, without pity? The arrival of the Duke of Urbino interrupted the poem, and its author never resumed it.

How touching, too, is the letter addressed by Tasso to his faithful friend Costantini, when he felt his last hour approaching.

"What will my dear Costantini dear Costantini say, when he hears of the death of his dear Tasso? I believe it will not be long before he receives the news, for I feel at the end of my life, not having found any remedy for that painful indisposition which has combined with my habitual infirmities, and which, like a rapid torrent, I plainly see impels me along without my being able to oppose a single obstacle. It is no longer time to talk of the obstinacy of my evil fortune, nor of the ingratitude of those who will at last obtain the triumph of conducting me in indigence to the tomb, at the moment when I hoped that the glory-which in spite of those who desired it not, our age has drawn from my writings -might not have been wholly without recompense for me. I have had myself conveyed to the monastery of St. Onofrio, not only because the physicians consider the air better than that of any of the other parts of Rome, but for the purpose of commencing from this elevated place, and by the conversation of these holy men, my preparation for a conversation in Heaven. Pray God for me, and be assured that as I have always loved and honored you in this

life, I will do also for you in the other, which is the true life, all that suits a true and sincere charity. I recommend you to divine grace, to which I also recommend myself."

"ROME, ST. ONOFRIO."

It is melancholy to reflect that the misfortunes and infirmity of Tasso, far from exciting pity in the heart of the Duke of Ferrara, only drew on his defenceless head a vengeance exemplified in an imprisonment well calculated to increase the malady under which he was said to labour, and abridge the days of the helpless sufferer. Alas! the laurel, which it is asserted can preserve its wearer from lightning, failed to guard Tasso from the blasting influence of his oppressor, and the cruel treatment he experienced, wrought, as might naturally be expected, the evil it was alleged to be meant to alleviate.

Nor was the governor of the hospital of St. Anne a person calculated to render the situation of his unhappy prisoner less painful, or to give notice of any amelioration in the malady for which he was condemned to be its inmate. This man, Agostino Mosti, by name, was so enthusiastic a disciple of Ariosto, that probably jealous of the fame of Tasso, which he feared might totally eclipse that of the object of his idolatry, he was little disposed to attend to the dictates of humanity, in fulfilling his duty towards him. He is said to have aggravated greatly the sufferings he might have mitigated.

But as there is seldom a bane without an antidote, Giulio Mosti, the nephew of Agostino, actuated no less by admiration for the genius of Tasso than by humanity, did all in his power to alleviate the severities he could not prevent; and devoted many hours to conversing with the prisoner, listening to the recital of his verses, and to acting as his amanuensis. It was through the medium of this excellent person that the correspondence of Tasso was sustained; and to him he owed the few indulgences that checkered the gloom of his dungeon.

It has been well observed by Ginguéné, in his "Histoire Littéraire d'Italie," that during the incarceration of Tasso, under the plea of folly, the strongest proof given of this malady by the unhappy man, was the belief in which he indulged, that the Duke of Ferrara ultimately would render him justice or pity. Actuated by this belief, he addressed various poems to him, as also to the Duchess d'Urbino and the Princess Leonora, in which his misfortune and sufferings were vividly and touchingly described. Nay, such was his confidence in the sympathy of the princesses, that he has even jested on the privations to which he was exposed. Being one night deprived of light in his prison, a cat belonging to the hospital having entered and fixed its eyes on him, which, in the absence of all other light, appeared very brilliant, he affects to consider them as stars, which were to guide him through the tempest; and a second cat having

followed the first to his cell, he asserts it to be the ursa major near the ursa minor, and calls them his flambeaux, by the light of which he was to write his verses.

The lines written on this occasion prove the fancy and method of the poet, and the absence of the mental infirmity attributed to him—

"Come ne l'ocean, s'oscura e infesta
Procella il rende torbido e sonante, &c.

Se Dio vi guardi da le bastonate,
Se'l ciel voi pasca e di carne e di latte,
Fate mi luce a scriver questi carmi."

But though an exercise of the fancy may be refused as evidence of the sanity of the poet, what can be said to throw a doubt on the healthy state of the mind that produced, nearly at the same time, those fine, philosophical dialogues in the manner of Plato; in which, questions of the highest morals were treated with no less powers of just reasoning, than of logical but eloquent precision.

Whatever may have been the cause of the imprisonment of Tasso, and that of insanity is far from being as yet clearly established, the severity exercised towards him must ever remain a blot on the fame of Alfonso II.; and the Princess Leonora finds, and will continue to find in posterity an interest, as the supposed object of the long and unhappy passion of the poet, that outlives the memory of any other branch of her ancient house.