seven feet high. The bedstead, so they tell, has been carried off piecemeal, and the door half cut away by the devotion of those whom " the verse and prose" of the prisoner have brought to Ferrara.

The above address to posterity was inscribed at the instigation of General Miollis, who filled Italy with tributes to her great men, and was not always very solicitous as to the authentic application of his record. Common tradition had assigned the cell to Tasso long before the inscription: and we may recollect, that, some years ago, a great German poet was much incensed, not at the sufferings of the prisoner, but at the pretensions of the prison. But the author of Werter need not have felt so insulted by the demand for his faith. The cell was assuredly one of the prisons of the hospital, and in one of those prisons we know that Tasso was confined'. The present inscription, indeed, does exaggerate the merits of the chamber, for the

1 The author of the historical memoir on Italian tragedy saw this dungeon in 1792, and, in spite of some hints from the English biographer of Tasso, was inclined to believe it to have been the original place of the poet's confinement. See Black's Life of Tasso, cap. xv. vol. ii. p. 97: but the site will not correspond with what Tasso says of his being removed to a neighbouring apartment," assai piu commoda"-there is no such commodious neighbouring apartment on the same level.

poet was a prisoner in the same room only from the middle of March 1579, to December 1580, when he was removed to a contiguous apart. ment much larger, in which, to use his own expressions, he could philosophize and walk about'. His prison was, in the year 1584, again enlarged'. It is equally certain, also, that once, in 1581, he was permitted to leave the hospital for the greater part of a day3, and that this favour was occasionally granted to him in the subsequent years of his confinement*. The inscription is incorrect, also, as to the immediate cause of his enlargement, which was promised to the city of Bergamo, but was carried into effect at the intercession of Don Vincenzo Gonzago, Prince of Mantua, chiefly owing to the unwearied application of Antonio Constantino, a gentleman in the suite of the Florentine embassy3.

But the address should not have confined itself to the respect due to the prison: one honest line might have been allotted to the

1 La Vita di Torquato Tasso, scritta dall' abate Pierantonio Serassi, seconda edizione.... in Bergamo, 1790, pp. 34 and 64, tom. ii.

'La Vita, &c. lib. iii. p. 83, tom. ii.

La Vita, &c. lib. iii. p. 63, tom. ii.

↑ Vide p. 83, ut sup.

'La Vita, &c. lib. iii. p. 142, tom. ii.

condemnation of the gaoler. There seems in the Italian writers something like a disposition to excuse the Duke of Ferrara by extenuating the sufferings, or exaggerating the derangement of the poet. He who contemplates the dungeon, or even the hospital of St. Anna, will be at a loss to reconcile either the one or the other with that "ample lodgement" which, according to the antiquities of the house of Este, the partiality of Alfonso allotted to the man "whom he loved and esteemed much, and wished to keep near his person'." Muratori confesses himself unable to define the offence of the patient; and in a short letter devoted expressly to the subject, comes to no other general conclusion, than that he could not be called insane2,

"Ma perciocchè questo principe l'amava e stimava forte, e non voleva privarsene elesse di alimentalo in quell' ampio luogo, con desiderio che ivi fosse curato anche il corpo suo." Antichità Estensi, parte sec. cap. xiii. p. 405, ediz. fol. Mutin. 1740.

2 Lettera ad Apostolo Zeno, vide Tasso's Works, vol. x. p. 244. "Nè mentecatto nè pazzo," are Muratori's words. See also p. 242 and p. 243. He is a little freer spoken in this letter, but still says, "the wise prince did not give way to his anger." Muratori's Annals were attacked on their first appearance, as "uno de' libri più fatali al principato Romano;" to which the librarian replied, that "truth was neither Guelf nor Ghibelline." If he had thought that she was neither catholic nor protestant, he would not have slurred over the massacre

but was confined partly for chastisement, partly for cure, having probably spoken some indiscreet words of Alfonso. He makes no mention of the disease of the prince; nor is it easy to discover that free exercise of his understanding for which Mr. Gibbon has somewhere praised this celebrated antiquary'. 'Indeed, in his notice of this injustice, the librarian of the Duke of Modena, so far from seeming to forget the interests of the princely house which pensioned his labours, suggests rather the obvious reflection, that when a writer has to obtain or repay any other patronage than that of the public, his first and paramount object cannot be the establishment of truth. The subject even of an absolute monarchy is an unsafe guide on almost every topic. The over-rated La Bruyere was base enough to reckon the dragooning of the

of St. Bartholomew as an event which gave rise to many exaggerations from the Hugonots. "Lascerò io disputare ai gran Dottori intorno al giustificare o riprovare quel si strepitoso fatto; bastando a me di dire, che per cagion d'esso immense esagerazioni fece il partito de gli Ugonoti, e loro servì di stimolo e scusa per ripigliar l'armi contra del Re." Annali ad an. 1572, tom. x. p. 464. In page 469, ibid. he talks of the great loss of France by the death of the murderer, Charles IX. who, if he had lived, would have "extirpated the seed of heresy."

1 For a fine and just character of Muratori, see, however, "the Antiquities of the House of Brunswick," p. 641. vol. ii. quarto. Gibbon's Misc. Works.

protestants amongst the most commendable actions of Louis XIV.1 1

Manso, the friend and biographer of Tasso, might have been expected to throw some light upon so important a portion of his history, but the five chapters devoted to the subject only encumbered the question with inconclusive discussion. What is still more extraordinary, it appears, that of seven or eight cotemporary Ferrarese annalists, only one has mentioned that Tasso was confined at all, and that one, Faustini, has assigned a cause more laughable than instructive. The later librarian of Modena was equally disingenuous with his predecessor, and had the confidence to declare, that by prescribing a seven years confinement Alfonso consulted only the health, and honour, and advantage, of

The same writer declares " homage to a king" to be the sole sufficing virtue of every good subject in a monarchy, "where there is no such thing as love of our country-the interest, the glory, and the service of the prince, supply its place." De la Republique, chap. x. For which sentiment our great obsolete poet has made honourable mention of him amongst his dunces, [The Dunciad, book iv. v. 522.] with whom he might be safely left, did he not belong rather to the rogues than the fools.

2 "Il Duca Alfonso II. il fece rinchiudere per curarlo di una fistola che lo travagliava." Vid. Tiraboschi Storia della Letter. Ital. lib. iii. part iii. tom. vii. p. 1210, edit. Venet.