y as
they do at the same time. In fact this tomb of Ariosto shocks with
its hideousness and levity. It stood formerly in the Church of San
Benedetto, where it was erected shortly after the poet's death, and it
was brought to the Library by the French, when they turned the church
into a barracks for their troops. The poet's dust, therefore, rests
here, where the worm, working silently through the vellum volumes on
the shelves, feeds upon the immortality of many other poets. In the
adjoining hall are the famed and precious manuscripts of Ariosto and
of Tasso. A special application must be made to the librarian, in
order to see the fragment of the _Furioso_ in Ariosto's hand, and the
manuscript copy of the _Gerusalemma_, with the corrections by Tasso.
There are some pages of Ariosto's Satires, framed and glazed for the
satisfaction of the less curious; as well as a letter of Tasso's,
written from the Hospital of St. Anna, which the poet sends to a
friend, with twelve shirts, and in which he begs that his friend will
have the shirts mended, and cautions him "not to let them be mixed
with others." But when the slow custodian had at last unlocked that
more costly fragment of the _Furioso_, and placed it in my hands, the
other manuscripts had no value for me. It seems to me that the one
privilege which travel has reserved to itself, is that of making
each traveller, in presence of its treasures, forget whatever other
travellers have said or written about them. I had read so much of
Ariosto's industry, and of the proof of it in this manuscript, that I
doubted if I should at last marvel at it. But the wonder remains
with the relic, and I paid it my homage devoutly and humbly, and was
disconcerted afterward to read again in my Valery how sensibly all
others had felt the preciousness of that famous page, which, filled
with half a score of previous failures, contains in a little open
space near the margin, the poet's final triumph in a clearly written
stanza. Scarcely less touching and interesting than Ariosto's painful
work on these yellow leaves, is the grand and simple tribute which
another Italian poet was allowed to inscribe on one of them: "Vittorio
Alfieri beheld and venerated;" and I think, counting over the many
memorable things I saw on the road to Rome and the way home
again, this manuscript was the noblest thing and best worthy to be
remembered.

When at last I turned from it, however, I saw that the custodian had
ano