ast in 1531, thus representing the maturer life of the poet.
Nearly everything we know of Ariosto's character is taken from this
source. He reveals himself in them as a man who excites neither our
highest admiration nor our contempt. He was not born to be a statesman,
nor a courtier, nor a man of affairs; and his life as ambassador of
Cardinal Ippolito, and as captain of Garafagno, was not at all to his
liking. His one longing through all the busy years of his life was for a
quiet home, where he could live in liberty and enjoy the comforts of
cultured leisure. A love of independence was a marked trait of his
character, and it must often have galled him to play the part he did at
the court of Ferrara. As a satirist he was no Juvenal or Persius. He was
not stirred to profound indignation by the evils about him, of which
there were enough in that brilliant but corrupt age. He discussed in
easy, familiar style, the foibles of his fellow-men, and especially the
events of his own life and the traits of his own character.

The same views of life, the same tolerant temper, which are seen in the
'Satires,' form an important part of the 'Orlando Furioso,' where they
take the form of little dissertations, introduced at the beginning of a
canto, or scattered through the body of the poem. These reflections are
full of practical sense and wisdom, and remind us of the familiar
conversation with the reader which forms so great a charm in
Thackeray's novels.

In the Italian Renaissance there is a curious mingling of classical and
romantic influences, and the generation which gave itself up
passionately to the study of Greek and Latin still read with delight the
stories of the Paladins of Charlemagne and the Knights of the Round
Table. What Sir Thomas Malory had done in English prose, Boiardo did in
Latin poetry. When Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito,
every one was reading the 'Orlando Innamorato,' and the young poet soon
fell under the charm of these stories; so that when the inward impulse
which all great poets feel toward the work of creation came to him, he
took the material already at hand and continued the story of 'Orlando.'
With a certain skill and inventiveness, Boiardo had mingled together the
epic cycles of Arthur and Charlemagne. He had shown the Saracen host
under King Agramante driving the army of Charlemagne before them, until
the Christians had finally been shut up within the walls of Paris. It
was at thi