Thyself art prompt
To justify my slight esteem of thee.
The impetuous boy with violence demands
The confidence and friendship of the man.
Why, what unmannerly deportment this!

"_Tasso._--Better what you unmannerly may deem,
Than what I call ignoble.

"_Antonio._ There remains
One hope for thee. Thou still art young enough
To be corrected by strict discipline.

"_Tasso._--Not young enough to bow myself to idols
That courtiers make and worship; old enough
Defiance with defiance to encounter.

"_Antonio._--Ay, where the tinkling lute and tinkling speech
Decide the combat, Tasso is a hero.

"_Tasso._--I were to blame to boast a sword unknown
As yet to war, but I can trust to it.

"_Antonio._--Trust rather to indulgence."

We are in the high way, it is plain, to a duel. Tasso insists upon an
appeal to the sword. The secretary of state contents himself with
objecting the privilege or sanctity of the place, they being within the
precincts of the royal residence. At the height of this debate, Alphonso
enters. Here, again, the minister has a most palpable advantage over the
poet. He insists upon the one point of view in which he has the clear
right, and will not diverge from it; Tasso has challenged him, has done
his utmost to provoke a duel within the walls of the palace; and is,
therefore, amenable to the law. The Duke can do no other than decide
against the poet, whom he dismisses to his apartment with the injunction
that he is there to consider himself, for the present, a prisoner.

In the three subsequent acts, there is still less of action; and we may
as well relate at once what there remains of plot to be told, and then
proceed with our extracts. Through the mediation of the princess and her
friend, this quarrel is in part adjusted, and Tasso is released from
imprisonment. But his spirit is wounded, and he determines to quit the
court of Ferrara. He obtains permission to travel to Rome. At this
juncture he meets with the princess. His impression has been that she
also is alienated from him; her conversation removes and quite reverses
this impression; in a moment of ungovernable tenderness he is about to
embrace her; she repulses him and retires. The duke, who makes his
appearance just at this moment, and who has been a witness to the
conclusion of this interview, orders Tasso into confinement, expressing
at the same time his conviction that the poet has lost his sens