dapted to its grave_.--[MS.]

[186] ["Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement,
"that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is
always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much
impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, passing
all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my
mind.... My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no
pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of
things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk
from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and
as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive
stupor."--_Opere_, Venice, 1738, viii. 258, 263.]

[187] [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated December 25, 1585, Tasso
gives an account of his sprite (_folletto_): "The little thief has
stolen from me many crowns.... He puts all my books topsy-turvy (_mi
mette tutti i libri sottosopra_), opens my chest and steals my keys, so
that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, with regard to his
hallucinations he says, "Know then that in addition to the wonders of
the Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. For even when awake I
have seemed to behold small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes
sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss of sight, and I have ...
seen sparks issue from them."--Letters 454, 456, _Le Lettere_, 1853, ii.
475, 479.]

[bi] {151}

/ _nations yet_ \
_Which_ < > _shall visit for my sake_.--[MS.]
\ _after days_ /

[188] {152}["Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti,
would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death," Reply to
_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ (Ravenna, March 15, 1820), _Letters_,
1900, iv. Appendix IX. p. 487.]

[bj]

/ _wrench_ \
_As none in life could_ < > _thee from my heart_.--[MS.]
\ _wring_ /

[189] [Compare--

"From Life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined."

_Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xvi. lines 6, 7, _vide ante_, p. 62.]

[190] [The Apennines, April 20, 1817.]

BEPPO:

A VENETIAN STORY.

_Rosalind_. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; Look, you lisp,
and wear strange suits: disable all the benefits of your own
countr