ut he did not yield himself
up to the siren attractions of the place, and muse in idleness upon
its varied charms. On the contrary, the time that he spent in Venice
was the busiest of his life. He was absorbed in the study of Dante and
Petrarch; and the results of his devotion may still be seen in the
numerous annotations in his handwriting in the copies of these poets
which belonged to him, now preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome
and the Laurentian Library in Florence. He was also employed by his
father in transcribing for the press considerable portions of his
poetical works; and these studies and exercises were of much use to
him in enabling him to form a graphic and elegant literary style. His
own compositions, both in prose and verse, were by this time pretty
numerous, though nothing of his had found its way into print as yet.

His father saw with much concern the development of his son's genius.
Anxious to save him from the trials which he himself had experienced
in his literary career, he sent him to the University of Padua to
study law, which he thought would be a surer provision for his future
life than a devotion to the Muses. One great branch of law, that which
relates to ecclesiastical jurisprudence, has always been much esteemed
in Italy, and the study of it, in many instances, has paved the way to
high honours. Almost all the eminent poets of Italy, Petrarch,
Ariosto, Marino, Metastasio, spent their earlier years in this
pursuit; but, like Ovid and our own Milton, their nature rebelled
against the bondage. They took greater pleasure in the study of the
laws for rhyme than in the study of the Pandects of Justinian or the
Decretals of Isidore. It was so with Tasso. He attended faithfully the
lectures of Guido Panciroli, although these were not compulsory, and
waited patiently at the University during the three years of residence
which is required for a law degree. But all the time his mind was
occupied with other thoughts than those connected with his law
studies. Still, uncongenial as they must have been to him, he could
not have attended for three years to such studies without
unconsciously deriving much benefit from them. They must have
impressed upon him those ideas of order and logical arrangement which
he afterwards carried out in his writings, and which separate them so
markedly from the confused, inconsistent license of the older
literature of Italy; and he could not have resided in the birthpla