isms by which they attempted to throw ridicule upon the
_Gerusalemme Liberata_. They would have passed into utter oblivion had
not Tasso himself, by condescending to reply to them, given to them an
immortality of shame. Not contented with abusing his poem and himself,
they also attacked his father, asserting that his _Amadigi_ was a most
miserable work, and was pillaged wholesale from the writings of
others, and thus wounded the poet in the most tender part.

By this combination of critical cavils against him, Tasso was thrown
back from the land of poetical vision into a dreary mental wilderness.
The effect upon one of his most sensitive nature, predisposed by
temperament and the vicissitudes of his life to profound melancholy,
was most disastrous. We can trace to this cause the commencement of
those mental disorders which, if they never reached actual insanity,
bordered upon it, and darkened the rest of his life. His overwrought
mind gave way to all kinds of morbid fancies. His body became
enfeebled by the agitation of his mind; and the powerful medicines
which he was prevailed upon to take to cure his troubles only
increased them. Like Rousseau during his sad visit to England, he
became suspicious of every one, and lost faith even in himself.
Religious doubts commenced to agitate his mind. Distracted by this
worst of all evils, he put himself into the hands of the Holy
Fraternity at Bologna; and though the inquisitors had sense enough to
see that what he considered atheistical doubts were only the illusions
of hypochondria, and tried to reassure him as to their belief in the
soundness of his faith, he was not satisfied with the absolution which
they had given to him.

The court of Ferrara was full of unscrupulous intriguers. Tasso's
wonderful success could not be forgiven by some of the petty aspirants
after literary fame who haunted the ducal precincts. Pigna, whose
place as secretary he had usurped, stirred up the jealousy of the
other courtiers into open persecution. Leonardo Salvinati, the leader
of the Della Cruscan Academy, wishing to ingratiate himself with the
court, joined in the hostility. Tasso's papers were stolen, and his
letters intercepted and read, and a false construction was put upon
everything he did. At first the duke refused to hear the various
accusations that were brought against him, and continued to show him
every mark of esteem. He had the privilege, in that ceremonious age a
very high one,