gates of the city
would not have admitted him had he not been recognised by a Venetian
printer who happened to be present. His startled looks, his nervous
manner, and his perpetual restlessness, confirmed wherever he went the
rumour of his madness; and, even if he were not mad, the object of
Alfonso of Este's anger might be a dangerous associate. During all
this time he was in the greatest poverty, being obliged to sell for
bread the splendid ruby and collar of gold which the Duchess of Urbino
had presented to him when he recited to her at her own court his
pastoral poem of _Aminta_.

From the Duke of Urbino and Prince Charles Emanuel of Savoy, however,
he received generous treatment; but a fatal spell carried him back a
third time to Ferrara. His arrival by an unfortunate coincidence
happened to be on the very day that Margaret Gonzaga, daughter of the
Duke of Mantua, was to come home as the third bride of Alfonso. The
duke, preoccupied with the stately ceremonies connected with his
nuptials, took no notice of him; and many of the courtiers from whom
he expected an affectionate welcome, taking their cue from their
master, turned their backs upon him. What a contrast to his first
reception at that court fourteen years before, when he stood among the
noble spectators of Alfonso's marriage with his first wife, the
Archduchess of Austria, as one of the most honoured of the guests! He
now gazed upon the splendours of this third marriage ceremony, by far
the greatest poet of his age, but a homeless vagrant, a reputed
maniac, treated with neglect or contumely on every side! No wonder
that his cup of misery, which had previously been filled to the brim,
overflowed with this last and crowning insult; and, scarce knowing
what he did, he broke forth into the most vehement denunciations of
the duke and his whole court, declaring that they were all "a gang of
poltroons, ingrates, and scoundrels." These fiery reproaches, which
his misery had wrung from the poor poet, were carried by his enemies
to the ear of the Duke, and Tasso was immediately seized and
imprisoned as a lunatic in the hospital of Santa Anna in Ferrara--in
the same year and the same month, it may be mentioned, in which
another of the great epic poets of the world, Camoens, the author of
the _Lusiad_, finished as a pauper in an hospital his miserable
career.

While madness was alleged as the ostensible reason, the real motives
of this step are involved in as deep