l prisons, where the unfortunate inmates were left in a
state of the utmost filth, or were chained and lashed at the caprice
of savage keepers. The madhouse which Hogarth drew will aid us in
forming a conception of an Italian asylum in the sixteenth century,
which was much worse than anything known in our country. The other
inmates of the hospital of St. Anne suffered much doubtless; but they
were really mad, and were therefore unconscious of their misery. But
that alleviation was wanting in the case of Tasso. He was sane and
conscious, and his sanity intensified the horror of his situation,
"enabling him to gauge with fearful accuracy the depths of the abyss
into which he had fallen." One glimpse of him is given to us by
Montaigne, who visited the cell, where it seems the unfortunate inmate
was made a show of to all whom curiosity or pity attracted to the
hospital. "I had even more indignation than compassion when I saw him
at Ferrara in so piteous a state--a living shadow of himself." His
jailer was Agostino Mosti, who, although he was himself a man of
letters, and therefore should have sympathised with Tasso, on the
contrary carried out to the utmost the cruel commands of his prince,
and by his harsh language and unceasing vigilance immensely aggravated
the sufferings of his victim. This inhuman persecution was caused by
Mosti's jealously of Tasso as the rival of his beloved master Ariosto,
to whom at his own cost he had erected a monument in the church of the
Benedictines at Ferrara.

For a whole year Tasso endured all the horrors of the sordid cell in
which he was immured. After a while he was removed to a larger
apartment, in which he could walk about; and permission was granted to
him sometimes to leave the hospital for part of a day. But whatever
alleviations he might thus have occasionally enjoyed, he was for seven
long years a prisoner in the asylum, tantalised by continual
expectations held out to him of approaching release. One person
only--the nephew of his churlish jailer--acted the part of the Good
Samaritan towards him, cheered his solitude, wrote for him, and
transmitted the letters of complaint or entreaty which he addressed to
his friends, and which would otherwise have been suppressed or
forwarded to his relentless enemy. His sufferings increased as the
slow weary months passed on, so that we need not wonder that the last
years of his captivity should sometimes have been overclouded by
visions of a