whither he went at the invitation of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the
whole literary society of the place, even including many of the Della
Cruscans, showered honours upon him. While at Rome Pope Clement VIII.
gave him the most flattering reception, assigned to him an apartment
in the Vatican, and an annual income of two hundred scudi. From the
representatives of his mother's friends at Naples he was also offered
an annuity of two hundred ducats, and a considerable sum in hand, on
condition of stopping the lawsuit. Thus furnished with what he had
vainly looked for all his life, the means of a comfortable
subsistence, his closing days promised a happiness to which he had
hitherto been a stranger. But the gifts of fortune were brought to him
with sad auguries, like the soft sunny smiles of September skies,
which gild the fading leaves with a mockery of May. Tasso came to Rome
in November. But the state of his health was so deplorable that he
could not remain with safety in the room assigned to him in the
Vatican. It was thought, therefore, that the elevated position and
salubrious air, as well as the quiet life of the monastery of St.
Onofrio, not far off on the same side of the Tiber, would be more
suitable for his restoration. Accordingly, Cardinal Cynthio
Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement VIII., who had befriended him on many
occasions, brought him to St. Onofrio in his own carriage. And as his
weary steps crossed the threshold, he said to the monks, who received
him with pitying looks, "I come to die among you."

Whenever he was able to go out, he spent the last days of his life in
the garden of the monastery. There he sat under the shadow of the aged
oak that has since become historical; and as he watched the sunset of
his life, he would gaze upon the mighty ruins and the glorious view
stretching before him with that inspired vision which creates half the
beauty it beholds, and with that enhanced appreciation caused by the
prospect of the coming darkness which would hide it for ever from his
sight. We love to think of the poet in this quiet resting-place, where
the noises of the great world reached him only in subdued murmurs.
Heaven was above him, and the world beneath. The memory of his wrongs
and his ambitions alike vanished in the shadow cast before by his
approaching death. Alfonso and Ferrara faded away upon the horizon of
eternity; even the fame of his _Gerusalemme_, the great object for
which he had lived, had be