blic; ladies are freely admitted, and a
festival is observed, during which portions of the poet's writings are
read, his relics exhibited, and his tomb wreathed with flowers.

Tasso died, like Virgil his model, in his fifty-first year. Short and
chequered and full of trouble as was his life, it is amazing what an
immense amount of literary work he accomplished. Since the publication
of his _Rinaldo_, in his seventeenth year, he never ceased writing,
even in the most unfavourable circumstances. Of his prose and poetical
works no less than twenty-five volumes remain to us. These works are
all rich in biographical materials. They show an ideal tenderness of
feeling, an intense love for everything beautiful, and a deep piety,
not only of sentiment but of duty. They are specially interesting to
us as links connecting the ancient world with the modern. We can trace
the influence of Tasso's genius in very varied quarters. He not only
gave a new impulse to the literature of his own country, but even
inspired the artistic productions of the day. The most beautiful
passages of Spenser's _Faerie Queen_ were suggested by his pastoral
poetry; while his chivalrous epic was to Milton at once the incentive
and the model of his own immortal work. It is probable that the _New
Heloise_ of Rousseau, and the tragedy of _Zaire_ by Voltaire, would
not have been written had not Tasso invested the subject of romantic
love and of the Crusades with such a deep interest to the authors. We
of this age may miss in Tasso's poetical works the dramatic force to
which we are accustomed in such productions; but we acknowledge the
spell which the lyrical element that pervades them all, and towards
which Tasso's genius was most strongly bent, casts over us. His own
personal history strikingly illustrates the vanity of a life spent in
dependence upon princes. But fortunately the lesson is no longer
needed; for a wide and intelligent constituency of readers all over
the world now afford the patronage to literature which was formerly
the special privilege of single individuals favoured by rank or
fortune. Both to authors and readers this emancipation has been
productive of the happiest results.

CHAPTER X

THE MARBLES OF ANCIENT ROME

Marble-hunting is one of the regular pursuits of the visitor in Rome.
The ground in almost every part of the ancient city is strewn with
fragments of historical monuments. The largest and most valuable
pieces have l