lf in
course of time an exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The poet-politician
therefore took up his abode at Rome, whilst his wife and two young
children continued to reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so great was his desire
for knowledge that he would insist upon rising long before it was
day-light, and would even make his way to school through the dark dirty
streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a torch in his hand. The
Jesuits, who had just set up their first academy at Naples, soon
discovered in the future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and Rome, but they also imbued
his mind, at an age when it was "wax to receive and marble to retain,"
with their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious indeed that the
faith implanted by the Fathers in his tender years was largely, if not
wholly answerable for the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the whole of his chequered
career. "Give me a child of seven years old," had once declared the great
Founder of the Society of Jesus, "and I care not who has the
after-handling of him"; and in this case the Jesuit professors did not
fail to carry out Loyola's precept. But his home life with his mother,
whom he loved devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school were
suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten years of age, for the elder
Tasso was anxious for his little son to join him in Rome, there to be
educated under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but after his
departure the Rossi family brutally refused to allow their sister access
to her absent husband, who had lately been declared a rebel against the
Spanish government and deprived of his estates. Thus persecuted by her
unfeeling brothers, Porzia Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but beloved husband and
pining for her absent son, the poor woman died of a broken heart a year or
two later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when of a marriageable
age to a gentleman of Sorrento, the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and
consequently returned to live in the home of her childhood.

Of Tasso's many adventures, of his universal literary fame, of the honours
heaped upon him by his chief patron, Duke Al