ng given to
the gardener. Man is a theatrical animal ([Greek: zoon mimaetikon]), and
the instinct is developed at a very early period, as almost every family
can witness that has taken its children to the "playhouse."

At fifteen the young poet, like so many others of his class, was
consigned to the study of the law, and took a great dislike to it. The
extreme mobility of his nature, and the wish to please his father, appear
to have made him enter on it willingly enough in the first instance;[2]
but as soon as he betrayed symptoms of disgust, Niccolo, whose affairs
were in a bad way, drove him back to it with a vehemence which must have
made bad worse.[3] At the expiration of five years he was allowed to give
it up.

There is reason to believe that Ariosto was "theatricalising" during
no little portion of this time; for, in his nineteenth year, he is
understood to have been taken by Duke Ercole to Pavia and to Milan,
either as a writer or performer of comedies, probably both, since the
courtiers and ducal family themselves occasionally appeared on the stage;
and one of the poet's brothers mentions his having frequently seen him
dressed in character.[4]

On being delivered from the study of the law, the young poet appears
to have led a cheerful and unrestrained life for the next four or five
years.

He wrote, or began to write, the comedy of the _Cassaria_; probably
meditated some poem in the style of Boiardo, then in the height of his
fame; and he cultivated the Latin language, and intended to learn Greek,
but delayed, and unfortunately missed it in consequence of losing his
tutor. Some of his happiest days were passed at a villa, still possessed
by the Maleguzzi family, called La Mauriziana, two miles from Reggio.
Twenty-five years afterwards he called to mind, with sighs, the pleasant
spots there which used to invite him to write verses; the garden, the
little river, the mill, the trees by the water-side, and all the other
shady places in which he enjoyed himself during that sweet season of his
life "betwixt April and May."[5] To complete his happiness, he had a
friend and cousin, Pandolfo Ariosto, who loved every thing that he loved,
and for whom he augured a brilliant reputation.

But a dismal cloud was approaching. In his twenty-first year he lost
his father, and found a large family left on his hands in narrow
circumstances. The charge was at first so heavy, especially when
aggravated by the death of Pandolf