it does not
follow that the passion must have been for a princess. The poet now,
therefore, petitioned to that effect; and Alfonso wrote again, and said
he might come, but only on condition of his again undergoing the ducal
course of medicine; adding, that if he did not, he was to be finally
expelled his highness's territories.

He was graciously received--too graciously, it would seem, for his
equanimity; for it gave him such a flow of spirits, that the duke appears
to have thought it necessary to repress them. The unhappy poet, at this,
began to have some of his old suspicions; and the unaccountable detention
of his papers confirmed them. He made an effort to keep the suspicions
down, but it was by means, unfortunately, of drowning them in wine and
jollity; and this gave him such a fit of sickness as had nearly been his
death. He recovered, only to make a fresh stir about his papers, and
a still greater one about his poems in general, which, though his
_Jerusalem_ was yet only known in manuscript, and not even his _Aminta_
published, he believed ought to occupy the attention of mankind. People
at Ferrara, therefore, not foreseeing the respect that posterity would
entertain for the poet, and having no great desire perhaps to encourage a
man who claimed to be a rival of their countryman Ariosto, now began to
consider their Neapolitan guest not merely an ingenious and pitiable, but
an overweening and tiresome enthusiast. The court, however, still seemed
to be interested in its panegyrist, though Tasso feared that Alfonso
meant to burn his _Jerusalem_. Alfonso, on the other hand, is supposed to
have feared that he would burn it himself, and the ducal praises with it.
The papers, at all events, apparently including the only fair copy of the
poem, were constantly withheld; and Tasso, in a new fit of despair,
again quitted Ferrara. This mystery of the papers is certainly very
extraordinary.

The poet's first steps were to Mantua, where he met with no such
reception as encouraged him to stay. He then went to Urbino, but did not
stop long. The prince, it is true, was very gracious; and bandages for
a cautery were applied by the fair hands of his highness's sister; but,
though the nurse enchanted, the surgery frightened him. The hapless poet
found himself pursued wherever he went by the tormenting beneficence
of medicine. He escaped, and went to Turin. He had no passport; and
presented, besides, so miserable an appearance, tha