in truth, he, as well as the duke, was weak; they made a bad business of
it between them; and Alfonso the Second closed the accounts of the
Este family with the Muses, by keeping his panegyrist seven years in a
mad-house, to the astonishment of posterity, and the destruction of his
own claims to renown.

It does not appear that Tasso was confined in any such dungeon as they
now exhibit in Ferrara. The conduct of the Prior of the Hospital is more
doubtful. His name was Agostino Mosti; and, strangely enough, he was
the person who had raised a monument to Ariosto, of whom he was an
enthusiastic admirer. To this predilection has been attributed his
alleged cruelty to the stranger from Sorrento, who dared to emulate the
fame of his idol;--an extraordinary, though perhaps not incredible, mode
of skewing a critic's regard for poetry. But Tasso, while he laments
his severity, wonders at it in a man so well bred and so imbued with
literature, and thinks it can only have originated in "orders."[27]
Perhaps there were faults of temper on both sides; and Mosti, not liking
his office, forgot the allowance to be made for that of a prisoner and
sick man. His nephew, Giulio Mosti, became strongly attached to the poet,
and was a great comfort to him.

At length the time for liberation arrived. In the summer of 1586, Don
Vincenzo Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua, kinsman of the poet's friend Scipio,
came to Ferrara for the purpose of complimenting Alfonso's heir on his
nuptials. The whole court of Mantua, with hereditary regard for Tasso,
whose father had been one of their ornaments, were desirous of having
him among them; and the prince extorted Alfonso's permission to take him
away, on condition (so hard did he find this late concession to humanity,
and so fearful was he of losing the dignity of jailor) that his deliverer
should not allow him to quit Mantua without obtaining leave. A young and
dear friend, his most frequent visitor, Antonio Constantini, secretary
to the Tuscan ambassador, went to St. Anne's to prepare the captive by
degrees for the good news. He told him that he really might look for his
release in the course of a few days. The sensitive poet, now a premature
old man of forty-two, was thrown into a transport of mingled delight and
anxiety. He had been disappointed so often that he could scarcely believe
his good fortune. In a day or two he writes thus to his visitor

"Your kindness, my dear friend, has so accustomed me to