as surreptitiously
printed without having received the author's last corrections; and he
entreated the duke, and all his powerful friends, to prevent such an
abuse. Alfonso and the pope himself endeavored to satisfy Tasso's
demands, but with little success. This circumstance, and other partly
real, partly imaginary troubles, augmented so much his natural
melancholy and apprehension, that he began to think that his enemies
not only persecuted and calumniated him, but accused him of great
crimes; he even imagined that they had the intention of denouncing his
works to the Holy Inquisition. Under this impression he presented
himself to the inquisitor of Bologna; and having made a general
confession, submitted his works to the examination of that holy
father, and begged and obtained his absolution. His malady, for such
we may surely call it, was continually exasperated by the arts of his
rivals; and on one occasion, in the apartments of the Duchess of
Urbino, he drew his sword on one of her attendants. He was immediately
arrested, and subsequently sent to one of the Duke's villas, where he
was kindly treated and supplied with medical advice. But his fancied
injuries (for in this case they do not seem to have been real) still
pursued him; and he fled, destitute of everything, from Ferrara, and
hastened to his sister Cornelia, then living at Sorrento. Her care and
tenderness very much soothed his mind and improved his health; but,
unfortunately, he soon repented of his hasty flight, and returned to
Ferrara, where his former malady soon regained its power. Dissatisfied
with all about him, he again left that town; but, after having
wandered for more than a year, he returned to Alfonso, by whom he was
received with indifference and contempt. By nature sensitive, and much
excited by his misfortunes, Tasso began to pour forth bitter
invectives against the duke and his court. Alfonso exercised a cruel
revenge; for, instead of soothing the unhappy poet, he shut him up as
a lunatic in the hospital of St. Anne. Yet, strange to say,
notwithstanding his sufferings, mental and bodily, for more than seven
years in that abode of misery and despair, his powers remained
unbroken, his genius unimpaired; and even there he composed some
pieces, both in prose and verse, which were triumphantly appealed to
by his friends in proof of his sanity. To this period we may probably
refer the "Veglie," or "Watches" of Tasso, the manuscript of which was
di