He tells us himself that he saturated his mind with the spirit of the Latin poets, especially with Catullus, and in his works we find the urbanity of the Augustan age united to a strength and vivacity of imagination unknown to the Romans. With great judgement he improved on the hints they gave him, and the graceful manner in which he occasionally introduces mythological allusions seems to have been Milton's model when he did the same. Although he rates Virgil's flattery of Augustus at its proper value when he says: "Non era cosi saggio e grande Augusto Come la tromba di Virgilio suona, E per avere in poesia buon gusto Le proscrizioni inique gli perdona," he cannot himself be acquitted of the charge of gross flattery to the House of Este, without having even the excuse of Virgil, for it is well known with how little applause his patrons received his masterpiece. Some critics have asserted that he chose his subject merely because he could introduce the character of Ruggiero, ancestor to his patrons, but, fortunately for the glory of one of the greatest of human minds, there is no reason to believe this libel. The subject recommended itself by its own merits to the poet, as any candid reader, after perusing the work, will confess. It is impossible to enter the maze of incidents in the _Orlando Furioso_ without being bewildered, astonished, dazzled, and lost in all the wonders conjured up by the poet's fancy. His genius was essentially narrative (as is proved by his comedies being so vastly inferior to his Epic), and his subject allowed him to heap story on story, and to develop adventure out of adventure. No finer compliment was ever paid by one poet to another, than by Byron to Scott, when he called him the Northern Ariosto, and the Italian poet the Southern Scott, "Who, like the Ariosto of the North, worth." Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly It was not a mere compliment, but a very just parallel, and it would be difficult to decide which of the two poets was the greater. Scott had certainly more power of delineating character; but Ariosto had, if not the richer, the more vivid imagination. If we take only Scott's poetical works into consideration, Ariosto would have the advantage; but if the prose romances of Scott are thrown into the balance, they incline the scales in his favour. Both poets were, as Byron called them, bards of chivalry, but Scott's chivalry was that of the soul, and Ariosto's too often only that of the sword. Perhaps we may come to a satisfactory conclusion by saying that Ariosto was the greater, and Scott the nobler, poet.