Ariosto's rapidity of style is such that I know of no poem more concise than this Epic, containing over forty thousand lines. One of his tricks to arrest the attention, or to tantalize the curiosity of the reader, is to break off a story in the middle, passing on to other incidents, and concluding the interrupted episode in a later canto. The graceful badinage with which he amuses us when the interest threatens to flag, is most judiciously introduced, for such a subject treated with solemn glumness and heavy pomp would become irksome in the extreme. Every canto has an introduction, as ingenious in thought as it is beautiful in expression. The most interesting Introduction is probably that of the last canto, where he represents his contemporaries congratulating him on the completion of so arduous a work; but others deserve scarcely less praise; for instance, that on jealousy, and that in which he enumerates the great painters of the age, amongst others, Michael Angelo: "Quel che a par sculpe e colora, Michel, più che mortal, Angel divino." The rapidity of his transitions is truly amazing. He whirls the reader in two lines from one end of the world to the other. When we are harassed and wearied by the breathless speed of his Pegasus, he pauses, lavishing all the riches of his mind on a description or an incident. Here he reveals himself the wonderful poet he is. The maiden chained to a rock and about to be devoured by the sea-monster; Zerbino and Isabella, Ginevra and Ariodante; above all, Alcina and her magic garden; and, not inferior to any passage in the greatest poets, the frenzy of Orlando: these are only a few of the wonderful passages that place his Epic among the noblest productions of the human mind.