To rattle off a list of mere names with a view to affording honourable mention, and without varying any of them beyond the addition of some slight word-play, is an exercise even less subtle; but Ariosto arranges the names of contemporary painters as though upon a Parnassus, according to the greatest among them the most lofty place, in such a manner that those bare names each of them resound (owing to the mastery of the many stresses in the verse), so as to seem alive and endowed with sensation: E quei che fùro a' nostri di, o sono ora, Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino, duo Dossi, e quel ch' a par sculpe e colora, Michel, più che mortale, Angel divino ...[4] The "reflections" of Ariosto, which were held to be "commonplaces" by De Sanctis, "not profound and original observations," have by others been described as "banal" and "contradictory." But they are reflections of Ariosto, which should not be meditated upon but sung: Oh gran contrasto in giovanil pensiero, desir di laude, ed impeto d' Amore! Nè, chi più vaglia, ancor si trova il vero, che resta or questo or quello superiore....[5] It could be said of the irony of Ariosto, that it is like the eye of God, who looks upon the movement of creation, of all creation, loving all things equally, good and evil, the very great and the very small in man and in the grain of sand, because he has made it all, and finds in it nought but motion itself, eternal dialectic, rhythm and harmony. From the ordinary meaning of the word "irony" has been accomplished the passage to the metaphysical meaning assumed by it among Fichtians and Romantics. We should be ready to apply their theory to the inspiration of Ariosto, save that these critics and thinkers confused with irony what is called humour, strangeness and extravagance, that is to say, extra-aesthetic facts, which contaminate and dissolve art. Our theory on the contrary is less pretentious and exaggerated, confining itself rigorously within the bounds of art, as Ariosto confined himself within the bounds of art, never diverging into the clumsy or humouristic, which is a sign of weakness: his irony was the irony of an artist, sure of his own strength. This perhaps is the reason or one of the reasons why Ariosto did not suit the taste of the dishevelled Romantics, who were inclined to prefer Rabelais to him and even Carlo Gozzi.