said, at an exaltation or a semi-exaltation or at an ironisation of chivalry, he would clearly have missed the mark, and this failure would have been the failure of his art. What has been remarked concerning the content of chivalry is to be repeated for all the other contents which have been proposed in turn, each one or all of them together as the true and proper leading motive; and of these (leaving out the least likely, because we are not here concerned with collecting curious trifles of Ariostesque criticism, but are resuming the essential lines of this criticism with the intention of cutting into it more deeply and with greater certainty), the next thing to mention, immediately after chivalrous ideality or anti-ideality, is the philosophy of life, the _wisdom,_ which Ariosto is supposed to have administered and counselled. This wisdom is supposed to have embraced love, friendship, politics, religion, public and private life, and to have been directed with great moderation and good sense, noble without fanaticism, courageous and patient, dignified and modest. We admit that these things are to be found in the _Furioso,_ just as chivalrous things are to be found there also; but they are there in almost the same way, that is to say, with the not doubtful accent of aloofness and remoteness, which at once places a great chasm between Ariosto and the true poets of wisdom, such as were for instance, Manzoni and Goethe. The latter of these, in the fine verses (of the _Tasso)_ in praise of Ariosto,--who is held to have there draped in the garb of fable all that can render man dear and honoured, to have exhibited experience, intelligence, good taste, the pure sense of good, as living persons, crowned with roses and surrounded with a magic winged presence of Amorini,--somewhat transfigured the subject of his eulogy, by approaching him to himself: although, as we perceive from the images that he employed, it did not escape him that in the case of the lovable singer of the _Furioso,_ the wisdom was covered, and as it were smothered beneath a cloud of many coloured flowers. Thus the two principal solutions hitherto given of the critical problem presented by Ariosto, the only two which appear thinkable,--that the _Furioso_ has no content; that it has this or that content,--each finds countenance in the other and arguments in its favour. This means that they confute one another in turn. And since it is impossible that there should be no content in Ariosto, and on the other hand, since all those to which attention was first directed (admiration or contempt of chivalry, wisdom of life) turn out to be without existence, it is clear that there is no way out of the difficulty, save that of seeking another content, and such an one as shall show how the truth has been improperly symbolised in the formulas of "mere imagination," of "indifferent objectivity" and of "art for art's sake."