Ariosto, like Pulci and Boiardo, undertook to sing the paladins and their amours at the court of Charlemagne, during the fabulous wars of this emperor against the Moors. In his poem he seems to have designedly thrown off the embarrassment of a unity of action. The Orlando Furioso is founded on three principal narratives, distinct but often intermingled; the history of the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens, Orlando's love for Angelica, his madness on hearing of her infidelity, and Ruggiero's attachment to Bradamante. These stories are interwoven with so many incidents and episodes, and there is in the poem such a prodigious quantity of action, that it is difficult to assign it a central point. Indeed, Ariosto, playing with his readers, seems to delight in continually misleading them, and allows them no opportunity of viewing the general subject of the poem. This want of unity is essentially detrimental to the general impression of the work, and the author has succeeded in throwing around its individual parts an interest which does not attach to it as a whole. The world to which the poet transports his readers is truly poetic; all the factitious wants of common life, its cold calculations and its imaginary distinctions, disappear; love and honor reign supreme, and the prompting of the one and the laws of the other are alone permitted to stimulate and regulate a life, of which war is the only business and gallantry the only pastime. The magic and sorcery, borrowed from the East, which pervade these chivalric fictions, lead us still farther from the world of realities. Nor is it the least charm that all the wonders and prodigies here related are made to appear quite probable from the apparently artless, truthful style of the narration. The versification of the Orlando is more distinguished for sweetness and elegance than for strength; but, in point of harmony, and in the beauty, pathos, and grace of his descriptions, no poet surpasses Ariosto. 4. HEROIC EPIC POETRY.--While, in the romantic epic of the Middle Ages, unity of design was considered unnecessary, and truthfulness of detail, fertility of imagination, strength of coloring, and vivacity of narration were alone required, heroic poetry was expected to exhibit, on the most extensive scale, those laws of symmetry which adapt all the parts to one object, which combine variety with unity, and, as it were, initiate us into the secrets of creation, by disclosing the single idea which governs the most dissimilar actions, and harmonizes the most opposite interests. It was reserved to Torquato Tasso to raise the Italian language to this kind of epic poetry.